Columbia (Bntoetsitp 
 intijeCttpoOtotark 
 
 THE LIBRARIES 
 
TRAVELS 
 
 EUROPE AID THE EAST 
 
 A YEAR IN 
 
 ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, IRELAND, WALES, FRANCE, BELGIUM, 
 
 HOLLAND, GERMANY, AUSTRIA, ITALY. GREECE, 
 
 TURKEY, SYRIA, PALESTINE, AND EGYPT. 
 
 BY SAMUEL IREffHUS PRIME, 
 
 IN T \V O VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHER?, 
 
 FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
 
 1855. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand 
 eight hundred and fifty-five, by 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District 
 of New York. 
 
 
 Q 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ALPS : TURIN : THE WALDENSES. 
 
 Priest and holy Women — Savoy — Beggars — The Cross — Vale of Aix 
 — Chamberry — Night Ride — Breakfast — Woman and Dog — Peas- 
 ants — Houses of Refuge — Dragging the Coach — Down Hill — Turin 
 — Processions — General Beckwith — Visit to the Waldenses — Hon. 
 William B. Kinney — The Vaudois — College — School — People — 
 Reception — Interview — The Martyrs 7 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 GENOA AND ITS PALACES. 
 
 Railways in Italy — A Lady smoking in the Cars — The Country — 
 Fete Day — Crossing the Apennines — First Sight of the Sea — Genoa 
 — The Palaces — Churches — Strada Nuova — Brignole Rosso — Cos- 
 tume of the young Women — Galley Slaves — Di Negro Palace and 
 Grounds — Balbi — Sunset 24 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MILAN AND LAKE COMO. 
 
 A Russian General, Wife, and Daughter — Milan Cathedral — Da 
 Vinci's Last Supper — Amphitheatre — Arch of Peace — Dr. Capelli 
 — The Hospital — Police — An Inquisitive Englishman — Monza and 
 the Iron Crown — Como, the loveliest Lake — Villas on Shore — Bel- 
 lajio — A Maid on the Wall — Selbelloni Palace and Gardens — The 
 Russian offers me his Daughter — Melzi Villa — Summa Riva 32 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 VERONA — MANTUA — VENICE. 
 
 Posting it — Breschia — Roman Antiquities — Lake di Garda — The 
 Peasantry — Verona — Lords and Tombs — Frescoes — The Amphi- 
 theatre — Mantua — The Scenes of the Georgics — Ducal Palace — No 
 Virgil — An Italian Sunset — The Queen of the Adriatic — Cause- 
 way — Custom-house — Gondolas — Canals — San Marc — Piazza — 
 Church — Piazzetta — Sleep and Dreams 46 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 Stones of Venice — Aristocracy — Doge's Palace — Giant's Stairway — 
 Lion's Mouth — Council of Ten — Council Chamber — Titian's 
 "Faith" — His "Assumption"— Dungeons — State Prison — Bridge 
 of Sighs — Gondola — Manfrini Palace — Foscari — Byron — Paint- 
 in gs — Rialto — San Marc — Churches — A Life Picture 54 
 
 Vol. II.— A 
 
 14741 i 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FROM VENICE TO FLORENCE. 
 
 Leave Venice — Dissolving Views — Padua: its Churches and Uni- 
 versity — Arrest on the Frontier — Ferrara — Ariosto and Tasso — • 
 Bologna — Guards — Robbers — Tuscany — "Welcome to Florence — 
 Brothers of Mercy 63 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 'lower of Michael Angelo — Fiesole — An Etruscan City — Haunts of 
 great Poets — Monks and Beggars — Amphitheatre — Galileo and 
 Milton — Hallam's Description — The Duomo — Dante's Seat — Bru- 
 nelleschi's Genius — Santa Croce, the Westminster Abbey of Italy 
 — Michael Angel o's Spouse — Angel-painting — " Night and Day" — 
 Frescoes— Street of Statues— Uffizii Palace— Pitti Palace— Society 
 in Florence — The Brownings and others — Mrs. Somerville — Mrs. 
 Trolloppe— Morals of Italy— Manners 75 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE STUDIO OF POWERS. 
 
 A Day with Hiram Powers— The Story of the Man— Thorwalsden 
 calls— Powers' Studio— Statue of America— Washington— Cali- 
 fornia— La Penserosa— Other Artists 98 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DYING AAV AY FROM HOME. 
 
 My friend Rankin sickens — Fever of the Country — Improves — Re- 
 lapses — Is Delirious — Dies — Is Buried — Coincidences — Flowers 
 for his Tomb 104 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ITALY — PISA — ROME. 
 
 Leaving Florence — Pisa — Leaning Tower — Cathedral — Campo Santo 
 — Leghorn — A Night on the Sea — Civita Vecchia — Ride to Rome 
 — In the Gates — Capitoline Hill — The Forum — Ruins — Coliseum 
 — Catacombs — Tomb of Cecilia Metella — Of Augustus 109 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 WONDERS OF ROME. 
 
 St. Peter's Church — Village on the Roof— Ascent to the Ball — View 
 in Front— Utility and Worship— The young Lady's Idea— Mosaics 
 —Kissing St. Peter's toe, and the Pope's— Heathen Mythology- 
 Canonizing a Saint — Pope Pius IX. appears — Ceremonies — The 
 Vatican Paintings and Statuary — Laocoon — Apollo Belvidere — 
 Churches of Rome — Mummy Monks — Sacred Stairs — Pompey's 
 Statue — Dying Gladiator — American Artists in Rome 123 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ITALY — NAPLES. 
 
 Leaving Kome— The Campagna— Ruins— Three Taverns— Pontine 
 Marshes— Terracina— Old Town— Tomb of Cicero— St. Agatha- 
 Beggars— Capua— Arrival at Naples— View of Vesuvius — Museum 
 — Campo Santo— A Dead Show— The Bay— Paradise and the Pit 
 —Lake Avernus— Sibyl's Cave — Cicero's Villa— Nero's Baths— 
 Baite — Grotto del Cane— Sulphur Baths 117 
 
 CHAPTER XHI. 
 
 POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 
 
 Day in Pompeii— Smart Englishmen— Along Shore— A Soldier 
 knocked over— A Chase and Capture— The Gate of the City- 
 Street of Tombs— House of Diomede— Walks about Town— An- 
 tiquities— House of Sallust— Paintings and Statuary— Fountains 
 and Baths— Temples and Theatres— The Burial of the City- 
 Vesuvius— The Ascent— The Crater— The Crust— The Descent— 
 Herculaneum 1 fi2 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 FROM ITALY TO GREECE. 
 
 In the Bay of Naples — The Shore — Capri — Tiberius — Messina- 
 Malta— The Company— Greece— A Hermit— Syra— The Pi rams— 
 Natives— Their Costume— Xerxes and Mount Egalios— Ancient 
 Walls— Temple of Theseus— Otho's Palace— Rev. Dr. Jonas King 176 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ATHENS AND ITS ENVIRONS. 
 
 The Acropolis— Parthenon— Mars' Hill — Prison of Socrates — Pnyx 
 — King and Queen— The Stadium — Jupiter Olympus— Streams 
 and Fountains — A Funeral— Market— Olives— Eleusis— Tower of 
 Winds— Future of Greece— The People— Greek Church— Mission- 
 aries 190 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 ASL4l MINOR SMYRNA. 
 
 Leaving Greece — The "Maid of Athens" — Mrs. Black and her 
 Daughter— Syra— Bay of Smyrna— The City— Mixed Population 
 —Mount Pagus—Polycarp— Camels— Bazaars— Trade— Homer- 
 Seven Churches of Asia — American Missionaries — Robbers in the 
 Mountains — Hamals or Porters 217 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A FEARFUL VOYAGE. 
 
 Going to the Wars— Turks, Arabs, and Nubians on Board— Muti- 
 nous, ragged, wretched Fellows— Sickness— Fat Turk sleeps with 
 us— Isle of Tenedos— Site of Old Troy— Turks demand to be put 
 ashore— Quieted again— Death comes— In the Dardanelles— Bur- 
 ial of the Turk — Abydos — Sea of Marmora 228 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 The City at Sunrise — Magnificence of the Sight — The "Wife-murder 
 Door — Dogs — Porters — Mud — Cordial Reception — Rev. Mr. Ben- 
 jamin and Family — A Turkish Bath — Rev. Dr. Dwight — Golden 
 Horn — Rev. Mr. Everett and Family — Female Seminary — Preach- 
 ing — Rev. Mr. Goodell — Cemetery — Sultan going to Prayer — The 
 Bazaars — Slave Market — The Harem — Slavery in Turkey — Howl- 
 ing and Dancing Dervishes — Miracle-working — A Lady smoking 
 — Turkish Women — Social Life 242 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 A Firman — The Seraglio Palace — Audience and Throne Room — 
 Harem — Armory — Bedchamber — Kitchen — Stables — Mosque of 
 Santa Sophia — Tombs of the Sultans — Shores of the Bosphorus — 
 Europe and Asia — Giant's Mountain — Egyptain Sailors — Allied 
 Fleets — Kaudali — Bebek — The Missionaries and their Work .... 267 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 COASTS OF ASIA MINOR. 
 
 Departure from Constantinople — Our Passengers — "Women apart — 
 Turk with his two "Wives — Merchants and Merchandise — Smyrna 
 — Islands of the Sea — Scio — Samos — Nicaria — The Harem in 
 Trouble — Patmos — Rhodes — Colossus — Turkish Concert of Music 
 — On Shore — Deserted Streets — Library — Sail again — Meet Vessel 
 out of her Way — Tarsus — Italian Mountebanks — Jew and Greek 
 Pilgrims — New Year's in the East — Boston Rum — Alexandretta 
 — Latakea — Fearful Scene — Isle of Cyprus — Venus — Cyprian 
 Wine — Scriptural association 282 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 SYRIA — MOUNT LEBANON. 
 
 Beyroot — Arrival — Reception — Disappointment — Engaging a Drag- 
 oman — Contract — Social Life with the Missionaries — Grave of 
 Pliny Fl.;k — Mission Families — Arab Curses — Meeting an old 
 Classmate — Ride to Lebanon — Sacred History — Almonds, Figs, 
 Olives, and Kharibs — Fountains — Women wearing Horns — Sheep 
 with large Tails — The House of my Friend — His School — Arab 
 Curiosity — View from a peak of Lebanon — Tomb of a Druse 
 Saint — Cedars of Lebanon — Superstitions — Excursion to the Nin- 
 eveh of Syria — Ancient Inscription — Remarkable Features — Arab 
 Race 299 
 
 CHAPTER XXIL 
 
 SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 
 
 Punctual Dragoman — Leave-taking — Evil Eye — Khan Khulda— 
 Sarcophagi — Cross a River and lunch under a Palm — Mr. Cal- 
 houn joins us — Residence of Lady Hester Stanhope — Singular 
 Facts — lonah's Tavern — A roving Englishman — Escape from 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Drowning — Approach Sidon — Orange Groves — Jackals — Tents 
 pitched — Rev. Mr. Thompson welcomes us to Sidon — The Vice- 
 Consul — Night on the "Wall — Old City — Leave in the Morning — 
 Horde of Robbers — Ancient Aequeduct — Sarepta — Tomb of Elijah 
 — Tyre — Elders in the Gate — Rabble — Streets — Hovels — Sea-side 
 — Columns under water — "Walls — Dinner — Night in Tent — Alarm 
 — Rass-el-Ain — Acre — Oriental Tavern — Safura — Cana of Galilee 
 — Nazareth — Convent — Hospice — Missionaries 312 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 LAND OF PALESTINE. 
 
 Civil War breaks out — Bedouins from beyond Jordan — Guards em- 
 ployed — Leaving Nazareth — Looking on the Plain of Esdraelon 
 — Scripture History — Scenes on the Plain — Party of Bedouins — 
 Fulah — Jezreel and Shunem — Gilboa — Saul and Jonathan — A 
 new Guide — Invited — Cross the Kishon — Women at the Fountain 
 — Berkeen — Wretchedness of People — Sleeping with a Horse — 
 Quarrel with our Host — Swearing a Debt — Villages — Plain of 
 Dothan — Joseph's Pit — Samaria — Nablous 845 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 LAND OF PALESTINE. 
 
 Our Quarters in Nablous — The House-top — Scripture Illustrations — 
 Place of Retirement or of Proclamation — Solomon's Idea — Man- 
 ners and Customs without Change — Rumors of Wars — Hostility 
 to Christians — Ebal and Gerizim — Blessing and Cursing — History 
 of the City — Jacob's Arrival — Congress of Israel — Sabbath Serv- 
 ices — Samaritans — Synagogue — Ancient Manuscripts — Ascend 
 Mount Gerizim — Place of Burnt Sacrifice — Holy Ground — View 
 of Salem and Region round about — Descent — Women at Dinner 
 — Eastern Salutation — The Guards back out — Muleteers mutiny. 360 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 LAND OF PALESTINE. 
 
 Excursion to Jacob's Well — Taking away the Stone — Getting in — 
 Measuring the Well — The Bedouins coming — Getting out — Mount- 
 ing in hot Haste — Flight — Pursuit — Overtaken — Assault — Mr. 
 Righter's Gallantry — He is wounded — Escape — Guides robbed — 
 Return to Town — Appeal to the Governor — Contract with a Sheikh 
 — Preparation — Party enlarged — Escape by retired Route — Plain 
 of Sharon — Antipathies — Village Life — Fight among Muleteers — 
 Maid at the Well— Reach Jaffa 377 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 EGYPT ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 Donkey-boys of Egypt — Mixed People — Alexandria — The Square — 
 Ruins of Alexandrian Library — Bastinado — Paying Workmen — 
 Penny a Day — Cleopatra's Needles — Alexander's Tomb — Pom- 
 pey's Pillar — Catacombs — Women with Children on their Shoul- 
 ders — Flies on their Eyes — Ophthalmia — Tyranny — Recruits — 
 Funeral Customs 397 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 CAIRO AND THE PYRAMIDS. 
 
 Egyptian Steamers— Omnibus— Canal— Women on Shore— Mounds 
 and Ruins— Managing the Craft— English Captain throwing his 
 dead Child overboard— Funeral— Atfeh— The Nile— Overflow— 
 Boolak— Caravan— Cairo— The Streets at Night— The Streets by 
 Day — Citadel — Mosques — Mamelukes — Palace of the Pasha — The 
 Sphinx and the Pyramids 408 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Florence from San Miniato 74 
 
 The Campanile "6 
 
 The Duomo 82 
 
 Church of Santa Maria Novella 85 
 
 Pitti Palace 92 
 
 St. Peter's 122 
 
 Kissing the Pope's Toe 127 
 
 Granting Absolution in St. Peter's 128 
 
 The Pope in his Pontifical Robes 130 
 
 Cardinal in full Costume 131 
 
 The Holy Stairs 139 
 
 The Pantheon at Rome 142 
 
 The Theseum at Athens 183 
 
 Statue of Theseus 184 
 
 The Acropolis restored 191 
 
 The PropyljEA 192 
 
 The Parthenon 193 
 
 Frieze of the Parthenon 195 
 
 Plato 197 
 
 The Erechtheum 198 
 
 Caryatides 199 
 
 1 1 1 ax OP Socrates 201 
 
 III i. I'nyx 202 
 
 Temple op Jupiter ( >lympus 204 
 
 Jove 205 
 
 Boreas 209 
 
 Alexandrian Donkey-boys 398 
 
 Irrigating Wheel, Nile Boat. Pyramids 412 
 
 The Bazaar 416 
 
 Mosque of Sultan Hassan 425 
 
 T< >.m b of Sultan K aitlay 426 
 
 The Ferry at old Cairo 429 
 
 Tin. Sphinx and Pyramids 430 
 
 The Great Pyramid 434 
 
 The Pyramids 439 
 
EUROPE AID THE EAST. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE ALPS: TURIN: THE WALDENSES. 
 
 Priest and holy Women— Savoy— Beggars— The Cross— Vale of 
 Aix— Chamberry— Night Ride— Breakfast— Woman and Dog- 
 Peasants— Houses of Refuge— Dragging the Coach— Down Hill- 
 Turin — Processions — General Beckwith — Visit to the Waldenses 
 —Hon. William B. Kinney— The Vaudois— College— School- 
 People— Reception— Interview— The Martyrs. 
 
 For many days ahead the seats in the Malle Poste 
 and the diligence had been engaged, and to get away 
 from Geneva, over the Alps, into Italy, was not an 
 easy matter. We finally secured places, and at seven 
 in the morning set off for Turin, "by way of Mont 
 Cenis. Among our passengers was a Romish priest, 
 who brought his prayer-book with him, and read it 
 attentively ; and a couple of " holy women" of some 
 sort, who were accompanied to the place of starting by 
 several of their sisterhood. Their leave-taking was 
 very tender, and many tears were shed. I was curi- 
 ous to know, and my neighbor, the priest, could have 
 told me who they were and where they were bound, 
 but I did not choose to make inquiries. They were 
 quiet passengers, and left us at Chamberry. The 
 
EUEOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 lidggage una beggars. s es ia nei^o. 
 
 scenery was charming, the day fine, and the ride ex- 
 ceedingly agreeable, bringing us at noon to the fron- 
 tiers of Savoy, and the inevitable nuisance of a cus- 
 tom-house. Every thing was taken down from the 
 top of the diligence, and trunks, bags, and boxes 
 turned inside out without ceremony or mercy. It 
 was the most unsparing overhauling we had experi- 
 enced, and duties were exacted from some of the pas- 
 sengers on articles that had passed through various 
 kingdoms unchallenged. This is one of the customs I 
 hope to see abolished, even in advance of the millen- 
 nium. 
 
 We are now in Savoy. And the first indication of 
 the change of country, after crossing the line, was 
 the attack upon us by a swarm of beggars ; the lame, 
 the blind, the diseased and deformed, young and old, 
 gathering about us when we stopped, and especially 
 hovering at the foot of hills up which the carriage 
 must go at a slow pace, and all this time they could 
 press their claims in the ears and eyes of the travel- 
 lers : one man would thrust the stump of an arm into 
 the window, and implore pity for the love of God ; a 
 woman would point to a sickening sore in her bosom, 
 and plead as only a poor woman can plead, till it was 
 impossible to resist the appeal. Often we came by 
 the CROSS reared on the wayside, and sometimes vo- 
 tive offerings were at the foot. The Romish priest 
 who sat next to me, called my attention to them, and 
 asked "If we had them in my country." I told him 
 that we loved the cross, but were not in the habit of 
 setting it up in the street or in corn-fields. We be- 
 
CROSSING THE ALPS. 
 
 Vfilo of Ai 
 
 lieved in Him who died on the cross, and loved the 
 symbol too much to make so common a use of it as 
 they do in Italy. 
 
 A diligence ride in a foreign land is dull enough, if 
 the parties wedged together are not congenial, but we 
 managed to wear away a pleasant day ; stopping for 
 twenty minutes at Annecy to dine ; passing Alby and 
 its noble bridge of a single arch ; getting a fine view 
 of the old ruined castle of the Countess of Geneva. 
 Toiling over a tedious hill, and coming down into a 
 wide and lovely valley, I seemed to have found my 
 ideal of Italian scenery ; but this was soon forgotten 
 when we entered the Vale of Aix, a region famed for 
 its baths, and a resort for the rich and the invalids, 
 all the way down from the old Komans to the present 
 hour. A valley that has been improved as a watering- 
 place for two thousand years, should by this time have 
 become a fairy-like spot, and so this seemed to be, 
 with its streams and fountains, walks amidst groves 
 and lakes, and the vines trained on trees planted for 
 the purpose, making the hillsides and the plains to 
 rejoice in the gayest attire. The ancient city of Cham- 
 berry lies in another of these charming vales, sur- 
 rounded by vine-clad hills, on which are fine chateaus 
 and Oriental villas, smiling all over the country side, 
 and cheering the traveller, who feels that he is now 
 entering a new land, of which he has read from child- 
 hood and has longed to see. The Alps are yet be- 
 tween us and Italy, but we have already begun to see 
 what it is, the earnest of beauty yet to come. Cham- 
 berry, with its numerous convents and its venerable 
 
 A* 
 
10 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Elephant monument. Night ride. 
 
 cathedral, received us, and detained us some hours 
 while we wandered over its streets ; read the inscrip- 
 tion on the most singular monument I have ever seen, 
 four elephants of stone sustaining a marble fountain, 
 erected to the memory of some one who had distin- 
 guished himself in the East where elephants are com- 
 mon. At the coach-office I fell in with another Ro* 
 mish priest, who addressed me in Latin, and we had 
 a pleasant chat in that language supposed to be dead, 
 though we now and then find it alive, as in this case. 
 He was on his way to London to reside, and was full 
 of his mission, delighted with the prospect before him, 
 and wishing to push on still further and go to America. 
 At nine in the evening we set out for a ride all 
 night ! A ride never to be attempted by travellers 
 when there is any door of escape. There was none 
 for us, as we were but two, and could not afford a pri- 
 vate carnage. Oh the weary hours of that long night ! 
 and oh, "how welcome was the morning light!" A 
 wretched tavern furnished us a wretched breakfast, 
 which was devoured almost without thankfulness, I 
 fear, by a worn and wretched party, disposed to grum- 
 ble at each other and every thing else. And our tem- 
 per was to be tried still further when we mounted 
 again, and an ugly French woman presented herself 
 at the door of the coach, and was to get into the seat 
 of a passenger who left us here. We had no objection 
 to herself personally, but she carried in her arms a 
 dog, about four times as large as a lady should carry, 
 which she proposed to introduce as one of our inside 
 party. At this we remonstrated in half a dozen Ian- 
 
CROSSING THE ALPS. 11 
 
 Pet dog hooked. Rude husbandly. 
 
 guages, and with more gestures lest the tongues 
 should fail. But she carried her point — the ladies 
 always do — and with her pet, and in a pet besides, 
 she entered the door, when the dog instantly set up 
 a cry of distress as he was carried over the knees of 
 my companion. I confess I thought Rankin, in mis- 
 chief, had pinched him terribly, but the cry continued 
 so long, and increased after the woman was seated, 
 that we began to fear he was mad. Presently Rankin 
 missed the hook which he carried to hang his hat by, 
 and a general search was made in the bottom of 
 the coach ; the woman with the dog found blood on 
 her dress, and soon the hook was discovered in the 
 flesh of the animal, and the mystery of his yell as he 
 crossed the lap of my friend was solved. I pulled 
 out the hook, and pitied the brute, whose suffering 
 somewhat reconciled us to his company. In fact he 
 was more of a favorite than his mistress the rest of 
 the day. The poverty and general wretchedness of 
 the inhabitants in the midst of a beautiful country 
 were painfully obvious. The peasants we met fre- 
 quently, with donkeys laden with faggots, and often 
 with reeking bags of manure. The plowing was of 
 the rudest kind ; a. wooden plow was drawn by 
 cows, and a girl followed with a rake to serve as a 
 harrow. What could be expected from such hus- 
 bandry as this ? At St. Michel we were beset by an 
 army of the sturdiest and most importunate beggars, 
 and having escaped them, we came upon the fort and 
 castle of Leseillon, defending this great pass of the 
 Alps. Battery rises above battery on the verge of an 
 
12 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Fortification. Toiling up hill. 
 
 awful precipice overlooking the road, and plainly bid- 
 ding defiance to all hostile comers. The gorge is so 
 deep through which the road passes, that while a 
 foaming river appears to be going up, we are all the 
 time going down. Underneath the ground are wind- 
 ing ways to lead out and into this fortification, and to 
 an unprofessional eye it looks as though an enemy 
 would in vain attempt to make a passage at this point. 
 The mastery of Napoleon's genius now strikes the 
 mind. We are coining to the ascent, to Mont Cenis, 
 and are now on the great military road which was con- 
 structed by his order, at an expense of a million and 
 a half of dollars. At Lanselbourg we put on seven 
 extra horses, making a team of eleven to draw the 
 coach up the road. At every few miles of the zigzag 
 ascent, a "House of Refuge" has been erected, and 
 these are kept by persons appointed for the purpose 
 to receive and succor benighted or exhausted travel- 
 lers ; and whenever we reached them, the people came 
 out and proffered their help, which was sometimes 
 needed, for the strain upon the harness was so great 
 that we were often compelled to stop and repair dam- 
 ages. The road is smooth, though very steep, and 
 now it was heavy with recent rains, which had here 
 and there broken it up and rendered it almost im- 
 passable. At times we were compelled to leave the 
 carriage till it was dragged over a bad spot, which it 
 was safer for us to cross on foot. It was late in the 
 night when we reached the summit, and if the glory 
 of the prospect was to be any compensation for the 
 toil of travel up, we were not to have it. No wide- 
 
CROSSING THE ALPS.. 
 
 On the sum mit. Subo. The plains. 
 
 spread scene of hills and vales and lakes below ; no 
 signs in the sky even; for a miserable sleet of snow 
 and rain was falling ; the coach lamps barely giving 
 light enough to let us know that we were crossing the 
 Alps in one of the darkest, dismalest times that it ever 
 happened to the fate of pleasure travellers to stumble 
 on. So in patience possessing my soul and my body 
 in a blanket, I went to sleep while the coach went 
 thundering down the hills ; not with the Jehulike 
 drive of old on the Alleghanies, where the stage some- 
 times went over the horses, but with a steady roll, the 
 wheels being locked, and one man holding hard on the 
 brake, while another steered the steeds ; and so we 
 went down, down to SuSA, an ancient town about 
 which an extraordinary chapter might be written, had 
 we time to study it. But the daylight has come, and 
 we are now on the plains of Sardinia. We looked 
 back to see the morning breaking on the snowy peaks 
 of the Alps we had left. We were in another clime, 
 The soft air of spring seemed to breathe gently on us. 
 It was a joy to inhale it— to look out on the vineyards 
 and meadows we were passing through, and gardens 
 with oranges hanging over the fence, luscious and 
 tempting. And now we are entering an avenue of 
 trees, noble shade-trees, and far ahead for miles their 
 branches extend over the road. A fresh team of 
 horses has been pressed into the service ; we have 
 always the best team at the beginning and end of a 
 journey ; and at a fine rattling pace we rush over the 
 ground, and at early breakfast-time are in the city of 
 TriiiN. 
 
14 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 To say that Turin is the best built city in Europe 
 will sound extravagant, but I have not seen a better. 
 The government appoints an officer whose business, 
 like that of the Roman iEclile, is to superintend the 
 erection of all buildings, and no house can be put up 
 without his approbation of its dimensions and style. 
 Consequently there is not a mean-looking house in 
 the city, while there are streets in which the poor re- 
 side that look like rows of palaces. 
 
 Our hotel, the JEurqpa, is on the Place Castello, 
 the great square of the city. Of a Sunday it was 
 tilled with the people in pursuit of their pleasures. 
 Directly under the balcony on which my windows 
 opened, a party of jugglers and mountebanks were 
 performing in the midst of an admiring ring of spec- 
 tators. Their feats of skill with knives, balls, and 
 hoops, their agility and strength, would have drawn 
 down the applause of a theatre in our country, but 
 they expected nothing for their exhibition save the 
 few coppers that might be given to them in the 
 crowd. A procession of nuns traversed the square 
 on their way to church, the one in front bearing a 
 long wooden cross. Priests were so frequently pass- 
 ing that they seemed to form a considerable part of 
 the population. We left our hotel early to look in 
 upon some of the Catholic churches. At the first Ave 
 visited, a woman was climbing up the steps on her 
 knees. The house was thronged with people, who 
 seemed chiefly to be of the lower orders, but in all 
 Catholic churches the rich and poor meet together on 
 common ground. In the cathedral, where the royal 
 
TTRIN. 
 
 Relics. Validate church. 
 
 family were worshipping, we found several statues 
 and groups of statuary of great beauty, and the pic- 
 torial and sculptured embellishments that met us in 
 all the houses of worship, reminded us that we are 
 now in Italy. In the chapel of Santa Sudario is a 
 piece of cloth which Romish imposture pretends is 
 part of the shroud in which the body of Jesus was 
 entombed. I was not impressed with the truth of 
 the tradition, though the faithful see the impression 
 of the Saviour's limbs on the rag. 
 
 Tired of these churches, in which there is so much 
 to offend our Protestant tastes, and so little to excite 
 the spirit of devotion, we sought the Church of the 
 Vaudois, the Waldensian congregation. In a court, 
 retired from the public street, and in a building that 
 could hardly aspire to the name of a church, we had 
 the happiness of finding these people assembled for 
 public worship. The Waldenses dwell in the mount- 
 ains, a day's journey from Turin, but in this city are 
 several hundred of the people, pious primitive Chris- 
 tians, who enjoy, under the constitutional government 
 of Sardinia, full protection in their rights of worship, 
 The pastor, M. De Sanctis, preached in Italian, to 
 a solemn, attentive, and affected audience thronging 
 the house. Many of these hearers are Roman Cath- 
 olics, and I saw and heard them, when the Bible 
 Was read and hymns sung and prayers offered, enter- 
 ing as heartily into the service as any who were there. 
 This church is doing a good work, and has so far 
 been prospered and encouraged that they have just 
 completed a large and handsome edifice in one of the 
 
1(3 EUROPE AND THE EAST, 
 
 General Beckwith. His zeal 
 
 most desirable spots in the city. There was some 
 diversity of sentiment as to the propriety of spending 
 thirty or forty thousand dollars on a single house, 
 but it was important to set up a standard here that 
 should be distinctly seen, and to produce a moral im- 
 pression that Protestantism is something more than a 
 name. 
 
 General Beckwith, a British officer who lost a leg 
 at Waterloo, has for the last thirty years been the 
 friend and patron of the Waldenses. I brought let- 
 ters to him, but supposed that he was out at one of 
 the villages of the Yaudois, where he has long had 
 his residence. At the close of the interesting service 
 in this chapel, I asked a venerable gentleman next to 
 me for the name of the preacher, and as I took out 
 some letters of introduction, he saw his own name 
 Upon one of them, and instantly made himself known 
 as General Beckwith. He insisted on my going 
 liome with him, and he soon assembled in his hospit- 
 able mansion several Christian friends, with whom 
 we enjoyed delightful intercourse. In the year 1827 
 this excellent and distinguished officer, travelling on 
 the Continent, visited the Waldenses, and having 
 been previously deeply interested in their history, be- 
 came now no less concerned in their present situation 
 and prospects. With heroism quite equal to his own 
 on the field of battle, he devoted his life and his for- 
 tune to their service ; actually settling down in the 
 midst of them, promoting the establishment of schools, 
 building their churches, cheering them in their poverty 
 ami labors ; when his own means were inadequate, he 
 
TUKIN. 17 
 
 The general's wife. - ,li - J ^ U -* L -- 
 
 has called upon his Mends in England to aid him, 
 and has again and again visited his native country to 
 obtain friends to advance the noble work in which he 
 has here been so usefully engaged. Dr. Gilly is well 
 known also to the religious world for his philanthropic 
 exertions in this same field. One of the pupils of 
 the female seminary, who was but a mere child 
 when he established the school, now a lovely and 
 accomplished lady, has lately become his wife: a 
 charming woman she is, and the old General's dis- 
 interestedness may well be called in question, when 
 he carries out of the valley such a prize as this, in re- 
 turn for his twenty-three years of solitary service. 
 In 1848, after the revolutionary struggles in Europe 
 had resulted in securing a constitution for Sardinia, 
 granting religious liberty to the people, General Beck- 
 with determined to attempt the experiment of a Prot- 
 estant church in the city of Turin. He sent four of 
 the Yaudois young men to Florence to learn the Ital- 
 ian, and trained them for preaching. He opened a 
 room here for divine service, and when the place was 
 too small, he fitted up the chapel which I found them 
 in ; and this proving to be inadequate, he obtained a 
 royal edict, and getting funds from English friends, 
 he and his associates have gone forward with the 
 handsome stone edifice which in a few days (October 
 20th) they purpose to dedicate to Almighty God — 
 the first Protestant church erected in Italy since the 
 Reformation. 
 
 General Beckwith spoke in high terms of the late 
 American Minister, the Hon. William B. Kinney, 
 
18 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Sardinia. lie progress. 
 
 who was an honor to his country, "by his great abili- 
 ties, his integrity, and eminent personal worth, se- 
 curing universal respect. Mr. Kinney's enlarged 
 views and extensive knowledge of political institu- 
 tions, gave him great weight in the diplomatic circles ; 
 and I was glad to learn from General Beckwith and 
 others, that the commanding influence which Mr. 
 Kinney exerted was always on the side of virtue and 
 good order. The Waldenses found in him a firm 
 and efficient friend. The experiment of a Constitu- 
 tion works admirably in Sardinia, in spite of the em- 
 barrassments which are constantly produced by the 
 aristocracy, who are desirous of abrogating the in- 
 strument, and reinstating the old order of things. 
 jNow the people have as much liberty as they know 
 how to use, and will have more, when they know 
 more. And that they are getting ahead in knowl- 
 edge, is sufficiently obvious from the fact that where 
 fifteen hundred copies of newspapers circulated before 
 the Constitution, now five millions are spread among 
 the people. The principles of free governments are 
 becoming more generally intelligible, though it is 
 lamentable to perceive that even the ministers of 
 State and the ablest European diplomatists are igno- 
 rant of the first elements of those theories on which 
 such a government as our own has its basis. Here, 
 in Europe, the people exist only for the government : 
 at home we have a government for the people. That 
 the people are the source of power, or have rights to 
 be protected, is a thought that has never yet been 
 embraced by any great mind among the master spirits 
 
TURIN. 19 
 
 Chauipuklou. 
 
 of the Continent. I was glad to learn that Mr. Kin- 
 ney had produced a powerful impression here in favor 
 of liberal institutions, and the confidence he enjoyed 
 of the representatives of several of the Continental 
 Courts, had given him facilities for unfolding and de- 
 fending these views with the most salutary effect. 
 His departure from Turin was the occasion of general 
 regret. 
 
 The next day we looked at the palace, the galleries, 
 the Egyptian Museum, where Champollion studied to 
 then discovery the hieroglyphics which had been 
 hitherto sealed in impenetrable mystery, a collection 
 of antiquities said to be the most interesting in the 
 world. We climbed the hill to the Capuchin Con- 
 vent, across the Po, and rode about the town, which 
 for beauty of situation can hardly be surpassed. The 
 xllps are always in sight, and from the long streets, 
 crossing one another at right angles, you can look out 
 on their snow-clad summits. 
 
 We were within six hours' ride of the Waldenses, 
 and resolved to visit the scenes of their sufferings for 
 conscience' sake — the valleys where the martyrs of 
 many generations had been chased up to heaven, the 
 "Holy Land" of Europe. 
 
 One of the loveliest days in autumn was the day 
 that we devoted to this excursion. A coach runs out 
 daily from Turin, and we availed ourselves of it, our 
 first experience of Italian stage riding: a clumsy 
 wagon with a cover, harness that would scarcely hold 
 together, rope lines, and vicious horses, kicking the 
 postillions, and getting curses in return, completed 
 
20 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Kural scenery. A great dinner. 
 
 our equipage. But with glory did Monte Viso lift 
 up its head to the sky, clothed in white raiment to 
 its very summit, and now shining with the reflected 
 light of a "blazing sun! The contrast between the 
 country and the people was painful. Here " only 
 man was vile." The fields along the road were cov- 
 ered with vines, growing on poles or on trees : twenty 
 women were in a field spreading hay, and gayly work- 
 ing as if they enjoyed the labor. We passed through 
 three villages, in each of which was a convent and a 
 church : over the door of one, was the inscription in 
 Latin — " This is the house of God, the entrance is 
 Holy — the seal of the Covenant." 
 
 We stopped to dine at Pignerol, an old and decay- 
 ing town, with the second story of the houses pro- 
 jecting over the first, so as to make a covered way; 
 a curious way, by-the-way, which is seen in sev- 
 eral other cities on the Continent. The chief hotel 
 might have been a palace once — it is not much of a 
 tavern now ; and after we drove through it into the 
 court in the rear, we were ten minutes finding our way 
 into the house. We ordered dinner for a definite sum, 
 I forget now to what amount we limited them. But 
 as one course after another came on, and was dis- 
 patched, we began to count the dishes, which amount- 
 ed to twenty-five. Dinner over, we learned that the 
 coach did not go on till evening, and we ordered a 
 carriage for La Tour. Away we went, dashing on 
 with all speed over a beautiful country, rising gradu- 
 ally from the plain, and bringing us into the neigh- 
 borhood of the mountains. La Tour lies just in the 
 
THE WALDENSES. 21 
 
 Vaudois valleys. Hospice. 
 
 opening of the Valleys of Piedmont, yet in the very 
 spot, perhaps as sacred as any in the history of perse- 
 cution, which has made these regions hallowed ground 
 in the eyes of every Protestant traveller. As I enter- 
 ed the valley, and saw all along up the mountain 
 sides the scattered cottages of the Vaudois, and knew 
 that in them all are men, and the sons of men, who 
 have kept the faith when all the world had forsaken 
 it, I felt that this narrow pass is the Thermopylae of 
 the Church, and here the noble army of martyrs has 
 perished for the truth. 
 
 A row of five neat white cottages on the main street 
 of the village is the residence of the professors ; and 
 the College is on the opposite side, where one hundred 
 young men are now in the course of instruction. 
 Professor Revel received me cordially, and led me at 
 once to the Hospice, a building where the sick of the 
 valleys are tended by Deaconesses, and carefully pro- 
 vided for. In this house, the General Board of Direc- 
 tors for the management of the business of the whole 
 population was now in session ; and to this I was 
 immediately conducted and introduced. Moderator 
 Revel, who had recently returned from a visit to the 
 American churches, welcomed me with open arms, and 
 each of the clerical and lay members gave me a cordial 
 greeting. The whole population of the valleys is 
 about 26,000, of whom 4000 are Romanists. They 
 are scattered through three valleys, along the sides of 
 the mountains, which they have terraced almost to the 
 summits. They have sixteen churches, united in a 
 Presbyterian form of government, in one Synod. 
 
22 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The brethren. Library. Village. 
 
 Their secular business is in the hands of the Board, 
 now in session. They laid it aside, and made inquiries 
 of me respecting the Church in America. The Mod- 
 erator told me of the delightful visit he had made to 
 my country, and the great encouragement he had re- 
 ceived to expect substantial aid. They wish to endow 
 a theological department in connection with their Col- 
 lege, that they may not be obliged, as they now are, 
 to send their young men abroad to Geneva for instruc- 
 tion. I was tenderly affected with the humble and 
 holy spirit of these good men, and found it hard to 
 tear myself away from their company. They begged 
 me to stay ; I believe they would have carried me in 
 their arms from valley to valley, if I would have made 
 the tour of their churches, as they urged me earnestly 
 to do. And when I said a few words in parting, re- 
 minding them of the ties in common, binding them to 
 us of the like precious faith, our tears mingled ; we 
 pressed each others' hands ; they prayed for me and 
 committed me to the care of the Father and Saviour 
 of us all. 
 
 Professor Revel then led us to the college and into 
 the library of 25,000 volumes ; and here I saw the 
 portraits of General Beckwith and Dr. Gilly, old 
 Waldensian Bibles, relics of fiery trials, and some 
 books presented by friends in America. 
 
 No village in New England presents a more orderly 
 and wholesome ap])earance than this. No one asked 
 alms. I determined to give something to the first 
 needy person I met, but all seemed to have the thrift 
 of industry and virtue, and charity was not required. 
 
THE WALDENSES. 23 
 
 ri'K'k of martyrdom. Persecution. 
 
 The children touched their hats, or took them off re- 
 spectfully, when they met a stranger ; a pleasing con- 
 trast with the manner of children generally. 
 
 Overhanging the village is the famous Castelluzzo, 
 a mighty rock, which has a tale of fearful cruelties 
 forever associated with it. Mothers and their tender 
 offspring were hurled from its summit and dashed in 
 pieces on the stones below. These horrid persecutions 
 by the Papists were at last arrested by the brave old 
 Puritan, Cromwell, who had. no scruples on the subject 
 of inte?'ve?ition when humanity cried to him for aid. 
 Milton was the Latin Secretary of Cromwell, and 
 wrote the noble remonstrances of the Protectorate, 
 addressed to the Duke of Savoy. In his glorious son- 
 net, Milton has also left an immortal testimony against 
 the murderous cruelty of the persecuting Church of 
 Home. 
 
 Returning from La Tour, we passed throu fe the 
 village of St. Giovanni, where the Vaudois built a 
 church while Piedmont was under the government of 
 Napoleon. When the Sardinian monarchy was re- 
 stored, the Roman Catholics complained that they 
 were disturbed in their church across the way by the 
 singing of their neighbors, and the Vaudois were com- 
 pelled to erect a wooden wall in front of their door. 
 The wall has fallen to pieces, and the government of 
 the country has become tolerant, so that the sufferings 
 of this noble race of men are over. Let us hope that 
 the example of Sardinia may work a gradual change 
 in the policy of all the governments of Europe. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 GENOA AND ITS PALACES. 
 
 Railways in Italy — A Lady smoking in the Cars — The Country — 
 Fete Day — Crossing the Apennines — First Sight of the Sea — Ge- 
 noa — The Palaces — Churches — Strada Nuova — Brignole Rosso- 
 Costume of the young Women — Galley Slaves — Di Negro Palace 
 and Grounds — Balbi — Sunset. 
 
 Railroads are rare in Italy. One had been open • 
 ed from Turin to Genoa, but was not completed. 
 More confusion than was convenient occurred when 
 we sought our tickets and places, but finally we got 
 matters satisfactorily arranged. The cars were very 
 spacious, airy, and comfortable. The passengers, chief 
 ly Italian, began to show us new phases of costume 
 and character. Into our apartment, as we had but 
 two seats, a party of two ladies and two gentlemen 
 entered at one of the stations shortly after leaving 
 Turin. One of the ladies was a splendid beauty, I 
 think the handsomest native I saw in Italy: her 
 dress and bearing were those of an elegant lady. The 
 gentlemen lighted their cigars, and she took one and 
 smoked with the most perfect nonchalance, pushing 
 aside the green silk curtain with her jeweled fingers 
 to spit out of the window (!) — a lady, a beautiful lady, 
 witli soft, languishing, loving eyes, sitting two feet 
 in front of me, smoking and spitting. And this in 
 Italy ! 
 
GENOA AND ITS PALACES. 25 
 
 Natives astonished. Transportation. 
 
 And the wide plains through which we are riding 
 are clothed with vines, and the peasantry are lively 
 in their light work in the fields. We passed through 
 a tunnel a thousand feet long, and emerged into a ro- 
 mantic land, where the road winds around hills and 
 follows its way along the margin of a mountain 
 stream, now and then a charming vista opening he- 
 fore us, and nature showing us some of her loveliest 
 views. We are coining to the Apennine mountains, 
 and these are the glimpses we get of the rising and 
 lovely prospects in this romantic region. At Busala, 
 the present terminus of the railway, a great fete day 
 had assembled thousands of people from the surround- 
 ing country, even from a great distance among the 
 mountains, many of whom had never seen a railway 
 before. On all the fences, houses, and heights of 
 every kind, the natives stood with mouths and eyes 
 wide open, gaping and gazing at the locomotive and 
 train as they came thundering in. The Indians could 
 not have been more surprised at the first steamer on 
 the Mississippi. We had to be transferred from the 
 cars to coaches, and we chose to ride in the banquette, 
 a covered seat above and behind the driver on the 
 top of the carriage, the finest place altogether for ob- 
 servation. The ascent of the mountains commenced 
 very soon after leaving Busala, but the road was 
 smooth and very serpentine, the scenery picturesque 
 and sometimes grand. Long trains of loaded wagons 
 drawn by tandem horses, were slowly transporting 
 freight over the mountains, and the numbers of these 
 loads showed the great demand for a railroad to con- 
 Vol, II.— B 
 
26 EUKOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Dangers of railways. The sea ! 
 
 nect the sea-port Genoa with Turin, the capital of 
 Sardinia. No other Italian government has encour- 
 aged the construction of railroads — they are too fast 
 for the rulers of this people ; making men's ideas to 
 move rapidly, and suggestive of improvement and 
 progress, such ideas being dangerous to all despot- 
 isms, and especially to such weak governments as 
 the most of them are in Italy. The constitutional 
 monarchy of Sardinia, the most hopeful, and there- 
 fore the most hated of all the governments, has fos- 
 tered this great work, and is pushing on with energy 
 the development of all the resources of the kingdom. 
 
 The mountain-pass accomplished, we began to de- 
 scend into a charming country, and the features of 
 Italian scenery more decidedly marked were constant- 
 ly revealed. The fig-tree in great abundance and 
 loaded with its delicious fruit, the chestnut trees in 
 groves which furnish a staple article of food for the 
 inhabitants, the cane and the vine were spread on 
 either side of us. Dirty people, beggars many, and 
 many priests we met : and at length the forts on the 
 heights announced our approach to the city of Genoa. 
 The streets were so narrow that we were often com- 
 pelled to stop for carts to get by us ; and passing 
 through a deep excavation where men were dangling 
 by ropes, and cutting away the rocks on the sides 
 of the precipice, the bay of Genoa burst upon our 
 sight. 
 
 " The sea ! the sea!" we cried, as the Mediterranean, 
 smooth a.s a lake of glass and shining in the rays of 
 the declining sun, lay wide before us : the first time 
 
GENOA AND ITS PALACES. 27 
 
 City of palaces and churches. 
 
 it had ever met our eyes. The sun had been so 
 bright during the afternoon as to be painful, but now 
 its last rays were tinging the horizon with a beautiful 
 pink color, which we often see in landscapes ; and the 
 soft, languid beauty of the sunset and the sea, was 
 new and pleasing. Genoa, like a crescent, stretched 
 far along the shore, and receding up the hills was lost 
 to view among the villas and vineyards in the coun- 
 try behind it. On the very verge of the bay is a 
 row of ancient palaces, now turned into taverns, spa- 
 cious hotels, and we were soon handsomely at home 
 in the Italia. From this house we had a fine view 
 of the harbor, the gulf, and the shipping. Its mar- 
 ble floors, frescoed walls, and gilded ceilings are re- 
 mains of the splendor which marked it when the 
 Fieschi and Grimaldi families made it gay with their 
 revelry. 
 
 From this old palace we made excursions through 
 the city, to visit the splendid palaces still kept up in 
 the style of ancient times, and rich in superb paint- 
 ings by the old masters. The church of the Annun- 
 ciation was more splendid than any we had yet seen 
 but the Madeleine ; its frescoes by Carloni, and the 
 Last Supper by Procacciani, not so good as one we had 
 seen at Turin, were yet so striking to our uncultivated 
 eyes, that we studied them with wonder and delight. 
 The magnificence of Catholic churches began to ap- 
 pear, as we stood in front of this gorgeous altar, and 
 looked up at its pictures in golden panels, and the 
 precious stones with which the frames are adorned. 
 Antonio crossed himself when we passed the altars, 
 
28 EUIIOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Street of palaces. Pictures. 
 
 and gave me good proof of being a devout believer. 
 But when in the cathedral, he called my attention to 
 a statue of God Almighty holding the world in his 
 hands, and laughed at the idea of making an image 
 of such a scene, he was not so serious as a good 
 Catholic ought to be. 
 
 In Genoa there is nothing so interesting to be seen 
 as the old palaces which stand chiefly on the " Strada 
 Nuova," well called the street of palaces. They are 
 all accessible to strangers, and we wandered over 
 several of them. The Brignole Rosso was said to be 
 among the most attractive, and we sought it early. 
 The crimson tints in the walls give it a strange but 
 beautiful appearance ; its vast doors were opened at 
 our call, and we entered a marble-paved court where 
 a fountain was playing : ascending a flight of steps, 
 we came to another court where a hanging garden 
 was filled with fruits and flowers, breaking suddenly 
 upon the eye. An aged porter here met us, and led 
 us tlnough numerous and spacious apartments, fur- 
 nished with luxurious splendor, and hung with paint- 
 ings by the old masters ; a catalogue of each room 
 lying open for our use. Here was the "Rape of the 
 Sabines," by Yalerio Castello, and several of the best 
 of Vandyke's, and one or two by Guercino, full of the 
 rich coloring and warmth of feeling for which that 
 master is so distinguished. His "Cleopatra and Asp*' 
 is in this palace ; she lies on the couch with a coun- 
 tenance of exceeding beauty, now filled with despair, 
 while the blood oozes from the wound in her breast, 
 where the fang is fastened — a picture of terrible beau- 
 
GENOA AND ITS PALACES. 29 
 
 Old families. Di Negro palace. 
 
 ty, if such can be. The Christ, in Vandyke's picture 
 of the Tribute Mone y, has a smile of wonderful effect, 
 telling the whole story of the Saviour's rejecting the 
 proposal of the Pharisees to catch him in their talk. 
 
 "We walked out on the balcony, and were charmed 
 with the gardens and groves of orange trees in the 
 grounds of other palaces ; and giving the old man a 
 trifle for his attention, pursued our tour of the sights. 
 These are the residences of old Italian families, in 
 whose hands immense wealth is still retained. Their 
 owners spend all their time in Paris, or travelling; 
 while their houses are shut up, or only opened to the 
 curious traveller. 
 
 The costume of the young women is very pictur- 
 esque — a long white vail fastened to the top of the 
 head, and falling gracefully over the back ; the hair 
 arranged in large plaits, and fastened with a silver 
 arrow, and ornamented with the filligree work, which 
 is made in greater quantities here than in any other 
 place. The women were only fair, and not very, at 
 that. In sad contrast with the lively looks of these 
 maids of Genoa, were the galley-slaves whom we met 
 working in chains, and dragging loads through the 
 streets. They are convicted criminals, made useful 
 to the State by their labor, and suffering, probably, 
 no more than they deserve. 
 
 The Di Negro family — but, by-the-way, the family 
 now is only Signor Charles di Negro — have a palace in 
 the upper part of the town, which I visited after hav- 
 ing seen many that are not to be spoken of in connec- 
 tion with this. Entering a long, grand, stone path- 
 
30 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The gardens. Statue of Washington. 
 
 way, covered with vines, and lined with orange and 
 olive trees loaded with fruit, we ascended a stone 
 stairway to a terrace paved with curiously tesselated 
 stones, with various colors inwrought. Marble stat- 
 ues of illustrious Genoese and foreigners were placed 
 in niches. We ascended to still another terrace, and 
 wound our way up to the top of the hill that looked 
 out on the "blue Mediterranean in all its glory, while 
 the city of towers and palaces, spires and domes was 
 lying at our feet. We had reached a platte from 
 which avenues led off in various directions to grottoes 
 sacred to some great man, whose statue stood there 
 as the genius of the place. And here, on this height, 
 where we could well believe the great navigator had 
 often stood and strained his eyes away into the deep 
 of the western sky, we stood by the side of a statue of 
 Columbus, looking longingly westward. And not far 
 off from him, was a little temple of Liberty, with a 
 statue in it, bearing the inscription — "Alia memoria 
 di Washington." We took oif our hats in a moment, 
 and cheered the memory of our country's father. 
 Glorious name it is ; and the farther from home we 
 are, the stronger the beating of the heart when we are 
 reminded of our own immortal Washington. Around 
 this summit,* are gardens with all manner of loaded 
 vines, tropical trees and shrubs ; and looking off to 
 the landward, we have a view of the twenty-two forts 
 and battlements, the castles and walls by which the 
 city is defended ; and thousands of white cottages are 
 dotting the mountain sides, up which the town ex- 
 tends. I do not wonder that emperors, princes, and 
 
GENOA AND ITS PALACES. 31 
 
 Balbi Palace. Sunset. 
 
 popes have visited this garden and palace, and have 
 left the records of their pleasure, in reveling, as they 
 have done, among its wonderful charms. 
 
 The Balbi Palace opened its doors, and we met 
 the Marchioness, as remarkable for her own personal 
 beauty as for the magnificence of the palace, of which 
 she is the greatest ornament. At sunset we had a walk 
 on the promenade that has been made over the ware- 
 houses upon the wharf. Here, on the water's edge, 
 with all the shipping of the harbor before you, and 
 the great sea heaving unceasingly, it was refreshing 
 to enjoy the evening breeze, and to see the sun going 
 down into his golden bed. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 MILAN AND LAKE COMO. 
 
 A Russian General, Wife, and Daughter — Milan Cathedral — Da 
 Vinci's Last Supper — Amphitheatre — Arch of Peace — Dr. Capelli 
 — The Hospital — Police — An Inquisitive Englishman — Monza and 
 the Iron Crown — Como, the loveliest Lake — Villas on Shore — . 
 Bellajio — A Maid on the Wall — Selhelloni Palace and Gardens — 
 The Russian offers me his Daughter — Melzi Villa — Summa Riva. 
 
 As I was stepping into the Jlalle Poste at Genoa, 
 I saw a man in the seat behind mine, busily employ- 
 ed in kicking out my travelling bags from under my 
 seat, and I put them back. He pushed them out 
 again, and I put them back again. In broken En- 
 glish he began to swear at me with a looseness of 
 language remarkable in a foreigner. When he paused 
 to take breath, I asked if I might speak. He broke 
 out again with some very big oaths, said he was fix- 
 ing a place lor the feet of his wife who would soon 
 
 get in, and he would be if he wouldn't have 
 
 those bags out. When I could put in a word, I said 
 to him : 
 
 " If your wife is coming in here she shall have any 
 scat she wishes, and her feet where she likes ; but if 
 you put your foot on my bag again, or swear at me 
 once more, one or the other of us will be out on that 
 ground in about a minute." 
 
 " Oh, ah, I be one very sorry. I beg all your par- 
 don — you one Englishman — " 
 
MILAN AND LAKE COMO. 33 
 
 Russian General. Milan soldiers. 
 
 "No, no, I am not; I am an American." 
 " Oh, ah, si, oui, yis, I am one Russian General. I 
 am sorry, very ; I will you please, my wife and 
 daughter introduce. We be very good friends. Oh, 
 what fool I am ! " 
 
 Having patched up a peace, the Russian General 
 produced and introduced his wife and daughter. The 
 young lady proved to have been well educated, speak- 
 ing all the usual languages of travel (of which Russ is 
 not one) with great fluency. A French Count was 
 with them, and they made quite a sudden and pleas- 
 ant addition to our party. But they were so much 
 afraid that the old General's attack upon me would 
 be remembered, that they fairly overrun me with love 
 and kindness, till in the course of a few days it be- 
 came a nuisance. Too much of a good thing spoils 
 the whole. We rode on together to Milan, without 
 making a pause on the way, even at Pavia, the seat 
 of an ancient medical college of renown, and cele- 
 brated now for its splendid cathedral, and even more 
 for the bones of St. Augustine brought here from 
 Egypt. Our party, the Russian General and his 
 family, and the Count, took quarters at the Hotel de 
 Yille, an admirable establishment, and greatly fre- 
 quented. Under Austrian rule, with its soldiers pa- 
 trolling the streets by day and night, yet themselves 
 afraid of the people, the city is in perfect order, but 
 never without fear. At the last outbreak the people 
 rushed upon the sentries, and killed several of them. 
 The soldiers when on duty now very discreetly keep 
 themselves behind an iron fence, to be protected from 
 
34 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Meeting of friends. Cathedral. 
 
 the people whom they are expected to keep in sub- 
 jection. I was told that at the next outbreak, and it 
 will come suddenly, the soldiers will be the first vic- 
 tims and the priests the next. 
 
 At the door of the Hotel de Ville I had the pleas- 
 ure of meeting my friends Messrs. Bighter and Hill, 
 who from this time onward till my return to America, 
 were the faithful and devoted companions of my 
 travel. With no more delay than was necessary to 
 secure our rooms, we walked out to the Cathedral 
 of Milan, the pride of Italy! It is beautiful, too 
 beautiful. It is fine, we might say finical; and so 
 many thousand pinnacles start up into the air, so 
 elaborately elegant is its ornament, and so profuse 
 withal, that it fails to excite those emotions of the 
 sublime and solemn that we feel in temples neither 
 so vast nor so costly. But it is a creation of art 
 beyond all description to convey the impression it 
 makes on the mind. The interior is more, far more 
 imposing. Those huge columns, so many and so 
 strong, holding up that immense dome and cupola, 
 produce a powerful effect, which would be still greater 
 were it not for the trifling ornaments with which even 
 the interior abounds. A procession of priests, some 
 of them in red cloaks and under a canopy borne by 
 boys, was marching across the vast area as I entered ; 
 services were in progress in two or three chapels, but 
 there was room for a standing army besides. Behind 
 the high altar, on tablets, were long lists of the pre- 
 cious relics belonging to this cathedral ; among them, I 
 remember the towel with which Christ washed the 
 
MILAN AND LAKE COMO. 35 
 
 Relics and statue* The Last Supper. 
 
 feet of the disciples, part of the purple robe with 
 which he was clad, four of the thorns of his crown, 
 one of the crucifying nails, and part of the spear; a 
 stone from the holy sepulchre, teeth from the heads of 
 Abraham, Daniel, John, and Elisha ; the rod of Moses, 
 and bones of nearly all the Apostles and a host of 
 martyrs. 
 
 Seven thousand statues already completed, adorn 
 this house, and three thousand more are yet to be 
 added. An old man, at a little door, for a shilling, 
 gives you the privilege of climbing to the roof, where 
 a complete garden regales the eye, and one of the 
 widest and loveliest prospects in Italy appears. My 
 young friends returned to see, from this height, the 
 sunrise in the morning, and they were in ecstasies at 
 the sight. It is a world of beauty ; but in the midst 
 of the starry pinnacles of this roof, the world with its 
 Alps, and its plains, and its rising sun, was more 
 transportingly beautiful than they had ever dreamed 
 of. 
 
 In the refectory of an old monastery, on the wall, 
 is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, the most cele- 
 brated of any painting in the world, and now passing 
 away forever. The monks themselves commenced 
 the work of its destruction, by cutting a door through 
 the wall on which it is done. When jNTapoleon had 
 possession of Milan, this monastery was used for bar- 
 racks, and this room for a stable. Time, damp, 
 smoke, steam, violence, have all done their worst 
 upon " The Last Supper ;" but there it is ; and 
 more than any other painting in Europe, I had de- 
 
36 EUIIOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Leonardo da Yinci. Arch of Peace. 
 
 sired to see this "before I came from home. It has 
 been copied and engraved until every one knows the 
 picture. The head of the Christ is the only head 
 that ever came up to my conception of my Saviour's. 
 Rubens and Raphael never satisfied. But here was 
 majesty mingled with sorrow; love and pity, God 
 and Man so blended, that, dimmed and fading as it is, 
 I could cry out before it, My Lord and my God! 
 We all sat down before it, and in silence and tears 
 gazed on the scene. The loving John, the impulsive 
 Peter, the infernal Traitor; they are true to nature, 
 and drawn with the hand of consummate skill. Da 
 Yinci was a painter ; yet this was far from being his 
 chief glory. He was a statesman and a practical 
 man, contriving and carrying out great plans for the 
 benefit of his country ; and to this it must be owing 
 that he who could paint perhaps as well as any man 
 who ever lived, has left so few works by which his 
 fame is to be preserved. " The Last Supper" is now 
 nearly gone, and the next generation will know it only 
 in history. 
 
 Leaving this old monastery, we sought the amphi- 
 theatre, where, in the days of the old Romans, thirty 
 thousand persons could sit down and look at the 
 gladiators in the arena below. It is in admirable 
 preservation ; and within a few years, when princes 
 have been the guests of the city, the vast area has 
 been flooded, and naval spectacles exhibited. 
 
 The Arch of Peace is one of the handsomest gates 
 in Europe ; but its allegories are too recondite to tell 
 their story to the dull, and we had not time to study 
 
MILAN AND LAKE COMO. 37 
 
 Hospital. Dr. Capelli. 
 
 them out with a book. Full of old convents, the 
 funds of some of them having been sequestrated, and 
 the establishments broken up, Milan is an interesting- 
 city to explore. I visited one of the hospitals where 
 2800 persons were in as many beds, well cared for, as 
 if there were but a hundred only ; and this immense 
 establishment is supported by private charity — one of 
 the most complete and benevolent institutions in the 
 world. The system was quite as perfect as that in 
 Paris. Over the head of each patient was his name 
 and disease, and the directions of the physician care- 
 fully recorded. Sisters of Charity were in attendance, 
 ministering at all times with unflagging zeal. The 
 wards were clean, and so well ventilated that no of- 
 fensive smell was observed. Contentment and grati- 
 tude were marked on the faces of many of these suf- 
 ferers. In the department for women a fair girl was 
 lying, fit to be a model of the Virgin Mary ; or, better 
 still, for the Magdalen. The good Dr. Capelli, who 
 was with me, addressed a few words of comfort to 
 her, and a smile of thanks played for a moment on 
 her snowy face, and I thought as I turned away, that 
 she perhaps would never smile again. Dr. Capelli 
 is a capital physician, and a man of learning and tal- 
 ents, into whose hands it is a great blessedness for a 
 sick traveller to fall. In consequence of my impru- 
 dence in the use of grapes, which prove to be very 
 bad this season, I had occasion to send for him ; and 
 with my gratitude for his kindness and skill, I delight 
 to record his name, that if any are following my foot- 
 steps in this pilgrimage, they may know on whom to 
 
38 EUEOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Austrian police. Impertinence. 
 
 call, if, like me, they stand in need of a medical man. 
 He can be readily readied from any of the hotels. 
 
 I had spent four or five days in Milan, and had to 
 depart in the morning at six o'clock. It was now 
 nearly ten o'clock at night, and Antonio came rush- 
 ing to my room, to tell me that I was wanted at the 
 office of the police, and could not have my passport 
 without appearing in person. I told him to get me 
 a carriage in all haste, and we would go. But the 
 carnages were off the stands, and we had to set off 
 on foot, to walk or run a mile, to get there before the 
 door was shut. The Austrian soldiers were patroll- 
 ing the silent and deserted streets as we hastened on, 
 and just as the last official was leaving the post, we 
 reached the office. He was in a great rage at being 
 called back, and swore terribly ; but I handed Anto- 
 nio half a dollar, which he slipped into the angry 
 man's hands, and it had the natural effect of quiet- 
 ing his nerves, and helping him to find my passport, 
 and hand it over to me all right. So, with increased 
 contempt for Austrian officialism, I was prepared to 
 get out of Milan. 
 
 "Is that gentleman an Italian?'' asked a young 
 English traveller of my companion, as we were sitting 
 in the rail-carriage about to start for Monza and Lake 
 Como. He referred to me, and presuming that I did 
 not understand English, inquired if I was an Italian. 
 Rankin told him "No,'' and so decidedly, that I thought 
 his inrpiisitiveness would not tempt him to ask again. 
 
 " Is he a Frenchman ?" he demanded. " No, he is 
 not a Frenchman," said my friend. 
 
MILAN AND LAKE COMO. 39 
 
 Iron Crown. Como. 
 
 " You will please to tell me of what country he is ;" 
 but Rankin and I exchanged looks, and the anxious 
 inquirer was not gratified. 
 
 He became a very troublesome companion, and we 
 found it hard to shake him off. Passing rapidly 
 through the town of Monza, where Napoleon received 
 the Iron Crown, we reached Como before night, and 
 had time to visit its ancient and imposing Cathedral, 
 a noble specimen of the Lombard architecture of the 
 Middle Ages. The sculptures in bas-relief on the out- 
 side of the towers that rise up in majestic proportions 
 from the street, are of exquisite workmanship ; the 
 Flight into Egypt, the Adoration of the Magi, and 
 various flowers are wrought in stone with surprising 
 skill and effect. The village is noted as the birth- 
 place of Pliny the younger; and both the Plinys 
 wrote from the shores of this charming lake. A noble 
 statue stands in a public square, of Yolta, who was 
 born here. We had been riding through a rich coun- 
 try, with vines and olives abounding, and maize, 
 peaches, and fruits of various kinds ; in the midst of 
 these gardens and vineyards were beautiful villas, and 
 off at the left the Alps stood with their sharp, clear- 
 cut edges against the sky, like ebony on ivory. And 
 now we were in the midst of hills that seemed to be 
 holding in their bosom a placid lake, sin-rounded with 
 old castles and picturesque ruins. The atmosphere 
 was so clear, the climate so genial, that existence was 
 a luxury. We lingered about the cathedral till sun- 
 set, and then walked on the shores of the lake, re- 
 joicing in the loveliness of nature, and wishing those 
 
40 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Many, tongues. On the lake, 
 
 we loved were with us to share the enjoyment of such 
 an evening in Italy. 
 
 Our inquisitive Englishman fortunately found quar- 
 ters at another hotel, so that we hoped to be free from 
 his questions ; hut after supper he came over to our 
 house, and fastened himself upon us like a leech. 
 
 " It was very remark#2/jble," he said, " that no less 
 than eight differ-rent languages were spoken at our 
 table to-night, but I was fortunately able to converse 
 in them all ; one lady addressed me in Hindoostanee, 
 and as I spent a year in India, I replied to her at once 
 — it was very lucky, was it not ?" This speech was 
 set off with two or three oaths to make it more racy, 
 and we left him as soon as we could. 
 
 The next morning we embarked on a little steam- 
 er, to make an excursion on the loveliest of lakes. 
 Fifty gondolas, with then* sharp noses resting on the 
 sand, invited us to their crimson cushions around a 
 little table under a canopy, where parties of pleasure 
 might amuse themselves with cards, or refresh them- 
 selves with ices, as they were rowed swiftly over the 
 yielding waves ; but we were going too far for them, 
 and preferred the steamboat. Quite a number of 
 priests were among the passengers, and some of them 
 with short breeches, long coats, and shoe-buckles, 
 made a grotesque appearance, but in the style of our 
 own olden times. My Russian General and his party 
 met me with great demonstrations of pleasure, and 
 hoped we should travel together all the season. In 
 the course of the day they learned my intentions to 
 go down into Egypt, and expressed their great re- 
 
MILAN AND LAKE COMO. 41 
 
 Summer houses. Monaster}-. 
 
 grets that they could not all go with me to the ends 
 of the earth. Truly, thought I, this son of the North 
 is as warm as if he had been born in France or Italy. 
 
 The beauties of Lake Como began to open upon 
 the sight as soon as we put off from the shore. In 
 all the dreams I have ever had of the lovely in natu- 
 ral scenery, I never saw, even in fancy, any thing 
 that excelled the charming views I caught, as we 
 passed along the bosom of this placid sheet of water. 
 Not princes and men of wealth only, but artists, and 
 those artists whose talents on the stage and whose 
 gifts of song have made them famous all over the 
 world, have chosen the borders of Lake Como for 
 their summer residence, and their beautiful villas and 
 seats, rejoicing in the name of palaces, are planted on 
 the rising hills, surrounded with every embellishment, 
 and looking to be the abode of elegant ease and re- 
 fined enjoyment. How well they answer their out- 
 ward appearance, it is not for us to know. From 
 these villas a gondola would shoot out into the Lake, 
 and our steamer would pause and deliver a party of 
 friends to be conveyed to the shore, and welcomed by 
 those in waiting for them. A narrow pass admitted us 
 into the main body of the waters, and now the mount- 
 ains rise suddenly from the shore, terraces covered 
 with rich foliage and fruit hang above us, and at times 
 I could believe this was the long-talked-of fairy land. 
 
 A monastery on the rocky shore, to which steps 
 lead up by a path lined with shrubs and flowers, 
 seemed fitted to be the abode of religious seclusion. 
 On the walls and among the rocks around it were 
 
42 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Maid on the wall. Beautiful garden. 
 
 statues of monks, and popes, and ever so many- 
 saints, which the "boatman contemplated with vene- 
 ration. Through a constant succession of these scenes, 
 in which art and nature vied with each other in lavish- 
 ing "beauties, we rushed on for a couple of hours till 
 we came to Cadanabhia. Here we landed, and were 
 at once received into one of the many gondolas wait- 
 ing for us, and were rowed over to JBellajio, on the 
 opposite shore. Near the shore was a garden with 
 a high wall surrounding it, and lemon trees hang- 
 ing over it laden with fruit. A maid with a wide- 
 rimmed hat stood on the wall arranging the vines ; she 
 seemed herself to be adorning the parapet, as a beau- 
 tiful statue could not have done. In France and 
 Italy they adopt this plan on some great occasions, 
 when triumphal arches have been extemporaneously 
 erected, and handsome women, alive but still, have 
 stood in the niches instead of marble. 
 
 We had come over here to visit the Selbelloni pal- 
 ace and grounds. Ascending a long, paved carriage- 
 way some ten minutes, we came to the gate, which 
 was opened by the same girl I had seen on the wall 
 below. She was to be our guide over the place. 
 The conception and the execution of this garden were 
 remarkable. A conical hill had been terraced com- 
 pletely around, and spiral walks led us along upward 
 to the successive levels. The flowers and fruits of 
 the various zones were arranged in the ascending 
 order, bringing us into new and sudden varieties, as 
 if Ave had stepped from one latitude of the earth into 
 another. Lake Como is on one side of this hill, and 
 
MILAN AND LAKE COMO. 43 
 
 Telescopic view. Astounding proposal 
 
 Lecco on the other, and before we reach the summit, 
 we come to a tunnel 500 feet long, and in the shape 
 of a rainbow, piercing through the hill, so that we 
 walk on in the twilight till we come to the centre, 
 from which, as through a tube 250 feet long, we look 
 out each way. To the east of us is Lake Lecco, a 
 beautiful sheet of water. On the other side is Lake 
 Como, and the tunnel has been made so as just to 
 take into its scope a palace away across on the west- 
 ern shore. This was like the work of magic, surely. 
 We emerged on the eastern side, and came around to 
 a summer-house on the brow of an awful precipice 
 overhanging the lake, whence we could see the distant 
 mountains capped with snow, and the great pass of 
 the Splugen leading us back to the Switzerland we 
 had left. Descending by a winding pathway on the 
 Lecco side, we came through the tropical groves, the 
 tall palms, and the prickly cactus ; we rested our- 
 selves in grottoes with flowery bowers in front of 
 them, and cool waters trickling down the rocks under 
 which we sat. 
 
 It was in one of these that my Russian General as- 
 tounded me with a proposition. If he had asked me 
 to join his regiment, or to recommend him to the 
 Commander of the United States Army, I should not 
 have been surprised. But he was on quite a different 
 track. 
 
 "My daughter shall go with you to Egypt," he 
 said, very insinuatingly. 
 
 "Ah," said I, "then you are thinking of going 
 there?" 
 
44 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Beating a retreat Stores of ait 
 
 "No, no; my wife and I not go; my daughter 
 shall go with you."' 
 
 "But I must consult my wife first, "before I go to 
 Egypt with another man's daughter," I replied, very 
 good-naturedly. 
 
 "Oh, you have a wife in America!" he cried out, 
 " then she shall go with you, and you shall take her 
 to America, and she shall get husband there and live 
 there. So I will have her, and you will take care of 
 her." 
 
 I found the old General had a serious intention of 
 confiding his daughter to my tender mercies, and I 
 had to resort to some generalship to get rid of her. 
 Sorry I am to say it, hut my skill was displayed in 
 beating a quiet retreat as soon as possible, and get- 
 ting out of reach of the old man's importunity and the 
 fascinations of the young lady, who would have gone 
 with me in a moment had I encouraged the proposal. 
 
 A mile below, on the same side of the lake, is the 
 Melzi villa, and all along the shore, as we swept 
 down in our gondola, are shady groves and marble 
 statues standing in the green : a splendid monument 
 to Dante is near the villa. Within were the richest 
 stores of art that I had ever seen gathered in private 
 halls. Gems by the old masters, and the master- 
 pieces of modern genius : a holy family by Correggio, 
 and a Bacchante by Thorwalsden, mosaic tables from 
 Florence, and ancient statuary from Borne and Athens ; 
 and these in successive chambers arrayed with such 
 exquisite taste, that it seemed intruding to be walk- 
 ing in the midst of thorn with the freedom of home. 
 
MILAN AND LAKE COMO. 45 
 
 A paradise. Interrogative Englishman. 
 
 On the opposite shore the Princess Carlotta has a 
 palace at Summa-Biva, and we shot across in a boat, 
 and were cheerfully admitted to its treasures. A 
 noble fountain in the midst of the grounds in front, 
 was throwing up its waters into the sunlight, and 
 they were falling like great diamonds around us. We 
 found the collections of statues and paintings more 
 extensive but not so select as at the Melzi villa. The 
 dying Attila receiving the sacrament from a Capuchin 
 monk by moonlight, and the wafer illuminating the 
 picture, I admired greatly ; and the Thorwalsden 
 marbles in bas-relief are said to be his noblest works. 
 As I came out from this palace into the beautiful 
 grounds, adorned with all manner of trees and plants 
 and parterres of flowers to delight the eyes — figs and 
 apricots, and luscious grapes hanging by, and statues 
 of breathing marble standing in the midst of them 
 like our first parents in Eden — it was verily like be- 
 ing in an Oriental paradise. We dined at a hotel 
 near the palace, and my English exquisite and inquis- 
 itive distinguished himself at table by his impertinent 
 questions. As we were returning in the boat to 
 Como, two English gentlemen sitting near me were 
 conversing, when one remarked, 
 
 "What an interrogative turn of mind that young 
 man appears to have." 
 
 "Yes," said the other, "so much so that I thought 
 he must be an American !" 
 
 Some other people besides Yankees are given to 
 asking questions. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 VERONA MANTUA — VENICE. 
 
 Posting it — Breschia — Roman Antiquities — Lake di Garda — The 
 Peasantry — Verona — Lords and Tombs — Frescoes — The Amphi- 
 theatre — Mantua — The Scenes of the Georgics — Ducal Palace — 
 No Virgil — An Italian Sunset — The Queen of the Adriatic — Cause- 
 way — Custom-house — Gondolas — Canals — San Marc — Piazza 
 — Church — Piazzetta — Sleep and Dreams. 
 
 We left Milan early in the morning, and came by 
 the way of Breschia and Mantua, Verona and Padua. 
 Although I had run away from the Russian General 
 and his daughter, my party now consisted of four, and 
 we posted it through the country. At Breschia we 
 had our first sight of Roman Antiquities, and in mute 
 wonder we stood and gazed upon the disinterred tem- 
 ple, whose columns projecting from the ground had 
 long suggested the probability that they belong to a 
 buried structure. The perseverance of an old anti- 
 quary finally succeeded in bringing the temple to the 
 light of day, with numerous relics, which he has ar- 
 ranged in the Museum now preserved on the spot. 
 The tombstones and epitaphs, the altars and capitals, 
 were all the more interesting to us, as we were but 
 just entering upon these wonders of the dead past. 
 
 That night we lodged in a village called Denzen- 
 zano, on the shores of Lake di Garda, along which 
 we rode at sunrise the next morning, and looked 
 
VEltONA MANTUA VENICE. 47 
 
 Laziness. Borneo and Juliet. 
 
 across upon the blue mountains and the promontory 
 of Sermione, where we can see the ruins of the villa 
 of Catullus. The whole country is a garden of "beauty 
 through which we are passing; and in the soft balmy 
 air of the morning we are rejoicing, as we talk of the 
 men who were here two thousand years ago, and were 
 a nobler race by far than those we see at their daily 
 toil. The teamsters we meet are lying on a board 
 swung underneath their carts, and there, the image of 
 laziness, they ride, leaving their horses to guide them- 
 selves. Frequently we pass small villages, not worth 
 the name ; lazy men and dirty women hanging around 
 the doors of the cafe, and now and then a company 
 of soldiers seem to be striving to kill time hanging 
 heavily on their hands. 
 
 Yerona has been a city of strength and renown in 
 its day, and now is not without its interest. The 
 tombs of the old Lords of Yerona are a curious memo- 
 rial of ancient sculpture and ancient crimes. In the 
 neighborhood of this city, Marius fought his famous 
 battle against the Cimbri, and here Theodoric the 
 Great won his great victory over Odoacer. Here too 
 we searched among the traditionary ruins till we 
 found the tomb of Romeo and Juliet, and summoned 
 all needful credulity to believe the story of the books. 
 But there was no doubt about the Amphitheatre, the 
 most perfectly preserved of all the remains of Ro- 
 man magnificence. In the form of an ellipse, and 
 with forty successive tiers of granite seats, for twenty- 
 five thousand persons, it presents an imposing sight 
 even now that the whole race who once tluonged it 
 
48 EUBOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Martyr scenes. Paul Veronese. 
 
 are buried. A cluster of miserable houses is built 
 against the foundations, which we passed through, 
 beneath massive mason-work of immense blocks of 
 stone, forming the dungeons in which the wild beasts 
 were confined before they were let loose upon each 
 other or the human victims ; and if we had not known 
 the purposes for which they were constructed, we 
 might believe that we were in some infernal region 
 from which escape is impossible. The ground in the 
 centre of this arena has doubtless drunk the blood of 
 martyrs. Now, a company of strolling players are re- 
 hearsing a farce for the evening entertainment of a few 
 hundred people who will hover in one corner of this 
 mighty hall, open always to the heavens, and in this 
 delicious climate all the more pleasant because thus 
 exposed. 
 
 The churches of Verona are distinguished even in 
 Italy for their magnificence, and in St. George I saw 
 a picture by Paul Veronese, which is kept vailed, but 
 the sacristan, for a trifle, drew the curtain and dis- 
 played a painting of extraordinary power. The fres- 
 coes on some of the outer walls of the old buildings 
 show that here has been the luxury of art in departed 
 days, and one can not but mourn as he sees them 
 fading, the last remnants of expiring beauty, and when 
 gone, impossible to be restored. With the same sort 
 of feelings I looked upon the old carvings on the an- 
 cient gateways, which were here when the men of 
 Rome were marching in arms to subdue the provinces 
 of the North, and which seem to be good for as many 
 vears to come. 
 
VERONA — MANTUA — VENICE. 49 
 
 Pilgrimage to Mantua. 
 
 There is a railway from Vienna to Mantua, and we 
 could not resist the temptation to pay a visit, a pil- 
 grimage indeed, to the birth-place of Virgil — his own 
 Mantua. It was a charming excursion, over a plain 
 that was loaded with rich abundance, and watered by 
 artificial canals. We could not but think of the 
 Greorgics and Bucolics having been composed with 
 these very fields in view, and here the various experi- 
 ments in agriculture so poetically commended had 
 been tested. The old town has all the signs of de- 
 cay. The cathedral has statues of prophets and sibyls, 
 Christian and pagan, before the same altar. The Du- 
 cal Palace, once the seat of almost fabulous grandetu-, 
 is now a deserted mansion, into which a surly porter 
 admitted us, and reluctantly led us through as many 
 of the five hundred rooms as we had time and patience 
 to visit. Yet on every wall and in every hall were 
 the works of masters ; frescoes of wondrous strength 
 and effect. One of these was the Parnassus, in which 
 the poets were painted as the Muses, and Apollo and 
 Venus, and all the gods and goddesses appear. An- 
 other hall was embellished with scenes from the siege 
 of Troy, the iEneid of Virgil done on the wall, as in 
 Carthage when the hero of the iEneid arrived. I 
 inquired at all the book-stores for a copy of Virgil 
 printed in the city that boasts his birth, but my in- 
 quiries were all in vain. I believe that an attempt has 
 been made to get up a Mantuan edition, and if it were 
 published it would be a literary curiosity. It is a half 
 hour's ride by carriage from the city to the railway 
 station. The sun was declining as we rode : and we 
 Vol. II— C 
 
50 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Italian sunset. Venice in view. 
 
 had an Italian sunset of which we have read so much ; 
 and now I am ready from actual observation to speak 
 of it as compared with sunsets at home. The whole 
 western firmament was an ocean of .gold. Some clouds 
 of blue in the upper sky, with silver edging, lay on 
 this yellow ground, and there was such softness and 
 deliciousness in the atmosphere, that we gazed with 
 rapture. We turned and looked eastward. The sky 
 was tinged with pink. In the midst of the scene was 
 the dome of St. Andrews, the tower of della Gabia, 
 and the forked battlements of Mantua standing out 
 with the last rays of the sun lingering on them. 
 And the associations were so rich, pastoral, poetic, 
 historical, that we stood, four of us, upright in the 
 carriage and rejoiced together in the gorgeous spectacle. 
 
 The next day we left Verona by rail, and passing 
 through Padua without stopping, we swept on over a 
 level and uninteresting country, till the domes of 
 Venice, the Queen of the Adriatic, rose, as from the 
 midst of the sea. Until the long causeway was made 
 for the railroad, the approach was only by boats, but 
 now we were borne along for two miles and a 
 half over a narrow but noble pathway of massive 
 masonry, and reached the terminus of the rail. All 
 former overhaulings of luggage were forgotten in 
 comparison with that to which we were subjected 
 here. My note-book puzzled the official for a long- 
 time, but he finally gave it back to me, and we were 
 set at liberty. 
 
 No cabs and carriages stood about the doors. A 
 radc mob of watermen, however, as clamorous as 
 
VERONA MANTUA VENICE. 51 
 
 The gondola. Watery ways. 
 
 Albany cabmen (none worse infest this earth), seized 
 us and our luggage very much as the lions did the 
 enemies of Daniel, " or ever they came to the bot- 
 tom of the den." 
 
 The gondolas of Venice ! Fifty of them were in 
 waiting, from the omnibus, actually so marked upon 
 its side, to the tiniest craft. They were not the gay 
 pleasuring barges that I had fancied : all of them 
 black, with a close canopy over the centre. We step 
 into this and find luxurious cushions on which to re- 
 cline, and you may draw the curtains close or have 
 them open, as you like. Instantly we were gliding 
 along so silently that we seemed to be moved by an 
 unseen hand, the gondolier standing on the stern of 
 the boat, and never speaking but to give warning as 
 he is about to sweep around the corner of the watery 
 street, to prevent collision. In some of these narrow 
 ways we were crowded as closely as the carriages in 
 Broadway, and again we glide along for some minutes 
 in a cross way, with not a single boat in company. 
 Above us, in the windows of the houses that rise from 
 the borders of the canals, women are sitting amusing 
 themselves or at work; and it was hard to believe 
 that we are in the midst of a great city, that is swim- 
 ming here, and unlike any thing else in the way of a 
 city that was ever seen before. Soon we entered a 
 broader canal — magnificent palaces, with strange and 
 beautiful architecture, and we knew that we were on 
 the Grand Canal. Winding its way around the city, 
 it brought us out at last on the Lagoon, and to the 
 marble steps of the ancient palace of the Giustinani, 
 
52 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 now the Hotel Eueopa. We do not leave the gon- 
 dola till we learn that we can have rooms to look out 
 on the waters, the islands lying off in front, and 
 crowned with palaces and the domes of temples. 
 
 And now we are in Venice. "We hasten from the 
 hotel to St. Mark's Place, the grandest square in the 
 world. I can scarcely say to what this effect is due, 
 but one feels in the midst of it as if in a blaze of 
 architectural glory. As we entered from the eastern 
 side, the church of St. Mark was full in front of us 
 on the west, with its several domes, impressing us at 
 once with its Oriental type : the long range of palatial 
 residences for the former chiefs of the State on the 
 right hand, and brilliant shops and stately buildings 
 on the left; the Campanile tower rising from the 
 pavement of monumental marble, surmounting the 
 city, and looking away off to sea. At right angles to 
 the square is the Piazzetta, a place of less extent, 
 with the Doge's palace on one side, and open to the 
 sea, on the borders of which are the famous columns 
 bearing the winged lion, and the statue of St. Theo- 
 dore, which have been earned off to Paris and since 
 restored to their places. It was now in the edge of 
 evening, and throngs of gay people were enjoying the 
 sea breeze as it came in upon the open square. In- 
 numerable lamps gave even more brilliancy and beauty 
 than the daylight to the scene. All the recollections 
 of Venice, the city of the Doges, came thronging upon 
 me as I stood before the palace, and thought of the 
 tales that those walls could tell, had they but tongues. 
 To-morrow we will enter and explore it — for its mys- 
 
VERONA MANTUA VENICE. 53 
 
 A dream. And all a dream. 
 
 teries are now open to the world. But we have seen 
 enough for one day, and are actually wearied with the 
 excitement of seeing but the vestibule of Venice. 
 
 That night I dreamed. I was sad when I went to 
 my couch — sad in the midst of this glorious but de- 
 parting city, for its grandeur seemed to be in decay. 
 I was sad, and thoughts of home were painfully press- 
 ing on me when I sunk to sleep. One of my boys 
 was sick. I was at home by his side. He was 
 ghastly, thin, and dying. I kissed him, and my 
 tears dropped on his cheeks. No word was said. 
 My heart was breaking. I kissed him again as he 
 lay on his pillow, and awoke — my pillow was wet 
 with tears. It was only a dream. Sorrows are 
 dreams as joys are. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 Stones of Venice — Aristocracy — Doge's Palace — Giant's Stairway — 
 Lion's Mouth — Council of Ten — Council Chamber — Titian's 
 "Faith" — His "Assumption" — Dungeons — State Prison — Bridge 
 of Sighs — Gondola — Manfrini Palace — Foscari — Byron — Paint- 
 ings — Eialto — San Marc — Churches — A Life Picture. 
 
 " Where on the whole earth are stones so eloquent 
 as in Venice ? Where is the creation of human hand 
 that can "be compared with this wondrous marble 
 flower, floating upon the surface of the sea ?" 
 
 For more than a thousand years, a proud and 
 wealthy aristocracy reigned in this strange city, lav- 
 ishing their gold in rearing these costly residences, 
 embellished with a profusion of ornament to be seen 
 in no other city of the world. It was built upon 
 these islands to render it safer from the assaults of 
 enemies, and it is said that when the last of the 
 Doges, weeping like a woman, sent the keys to Na- 
 poleon, that haughty conqueror was on the point of 
 abandoning the siege in despair. 
 
 Novel and strange emotions seized me on stepping 
 into the Doge's palace. It was not a prison, for the 
 gorgeous style of ornament dispels all thought of 
 gloom, but it was so inwrought in all my memories 
 with crime, and mysterious trials, and sudden, tcrri- 
 
VENICE. 55 
 
 Council of Ten. ^_ Lion's Mouth. 
 
 ble, undiscovered judgments, that a slight tremor 
 passed over me as I went up the Scala del Giganti, 
 beautiful with the whitest marble, and then to the 
 Golden Stairway, where the lion's mouth once open- 
 ed to receive the accusations of unknown enemies, 
 the precursors of swift and remediless ruin. The 
 audience chamber is adorned with some of the best 
 productions of Paul Veronese — a spacious apartment, 
 where the Doges received in state the princes or their 
 representatives from foreign lands. In the Senate 
 Chamber the very same furniture, even the candle- 
 sticks and the tribune for the speakers, stand as they 
 did in the days of the republic. The "Council of 
 Ten" sat in a small apartment richly adorned with 
 paintings. It was once hung in black, as well it 
 might be ; a room where the fate of thousands was 
 sealed in darkness and death. The very chairs on 
 which these inquisitors sat, when hearing the accusa- 
 tions and pronouncing sentence, we sat upon, and 
 were thankful that we were not born to be judges in 
 Venice. Kather would I be a victim than a judge in 
 such a court as once held its mysterious sessions 
 here. Out of it we step into a smaller apartment 
 where sat the Council of Three. A secret passage 
 communicated with the " Lion's Mouth" outside, and 
 through it they drew up the papers that were dropped 
 in, containing those charges the authorship of which 
 no man knew, and which often issued in the arrest 
 and sudden destruction of the accused. We were told 
 that the Council Chamber is the largest room in the 
 world not supported by pillars. I am confident that 
 
56 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Titian's best I nm goons. 
 
 it is not so, but it is 154 feet long and 74 feet wide ; 
 the whole of this width is occupied with a single 
 painting "by Tintoretto, with which I failed to be im- 
 pressed. There was too much of it for its merit. In 
 the palace (I have not the chamber noted in which I 
 saw it) was Titian's "Faith," a picture never to be 
 forgotten : her expression, as she clings to the cross, is 
 indescribable, as it has thus far proved inimitable. 
 Afterward, in the Belle Arte, I saw his "Assump- 
 tion of the Virgin," by many placed at the head of all 
 works of the pencil now extant. If it were not pre- 
 sumption, I should say that it wants lightness, ease 
 of motion — that we feel the difficulty of the ascent 
 as the Virgin in her divine beauty and purity is rising 
 on the clouds. But there is more to admire in the 
 picture than in any other in Venice. It has been 
 copied so often and engraved, that the world is famil- 
 iar with it. 
 
 But I wanted to go down into the dungeons of this 
 palace, and the keeper lighted several tallow candles, 
 and led the way through long passages till we came, 
 below the level of the canals, to dark vaults, which 
 had been lined with boards to make them less damp ; 
 and there were boards for the prisoner to sleep on, 
 suggestive at first view of mercy, but probably in- 
 tended to prolong the life and sufferings of the cap- 
 tive. The rings and hooks in the walls of some of 
 these dungeons were mute witnesses of torture ; and 
 the old custodian showed us where the wretched vic- 
 tims were strangled with a cord. 
 
 On the opposite side of the canal is the State Pris- 
 
VENICE. 57 
 
 Bridge of Sighs. Silent city. 
 
 on, connected with the palace by a covered stone 
 bridge : as we approach it in a gondola, it looks like 
 a great sarcophagus. It is the "Bridge of Sighs," 
 so called, as the spot where the prisoners are some- 
 times allowed to take the air, and breathe their long- 
 ings after liberty. They are brought over it also to 
 their trial in the palace ; and the keeper said, " They 
 are not very merry when they come out for such a 
 purpose, and they are less merry when they go back 
 again. " 
 
 Tired as we were with walking for some hours 
 through this palace, it was refreshing to throw one's 
 self into a gondola, to enjoy the poetry of motion on 
 water, and the dreamy pleasure of threading these 
 liquid ways. Every house in Venice can be reached 
 both by water and by land, as the canal touches each 
 row on one side and the street on the other. But 
 the boats are the coaches of Venice. Not a footstep 
 of a horse, not the sound of a carriage wheel is heard. 
 It is so still that sometimes it is painful. You wish 
 to hear the roll and roar of business. The country is 
 the place for quiet ; and you feel disturbed by the 
 peace of the town. 
 
 "Where will you go?" the gondolier inquired. 
 "Any where; and tell us what we are seeing. Do 
 you know the Manfrini Palace ? "Well, put us there." 
 
 Instantly he shot away from the Mole, wheeled — 
 no, turned into the Grand Canal, and we sank down 
 upon the cushions, with the curtains drawn back that 
 we might see all that was to be seen. 
 
 The first gondola we met had a priest and a coffin 
 c* 
 
58 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Lady making calls. Visit a palace. 
 
 in it : the black drapery of the boat was fitting to the 
 service it was performing. Then we met another, in 
 which a lady, elegantly dressed, and very "beautiful, 
 was sitting alone ; going, doubtless, to call upon her 
 friends, as she would in her carriage, if in Paris. 
 Parties of pleasure were out in larger gondolas, 
 laughing and singing. A merry, light-hearted peo- 
 ple the Italians are, when they have enough to eat. 
 
 " This is the Foscari palace : this is the Hotel cle 
 la Ville. Here is the Pisani palace: will you stop 
 and look at it V We had heard of its paintings, and 
 were willing to see them. The gondolier brought us 
 close to the steps that lead down into the water, and 
 stepping off, he pulled the bell. A woman answered 
 it, and cheerfully gave us admission. The marble 
 floors and frescoed walls and gilded ceilings spoke 
 of the splendor of the house; but it seemed to be 
 splendor on the wane. Up-stairs she led us into the 
 grand saloon, and uncovered a picture of the Family 
 of Darius — a splendid painting. Ornaments of costly 
 workmanship were standing there, and old furniture 
 that might have been handed down from successive 
 generations. We left the palace, and at the door en- 
 countered the family, just returning from travel. Our 
 call was considered no intrusion, but rather they 
 were pleased that strangers should find any thing in 
 their ancestral halls to lead them there. But few of 
 these palaces are now in possession of the families 
 that reared them. New men have bought them : 
 foreign adventurers, men or women of pleasure, who 
 have cast off the restraints of virtue and of home, 
 
VENICE. 59 
 
 Lord Byron. Manfrini pictures. 
 
 and are leading lives of unbridled libertinism abroad. 
 These are some of the present owners of the mansions 
 of the ancient aristocracy of this haughty city. 
 
 "Lord Byron lived in that palace," said the gon- 
 dolier; but that was all he knew of Byron, who in 
 Venice abandoned himself to the wildest licentious- 
 ness, and expressed his desire to be buried here, and 
 not among his relatives at home. 
 
 The Manfrini palace is now a museum of art, and 
 one of the rarest and richest of private collections in 
 the world. Byron goes into raptures over one or two 
 of the pictures. Some of them I admired exceedingly. 
 The gem of the palace is a " Descent from the Cross," 
 by Raphael — a very small picture, not more than two 
 feet high, yet all radiant with the feeling of that scene. 
 " St. Cecilia," by Carlo Dolce, is very fine ; he has be- 
 come a great favorite with me. Without the strength 
 of Rubens or Titian, he has more poetry and softness, 
 with a rich coloring that is not surpassed by any of 
 the painters. There are several Titians here of great 
 fame and value. His Ariosto and Queen of Cyprus, 
 far from being among his greatest works, like his As- 
 sumption or Venus at Florence, would be reckoned 
 among the greatest, if those had not been. A Pasto- 
 rello, by Murillo, and a female portrait, the name of 
 which I have forgotten, but not the expression, are 
 pictures that haunt one when memory has an idle 
 hour. An Ecce Homo, by Caracci, is one of those 
 painfully pleasing things that draw so deeply on the 
 soul : you do not admire the painting in the midst of 
 your sympathy for the sufferer. The same remark 
 
GO EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Poor of the city. 
 
 applies to Tintoretto's "Redemption of a Slave-," 
 which we saw in the Belle Arte. Yet how many of 
 the noblest of human works are the representations of 
 human suffering. We can look on tragedy, on the 
 stage or the canvas, admiring the genius of the artist, 
 while we know that the suffering is only in ourselves. 
 There is less of this in Venice than elsewhere. Yen- 
 ice worships "beauty. Her painters revel in the pro- 
 duction of fair forms and faces, that seem to have 
 risen, like Venus, from the sea, as a mother ever 
 winding her arms tenderly about her favorite child. 
 
 The Rialto — a glorious old bridge over the Grand 
 Canal, where the men of business congregate — the 
 great Exchange of Venice — we passed under as we 
 were returning from our visit to the Manfrini pic- 
 tures. Landing here, we penetrated into some of the 
 deepest recesses of the city, where the poorest of the 
 people are housed. Wc had often seen more wretch- 
 edness in London and Edinburgh than we found in 
 the vilest quarter of this city. This was the more 
 surprising, as the resources of life must be fewer in 
 a town cut off, as this is, from easy intercourse with 
 the country, on which it must depend for most of the 
 necessaries of life. "Free and easy" every body 
 seemed to be. The police were rarely seen, yet or- 
 der reigned in every street ; perhaps a traditional rev- 
 erence for authority hangs around the mind, now 
 that the Austrian rule has succeeded that of the 
 Doges. 
 
 And what of the churches of Venice ? The interior 
 of St. Mark appeared lined with gold, as I entered 
 
VENICE. 61 
 
 Churches of Vc nice. Plague in marble. 
 
 and walked over its uneven marble floor. The ground 
 on which it stands has settled, and the great slabs 
 have broken, and now lie in waves. It is not the 
 solemn grandeur of Cologne, nor the unreal beauty of 
 Milan, but a stately and majestic style that speaks at 
 once of Byzantium and the Orient. The troops were 
 marching in to attend mass when we entered, and 
 their flashing uniforms, their arms and trappings of 
 war, made a strange contrast with the emblems of 
 religion, peace and good-will among, men. Before 
 the high altar these thousands stood in solid ranks, 
 kneeling and bowing and crossing themselves as the 
 service proceeded, and the rich tones of the organ 
 swept over them, now as the storm and now gently 
 as the zephyrs. 
 
 What vast treasures of rare attraction to the de- 
 vout or curious are gathered in this temple, it would 
 take a book to describe. Painting and statuary, 
 strange allegories wrought in marble, and statues in 
 bronze and in silver, monuments of porphyry and 
 gems of art from eastern lands, Syria, and Greece, 
 Pagan and Christian, are alike welcome to adorn the 
 house where papal worship is celebrated. 
 
 In St. Maria del Salute, a church erected after the 
 deliverance of the city from a pestilence, is a remark- 
 able piece of sculpture, over the high altar, repre- 
 senting Venice praying to the Virgin, and the plague 
 flying away in answer to the prayer. Titian and 
 Tintoretto have adorned this temple with some of their 
 noblest works. Eight columns sustain a dome of 
 uncommon splendor. In San Maria Frari is Titian's 
 
62 EUKOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Titian's monument. Life Bcene. 
 
 monument — perhaps the most imposing work of the 
 sculptor in Venice — erected in 1852 by Ferdinand L, 
 who has thus identified his name with the prince of 
 painters. Titian's "Assumption of the Virgin" is 
 here copied in marble, and very successfully, while 
 the allegory — in which four female figures stand for 
 the several Fine Arts paying homage to the Old Mas- 
 ter — is exceedingly well done. The cultivated eye 
 of art may find fault with this vast elaboration, but 
 its effect is powerful upon the multitude. I am one 
 of them. 
 
 As we were turning to leave the church, we passed 
 a fair girl kneeling before a picture, with upturned 
 eyes and a countenance rapt in devotion. It was 
 as the face of a sad angel— a pure spirit in sorrow, 
 for some real or fancied sin. I stood still till she had 
 said her prayers, when she rose and walked to the 
 door, where an old man, poor and tottering, was 
 waiting her coming. A smile strove to show itself 
 on his wrinkled face, as she approached him and 
 took his hand, and they walked away together, a 
 picture of youth and old age, of blooming beauty 
 and decaying nature ; and the pleasure with which 
 they received the little charity that was dropped into 
 the hand of the maiden, showed that they were not 
 unused to suffering, softened doubtless by mutual 
 love. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FROM VENICE TO FLORENCE. 
 
 Leave Venice— Dissolving Views— Padua : its Churches and Univers- 
 ity — Arrest on the Frontier — Ferrara — Ariosto and Tasso — Bo- 
 logna— Guards— Robbers— Tuscany— Welcome to Florence — 
 Brothers of Mercy. 
 
 It was as hard to get out of Venice as to get into 
 it. After we had taken our tickets at the railway 
 station, our baggage was overhauled, then our per- 
 sons were searched, and lastly, our passports were ex- 
 amined and we were allowed to depart. 
 
 From the long causeway we looked hack on the 
 city and grieved that we should see it no more. And 
 when we were off on the mainland, a sort of fascina- 
 tion held us, and we were looking behind as long 
 as we could, to see Venice slowly sinking into the 
 seal 
 
 A lovely evening — the sun was not gone — herds of 
 white cows were cropping the meadows, and girls in 
 light clothing were tending them. As we swept by, 
 the girls joined hands and danced gayly on the grass. 
 The scene was pastoral and beautiful, and many such 
 we saw before we reached the Hotel Etoile cPOr, at 
 Padua. This house I can commend; for when I point- 
 ed to a reflection in the hand-book on its cleanliness, 
 the landlord insisted on my following him through all 
 
64 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Galileo. Petrarch. 
 
 its rooms, even into the kitchen and cellar, and I am 
 bonnd to say that a neater hotel I never saw. 
 
 Here is the university in which Galileo was a pro- 
 fessor eighteen years. They show one of his vertebra?, 
 a genuine relic, no doubt, for the Italians are given to 
 stealing bones, as well as inventing them. Here the 
 great astronomer performed his first experiments with 
 the telescope and the pendulum. The tower of the 
 university, on which the glorious old man was wont to 
 study the stars, was built under his directions, and 
 bears his name. Padua was famous for its men and 
 women of letters, one of its old academies of science 
 admitting ladies to membership. "In 1847 Count 
 Leopold Ferri died in this city, leaving a library en- 
 tirely composed of works written by women, in various 
 languages, and this library amounted to nearly 35,000 
 volumes." 
 
 The churches are its chief ornaments, and some of 
 them are enriched with rare and elegant works of art. 
 The bust of Petrarch, once the canon of the cathedral, 
 stands near one of the side doors, and near it the 
 tomb of Speroni, the master of Tasso. The paintings 
 of the cathedral are worthy of attention, particularly 
 an old portrait of Petrarch, valuable as the best me- 
 morial of the poet that remains. The architecture 
 has nothing to commend it. The church of St. An- 
 thony is the glory of the place. I entered it at sun- 
 rise, and hundreds of worshippers were there before 
 me, bowing at the various shrines. By a strange 
 fancy, the interior of this temple has been guarded by 
 dogs, who are so faithful to their trust, that finding 
 
FROM VENICE TO FLORENCE. 65 
 
 Faithful dogs. Frescoes of Giotto. 
 
 one night a man who had remained at his devotions 
 until the doors were shut, they stood one on each side 
 of him, and never let him stir till the doors were 
 opened in the morning. The church is celebrated for 
 its splendid monuments of illustrious statesmen, poets, 
 and philosophers, as well as for the numerous paint- 
 ings that adorn its walls, and the great chandelier, 
 which Vallery says is the most beautiful in the world. 
 Some of Titian's "best works may be seen in the 
 jScuola, near the church ; two of them very curious, as 
 illustrative of the state of morals at the time they 
 were painted, and perhaps they are fair portraits of 
 the present times. 
 
 In the rear of a garden in a retired part of the city, 
 is the chapel of the Annunziata nelV Arena, where 
 the remarkable frescoes of Giotto are to be seen. The 
 walls are covered with curious allegorical pieces of 
 the Virtues and Yices, some of them charmingly de- 
 picted, some very eloquent, and others almost ludi- 
 crous. They are studied as among the best produc- 
 tions of this illustrious painter. His "Last Judg- 
 ment" in the same chapel, is a work of great power, 
 but now much faded, as indeed all these frescoes are. 
 
 Several exquisite tombs are in the Church of the 
 Hermits ; one of a German baroness, by Canova, so 
 sweet that one could almost wish to take her place. 
 In the Palace del Capitanio is the tomb of Livy ; and 
 the Paduans claim that his veritable bones are here. 
 But if this is not credible, there is no disputing the 
 fact that in this building and in the same saloon 
 wherein Livy's monument stands, we are shown the 
 
66 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Trojan horse. Petrarch's Lamm. 
 
 Debtor's bench, a stool of "black granite, on which the 
 debtor was permitted to sit, and then to go free if he 
 could swear three times that he was not worth a dol- 
 lar. Similar operations in bankruptcy were common 
 in many cities of Italy, and were much better than 
 imprisonments, for such a sense of disgrace attended 
 their use that they would not be resorted to unless 
 under the most pressing circumstances. 
 
 We had not expected to see the Trojan horse in 
 Italy; but in the Ccqioclilista house is a wooden 
 horse of such immense proportions, that it might 
 easily be taken for the remains of that celebrated ani- 
 mal, and one writer has rather favored the idea by 
 intimating, that as the Trojan Antenor was the found- 
 er of the city of Padua, he may have brought it 
 here. 
 
 Near to Padua, in the village of Arqua, is the grave 
 and the home of Petrarch the poet and divine. Here 
 the learned and sentimental have made pilgrimages, 
 and inscribed their names. The walls of his house 
 are covered with paintings, the scenes of which arc 
 taken from the story of his love, and one of them 
 represents his coming in sight of Laura while she is 
 bat! ling. She is splashing the water about to cover 
 herself; but Petrarch, undaunted, approaches in his 
 clerical robes. Under a tomb of red marble lie the 
 ashes of this great but eccentric man : the friend and 
 companion of kings, and the "real creator of letters 
 in Europe." 
 
 We posted from Padua to Florence by the way of 
 Ferrara and Bologna. Our ride the first day was 
 
FROM VENICE TO FLORENCE. 67 
 
 Papal States. Arrest on the frontiers. 
 
 much of it along the banks of the Po, sometimes a 
 rapid stream, and kept within its bounds by artificial 
 banks. At Vallice we came to the frontiers of the 
 Austrian dominions ; and having submitted to a final 
 examination of our luggage, we were dismissed to the 
 Papal States, which we were to reach by crossing the 
 river. Our carriage was taken upon a broad flat-boat, 
 curiously urged across by the current. On the way 
 over we studied a wretched daub of a picture on a char- 
 ity box, placed on the boat for the contributions of 
 kindly-disposed travellers. The rude painting repre- 
 sented the souls of the wicked in flames, writhing and 
 tossing, and the hint was thus delicately given that a 
 donation would save the giver from such a fix as that. 
 I saw no one contributing. We were no sooner across 
 than we were stopped at another custom-house, and 
 were given to understand that the payment of a dol- 
 lar would pass us through without the trouble of a 
 search. And it did. Out of this, and in a miserable 
 village, we were "brought up at the door of a little 
 shop that proved to be a police-office, and our pass- 
 ports were demanded. Fortunately mine was all 
 right ; but not so with two of the party. They had 
 been assured again and again that they had every 
 vise they needed ; now, to their mortification and 
 chagrin, they were arrested on the borders of the Pa- 
 pal States for attempting to enter without a passport. 
 In vain they urged their belief that it was all right. 
 In vain they urged that they were in good company. 
 It was of no avail. Ferrara was ten miles off, and 
 without a permit from the police they could not pro- 
 
68 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Permit to proceed. 
 
 Bologna. 
 
 ceed. It was now dark. Antonio the courier must 
 be sent forward to get this permission, and we must 
 remain to await his return. No supper was to be had 
 in such a place ; but over a wretched drinking-shop 
 Ave found two beds in a damp, dismal apartment, 
 which seemed not to have been opened in a month, 
 and here we passed the night. In the morning, An- 
 tonio returned with the necessary document, and we 
 pushed on to Ferrara, once one of the most illustrious 
 for letters of the ancient towns of Italy, and now re- 
 nowned for having been the residence of Ariosto, and 
 still containing the prison of Tasso. Besides these, 
 there is little to interest fhe traveller, and we gave it 
 but a day, and hastened on to Bologna. At the Pen- 
 sion Suisse we were handsomely entertained — I speak 
 of these hotels occasionally, as a first-rate hotel is not 
 to be had every day in Italy — and looked through the 
 gallery, and into the library, and a few of the churches 
 of this interesting city. The morning that we left 
 two men were to be shot, and two to be beheaded, 
 under a sentence recently passed on them for their 
 participation in the outbreaks of 1848. M. Bedini is 
 not here now. Austrian soldiers, however, were pa- 
 trolling the streets, and so fearful is the government 
 of an insurrection that the English newspapers which 
 came to the post-office to-day were not allowed to be 
 distributed, as it was reported that they contained in- 
 telligence of a declaration of war against Russia, and 
 the authorities feared the people would be excited by 
 reading it. 
 
 We were to leave in the morning before daylight 
 
FROM VENICE TO FLORENCE. (59 
 
 Robberies. Sight of Tuscany. 
 
 by the diligence, and were not a little surprised when 
 we set off to find ourselves followed by a carriage with 
 four armed men in it as a guard. They kept near 
 us for three or four hours, and then returned to Bo- 
 logne. This was necessary for the safety of the lives 
 and property of passengers. The diligence had been 
 robbed but a few days previously, and these precau- 
 tions after a few weeks will be given up, when the 
 robberies will be resumed. During the whole of this 
 day's ride, the rude agriculture that still prevails in 
 Italy appeared. The wooden plows were of a primi- 
 tive pattern, and drawn by cows, with a woman to 
 lead them. What a picture for an American farmer 
 to look at ! We crossed a spur of the Appenines at 
 noon, and came into Tuscany. The view of the plains 
 as we were descending by a winding and beautiful 
 road, was that of a garden without bounds. Away in 
 the distance was the river Arno, meanderino- among; 
 groves and through meadows, with cities on its shores. 
 The hills are clothed with chestnut trees, the fruit of 
 which is ground into flour, and makes a common but 
 unwholesome article of food, greatly in use among the 
 peasantry. But even some of the chestnuts would 
 have been acceptable to us, for we had not been 
 allowed to stop for any thing to eat, and had been 
 riding from four o'clock in the morning, and it was 
 now four in the afternoon. We had reached Pistoia 
 to dine. While dinner was preparing, I ran out to 
 see the town. A crowd were gathered about a small 
 building like a carriage-house. I wedged in among 
 them to learn what was going on. They were press- 
 
70 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Corpse exposed. Florence. 
 
 ing in to see the corpse of a woman who was laid out 
 on a table, with her head raised so as to be seen by 
 all. Her face was painted more rosy than life. 
 Heaps of flowers were put around her, and a display 
 of finery made, as if it was a bride adorned for her 
 husband, and not a body mouldering into dust. I 
 turned away in disgust, but the people were still 
 struggling to get in, and were climbing up on every 
 thing they could mount, to get a sight. 
 
 After dinner, our diligence was placed on the plat- 
 form of a rail-car, and we were transported to Flor- 
 ence, through the rich meadow lands we had been 
 looking down upon from the Appenines as we cross- 
 ed. Tuscany has long been the granary of Italy. 
 By the most complete system of irrigation, its plains 
 are made abundantly fruitful. Its hills are crowned 
 with the residences of men of wealth or taste and 
 letters, and surrounded with groves of olives and figs. 
 The vine encircles Italy as with a cincture of beauty. 
 Such it seemed to me at the close of a long and tire- 
 some day, when the dome of the cathedral, the admi- 
 ration of the greatest of architects, appeared in sight, 
 and we approached the city of Florence. 
 
 Not yet had I seen the city ; I had read of it — 
 dreamed of it — heard the poet sing of it — 
 
 " Of all the fairest cities of the earth 
 None is so fair as Florence. Tis a gem 
 Of purest ray ; and what a light broke forth 
 When it emerged from darkness! Search within, 
 Without, all is enchantment ! Tis the past 
 Contending with the present; and in turn 
 Each has the mastery." 
 
FKOM VENICE TO FLORENCE. 71 
 
 Brothers of Mercy. Intolerance. 
 
 The darkness of a rainy night had set in before we 
 got through the custom-house and police and gained 
 our lodgings. But even now we encountered a pro- 
 cession of a very singular character. A number of 
 men, in black gowns covering their heads, faces, and 
 entire figure, so that no one could possibly distinguish 
 a friend or an enemy, were bearing a wounded man 
 on a shutter. I found they were a society called the 
 "Brothers of Mercy," who make it their duty, with 
 the alacrity of firemen, the instant they hear of an 
 accident, to throw over them this disguise, and to rush 
 to the relief of the sufferers. If they find that a labor- 
 ing man has fallen from a building, or been injured in 
 any way so as to require surgical aid, they take him 
 up and convey him to the hospital, or to his own 
 house, and see that all needful assistance is promptly 
 rendered him. I was told that many of the most dis- 
 tinguished citizens, and even the Grand Duke him- 
 self, are members of the order; but their disguise is 
 so perfect that you can not tell to whom the merit of 
 any particular act of charity belongs. Something 
 very beautiful is in this idea. Surely this is not do- 
 ing good to be seen of men ; and if the left hand does 
 know what the right hand is doing, one's neighbors 
 know nothing of it. And what a strange contrast is 
 this society of mercy with the intolerance of this same 
 Tuscany and its Grand Duke, whose laws, even at 
 this day, are rigorously put in force to repress the cir- 
 culation of the Scriptures ! But it was a blessed sight 
 to see those men, in a pouring rain, bearing on their 
 shoulders a suffering fellow-man — a stranger, doubt- 
 
72 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 less, and poor — but now their "brother, whom they 
 were "bound to relieve. 
 
 What a welcome I had at Florence ! I thought to 
 find palaces and pictures and art and artists, the grand 
 creations of the old masters of painting and sculpture, 
 hut I did not think to find a home. For six weary 
 months I had "been wandering away from those I 
 loved — often "sick at heart and sore disquieted" — 
 longing for a resting-place of body and spirit, where I 
 might sit down and be refreshed by the ministries and 
 sympathies of those who would call me friend. I 
 found them here ! It was a strange, a wondrous order- 
 ing of the kind Father who guides our steps in far 
 lands as well as at home, that here I should come 
 with my travelling companions, one of whom was to 
 lie down in Florence, and linger, and die, and be bur- 
 ied ; and here I should find friends who would receive 
 me as a brother in a strange land, and take me to 
 then* home and their hearts. Mr. Kinney, of whom 
 I have spoken as our Charge" d'Affaires at Turin, 
 was now residing in Florence with his family, the cen- 
 tre of a gifted and accomplished circle, into which I 
 was welcomed with a cordiality that made it good for 
 me to be here. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 Tower of Michael Angelo — Fiesole — An Etruscan City — Haunts of 
 great Poets — Monks and Beggars — Amphitheatre — Galileo and 
 Milton — Hailam's Description — The Duomo — Dante's Seat — Bra- ' 
 nelleschi's Genius — Santa Croce, the "Westminster Abbey of Italy 
 — M. Angelo's Spouse — Angel-painting — "Xight and Day" — 
 Frescoes — Street of Statues — Uffizii Palace — Pitti Palace — Society 
 in Florence — The Brownings and others — Mrs. Somerville — Mrs. 
 Troiloppe — Morals of Italy — Manners. 
 
 "Florence the beautiful, the Athens of modern 
 Italy, the mother of genius, who has given birth to a 
 sweater number of eminent men than ail the rest of 
 
 o 
 
 Italy put together, was idly and voluptuously lying 
 in the lap of her green vale of Arno, like a beautiful 
 pearl set in emerald, as if lulled by the murmur of 
 her river, and by the fascination of the smiles of her 
 climate." To these words of Mariotti I could respond 
 with a full heart, when with my friends, who had be- 
 come familiar with every sj^ot of interest, and even- 
 point of peculiar beauty in the city and the vale, I 
 ascended one of the many heights that surround the 
 town, and looked down upon the valley, the river, the 
 city, and the villas, scattered so thickly over the hill- 
 sides that the whole landscape is instinct with life. 
 The Via Cruets led us to the hill on which the Tower 
 of Michael Angelo stands, from which he defended the 
 
76 
 
 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 city when the hired soldiers of the Pope of Rome were 
 chastising the Florentines into submission. A sud- 
 den shower came up while we were in the midst of 
 the dilapidated walls ; but when in a few moments it 
 
 llli 
 
 Tin-: CAMPANILE 
 
FLOBENCE* 77 
 
 Glorious \iew. The finest picture. 
 
 cleared away and the sun burst out again, a rainbow 
 stood over the city — a mighty arch of beauty — and 
 underneath it shone the dome of the Duomo, the 
 largest in the world, the admiration of Michael Angelo 
 and of Dante, both of whom were wont to gaze upon 
 it with rapture. There by its side rises, serene and 
 majestic, the Campanile, two hundred and seventy- 
 five feet high. Giotto was directed by the government 
 to rear a tower to surpass in beauty any thing that 
 Greeks or Romans ever made, and he caused this 
 splendid tower to rise, square at the base, and of the 
 same size all the way to the summit. Near to it we 
 see a lower dome. It covers the Baptistery of San 
 Giovanni, whose famous bronze doors Michael Angelo 
 declared were " worthy of being the gates of Para- 
 dise." Other domes and turrets are gleaming now in 
 the sunlight, and the more brilliant from the recent 
 shower that has fallen on them. 
 
 We are loath to turn away ; but we shall frequently 
 come here, or look down upon the same magnificent 
 picture from these other heights. Surely Florence, 
 which has the finest pictures in the world, has none 
 to compare with herself, as seen from the height on 
 which we now stand. 
 
 A few days afterward we rode out of the city, and 
 by a winding carriage-way from Porta San Gallo 
 ascended another of these hills to the old Etruscan 
 city of Fiesole. Charming villas, in the midst of 
 handsome grounds and gardens, were on each side of 
 us, as we slowly climbed to the old Dominican con- 
 vent. In one of these villas Boccaccio resided : an- 
 
EUKOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Pagan templo. 
 
 other is famous as the rendezvous of the poets of 
 whom Florence has been the prolific mother and 
 friend. Under these olive-trees and cypresses they 
 have walked and meditated, inspired by the scene 
 and the associations. Here is the villa which was 
 long in the possession of the M edici family, and made 
 famous as the seat of their conspiracies and the ear- 
 lier refuge of Catiline, who fled hither from Rome, 
 and buried his treasures. At Pistoia he was slain. 
 Long before Rome was built, this spot was chosen as 
 the seat of power, as it always was of beauty. A 
 crowd of women and children infested us to buy their 
 straw braids, and it was hard to keep them off, as we 
 wished to on account of the dangers of coming in 
 contact with them. A Franciscan monastery and 
 church crown the summit of the hill, once the Acrop- 
 olis, and we were kindly admitted. The monks were 
 engaged in their devotions ; a degenerate-looking set 
 of men they were. If they were painted on canvas, 
 the picture would be regarded as a libel on the order, 
 if not on the human race. The church is perhaps the 
 remains of a Pagan temple ; and an altar said to be 
 of Bacchus, is still shown. In a field on the back of 
 the hill we found the evident ruins of an amphitheatre, 
 the seats and stairs of which have been uncovered, 
 showing plainly where the thousands of men, dead 
 thousands of years ago, have sat to gaze upon the 
 bloody battles of men with wild beasts let loose from 
 the dens which are now revealed, and into which we 
 entered with a light. The plan of the city is easily 
 traced by the Cyclopean walls which still remain, and 
 
FLORENCE. 79 
 
 Milton. Galileo. Hallam. 
 
 will to the end of time. But apart from the feeling 
 of awe which takes possession of the soul in the midst 
 of these ruins, the great charm of the spot is in the 
 prospect it commands, and which has made it the 
 chosen residence of genius and taste. We see the 
 spot where Galileo lived, and where Milton came to 
 hold communion with him, while both held converse 
 with the stars. From these heights the great astron- 
 omer discovered the rings of Saturn, the satellites of 
 Jupiter, and began to count the stars in the Milky 
 Way. Milton has embalmed the spot and the phi- 
 losopher and the scene together, when he says of 
 Satan's shield, 
 
 " Like the moon, Avhose orb, 
 Through optic-glass, the Tuscan artist views, 
 At evening from the top of Eiesole, 
 Or in Val d'Arno, to descry new lands, 
 Rivers or mountains in her spotty globe." 
 
 I can not leave Fiesole without citing the words of 
 Hallam in his "English Literature," the truthfulness 
 of which we verified by reading it, and selecting the 
 objects which, with equal fidelity and beauty, that 
 elegant writer describes : 
 
 "In a villa overhanging the towers of Florence, on 
 the steep slope of that lofty hill crowned by the moth- 
 er city, the ancient Fiesole, in gardens which Tully 
 might have envied, with Ficino, Laudino, and Poli- 
 tian at his side, Lorenzo delighted his hours of leisure 
 with the beautiful visions of Platonic philosophy, for 
 which the summer stillness of an Italian sky appears 
 the most congenial accompaniment. Never could the 
 
80 EUKOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The dome. Churches. 
 
 sympathies of the soul with outward nature be more 
 finely touched ; never could more striking suggestions 
 he presented to the philosopher and the statesman. 
 Florence lay beneath them, not with all the magnifi- 
 cence that the later Medici have given her, but, 
 thanks to the piety of former times, presenting almost 
 as varied an outline to the sky. One man, the won- 
 der of Cosmo's age, Brunelleschi, had crowned the 
 beautiful city with the vast dome of its cathedral, a 
 structure unthought of in Italy before, and rarely 
 since surpassed. It seemed, amidst clustering tow- 
 ers of inferior churches, an emblem of the Catholic 
 hierarchy under its supreme head; like Rome itself, 
 imposing, unchangeable, radiating in equal expansion 
 to every part of the earth, and directing its convergent 
 curves to heaven. Round this were numbered, at 
 unequal heights, the Baptistery, with its ' gates wor- 
 thy of paradise ;' the tall and richly decorated belfry 
 of Giotto ; the church of the Carmine, with the fres- 
 cos of Masaccio ; those of Santa Maria Kovella, beau- 
 tiful as a bride ; of Santa Croce, second only in mag- 
 nificence to the cathedral, and of St. Mark ; the San 
 Spirito, another great monument of the genius of 
 Brunelleschi ; the numerous convents that rose with- 
 in the Avails of Florence, or were scattered immediate- 
 ly about them. From these the eye might turn to 
 the trophies of a republican government that was rap- 
 idly giving way before the citizen prince who now 
 surveyed them; the Palazzo Yecchio, in which the 
 signiory of Florence held their councils, raised by the 
 Guelph aristocracy, the exclusive but not tyrannous 
 
FLOKENCE. 83 
 
 Seat of Dante. ^ The artist's art. 
 
 faction that long swayed the city; or the new and 
 unfinished palace which Brunelleschi had designed 
 for one of the Pitti family, before they fell, as others 
 had already done, in the fruitless struggle against the 
 house of Medici, itself destined to become the abode 
 of the victorious race, and to perpetuate, by retaining 
 its name, the revolutions that had raised them to 
 power. *' 
 
 My friend, Mr. Kinney, was leading me to the 
 Duomo. He suddenly paused, and called my atten- 
 tion to a stone in the flagging, on which was en- 
 graved, that this was the Seat of Dante. Here that 
 poet was wont to come and meditate the solemn walls 
 of the cathedral, and all the religious associations it 
 awakened in his deep soul. The two architects of 
 the building stand here in marble ; the one who laid 
 its foundations is now studying them, and the other, 
 whose genius achieved the dome, is beholding the re- 
 sult of his boldness and skill. Brunelleschi had for 
 many years been studying in vain to find a plan for 
 the support of a dome so vast as this over the four 
 naves of the cathedral ; and when at last the way 
 was revealed to his inventive mind, lest his rivals 
 should say that any body could do it, he advertised 
 for plans, and when all the artists of the day had 
 given it up as impracticable, he undertook the task. 
 Jealousy of him then procured the appointment of an 
 assistant ; and lest he should share the glory about 
 to be achieved, Brunelleschi quit the work, pretend- 
 ing to be sick, till his rival was compelled to admit 
 he could not carry it on. Then the great artist re- 
 
84 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Michael Angelo's tomb. 
 
 sumed his labors, and the glorious dome rose, in its 
 beautiful proportions, the crown of the fairest city in 
 Italy. 
 
 We entered it and admired the many-colored mar- 
 bles of its pavement and walls, the monuments that 
 make the temple and the dead illustrious ; and find- 
 ing a convenient place, we sat down and received the 
 solemn and sublime impressions which this magnifi- 
 cent creation must make on every sensitive mind. 
 One of the greatest of Michael Angelo's sculptures, 
 the Entombment of Christ, one that he never finished, 
 is here behind the altar. Such was his half-developed 
 power, that the hand of the master is visible in every 
 muscle and limb. He did not live to complete it, de- 
 signed as it was for his own tomb. 
 
 But we must go over to the Santa Croce. The 
 front of it is yet to be finished. It is now the West- 
 minster Abbey of Italy, for here are the monuments 
 of the greatest men which this country has produced. 
 Some of them are commemorated by tombs worthy 
 of their own genius and fame. Michael Angelo is 
 mourned by a melancholy group of sisters — painting, 
 sculpture, and architecture — and Dante is celebrated 
 by a statue of his country pointing to his image. Here 
 are the tombs of Galileo and Alfieri, and others, the 
 names of whom are suggestive of genius and glory. I 
 stood in silent admiration, in the north transept, over 
 a newly-made tomb of a Polish lady — her efiigy in 
 marble, lying in the loveliness of a sweet sleep, 
 
 "The spouse of Michael Angelo," as he himself 
 called the beautiful Santa Maria Novella, is one of 
 
FLORENCE. S7 
 
 Picture of t he Virgin. Day and .Night. 
 
 the jewels of Florence. Its sculptures and paintings, 
 and the costliness of its ornaments, make it worthy of 
 the distinction. The celebrated picture of the Virgin, 
 which was carried in state by a great procession of 
 citizens from the studio of the artist to the church, is 
 the most admired of the paintings. But it is not 
 likely that my readers will follow me with any inter- 
 est from church to church, 4 to study these works of 
 art, to admire the altars adorned with gold and pre- 
 cious stones, the value of which would seem incredi- 
 ble if reduced to pounds and shillings. 
 
 In one of them was a little chapel, the ceiling and 
 lamps of which were of gold, the beautiful pillars of 
 variegated marble, and the floor of mosaic work, most 
 costly. The head of the Virgin, which is adored 
 within it, is said to have been painted by angel hands 
 while the artist was asleep! The walls of Sa?i Lo- 
 renzo are of marble, most curiously and beautifully 
 inlaid with all manner of precious stones and mother- 
 of-pearl; and the temple itself is now the mausoleum 
 of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. Near it is the 
 chapel in which the statue of Lorenzo sits, one of the 
 most impressive works of art ever produced by the 
 hand of man. We are now in 
 
 " that chamber of the dead, 
 
 Where the gigantic shapes of Night and Day, 
 Turned into stone, rest everlastingly/' 
 
 the great allegorical pieces of Michael Angelo, which 
 have been repeated in ^marble and on the canvas, but 
 these are the breathing marbles as they came from 
 their author's hand. I sat down in the midst of these 
 
88 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The cloisters. Street of statues. 
 
 creations, and felt that here is the monument to Michael 
 Angelo ; and the splendid tomb in Santa Croce may 
 he forgotten when these will live. Day after day, with 
 my friends or alone, I wandered through the cloisters 
 of these churches, to see the expiring frescoes and the 
 numerous tombs ; to read strange and yet touching 
 records of grief, written hundreds of years ago, telling 
 me how in all time the heart when it speaks of the 
 departed is true to itself, and loves to imprint its sor- 
 rows in marble. Some of these frescoes are among the 
 most interesting remains of the old masters, and art- 
 ists were sitting before them and catching their de- 
 parting colors, with some faint hope of transmitting 
 them to posterity. Where are the successors of 
 Giotto and Leonardo da Vinci? Well, the fathers 
 are not forgotten if they left no descendants to wear 
 their names. Here in Florence are streets of statues ; 
 great men in marble, and the tombs of great men, 
 standing out in the broad eye of heaven, as if no other 
 temple was fit to hold them, and no dome but the blue 
 vault should cover them. 
 
 I was startled when I came in siffht of the long row 
 in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, where the ancient 
 government held its seat of power. There stands the 
 David ot Michael Angelo, a gigantic youth, but so 
 lithe and graceful, his limbs so wondrously formed as 
 to make you feel that they are about to move. Even 
 more exciting, because of the energy of action revealed, 
 is the "Rape of the Sabines," by John of Bologna. 
 There also is the " Perseus," by Benvenuto Cellini, 
 in bronze, and executed by the artist in the frenzy of 
 
FLORENCE. 89 
 
 Palace of art. Portraits of paiutcrs. 
 
 genius, at the hazard of his life. Enter the Ufnzii 
 Palace through the lines of statues, that leads one to 
 ask if all these were men of Florence. Even so, and 
 yet they are not all here ; one street is famous as the 
 birth-place of fifty great men ! But let us leave them 
 and go in. Here you walk for hours through success- 
 ive chambers of statuary and painting ; the wild boar, 
 an antique, stands in the entrance, a prodigious exhibi- 
 tion of artistic power ; within, we see the busts of the 
 old emperors, Cupid and Psyche, the celebrated Bac- 
 chus of Michael Angelo, and Bandinelli's copy of the 
 Laocoon in the Vatican, which the artist boasted was 
 better than the original, when Michael Angelo very 
 shrewdly and truthfully said, that "he who follows 
 in another's steps can not very well get before him." 
 We will not be detained by the curious collection of 
 bronzes, but pass into the hall of Niobe, where the 
 stricken mother shields her daughter, a powerful dis- 
 play of grief and love. The bust of Brutus, unfinish- 
 ed, is greatly admired. I lingered longer in the cham- 
 ber where the portraits of all the great painters are 
 suspended, striving to detect in their expression what 
 I had seen in their several works. And now we may 
 study the history of the art of painting, by slowly 
 walking through these halls and examining the suc- 
 cessive progress of the art, as seen in the rude at- 
 tempts and the gradually improving style, till we 
 reach the master-pieces of Titian and Raphael. 
 "Pause a moment." 
 
 "Certainly, but why do you arrest me here?" 
 "Do you know that you are about to enter the 
 
90 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Venus de Medicis. Titian. 
 
 penetralia, the tribune, where the Venus de Medicis 
 stands in the midst of it, as the divinity of this tem- 
 ple?" 
 
 A chamber of small dimensions, dimly lighted by 
 a dome most beautifully inwrought with pearl and 
 gold, contains the great models of the beautiful in 
 painting and statuary. There are many spectators, 
 but, like worshippers, they stand gazing upon the 
 objects of art before them, paying the homage of 
 silent admiration which genius extorts. What are 
 words now ? The Ve?ius, on a pedestal in the centre, 
 is the attraction of all eyes. Instantly you see that 
 the arms are modern restorations, but the form is 
 faultless ; and the longer we stand near it, and study 
 the poetry and beauty of the figure, the more we feel 
 that one's ideal of the Venus is met in this marble. 
 It has exerted more influence on statuary than any 
 other single work, and therefore one regrets that it 
 is the model of woman touched with a sense of shame 
 — that it is not the model of purity and love, uncon- 
 scious of evil, but rather of woman striving with 
 meretricious art to captivate the beholder. Its height, 
 if erect, would be five feet and two inches. 
 
 The other statues in this chamber are only less 
 celebrated than the Venus. We have the Dancing 
 Faun and the Wrestlers, the Whetter and the Apol- 
 lino — which have their several merits — all antiques ; 
 and among the most valuable that remain of the 
 paintings, two are of Venus, by Titian, and one of 
 them claimed by some artists to be the best specimen 
 of mere painting in the world. I put three others be- 
 
- 
 
FLORENCE. 93 
 
 A Carlo Dolce. 
 
 fore it, and probably many would put a dozen. A 
 Sibyl, by Guercino, is a "thing of beauty." Guido's 
 Virgin musing, is a picture to fall in love with. Cor- 
 reggio and Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo and 
 Raphael, are all here in their works, which follow and 
 praise them as men "that were not born to die." 
 
 The Pitti Palace was built by a man of that name, 
 who was the great rival of the Medici family. He 
 threatened to build a palace in the court of which the 
 Grand Duke's could stand. He completed his splendid 
 structure, but, alas ! for the mutations of human affairs, 
 Pitti went down, and the Grand Duke now possesses 
 the palace of his rival. The Boboli Gardens, in the 
 rear of it, are beautifully embellished with statuary, 
 fountains, and flowers, while the walks and terraces 
 and charming views of the city and the country, 
 make it a delightful place of resort. "With a friend I 
 walked over these spacious grounds, and then through 
 the palace itself, which is furnished with a degree of 
 splendor rarely seen in the proudest capitals of Eu- 
 rope. The mosaic tables, which, like the Gobelin 
 tapestry of Paris, are made only for the Sovereign, 
 surpass all description. One of superi r beauty and 
 value was made for exhibition in the London Crystal 
 Palace, but the Grand Duke, offended for some rea- 
 son, declined sending it, or any thing else from his 
 dominions. In one of the royal bedchambers we 
 found a Madonna, by Carlo Dolce. Of the ten thou- 
 sand Madonnas I have seen, this alone answers even 
 to my imperfect image of what it should be. In this 
 Mary, was the mysterious blending of foreknowledge 
 
94 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Raphael. Restoring pictures. 
 
 with affection — a consciousness of the great secret 
 that the child was to be the Saviour — a picture that 
 one loves to have near him ; and it is no strange thing 
 that the Grand Duke takes this with him when he 
 travels, just as I should love to do when I travel 
 homeward. Day after day, for these gates are always 
 open, I came to study the vast collections of paintings 
 treasured in the halls of this palace ; but I find it im- 
 possible to speak of them in detail, I have already 
 dwelt so long on others. The Madonna della Seggi- 
 ola of Raphael, and his Vision of Ezekiel, are among 
 the most perfect productions of art, here or in the 
 world of art. 
 
 It is sad to see what work is made in cleaning and 
 restoring the pictures in the galleries of Florence, and 
 it is probably quite as bad in others. The director 
 gives the job of " doing" this or that picture to some 
 favorite artist, who puts his hand fearlessly upon the 
 workmanship of Rubens or Titian, scrapes and scrapes 
 till lie is tired, and then, with his unhallowed touch, 
 attempts to restore the ruin he has wrought. It is 
 doubtful if one of these pictures has escaped this bar- 
 barous handling. Some of them bear the most lam- 
 entable evidence of having been thus spoiled. I 
 was glad to hear it made a matter of discussion in 
 art circles, and it was proposed that a voice of re- 
 monstrance in behalf of the civilized world should be 
 raised to the Grand Duke, imploring him to arrest the 
 progress of ruin. 
 
 Florence is the favorite resort of artists. These 
 galleries are far richer in variety and value than any 
 
FLORENCE. 95 
 
 Men of mark. And won e:;. 
 
 others in Europe. Rome has comparatively very few 
 paintings. Here the young artist finds living cheap, 
 and instruction cheaper, for he has free access to these 
 unrivalled halls, and may copy the glorious old masters 
 till his soul is imbued with something of their spirit, 
 and his hand acquires somewhat of their cunning. 
 
 Nor less is Florence the resort of men of letters and 
 of leisure. I found delightful circles here, not of 
 travellers only, but of residents, from our own country, 
 from England, and other lands, enjoying the fine cli- 
 mate, the beautiful Val d'Arno, and all the rich as- 
 sociation clustering around this ancient and remark- 
 able city. Mr. Browning the poet, and Mrs. Brown- 
 ing (Miss Barrett that was) reside here, both of them 
 charming persons — his is a warm, genial spirit, gush- 
 ing over in his free and familiar conversation. She 
 is intellectual, spiritual, one whom you recognize as 
 holding communion with the unseen. I was greatly 
 pleased with both of them. Count and Countess 
 Cotrill are also English, and persons of high cultiva- 
 tion and great accomplishments. He has a handsome 
 collection of paintings, and is himself an amateur in 
 the art. I had also the honor, and I felt it to be no 
 small honor, to meet several times in society, and at 
 her own house, Mrs. Someeville, whose scientific 
 works have justly made her the most distinguished 
 woman of her age. Her bust is placed by the side 
 of that of Sir Isaac Newton at the Royal Academy in 
 London. Now, when she is more than seventy years 
 of age, she is preparing a work in pure mathematics. 
 She conversed with great familiarity on the progress 
 
^6 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 _* 
 
 Mrs. Somerville. Mrs. Trolloppe. 
 
 of science and literature in America, and the inquiries 
 she made respecting our government, showed me that 
 she had a more correct understanding of the genius 
 of our institutions than many statesmen of England 
 have. She also sought information of Mormonism, 
 of internal improvements and popular elections, and 
 in all her conversation exhibited the highest respect 
 for the young Republic. I felt the profoimdest re- 
 gard for this eminent woman, and was proud to have 
 made her acquaintance. I can not say this, or any 
 thing like it, of Mrs. Trolloppe — the Mrs. Trolloppe 
 who once travelled in America, and now resides here 
 in easy circumstances, living on the earnings of her 
 miserable pen. She has published a hundred novels, 
 and is now making more ; they are read eagerly in 
 England, and bring her a handsome income. 
 
 But besides the literary people of Florence whom I 
 met in company with my friends the Kinneys, and the 
 artists, of whom there are hundreds from many lands. 
 there is another world here — the world of fashion. 
 Florence is a grand resort for men and women who 
 would be free from the restraints of society at home, 
 
 and live as they please. Madame A , who has 
 
 left her husband in England, sets up her establish- 
 ment, and surrounded by gay cavaliers, flourishes in 
 the style of a princess. Her salon is thronged by 
 men of fashion, with whom she smokes and drinks, 
 genteelly, of course, but in a way to horrify our notions 
 
 of genteel society. Lord B has left his family in 
 
 England, and is cutting a great dash in this city, with 
 his carriage and company, quite consoled for the loss 
 
FLOKENCE. 97 
 
 Italian morals and manners. 
 
 of those lie has left, in the free-and-easy life he is lead- 
 ing with the friends he has found. One must see. 
 something of Italian society before he can form a fair 
 opinion of Italian morals. These dissolute foreigners 
 are but an exponent of the country they have sought. 
 They are here because the sentiment of this country 
 does not censure them, as it would in England or the 
 United States. A friend of mine who has resided in 
 Italy for some years, and is thoroughly familiar with 
 the highest forms of its society, and the habits of its 
 people, repeatedly assured me that no such principle 
 as virtue can be honestly affirmed of either sex in 
 Italy! In the upper circles, every lady of mark, 
 though provided with that convenient appendage a 
 husband, has also her cavalier servante, a friend 
 whose attentions she receives in public and in private, 
 and who is known to be received as her confidante 
 and lover. At the door of the assembly room he 
 meets her, carries her from her carriage to the ball, 
 stands by her to comply with her slightest wish, and 
 to display his tender and absorbing passion. Where 
 is the husband all this time ? He is doing the same 
 good turn to some other lady in the same room. The 
 game is one that two can play at, and both lose ! 
 
 The passions have Ml play in this Italian clime. 
 The religion of the people is no restraint. And it 
 may be truly said of Italy, "Like people, like priest." 
 I have no resentments to gratify in this remark. It is 
 notorious and undeniable. There is no morale as the 
 basis of society. The foundations are out of place. 
 And there is no hope for the future. 
 Vol. II.— E 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE STUDIO OF POWERS. 
 
 A Day with Hiram Powers — The Story of the Man — Thorwalsden 
 calls — Powers' Studio — Statue of America — Washington — Cali- 
 fornia — La Penserosa — Other Artists. 
 
 Among the pleasant memories of a month in Flor- 
 ence, are the hours I spent with the great American 
 artist, whose reputation is now the common property 
 of the world. His studio is in Via la Fornace, and 
 just over the way from Casa del Bello, the house of 
 Mr. Kinney, my home while there. His history is to 
 be studied by every young American. 
 
 The most remarkable work in the studio is the 
 man himself. At the age of fifteen he was an emi- 
 grant from Vermont, his native State, to Ohio, and 
 there, at the age of twenty-six, he made his first 
 bust, a head in wax. It gives little promise of what 
 has since appeared. Twenty years ago Mr. Powers 
 went to Washington, and while pursuing his labors 
 as a sculptor he enjoyed the friendship of Mr. Pres- 
 ton, of the Senate, whose brother sent Mr. Powers to 
 Italy. Here he has been at work sixteen years. The 
 first few years were lost to him, in consequence of 
 his having taken orders for busts of his countrymen, 
 which it cost him more to execute than they were to 
 bring him, and he was for a long time compelled to 
 
THE STUDIO OF POWERS. 99 
 
 Training of soul. Z ~, 
 
 In social life. 
 
 work out of the marble with his Own hands that 
 which he now commits to artisans. Thus, in addition 
 to the loss of all the early years of his life, which 
 were occupied with merely mechanical pursuits, he 
 sacrificed three more to engagements he had made in 
 America. Yet in all these years of bondage his soul 
 was at work upon something higher and better than 
 had ever come from his hands, and perhaps, like the 
 blindness of Milton and imprisonment of Bunyan, it 
 was well for him and the world that he was not suf- 
 fered to put forth his hand until his soul had been 
 refined by the fires of long years of trial, such as con- 
 sume those who are not made of gold. Now he is 
 less than fifty years of age ; and when he was many 
 years younger than he is, the greatest of modern 
 sculptors, Thorwalsden, paid him homage. He is 
 destined to inaugurate a new era in sculpture, and 
 leave a name to posterity as the founder of a school 
 which will attract the admiration, and finally secure 
 the approving verdict of the successive ages of the 
 Christian world. Yet great as this man is, his great- 
 est beauty of character is his "meek simplicity." A 
 model for a king in form and height, he would sit for 
 a child, if his spirit found expression in stone or on 
 canvas. I met him first in social life, and was aU 
 but grieved. The majesty of a man who conceives 
 and executes works that hold in mute wonder and 
 delight the most cultivated minds, was all concealed 
 in the gentleness of a genial friend; but I fell in love 
 with the man before I sat at the feet of the master. 
 And he was just the same when I stood hy him study- 
 
100 EUEOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 His studio. America. Y>'ashington. 
 
 ing the glorious creations rising into beauty and life- 
 like reality under his plastic hand. His studio was 
 a gallery of glorious statuary when I entered it. 
 Among the greatest of his works, is one just passing 
 from under his hand. America is here presented in 
 the form of a woman of youth, vigor, and promise, 
 confident and earnest, with a face radiant with hope, 
 faith, and energy. At her right, and supporting the 
 figure, are ike fasces, the emblem of strength derived 
 from union, over which her mantle is falling gracefully. 
 Her head is crowned with laurels, to show that union 
 is victory as well as strength; and on her head the 
 thirteen original States are represented by as many 
 stars, forming a tiara, which she wears, her birth-right 
 jewels. Her left hand points to heaven. From this 
 shoulder the drapery hangs carelessly, concealing 
 much of the form, while one foot advances with a 
 firm yet elastic tread, which speaks of the progress 
 and stability of America with eloquence that can not 
 be misread. 
 
 The State of Louisiana has ordered a statue of 
 Washington by Powers, and it is nearly completed. 
 The head of Washington is after the Houdon bust, 
 which Stuart told Isaac P. Davis was a better like- 
 ness of Washington than the portrait which he (Stu- 
 art) painted, and wherein his portrait varied from 
 Houdon's bust, the bust was the best. In this great 
 AS'ork of Powers, Washington is presented after his 
 retirement from public service, but still meditating 
 the welfare of his country ; he leans on the fasces as 
 ;ii i emblem of union, and his farewell address in his 
 
THE STUDIO OF POWERS. 101 
 
 Illustrious men. 
 
 California. 
 
 hand. The posture is one of great dignity, and the 
 impression made upon the beholder is of profound 
 admiration and awe. 
 
 Around the studio are the heads of many of our 
 illustrious men— Jackson, Adams, Webster, Calhoun, 
 Clay ; but it is to be observed that whatever is admira- 
 ble in each one of them, seems to have been given to 
 Washington in a degree sufficient to form him for the 
 work for which he was raised. 
 
 One of the most beautiful of his creations is now 
 in progress, representing California. A young In- 
 dian woman, undraped, resting on her right foot, and 
 slightly bending forward, with her head turned to the 
 left, and her face inclined downward, with a sharp, 
 watchful expression. Her left hand holds a divining 
 rod, pointing to the rock at her feet, and which con- 
 tains the gold. The Siren face and attractive form 
 allures; but something in her eye compels you to 
 pause as you approach. Concealed, yet revealed, is a 
 scourge, or a bundle of thorns, which she holds behind 
 her in her right hand. On her head is a wreath of 
 shells and pearls, ornaments worn by the native wo- 
 men, and her hah- falls in small braids behind, caught 
 up in a loop, and held by a clasp ornamented with 
 porcupine quiUs. As a work of art, this beautiful 
 statue is worthy of the man, and will greatly increase 
 his reputation. It has not so much poetry in it as 
 many of his creations, but the subject perhaps forbade 
 it, or did not require it. It was a happy conception 
 of the artist to embody his just and grand idea of 
 the youngest sister of the States in this marble, and 
 
102 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 La Penserosa. Milton's lines. 
 
 wherever it stands it will speak eloquently and in- 
 structively to coming time. 
 
 But the master-piece of Powers, and the one that is 
 to inaugurate a new dispensation in the world of art, 
 is La Penserosa, a female figure nearly six feet high, 
 of full proportions, modestly draped, walking out at 
 even-tide, with a solemn, meditative air, a slow and 
 dignified step, her head turned upward as she gazes 
 with her large, thoughtful eye into heaven. One 
 hand with her forefinger supports the chin, and in the 
 other she carries the richly-embroidered train of robe 
 hanging from the right hand in front, and as it falls 
 gracefully to the ground it supports the marble with 
 its massive folds. The drapery is a beautiful robe 
 with a girdle at the waist, and covering the figure : a 
 portion of the left leg and foot is visible ; the arms 
 are nude ; a thin vail is thrown over the shoulders ; 
 the hair is simply arranged, and drawn back so as to 
 expose the temples, and give the finest possible ex- 
 pression to the whole head. A holy beauty shines in 
 every limb, and sheds a halo over her face: she is 
 holding "converse with the skies," and her eye and 
 brow betray a sanctified intellect, giving the highest 
 lustre to those personal charms which are wrought up 
 to the last degree of loveliness of form and feature. 
 
 Milton's "II Penseroso" suggests the subject, in 
 the following lines : 
 
 " Come pensive nun, devout and pure, 
 Sober, steadfast and demure, 
 All in a robe of darkest grain, 
 Flowing with majestic train, 
 
THE 
 
 STUDIO 
 
 OF 
 
 POWERS. 
 
 103 
 
 Marble. Other artists. 
 
 And sable stole of Cyprus lawn, 
 Over thy decent shoulders drawn. 
 Come, but keep thy wonted state, 
 With even step and musing gait, 
 And looks commercing with the skies, 
 Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes : 
 There held in holy passion still, 
 Forget thyself to marble." 
 
 More than this idea has been marbleized by the 
 artist. He has made a poem more expressive of the 
 poet's thought than the words quoted, and one is 
 compelled to feel that the statue, as it stands, is 
 worthy of a higher destiny than to illustrate the 
 words of Milton. 
 
 Other American artists are in Florence, whose 
 works have already made for them a name, or will 
 give them fame one day. Mr. Hart takes high rank 
 as a sculptor. Mr. Kellogg has a reputation in Eu- 
 rope as well as in his own country. Mr. Gould, Mr. 
 Read, Mr. Robinson, and others, are working their 
 way nobly onward and upward. They will be great 
 men one day. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DYING AWAY FROM HOME. 
 
 My friend Rankin sickens — Fever of the Country — Improves — Re- 
 lapses — Is Delirious — Dies — Is Buried — Coincidences — Flowers 
 for his Tomb. 
 
 Florence, November 6. 
 
 Faer Florence ! beautiful Florence ! When first I 
 feaw thee on the "brightest of Sabbath mornings, four 
 weeks ago, how little did I think that to-day thy 
 skies would all be overcast, and gloom would hang 
 upon thy palaces and glorious works of art ! 
 
 When I left the shores of my native land seven 
 months ago, a miserable invalid, with a friend re- 
 joicing in the vigor of fresh manhood, how little did 
 I think that to-day I should follow him to his grave ! 
 
 Wonderful Providence ! If one were to be taken, 
 why was he selected for the sacrifice ? It was scarcely 
 an even chance for me, yet he is with the dead! It 
 is very hard to adjust myself to the thought. 
 
 My young friend Rankin and I had been travelling 
 together for several months over the northern and 
 central parts of Europe ; other parties had been with 
 us more or less, but we had agreed to make the tour 
 into the East together, and return in the spring. 
 Having now completed our brief visit in Florence, 
 made doubly pleasant by finding friends from Amer- 
 ica whom we had long known and valued there, it 
 
DYING AWAY FROM HOME. 105 
 
 Fever. 
 
 was time for us to set off for Rome. Rankin had 
 been slightly complaining for some days, but had 
 not yielded to the impression that he must be sick ; 
 yet when it was necessary to move, he found him- 
 self inadequate to the effort, and we called in a phy- 
 sician, Dr. Wilson, a skillful and faithful man. He 
 pronounced his disease an ordinary case of the fever 
 of the climate, such as strangers are often seized with, 
 not unlike the intermittent fever of our country. It 
 yielded to the usual remedies, and in a few days he 
 was free from the fever, and was declared to be con- 
 valescent. Indeed he was so far restored to health 
 that his physician was on the point of leaving him, 
 saying that he had now only to get well by himself. 
 
 For four or five days he had been entirely free 
 from fever, and was engaged with me in making a 
 new programme of our future route, which must be 
 varied in consequence of our detention, when I ob- 
 served from some inconsistent inquiries that his mind 
 was wandering. A circumstance here occurred that is 
 worth recording as a curious instance of the operations 
 of a disordered intellect. In a foreign language, which 
 he was sure the servant would not understand, he 
 asked me to send him out of the room, and then he 
 made a communication to me, in confidence, which 
 showed at once he was deranged. Here was reason 
 and the want of it strangely blended. I sent for the 
 physician in all haste, and he perceived at once that 
 his brain was affected, and in a few hours there were 
 fearful evidences that effusion had taken place. The 
 progress of the disease was rapid and irresistible. 
 
 E* 
 
106 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Vain efforts. Wanderings. 
 
 Within twelve hours of these new symptoms, Dr. 
 Wilson thought it impossible for him to live six hours. 
 So sudden ! So terrible too ! 
 
 The six hours of life were lengthened through suc- 
 cessive days and nights, while every energy was ex- 
 hausted in vain attempts to stay the hand of death. 
 Never have I seen such a battle fought between death 
 and life. When physicians and friends were con- 
 vinced that no more could be done, we would rally 
 again and make new efforts, forcing the wheels of life 
 to move on, hoping that nature herself would rally 
 and carry him through. All this time, he was able to 
 respond intelligently to every question we proposed, 
 though all his inquiries were incoherent and astray. 
 In his delirium he wandered on his journey, past 
 and future, called to his young companions in his 
 own land, wished to be allowed to leave his present 
 lodgings and go onward without loss of time; yet 
 when we roused him from these reveries and spoke 
 to him, he knew us always, and answered truly to all 
 we asked. We spoke to him often of heaven and the 
 way there ; and one whose voice might sound like 
 that of a sister, spoke gently to him of One who would 
 be more to him than mother or brother, and he re- 
 sponded firmly and confidently that he trusted in the 
 Saviour and in none other, but he did not believe he 
 was going to die. 
 
 It has been my duty to meet death in a great vari- 
 ety of forms, and under circumstances of peculiar trial; 
 even in some not altogether unlike these : for here I 
 was painfully reminded of my own brother's death in 
 
DYING AWAY FROM HOME. 107 
 
 Corning. Going. 
 
 a hotel, away from home, while he was on a journey. 
 But we were all around him, and he died in our arms. 
 It is home any where, if those we love best are there. 
 But in these long and lonely hours of watching "by 
 the bed of this dying youth, I thought I had never 
 encountered death when he came so coldly, and so 
 gloomily to do his work. Yet he would come. 
 
 Mr. Kinney and I were with him. It is Friday ; 
 and from Monday we had been expecting every hour 
 that he would die. He had just said that he wished 
 us to persevere in using the same means we had em- 
 ployed, and we had assured him that all should be 
 done that man could do for him, when a strong con- 
 vulsion seized him. He had passed through many 
 slight ones before ; but this was fearful, and we w r ere 
 soon convinced it would be fatal. Mr. Kinney held 
 one of his hands, the other was in mine. The faith- 
 ful Italian servant, who had been with him fifteen 
 successive days and nights, was weeping at his feet. 
 Slowly the convulsion seemed to pass over ; but his 
 breathing was more difficult, and with longer inter- 
 vals. His pulse was imperceptible. We sat on his 
 bedside, and in silence waited for his soul to depart. 
 Fifty-five minutes we sat, studying the mystery of 
 dying, thinking of the great deep into w^hich the 
 spirit was passing — the dread abyss of infinite here- 
 after ! 
 
 To pause on the threshold of life, and stop there 
 forever ! Is death a great blunder in nature ? Was 
 this young man endowed with mind, health, strength, 
 cultivated by study, improved by foreign travel, and 
 
108 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 All over. Burial. Flowers. 
 
 trained only to drop down in Italy, and go out like 
 a brief candle, in darkness ? Or, is lie stepping into, 
 another world; pursuing his journey where I may 
 not follow him just now ; entering upon new discov- 
 eries in knowledge, and rising into realms of light 
 and truth, of which we can know nothing till we pass 
 through this same strange process — this change ? We 
 call it dying. I think it is just beginning to live. 
 By a strange coincidence, this is my birth-day : it is 
 the birth-day of his soul ! 
 
 It is all over now. His breast is very still. We 
 close his eyes — a sacred office which we share to- 
 gether. 
 
 Sabbath morning we followed his remains to the 
 grave. Outside the walls of Florence a beautiful 
 cemetery is laid out for Protestants, under the direc- 
 tion of the Swiss church ; and there we laid him. A 
 young American lady in the city, who had never seen 
 our young friend, but who was sadly interested in his 
 fate, wove a wreath of evergreen and white flowers, 
 which, according to the custom of the country, was 
 laid on his tomb. It was a gentle offering ; the flow- 
 ers will wither, but the memory of the act will be fra- 
 grant long. The American artists, and others who 
 heard of the sad event, gathered with us at the chapel 
 of the cemetery in the early morning — for Protestants 
 are not allowed to carry out their dead for burial after 
 eight o'clock — and there we had religious services, 
 and left the remains of our friend among those of 
 others who, like him, have died afar from home and 
 their native land. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 ITALY — PISA — ROME. 
 
 Leaving Florence — Pisa — Leaning Tower — Cathedral — Campo Santo 
 — Leghorn — A Night on the Sea — Civita Vecchia — Ride to Rome 
 — In the Gates — Capitoline Hill — The Forum — Ruins — Coliseum 
 — Catacombs — Tomb of Cecilia Metella — Of Augustus. 
 
 It was a sad morning when I left Florence. 
 
 "_A load of emptiness was on my heart, 
 
 More heavy than the weight of actual woe ; 
 Nature, too, seemed oppressed, as if a part 
 Of what my soul suffered she did know, 
 And would a fellowship of sadness show." 
 
 The skies wept freely, and so did two strong men 
 in that parting embrace, and he who remained, said, 
 "You have made us a precious visit — it has been 
 hallowed by death, and now will be a sacred memory 
 forever." And then we were sundered, and I was 
 once more alone. My faithful Italian servant, who 
 really seemed to love me, began to tell me of Rome 
 and Naples, and I was amused with his attempts to 
 amuse me ; the queer pleasures he described as in 
 prospect, and which he was sure would drive away all 
 melancholy and restore me to myself again. 
 
 PiSA is on the way from Florence to Leghorn, and 
 a few hours there will furnish quite as much of inter- 
 est as can be found in the same time and within so 
 small a space in Europe. The "Leaning Tower" is 
 
110 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Galileo. Campo Santo. 
 
 reckoned among the wonders of the world, and justly 
 so. Standing as far from it as on the opposite side 
 of the square, it excites in the beholder's mind the 
 constant apprehension that it is going over, and as I 
 walked up the circular stairway that leads to the 
 summit, I was all the time hitting one side or the 
 other of the staircase, so far does it hang out of the 
 perpendicular. Galileo often climbed these stairs, and 
 here performed his experiments to determine the fall 
 of heavy bodies ; and in the cathedral close at hand, is 
 still hanging the same old iron chandelier which, when 
 swinging, suggested to him the idea of the pendulum 
 as the measure of time. A hundred windows of 
 stained glass admit a dim light, by which I could 
 scarcely see the paintings that adorn this church in 
 greater numbers than any other in Eiu-ope. Some of 
 them are very fine, and more of them are not. 
 
 The Campo Santo is a mausoleum that can never 
 be forgotten after once being seen. No burial-place 
 has so deeply affected me. The earth was brought 
 from Jerusalem in fifty ships, but that is nothing. 
 Artists of masterly skill have for five centuries been 
 embellishing it with painting and sculpture, and the 
 old sepulchres of Greece and Italy have been robbed 
 to furnish statues, sarcophagi, and monuments to adorn 
 this sanctuary of the dead. It was a fitting place to 
 muse in, to me a striking representation of all this 
 land — a land of the past — a land of sepulchres — of 
 beauty, but of such beauty only as can not die: its 
 hills, and plains, and sea arc here as they were when 
 the men and the women were alive for whom these 
 
ITALY — TISA — ROME. Ill 
 
 Swearing. 
 
 marble coffins were wrought with such exquisite 
 skill. 
 
 Leghorn is a seaport with no objects of special at- 
 traction to the traveller. Great quantities of marble 
 are here shipped for England and America, and I was 
 pleased to see the familiar names of New York and 
 Boston on the ships in the harbor, and to hear the 
 good old tongue of my native land, even in the coarse 
 and sometimes rather hard dialect of the sailor. But 
 there is no language, I believe, so complete for swear- 
 ing in as the Italian. The ease and ingenuity are 
 quite peculiar, with which a man manages to work in 
 a string of oaths of every degree in the scale of pro- 
 fanity. It was good news to me that a steamer was 
 to start at four p. M. for Civita Vecchia. 
 
 In spite of the rain — which was now pouring — and 
 the prospect of a rough night, I put off in a row-boat, 
 and got on board the Anatole, a small screw-steamer, 
 not a regular passage boat, and found but one cabin 
 passenger to share the steamer with me. It was a 
 gloomy sight to look into that prison of a cabin, and 
 then to look out on the Mediterranean, heaving now 
 in the storm. The sense of loneliness was very op- 
 pressive, and busy memory brought no relief. An 
 hour or two out, and the vessel rolled so fearfully that 
 I could find no place of security but my berth, and 
 there I retreated for the night, trusting the boat to 
 Providence and the seamen. Antonio came at my 
 call, and sat down by my side to give me the pleas- 
 ure of his company, and deliver me from the trouble 
 of thinking by continuing his stories of low life in 
 
112 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The boot-black baron. Two pauls. 
 
 Italy. One of the most entertaining chapters in this 
 series would be the report of his narratives that even- 
 ing. I had heard of a Baron , who is now one 
 
 of the richest men in this country, who was once a 
 
 boot-black in the establishment of the Duke of ; 
 
 and finding that he was once a fellow-servant of An- 
 tonio, I got his history — strange, romantic, diverting 
 even ; for, in fact, the man has fought his way up 
 from servitude to royal honors, and more than once 
 has represented his government at foreign courts, the 
 equal and companion of the very men whose horses 
 he once groomed. And when Antonio had thus 
 whiled away the evening for me, he stretched him- 
 self on the floor close by and slept soundly, while I 
 slept lightly and dreamed. The morning came, and 
 with it the sight of Civita Vecchia. The storm was 
 past, the sun was out — a cool, bracing morning, re- 
 viving to a worn man. An hour brought us to an- 
 chorage ; but more than an hour was spent in getting 
 the ordinary leave to come ashore. And when at last 
 the passports had been examined, and the permission 
 granted, a system, of plunder commenced, the like of 
 which I have fortunately not had since coming abroad. 
 My own servant was not allowed to carry any thing 
 ashore ; but a special porter was required for each 
 man's effects, that more might be demanded in the 
 way of fees. At the custom-house at least three sets 
 of men were to be paid, and at the diligence office as 
 many ; and they came upon me for two pauls (twenty 
 cents) apiece, until I told Antonio to look about, and 
 if he could find any body else who wanted two pauls 
 
ITALY — PISA — ROME. 113 
 
 Den of thieves. 
 
 to give them to him, but not to let any of them come 
 near me. But Civita Vecchia is a den of thieves. It 
 is the site of the great prison-house, where the prison- 
 ers of the Eoman States are confined, and the people 
 outside the walls appear to be contaminated by the 
 association. Eight glad was I to be started off to- 
 ward noon in a post-chaise for Home. At a rattling 
 pace we rode on through a deeply-uninteresting coun- 
 try ; no towns, no villas, no historical associations to 
 enliven the journey. At each change — which was 
 every ten miles — the postillions called for a fee, and 
 this we gave according to the freedom with which 
 they had whipped the horses ; and at eight in the 
 evening we saw the dome of St. Peter's shining in 
 the moonlight, and soon were standing in the gates 
 of "the Eternal City." 
 
 We stood here a few minutes only while our pass- 
 ports were examined, and then I found my way to 
 the Hotel d'Amerique, kept by D. Costanzi, an ex- 
 cellent house, that may be safely commended to all 
 travellers, and especially to Americans who visit 
 Home. It stands on the Via Babuino, which runs 
 from the Piazza de Spagna to the Piazza del Popolo, 
 one of the best locations in the city. 
 
 To be in Eome is said to form an epoch in the life 
 of man. The sensation is new, there is no doubt of 
 it ; to which every thinking man will confess, when 
 he comes, for the first time, to stand among these 
 memorials of a departed world. We may have seen 
 antiquities in the museums of modern cities, and here 
 and there met with a ruin that dates somewhere be- 
 
114 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Capitolinc Hill. Kcornal City. 
 
 hind the death of Caesar ; but when we plant our feet 
 among the falling pillars, and crumbling arches, and 
 ruined temples of Rome, Ave feel that another world is 
 around us, and the vision of its grandeur and its de- 
 cay comes up and fills the mind with awe. 
 
 Perhaps much of this emotion is to be referred to 
 one's early associations ; and he who has been more 
 familiar from childhood with the history of Greece 
 and Rome than witli that of England, will naturally 
 be more enthusiastic when at last the longings of a 
 life-time are gratified, and he finds himself one fine 
 morning on the top of the tower of the Capitol, on 
 Capitoline Hill ! Here at last ! And this is Rome ! 
 This was Rome. "Trojafuit, et ingens gloria Teu- 
 crorum" Alas, it is Rome no more ! These are her 
 tomb-stones that you see at your feet. No letters 
 record her story, but these pillars have tongues, and 
 these arches are all eloquent of might and glory that 
 have found a grave. The seven hills we first look 
 for ; and if the feeling is disappointment to find that 
 what has been so great in history is so small in real- 
 ity, the history itself of each one of them comes 
 thronging on the mind, and soon the idea takes 
 strong possession of the soul, that here sat the mis- 
 tress of the world — victorious, imperial, Eternal 
 Rome. 
 
 How vain that word eternal, with such evidences 
 of mortality as these around us ! How mean the 
 mightiest monuments of man's art and power, when 
 they are lying heaps on heaps in the valley of the 
 shadow of death ! There is the Tarpeian rock, on 
 
ITALY — PISA — ROME. 115 
 
 Forum. Ruins. 
 
 which we stood as we were coming up, and that still 
 remains a memorial of treason, of vengeance, of justice, 
 a place of blood. The rock stands, and these hills 
 stand as God made them ; and what he builds, he 
 only destroys. But this Forum with its straggling 
 columns, a few of them standing, more of them 
 strewed upon the ground, and this ground itself, 
 fifteen feet below the level of the modern city, is to 
 me a melancholy sight ; and, positively, I was wil- 
 ling to weep over the fall of so much beauty and glo- 
 ry. Those three columns standing so stately and 
 grand, formed an angle of the temple of Jupiter To- 
 nans ; and those eight magnificent granite pillars, with 
 their crumbling cornice, belong to the portico of the 
 Temple of Saturn : one of the noblest ruins of them 
 all, is the basement of the Temple of Peace, stupen- 
 dous in its proportions ; and there is the arch of Sep- 
 timus Severus, wonderfully preserved, from which 
 begins the street that led up to the citadel, the old 
 pavement still lying there, on which the armies of the 
 Emperors trod. That solitary column — "the name- 
 less column with a buried base" — is no longer so, for 
 an inscription has been found, proving it to have been 
 raised in honor of Phocas ; and not far off is the site 
 of the temple of Castor and Pollux, and the three cel- 
 ebrated columns over which antiquaries have disputed 
 for a century without settling the question of their or- 
 igin. I prefer to call them, with the older critics, the 
 remains of the temple of Jupiter Stator. How sim- 
 ple, yet how sublime! Three columns in a line, 
 with a broken cornice over them ; yet how perfect in 
 
116 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Arch of Titus. Golden house. 
 
 proportion ! models to this day of the beautiful in Co- 
 rinthian architecture, and stirring vain regrets that 
 what was once over and around them has passed 
 away. But look still farther off, and see that mag- 
 nificent arch of Titus, reared in memory of his con- 
 quest of Jerusalem. If we were near enough, we 
 could see upon its front the emblems and the record 
 of his bloody and cursed triumph over the city of God. 
 The golden candlestick which was irrevocably lost in 
 the Tiber, as it was borne along in the battle of Con- 
 stantine and Maxentius, is sculptured here with other 
 bas-reliefs ; the only reliable representations of those 
 Jewish symbols, and now preserved on Pagan monu- 
 ments of Judea's fall. I asked for the palace of the 
 Caesars, and was sad when the Palatine Hill was 
 pointed to ; and all the ruins there were scarcely suf- 
 ficient to make it credible that Augustus, Tiberius, 
 and Caligula had expended treasures in adorning and 
 fortifying this spot, which is now a stable and a 
 wretched garden. Nero built his golden house on 
 the slope of this hill, and other emperors added as 
 wealth and taste or caprice suggested ; but now it is 
 a mingled mass of rubbish, defying all attempts to 
 define the limits of the former piles of marble that 
 were once the abode of kings. 
 
 Look again. There, at our left hand, is the loftiest 
 ruin in Rome, and you need not tell me its name. 
 We have known it for thirty years. It is the Coli- 
 seum i there was never but one such building ; and 
 pictures of it have been spread the world over. It is 
 a brave old ruin, standing up there as if defying heav- 
 
ITALY — PISA — ROME. 117 
 
 The arena. The dome. 
 
 en and earth. And it always did. Vespasian began 
 it, and Titus made his Jewish captives complete it ; 
 and when its huge circle was carried up with four 
 successive galleries, a hundred thousand men and 
 women sat down within these walls, and looked on 
 while five thousand wild beasts tore one another and 
 their human victims into tatters, amidst the plaudits 
 of the admiring throng. In that arena the early mar- 
 tyrs of our faith were devoured by lions whom hun- 
 ger had made fierce ; and the dens are still there 
 which were once the cages of the beasts that thirsted 
 for and drank the Christian's blood. The prophecy 
 of the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims recorded by the venera- 
 ble Bede was not fulfilled : 
 
 " While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand ; 
 When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall ; 
 And when Rome falls, the world !" 
 
 Kome and her Coliseum have fallen, but their fall is 
 the rising again of the world. 
 
 And when we have looked on till the soul is pained 
 with contemplation among these monuments of de- 
 parted greatness, turn to modern Rome, and behold 
 the towers and domes of more than three hundred 
 churches, of which the sublimest is the one on which 
 the eye of every traveller lingers, as the Moslem gazes 
 for the first time on the minarets of Mecca. There 
 is the dome of St. Peter's, the great work of Michael 
 Angelo, and, with one exception, the most perfect 
 dome in all the world. How it hangs there, making 
 one to doubt whether it rose by its own buoyancy, 
 
118 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 or was let down by an invisible chain from the blue 
 dome that bends above it. And when we have stud- 
 ied all these and other objects of interest and attrac- 
 tion which are seen from this tower, look off upon the 
 wide Campagna, through which the thundering legions 
 went to war, and came home with spoils of nations, 
 and royal captives chained to their conquering cars ; 
 and off still farther to those Sabine Hills, and the 
 Volscian mountains and heights, the names of which 
 are as familiar as household words to every reader of 
 Latin history or verse. And when you have taken 
 in these views, and fairly formed in your own mind a 
 map of old Rome, you are prepared to descend and 
 begin to look at one after another of the antiquities 
 which you have been merely getting a bird's-eye 
 glance of from the top of the tower. 
 
 Friends who had been some weeks in Rome were 
 my guides to all the wonders. Having already made 
 themselves familiar with every object of interest, they 
 were as able as willing to lead me to these altars of 
 dead paganism and half dead Christianity, of which 
 this city of two dispensations is the Jerusalem. They 
 led me also beneath the surface of things, and showed 
 me the tombs of the Scipios, and the Catacombs — 
 those mysterious excavations which have been the 
 cemeteries of the dead, and the sanctuaries of the liv- 
 ing. An old monk with a dim candle, which made 
 the darkness and his own ugliness the more formi- 
 dable, conducted us through long passages dug from 
 solid rock, which seemed to be endless passages lead- 
 ing to nothing but empty shelves for coffins, and tab- 
 
ITALY PISA ROME. 119 
 
 Cecilia Metella. Circus. 
 
 ular stones with inscriptions dating "back of the Chris- 
 tian era ; and at last he "brought us out by another 
 way from the entrance, and we breathed freely again 
 on coming into the upper air. Such infernal regions 
 as these might have given to old mythologists the 
 idea of their hell; an idea which, in some form or 
 other, has formed a part of every system of religious 
 doctrine of the pagan or Christian world. 
 
 Riding out a little farther on the Appian Way, we 
 came to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, which has stood 
 nineteen hundred years. It is more like a fortress 
 than a sepulchre, and, indeed, has been so used in 
 times of war. It is a round tower seventy feet across, 
 and built on a bed of lava, with strength to resist the 
 ravages of time ; and has withstood the robberies of 
 successive generations, who have plundered it not only 
 of the beautiful white marble sarcophagus which stood 
 deep in its centre, but of all the ornaments and vast 
 wealth of its materials, which have been carried off to 
 build or adorn the modern palaces of Romans who 
 live on the monuments of the past. Within a short 
 walk of this remarkable tomb is the Circus of Romu- 
 lus Maxentius, the outer walls of which are still 
 standing, showing the form and dimensions of thi3 
 amphitheatre, which would contain 300,000 spec- 
 tators ! Here the chariot races were run, and those 
 equestrian sports where the evitata mcta of Horace 
 drew down the applause of the multitude, and vic- 
 tory, as in the Olympic games, was rewarded with a 
 fading crown. 
 
 I went with my young friends to visit the mauso- 
 
120 EUEOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Mausoleum. Tableaux. 
 
 leum of Augustus. And, sad to tell, we found a mod- 
 ern circus within its venerable walls — the sepulchre of 
 the old emperor a theatre for horses ridden by women 
 under the full light of a Roman sun. But the riding 
 was not bad. A beautiful girl, with scant patterns 
 for skirt, and none for sleeves, was exhibiting tableaux 
 vivante on horseback with a handsome young man ; 
 and when he stood erect on the horse, and carried her 
 around the ring in his arms, while she struggled to 
 get free, the scene did somewhat resemble the Rape 
 of the Sabines, with which the settlement of this 
 haunt of robbers is identified. 
 

 '■::■■■ 
 
 
 % 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 WONDERS OF ROME. 
 
 St. Peter's Clmrcli — Village oa the Roof— Ascent to the Ball — View 
 in Front — Utility and Worship — The young Lady's Idea — Mosaics 
 — Kissing St. Peter's toe, and the Pope's — Heathen Mythology 
 — Canonizing a Saint — Pope Pius IX. appears — Ceremonies — 
 The Vatican Paintings and Statuary — Laocoon — Apollo Belvidere 
 ■ — Churches of Rome — Mummy Monks — Sacred Stairs — Pompey's 
 Statue — Dying Gladiator — American Artists in Rome. 
 
 If an army of 50,000 may stand in St. Peter's and 
 leave room enough for the people who wish to wor- 
 ship, it certainly does not impress one on entering 
 that its dimensions are so vast. Such, however, is 
 the feeling of disappointment with which we first look 
 on those objects which have long and powerfully af- 
 fected our imaginations. An image of vastness may 
 have filled the mind that would not he satisfied if the 
 reality were far beyond what we find it. But if St. 
 Peter's has reached its growth now, it did certainly 
 grow rapidly while I was in Rome. Each successive 
 visit revealed more and more of its extent, and when 
 at last it was crowded with priests and people and an 
 army of soldiers, and the Pope and the Cardinals 
 marched through the kneeling crowd, I felt the mag- 
 nitude of the edifice from the number gathered within 
 its walls. And when I went alone along up its wind- 
 ing way to the dome, and from successive balconies 
 
124 EUBOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 On the roof. Piazza. 
 
 looked clown into the interior upon men as children 
 walking upon the marble pavement, the immensity of 
 the structure was even more impressive. And to find 
 upon the roof a village of houses, with regular streets, 
 and the inhabitants engaged in the ordinary occupa- 
 tions of domestic life, the cats playing at the door, 
 and the fountain pouring its water for constant use, it 
 looked as if St. Peter's were a little world by itself. 
 And then upward still I pressed my way by an iron 
 ladder through a narrow passage just large enough 
 for one man to squeeze himself through, and was in 
 the ball above the dome! In the walls below are 
 marble tablets recording the names of princes and 
 princesses who have actually made this journey into 
 the ball, and the monuments have been erected to 
 immortalize the fact. 
 
 It is impossible to persuade any man that the front 
 of St. Peter's is in good taste for a church ; it would 
 be fitting for a palace or a theatre, and by a sadly 
 strange failure in architecture, the devotional power 
 so sedulously sought after in all the buildings de- 
 signed for Roman Catholic worship, and often so won- 
 derfully achieved, has been lost in the interior as well 
 as the external appearance of this the most magnifi- 
 cent temple that the Christian religion has produced. 
 And when one stands in the centre of the piazza, or 
 square in front, near the obelisk of red granite, which 
 Tasso has celebrated, and looks around him, at the 
 colonnade with three hundred marble pillars, forming 
 the oval sides of the place, the master-work of Ber- 
 nini, as the dome is of Michael Ano-elo, and then at- 
 
WONDERS OF ROME. 125 
 
 Cost of churches. An anthem. 
 
 tempts to embrace the church and the Vatican adjoin- 
 ing, he must be deeply impressed by the presence, if 
 he is not more or less than a man. The truth is that 
 we are prone to look at these things with the eyes of 
 our prejudice wide open ; and as we despise the pomp 
 of pagan and Roman worship, we are willing to con- 
 demn the amazing costliness of these temples, which 
 we believe to be inappropriate to the service of the 
 Spiritual Deity of our adoration. It is dangerous to 
 take this ground, unless we carry the iconoclasm it 
 encourages into the splendid churches of Protestant- 
 ism, as far exceeding the utilities of worship as these 
 temples surpass ours. For one, I think the Romish 
 church rarely spends money to a better purpose than 
 in embellishing these sacred edifices ; and since she 
 has made art in all its developments tributary to her 
 material glory, we may admire whatever is beautiful 
 and sublime in the works of the great masters, who 
 have expended their mightiest powers in her praise. 
 
 Here I recall the remark of the young invalid lady 
 on the Rhine, who said, "A church is not for man to 
 worship in only ; it is itself a thing of praise ; it is an 
 anthem, and is eloquent continually of Him for whom 
 it is reared." On no other principle than this can we 
 defend such temples as Solomon's — a dedication to the 
 Almighty, a worship, a constant appeal to the people 
 who rejoiced in the magnificence of its proportions and 
 the uncounted treasures exhausted in its ornament. 
 And, after all, there is much to be said on this subject 
 in connection with the Jewish, Roman, and Protest- 
 ant religions, all of which have inconsistencies in the 
 
126 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Mosaics. Kissing tors. 
 
 matter of church architecture hard to he reconciled. 
 Let us leave them. 
 
 In the mosaics of St. Peter's, as I saw them "by the 
 streaming light of a western sun, there was a wealth 
 of beauty to admire. To comprehend the mode by 
 which the most sj)lendid painting can he copied with 
 this work in stone, so as to fairly rival the original, 
 is quite beyond my conception, yet it is here, in 
 numerous pictures of vast dimensions and prodigious 
 effect. 
 
 Every stranger stops in front of the bronze statue 
 of St. Peter, sarcastically reported to be an antique 
 Jupiter, as he sits with his great toe projecting over 
 the pedestal. The faithful are constantly kissing it ; 
 some of the more fastidious wiping it off with a pocket 
 handkerchief, that they may not kiss what was left 
 by the last devotee, but the most of them following- 
 one another with no such interval. It is so high that 
 the shorter women and the children are not able to 
 reach it with their lips, and they must be held up, or 
 content themselves with touching the toe with their 
 fingers, and kissing the ringers. As might be ex- 
 pected, the successive crowds of kissers have sensi- 
 bly worn away the metallic toe, and they have now 
 reached nearly to the first joint, but it is good for 
 ages to come in the same service. I confess I would 
 rather kiss this bronze statue than the live Pope's 
 toe, as the priests are permitted to do in the holy 
 week. 
 
 Among the works of art that adorn this temple, if 
 this Peter is not Jupiter, there are certainly some un- 
 
I 
 
WONDERS OF ROME. 129 
 
 Heiitlien deities. 
 
 mistakable subjects from heathen mythology, as the 
 groups of Jupiter and Ixda, a doubtful subject for 
 any gallery in a decent world, and the Hope of Gany- 
 mede, with some nymphs and satyrs, all of which are 
 on the front door of this holiest of holy buildings in 
 the Romish Christendom. But the variety of charac- 
 ter and persons always to be seen within these walls 
 is not the least instructive study. In or near the 
 various chapels are confessionals for sinners of every 
 tongue, and here sits the priest to receive the story 
 of the penitent, and to prescribe the terms of absolu- 
 tion. At times the penance is made exceedingly 
 easy, and a slight tap on the head of the kneeling 
 sinner, from a long stick in the hands of a priest, 
 signifies punishment, and pardon follows the gentle 
 blow. 
 
 It is impossible to convey an adequate idea of the 
 gorgeous spectacle which this church presented, when 
 its columns and arches were adorned for a festival, on 
 which occasion a new saint was introduced into the 
 calendar with all the pomps of this splendid ritual. 
 Scarlet hangings and gilded festoons, and fresh paint- 
 ings on massive frames, prepared for this single cere- 
 mony at great cost and labor, were all added to the 
 daily decorations of the temple, while within the 
 choir, and over and around the high altar, not less 
 than two thousand candles were burning, arranged 
 with such picturesque effect as to make crowns, and 
 crosses, and flowers ; yet so vast is the space into 
 which these candles are to throw their beams, they 
 seem to one in the middle of the house as stars in the 
 
 F * 
 
180 
 
 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The Pope. 
 
 far-off heavens. For an hour we sat not far from the 
 altar where the privileged few were permitted to en- 
 ter, while the pressing thousands on thousands were 
 kept back by Swiss soldiers, armed as on the field. 
 At last our curiosity was gratified by the approach 
 of Pius IX., attended by his cardinals. He was gor- 
 geously clad : a scarlet robe over a white gown ; al- 
 though his mien was less imperial than that of Car- 
 dinal Wiseman, or any of those in his train. He 
 
 THE POPE TN TITS PONTIFICAL ROBES. 
 
WONDERS OF ROME. 
 
 131 
 
 People fall down. 
 
 CARDINAL EST FULL COSTUME. 
 
 waved his hand first on one side and then on the 
 other as he advanced, and the kneeling multitude 
 gratefully acknowledged the benediction. He knelt 
 when he came near the altar, and all the cardinals, 
 for whom a scarlet cushion had been brought in by a 
 liveried servant of each, knelt behind him while he 
 offered a silent prayer. And then he retired as he 
 had come, through the prostrate throng, humbling 
 themselves as if a god were passing by. No notice 
 was taken of those who did not kneel. If any do not 
 
132 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Forty-three popes. 
 
 choose to conform to the mode of worship in Home, 
 they will not he interfered with, provided they at- 
 tempt no disrespect to the religion of others. 
 
 Not much may be said in praise of the statuary in 
 St. Peter's. By some strange fatality, even great 
 artists have failed when working for this temple, 
 where tfhey would leave their greatest efforts. Four 
 statues of Greek and Latin theologians support the 
 pulpit, and four colossal statues of distinguished saints 
 that fill separate niches are far from pleasing. The 
 chair of the Apostle Peter is itself enthroned above 
 the altar, supported by four fathers of the church, and 
 reverenced as the veritable chair in which Peter sat 
 when he was in Rome. 
 
 It is the labor of days to visit all the monuments, 
 and the several chapels, including the subterranean 
 chapel, which no woman may enter without permis- 
 sion from a cardinal, except on Whitsunday, when 
 none but women may. To me there was far more of 
 interest, after having caught the form and feature of 
 the place, to seek the more impressive works of art 
 with which the city is filled, and of which so few are 
 found in this the most wonderful edifice in Rome. 
 It deserves all the praise that has been lavished upon 
 it, for despite the faults which are so prominent, it is 
 a glorious pile, and has no rival in all the world. 
 Three centuries rolled away while it was in building. 
 Forty-three popes were on the throne, and successive- 
 ly contributed to its completion ; some doing little 
 but to undo what their predecessors had achieved. 
 Michael Angelo would have made it as near perfection 
 
WONDERS OF ROME. 133 
 
 Good out of evil. Vatican. 
 
 as human genius could have carried such a work, but 
 he died, and his successors failed to perfect his de- 
 signs. It cost such enormous sums of money that 
 the sale of indulgences was pushed to that extreme 
 which produced a revulsion in the public mind, and 
 resulted, as it is said, in the Protestant Reformation ! 
 Probably more than fifty millions of dollars were 
 spent in its erection, and nearly half a million are 
 consumed every year in keeping it in repair. 
 
 The Vatican Palace, for more than a thousand 
 years the residence of the Popes, is near St. Peter's. 
 Who has not read or heard of the "thunders of the 
 Vatican." They are mere thunder now, with no light- 
 ning to kill, and the old man who sits on the seven 
 hills is one of the meanest of princes. He can not sit 
 on his own throne to-day, without the help of foreign 
 powers. Pope after pope added to the magnitude and 
 splendor of this palace, until it is now no less than 
 1277 feet, nearly a quarter of a mile, long. Ascend 
 the Scala Regia, designed by Bernini, and renowned 
 for the beauty of its perspective. It is called the 
 most perfect staircase in the world. Admire the fres- 
 coes on the walls of the outer galleries. There is the 
 handiwork of Raphael. Enter the library. It is a 
 thousand feet long ! It would require a week to make 
 a cursory examination of the contents. Its manu- 
 scripts are invaluable ; some twenty-four thousand are 
 here, gathered from all parts of the world, by purchase, 
 by gift, and by the fortune of war. Ascend to the 
 Sistine Chapel. "Would that we might hear the 3B- 
 serere now. But we have heard the same choir in St. 
 
134 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Last judgment. ™? pictures. 
 
 Peter's, and can not be here to listen to the wonderful 
 music in the Holy Week. We enter a dark, plain, 
 long and lofty room with galleries around three sides 
 of it. The roof is laid off in compartments filled with 
 fresco paintings from Scripture history, the work of 
 Michael Angelo, and here are some of the noblest 
 results of that great master's labor. But torn to the 
 wall at the end of the room, and see the picture pro- 
 nounced by great critics to be the grandest in the world! 
 It is the "Last Judgment," by Michael Angelo. 
 Sixty feet long and thirty feet broad, filled with fig- 
 ures, bringing out the most wonderful variety of pas- 
 sion that the genius of man has ever conceived : the 
 righteous and the wicked, the rising and the risen, the 
 justified and the damned, saints, angels, devils, and 
 every conceivable shape of grief, horror, despair, and 
 woe, combine to make it, even in its present faded, 
 smoked, and shattered state, like Milton's archangel 
 ruined, a glory even in its decay. Yet there is so 
 much extravagance in the picture, paganism being 
 thrust in to embellish it, the painter's vengeance, too, 
 upon his enemies being seen in the ridiculous exhibi- 
 tions he makes of them even in torment, that much 
 of the grandeur of the painting is destroyed. My ad- 
 miration did not amount to enthusiasm, but it was 
 oreat nevertheless. 
 
 Fifty pictures are a small collection compared with 
 the treasures of Florence, whose name is Legion ; but 
 these are all precious, perhaps worth the whole of 
 any other gallery though boasting its thousands. The 
 master-piece of Raphael, his " Transfiguration," hangs 
 
WONDERS OF ROME. 135 
 
 Eaphael. Pagan and Christian. 
 
 in the Vatican. It was the last, as well as the great- 
 est, of that master's works, and he died, at the early 
 age of thirty-seven, while yet engaged upon it. It 
 was spread over his dead body at his funeral. Hence 
 the lines of Rogers — 
 
 "And when all beheld 
 Him where he lay, how changed from yesterday — 
 Him in that hour cut off, and at his head 
 His last great work ; when entering in, they looked, 
 Now on the dead, then on that master-piece — 
 Now on his face lifeless and colorless, 
 Then on those forms divine that lived and breathed, 
 And would live on for ages : all were moved, 
 And sighs burst forth and loudest lamentations." 
 
 Guido and Titian, Paul Veronese and Perugino, 
 are here in the best of their several works ; at least 
 such is the opinion of better judges. 
 
 But Eome is greater in statuary than painting, and 
 we are now in the midst of the grandest collection 
 that the world knows. The numberless sarcophagi, 
 urns and vases, tombstones and broken marble, ar- 
 ranged in the first gallery, impress us with solemn 
 awe, as if we were among the ancient dead. Here 
 are the inscriptions from the tombs of pagans and 
 Christians ; and we marked the contrast, as in other 
 places where the two are placed side by side. Hope 
 in sorrow is the Christian's record over the tombs of 
 those he loves. The pagan submits in mute despair 
 to a fate he can not evade. 
 
 My recollections of the sculptures in these halls are 
 somewhat confused ; but a few of them are impressed 
 on the mind with a vividness that no time can ob- 
 
136 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Laocoon. Apollo. 
 
 scure. Who that has once seen can ever forget — even 
 if he desires to forget — the Laocoon f Whether or 
 not it relates the story of the Trojan priest and his 
 two sons, destroyed by the serpents from Tenedos 
 for the supposed impiety of the father, who hurled the 
 spear into the side of the wooden horse, it is a terri- 
 ble monument of human suffering and human art. 
 The criticisms on the boys, as little old men, are 
 puerile and unworthy in the majestic grandeur of the 
 group. Anguish unutterable and despair stand out 
 in every strained muscle, in the distorted, writhing 
 features of every face ; but more in that of the aged 
 father, who feels his utter powerlessness in the coils 
 of the monsters crushing his bones and his noble sons. 
 I did not know that marble could so move me. But 
 when I saw these snakes, so cold, slimy, scaly, and 
 cruel, winding their horrid folds about the limbs of 
 their wretched victims, I can not better describe my 
 own sensations than by saying that I crawled all 
 over. 
 
 A little farther on and we stood before the Apollo 
 Belvidere. By what hands wrought, or even in what 
 age of Grecian art it was produced, we may not with 
 certainty affirm ; but it lives, the wonder and admira- 
 tion of all ages and climes. The instant my eyes fell 
 on it I was transfixed with delight. The pose is elo- 
 quent of dignity and power. The limbs are the per- 
 fection of manly beauty. Such ease, such strength, 
 such conscious energy ; every muscle is instinct with 
 life. Had it stepped from its pedestal and marched 
 along the hall, I should have scarcely been more ex- 
 
WONDEKS OF ROME. 137 
 
 Michael. Mummies. 
 
 cited. And the head — it is the grandest conception 
 a pagan could have of the head of a god ! 
 
 In the church of the Capuchins is a famous picture 
 of Guido — the Archangel Michael conquering a mon- 
 ster. It cost me some trouble to find a monk who 
 would come and withdraw the curtain, for it was the 
 hour for vespers, and they were all engaged ; but when 
 I discovered one apparently at leisure, he led me back 
 into the church, and very kindly exposed the glorious 
 painting, the master-piece of Guido. The young an- 
 gel, with flowing hair and a countenance of heavenly 
 beauty, with ardent coinage and strength, is coming- 
 down on the enemy, and treading him beneath his 
 feet. Our guide then conducted us to the cemetery 
 of the Capuchins beneath their convent — an extraor- 
 dinary museum in the court of death. One monk had 
 just completed the pleasant duty of showing three 
 ladies through the tombs, and they were kissing his 
 hand and receiving his blessing as we came near. We 
 entered the subterranean apartments, consisting of a 
 series of cells, which are laid off in little squares, and 
 covered with earth and moss, and here and there a 
 few flowers. In each of these cells was the mummy 
 of a monk, with cowl and cassock on, the cord con- 
 fining his gown, the cross still held in his skeleton 
 hand, and an hour-glass and book standing by. A 
 card in the other hand tells us the name of the monk 
 and the time of his decease. The walls of this gloomy 
 sepulchre are adorned with curious figures, wrought 
 with the bones of the monks, who are thus made to 
 contribute to the embellishment of the place after they 
 
138 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Holy Stairs. 
 
 are picked to pieces. Long ago the whole number of 
 cells was filled with the mummies, and now, when a 
 Capuchin dies, he can find a bed below only by crowd- 
 ing out the one who has been here the longest. His 
 bones are then worked up ; his skull becomes a lamp, 
 the vertebras a chain to hang it on, and the shoulder- 
 blade becomes a scythe in the lank fingers of a skele- 
 ton, while the columns and arches are all made of 
 thighs and arms, and even the smaller bones are set 
 in curious mosaics, making the queerest of all cari- 
 catures in the chamber of the dead. 
 
 Every one has read of the Holy Stairs, the Scala 
 /Sa?ita, in the noble portico near to the Basilica of St. 
 John Lateran. These twenty-eight marble steps are 
 said to have been in Pilate's house in Jerusalem, and 
 the same which the Saviour trod when he went to the 
 judgment-seat of the Governor. Now no one is per- 
 mitted to ascend them but on her knees. I say her 
 knees, for of the scores who were slowly climbing 
 when I was there, not a man was to be seen. But 
 at the head of the stairs is a chapel, on which is writ- 
 ten in Latin, " In all the world there is no place more 
 holy;" and into this no woman is allowed to enter. 1 
 looked through the windows and saw the divinity of 
 the sanctuary, a painting of the Saviour at the age 
 of twelve, said to be a perfect likeness, and painted 
 by the evangelist Luke! Of all the penitents who 
 were toiling up the stairs, a few only appeared to be 
 impressed with solemnity becoming the work in which 
 they were engaged. One lady, elegantly dressed, a 
 plump and pretty woman, laughed all the way up, 
 
W ONDERS OF ROME. 
 
 139 
 
 Children. 
 
 Hard work. 
 
 THE HOLY STAIRS. 
 
 and chatted with the children, who found it excess- 
 ively tedious to "be toiling in this way, when they 
 would have preferred to mount two or three steps at 
 a time. Another was very much out of breath, and 
 
140 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Luther. Beautiful church. 
 
 used her handkerchief freely in wiping the perspira- 
 tion from her brow while she rested a few moments, 
 and then climbed on. It is awkward work going up 
 stairs on one's knees. I have heard it said that go- 
 ing down stairs in this way is a certain cure of the 
 fever and ague. It is just as good for that malady 
 as this uphill work is for the more desperate malady 
 of sin. But here, even here, on his knees, on these 
 very stairs, the great reformer, Luther, was startled 
 by a voice from heaven — "The just shall live by 
 faith" — and the Reformation was conceived. 
 
 One church, on the site of a temple to Juno, has 
 become a life memory with me, and I must say a 
 word of it. St. Maria Maggiore is the basilica from 
 the balcony of which the pope blesses the populace 
 on the Festival of the Assumption. Within, the im- 
 posing nave, 280 feet long, is separated from the side 
 aisles by a row of thirty-six Ionic white marble col- 
 umns, and the walls are adorned with mosaics of 
 extraordinary beauty, representing scripture scenes. 
 Among the remarkable relics shown to the faithful and 
 the curious, is the cradle in which the Saviour was 
 laid in his infancy ; but I could not summon creduli- 
 ty enough to be greatly affected by its contemplation. 
 There are many who go upon the principle, the great- 
 er the pretence, the greater the merit of faith ; and 
 they receive with implicit confidence every thing that 
 Popery tells them of the wonderful and sacred. But 
 art in Rome has as much of this spirit of imposition 
 as religion. I felt this most deeply, when, after a 
 long walk to sec a statue, we found at last in the 
 
WONDERS OF ROME. 143 
 
 Doubtful statue. Pride of Eome. 
 
 Spada palace the statue, so called, of Ponipey, hold- 
 ing a globe in his extended hand. He seems on the 
 point of rolling it. Some have pronounced it Augus- 
 tus, and others Alexander the Great, and others have 
 supposed it to be an emperor whose features have 
 not been preserved on coins to be compared with this ; 
 but the opinion is now a common one, that this is the 
 statue which " all the while ran blood" when " great 
 Ca3sar fell" and died at its base. Some have even 
 found the spots of blood on it, which may have been 
 Caesar's or the marble's. I could discover no special 
 fitness to Pompey in the statue, while the globe in 
 his hand looks far more like an emblem of Alexander, 
 or some other master of the world. 
 
 Byron calls the Pantheon the "pride of Rome." 
 It is also claimed to be the most elegant edifice of 
 ancient Rome, and the best preserved of its antique 
 monuments. It is certainly the finest monument of 
 modern Rome. The portico, with its columns of 
 Egyptian marble, unsurpassed by any architecture, 
 is more than one hundred feet long, with Corinthian 
 columns of granite standing on Grecian marble. The 
 bronze doors are probably the same that Agrippa 
 caused to be put up when this temple was erected 
 twenty-five years before Christ. "We pass them, and 
 stand within the rotunda, about one hundred and fifty 
 feet in diameter, and of the same height, and sur- 
 mounted by a mighty dome, from the centre of which 
 the light is admitted by an aperture always open to 
 the sky. The storms of heaven beat in upon its floor 
 of granite and porphyry, the only one of the kind that 
 
144 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Charles V. Tilings to be done, not said. 
 
 is left, and the swollen Tiber has sometimes over- 
 flowed it, and it has been exposed to fire a hundred 
 times, "but it stands a relic of paganism, and now, 
 without alteration, is readily adapted to modern 
 Romish worship. All the ancient ornaments of sil- 
 ver and gold have been removed from the roof, and it 
 strikes the visitor when he enters as a sacked and 
 wasted temple. This idea is still more impressively 
 presented when, from the opening of the rotunda, one 
 looks down upon the uneven pavement and the bare 
 walls. When Charles V. visited Rome in 1536, he 
 was led, at his request, to the roof of the Pantheon, 
 by a young Roman, who told his father afterward, 
 that when the emperor looked into the temple 
 through the open dome, he was almost tempted to 
 push him over, in revenge for his having sacked the 
 city in 1527. The father replied, "My son, such 
 things as that should be done, not talked about." 
 
 The votary of art is more impressed with this temple 
 as the tomb of Raphael. Here lie his bones in the 
 third chapel on the left hand as we enter. The phre- 
 nologists had long admired his skull in the Academy 
 of St. Luke ; but in 1833 the tomb was opened by 
 permission, and the bones of the great painter were 
 found undisturbed and entire in his coffin. Other 
 artists have found a burial-place in this noble edifice, 
 which thus becomes invested with all the interest that 
 antiquity, religion, and genius can impart. 
 
 I have not said any thing of the statuary of the 
 capital. It would fill a volume to do it justice. The 
 Dying Gladiator is not surpassed in power by the 
 
WONDERS OF ROME. 145 
 
 Dying Gladiator. No end to Rome. 
 
 Apollo or the Laocoon. Some artists and judges of 
 art place it before them and all others. I could not 
 study it. There is no work of art in the world that 
 sets the dreadfulness of death so painfully before the 
 mind. No exaggeration, no straining after effect ; not 
 even the accessory of beauty, or nobility, or glory, 
 enhances the interest of the beholder. A coarse, un- 
 intellectual, and perhaps unfeeling man, 
 
 " He leans upon his hand ; his manly brow 
 Consents to death, but conquers agony ; 
 And his droop'd head sinks gradually low, 
 And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow 
 From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, 
 Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now 
 The arena swims around him : he is gone, 
 
 Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won. 
 He heard it, but he heeded not; his eyes 
 "Were with his heart, and that was far away. 
 He reck'd not of the life he lost, nor prize ; 
 But where his rude hut by the Danube lay : 
 T/tere were his young barbarians all at play ; 
 There was their Dacian mother ; he, their sire, 
 Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday." 
 
 But there is no end to Rome — it is an eternal city 
 in this — that we should never exhaust its wonders. 
 Not one of a thousand of the antiquities, the temples, 
 baths, and tombs above and beneath the ground, 
 have we made even a mention of. Nor have we spo- 
 ken, as we should speak, of the glorious works of mod- 
 ern art in Rome, rising from the master hands of 
 American genius and patient, hopeful toil, such as 
 we saw in the studio of Crawford, whom Virginia is 
 employing now upon a noble monument in memory 
 Vol. II.— G 
 
146 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 American artists. 
 
 of her noblest sons, to stand on the Capitol Hill in 
 Richmond. Page, Freeman, Rogers, Mosher, Nich- 
 ols, and others are here, treading steadily upward the 
 hillside to fortune and fame. With them and their 
 families some of my pleasantest hours in Rome were 
 spent; and so rapidly did their kindness and their 
 genius win me, that I found it harder to part from 
 them than from the city I came to see. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ITALY NAPLES. 
 
 Leaving Rome — The Campagna — Ruins — Three Taverns — Pontine 
 Marshes — Terracina — Old Town — Tomb of Cicero — St. Agatha 
 — Beggars — Capua — Arrival at Naples — View of Vesuvius — Mu- 
 seum — Campo Santo — A Dead Show — The Bay — Paradise and 
 the Pit — Lake Avernus — Sibyl's Cave — Cicero's Villa — Nero's 
 Baths — Baias — Grotto del Cane — Sulphur Baths. 
 
 We are taking our last look of the Eternal City. 
 As we pass out by the clmrcli of St. John Lateran 
 and the Scala Santa, though early in the morning, 
 the people have already arrived in their carriages, and 
 many of the devout worshippers are ascending the 
 holy stairs on their knees. 
 
 The classical scholar is filled with the liveliest emo- 
 tions as he leaves the city and enters upon the great 
 Campagna. The aqueducts, perhaps the most strik- 
 ing of all the ruins about Rome, here stretch with 
 their immense arches over the waste. Ancient tombs, 
 broken columns, remains of temples and villas, are on 
 every hand. Here is the spot where Coriolanus was 
 met by his mother, and entreated to spare the city of 
 his "birth. Then we pass the tomb of Pompey, the 
 tomb of the Horatii and the Curiatii, and numerous 
 villas of the old Romans. A few hours brine: us in 
 sio-ht of the Mediterranean Sea off at our right. Herds 
 of buffaloes — the wild cattle of Italy — are feeding in 
 
148 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Three Taverns. Pontine Marshes. 
 
 the meadows, reminding us of the prairies in the West 
 of our own land. 
 
 In the course of the day we came to the Three 
 Taverns, where Paul met his brethren on his journey 
 to Rome. I called to mind a discussion which I held 
 some years before in my own country with a tavern- 
 keeper. He insisted that St. Paul, when on his way 
 to the city, coming in sight of the Three Taverns, 
 "thanked God and took courage;" and then demand- 
 ed of me whether " if Paul thanked God when he saw 
 three taverns, he could not have the privilege of keep- 
 ing one /" 
 
 At Torre de Tre Ponti begin the Pontine Marshes, 
 which are thirty-six miles long, and from six to twelve 
 miles wide. During successive centuries the most vig- 
 orous efforts have been made to drain these marshes, 
 but in vain. Appius Claudius, Julius Ca3sar, Augus- 
 tus, Trajan, and a long line of Popes have expended 
 vast sums for this purpose, but without success. The 
 Appian Way leads directly through them, and the 
 rising malaria renders it unsafe for travellers to pass, 
 in certain seasons of the year, and at any season in 
 the night time. The driver and postillions who are 
 to ride on the outside of the carriage, on coming near 
 light their cigars and smoke vigorously, thinking to 
 render themselves less liable to the infection. The 
 paved high-road is shaded over the top with great 
 trees. There is no marsh in appearance, but the 
 whole surface of the country resembles that of Hol- 
 land. Canals are on either side of the road, and 
 embankments across the plains. 
 
ITALY NAPLES. 149 
 
 The priests. AVines. 
 
 We spent tlie night at Terracina, where Pope Pius 
 VI. had a palace, and where there is now shown a 
 rock remarkable for its human-shaped profile. Of 
 this town upon the edge of the sea, Horace speaks 
 as "furnishing moderate hospitality," and its original 
 character is maintained to the present time. 
 
 I had had for my travelling companions in the 
 coujpe of the diligence two Romish priests,, and 
 enjoyed with them the perusal of the well-known 
 journey of Horace, in which he introduces the places 
 through which we had been passing, and discourses 
 of the scenery with which we had been all day 
 delighted. We got off early in the morning and 
 came on six miles to a high rock, called Torre del 
 Epita/phioi the frontier of the Papal and Neapolitan 
 States. Five miles brought us to Fronde, the gates 
 of which were not yet open. When we entered we 
 found scores of people, men and women, standing 
 around thus early in the morning, having nothing to 
 do but to waylay travellers, and get what they could 
 of them. This town, older than R,ome, has been 
 famous for its wines from time immemorial ; they are 
 mentioned by Pliny, Strabo, and Martial. Here 
 Sejanus saved the life of Tiberius in a grotto. The 
 Dominican Convent was once occupied by Thomas 
 Aquinas. In 1534, the Turks (under Barbarossa) 
 laid waste the town, and attempted to carry off Julia, 
 the Countess of Fronde : she was celebrated for her 
 beauty, and they designed her as a present to the 
 Sultan. Alarmed, she leapt out of her window, fled 
 in the dead of night to the mountains, and escaped. 
 
150 EUIiOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Tomb of Cicero. Pope's flight. 
 
 We went along by the ruins of pagan temples, and 
 through a dreary pass among these mountains ar- 
 rived at Itri. On the right of the road is an ancient 
 tower called the Tomb of Cicero. It is said to mark 
 the spot on which the great Roman orator was killed. 
 Near by, a path leads down to the sea, which he was 
 following to embark in his boat, when he was over- 
 taken, by his enemies and assassinated. Nigh the 
 water's edge is the fountain where Ulysses met the 
 daughter of the King of the Lsestrygonians. 
 
 A beautiful view of the sea and hills opens before 
 the eye. Mola di Gaeta stands on a point, far reach- 
 ing to the sea, at the mouth of a bay. It was cele- 
 brated by the ancients for the beauty of its situation, 
 and the moderns will remember it as the place to 
 which the Pope fled when he ran away in disguise 
 from his beloved people in 1848. They laugh at his 
 dastard flight to this day. The next time he runs he 
 will not get back. Ripe and luscious oranges hung 
 over the walls of the gardens by which our road lay 
 as we entered the narrow and dirty streets of Mola. 
 Through the grates of the prison men and women, 
 confined within, were looking at the passing travel- 
 lers. At the "Post-house" ten gentlemen sat down 
 at a small table, where they attempted to make a 
 breakfast on rancid butter and bread, with one knife 
 for all of the party to use in common ! The conductor 
 informed us that there was a custom-house in this 
 place, and that a fee from each of us would pass our 
 luggage through without examination. Accordingly 
 a contribution was taken up, each gentleman giving 
 
ITALY — NAPLES. 151 
 
 Ancient remains. Beggars. 
 
 what lie pleased, and the result was as good as the 
 promise. 
 
 Off on our left is a city on a hill, elevated at 
 once for health and defence, and almost inaccessible. 
 Men are dressing their vines ; wives and children are 
 helping them ; and now and then is seen a babe lying 
 in a basket, tightly wrapped, and deposited in the 
 grass. 
 
 Frequently we pass the square towers built in the 
 middle ages, and occasionally the round tower of 
 Homan and ancient architecture. Near Scavali we 
 passed the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre, while all 
 around lay scattered evidences that here a great city 
 once stood. At Liris we crossed a river by means of 
 a suspension-bridge. Here we entered upon a vast 
 plain with a road passing through it, and stretching 
 from the mountains on our left away to the sea. In 
 the distance Vesuvius breaks upon our sight. At St. 
 Agatha we were beset by a crowd of beggars, afflicted 
 with all manner of maladies ; a girl put up her hand 
 to her father's blind eyes ; another exposed one of her 
 breasts eaten by scrofula ; another put her fingers to 
 her shriveled lips, and said, "I am dying of hunger." 
 We reached Capua at dark — just in time to miss the 
 train of cars which would have taken us in an hour 
 to Naples. The diligence, however, was to push on ; 
 and, wearied with two long days of laborious riding, 
 we submitted to our fate. The roads soon became 
 horrible. One wheel-horse — a vicious beast — after 
 various attempts at resistance, threw himself down, 
 refusing to make any further efforts to help us along. 
 
152 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 In Naples. Bargain at marriage. 
 
 Our numerous endeavors at mending matters only 
 made them worse; and hour after hour of tedious 
 travelling wore away in quarrels between the coach- 
 men and postillions, so that not until late in the even- 
 ing did we overcome the ten miles, and in darkness 
 enter the city of Naples. 
 
 Perhaps it was well for us that we arrived at night, 
 as it enabled us to anticipate, with higher hopes, the 
 beauty that opened on our eyes with the light of 
 the morning. We found delightful quarters at the 
 Hotel des Etrangcrs, on the shores of the bay, and 
 conveniently near all the places of interest in the city 
 — a house to be sought by all new-comers to Naples. 
 
 The windows of my room look out upon the bay 
 and the isle of Ischia. I am so high, and so near the 
 shore, that I see no street below me ; and the water 
 seems breaking softly upon the door-step. We arc 
 near the Yilla Reale — a public promenade adorned with 
 vases, fountains, groves of orange-trees, and beautiful 
 statuary. The garden is open to the public only one 
 day in the year ; but it is always more or less fre- 
 quented by travellers. Of so much importance was 
 a visit to this park once regarded by the common 
 people, that the young women were in the habit of 
 stipulating, in their marriage contracts, that their 
 husbands should take them there at least once a year. 
 
 Off at my left, the clouds are hanging over Vesu- 
 vius — gloomy and sublime. No fire is now to be 
 seen on the summit of the volcano ; but a tall pillar 
 of smoke rises from its crest, telling of the fierce 
 flames pent up in its bosom. A warm south wind is 
 
ITALY — NAPLES. 153 
 
 Museum. Campo Santo. 
 
 blowing, so soft and voluptuous that I love to open 
 my bosom and let it creep in and around me. Alas ! 
 mine host of the hotel tells me the wind is from a 
 poisonous quarter, and he hopes it will soon be over. 
 
 Impatient to see the thousand objects of interest in 
 and around this city, we made our way at once to the 
 Museum, celebrated chiefly for its collection of an- 
 tiquities from Herculaneum and Pompeii. Suspend- 
 ed from the walls of the disentombed houses are fres- 
 coes, indistinct, but still interesting as specimens of 
 ancient art. Here are cakes of ashes from the build- 
 ings of Pompeii, bearing impressions which had been 
 made upon them by the limbs of those who perished 
 in the burial of the city. One cake is marked by the 
 breast of a woman ; others, with arms and hands, 
 resembling casts that had been taken from living 
 models. A vast collection of vases, household utensils, 
 and objects of art have been transferred from the 
 ruins and deposited here. The halls devoted to an- 
 cient sculpture contain some of the finest statuary in 
 the world ; and a secret chamber, into which none are 
 admitted without special permission from the govern- 
 ment, is filled with a most extraordinary collection of 
 ancient and indecent statuary, which is very properly 
 concealed from public view. 
 
 We spent the day in the midst of these curiosities, 
 and toward night ascended the hill to the Campo 
 Santo, that we might witness the mode of disposing of 
 the dead, one of the strange sights in Naples. This 
 cemetery, situated upon the highest part of the city, 
 is a large quadrangle, surrounded on all sides by 
 
 G* 
 
154 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Pits for the dead. Pitching them in. 
 
 buildings. The paved court is divided into three 
 hundred and sixty-six pits, having one for each day 
 in the year. Every night the dead of the day in the 
 hospitals and the houses of those who from want of 
 means have been unable to procure a more desirable 
 burial-place for themselves, are brought here. As we 
 rode up, the attendants were driving out a crowd, 
 which had gathered to witness the melancholy spec- 
 tacle. Our appearance as strangers secured us the 
 privilege of admission, and we were invited to stand 
 near the edge of the pit. A priest performed a funeral 
 service over the bodies, lying around in rude boxes. 
 When this was over, the servants opened the boxes, 
 stripped the bodies of their clothing, seized them — 
 one by the hands and another by the feet — and 
 dropped them into the hole. One man took a babe 
 in each hand, and pitched them in as carelessly as he 
 would handle a sheep. Some fifteen or twenty were 
 thus disposed of. Lime was then thrown in upon 
 them ; the stone cover was lowered, and fitted tightly 
 over the mouth, and the pit was closed to remain 
 unopened for a year. Others who have visited the 
 Campo Santo, have told us of the sights that they 
 have seen in the pits when the stones are raised ; 
 but, so far as we were able to judge, the lime de- 
 stroys them utterly, so that when the pits are re- 
 opened nothing is to be seen within. Indeed, it is 
 said that whenever they have been examined the day 
 after burial, the bodies have been found overrun with 
 rats and cockroaches, which destroy the flesh of the 
 dead more rapidly than lime. 
 
ITALY NAPLES. 155 
 
 Raising thcra up. The bay. 
 
 Such, are the burials of the poor ; the rich find their 
 resting-places under the churches, where the graves 
 are divided by low, narrow Avails. Here also the 
 ground is impregnated with lime, in order that the 
 bodies may be consumed more rapidly than by mere 
 natural decay; for at the end of six months every 
 grave is liable to be re-opened, when the bones are re- 
 moved to make room for other bodies. There is, 
 however, one church where the rich are able to secure 
 for themselves a lasting resting-place ; the church of 
 the Holy Apostles. Its vaults are filled with a pecu- 
 liar earth, which prevents, instead of promoting, de- 
 composition. There is an association which secures 
 to its members the privilege of burial here, and also 
 of being taken up, at some future time, to be shown 
 to surviving friends in the favorite dresses which they 
 were accustomed to wear during life. On these exhi- 
 bition days the chapels are illuminated and decked 
 with flowers. The bodies of the dead, dressed in 
 their best clothes, with hair curled, and flowers in 
 their hands, are ranged in rows along the chapel, a 
 card over each body, on which is recorded its name. 
 The friends kneel and pray before the body for the 
 repose of the soul. 
 
 On coming out from the Campo Santo we stood 
 upon a height overlooking the city, its environs, and 
 the world-famous Bay of JVaples. Much as we had 
 heard and read of this magnificent expanse of water, 
 and of the gorgeous city upon its shore, its beauty ex- 
 ceeded all the expectations we had ever formed. The 
 bay is a vast semicircle, ten or fifteen miles across, 
 
156 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 A contrast. Paradise and the pit, 
 
 and along its edge the city rises, exposing to full view 
 its ten thousand theatres, palaces, churches, towers, 
 walls, and pinnacles, all having a wildness of appear- 
 ance and yet a harmony of relation that fill the mind 
 with sensations of exquisite pleasure. The more dis- 
 tant mountains, in smoke, or exposing their peaks, 
 which have once been tinged with fiery floods, awaken 
 emotions of the sublime, that mingle with those of the 
 beautiful which the softer features of the scene have 
 inspired. In front of us is the bay, with its shipping 
 and its islands lying like gems upon the bosom of this 
 lovely water. The contrast of this view with the scene 
 which we had just witnessed perhaps added not a lit- 
 tle to the enjoyment of the prospect that was now out- 
 spread before us. I was sick when I came out of the 
 cemetery ; I felt as in the midst of a charnel-house. 
 I was in Naples, the most dissolute and corrupt of 
 all the cities of Italy, and consequently of Europe. 
 No city could exhibit a closer alliance between para- 
 dise and the pit. Behind me, and before me, were 
 emblems of both ; Naples the beautiful is also Naples 
 corrupted, festering, rotting, like the dead beneath 
 the ground on which it stands. Naples the beautiful 
 sits, like a queen, on the shores of this unrivaled bay, 
 rejoicing in her pride and loveliness, forgetful of the 
 judgments that have burst upon the cities standing 
 once around her, that lived as Naples lived, and per- 
 ished as Naples one day may perish. 
 
 We spent the next day riding along the shore and 
 among the ruins of ancient Baia3. Before we left the 
 city we stopped at the tomb of Virgil, which is beau- 
 
ITALY — NAPLES. 157 
 
 Landing of Paul. 
 
 tifully situated on a gentle hill overlooking the sea, 
 and marked by a marble monument, recording, as I 
 believe there is but little reason to doubt, that the 
 great poet was actually interred upon this very spot. 
 Through the Grotto di Posilipo, a long tunnel of won- 
 derful excavation, we passed out upon the plain. The 
 island of Ischia and the Cape Messina rise to view. 
 We came on to Puzzeoli, the ancient Puteoli, where 
 Paul landed on his journey to Home. Soon we reach- 
 ed the shores of Lake Avernus. It is evidently the 
 crater of an extinct volcano, now filled with water, 
 from which high green banks recede on either side. 
 A narrow passage affords the only outlet to the lake 
 Lucrine. The ruins of the temple of Apollo stand 
 upon the eastern verge, with here and there a few cot- 
 tages scattered around. Avernus, the ancient name, 
 was suggestive of the gloom with which nature and 
 poetry have invested this spot. Forests, doubtless, 
 hung over the lake from which arose pestilential va- 
 pors ; and this fact may have given rise to the idea 
 that no living thing could dwell in its waters, and 
 that every bird that attempted to fly over would fall 
 dead in its passage. Virgil made this lake the en- 
 trance to the infernal regions ; and near by is the cave 
 in which his hero, "the pious iEneas," sought and 
 found the sibyl, under whose direction he made his 
 subterranean descent. 
 
 The grotto is called Sibyl's Cave to this day. It 
 proved to be an immense tunnel, constructed doubt- 
 less for commercial purposes, and extending from the 
 lake to the sea, long before Virgil seized upon it to 
 
158 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Sibyl's Cave. Cicero's \i:i <. 
 
 form part of his story. Within this tunnel are mys- 
 terious chambers, the uses of which are difficult to he 
 explained, and which superstition and romance have 
 invested with peculiar interest. We mounted the 
 hacks of dirty Italians, who were clamoring for the 
 privilege of carrying us, and, with lighted candles in our 
 hands, we were borne through water four feet deep 
 from room to room, till we had satisfied our curi- 
 osity, and were glad to emerge into the light of day. 
 
 We drove into the ruins of the Cumsean villa of 
 Cicero, the favorite resort of the orator, when, on the 
 borders of the sea, he sat and meditated his philoso- 
 phy, or in these cool retreats refreshed himself for 
 those splendid efforts of eloquence which give a charm 
 to the ground upon which his dwelling once stood, 
 and have since bestowed immortality upon his name. 
 Bums of ancient tombs, some of them still having the 
 urns that once contained the ashes of the dead, now 
 standing within them in niches, are to be found all over 
 the plain. We left our carriage and walked up the 
 hill to a very interesting ruin, which is said to have 
 been one of the prisons of Xero. Underground were 
 vast architectural remains, supposed to be reservoirs 
 for water, by which the ancient Roman fleets were 
 supplied. Leaving these, we pass through a dirty 
 village, and around a hill up to a point where we are 
 able to view the gulf, villas,' ancient cities, Vesuvius, 
 Putcoli, Nisrida, with the towers of St. Martin and 
 St. Elmo. The past and the present all lie before us, 
 a scene of melancholy grandeur such as the eye sel- 
 dom beholds. Tn the clear waters of the bay before 
 
ITALY — NAPLES. 159 
 
 Subterranean. Lunch at Baia?. 
 
 us, we saw the remains of the old Roman pavement 
 in the bottom of the sea. Underneath this hill twelve 
 steps lead us down into the midst of massive arches 
 and caverns, which lead off to the right and to the left, 
 toward the sea. They have been supposed to be pris- 
 ons but they suggested to us the idea of a place of re- 
 treat in times of danger, or a hiding-place for treasure. 
 Probably all the hills that are around us, if they should 
 be explored, would reveal similar constructions. 
 
 Coming up again, we found an old terrace, separated 
 by six Doric columns ; here we spread our table, in 
 sight of the ruins of the temples of Venus, of Diana, 
 and of Mercury ; the baths of Nero — a rare panorama 
 of antiquity. Vines and olives were growing luxuri- 
 antly around us. So soft, balmy, heavenly, was the 
 atmosphere, and so enchanting the scenery by which 
 we were surrounded, that we seemed to be in the very 
 region of poetry and of love. Hither the old Romans 
 resorted to enjoy the luxuries of their day ; and prob- 
 ably no spot in Italy has ever been the scene of more 
 unbounded license than this upon which we were now 
 sitting. 
 
 A rascally-looking Italian came up, with baskets 
 of oysters from Lake Fusaro, vaunted to be the best 
 in the world; these, with the cold chicken that we 
 had brought, made our lunch amidst the ruins of 
 Baias. After dinner we visited the baths of Nero, 
 far down underneath a hill, from which clouds of 
 steam from the boiling waters below were issuing. A 
 stout fellow, standing ready with a pail and a couple 
 of eggs in his hands, entered the passage in the rock 
 
160 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Boiling eggs. Cave of the Dog. 
 
 leading to the fountain, and soon emerged with his 
 pail filled with hot water, and the eggs cooked and 
 ready to "be eaten. This was evidence sufficient for us 
 of the heat of the region, and we made no experiments 
 of our own to test it. The immense masses of masonry 
 and the numerous tunnels cut through these hills and 
 extending in every direction, are astonishing proofs of 
 the labor and expense to which the ancient Romans 
 must have gone for their luxuries, as well as in works 
 for security and defence. The obj ects of these construc- 
 tions are now wholly involved in obscurity, and per- 
 haps conjecture on the subject is altogether idle. 
 
 The GrTotto del Cane is a small cave in the side of 
 a hill. A woman kept the key that opened the en- 
 trance, and offered to show us its mysteries. She 
 was followed by a dog, on which is daily performed 
 the cruel experiment of being poisoned with the va- 
 por, and then suffered to come to life, in order to be 
 on hand for another poisoning — a dog's life indeed. 
 "We agreed to the old woman's terms, and she opened 
 the door. A volume of steam, with which carbonic 
 acid gas was mingled, was rising from the ground, 
 the floor of the cave ; but the upper part seemed en- 
 tirely free from it. It is said that this grotto has 
 been used as a place for the execution of criminals, 
 who have been shut up within and there left to die. 
 Addison made a series of experiments here, on the 
 occasion of his memorable visit. He found that gun- 
 powder would not explode in the vapor. Light is 
 extinguished by it the moment it is immersed. We 
 had some hesitation about permitting the execution 
 
ITALY — NAPLES. 161 
 
 The execution. Sulphur baths. 
 
 of the dog, but feeling that perhaps he would be dis- 
 appointed if not allowed to go through his usual per- 
 formance, we suffered the woman to pitch him in. 
 This operation she performed by taking him by the 
 legs and depositing him on the ground in the midst 
 of the curling vapor. The dog allowed himself to be 
 laid upon his side two or three minutes, and began 
 to betray symptoms of extreme suffering. He was 
 then drawn out into the air, where he lay for some 
 time in fits, but gradually regained his consciousness 
 and self-possession. When we came away he was 
 ready to be executed again for the entertainment of a 
 party of travellers, who arrived as we were on the 
 point of taking our leave. 
 
 We found near by some sulphur baths, where the 
 ground was so hot from internal fires that we lighted 
 punk upon the sides of a grotto which we had enter- 
 ed. One chamber was furnished with a bed, in which 
 a man slept every night amidst the heat, that was 
 to us insupportable, even for the few minutes during 
 which we attempted to stay in it. A swarm of beg- 
 gars, disgusting from their disease and filth, infested 
 us as we came in toward the city. The peasants sit- 
 ting by the roadside, engaged in the Italian custom of 
 hunting heads, completed the sensation of loathing 
 with which we regarded the degraded people of this 
 beautiful country. How often have we had occasion 
 to speak of it as the land 
 
 " Where only man is vile !" 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 
 
 A Day in Pompeii — Smart Englishmen — Along Shore — A Soldier 
 knocked over — A Chase and Capture — The Gate of the City — 
 Street of Tombs— House of Diomede — Walks about Town — An- 
 tiquities—House of Sallust — Paintings and Statuary— Fountains 
 and Baths— Temples and Theatres — The Burial of the City — 
 Vesuvius— The Ascent— The Crater— The Crust— The Descent— 
 Herculaneum. 
 
 JYbv. 18. A day at Pompeii! A day with the 
 dead past, and one to he remembered till the sea and 
 the earth give up their dead ! 
 
 At "breakfast-table we found a couple of English 
 gentlemen who had actually " done" Vesuvius, Her- 
 culaneum, and Pompeii, with much of Naples besides, 
 in a single day, the day before, and were now leaving 
 the city. They confessed it was "sharp practice," 
 but said it could be done, for they had tried the ex- 
 periment. The English are as rapid sight-seers as 
 the Yankees ; and I have never heard of any of my 
 countrymen who have done more in a day of that 
 business than these gentlemen achieved. As we 
 had no intention of running a race with them, we de- 
 termined to take the matter leisurely. 
 
 The drive along the shore through the street of 
 Naples is never without its incidents. The people 
 eating their maecaroni, which looks like little snakes 
 
POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 163 
 
 A street fight. Lava. 
 
 dropping into their mouths ; the women searching the 
 heads of their children ; the donkeys with all sorts of 
 burdens, and led by women or old men ; but more than 
 all, the cart with its load of ten or twenty men and 
 women, sitting and standing, holding upon each other 
 and the cart wherever they can get place for a foot, 
 driven at a break-neck pace, the entire freight in a 
 gale of laugh, as if they were the happiest people in 
 the world. We met a cart in which a solitary laborer 
 was riding with his load: his wheel struck the car- 
 riage in which a man in military dress was riding 
 with a lady, and gave it such a blow that the gentle- 
 man was thrown out upon the ground. He recovered 
 himself, drew his sword and rushed after the luckless 
 carter, who took to his heels. I thought we were to 
 have an Italian murder on the spot. But the enraged 
 soldier expended his wrath in beating him with the 
 flat of his sword, while the poor fellow put up his 
 hands and implored mercy, warding off the blows till 
 the blood streamed from the wounds on his arms. 
 The lady came down from the carriage and wiped off 
 the dust from her soiled companion who was white 
 with rage, and appeared to have suffered from his fall 
 and his chase. Our way was along the shore to 
 Portici and Pesina, by the side of the beautiful villas, 
 and near to immense heaps of lava that are piled up 
 in the midst of houses. We have always supposed 
 that Pompeii lies below the surface, and we must de- 
 scend into gloomy streets, where the light of day does 
 not penetrate. Instead of this, it was situated on 
 high ground, and was buried by a shower of ashes 
 
164 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The buried city. Street of Tombs. 
 
 and stones that were rained down upon it "by the erup- 
 tion of Vesuvius. When the discovery was made a 
 hundred years ago, the city was disinterred by re- 
 moving the superincumbent mass that had crushed 
 the roofs of the buildings, and exposing the streets 
 and squares, the temples, and forums, and baths to 
 the eye of heaven as broadly as the city we have 
 just left. Only about a fourth part of the town has 
 yet been revealed, and little or no progress has re- 
 cently been made in the work. We have come to 
 the gate, for the government guards it with vigil- 
 ance, and must pay for admission. The door is 
 thrown open, and we stand at once in the " Street of 
 Tombs." It is a fitting entrance to such a city as 
 this. The wheel-worn pavement of huge stones is 
 as firm as if laid yesterday. On each side of us 
 are the monuments of the men who had been buried 
 and perhaps forgotten when the city itself was made a 
 tomb. We read the inscriptions in Latin, and copied 
 some of them. One of them, " N. Velasio Grato, Vix 
 Anno XII.," scarcely in his twelfth year. We en- 
 tered the house of Diomede. In its portico of four- 
 teen columns was found the skeleton of a soldier who 
 did not fly from his post when the storm came. We 
 went down into the basement where the family, doubt- 
 less, took refuge ; for seventeen skeletons were dis- 
 covered there, the most of them females, as the brace- 
 lets and necklaces of gold would indicate. The ashes 
 that settled on them became caked, and we saw im- 
 pressions or casts that preserve the forms, and even 
 the texture of the dress. One of these was against 
 
POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 165 
 
 Resurrection. House of Ballast 
 
 the wall ill a crouching posture — an image of terror, 
 and a mournful monument of the night of woe. The 
 amphora3 or jars for wine are still standing here, im- 
 bedded in the volcanic alluvium, which penetrated 
 even these recesses. As we came up from these sad- 
 dening scenes, that imparted a sense of the real to the 
 place, I felt as if in a dead city on the morning of the 
 resurrection, for the few travellers like ourselves walk- 
 ing among these desolations, appeared to have sud- 
 denly come to life in the midst of a mighty sepulchre. 
 Along the melancholy streets we wander, looking in 
 at the shops, where the counters on which "business 
 was done are still standing ; here is a bakery, as we 
 learn from the ovens and the troughs, in which the 
 corn was found ; here an oil store ; here the house of 
 a surgeon ; here a tavern. In front of it is a fount- 
 ain ; and here are the public baths. We enter the 
 courts of one of these houses, for they do not open at 
 once from the street, but are built around an open 
 square. This is the house of Sallust, and evidently 
 the abode of one of the wealthiest of the men of Pom- 
 peii. The entrance, with its pilasters and stucco cap- 
 pitals — the atrium, with its fountain and impluvmm in 
 the shape of a shell ; its beautifully-frescoed walls, its 
 gardens, paved pathways, and spacious area, show that 
 it must have been a splendid mansion in its day. On 
 the wall of a range of apartments secluded from the 
 rest is a painting of Actason punished for his discovery 
 of Diana in her bath ; a picture that intimates the 
 mysterious uses of these chambers. The sleeping 
 rooms in all the buildings we entered were small ; but 
 
166 EUKOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Skeleton in jewels. Beware of the Dog. 
 
 these were on a larger scale than many others, and 
 near them was found the skeleton loaded with gold 
 bracelets and rings, and supposed to be the remains 
 of her who once was the mistress of these halls. 
 
 We pass on ; and the lascivious paintings we find 
 on the walls, and the disgusting insignia which sculp- 
 ture has affixed to the door-posts of the houses, con- 
 tinually remind us that this city could not have been 
 better than Sodom, and deserved its fate. Stepping 
 into the portal of another house we find the figure of 
 a dog in the mosaic pavement, and the words, Cave 
 Oanem — "Beware of the Dog," giving the same cau- 
 tion which we meet with in our own times. In one 
 house a most beautiful white marble fountain stands, 
 with elegant shell-work about it, and the most deli- 
 cate tracery of the chisel is seen in the finish of the 
 structure. Statues which once adorned it have been 
 removed to the Museum. In another fountain were 
 marble statues with open mouths, from which the jets 
 had leaped. Here the cornice and frieze were ex- 
 quisitely perfect, and the small columns supporting 
 the gallery were so light and easy that they seem- 
 ed pleased with their burden. Another fountain had 
 similar statues in bronze, with swans and cupids in 
 marble, and curious frescoes on the walls around. In 
 the house of Castor and Pollux a fish-pond was in 
 the centre of the court ; the walls were covered witli 
 fruit and flowers, with Apollo and Daphne, Venus and 
 Adonis, and other nude figures. A glass had been 
 put over one of the most voluptuous pictures to pre- 
 serve it from farther exposure to the air, not the eye. 
 
POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 167 
 
 Furniture. Street crossings. 
 
 In Casa Apollo the bedrooms were painted down to 
 what might be the height of the bed with frescoes, 
 whose colors are still brilliant, and the figures perfect. 
 I picked np some of the broken plaster, and the guide 
 remarked that all Pompeii would go to America, if 
 travellers were allowed to carry off what they wished. 
 In another stood a marble table of exceeding beauty, 
 and wine-coolers underneath it ; a splendid court in 
 front, and a dancing-saloon with fluted columns of 
 fine finish, having the names of ancient revelers in 
 these courts scratched upon them. Through many 
 of these houses, to which names have been given from 
 the prominent objects discovered in them, we were 
 led, admiring the great variety of decorations, but 
 often shocked at the universal taste displayed for the 
 sensual and voluptuous. 
 
 We crossed the streets on square stones laid at 
 short intervals, so that the foot-passer might step 
 from one to the other, and the wheels would go be- 
 tween them. At the end of the street we come to the 
 embankment of ashes and earth which has not been 
 removed, covering yet other buildings which may con- 
 tain more precious and interesting remains than any 
 which have been brought to light. I felt as if I would 
 be glad to have power to say to this mountain, "be 
 thou removed and cast into the sea." The king spends 
 four or five thousand dollars yearly on the protection 
 and improvement of the city, but no progress is made 
 in the work of excavation. Now we pass on and visit 
 the temples of Venus and of Jupiter, the magnificent 
 amphitheatre in the highest part of the city, where, on 
 
168 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Work of ruin. Beggars and guides. 
 
 seats of Parian marble the spectators sat and looked 
 down into the arena, or off upon the bay — we enter 
 the Forum, surrounded on three sides by a Doric col- 
 onnade of pure white marble columns. From the ped- 
 estals in front of the columns, the statues have been 
 removed, but we get an idea of the artistic beauty 
 which this square must have displayed. These re- 
 mains are impressive and suggestive. We are carried 
 back to the period of the city's destruction, seventy- 
 nine years after Christ, when the fiery torrents rolled 
 down the sides of the mountain, and the clouds of 
 earth and ashes rose from the crater and then fell, a 
 fearful pall, and covered these temples and theatres 
 and habitations of men. That night which settled 
 upon Pompeii lasted seventeen hundred years, and the 
 day which then dawned revealed the awfulness of the 
 judgment which came in the midst of her pleasures 
 and her sins. 
 
 We spent the entire day in these meditations among 
 the tombs, and it was long after midnight before I was 
 able to forget the day in dreams. 
 
 The next morning by nine o'clock we were off for 
 VESUVIUS. By the same carriage-road as the day be- 
 fore, and with many of the same sights around us, we 
 drove to Resina, where we were beset by the motli- 
 cst and sturdiest set of guides, beggars, and boys we 
 had yet encountered. The guides were ready to fur- 
 nish horses and conduct us to Vesuvius. The beggars 
 wanted money, and the boys would sell us sticks to 
 walk up the mountain, or they would go along and 
 help us. We had been advised to find Vincent Coz- 
 
POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 169 
 
 OOEEolino. Tlie ride. 
 
 zolino, who had conducted Ross, Forbes, Humbolt, 
 and other great men, and was therefore the man for 
 us ! We inquired for him, and one guide claimed to 
 he his brother, and another his cousin, but the real 
 Cozzolino was not to be found. His house was near, 
 and thither we went. He was absent, but we found 
 his son, a smart young fellow, who produced his book 
 of certificates, and among them one from Professor 
 Silliman, whose commendation was all-sufficient, and 
 we committed ourselves at once to his care. Giovanni, 
 for that was his name, supplied us at once with 
 horses, and we set off with the whole gang of boys, 
 beggars, and guides in full cry after us. They as- 
 sured us that one guide would not be enough, we 
 should need help in climbing the mountain, and each 
 one had some peculiar service to render which was 
 quite indispensable to our success. By dint of hard 
 riding we managed to get away from them, and by a 
 road that was well-paved and had been for a thousand 
 years, we rode on for an hour and then commenced an 
 ascent by a winding but easy path, which, after an- 
 other hour, brought us to the table-land, where stands 
 the Hermitage with refreshments for travellers. Our 
 way had led us through fields in which men were at 
 work, and many women saluted us as we passed. 
 Vast strata of lava were lying in great ridges, along 
 the sides of which the vines were growing luxuriant- 
 ly, where the waves of liquid stone had once flowed 
 and cooled, now stretching in long rows like rivers 
 from the mountain to the sea. We often paused on 
 our upward way to look back on the enchanting pros- 
 Vol. II — H 
 
170 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The vie\r. Climbing the cone. 
 
 p ec t — the neat white cottages on the hillsides, the 
 villages on the plain, the city, the bay, the islands, 
 and the blue sea. A glorious vision, every moment 
 growing more beautiful as we ascend and take in a 
 wider view. Now we observe successive layers of 
 lava, with the common earth between ; on the border 
 of a ravine we could thus count four strata deposited 
 by as many overflows of the boiling caldron. After 
 leaving the Hermitage we crossed immense fields of 
 lava, over which a path for the horses has been made, 
 and in single file we made our way to the foot of the 
 cone of Vesuvius. We are now between Monte Som- 
 ma and Vesuvius. They were one in olden times, 
 till the great eruption of a.d. 79 left this valley 
 after the mountain had flowed down into the plain 
 and the sea, and buried the cities of Herculaneum 
 and Pompeii. At the base of the cone a dozen fel- 
 lows were awaiting the arrival of travellers, and with 
 sedan chairs would carry those to the summit who 
 preferred that to walking ; and when we all refused to 
 be carried, they followed us, insisting that we should 
 allow them to haul us up with a handkerchief about 
 our waists. Taking the track along the side of a 
 ridge of lava, now and then leaving it for the ashes, 
 into which we sank* and slipped back about as fast as 
 we got up, we climbed as perpendicularly as up a 
 ruined stairway of some old castle. From time to 
 time I was obliged to sit down on the ragged piles of 
 lava, and gather strength for the ascent, for the sum- 
 mit seemed to recede as we approached it. But we 
 did it in forty minutes, from the base of the cone. 
 
POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 171 
 
 Purgatory. 
 
 Now on the rim of the crater, the ground on which we 
 are treading is opened with seams or cracks, from 
 which smoke or steam issues continually, and if we 
 listen we can hear the roar of the internal fires be- 
 neath our feet. We went a few steps below the 
 verge to get some protection from the cool winds that 
 blew too freshly on us in our heat, and there we 
 placed a lot of eggs in the crevices of the earth, and 
 made Vesuvius cook them for our dinner. Refreshed 
 and rested, we descended a hundred feet into the 
 crater, and, standing on a ledge of rocks, we could see 
 down into still lower depths, from which the smoke 
 was rising, but no fire was perceptible. After the 
 interior of the crater has been cleaned out by a great 
 eruption, it is easy to go down into it and make such 
 an exploration ; but it is gradually filled up by the 
 upheaving of the boiling mass, and when full, it flows 
 over and runs in rivers down the mountain side, or a 
 mighty eructation throws it up into the air to descend 
 in a storm of red-hot stones and scoriae. Enveloped 
 in the thick sulphurous vapor that rose from the abyss, 
 we were sometimes unable to see up or down, and 
 appeared to ourselves to be lost in the vestibule of 
 some purgatorial cavern, from which deliverance was 
 doubtful. For a few moments the clouds would clear 
 away, and we then launched huge stones into the 
 abyss, listening to hear their roll and bound after 
 they had passed out of sight. I write these lines 
 sitting on the rocks as near the bottom of the crater 
 as I could reach. 
 
 It was harder to get out of it than in. But once 
 
172 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Sulphur. Looking off. 
 
 more on the verge above, we pursued our footway 
 around the crater, perhaps a mile and a half in cir- 
 cumference; "but the strong sulphur clouds of smoke 
 and steam so nearly choked me, that I was obliged to 
 cover my face with my handkerchief, and trust to the 
 guide to lead me through. Happily the wind was 
 favorable, and when we came around to the western 
 side we were relieved, and could look off on the mag- 
 nificent prospect which the summit of Vesuvius com- 
 mands. It was an entrancing sight. There is no 
 other like it in the earth. If this has been said of a 
 score of other scenes, let them be all unsaid, that the 
 view from Vesuvius may bear the palm. "We can 
 now look off far into the country, where cities have 
 been, and white villages now are, and smiling vine- 
 yards, down into whose bosom these black streams 
 extend from the sides of the mountain. And here is 
 beautiful Naples, girding the sea with its suburban 
 villages ; and there lie the islands of Capri and Ischia, 
 and this "great and wide sea." But we must not be 
 looking off. We plunge our walking-sticks into the 
 ground, and out rushes the smoke and sulphurous 
 gas. We walk on and find new openings, and hot 
 steam issues, before which we could not hold our 
 hands. We step across wide fissures from which the 
 scalding vapor was ascending, and we could distinctly 
 hear the roar of the boiling caldron below. At last 
 we completed the circuit of the crater's rim, and sat 
 down again to rest and think. What a wonderful past 
 lias been around this burning mountain ! Before the 
 Phoenicians came hither these flames had been burn- 
 
POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 173 
 
 Getting down again. Paying guards. 
 
 ing, and the Syriac language gave the volcano its 
 name. Jupiter Tonans, the Thunderer, once had a 
 temple on the summit — " Jovi Vesuvio sacrum, D.D." 
 Pliny's graphic story of that awful eruption which 
 destroyed the cities of the plain, we read while in full 
 view of all the localities which he describes. It gave 
 a terrible reality to the scene. Other cities are now 
 lying nearer to this crater than Pompeii, and are 
 thoughtlessly treasuring up wrath against a similar 
 day of wrath. May God save them from such a 
 doom ! 
 
 It is time to descend. The sun is on the downhill 
 side, and we have a buried city yet to see. Away we 
 went through the soft ashes which had been soaked 
 by a heavy rain the night before, and now made a 
 yielding bed for our feet, as by successive leaps of ten 
 or fifteen feet at every bound we came down, and 
 never paused to look back, and had no need to rest 
 till we were at the foot of the cone. This operation 
 did not occupy more than ten minutes, and was full 
 of excitement. 
 
 Mounting our horses, we were called on to pay a 
 man who was dressed as a soldier, marching around 
 with a gun on his shoulder. 
 
 "What for, pray?" 
 
 " Oh, the rascals who are here pretending to be 
 guides, would plunder every body who fell into their 
 hands, if it were not for the guards which the govern- 
 ment places here for your protection." 
 
 This being done, and half a dozen more being paid 
 for some service or other, we hardly knew what, we 
 
174 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Another buried city. Solid lava. 
 
 got away and had an easy and pleasant ride down 
 again to Resina. 
 
 At Resina is the entrance to the subterranean city 
 of Herculaneum. This city was buried at the same 
 time with Pompeii, but was discovered by the opening 
 of a well, some fifty years before its sisters Portici and 
 Resina had been built upon the earth, over the temples 
 and palaces that had been buried and forgotten for 
 many centuries, when accident led to the knowledge 
 of the fact that houses, and streets, and statues, and 
 all the remains of ancient and splendid art were to 
 be found some sixty feet below the surface. The 
 keeper of this strange museum lighted his torch and 
 led us by several successive flights of steps, cut 
 through solid lava, down and down into the bowels 
 of the earth, till he ushered us into a stupendous thea- 
 atre, where, on eighteen rows of seats, divided into 
 six compartments, the people had sat to look on the 
 stage, which has been cleared so as to reveal its whole 
 extent. The orchestra is one-third larger than that of 
 the largest modern theatre in Europe. A few inscrip- 
 tions are yet legible, and some have been removed. 
 We explored the various accessible parts of this vast 
 building, perhaps more impressed with the awfulness 
 of the catastrophe that overwhelmed the city than we 
 were at Pompeii. There, we were out under the broad 
 light of heaven, and we had to believe that once all 
 those ruins had been concealed from view by the su- 
 perincumbent masses of earth and ashes ; here, we 
 are underneath the solid lava, harder than the granite, 
 and have come sixty-five feet down to a theatre that 
 
H ERG ULAN ELM. 175 
 
 would seat eight thousand living men. On the south 
 side of this theatre is a temple in the midst of a pub- 
 lic square, from which a broad paved street leads off 
 to another temple ; and in the midst of the street a 
 basilica with a portico supported by forty-two columns, 
 and adorned with paintings. The explorations have 
 been extended until other temples and splendid resi- 
 dences, fountains and water-courses, statues and beau- 
 tiful mosaics have Deen discovered ; but, as yet, the 
 extent of the city has never been ascertained. Prob- 
 ably far more wonderful discoveries might be made 
 if the excavations were carried on, but it is attended 
 with so much expense, that it will not probably be 
 soon resumed. 
 
CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 FROM ITALY TO GREECE. 
 
 In the Bay of Naples — the Shore — Capri — Tiberius — Messina — Malta 
 — The Company — Greece — A Hermit — Syra — The Piraeus — Na- 
 tives — Their Costume — Xerxes and Mount Egalios — Ancient Walls 
 — Temple of Theseus — Otho's Palace — Eev. Dr. Jonas King. 
 
 We must leave Naples, and Italy too. We set out 
 by the French steamer Bospkorus, November 23d, 
 at three P. M., for Malta and the East generally. The 
 Bay of Naples we had seen from every commanding- 
 point of view, and had "been compelled to admit, 
 though we resisted it long, that for picturesque "beauty 
 it is without a peer. And now, as we came into the 
 centre of the more than semicircular shore, extend- 
 ing from Baiae away around to Castellamare, one 
 long and splendid city lining the edge of the bay, 
 while the hills and mountains rise in grandeur in the 
 rear, and Vesuvius with his eternal pillar of cloud 
 stands in full view, giving terrific effect to the feelings 
 with which we contemplate this scene, it must be 
 confessed that there is nothing comparable to the 
 Bay of Naples. 
 
 The change was sudden and gloomy from the calm 
 loveliness of this bay to the rough bosom of the Med- 
 iterranean sea. No sooner had we passed Capri, on 
 whose perpendicular rocks Tiberius had his villa, 
 
PROM ITALY TO GREECE. 177 
 
 The Straits. Malta. 
 
 where he indulged his luxury and his cruelty, which 
 have alike made his name infamous even in Roman 
 history, than we were tossed by waves more distress- 
 ing to weak stomachs than any we had on the Atlan- 
 tic. Short and sudden, giving a man no time to re- 
 cover from one plunge before he is racked with an- 
 other, they soon threw many of us into those qualms 
 which may not be described, though the attempt has 
 been so often made. Yet the longest night has a 
 morning, and so Jiad this ; a lovely morning when we 
 found ourselves in the port of Messina, on the coast 
 of Sicily. I rose early, in time to enjoy the passage 
 through Scylla and Charybdis, and the beautiful 
 scenery as we enter the Straits. A miserable set of 
 natives crowded around the steamer as we came to 
 anchor, and in one of their boats we went ashore, 
 and spent a couple of hours in riding around the city, 
 a very well-built town ; the harbor strongly fortified 
 by nature from the storms, and by art against the 
 enemy ; so that Messina is reckoned among the best 
 ports in the Mediterranean. Another night brought 
 us to Malta; an island famous in the voyages of 
 Paul, and now the great stopping-place for vessels 
 going to and returning from the East. We spent 
 a day in Malta, the chief city of which is Valetta, 
 situated on the heights, and fanned perpetually by 
 the sea-breeze, in a sweet place for the weary travel- 
 ler's rest. 
 
 At Malta we were transferred from the Bosphorus 
 to the steamer JVile, bound for Syra, Smyrna, and 
 Constantinople. It was amusing to observe the varie- 
 
 I ! *' 
 
178 EUEOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Our company. We w i 
 
 ties of character and nation we had on board. Of 
 forty passengers, eight were Americans, as many En- 
 glish and Scotch, about the same number of French, 
 five of these being officers of the army going to offer 
 their services to the Sultan to fight the Russians. 
 Then we had Turks who loved to sit cross-legged 
 and smoke the nargilee ; Greeks too, and Armenians, 
 and a Jew or two. Little tables on deck afforded the 
 sailors of different nations separate places to eat if 
 they choose to eat alone, and all these tribes and 
 tongues lived in harmony for three days, and parted 
 good friends. One of these days was the Sabbath, 
 and as fine a Sunday as the sun ever gladdened. In 
 the morning we were running along under the shores 
 of the Morea. At last these eyes were looking upon 
 Greece, and the longings of thirty years were grati- 
 fied ! The shores were rough and the hills barren. 
 In then rugged outlines there was beauty, but it is 
 not yet the Greece I came to see. We passed the 
 bay of Xavarino, famous for the great naval battle of 
 1825, when modern Greece was struggling for deliver- 
 ance from the tyranny of the Turk, and now we begin 
 to feel the enthusiam which the history of all this 
 land is fitted to inspire. As the day advanced, it 
 was interesting to observe the several parties of wor- 
 shippers in various groups, engaged in their own way 
 in offering prayers to Him who had given us a safe 
 passage over a boisterous sea. Two Roman Catholic 
 priests were reading their breviary together. A Church 
 of England family sat in the stern of the steamer, and 
 enjoyed their own forms, while a larger group of us 
 
FROM ITALY TO GREECE. 179 
 
 AtSyra. 
 
 accepted the captain's polite offer of the saloon, where 
 we had service as we would at home. 
 
 At noon we ran by Cape Matapan, and toward 
 night passed Cape St. Angelo — a rocky promontory, 
 on which a solitary hermit lives in a rude hut of 
 stones, subsisting on the scanty provisions sent to 
 him from passing vessels, in return for his prayers. 
 He came out of his grotto and extended his arms to 
 bless the vessel. The sailors took off their caps and 
 received his blessing with reverence, and in a few 
 minutes we were out of sight, leaving him to his 
 solitude — the first one of this race of men I have seen. 
 The next morning we awoke and found ourselves in 
 the port of Syra, one of the isles of the Archipelago. 
 The town stands on a hillside, and presents a gay 
 appearance from the fine harbor. The Greek boat- 
 men hover around the ship, in their native costume, 
 now singular to us — full pantaloons tied around the 
 ankles, and loose jackets — and wish to take us ashore. 
 One steamer is just coming into port from Constanti- 
 nople, and another is standing down from Athens. In 
 the mean time we put off in a small boat ; a hand- 
 some-looking native in the Albanian dress, a white 
 short petticoat, with a dark scarf, embroidered, over 
 the shoulders, decidedly a gay and picturesque cos- 
 tume, led us to a small tavern, where we got a miser- 
 able breakfast, and then climbed the hill on which the 
 town stands. 
 
 From these heights we looked out upon a group of 
 islands with familiar names — Naxos, and Delos, and 
 Paros, famed for its quarries, from which the cele- 
 
180 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Parian marble. 
 
 brated statues of ancient times and temples had been 
 made. They have not been worked for many years ; 
 but the French obtained permission to carry off what 
 they wished for the decoration of the tomb of Napo- 
 leon. 
 
 We left Syra at dusk, went to sleep on board the 
 steamer Lycurgus, and awoke in the morning in the 
 harbor of the Piraeus. 
 
 Athens is six miles from the shore, but we are even 
 now in the midst of scenes that stir all the sympathies 
 of one who venerates the spot that has been renowned 
 in classic story. We are hard by the Bay of Salamis : 
 and yonder is the tomb of Themistocles, who led the 
 fleet of the Greeks in the great fight with the ships 
 of Xerxes. There is the mount ^Egalios, on which a 
 lofty seat was raised for the. Persian monarch, that he 
 might see the battle which resulted in tiie destruction 
 of his " Invincible Armada." He had crossed the Hel- 
 lespont, and entered the peninsula with the greatest 
 army that was ever led by one man. Compared with 
 it, how puny are the preparations for modern war. 
 For three years previously he had been storing pro- 
 visions for his troops along the line of intended 
 march ; and now, at the head of more than two mill- 
 ions of men, and with a greater number of irregulars, 
 servants and women, so that he had between four and 
 five millions in his train, he was coming down upon 
 the plains of Attica. At the pass of Thermopylae lie 
 was staggered for a moment by the stern resistance 
 of the Spartan heroes under the brave Leonidas ; but 
 finding another route, which treason made known to 
 
FROM ITALY TO GREECE. 181 
 
 Athenian landlord. 
 
 him, lie came on in triumph, and Athens fell into the 
 hands of the conqueror. But the destruction of his 
 fleet determined Xerxes to fly from Greece, leaving 
 300,000 of his millions behind him to complete the 
 conquest of the country. 
 
 It was to see the scenes of such stupendous events, 
 that I came on deck the first morning of our arrival 
 in the Pmeus. But all the romance, even of histor- 
 ical association, was scattered when Demetrius, the 
 keeper of one of the hotels at Athens, presented him- 
 self, and desired us to take quarters at his house. 
 With a "book full of recommendations from travellers 
 who had preceded us, he urged his claim, and the 
 landlords of various other establishments made simi- 
 lar applications. We committed ourselves to the ten- 
 der mercies of Demetrius, who agreed to see that all 
 our luggage was speedily transferred to the city of 
 Minerva, where he would immediately send us in a 
 carriage. The same tribe of baggage-smashers, called 
 porters, that are the annoyance as well as help of trav- 
 ellers all the world over, were ready to seize us and 
 ours before we left the ship ; for they had come off in 
 small boats to the steamer's side, and some of them 
 had got on deck, in their zeal to serve us and them- 
 selves. A picturesque-looking set of fellows they 
 were, in spite of rags and dirt. A red cap with a 
 tassel crowned their heads ; a shawl of dark color was 
 wound about their shoulders, and secured by a belt 
 at the waist ; a skirt, like a short petticoat, came a 
 little below the knees ; leggins and shoes completed 
 the costume — striking and neat, though rather effem- 
 
182 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Natives. 
 
 inate. It is just about as well adapted to men as 
 the Bloomer costume is to the strong-minded women 
 of our day and country. In the midst of a small 
 fleet of these Greek boats we made our way to the 
 wharf, and set foot on the shores of Greece ! 
 
 It was a moment of life from which to date. A 
 dream of boyhood, and of manhood too, was at length 
 a living, real presence. I had been here in spirit a 
 thousand times : I know I am here now. I did not 
 look after my luggage, but, trusting to Demetrius, 
 looked around me to discover more of the land of 
 poets and philosophers which my feet were at last al- 
 lowed to press. 
 
 The houses of the village or town of the Piraeus 
 were all modern, and such as we would see in other 
 European towns. A military school is established 
 here, and the youthful soldiers were early at their 
 drills. The natives were sorry-looking men for 
 Greeks, and hardly answered a reasonable expecta- 
 tion one forms of the descendants of Alcibiades and 
 Pericles. But we were now getting on at a rapid 
 pace over a smooth road to the capitol. Here are the 
 ruins of the great walls which reached from Athens 
 to the sea, so high and so strong that the city could 
 maintain its intercourse with the harbor though the 
 intervening country were in the hands of the enemy. 
 We pass a monument which marks the spot where a 
 bloody battle was fought with the Turks when the 
 Greeks were last struggling for independence. Half 
 way to the city we find three taverns, not the three 
 that Paul saw on his way to Home, but three shops 
 
FKOM ITALY TO GREECE. 
 
 183 
 
 Perfect. 
 
 for the sale of drinks, which we would call grog shops 
 at home, a very vulgar name in such a classic land 
 as this. With our eyes wide open to catch the first 
 sight that shall remind us of ancient glory, disgusted 
 as we are with the living evidences of what the pres- 
 ent is, we approach a massive, mighty, weather-stained 
 but beautiful building : a temple certainly, but what 
 is it ? "It is the Temple of Theseus." He was the 
 greatest of all Athenian heroes, the hero of fable, of 
 song, and of history; and when he died they wor- 
 shipped him as a god, and built this temple to his 
 
 THE THESEUM AT ATHENS. 
 
 honor 469 years before Christ. And there it has 
 stood from that far-distant date to the present hour; 
 and it is now the most perfect specimen of an ancient 
 pagan temple in Greece, and perhaps in the world. 
 
184 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Broken marbles. 
 
 '.iiuiish roblnT. 
 
 STATUE OF THESEUS 
 
 We entered it. Heaps of sculptured marble fragments 
 of tlie works of old masters whose names have been 
 forgotten, but whose works are now disinterred and 
 admired, were scattered around. Within, a grand mu- 
 seum of recovered antiquities has been gathered, the 
 study of which might detain us for many days. Lord 
 Elgin, who has given his name to the marbles of which 
 he robbed the sanctuaries of Greece, meditated the 
 grand enterprise of carrying off this temple bodily to 
 adorn a square in London ; but the robbery was never 
 effected. He made dreadful work with other less 
 formidable schemes of plunder, but happily this stands 
 where it has stood, with its walls and pillars nearly 
 entire, for more than two thousand years. 
 
 Leaving this temple, at once a monument and a 
 
FROM ITALY TO GREECE. 185 
 
 The palace. Rev. Dr. King. 
 
 mausoleum, we rode into the modern city of Athens ! 
 Alas, for all anticipations of seeing the people who 
 once gave law and literature to the world! Byron 
 said, " ? Tis Greece, but living Greece no more," and 
 I confess to the same sad feeling when we passed the 
 mean huts, houses, and shops, and saw the evidences 
 of a degenerate and partially civilized people. 
 
 Demetrius ushered us with much respect into his 
 Hotel des Etrangers. His pleasant wife received us 
 courteously, and disposed of us in a very comfortable 
 suite of rooms. My windows looked out on the pal- 
 ace of the King of Greece. A long, plain, marble 
 edifice, which might have been made for an asylum 
 without incurring any charge on the score of extrava- 
 gance or ornament, is the residence of Otho and his 
 Queen ; the palace of a land that has the models of 
 architecture for the study of all lands. 
 
 In a few moments after our arrival, the Rev. Dr. 
 King called, and gave us a cordial welcome to Athens. 
 Of this Dr. King I can not forbear a sketch before 
 asking you to go with me and with him into the city. 
 
 The men who were in Andover Theological Semi- 
 nary in 1816-19 will remember, among such men as 
 Temple, and Fisk, and Goodell, and Parsons, a thin, 
 pale youth, of middle stature, a hard student, gentle 
 in his manners, and thoughtful in his mien. When 
 Fisk and Parsons went out as missionaries to Pales- 
 tine, they asked this young man, their friend, Jonas 
 King, to come and join them. He said if they would 
 write such letters to him as would make him believe 
 it to be his duty, he would certainly come. They 
 
186 E UB P B A N D THE E A S T. 
 
 Dr. King abroad. His travels. 
 
 went. He pursued his studies with great success, 
 and was soon called to the Professorship of Oriental 
 Languages in one of the colleges of New England. 
 For the sake of superior advantages in fitting himself 
 for this service he went to Paris, and there his studies 
 brought him into contact with some of the most dis- 
 tinguished men of science, and several of the leading 
 minds of Europe. Parsons died after a short serv- 
 ice, and found a lone grave in Egypt. Fisk wrote to 
 Mr. King, then in Paris, and begged him to come to 
 Jerusalem and take the vacant place by his side. 
 Mr. King applied to a few gentlemen of wealth for 
 the means of support for three years, and in a signal 
 manner the means were furnished. The American 
 Board of Missions accepted his offer to go to Jerusa- 
 lem for three years. The Missionary Society of the 
 Netherlands, and the Paris Missionary Society gave 
 him funds and commission, and individuals came for- 
 ward to his support, so that he was sent out as the 
 representative of three institutions. Mr. King and 
 the eccentric traveller Wolff, who met him at Malta, 
 made a tour of three months in Egypt, distributing 
 the Scriptures in all the villages up and down the 
 Nile, and then crossing the desert, went to the Holy 
 City. Here in Joppa Mr. King labored for three 
 years, and then went down to Tarsus on his w;n 
 back to America, with rich stores of Arabic manu- 
 scripts, and the fruits of his years of researches in 
 these Oriental fields. The ship in which he was to 
 go to Smyrna being somewhat leaky, he resolved to 
 cross the country, and send his effects by the vessel. 
 
FROM ITALY TO GREECE. 187 
 
 Finds his vrifc. Comes to Athens. 
 
 On its voyage the ship was boarded by Greek pirates 
 and plundered ; and all the books, manuscripts, etc., 
 of Mr. King were swept off by these robbers of the 
 sea. This loss detained him in Smyrna for six 
 months. Here he devoted himself to the study of 
 the modern Greek ; and here, too, he met the lady 
 who has since been for so many years his noble wife, 
 the companion of his life, the solace of his sorrows, 
 and the mother of his seven lovely children. From 
 Smyrna he went to Paris, and there was again thrown 
 into the families and the society of eminent men, 
 whose names are familiar in the ears of the world. 
 With them he read and expounded the Scriptures, 
 and found a wide and effectual door opened for the 
 advancement of the work of God. Returning to the 
 United States, he travelled for some months in the 
 service of the American Board, and was urged by the 
 Ladies' Greek Committee of the City of New York to 
 go to Athens in connection with the contributions 
 then sent out for the relief of the starving people of 
 that country. He came, and not long afterward was 
 again appointed missionary here. He accepted, on 
 condition that he might retire at any time by giving 
 six months' notice of his intention. With this condi- 
 tion he has now been laboring steadily and earnestly 
 for more than twenty-five years, and has never yet 
 revisited his native land, though at any time he could 
 do so in thirty days. When he came to Athens, it 
 was in ruins, and in the power of the Turks. Not a- 
 pane of glass was in the city. The best house he 
 could find had no roof or floor to it. He made a 
 
1 EUBOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 His labors. Trial and sentence. 
 
 shelter for himself and wife, but they were exposed 
 by night and day to the constant incursions of the 
 Turks. But he was patient and prayerful; trusting 
 always, and always wonderfully cared for by Him 
 who keeps his children in the hollow of his hand. 
 
 The attention which his labors were exciting among 
 the people, the numbers flocking to his house to re- 
 ceive religious instruction, and the wide diffusion of 
 religious books, awakened the opposition of the priest- 
 hood and many of the people of the Greek church. 
 At first there were serious and deeply-concerted 
 schemes for his assassination. The American Con- 
 sul, on leaving Athens for a season, had desired Dr. 
 King to act as consul in his absence, and on the very 
 next day after receiving the American flag, his house 
 was invaded by a mob with every demonstration of 
 violent designs upon his life. The display of the 
 stripes and stars dispersed the crowd. 
 
 At length his enemies succeeded in bringing him 
 before the courts of Greece. His trial was a mockery 
 of justice, his conviction produced by no shadow of 
 testimony, and his sentence was imprisonment and 
 banishment. 
 
 Since my visit, the government of Greece has re- 
 mitted his sentence ; but he has yet great occasion to 
 complain of wrongs at its hands. Twenty years ago 
 the Greek government found it convenient to appro- 
 priate to its own use a lot of land belonging to Dr. 
 King; and although the constitution forbids sue]' 
 seizure, unless the damages are first appraised and 
 prepayment made, his oft-repeated and urgent de- 
 
FROM ITALY TO GREECE. 189 
 
 Wrongs. Not redressed. 
 
 rnands for an adjustment of his claims have been re- 
 fused. Had half of Dr. King's wrongs been suffered 
 by the meanest American citizen who has no connec- 
 tion with the missionary movements of the age, they 
 would have been redressed long before this horn-. A 
 frigate of the United States would have offered its 
 deck as the place for the discussion and settlement 
 of the question, and all the presses of all parties 
 would have praised the energy of an administration 
 which looks to the honor and rights of American citi- 
 zenship at the ends of the earth. But the impression 
 is very common at home that missionaries must look 
 out for themselves, and avoid trouble by holding their 
 tongues. This was the man who received us, and 
 gave us a brother's hand when we came to Greece. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ATHENS AND ITS ENVIRONS. 
 
 The Acropolis — Parthenon — Mars' Hill — Prison of Socrates — Pnvx 
 — King and Queen — The Stadium — Jupiter Olympus — Streams 
 and Fountains — A Funeral — Market — Olives — Eleusis — Tower of 
 Winds — Future of Greece — The People — Greek Church — Mis- 
 sionaries. 
 
 All impatient to see the antiquities of Athens, and 
 with a guide and interpreter, we left the house of Dr. 
 King. The narrow streets, winding and irregular, 
 we could not have threaded alone. But we were led 
 along to the Lantern of Demosthenes, a small round 
 stone building, with eight columns and Corinthian 
 capitals supporting a cupola, a curious monument of 
 the ancients, whose design is lost in obscurity. Near 
 it is the house in which Byron lived, when he, a 
 strange exile from home and from God, was leading 
 his vagabond life in these classic lands. "We were 
 seeking the Acropolis. It can be seen from any 
 part of the town. A circular path around the base, 
 and by the temple of Bacchus, an indistinguishable 
 ruin, leads us to the remains of the theatre, which 
 must have covered an immense extent of ground, as 
 the massive walls and broken columns plainly attest. 
 We come to a rough wooden gate, which a porter 
 opens, and we show him a permit from the govern- 
 
ATHENS AND ITS ENVIRONS. 
 
 191 
 
 Acropolis. 
 
 ment, which Dr. King had given us, to secure admis- 
 sion. For in this day of devotion to the " almighty 
 dollar," even the Parthenon is to be seen for a piece 
 of silver. The Acropolis was the centre of ancient 
 
 ;''",['■ 
 
 THE ACROPOLIS RESTORED. 
 
 Athens. A rocky hill, one hundred and fifty feet 
 high, and four or five hundred feet across, rising al- 
 most perpendicularly, it doubtless indicated the site 
 for the city, of which it was at once the ornament and 
 defence. Other cities of Greece are built around sim- 
 ilar heights, and the Acropolis of Corinth is visible 
 sometimes from that of Athens. 
 
 We are now ascending within the inclosure : a col- 
 lection of statues, broken marbles, and interesting re- 
 mains of ancient art is shown at the door. But we 
 are in too great haste to pause over these, however 
 they might instruct and please us at another time. 
 We pass the Temple of Victory, Standing on the spot 
 whence it is said that iEgeus threw himself off and 
 
192 
 
 EUliOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The portal. 
 
 perished, when his son was coming into port and for- 
 got to hoist the signal he had promised as a sign of 
 his success. It is a beautiful building, and of com- 
 paratively recent discovery. 
 
 And. now we are in front of the Propylsea, or " the 
 
 THE PKOP1 
 
 entrances :" magnificent columns that might have 
 formed the gateway to the palace of all the earth. A 
 wide marble stairway leads up to and through these 
 columns ; steps which have been but lately uncovered 
 from the rubbish of centuries; steps up which the 
 men of Athens trod long before the days of Christ and 
 Paul. It requires no imagination to inspire a thought- 
 ful man with strong emotions when he puts his feet 
 where he knows that Plato and Socrates, Pericles and 
 Demosthenes have often walked; where the marble is 
 worn away by the sandals of great men whose names 
 he has associated from boyhood with philosophy, po- 
 etry, and eloquence. 
 
ATHENS AND ITS ENVIRONS. 
 
 IltTect on art. 
 
 193 
 
 Phidias. 
 
 We are looking on the Parthenon ! " The most 
 splendid temple on the most splendid site for a tem- 
 ple in the whole world," is the building now before us. 
 In its effect upon art in past and future ages, as the 
 model of the beautiful and sublime in architecture, 
 this pile is indeed the most important of any that was 
 
 JZ=! 
 
 THE PARTHENON. 
 
 ever reared. "Parthenon" is "the Virgin's Cham- 
 ber," and was so called because it was the temple of 
 Minerva, and contained her shrine, the great work of 
 Phidias. It is in the purest style of Doric architect- 
 ure, with eight columns in front and rear, and sixteen 
 on each side : built of Pentelic marble, two hundred 
 and twenty-seven feet long, one hundred feet broad, 
 and sixty-five feet high. One long, central building 
 is surrounded by a peristyle of forty-six pillars, stand- 
 ing on a platform three steps high, extending com- 
 pletely around the temple. One can scarcely record 
 Vol. II.— I 
 
194 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 ratal shell. Astonishing discover}-. 
 
 without tears that this glorious structure was shat- 
 tered into ruins after it had stood on this lofty emi- 
 nence, overlooking the plains and the sea, from 438 
 B.C. to a.d. 1687, when the Venetians were besieging 
 the city, and a bomb-shell exploded in the centre of 
 the Parthenon, tin-owing down most of the side walls. 
 The front, upon which we are now gazing, is nearly 
 perfect. Drawings and models of it have been so often 
 made, and so frequently has it been copied in build- 
 ing, that every one is familiar with its form. But 
 you will see it and not yet understand the secret of 
 its wonderful beauty. We are assured that the curve 
 is the line of beauty ; but here is the pure Doric that 
 admits of nothing save the severest of straight lines. 
 And it is only within very recent times it has been 
 discovered that the pediment is slightly curved, and 
 the pillars are not perpendicular. 
 
 " Some years ago," says a recent German writer, 
 Hettner, "it was discovered, by exact measurements 
 of the Parthenon, that its substructure was not strict- 
 ly horizontal : it rises from the extremities toward the 
 middle in a slight curve. This astonishing discovery 
 was followed by a second — that the pillars were not 
 quite perpendicular: at the capital, they incline an 
 inch and a half toward the wall of the temple. This 
 striking circumstance, believed at first to be a pecul- 
 iarity of the Parthenon, has been proved by Penrose, 
 in his meritorious work on the Athenian temples, to 
 exist also in the case of the Temple of Theseus. With 
 a view to the investigation of this point, only the tem- 
 ples of Athens have as yet been examined ; it is re 
 
ATHENS AND ITS ENVIRONS. 
 
 195 
 
 Fragments. 
 
 The idol. 
 
 served for future admeasurements of the older Greek 
 temples to show whether the same phenomenon exists 
 in their case, or was an invention of the later Attic- 
 Doric style. This much is certain, however, that in 
 later times it was a universal and established princi- 
 ple in the construction of all Greek temples." 
 
 We are within the . citadel of Athens, in the midst 
 of scattered fragments of the noblest works of man ; 
 heaps of broken cornices, statues, basso, and frieze, 
 
 FRIEZE OF THE PARTHENON. 
 
 strewed over the ground as if the gods had been dash- 
 ing to pieces their own temples and images, or rather 
 as if the great God had swept over these idols with 
 the besom of destruction. Within this temple, when 
 it was dedicated, the great statue of Minerva, made of 
 ivory and gold, was set up. Phidias, the prince of 
 sculptors, had the superintendence of the building of 
 the temple under Pericles, who then swayed Athens 
 with his eloquence ; and with his own hands he fash- 
 ioned the idol, which surpassed any other in the world 
 
196 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 On the Parthenon. Heaps of bones. 
 
 but one — a statue of Jupiter, at Glympia, by the 
 same artist. I sat down on a marble fragment in 
 front of the temple and mused upon the present and 
 the past. Twenty-six centuries had left their marks 
 on these stones. Under one corner, in a pit, was a 
 heap of bones, perhaps five hundred skulls, with other 
 bones of slaughtered Greeks, who fell in the last war 
 with the Turks, now thrown together in this common 
 grave. Like them these successive generations had 
 been wasted away, some by war, some by famine or 
 pestilence, for death never wearies, and doubtless all 
 this ground has once lived and breathed. Then I 
 clambered up the broken walls (with a little caution 
 you may ascend by the successive tiers of stone which 
 are left in then fall like a flight of steps) till I gained 
 the entablature over the front of the temple. Im- 
 mense blocks of marble — it seemed to me we never 
 raise such masses into such lofty resting-places — were 
 hanging over the edge of the wall, or reaching across 
 from the outer to the inner row of columns ; and not 
 contented still, I pursued my way up to the highest 
 of the marbles, that rests on the very crown of the. 
 Parthenon. And then the tide of feeling, restrained 
 until this height was gained, began to flow. Greece 
 was all around me : the monuments of the past, the 
 ruins of the present, Greece in her glory and her fall ; 
 and I was sad as the Roman who wept among the 
 ruins of the city his fathers had destroyed. 
 
 From this lofty and commanding seat let us take a 
 survey of the scene. All that we have read in the 
 hi story and poetry of Greece, of learning, love, war, 
 
ATHENS AND ITS ENVIRONS. 197 
 
 Environs. Plato. 
 
 religion — all that can stir the sensibilities of the schol- 
 ar, the philosopher, and the Christian, are elements in 
 the prospect that lies in view. Just at onr feet is the 
 modern city ; but here, at the north of the Acropolis — 
 for the ancient city swept all around the hill — are the 
 more celebrated sites, which we shall soon go down 
 and examine in detail. Now admire the form of those 
 blue hills that lie to the south and west of us. 
 Those swelling domes and graceful curves were the 
 models of beauty which the Grecian architect con- 
 templated till he wrought out his idea afterward in 
 these glorious structures which we have in vain es- 
 sayed to imitate. Yonder, where the clouds are rest- 
 ing now, is Mount Pentelicus, whose snow-white bo- 
 som yielded the marble on which we are sitting; 
 there, in the same range, is Lycabettus ; and as we 
 come around to the eastward is Hymettus, famed for 
 its honey, which it furnishes to this day.- And off 
 there, in the east, in full sight, is the Bay of Salamis ; 
 and across the water is Mount iEgaleos, the scene of 
 the naval battle where Xerxes saw the ruin of his 
 fleet. Nearer by is a gentle rise of ground crowned 
 with olive groves. It is the hill 
 Colonos, where was once a temple 
 of Neptune. And that grove is 
 Academus, where Plato taught his 
 pupils who came forth from the 
 city — a mile perhaps — to sit at 
 the feet of the great master. The 
 grove belonged to a man named 
 Academus, who gave it for the use 
 
198 
 
 EUliOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Academy. 
 
 Greeks and Romans. 
 
 of Plato to deliver liis discourses, and hence it was 
 called Academia, and so comes our word Academy. 
 Turn again and pause at the hill of the museum with a 
 ruined tomb on the top of it, and that dark spot at its 
 base is the door of the dungeon in which Socrates died. 
 
 But we will now descend from this post of obser- 
 vation. It is painfully pleasing to linger here. Capi- 
 toline Hill in Home did not afford a sight like this. 
 Besides, one ancient Greek was worth half a dozen 
 Romans ; and I feel the same degrees of veneration 
 in wandering among the ruins of Italy and of Greece. 
 
 Within the Acropolis are the ruins of another tem- 
 ple, the Erechtheum, reared to the honor of Erech- 
 
 
 £L= 
 
 
 THE ERECHTHEUM. 
 
ATHENS AND ITS ENVIKONS. 
 
 199 
 
 Idolatry. 
 
 Broken marbles. 
 
 theus, who founded the first temple of Minerva that 
 was built on this hill. It contained three distinct tem- 
 ples, and their proportions and apartments are still 
 preserved, beautiful fragments of a noble structure. 
 We entered their chambers and recognized the uses 
 to which they were destined in the worship of the un- 
 known God. Six fluted columns, of the Ionic order, 
 stand in the pride of their age, as perfect as if chiseled 
 yesterday; and the Caryatides, the female figures 
 serving as pillars, seemed to me to 
 be wearied of standing there with 
 a weight on their heads for twenty 
 hundred years. We spent some time 
 in looking through a curious gather- 
 ing of vases, urns, household utensils, 
 statuary, marble drapery, hands, feet, 
 heads, torsos, models of all time. Casts 
 of them have been taken and carried 
 to the western countries for the in- 
 struction of artists ; and now a strict 
 watch is kept, lest the spoilers of old 
 temples carry off some of these. It 
 was difficult to get even specimens of 
 the marble. 
 
 I left the Acropolis, but to come 
 again and again ; sometimes in com- 
 pany of friends, and sometimes alone, 
 when one enters more into the spirit 
 of a scene of solemn grandeur, such 
 as lies around and stands above him when he en- 
 ters the citadel of ancient Athens. Across a plowed 
 
 CARYATIDES. 
 
200 EUKOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Mars' Hill. Paul's sermon. 
 
 ■field we picked our way, a walk of a few minutes 
 only, to the foot of Mars' Hill. Sixteen steps cut 
 in tlie solid rock lead us to a hewn platform in the 
 same rock, where sat the famous council of the 
 Areopagus. In the darkness of night, in the open 
 air, under the canopy of heaven, where they could 
 not see the criminal or be seen themselves except by 
 the gods, these stern old judges held their court on 
 this hill of Mars. Here Socrates was tried and con- 
 demned. Up these steps the great Apostle was led, 
 and on this spot, the tribune where the speaker stood, 
 we suppose Paul was standing when he addressed the 
 men of Athens in that majestic discourse which assail- 
 ed their paganism, and unfolded to them the knowl- 
 edge of the only living and true God. Standing as 
 nearly as we could upon the spot where he stood, I 
 opened the Bible and read his discourse, delivered 
 from the same place more than eighteen hundred 
 years ago. Several friends, ladies and gentlemen, 
 had joined us now, and a little group stood in silence 
 and fixed attention, listening to the words of the 
 great Apostle. It is impossible to feel the full force 
 of that sermon without understanding the locality in 
 which it was delivered. Before the speaker was this 
 Acropolis, shining with the splendor of the most beau- 
 tiful temples, and enriched with the most costly 
 shrines the world ever saw. Around him lay the 
 proud city of Athens, with all its learning and art, 
 yet plunged in the gross darkness of paganism ; and 
 no wonder that the spirit of the Apostle was stirred 
 to point to these temples, and with his trumpet-voice 
 
ATHENS AND ITS ENVIRONS. 
 
 201 
 
 Tomb of Socrates. 
 
 I lis death. 
 
 to tell them that the Most High dwelleth not in tem- 
 ples made with hands. We compared these allusions 
 in his discourse with the objects still near us, and 
 drew new lessons from the illustrations thus forced 
 upon our attention. My friends urged me while in 
 Athens to preach a sermon on Mars' Hill to the En- 
 glish residents, but I confess that I shrunk from 
 preaching in Paul's pulpit. 
 
 We then travelled across the fields to the hill, in 
 the side of which is a dungeon 
 hewn out of a solid rock, and tra- 
 dition, without any dispute, as- 
 signs to this place the imprison- 
 ment and death of Socrates. We 
 entered the low door and could 
 barely stand upright under the 
 vaulted roof. A hole in the top 
 of it might admit air, and served 
 also for the introduction of food, 
 which the keepers could let down 
 to the prisoner. In this dungeon 
 he drank the hemlock, and died : the purest of hea- 
 then philosophers, and a man whose principles make 
 a nearer approach to the religion of the Bible, than 
 any one's who has lived and died without it. 
 
 Leaving the dungeon of Socrates, we came over to 
 the Pnyx, the tribune on which the Grecian orators 
 stood to address the gathered thousands of Athens. 
 A rock had been smoothed off for a platform, and at 
 its base was a wide area, which may have been in- 
 closed within a wall : but here in the open air the 
 
 I* 
 
 CCOKPATHC 
 
 BUST OF SOCRATES. 
 
202 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Pnyx. Curious cure. 
 
 ,B- 
 
 
 Tin; p.nvx 
 
 people were accustomed to listen to the eloquence of 
 such men as Demosthenes and Pericles, and to decide 
 by a popular vote those great questions on which the 
 fate of empires hung. 
 
 Demetrius led us still further on to a sloping rock, 
 worn very smooth, and we are told that the Grecian 
 ladies were accustomed to slide down this inclined 
 plane on their backs, as a certain cure for sterility. 
 Our Greek guide, in his white skirt, showed us how 
 the slide was made, by performing the experiment. 
 These were sights enough for one day. For many 
 successive days they were continued. Sometimes we 
 wandered again over these same ruins and remains, 
 meditating in this sepulchre of a dead city, and over 
 these monuments of a noble and departed race. 
 
 In the great square in front of the Capitol, I met the 
 King and Queen riding on horseback, and dressed in 
 full Greek costume. Otho, son of the old king of 
 Bavaria, has a strong German look, which his cos- 
 tume, adopted to please the Greeks, does not conceal. 
 They were attended by a suite of half a dozen gentle- 
 men, and were out for an airing in the afternoon. 
 The King is not popular. He is a foreigner; the 
 Greeks arc a proud people, with little or nothing to 
 
ATHENS AND ITS ENVIRONS. 203 
 
 Pride of the peopie. iiace-course. 
 
 be proud of, and they chafe more and more under the 
 idea of being ruled by an imported prince. If they 
 should form an extensive conspiracy on the know-no- 
 thing principle of American nativism, they may over- 
 turn the government one fine morning. Nothing but 
 English and French influence keeps it up now, and 
 a government that can not stand alone, is not likelv 
 to stand long. 
 
 The next day Demetrius led us out of the city to 
 the ancient stadium, or race course. In a vale with 
 the hills rising gently on both sides, where spectators 
 in uncounted thousands might sit or stand and survey 
 the contests, we found the evident marks of the old 
 running ground. The sloping hillsides were once 
 lined with white marble seats, now all gone. But 
 here the chariots and horsemen and footmen had con- 
 tended, after months of training, princes not disdain- 
 ing} as in the Olympic games, to enter the lists, if 
 they might have princes for their competitors. Two 
 of our young friends pitted themselves against one 
 another, and set off to perform the course, but broke 
 down and gave it up before they were half-way 
 around. An ancient carriage-way leads up by a tun- 
 nel to the hill above, and by this subterranean pas- 
 sage, when the race was over, the competitors might 
 retire. 
 
 Nearer to the city is the temple of Jupiter Olym- 
 pus, the greatest building that was ever reared in 
 Athens. It was begun by Pisistratus, 500 B.C., and 
 never completed till under Hadrian, A.D. 150. And 
 now there stands a host of unsupported sixteen Co- 
 
204 EUROPE AND THE EAST, 
 
 Floor of the temple. 
 
 Fallen column. 
 
 TEMPI/G OF JUPITER OLYMPUS. 
 
 rinthian columns, perhaps sixty feet high : beautiful 
 columns they are, and sublime in their naked grandeur. 
 The gathered soil of twenty centuries has been re- 
 moved, and the white marble floor is now exj)osed to 
 the light of heaven, and in the midst of those perfect 
 monuments of the past, we trod the courts of the 
 temple of Jupiter, as the worshippers did for centimes 
 before Christ was born. About two years ago one of 
 these columns fell, and now lies prone (" as the tree 
 falleth so it lieth") in fifteen separate blocks, besides 
 the capital and pedestal — a glorious ruin — an emblem 
 of Greece; more suggestive as it lies than those still 
 
ATHENS AND US ENVIRONS. 
 
 205 
 
 Paganism dies. 
 
 Fountains aiul stre 
 
 standing. 
 
 A Christian must rejoice to know that pa- 
 ganism dies before the light 
 
 of revelation, but he sighs to 
 
 think that these beautiful fab- 
 rics of art are destroyed, never, 
 
 never to be built again. 
 
 But these hills, and the 
 
 streams and fountains are the 
 
 same! Yes; the hills of 
 
 Greece are still ours, and we ] 
 
 can see them as the old bards 
 
 saw them. The rivers are 
 
 either dried up or shrunk away 
 
 to such little rills that they 
 
 scarce deserve a name. And when, after half an hour 
 of tiresome walking, we found the fountain of Cal- 
 lirhoe, it was a pool of muddy water, at the foot 
 of a hill, and a dozen women washing clothes in 
 it. Demetrius picked up a bar of soap which one 
 of them had lost on her way, and restored it to the 
 owner. Some of them had their own clothes tucked 
 up, and others were very scantily supplied with any ; 
 and the contrast was a sorry one with the nymphs 
 who haunted the spot when this was the great spring 
 from which the city was supplied. 
 
 The Ilissus, which rises in Hymettus and flows 
 along the eastern boundary of the ancient city, sung 
 by poets, and once the stream by which lovers walked 
 and rested, is now dried up a part of the year, and at 
 others a rill that one may go over dry-shod. 
 
 Returning to the city we met a Greek funeral. 
 
'20ij EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 In the market. 
 
 The body was exposed to view in a rude coffin. Flow- 
 ers were strewed over it and arranged about the head ; 
 and as the little procession moved on, the priests going 
 before kept up a mournful wail which was considered 
 singing. Afterward in their churches I heard the 
 same tones and tunes, if such they may be called, and 
 had but a poor impression of the present state of sa- 
 cred music in Greece. 
 
 On the Porta Agora, one of the ancient gates, 
 which we entered, a list of duties to be paid by those 
 bringing articles of traffic into the city is standing- 
 there, cut in the old Greek letter, in the granite, just 
 as we see a list of tolls on the post of a turnpike gate. 
 We soon found ourselves in the market ; and the ap- 
 pearance of a party of Americans created quite a sen- 
 sation. I was making notes in my book, and the 
 younger people crowded closely to my side and looked 
 over my shoulder to observe the curious characters 
 which I made ; as odd to them as would be Greek let- 
 ters to us. The stands were loaded with various 
 kinds of fruits, which they urged us to buy ; and we 
 carried off a supply of figs and raisins, leaving the 
 dates and lemons, pears, pomegranates, prunes, and 
 nuts of various kinds, the names of which I did not 
 know. Olives are raised in great abundance. They 
 are an oily fruit, about the size of a large acorn, and 
 are in high favor in the East generally as an article 
 of food, as well as for the manufacture of oil. The 
 tree is also used for fuel more than any other, being- 
 sold for that purpose by the pound, as coal is with us ; 
 and for Imiklinc: it is one of the most durable kinds 
 
ATHENS AND ITS ENVIRONS. 207 
 
 Old olive-trees. Hide in the country. 
 
 of wood. Without paint, and exposed to all weath- 
 ers, it will last some centuries. The olive-tree lives 
 longer than any other that is known ; eighteen hun- 
 dred and two thousand years are affirmed of some, so 
 that it is not impossible that some of the trees now 
 on the Mount of Olives in Palestine are the same that 
 Jesus saw, and there may be in these groves about 
 Athens some that have shaded Aristotle and his pupils 
 when high philosophy was the theme of their discourse. 
 With the friends whom I met and made in Athens, 
 I rode out to the grove of Academus, and along the 
 banks of the Cephissus, the largest river in Attica, 
 rising in Mount Pentelicus and flowing along the west 
 of Athens into the Saronic gulf, near Phalerum. And 
 then we gave another day to Eleusis, where the tem- 
 ple of Ceres stood, and the celebrated but hidden 
 Eleusinian mysteries were performed. This ride took 
 us along the shores of Salamis, and every foot of the 
 ground we passed was classic in the history of war or 
 religion. We called on our way at an old monastery 
 fitted up from the remains of a pagan temple, and I 
 thought that no great improvement upon the heathen- 
 ism of the ancient Greeks would be made by the mod- 
 erns, who turn a temple of one form of idolatry, into a 
 school of another. A wretched village we found at 
 Eleusis. From the little hovels large families of half- 
 clad men, women, and children, came out to see us, 
 and babes in the arms of their mothers would put out 
 their hands for alms. The men were hanging around 
 as if they had nothing to do, and the women were 
 busy at their work ; one very pretty Greek girl with 
 
208 EUliUPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Boys all over. Spinning street-yam. 
 
 an embroidered black waist above a white skirt, might 
 have claimed to be a descendant of some of the Gre- 
 cian models. We walked up the Sacra Via, to the 
 Acropolis where the temple stood, and found the bro- 
 ken columns and capitals only, as the memorial of 
 what had been. But here we had a beautiful view of 
 the Bay of Salamis and Mount iEgaleos, and the wide- 
 spread plains of Eleusis, whose abundant harvests were 
 the witnesses of the care which Ceres took of the re- 
 gion where her altars were honored. 
 
 As we drove off from the village the boys jumped 
 up on the carriage behind to catch a ride, and those 
 who could not, cried out to the coachman to " cut be- 
 hind," as boys do all the world over, I believe. It was 
 so much like what we see at home, that the boys ac- 
 tually received applause for their stolen fun. We were 
 now out in the country, some hours from Athens. 
 We met the peasantry on foot or riding on donkeys, 
 apparently wretchedly poor, a blanket sometimes 
 drawn over their head and shoulders. The shep- 
 herds, with their crooks in hand, were tending their 
 flocks, but the whole appearance of the region through 
 which we rode was that of neglected agriculture and 
 general shiftlessness. In the city I looked in where 
 the women were weaving on hand-looms, as no facto- 
 ries driven by water or steam have yet been intro- 
 duced. They spin from the old distaff, and here, as 
 in Germany and Italy, we sometimes saw women 
 walking in the streets, or standing at a neighbor's 
 door, and spinning all the while, a practice from 
 which comes the expression of "spinning street-yarn," 
 
ATHENS AND ITS ENVIRONS. 209 
 
 Tower of the Winds. The future. 
 
 meaning "gadding about." The people are not much 
 more than half-civilized ; yet to see the men strutting 
 along in their kilts and tarbouches like turkey-cocks, 
 they might be thought, as indeed they are, the proud- 
 est people in the world. 
 
 One of the most curious of the antiquities of Athens 
 is the Tower of the Winds, in the midst of the city. 
 It was built to show the direction of the wind : the 
 form of the stone tower is an octagon, and in each one 
 
 of the sides is the 
 
 name and an em- F~^ BOFEA'S 
 blematical form of 
 the wind that blows 
 from the direction 
 indicated. Boreas, 
 withhishugebeard, 
 is blowing fiercely ; 
 the Northeast is a j boreas. j 
 
 fairer form, dispens- 
 ing the olive ; the East wind comes with other fruits 
 — not so with us; the South threatens to pour out 
 torrents of rain, and the beautiful Zephyr strews the 
 land with flowers. 
 
 The future of Greece is very uncertain. Weak and 
 corrupt, the present government has no elements of 
 progress, and may speedily be set aside for political 
 reasons by those who now support it, or be over- 
 turned by the restless people themselves. The sym- 
 pathies of Otho and his court have been with the 
 Russians in the late war of the East, and the insur- 
 rection of the Greek provinces of Turkey was fostered. 
 
210 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 English -writer's view. Corruption. 
 
 if not directly supported by this government. The 
 most hopeful indication is seen in the willingness of 
 the church and state to have the Bible read in all the 
 schools, thus introducing principles into the minds of 
 the young which may make them better citizens of 
 some better government that may succeed the present. 
 An English writer in a recent work on this country, 
 says: "From all that I have seen or read or heard 
 among persons of different nations, stations, and prin- 
 ciples, the present government of Greece seems to be 
 about the most inefficient, corrupt, and, above all, con- 
 temptible, with which a nation was ever cursed. The 
 constitution is so worked as to be constantly and fla- 
 grantly evaded or violated ; the liberty of election is 
 shamefully infringed; and where no overt bribery or 
 intimidation is employed — charges from which we En- 
 glishmen can, I fear, by no means make out an ex- 
 emption — the absence of the voters, who regard the 
 whole process as a mockery, is compensated by the 
 electoral boxes being rilled with voting-papers by the 
 gensdarmerie — a height of impudence to which we 
 have not yet soared. Persons the most discredited 
 by their characters and antecedents are forced on the 
 reluctant constituencies, and even occasionally ad- 
 vanced to places of high trust and dignity. The 
 absence of legislative checks is not atoned for by the 
 vigor of the executive in promoting public improve- 
 ments. Agriculture stagnates ; manufactures do not 
 exist; the communications, except in the immediate 
 neighborhood of the capital, where they are good, are 
 deplorable : the provinces — and here I can hardly ex- 
 
ATHENS AND ITS ENVIEONS. 211 
 
 Sunday in Athens. Greek church. 
 
 cept the neighborhood of the capital — teem with rob- 
 bers. The navy, for which the aptitude of the people 
 is remarkable, consists of one vessel : the public debt 
 is not paid : an offer by a company of respectable in- 
 dividuals to institute a steam navigation, for which 
 the seas and shores of Greece offer such innumerable 
 facilities, was declined at the very period of my visit, 
 because it was apprehended that it would be unpalata- 
 ble to Austria. Bitter indeed is the disappointment 
 of those who formed bright auguries for the future 
 career of regenerate Greece, and made generous sacri- 
 fices in her once august and honored cause. Yet the 
 feeling so natural to them, so difficult to avoid for us 
 all, should still stop far short of despair. " 
 
 Let us look at what is done for the moral improve- 
 ment of this people. A Sunday in Athens will give 
 us the picture. 
 
 The services in the Greek churches are usually 
 held at a very early hour of the day — often at seven in 
 the morning ; but on this day there was to be a spe- 
 cial service in honor of some dead saint, and it began 
 later. We went at nine, and the sermon was already 
 begun. It was the church of St. Irene, and there 
 was some reason to expect the King to be present. 
 He is a Roman Catholic. The Queen is a Lutheran, 
 and their children, if they have any, are to be edu- 
 cated in the Greek faith. The King has the services 
 of his church in the Royal Chapel ; the Queen has 
 hers in the same place, and they both attend the 
 Greek church. To-day they did not come. But the 
 house was very full. The people do not sit; but 
 
212 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Men and women. Modern Greek. 
 
 stand around generally ; and the singular variety of 
 costume, Eastern and Western, and a mixture of 
 both, gives a motley yet picturesque appearance to 
 the assembly. The poor, in their shaggy coats and 
 dirty leggins, stand close by the gayly-dressed Greek 
 dandies, proud of their white kilts, red stockings, and 
 dark laced jacket, all surmounted by a red cap and 
 long tassel. The women are not allowed in the body 
 of the church ; they are standing up there in the gal- 
 lery, looking wistfully down, and now and then the 
 men are looking wistfully up. A priest in the pul- 
 pit is preaching earnestly in the Greek tongue, hold- 
 ing his sermon in his hand and reading it, with ani- 
 mated gesture and a good voice, while the people 
 stand close around him, and give fixed attention to 
 his words. The language is smooth, and comes fluent- 
 ly from his lips ; but with an accent so different from 
 the ancient Greek, as we pronounce it, that I can 
 catch only here and there a word. The moderns 
 make no distinction between the long and short o or 
 c, when the accent comes on another vowel in the 
 word, and this completely changes the sound of all 
 the prominent words in the sentence. 
 
 We stood for half an hour, and as the preaching- 
 was all Greek to us, we looked about at the pictures, 
 which were meant to adorn the church, and perhaps 
 excite the devotions of the people. More conspicuous 
 than any other was one of the Trinity, in which the 
 Father was painted as a venerable man with a long 
 white beard, the Holy Spirit as a dove hovering be- 
 neath him, and over the head of the Son. The Virgin 
 
ATHENS AND ITS ENVIRONS. 213 
 
 Church music. Dr. King's house. 
 
 Mary was very well drawn on another picture, and 
 then came saints, male and female, to whom I had no 
 introduction, and could not learn then names. After 
 the sermon a doleful wail was set up by a few men 
 near the altar, or where the altar would be in a Komish 
 church ; probably it was supposed to be singing, but 
 such a groaning and grating sound I had never heard 
 under the name of music. It was continued until to 
 hear it was intolerable. A company of gorgeously 
 robed priests, in a room partitioned from the church, 
 and which might be the holy of holies, now marched 
 around a table, bearing lighted candles, and bowing as 
 they passed before an image of the Saviour crucified. 
 This was prolonged until we were sick and tired of 
 seeing it, and we came away. The streets were as 
 full of people as the church had been. Many of the 
 shops were open, although the law requires them to 
 be shut during hours of service on Sunday — a sort of 
 license to have them open the rest of the day. 
 
 We walked up a narrow lane, and knocked hard 
 upon a small gate in a high stone wall, which was 
 immediately opened, and found ourselves in the gar- 
 den before the humble residence of Dr. King. On 
 another side of his inclosure he has a chapel, where 
 he formerly held public worship on Sunday ; but he 
 thinks it more prudent to have it now in his own 
 house. In a long room on the ground floor we found 
 a company of thirty or forty Greeks assembled, chief- 
 ly men ; some of the members of the University, one 
 or two of them occupying positions of influence in the 
 city : several females well dressed, and all sitting with 
 
214 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Service. The people. 
 
 apparent solemnity and earnest attention. Dr. King- 
 rose, and all stood Tip while he offered prayer. It was 
 short, solemn, in a soft and pleasing tone of voice 
 that answered well to the state of feeling in the room. 
 Then he read a portion of Scripture from the New 
 Testament. Holding the book in my hand, I was 
 now able to follow him, and to watch the counte- 
 nances of those who heard. It was an impressive 
 portion, embracing several of the parables of our Lord, 
 the marriage supper and the talents, and was heard 
 with great interest by the whole assembly. He then 
 named his text — "And the door was shut;" from 
 which he presented the necessity of immediate exer- 
 tion to gain admission into the kingdom of heaven. 
 His manner was earnest, and often very impressive, 
 as he pronounced in that most mellifluous of all 
 tongues, the words of life. A fine-looking young man, 
 sitting immediately in front of the speaker, was greatly 
 moved. At one time I thought he would start from 
 his seat and ask the preacher to take him by the hand 
 and lead him in. Dr. King has so long been accus- 
 tomed to the Eastern modes of thought and expres- 
 sion, that he has a happy facility in illustration which 
 renders his addresses at once intelligible and interest- 
 ing. In the midst of his discourse one of the officers 
 of the army, in full military dress, entered, and de- 
 clining the offer of a chair, stood with fixed eye till 
 the service was concluded. After sermon was a prayer 
 and the benediction, when the company retired with 
 decorum and solemnity, as it appeared to me im- 
 pressed with what they had heard. It was decidedly 
 
ATHENS AND ITS ENYLRONS. 215 
 
 A striking scene. Lovely sight. 
 
 a missionary scene. The strange costumes, the for- 
 eign tongue, the singular manners, all brought before 
 me the sight I had so long desired to see ; and it was 
 a special gratification to me that the first scene of the 
 kind met me in Greece, and under the preaching of 
 this venerable man of God, who has suffered so much 
 for Christ's sake, and whose name is so dear to the 
 churches in his own land. To be in Athens is an 
 event in any man's life ; but to hear Jonas King 
 preaching the Gospel at the foot of Mars' Hill is a 
 joy to be cherished in memory even in heaven. And 
 there was another scene, less imposing, but not less 
 interesting, that followed this public service. In a 
 small room adjoining the one in which we had been 
 assembled, I found a young lady, the daughter of Dr. 
 King, seated on a low bench, and a group of Greek 
 children sitting in a circle around her, each with a 
 Bible in hand, while they repeated to her the pas- 
 sages they had committed to memory, and answered 
 promptly the inquiries she made respecting the his- 
 tory they had read. As she put her arm around each 
 one that came and stood by her side, and with sweet, 
 gentle words of kindness told them stories of this old 
 book, to which they listened eagerly, as if it were a 
 treat to them to be there, it seemed to me that here 
 was the loveliest spirit of religion at work in the love- 
 liest way. Of such is the kingdom — I mean such 
 teachers as well as children. 
 
 But the Sabbath was not yet past. The mission- 
 ary friends in Athens had desired me to preach for 
 them during my visit here, and arrangements were 
 
21(5 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Hill. Baptist missiou. 
 
 made for an evening service at the house of Dr. King. 
 There were gathered the missionaries of the Baptist 
 church, of the Episcopal church, and of the American 
 Board and their families, with the Chaplain of the 
 British Legation at Constantinople, the British Yice 
 Consul, and a few others, filling the room. Among 
 my hearers this evening was the Rev. Dr. Hill, a 
 clergyman of the American Episcopal church, who 
 has "been a missionary here in Athens for many 
 years. At his invitation I visited him the next day, 
 and found that he with his excellent wife, and the cele- 
 brated Miss Elizabeth Condaxaki, of Crete, and several 
 accomplished ladies as their assistants, are carrying 
 on the work of education with great efficiency, having 
 three hundred pupils under their daily instruction. 
 They are also engaged in the translation of good 
 books, which, by the means of their large school 
 ..ad extensive intercourse with the people, they arc 
 able to circulate with every prospect of wide and per- 
 manent usefulness. At Dr. Hill's house, in a social 
 evening with a party of invited friends, I met several 
 native Greek gentlemen and ladies of education and 
 cultivated manners, and had free conversation with 
 them on the state and prospects of their country. 
 
 The Baptists have also a mission here. The Rev. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Arnold at Athens, and the Rev. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Buel at the Piraeus, are faithfully prosecu- 
 ting their important labors. 
 
 With the families of these missionaries I spent sev- 
 eral delightful days ; short while they were passing, 
 but not soon to be forgotten. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 ASIA MINOR SMYRNA. 
 
 Leaving Greece — The "Maid of Athens" — Mrs. Black and her 
 Daughter — Syra — Bay of Smyrna — The City — Mixed Population 
 — Mount Pagus — Polycarp — Camels — Bazaars — Trade — Homer — 
 Seven Churches of Asia — American Missionaries — Bobbers in the 
 Mountains — Hamals or Porters. 
 
 The missionaries and their families accompanied 
 us to the harbor, when we finally tore ourselves away 
 from Athens. At the Piraeus we called with Dr. 
 King upon Mrs. Black, the lady who, in her youth, 
 was the original of Byron's "If aid of Athens" She 
 received us with great courtesy, and we were intro- 
 duced by Dr. King, who performed the marriage cer- 
 emony uniting her to Mr. Black, a British subject, 
 and at one time holding the office of Consul at Athens. 
 Her daughter gave us, in her youthful beauty, a bet- 
 ter idea of what the mother was when the poet ad- 
 dressed her than we should have had, if this young- 
 lady had not risen from a couch to which she was 
 confined by illness, and suffered herself to be present- 
 ed. From this interesting family we hastened to the 
 wharf, and were taken off in a row-boat to the steam- 
 er, waiting at anchor. Not till we were on the deck 
 of the steamer would our dear friends, Dr. King and 
 his family, leave us. Then with many tears and 
 Vol. II. — K 
 
218 EUEOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 At sea again. Landing at Smyrna. 
 
 prayers we parted ; they to return to their home and 
 their work, we to pursue our journey. 
 
 The next morning we found ourselves again at Syra, 
 where we were transferred to another steamer bound 
 to Smyrna. A terrible storm arose and tossed us 
 about for two or three days among the Cyclades, till 
 we were all sea-sick and home-sick, and sick of every 
 thing. 
 
 The barren coasts of Asia were off at our left on 
 Sunday morning, December 11 ; and at length, far 
 ahead of us, we descried the domes of Smyrna. 
 
 The approach to Smyrna gives promise of a splen- 
 did city. The site was suggested to Alexander the 
 Great in a dream, it is said by an old tradition ; but 
 if he had any thing to do with it, he was probably 
 wide awake when he made choice of the spot, at the 
 head of a noble and beautiful bay, more than thirty 
 miles long, and from five to fifteen across. Tempest- 
 tossed and worn with the sickness of the sea, it was 
 a comfort not to be forgotten when we set foot on the 
 wharf. But in what country we were it was hard to 
 tell. All sorts of costumes were around us ; the tur- 
 baned Turk, the kilted Greek, and the European dress 
 of the French, more abundant there than any other ; 
 with flaunting signs of coffee-houses in English, 
 French, and Turkish, and as many languages ringing 
 in our ears from men who would take us to a good 
 hotel or show us the wonders of the town. 
 
 The fires that have swept off many of its old and 
 wretched quarters have opened the way for new streets, 
 well laid out, and houses that present as good an ap- 
 

 ASIA 
 
 MI NO It — SMYRNA. 
 
 219 
 
 Mount Pagus. 
 
 
 
 Polycarp. 
 
 pearance as those we meet with in many European 
 cities. But the mixture of people makes a variety 
 in the style of houses and streets as marked as that 
 of the dress. Smyrna has 150,000 people in it, and 
 80,000 of these are Turks, 40,000 are Greeks, 15,000 
 Jews, 10,000 Armenians, and 5000 Franks. They 
 have separate quarters of the town to themselves, and 
 we wandered around them to see the way they live. 
 
 Overlooking the city is Mount Pagus, on which the 
 castle was erected, called, as in most of the Greek 
 cities, the Acropolis, now in ruins. Within it are the 
 relics of a temple reared to Jupiter. On the same 
 hilltop may have been the site of the church of 
 Smyrna, one of the " Seven churches of Asia ;" not 
 probable however, though there is little doubt that in 
 this hollow, a short distance below the castle, the aged 
 Polycaep suffered martyrdom, A.D. 166, and here is 
 his sepulchre unto this day. He was for more than 
 eighty years pastor of the church of Smyrna. " The 
 persecution under Antoninus growing violent in that 
 city, a general outcry was raised for the blood of 
 Polycarp. On this he withdrew privately into a 
 neighboring village, where he lay concealed for some 
 time, continuing night and day in prayer for the 
 peace of the Church. The most diligent search was, 
 in the mean time, made for him without effect. But 
 when his enemies proceeded to put some of his breth- 
 ren to the torture, with the view of compelling them 
 to betray him, he could no longer remain concealed. 
 ' The Lord's will be done,' was his ejaculation ; on 
 which he made a surrender of himself to his enemies, 
 
220 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Martyrdom. Massacres. 
 
 saluting them with a cheerful countenance, and invit- 
 ing them to refresh themselves at his table, only solic- 
 iting one hour for prayer. His request was granted, 
 and his devotions were prolonged to double that period, 
 with such sweetness and fervor, that all who heard 
 him were struck with admiration, and the soldiers re- 
 pented of their errand. Having ended his prayer, he 
 was placed on an ass and was conveyed to the place 
 of judgment. He was met on the way by one of the 
 magistrates, who took him into his carriage and tried 
 to persuade him to abjure his profession ; but he was 
 unyielding. On his approaching the place of execu- 
 tion the proconsul, ashamed of putting to death so 
 aged and venerable a man, urged him to blaspheme 
 Christ/' It was then that he made the memorable an- 
 swer, "Eighty-six years have I served him, during 
 all which time he never did me injury ; how then can 
 I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?" When 
 further urged, his answer was, "I am a Christian." 
 When threatened with wild beasts, he said, "Bring 
 them forth" — when with fire, he reminded them of 
 the eternal fire that awaited the ungodly. He died at 
 the stake, uttering the words of praise rather than of 
 prayer. 
 
 With Polycarp several Christians from Philadelphia 
 suffered. Again and again in successive centuries 
 this hillside has been reddened with the blood of 
 martyrs. At one time, in 1770, the Moslems com- 
 menced a general massacre of Christians, and fifteen 
 hundred were put to death. So in 1822, when the 
 isle of Scio was the scene of butchery, eight hundred 
 
ASIA MINOR — SMYRNA. 221 
 
 Caravans. Bazaars. 
 
 Greek Christians were slaughtered near the scene of 
 Polycarp's martyrdom. 
 
 The most decided mark of Orientalism was the 
 troop of camels coming into the city from the inte- 
 rior, with their burdens so broad as to fill the narrow 
 streets, and to make the walking difficult, if not dan- 
 gerous. I counted forty of them in half an hour, and 
 then coming upon a hundred in one square, gave up 
 counting. They walked in single file, six of them 
 usually tied together; and the first one, the most 
 venerable, being tied to a donkey, on which a man 
 was riding as the guide of the rest. These camels 
 moved on with a solemn, meditative pace, now and 
 then making a shrieking kind of noise, but rarely ; 
 rather looking like the connecting link between the 
 animal and machine; called, indeed, the " ships of the 
 desert ;" but their rate of travel, not over three miles 
 an hour, hardly justifies that title. Patient, however, 
 and powerful to bear burdens and thirst, they are 
 wisely made for travel and transport where no other 
 means of conveyance are available. 
 
 The Bazaars display rich and costly goods in great 
 variety ; much of Oriental fabric, shawls, carpets, caps, 
 and scarfs, and thousands of things that come from 
 Paris and London, showing the gradual, and now the 
 rapid progress which Western civilization is making 
 in the East. When a fire lays waste a part of the 
 town, it is rebuilt in the Western more than in the 
 Eastern style ; and with the use of European dwell- 
 ings all the comforts and luxuries of a more refined 
 mode of life must follow. These Bazaars are covered 
 
222 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Buying and selling. Figs. Homer. 
 
 streets, and the stores are small apartments, perhaps 
 ten feet square, in the centre of which the merchant 
 sits, smoking his long pipe, and quite indifferent 
 whether you buy or not. The customers stand in the 
 street and examine the goods as they are laid on a 
 counter at the edge of the walk. Generally the price 
 asked is one third more than the sum to be paid, and 
 sometimes the offer of half price makes a bargain. 
 The trade of Smyrna is very great, especially in 
 fruits, being the natural outlet of Asia Minor, one of 
 the finest fruit countries in the world. The camels 
 bring in the ripe figs, which are picked and packed 
 by women and children in drums and boxes, hastened 
 on shipboard, and then commence the races across the 
 seas ; a prize of $150 being paid in London to the 
 captain who arrives with the first vessel, and a much 
 greater prize being won in the market by the vessel 
 that arrives first in New York after the fruit crop 
 comes in. Smyrna is celebrated for its figs, but the 
 market was better supplied with almost all other kinds 
 of Oriental fruit than figs when we were there, this 
 having been a very poor season for them, as we were 
 told. 
 
 The scholar is interested in Smyrna as the reputed 
 birth-place of Homer — for this is one of those of 
 which it is said, 
 
 " Seven cities claimed the Homer dead, 
 Through which the living Homer hegged his bread." 
 
 The ancients celebrated it under the names of the 
 lovely, the crown of Ionia, the ornament of Asia ; and 
 
ASIA MINOR — SMYRNA. 223 
 
 Seven churches of Asia. 
 
 the moderns have pronounced it comparable in sit- 
 uation to Naples itself. I sought it as the spot 
 where my great namesake studied in the school of 
 Polycarp, who sat at the feet of St. John. But 
 the chief interest in Smyrna which the Christian 
 traveller finds, is in the fact that here was one of 
 the seven churches of Asia, of which mention is made 
 by St. John in the Apocalypse, the others being in 
 the same region, and accessible by journeys of a 
 few successive hours. JZphesiis, where John re^ 
 sided, is only twelve Lours off, and near the coast ; 
 but the ruins of the great temple of Diana of the 
 Ephesians, one of the seven wonders of the world, 
 are no longer to be seen; even the site is not to be 
 pointed out. It was burnt by an incendiary, who 
 wished to make his name immortal in connection with 
 the ruin of such a temple. The wild beast prowls 
 now where once was the most splendid edifice of its 
 time on the face of the earth. Xaodicea, another of 
 the seven, is now deserted, though the ruins of tem- 
 ples and theatres plainly mark the site. Philadel- 
 jphia has three thousand houses, and is the residence 
 of the Greek bishop. Sardis consists of a few shep- 
 herds' huts, and a mill on the river Pactolus, whose 
 golden sands were once so famed. Thyatira is full 
 of ruins ; the mouths of the wells are made of the 
 capitals of beautiful columns, and the streets in many 
 parts are paved with fragments of carved stone, relics 
 of the ancient city. jPergamos is a magnificent tomb 
 of former greatness ; arches half buried, and columns 
 in the sand, are the mournful memorials of the place 
 
224 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Prophecy fulfilled. Missionaries. 
 
 where the faithful martyr Antipas suffered, and where 
 Satan's seat was when the Apostle John wrote his 
 letters to the seven churches. 
 
 Smyrna is the only one of the seven cities that con- 
 tinues to be a place of any importance. And even 
 Smyrna of the present is not on the site of the former. 
 It is hard to make it a fact that time can work such 
 changes, so that places which knew these vast cities 
 know them no more. Open to the second and third 
 chapters of the Revelation, and read the prophecy and 
 warning there uttered, and observe the wonderful 
 fulfillment of every word. All this Eastern world 
 abounds in lessons of light and instruction on the 
 pages of sacred truth ; and every day of travel among 
 the islands of the Archipelago, or the cities of Asia 
 Minor, invests those pages with a reality that they 
 never possessed before. All this is more than classic, 
 it is hallowed scenery. 
 
 Smyrna has long been an important station of mis- 
 sions from the American Board. Here that good man 
 Daniel Temple labored, and his influence, now that 
 he is dead and gone, is felt among the people, as I 
 was assured by residents. With my friends, Messrs. 
 Hill and Righter, I called on the American missiona- 
 ries now here, and we were welcomed with a hearti- 
 ness that made it a double joy to meet them. The 
 Rev. Mr. Ladd is preaching to the Armenians, and 
 Miss Watson and Miss Danforth are engaged in teach- 
 ing. The Rev. Mr. Morgan and the Rev. Mr. Parsons 
 are directing their efforts to the Jews, who are numer- 
 ous in Smyrna, and have a part of the city to them- 
 
ASIA MINOR — SMYRNA. 225 
 
 Self-denials. Bobbers. 
 
 selves, through which we walked with these mission- 
 aries. Perhaps more deeply than at Athens, I felt the 
 greatness of the sacrifice which these men and their 
 wives are making when they expatriate themselves in 
 youth, and suffer an exile for life from the relations 
 of one's own country and home ; not suffering the 
 want of food or raiment, or houses to dwell in — all 
 these things they may have here in as much abun- 
 dance and comfort as in America — but denying them- 
 selves all that goes to make the future of one's life on 
 earth attractive, and contenting themselves with the 
 prospect of doing little or nothing of which they will 
 see any fruits while they live, and with no hope or 
 desire of being any thing more than an unknown 
 preacher of the Gospel in a foreign land. Yet how 
 cheerful these men and women are! To see them in 
 their houses, at the fireside, or around the table, you 
 would not think of their being away from home — in- 
 deed they are not ; they have made it a home where 
 duty calls them, and are just as happy here as they 
 would be in their native land. 
 
 The missionaries would not allow us to make any 
 excursions in the neighborhood of the city, not even to 
 ascend Mount Pagus, as the country is infested with 
 robbers, who still carry on a system of plunder which 
 I supposed was broken up even in this semi-barbarous 
 region. "Not long since an English gentleman resid- 
 ing here, a merchant, was walking in his garden near 
 his villa, a short distance out of the city, when four 
 robbers entered and told him he must go with them. 
 He knew his fate at once, and sending his children to 
 
 K* 
 
226 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Man carried off. Porters. 
 
 inform their mother that he was going away, but 
 would return in a day or two, he walked off with his 
 captors. They conducted him to their lurking-place 
 among the mountains, gave him a place to sleep in 
 then* cave, and the next morning took his draft for 
 five thousand dollars to his "banking-house at Smyrna, 
 and getting the money as the price of his liberty, re- 
 stored him to his distracted family. Not unfrequently 
 they have carried off children in this way, and if then- 
 parents hesitate about the ransom, the robbers send 
 them the ears of the children, and say that their heads 
 will come the next day unless the money is forthcom- 
 ing. In vain has the government attempted to break 
 up these lawless hordes. If a detachment of soldiers 
 should be sent in search of them, the soldiers would 
 be quite as likely to become robbers as to catch the 
 rest. 
 
 I was struck with the muscular build and bearing 
 of the hernials or porters of Smyrna. They come from 
 the region of Lake Van, and enjoy a monopoly of the 
 carrying business in the city. After spending a few 
 years at Smyrna, and acquiring some property, they 
 return to their native district, and others come down 
 to supply their places. We had been told that some 
 of them would carry on their backs as much as five or 
 six hundred pounds; but doubting the truth of the 
 statement, we made inquiries, and found that it was 
 under rather than over the truth. The Dutch consul, 
 Mr. Van Lennep, assured me that he had often had 
 men in his service who would cany eight or even nine 
 hundred pounds ; and he gave me an account of one 
 
ASIA MINOR — SMYRNA. 227 
 
 A strong porter. Large story] 
 
 man who, upon a wager, took fifteen hundred pounds 
 on his back, walked across the street with it, slipped 
 and fell under the load, and was crushed to death. 
 We told our friends that we were very willing to hear 
 the largest stories they had to relate, but really this 
 would be hardly credited. However, the authority 
 was abundant, and we could not doubt it. Of course 
 no man could raise such a burden with his hands. 
 He has it placed upon his back, and then walks off 
 with it. With this load we will take leave of Smyrna. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A FEARFUL VOYAGE. 
 
 Going to the Wars — Turks, Arabs, and Nubians on Board — Muti- 
 nous, ragged, wretched Fellows — Sickness — Fat Turk sleeps with 
 us — Isle of Tenedos — Site of Old Troy — Turks demand to be put 
 ashore — Quieted again — Death comes — In the Dardanelles — Bur- 
 ial of the Turk — Abydos — Sea of Marmora. 
 
 December 11. It was after dark when we reached 
 the steamer bound for Constantinople. Had we 
 known what was before us, it is more than probable 
 that we should have forfeited our passage money and 
 waited for another vessel. The war with Russia is 
 calling for all the fighting men that can be raised in 
 the Turkish dominions, and though we had heard 
 that some troops from Smyrna were ready to go to 
 Constantinople, we had no thought of having the 
 pleasure of their company, nor the sort of company 
 they would prove, should they be our fellow-travel- 
 lers. We found it rough in getting from the wharf 
 to the steamer, and once or twice, in the half mile of 
 rowing in the bay, I thought we were to be swamped. 
 The excitement of this run made us glad to get under 
 the lee of the steamer, where we were surprised to find 
 scores of small boats before us, loaded with men scaling 
 the sides of the ship with ropes, and shouting from the 
 boats below to those on board. The step-ladder was 
 
A FEARFUL VOYAGE. 229 
 
 Wild Arabs. 1taa& fellows. 
 
 tlironged so that it seemed impossible for us to make 
 the ascent. Some were struggling to get up, and 
 others as determined to get down : all was confusion ; 
 but by dint of perseverance, pushing our way through, 
 at some risk of being pushed into the sea, we reached 
 the deck, where the scene before us began to unfold 
 in colors far from inviting or propitious. Three or 
 four companies of volunteers from the interior of Asia 
 Minor, wild men of the mountains, Turks, Arabs, 
 Nubians, and those whose tribe o$ tongue it would be 
 difficult to define — a savage horde, armed to the teeth 
 many of them, and some with no arms ; well clothed 
 some, and others half clad, were now crowding on 
 deck, and spreading themselves over the ship. With 
 their luggage for the battle-fields in great bundles, 
 they were making rough beds for themselves, and 
 packing closely together, at once for the purpose of 
 keeping each other warm and making room for the 
 troop. Some were howling and shouting, some were 
 singing and laughing, more of them grave and sullen, 
 frowning and gloomy; refusing companionship with 
 those about them, they sat wrapped in their blankets 
 and meditations. The work of lading was still going 
 on ; merchandise and coal were hoisted in along with 
 the Turks and their plunder, increasing the uproar. 
 Many of these rough fellows had come from a warmer 
 climate than this, and as the night was cold, they 
 hovered near the machinery and smoke-pipe, sitting 
 down on the warmest place they could find, and 
 shivering even there. A lot of them sheltered by the 
 gunwale from the wind were merry, and made music 
 
230 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Making music. Invading the cabin. 
 
 on a rude instrument in imitation of a drum — an 
 earthen jar with a dried skin stretched over the mouth 
 of it, which they beat with the hand. Some of them 
 made an attempt at singing, and a wretched attempt 
 it was, making night hideous. Fortunately their 
 arms were taken from them as fast as they came on 
 board, all but their yataghan, a dirk, which each one 
 wore in his girdle. There was a great choice of 
 places, even on deck, and the selection was not made 
 without trouble ; several fights occurred — the dirks 
 flourished madly, the chiefs interfered, and each com- 
 pany being arranged by itself, and the chiefs of all 
 being encamped together, the rival hosts were finally 
 distributed in their respective quarters. There was 
 no disposition on the part of any of the cabin passen- 
 gers to turn in. We had taken refuge in the cabin, 
 but this was not safe from the intrusion of our new 
 companions. They began to peer into the windows 
 and down the passage-way, and attracted by the ap- 
 pearance of comfort below, contrasted with the dreary 
 and wretched state of things above, they were tempt- 
 ed to come down. We had the door closed, but they 
 raised the hatchway, swung themselves over and 
 dropped down into the midst of us — ugly looking 
 customers, and just the sort of people a man does not 
 wish to sleep with. At length, as the evening wore 
 away, we made all fast, shut our state-room door, and 
 commending ourselves to Providence, feeling that we 
 were in His hands, though exposed to the tender 
 mercies of the Turk, we went to bed and feel asleep. 
 Strange that we become so accustomed to danger, and 
 
A FEARFUL VOYAGE. 231 
 
 Going to sleep. Lying in port. 
 
 can be so insensible in the midst of it. A hundred 
 voices were raging on deck when I went to sleep; 
 there was the tramping of a wild horde of savage men 
 right over my head ; they were suffering from cold, 
 and knew that warm quarters were below them and 
 within then reach, and I had very little doubt that 
 they would take possession of them in the course of a 
 few hours, but for all that I was soon asleep. And 
 when I awoke, as I did at midnight or soon after, it was 
 not from the uproar of the wild men, or the breaking 
 in of the cabin doors, or the call to arms to fight the 
 Turk ; I awoke to the most profound silence that ever 
 pervaded a ship. Not a voice was to be heard — not 
 a foot was stirring. "Blessed be he who first in- 
 vented sleep," saith Sancho ; and surely never was 
 there such an exhibition of its power. The savages 
 were all asleep. So the infant, the weary mother, the 
 tost sailor, the soldier, the sage, the worn traveller, 
 on the field or the sea, abroad or at home, all asleep ! 
 Blessed be He who "giveth his beloved sleep." He 
 sendeth his rain on the just and the unjust, and Mos- 
 lem and Christian sleep together under the Crescent 
 and the Cross. 
 
 The next morning was bright, cold, and wintry: 
 although we were to put to sea last evening, the 
 weather was so threatening, and our raw recruits so 
 turbulent, it was not judged prudent to leave port. 
 I was early on deck to learn the condition of the com- 
 pany after their first night's experience. Indeed, it 
 was so dark when we came aboard we had no good 
 opportunity to study the characters with whom we 
 
232 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Making friends. 
 
 were now embarked. They were stretched over the 
 deck, with their clothes, cloaks, and rags wrapped 
 round them, as close to each other as on a battle- 
 field. Gradually they roused from the stupor of the 
 night, and began to show themselves, though few rose 
 from the deck. Aft, near the captain's office, which 
 was under the quarter-deck, the chiefs were seated 
 together: one of them in a suit of blue, with metal 
 buttons, and a Turkish cloak, embroidered with gold, 
 over it, a brilliant scarf around him, and a red turban 
 on his head. Another had a gray suit, with scarlet 
 and gold lace, and a silver cloth mantle, Turkish 
 trowsers, and red stockings, and a white turban about 
 his fez or red cap. One or two inferior officers with 
 them were less dressed than these, and the best of 
 them had very little to distinguish them, and, indeed, 
 would not have been distinguished at all, but for the 
 ragamuffin appearance of the horde of followers in 
 then train. These looked to me more like devils 
 than men ; and if one of the chiefs had mounted a 
 white horse, I should have likened him, at the head 
 of his fellows, to Death, in the Revelation, with Hell 
 following. I offered my hand to the principal chief, 
 and he pressed it to his breast, gave me to understand 
 that he loved Americans, and was happy to make my 
 acquaintance. This I extended somewhat among the 
 crowd, giving them apples and nuts, which they re- 
 ceived with pleasure, and sometimes offered me their 
 own provisions in return, and expected me to eat with 
 them, a hospitality which it was rather difficult to es- 
 cape. In the course of the morning it was necessary, 
 
A FEARFUL VOYAGE. 233 
 
 Mutiny. The engine. 
 
 in trimming the ship, that some of them should be 
 sent forward — an order they were very reluctant to 
 obey. The steamer's captain lacked energy and firm- 
 ness, and, indeed, every great quality of a commander 
 except patience, and his inefficiency early suggested 
 the dangers to which we 'were exposed with these wild 
 men on board. The chiefs were called on to allay the 
 storm and enforce the order. The difficulty proved 
 to be jealousy between the separate companies, and 
 the fear that one was to have a worse place than 
 the other on ship. At last the matter was adjusted 
 by the chiefs, and the mutinous spirit was subdued, 
 the masses properly distributed, and the vessel put 
 to sea. 
 
 Now the excitement began. Most of them had 
 never seen a steamer before, and their curiosity was 
 intense as the engine began to work, and the ship to 
 move in the water without sails. Affecting great in- 
 difference, some of them would come to the engine, 
 look on with gravity, and turn away as if they cared 
 nothing about it, but would look back and return 
 again and study it with a stupid sort of amazement, 
 showing not quite as much emotion as a horse under 
 the same circumstances. Among so many and from 
 different parts of the country, there must have been 
 a great variety of character, and it was a source of 
 amusement to observe them. One was dressed in 
 fantastic colors with a steeple cap on, covered with 
 little bells, and he was the harlequin of the troop, a 
 fool to make sj)ort for the rest. He worked hard and 
 made wretched sport, seldom making any body laugh 
 
234 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 but himself. A large, fat Turk, with several yards of 
 yellow and scarlet wound about head and shoulders, 
 sat on his haunches by the cabin door, a dark-visaged 
 old fellow with a long beard, now and then an ugly 
 grin making his face more hideous ; and whenever I 
 came near him he gave me a look that told me plain- 
 ly he wished to be left to his own reflections. Among 
 the troop was a Nubian, black as night, a skeleton of 
 a man, nearly if not quite seven feet high, half clad — 
 a most attenuated specimen of the human form. 
 Many of them were very young; wild boys of eighteen 
 or twenty, off for a frolic, and now under no restraint. 
 For a few piastres they would go through the dances 
 of their country, coarse, indeed disgusting motions, to 
 rude music on a sort of fiddle, an instrument as near- 
 ly resembling a civilized violin as their dancing the 
 fairy evolutions of Paris girls. Yet it was well to 
 keep them in good humor, and I was always pleased 
 to set them singing, playing, or dancing — any thing, 
 indeed, but fighting. Of that we should have enough. 
 In the course of the forenoon we got out of the bay 
 into the sea. The wind rose to a gale. The steamer 
 rolled fearfully. The waves often swept over the 
 decks, to the dismay of the poor fellows, who had no 
 shelter from the fury of the wind and water. Soon 
 they were sea-sick. One and then another, and now 
 a score together would go to the side of the vessel, 
 and retch in their agony. But this was soon impos- 
 sible. As they sat or lay, losing all sense of shame 
 and all regard for each other, they gave up to the 
 direful influence of the malady, and such a scene en- 
 
A FEAKEUL VOYAGE. 235 
 
 Their miseries. Driven into port. 
 
 sued as no one wishes to describe or read. The few 
 who at first stood out were merry at the misery of 
 the rest. As the waves burst on the deck they would 
 receive them with shouts of defiance, in which I 
 could hear "Allah! ah, ah!" and roars of laughter, 
 but these soon died away. The masses huddled 
 closer together, the chiefs implored to be allowed to 
 go into the cabin, and we feared they would demand 
 it and take possession. But sickness conquered the 
 whole of them, and there they lay, a disgusting mass 
 of miserable wretches, in their own filth, helpless, and 
 therefore for the present not to be feared. We pitied 
 them certainly, but we had a secret wish that they 
 might be tolerably sea-sick till we got to Constanti- 
 nople. 
 
 Confined to our cabin, unable to get about on deck, 
 and sickened by what we saw when, for the sake of 
 air, we put our heads above, we dragged out a miser- 
 able day of it, and felt a sort of melancholy satisfac- 
 tion when night came that we might go to bed. The 
 north wind blew so strong, and the sea ran so high, 
 that at midnight we came to anchor, and in the morn- 
 ing found ourselves in the small harbor of Cape Baba, 
 on the west coast of Asia Minor, with a small island 
 on the other side of us. The Austrian steamer which 
 left Smyrna twelve hours before us had been driven 
 in by stress of weather, and was at anchor near. 
 The cold had now become so severe that many of our 
 would-be soldiers were ready to perish, and they got 
 permission to drop themselves one by one into the 
 hold with the coal. The passage was not large 
 
236 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Down in the hold. Making the best of it. 
 
 enough to admit a very fat Turk with all his gar- 
 ments on ; but the poor fellows, "black Arabs, swarthy 
 Turks, and skinny negroes, would slip down into the 
 pit, as much pleased with getting out of the wind as 
 if they were dropping into first-rate quarters. All the 
 spare sails of the vessel were stretched as great blank- 
 ets over those on deck. They had recovered from 
 their sea-sickness, and were again disposed to demand 
 better places on shipboard. We had made so little 
 progress when we ought to be at the end of the voy- 
 age, that discontent was general among the cabin pas- 
 sengers, as well as with the army above. We felt 
 that the captain had committed an outrage, for which 
 he deserved punishment, in taking such a crowd on 
 board ; subjecting his passengers to the extremest an- 
 noyance and positive suffering, while he certainly put 
 their lives and property at the mercy of a lawless 
 horde of men whom it would be impossible to control 
 or resist if they chose to take the vessel into their 
 own hands. However, we must make the best of the 
 worst ; and once more getting under way, we bore up 
 as well as we could, seeking to keep all hands in good 
 humor, and learning what we could of the barbarous 
 people with whom we were doomed to companionship. 
 In the afternoon we reached the island of Tenedos, 
 and running into a small bay on the coast of the main 
 land opposite, we came to anchor near the site of Old 
 Troy. In this island the Greeks secreted themselves 
 when they professed to retire from the siege of Troy, 
 and sent the big horse as a farewell gift. From this 
 island came the snakes that destroyed Laocoon and 
 
A FEARFUL VOYAGE. 237 
 
 Old Troy. Short of food. 
 
 his two boys — the priest who denounced the horse as 
 a treacherous gift, and smote it with a spear. No 
 ruins even mark this barren shore ; and on the spot 
 which has been agreed on as the site of ancient Troy, 
 not a stone that bears the impress of the art of any 
 age can be found. Trojafuit. Troy was, and prob- 
 ably it was here ; but the ingens gloria Teucromm 
 is gone forever. 
 
 No sooner had we come to anchor, and not far from 
 land, than the Turks demanded to be put ashore. 
 They had nearly exhausted their provisions — the 
 voyage was likely to be three times as long as they 
 expected, and sick of the sea, forgetting the glory 
 and plunder that were promised them in the war, 
 they were bent on going home. The captain was 
 willing to part with them, and ordered the boats to 
 be lowered to send the deserters ashore. The chiefs 
 now resisted. They begged — they threatened — I 
 think they swore. They were in a terrible rage at 
 the prospect of their men retreating in the face of 
 such dangers, when they were on their way to fight 
 the battles of frhe Crescent. As the want of provi- 
 sions was the only valid argument in favor of deser- 
 tion, they soon arranged with the captain to supply 
 them ; and as part of our freight was food for the 
 fleets, we were able to furnish what was wanting; 
 and after a mutinous and exciting scene of an hour, 
 the turbulent spirits were quelled, and we resumed 
 our course. 
 
 And then Death came ! He is never far away. In 
 such a mass of human beings, of all conditions and 
 
238 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Death among us. The old Turk. 
 
 constitutions, exposed as they were to new trials, 
 and many of them suffering in a colder climate than 
 they had ever endured, it was not strange that some 
 of them should be very sick. One, we had heard, 
 was seized with a sort of pleurisy shortly after com- 
 ing on board. The surgeon of the vessel, and the 
 doctor who attended the troops, did what they could 
 for him, which was very little. He lay in a small 
 house on the hows of the ship, where the third class 
 passengers had berths, and surrounded by his own 
 people, who smoked their long chibouques or the 
 nargalee, indifferent to the fate of their comrade, he 
 died. " It was the will of God ;" and they smoked 
 on, for it was none of their business. If a dog had 
 died, there would have been more feeling. But the 
 death had its effect on us, who now saw the approach 
 of a new danger. If sickness should spread among 
 the crowd they might be less calm, perhaps be roused 
 to new demands ; and what might be the state of 
 things to-morrow none could say. But if Turks were 
 so resigned to the will of God, surely Christians might 
 trust him a little longer. Taking a lesson of submis- 
 sion from the heathen, we retired to the cabin and 
 made ready for one more night's repose. 
 
 A Turkish merchant, of enormous fatness, well 
 dressed in full Turkish costume, had been with us in 
 the ship a day or two before we reached Smyrna, 
 attended by two slaves, who washed his feet every 
 morning, and who ministered to him constantly. He 
 had hie quarters in a small apartment on deck, which 
 was now rendered unendurable by the noise and in- 
 
A FEAKFUL VOYAGE. 239 
 
 Salutations. Dardanelles. 
 
 roads of the troop. He came down into the cabin, 
 and learning that there was a vacant "berth in our 
 state-room, presented himself in all his robes as a 
 suppliant at our door. 
 
 Salaam Aleihoiim, "Peace be with you," he said; 
 and we replied Khosh gelding, "Welcome." Mash- 
 allah, "In the name of God," said he, and putting 
 his hand to the side of his head, intimated that he 
 wished to sleep ; that he was distressed with the 
 noise above, and desired the luxury of a bed with us. 
 I had cultivated his acquaintance some days before, 
 and now he renewed his invitation that I would visit 
 him at Constantinople, promising to show me his 
 harem! It was impossible to resist such politeness 
 on his part : we had to reciprocate his courtesy, and 
 invite him to spend the night with us. In fifteen 
 minutes he was snoring heavily, dreaming doubtless 
 of his harem at Stamboul. 
 
 We were to touch at another port this morning, but 
 the wind was too high to allow us to approach the 
 coast, and we stood off, slowly creeping along to the 
 mouth of the Dardanelles. At the town of that name 
 we cast anchor, and sent ashore for the necessary 
 permit to enter the straits, no vessel being allowed 
 to pass this gate to the Sea of Marmora without leave 
 of the Turkish government. Two steamers were ly- 
 ing by at the same place, both of them several days 
 behind then time on account of the adverse weather. 
 The town is miserably mean-looking ; houses low and 
 dilapidated. Here the dead Turk was sent ashore 
 and buried. Their funeral ceremony under the most 
 
240 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Turkish burial. Swimming. 
 
 favorable circumstances is short and simple: they 
 carry their dead in silence to the grave-yard, dig a 
 shallow grave, not more than two or three feet deep, 
 after the procession arrives, and then "bury the corpse. 
 This is usually hurried, as they suppose the spirit to 
 be in torment all the time the body is out of the 
 ground. In the course of the forenoon we set off 
 again, our whole company, cabin passengers and 
 troops, in a state of rebellion against the officers for 
 these protracted delays. We were to have reached 
 Constantinople in thirty-six hours, and we had al- 
 ready been sixty, and were only half way. But the 
 day was enlivened by the views of the shores on 
 either side, as we made the passage of these famous 
 straits against a rapid current ; strong fortresses stud- 
 ding the commanding points, and many villages, rude 
 and straggling, along the shores. The width of these 
 straits varies from five miles to the narrow pass, of 
 not more than half a mile, at Abydos, where Leander 
 swam across so often to see his mistress Hero, and 
 where Lord Byron performed the same exploit, which 
 any good swimmer can do easily. It was a comfort 
 to be so near the land, for oru* wild men were now 
 becoming so wild with cold, and some of them suspi- 
 cious of foul play, perhaps a trick of the enemy, that 
 they became more than usually troublesome and dis- 
 contented. They even ventured into the kitchen and 
 stole some poultry, which was the occasion of no 
 small disturbance, and increased the apprehension 
 that they would take still greater liberties if the 
 voyage was protracted much longer. The cold in- 
 
A FEARFUL VOYAGE. 241 
 
 Cold. Suffering. 
 
 creased. The hills on shore were covered with snow, 
 and the wind that swept from them across our ves- 
 sel, sent chills into the hones and terror into the 
 hearts of the half-clad children of the desert on board. 
 Another night set in upon us as we left Gallipolis and 
 struck into the Sea of Marmora. 
 Vol. II.— L 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 The City at Sunrise — Magnificence of the Sight — The Wife-murder 
 Door — Dogs — Porters — Mud — Cordial Reception — Rev. Mr. Ben- 
 jamin and Family — A Turkish Bath — Rev. Dr. Dwigh — Golden 
 Horn — Rev. Mr. Everett and Family — Female Seminary — Preach- 
 ing — Rev. Mr. Goodell — Cemetery — Sultan going to Prayer — The 
 Bazaars — SlaA'e Market — The Harem — Slavery in Turkey — Howl- 
 ing and Dancing Dervishes — Miracle-working — A Lady smoking 
 — Turkish Women — Social Life. 
 
 Dec. 15. Mr. Kighter roused me early, and sum- 
 moned me on deck to see the sunrise as we were about 
 to come in sight of the city of Constantine. It was 
 a morning never to be forgotten till all sense of the 
 beautiful and glorious has passed away, or a vision 
 of brighter magnificence is revealed. The snow-cap- 
 ped summit of Mount Olympus was now resplendent 
 in the beams of the rising sun, and these were stream- 
 ing along the hillsides and flowing into the plains 
 with a wastefulness of glory that excited and charmed 
 us as we stood high on the bows of the ship to take 
 the view in the first blush of its opening charms. 
 And there stood the swelling domes, the arrowy min- 
 arets, the shining palaces and towers of Constantinople, 
 gleaming in the morning sun. At first view a mass 
 of temples and human habitations crowded on a mount- 
 ain side, and gardens, cypresses, and pinnacles ap- 
 peared to be thrown in without regard to arrangement ; 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 243 
 
 Site of the city. The wall. 
 
 but we soon distinguished Stamboul and Scutari, and 
 then we rushed by the Seraglio Palace into the mouth 
 of the Golden Horn. Pera rose from the water's edge 
 with the new marble palace of the Sultan on the 
 Bosphorus ; and there we came to anchor, having 
 Scutari behind us, Stamboul on our right, with St. 
 Sophia, the St. Peter's of the Moslem, and a score of 
 mosques with their surrounding minarets in full view, 
 and Pera, surmounted by the Russian palace, on our 
 left. The Golden Horn, an arm of the sea, was 
 stretched out before us, clasped by a bridge, and filled 
 with the shipping of every clime ; a sight, in all its 
 parts, of such extraordinary elements of beauty and 
 grandeur as the approach to no other city in the whole 
 world presents. No wonder that it has been besieged 
 twenty-six times ! No wonder that every conqueror 
 who comes in sight of it covets it and resolves to have 
 it! No wonder that Nicholas longs to transfer his 
 palace from the frozen borders of Finland to this en- 
 chanting zone ! 
 
 We came to anchor just in the mouth of the Golden 
 Horn, and in full view of the Seraglio Palace of the 
 Sultan, at the water's edge, on the point of land made 
 by the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus. The chap- 
 lain of the British Ambassador at Constantinople was 
 our fellow-passenger, and now pointed out to us the 
 many objects of interest which met our eyes, and of 
 which with eager curiosity we were seeking the names. 
 
 "That opening in the dead wall around the palace 
 grounds you see, and an inclined plane extending to 
 the water?" 
 
244 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Wife-door. The dogs. 
 
 " Certainly, sir ; is it remarkable ?" 
 
 "That,"' said Mr. B., "is the door and the plane 
 by which the victims of the Sultan's displeasure are 
 silently passed out into the sea, tied in bags, and 
 instantly sunk. Many a poor wife, without crime, 
 but having lost favor in her master's eyes, has been 
 suddenly murdered there." 
 
 I was afterward told by others in Constantinople 
 that this door and inclined plane are used for the dis- 
 charge of rubbish from the gardens and palace — a 
 statement not inconsistent with the former. No rub- 
 bish is more likely to be cleared out of a Sultan's 
 palace them a wife he wishes to be rid of. 
 
 Fourteen dogs, a scurvy set of curs, ugly and hun- 
 gry, stood on the wharf when Ave were rowed ashore, 
 as if they were ready to eat us on the moment of 
 landing. A score or more of porters seized our lug- 
 gage to cany it on their backs wherever we wished, 
 and saddled horses stood ready for us to mount and 
 ride. JNo cart or carnage of any sort was to be had. 
 All the carrying from vessels in the harbor to any 
 part of the town is done by the hands of porters. A 
 bale of goods, or a hogshead of molasses is girt w T ith 
 a rope, and two poles being thrust through, it is car- 
 ried off by main strength. 
 
 Through the mud and filth of the narrow and crook- 
 ed streets we climbed the hill of Pera. It was im- 
 possible to walk out of the mud. There are no side- 
 walks ; and as the dogs — a "peculiar institution" of 
 the city — act as scavengers, all the refuse from the 
 houses is thrown into the street for their consump- 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 245 
 
 An old friend. A bath. 
 
 tion. The clogs belong to no one in particular, but 
 to every "body in general. I counted five dying or 
 dead, whom I had to step over or around in my first 
 walk from the shore to my lodgings. Now and then 
 we met a lumbering kind of carriage drawn by a sin- 
 gle horse, and led by a servant, a Turkish lady sitting 
 on the floor of the carriage, with a white vail over 
 her head and the lower part of her face, leaving only 
 her eyes to be seen. 
 
 The Eev. Mr, Benjamin, an old college friend of 
 mine, insisted on my taking lodgings at his house — ■ 
 the Mission House of the American Board, in which 
 is the Protestant chapel and school. It was a joy to 
 me, after being worn and worried for so many days 
 and nights with the miserable company I had in the 
 French steamer, to find myself in the bosom of a 
 lovely Christian family, and surrounded by friends 
 who hastened to call and give me a cordial welcome 
 to the East. 
 
 It will not surprise any one that my companions 
 of travel and I were in suffering need of a bath. 
 Shut up in the steamer with five or six hundred men 
 of undoubted filthiness, compelled to come in contact 
 with them constantly, and sleeping, or trying to sleep 
 in their vicinity night after night, we had every rea- 
 son to believe that a Turkish, bath was the one thino- 
 
 o 
 
 specially needful for us in our suspicious circum- 
 stances. Indeed, I thought we might have been sub- 
 jected to a slight quarantine before our admission to 
 the domestic circle. But we would have a bath, and 
 that would purge us of all possible grounds of objec- 
 
246 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The house. Native dress. 
 
 tion. Mr. Benjamin was our guide, and following 
 him down the hill, we were led to one of the many 
 establishments in which the city abounds. The Turks 
 are professedly very cleanly. They pretend to wash 
 whenever they enter their mosque to pray, and often 
 resort to the baths, of which there are every variety 
 in price and quality to suit the wants and tastes of 
 the people. We wished to be "put through" the 
 process in the most approved style, and therefore 
 passed by several, which would have been very fair, 
 but were said to be inferior to the best. One of them, 
 where we were designing to bathe, was engaged to-* 
 day exclusively for the women, and of course we were 
 not admitted. 
 
 We entered a large apartment with a white marble 
 floor, and a fountain of water playing in the centre. 
 A dome was pierced with many holes, shedding a dim 
 twilight over the room, and its warmth induced a 
 pleasing languor. On a raised platform were divans, 
 and bathers were reclining. We stretched ourselves 
 to rest a moment after our long walk. A servant 
 then assisted me in undressing. Enveloped in a 
 large shawl, and with towels about my head, I rose 
 up from the divan, and stepping off from the plat- 
 form, put my feet, not on the marble floor, but into 
 wooden clogs, which stood ready to receive them, and 
 marched unsteadily along in the procession of simi- 
 larly clad, or unclad bathers. Passing out of this 
 room we entered another steaming with heated vapor, 
 all but suffocating. It grew hotter as we advanced, 
 and I paused, fearful to proceed. Becoming accus- 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 247 
 
 Kneading a Turk. 
 
 tomed to it in a few moments, we were led into still 
 another room, with a marble circular platform about 
 a foot high in the centre, while all around the sides 
 were niches, a fountain in each, from which hot and 
 cold water was flowing. On the marble floor a naked 
 Turk was lying flat upon his back, and a stout fellow 
 was bending his joints and kneading him all over as 
 if he were dough. I sat down by the side of a fount- 
 ain and surrendered myself to the soft, enervating 
 influence of the atmosphere. At first it was oppress- 
 ive, but soon was exceedingly agreeable. A youn°- 
 Turk, a smooth, handsome boy, came now, gently 
 removed the covering from my head and shoulders, 
 letting it fall loosely over my limbs. Taking one of 
 my arms he rubbed it with a cloth mitten, at first 
 softly, and then more briskly, with warm water. Then 
 he took the other arm and went through the same 
 process, my neck, and back, and breast ; the cuticle 
 seemed to roll up and off as he continued his manipu- 
 lations, and I began to fear he was skinning me, or 
 that I had never been washed clean before. With 
 closed eyes and a gradual falling away of conscious- 
 ness, I let him complete the process in his own way. 
 When he had thus thoroughly cleansed me from head 
 to heels he took a wisp, or mop of palm fibres, like 
 tow, and lathered me with light suds, pouring it over 
 my head and neck, piling it on me, though it would 
 run down on my beard, as the ointment on Aaron's. 
 Dipping bowls of hot water, he poured them on the 
 top of my head ; and as it streamed in a fiery torrent 
 over my eye-balls, I thought they must be destroyed. 
 
248 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 trying for mercy. Taking a rest. 
 
 I dared not open them to see if I conld see ; but I 
 held my hands tightly over my eyes while he contin- 
 ued to dip and pour, till endurance was no longer 
 possible, and I groaned to him to have mercy on me 
 and stop. He did rest, but for a moment only ; and 
 once more covering me with the lather, he repeated 
 the douche of hot water till he was satisfied ; for I 
 had no words which he could understand in which to 
 convey my fears of the fatal consequences of such a 
 scalding operation. He left me to sit quietly for a 
 while and recover slowly from the effects. Returning 
 with dry napkins, soft and pleasant, he rubbed me 
 gently, and my good-nature came back with the fric- 
 tion, xlfter he had made a turban of a towel and put 
 it on my head, and winding several folds of a large 
 shawl around me, he led me out through two or three 
 successive chambers, becoming gradually cooler as 
 we withdrew, into the grand central hall, where the 
 divans invited us again to repose. The servant now 
 brought the chibouque — the pipe, with a stem four or 
 five feet long, handsomely ornamented — and placing 
 the pipe in a saucer on the floor, displayed his skill 
 in bringing the amber mouth-piece so that it would 
 rest upon my lips. I took a few whiffs, and then 
 another servant appeared with coffee in a tiny china 
 cup, and this cup in another of silver filigree-work. 
 The coffee is drunk without milk or sugar, black, 
 strong, and bitter, not to my taste at all; but the 
 Turks are fond of it. I preferred the pleasant sherbet 
 that followed ; and by this time I was refreshed and 
 ready to be dressed. "With all the aches and pains 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 249 
 
 On the Golden Horn. Bridge of boats. 
 
 of a week of hardship taken out of me, and rejoicing- 
 like a strong man to run a race, I left tlie bath with 
 my friends, after paying about twenty-five cents for 
 the various luxuries of bathing and refreshment which 
 I had enjoyed. Money must go a long way here, or 
 all this could not be had for a quarter of a dollar. 
 
 The Eev. Dr. Dwight called and invited me to 
 make a little excursion up the Golden Horn, to visit 
 some of the Mission families at Haskeuy. We walked 
 down the hill to Galata, and there engaged a caiqii" 
 a canoe-like boat, with each end sharp and turned uj? 
 so that it rides on the top of the wave, and cuts it 
 when a swell comes up. In the bottom of it we sit 
 on scarlet cushions, and balance the boat with care, 
 or it is upset in a moment. The far-famed Golden 
 Horn, said to be the finest harbor in all the world, 
 sets up from the Bosphorus, and as we glided along 
 its waters, with the mosques of Stamboul on the left, 
 and the palaces of Pera on the right, it was indeed 
 such a sight of grandeur and beauty as the eye rarely 
 sees. 
 
 A bridge on boats stretches across the Horn, uni- 
 ting Pera and Stamboul. We ran under this bridge, 
 and passed the Arsenal and Admiralty, near which 
 were lying dismantled ships, and one of the steamers 
 that had escaped the destruction of the Turkish fleet 
 in the bay of Sinope. The wounds in her sides told 
 of the narrow escape she had made. Long caiques 
 with a dozen or more in them, sometimes women 
 closely vailed, sitting by themselves, swept by us, and 
 the whole bay was alive with the various vessels, 
 
 L* 
 
250 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The Mission families. School. 
 
 steamers, sails and oars that were flying "back and 
 forth. 
 
 It was nearly dark when we reached Haskeuy, a 
 large village chiefly of Armenians, a short distance 
 "below the valley of the Sweet Waters, and an hour 
 above Pera. The Turk who rowed us was so well 
 satisfied with his fare, that he gave me his blessing, 
 "May you be fruitful," with several other equally in- 
 teresting invocations. Through the crooked and nar- 
 " -w streets, up-hill, and along the walls of gardens, 
 J 'o wound our way till we reached the house of the 
 £tev. Mr. Everett, in which he has the Female Semin- 
 ary. At once I was at home in a pleasant circle of 
 friends. After tea, the evening session of the Semin- 
 ary was held. Thirty-two girls, from various parts 
 of Asia Minor, some of them from a very great dis- 
 tance, are here gathered, to be taught, with the doc- 
 trines of the Christian religion, all the branches of 
 female education essential to form their minds, and fit 
 them for usefulness in the cities and villages to which 
 they belong. They board with the family of Mr. 
 Everett, a lovely family, itself an example that must 
 be always speaking to these daughters of Asia of the 
 beauty and power of a Christian home. The build- 
 ing, once the mansion of an Armenian of large means 
 and family, affords ample accommodation for the 
 Seminary. The sitting-room is surrounded with the 
 wide divan, which is common in all the Oriental 
 houses. 
 
 Entering the school-room, I was taken by surprise 
 when thirty young ladies, as good-looking and neatly 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 251 
 
 Bright girls. Preaching. 
 
 dressed as I should expect to find in my own coun- 
 try, rose from their seats and received me with cour- 
 tesy. They then resumed their studies. A brighter 
 school is rarely to be seen. When their teachers ad- 
 dressed questions to them, they answered with vivac- 
 ity and promptness, that showed how much their 
 minds were intent upon the studies pursued. In 
 needle-wo.vk they are very expert. Many of these 
 young ladies exhibit traits of character such as give 
 the highest pleasure and hope to the missionaries. 
 Their all-absorbing desire is to be qualified to teach 
 the youth in the villages from which they come, and 
 when they have completed the course of instruction 
 here given, they will return to be greatly useful. At 
 the close of the hour's study for the evening, they sung 
 a hymn in the Armenian language, "Jerusalem, my 
 happy home ;" and it might have been the associations 
 by which we were surrounded that rendered the song 
 so sweet to me, yet I never heard it with so much 
 pleasure, though I could understand but the one 
 word which rings so pleasingly in the Christian's ear. 
 From the school-room we adjourned to the chapel, 
 where Dr. Dwight preached in Armenian to a congre- 
 gation of the village, assembled with the school for 
 the Thursday evening lecture. Ignorant of the words, 
 it was natural for me to study the countenances of 
 the audience, and observe the earnestness with which 
 the truth was received, the interest of all in the serv- 
 ices, and the remarkable similarity between this even- 
 ing meeting and those in our religious circles at 
 home. The fez or red cap, with a tassel, on the 
 
252 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Armenian gentlemen. Rev. Dr. Goodell. 
 
 heads of a few of the Armenians there, was the only 
 peculiarity in the dress of the audience, and the serv- 
 ices were just the same as we would have at home. 
 
 After the service, I met several of the Armenians 
 in the parlor, gentlemen of the village, who are pleased 
 to attend the instructions of the missionaries, though 
 they have not yet left their own church. One or two 
 young men had been in America, and asked me ea- 
 gerly after friends they had made. And when they 
 had retired, what a precious hour, or two or three, we 
 had with those missionaries, speaking often of home 
 and blessings there to be found, but much more of the 
 work in which they are now engaged, the ripe held 
 in which they are already reaping a rich harvest, and 
 the bright hopes which the future holds out to the 
 faith and toil of the laborer. Here I was in the midst 
 of a circle of ladies and gentlemen, whose education, 
 intelligence, manners, worth, to say nothing of other 
 attractions which always give a charm to society, 
 would fit them to grace any circle, as happy in their 
 seclusion as if their highest ambition were reached; 
 not ascetic in their feelings, nor canting about their 
 work, as if they thought they were sj)ecially devoted, 
 but cheerful and contented, showing no other than 
 that gentle, lovely spirit which marks the intercourse 
 of intelligent Christians in all lands. 
 
 The next morning I breakfasted with the Rev. Dr. 
 Goodell. He preaches in the Turkish language, and 
 is also largely engaged in translation, a work for 
 which he is well fitted byliis long residence in the 
 East. His genial flow of good spirits, strong sense, 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 253 
 
 Cemeterr. Stealing grave-stones. 
 
 and earnest devotion, constitute a delightful element 
 in the Mission. 
 
 Keturning from Haskeuy the next morning, we 
 landed above Pera, and came up through the largest 
 of the many Turkish cemeteries that lie around the 
 city. Tall cypresses in groves were standing in the 
 midst of the graves. A head-stone with a turban on 
 it marked the graves of men, and a stone without the 
 turban the graves of the females. These stones are 
 lying scattered about the ground, which had much the 
 appearance of being neglected. Here and there a 
 group of women sat about a grave, as if, like Mary, 
 they had come to weep there ; and it is grateful any 
 where to see signs of love, even if it is love in tears. 
 I wanted to bring away one or two of these broken 
 turbans in stone ; which, indeed, were nothing more 
 than round heads, like marble cannon balls; but I 
 was told that the Turks are very jealous of any such 
 liberties, and would be greatly offended at the attempt. 
 Some years ago a clergyman from America helped 
 himself to two of them, and had them secretly put on 
 board the ship in which he sailed. After he was at 
 sea a storm came on, and the sailors, who had discov- 
 ered these bits of stolen tombstone, attributed the 
 storm to the sacrilege which had been committed. 
 In the night they quietly dropped them overboard, 
 to the great disappointment of their possessor ; and 
 as the storm soon blew itself out, the sailors were 
 confirmed in their theory of its cause and cure. 
 
 Dec. 16. It is Friday. It is the Turk's Sabbath, 
 if they have any. Nothing that I could see or hear 
 
254 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Marble palace. 
 
 gave any indication that it differed from other days. 
 But to-day the Sultan goes in state to the mosque, to 
 pray. This he does to be seen of men ; to set an ex- 
 ample of devotion and submission to God before all 
 his people. It is the time when he is to be seen, and 
 almost the only time. 
 
 He does not repair to the same mosque on every 
 occasion, but now to one, and now another, that he 
 may not confer the honor of his company upon any 
 in particular, and so make it the mosque of the city. 
 But it is announced on the morning of Friday where 
 the monarch of Turkey will condescend to say his 
 prayers, and the route from his palace to the temple 
 is at once thronged with the crowd of his subjects 
 who will now behold the king in his glory. We 
 heard that the procession would take a course some 
 two miles from us, and mounting our horses, dashed 
 ofT, single file, through the narrow, muddy streets, 
 threading our way sometimes with great difficulty. 
 We met the fat son of the Pasha of Egypt riding in 
 a European carriage drawn by two horses. He is 
 here endeavoring to get the Sultan's daughter in mar- 
 riage. We were obliged to stop and let him pass 
 slowly by, or we might have had a collision. Outside 
 of the city, and on the banks of the Bosphorus, the 
 Sultan has reared a new and magnificent marble pal- 
 ace, on which he has lavished all that the modern art 
 of Europe and the more luxurious imagination of the 
 Oriental world can suggest. It is not yet completed ; 
 and we were allowed to wander through its halls and 
 chambers, and admire the costly furniture and splen- 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 255 
 
 A law broken down. 
 
 The cavalcade. 
 
 did ornaments with which his Eastern taste has em- 
 bellished the most sumptuous palace in Europe. But 
 we shall lose the show of the day unless we hasten 
 on. We may ride by this palace now, for the Sultan 
 has not yet taken up his residence here. When he 
 is at home, every horseman, as he passes the palace, 
 must dismount and walk by. This was the rule, and 
 may be yet ; but I was told that the British Ambas- 
 sador, Lord Stratford de RedclifFe, being arrested as 
 he was about to ride by the Sultan's residence, imme- 
 diately entered, and insisting on seeing his highness, 
 denounced the order as insulting and intolerable, and 
 secured its relaxation, at least, in his own case. We 
 came into the midst of a dense crowd, who yielded to 
 us, as we were Franks and on horseback, and riding 
 through them, we stood at the head of the street 
 which the royal procession was to pass. A strong- 
 guard kept back the crowd, and no one was allowed 
 in the street which the Sultan was to take. We were 
 just in time. A company of soldiers, preceded by a 
 band of music, marched by as we came to a halt ; 
 and then the chief officers of state, in splendid dress, 
 and mounted on noble Arab steeds, rode slowly along, 
 their horses prancing, as if proud of the pageant of 
 which they formed a part. Three horses richly ca- 
 parisoned, were led — beautiful creatures, belonging to 
 the Sultan. Then came a body of Janizaries on foot ; 
 and in the midst of them, on a magnificent black 
 horse, sat Abdul Medjid, the Sultan of Turkey — a 
 pale, thin-faced man, of middle age, but worn with 
 care and vice, of which he is the miserable victim, 
 
256 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Sultan's appearance. Bazaars. 
 
 with a downcast visage ; and apparently unconscious 
 that thousands were gazing at him, he rode slowly on. 
 As he passed within a very few feet of me, I had a 
 fair opportunity of seeing the expression of his face. 
 I pitied him. His dress was rich, hut not showy — 
 a hlack cloak, secured "by a girdle, and a single dia- 
 mond blazed on his "breast. A sword hung by his 
 side, and his feet rested in golden stirrups. He looked 
 neither to the right or to the left. No cheer, no mark 
 of respect from the people greeted him as he passed. 
 
 The Sultan is now about thirty-five years old. His 
 private character is said, by those who have the means 
 of knowing, to be exceedingly profligate. With a 
 mind ill at ease, and a constitution enervated by sen- 
 sual indulgence, he will hardly survive his empire, 
 tottering now to its fall, and only held up by the bay- 
 onets of foreign and detested powers. 
 
 It was raining hard when we rode to the bazaars 
 of Stamboul. The eaves of the houses pitch far over 
 the lower stories so as to leave only a small space in 
 the middle of the street uncovered ; and this was often 
 in the very line of march we were compelled to take, 
 so that the rain poured down upon us sometimes in 
 torrents. We dashed on with all the haste we could 
 make, often encountering dangers from collision, and 
 the horse of one of the company unfortunately ran 
 down a stand of fruit which a poor Mussulman was 
 trying to sell. The accident made no small stir, which 
 was finally settled by the payment of a few piastres, 
 probably more than the man would have earned at his 
 traffic in the course of the day. 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 257 
 
 Covered streets. The women. 
 
 We were out of the rain the moment we entered the 
 bazaars ; streets of shops but a single story high, 
 more like large closets than stores, are covered over, 
 with windows in the roof to admit light. The pro- 
 prietor of each establishment sits cross-legged and 
 smoking, apparently quite indifferent whether any one 
 buys or not, and an assistant stands ready to display 
 the goods, to boast of their qualities and amazing 
 cheapness. The narrow streets or passages between 
 the rows of the stalls are crowded with purchasers, 
 chiefly the vailed Turkish women, who seem to take 
 pleasure in using their musical voices in haggling 
 about prices ; while then ever-roving eyes are watch- 
 ing the merchant-man, and especially his Frank cus- 
 tomers, if any of them are near. 
 
 Yet within these rooms — so small that a tenth-rate 
 shop-keeper would not think them adequate to his 
 business in New York, more like cobblers' stalls than 
 the stores of merchants — are fabrics and goods of un- 
 told value ; piles of India shawls, and rich embroidered 
 silks, and robes of splendid color, that would be the 
 glory of any establishment in Broadway. Each street 
 is confined to a distinct branch of merchandise, and 
 this practice is more common in European cities than 
 in America. The customer stands in the street and 
 examines the goods as they are laid out on a bench be- 
 fore him, and if he wishes to see more samples than 
 are there exposed, he may step in and have the whole 
 interior laid open to his inspection. 
 
 We were in the shawl department, and the mer- 
 chant very politely invited us to walk in ; a smaller 
 
258 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Jewels. ^lavc-market. 
 
 room was behind the front, and here were piles of 
 costly robes, that would be a modest fortune, exposed 
 in all their tempting brilliancy and beauty, while the 
 prices were stated at the highest conceivable mark. 
 We made him an offer, something like a third of what, 
 he demanded, and the shawl was ours in a moment. 
 
 On we wandered through long rows of jewellers' 
 shops, admiring the gems that are to glitter on the 
 arms and breasts of the fair women of the East ; gold 
 and silver wrought in forms of beauty to make beauty 
 more attractive, and diamonds in clusters, constella- 
 tions sparkling with living light, set and unset, whieh 
 were offered to us as if we had bags of gold to leave 
 in exchange for these precious stones. One street was 
 wholly occupied with drags, the odor of which was 
 not unpleasant. We returned to the fancy depart- 
 ments, and made some further investments in embroid- 
 ered bags, a few drops of the ottar of roses, etc., and 
 then sought our horses, which had been tended at the 
 entrance for the couple of hours we had devoted to 
 this entertaining stroll through the bazaars of Constan- 
 tinople. 
 
 Antonio now brought us, after a long ride, to the 
 slave-market. On one side of an open square was a 
 row of boxes or stalls without windows, and the doors 
 closely shut. As Ave came up, a man in European 
 dress stepped up and asked, in French, if we would 
 look at the girls ; and immediately opened the door 
 of one of the pens. Instead of seeing half a dozen 
 beautiful Circassians, whose charms have been the 
 theme of so much poetry and prose, four or five 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 259 
 
 No whites. More wives. 
 
 African women, dark as night, fat and funny, jumped 
 up, and laughing merrily, desired us to buy them. 
 Decidedly we had no inclination to make the pur- 
 chase ; and the dealer, seeing that we were merely 
 gratifying our curiosity, slammed the door, and turned 
 on his heel. Other men on the ground had a supply 
 of these Nubian women for sale; but if there were 
 any whites in the market, we were told that Franks 
 are not allowed to look at them. As they are bought 
 only for the harems of the Turk, the profaner eyes of 
 the European must not see them before or after they 
 enter that impenetrable retreat. These are brought to 
 the market by their parents and friends, and often 
 are children of the most respectable families in their 
 own country, who are thus disposed of in the way of 
 marriage perfectly consistent with the Oriental ideas 
 of domestic happiness, however it may be revolting 
 to ours. I had quite an argument with a Turkish 
 merchant on this subject. He would not admit me, 
 of course, into his harem ; but the door that led into 
 it was frequently left open, and never failed to dis- 
 close one or more of his wives, who disappeared after 
 we had exchanged glances. I told him that one wife 
 was enough if she was good, and too many if she was 
 bad. He replied, that if she was good, the more of 
 the same sort the better ; and if she was bad, he must 
 get a good one to console him for his disappointment 
 in the other. He said he had six, and loves them 
 all, and they love him ; and not one of them wishes 
 to leave him. My arguments were all wasted ; and 
 I left him to the enjoyment of the field and the harem. 
 
260 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Slave boys. Shooting a wife. 
 
 Slavery among the Turks is about the same as 
 adoption into the family. The boy, "bought of the 
 trader, rises to the rank of his owner, becomes a 
 member of the state, may be an officer of the govern- 
 ment, take the daughter of the Sultan to be his wife, 
 and aspire to the throne. But the power of the mas- 
 ter is absolute over the slave ; and the lordly Turk, 
 not the Sultan only, but his ministers and his rich 
 subjects, surrounded with their harems of fair wo- 
 men, bought with their money, and brought here in 
 the budding loveliness of youth from the vales of 
 Georgia and Circassia, do not hesitate to gratify their 
 unbridled passions at any sacrifice in the exercise of 
 their unlimited power. Not long since, one of the 
 Sultan's present ministers accused one of his wives 
 of stealing a trinket that belonged to another. She 
 denied the charge with the warm indignation of in- 
 jured innocence. In her youthful beauty she stood up 
 before him as he sat on the crimson divan ; and the 
 whole bevy of his wives gathered around to see the 
 trial of the accused, now trembling before her lord and 
 master. She could only assert her innocence, while 
 he repeated the charge ; and drawing a pistol from his 
 girdle, shot her through the heart. The frightened 
 women fled from the shocking scene, as she fell bleed- 
 ing and dead at the monster's feet. How common 
 these things are, no man can say; but that such 
 things are not uncommon, even at the present day, 
 there is too much reason to fear. 
 
 Dr. Dwight very kindly consented to be our guide 
 to make a visit to the Howling Dervishes. Their 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 261 
 
 Turkish pun. Cook-shop. 
 
 chief place of worship, if such a name may be given 
 to the horrid orgies we witnessed, is over at Scutari. 
 Two or three caiques were needed to convey the party 
 across the Bosphorus, and we had a charming excur- 
 sion among the shipping, and always getting new 
 and more beautiful views of the wonderful sights that 
 surround this unrivaled "bay. Our "boatman was a 
 humorous fellow, and asked us if we would have a 
 chibouque, at the same time handing his pipe. Dr. 
 D wight answered, "No, but chabuque," which means 
 quickly. He took the pun, dropped the pipe and 
 pulled away, laughing heartily, and soon landed us at 
 Scutari. 
 
 It was early for dinner, but we should not return 
 till late, and having a desire to taste the quality of a 
 native cook-shop, we found one, and ordered the best 
 the house would afford. We were led up a pair of 
 rickety stairs to a dirty floor overhead, and sat down 
 on low stools around a table a foot high. Through 
 an opening in the floor we could see the process of 
 cooking going on below. The men who had charge 
 of this operation cut up the mutton into bits an inch 
 square, and running a wire through twenty or more 
 of them, hung them over a kettle of burning charcoal. 
 Several rows of these bits of meat were thus suspend- 
 ed, and while the process was going on, a dish of soup 
 and a mixture of stewed squash, cabbage, onions, and 
 garlic, were brought up, and at length the broiled 
 meat, called Kabawb, and the most popular of dishes, 
 was set before us. As this was very fair, and cooked 
 in a primitive way, we had no difficulty, after season- 
 
262 EUKOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Howling Dervishes. Excitement. 
 
 ing it for ourselves, in making a dinner. The soup 
 and the stew we left for those who might follow us 
 with stronger stomachs. 
 
 Thus fortified we set off for the Dervishes, whom 
 we found after a walk of half a mile. Their place of 
 meeting stands back from the street, a very plain and 
 unpretending "building. At the vestibule we were re- 
 quested to put off our shoes, as we must in entering 
 any sacred place of the Mohammedans. The room 
 we entered was low and unfurnished, about forty feet 
 square, and a railing running around three sides of it 
 a few feet from the wall. The worshippers only en- 
 tered within the rail. In the middle of the other side, 
 on a beautiful mat of long and dyed wool, stood the 
 aged Sheikh, or high priest of this singular people. 
 As each one came in, he kissed the hand of the 
 Sheikh, and then took his stand in the order of en- 
 trance near the rail. When the whole number ex- 
 pected had arrived, two of the oldest men knelt oppo- 
 site to each other in the centre of the room, and rising, 
 began a low murmur, a deep guttural sound, which 
 was taken up by all who were standing around. 
 Swaying their bodies back and forth, swinging their 
 arms in the same way, sinking down and springing 
 suddenly erect, as if performing gymnastic exercises, 
 all the while ascending in the scale with their noise, 
 which soon assumed a howl, painful and even fearful 
 to hear. It was shocking; yet the novelty of the 
 scene made it endurable. As the violence of the ac- 
 tion and the howling increased, some of them frothed 
 at the mouth and gave signs of being possessed with 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 263 
 
 Torture. Miracle working. 
 
 the devil, or some other evil spirit. I looked up at 
 the wall, and there were drums and rude cymbals, 
 which they might use to increase this din now swollen 
 to a roar. And there, too, were knives, and steel rods, 
 and instruments of torture, which, in the frenzy rapid- 
 ly gaining on them, they might seize aud plunge into 
 themselves or others. For the space of an hour, and 
 a long, tedious hour it was, they kept up this howl- 
 ing, using no form of words, unless it was an unin- 
 telligible repetition of the Moslem cry, " God is great 
 and Mohammed is his prophet." They were now 
 reeking with perspiration, and the noise was lessening 
 from the exhaustion of the fanatical devotees, when 
 the Sheikh stepped forth into the midst of the room, 
 and all was silent while he lifted up his hands and 
 prayed. He called upon God to bless the Sultan, 
 and to endow him with wisdom, strength, and long 
 life. He prayed for the government and people, and 
 closed with an Amen, which he often repeated in the 
 course of his prayer. One after another of the Der- 
 vishes then approached him, knelt, rose, received his 
 patriarchal benediction, and retired. The old man re- 
 turned to his mat, and children were brought in to be 
 healed of their diseases by his miraculous power. 
 The first was a babe not two years old, wound up, 
 after their fashion, in many folds of cloth, so that it 
 can move neither hands nor feet. It was placed on 
 the floor upon its face, and the Sheikh, who would 
 weigh certainly one hundred and seventy-five pounds, 
 placed one foot across its legs, and then carefully rais- 
 ing the other, placed it on the middle of the back, and 
 
264 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Standing on children. Dancing Dervishes. 
 
 stood with his whole weight upon the child. He 
 stepped off cautiously, and the servant took up the 
 babe, which seemed to he unharmed by the pressure. 
 Another was brought in and served in the same way, 
 and another. Then children of five and six years old 
 entered, kissed his hand, prostrated themselves, and 
 after he had planted himself upon them, they jumped 
 up and ran out, as if pleased with the operation. 
 Adult men, who appeared to be infirm, followed, and 
 received him on their backs, and some of them on 
 their breasts. No instantaneous effect for the better 
 was to be observed, and I have no reason to suppose 
 that there was any thing more in the thing than a 
 delusive notion that this man had the power of heal- 
 ing, through the very extraordinary and hazardous 
 experiment of treading disease under his feet. 
 
 When this was over, a few of the Dancing Der- 
 vishes, dressed better than the Howlers — the most of 
 whom appeared to be a low class of people, and quite 
 shabby at that — took the floor, and went through their 
 performance. They are sometimes called Whirling 
 Dervishes, and this is much the more appropriate 
 term, for they merely turn slowly round and round 
 on one heel, with extended amis, and revolving about 
 their chief, who stands in the centre of the room. 
 
 This exhibition of the Howlers was less frantic 
 than was often witnessed in former times. Then 
 they were known to seize burning iron in their hands, 
 and to thrust red hot hooks and wires into each 
 other's flesh ; some would be carried off fainting, and 
 others in fits. I was told that not long ago a party 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 265 
 
 Madmen. A lady smoking. 
 
 of them began their orgies on the deck of a steamer 
 when coming from Trebizond, and getting wild with 
 excitement, they drew their knives and began an in- 
 discriminate murder of all they could lay their hands 
 on. The officers of the vessel, being armed, fell upon 
 them and dispatched them on the spot. These people 
 have a convent at Scutari, but they perform at Pera 
 and in Stamboul, receiving any contributions that 
 spectators may be pleased to give them. 
 
 In the evening I called on a lady from "New York, 
 who has married and settled here at Pera. Pipes and 
 coffee were served, and when I declined smoking, the 
 lady insisted, and offered to join me. There was no 
 resisting this ; and her husband giving her a delicate 
 cigarette, she smoked it beautifully, though I confess 
 I was thinking all the time " what would they say at 
 home" to see her with a cigar in her mouth, and me 
 With a pipe four feet long. 
 
 There is very little intercourse between foreign 
 ladies residing here and the Turkish women ; but the 
 prejudice of the Turks is gradually wearing away, 
 and they meet more frequently now than formerly. 
 Several ladies of the American Mission called a short 
 time since upon the wives of one of the high officers 
 of state : they were courteously received, and treated 
 With great hospitality. It was painful to our ladies 
 to discover the utter destitution of all intellectual cul- 
 ture in those Oriental women. They seemed to be 
 merely grown up children. The questions they asked 
 Were frivolous ; for instance, " Have you husbands 
 that you like ?" 
 Vol. IL— M 
 
266 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 So social life. Origin of vails. 
 
 Among themselves the Turks have no social life. 
 Their enjoyment is altogether of the selfish and indi- 
 vidual kind, and every man would be happier in the 
 idea that his neighbor had never looked on the face of 
 his wives, rather than that his treasures are admired. 
 This is said to be the origin of the practice now uni- 
 versal among the Eastern women, of wearing a thick 
 vail. A man who had got possession of a beautiful 
 wife, kept her vailed, lest his more powerful neighbor 
 should tear her away from him by fraud or force. 
 Yet I pitied the poor creatures whose soft black eyes, 
 looking wishfully out of that impenetrable shroud, ex- 
 pressed the sense of confinement and degradation to 
 which they were hopelessly doomed. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 A Firman — The Seraglio Palace — Audience and Throne Room — 
 Harem — Armory — Bedchamber — Kitchen — Stables — Mosque of 
 Santa Sophia — Tombs of the Sultan — Shores of the Bosphorus — 
 Europe and Asia — Giant's Mountain — Egyptian Sailors — Allied 
 Fleets — Kandali — Bebek — The Missionaries and their "Work. 
 
 To visit the mosques and the Seraglio Palace a 
 firman or permit must be had from the government, 
 and that is to be paid for roundly. An officer or two 
 must attend with his sword and staff, and they must 
 be feed well. Then at every mosque and other sacred 
 place you visit there are servants to be feed, and if a 
 party get through the day's excursion for forty dollars 
 they do very well. Mr. Brown, the Dragoman of the 
 United States Legation, kindly procured for us a 
 firman, and sent his own cevasse to lead us. The 
 government sent another, so that we were well pro- 
 vided with an escort. Several ladies joined our party, 
 and added largely to the pleasure of that delightful 
 and interesting day. 
 
 Where the Golden Horn sets up from the Bospho- 
 rus the old city of Byzantium stood, and Mohammed 
 II. selected this unrivaled site for his palace, and laid 
 out the grounds, and prepared a residence that had no 
 equal in the Eastern world. Armed sentinels ad- 
 mitted us by the great pavilion, which is called the 
 
268 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Seraglio. The harem. 
 
 Porte — a gate, and from this the Ottoman Empire takes 
 its name. Fifty men are the usual guard at this door. 
 We were at once in the midst of a vast court-yard 
 (the whole palace grounds are three miles in circuit), 
 and passing across it we were conducted into the 
 palace. A flight of stairs brought us to the audience- 
 chamber, a wide apartment, carpeted and surrounded 
 with a rich divan. The throne room was furnished 
 with chairs and sofas, showing a conformity to West- 
 ern customs. Another and another chamber, and we 
 entered the Sultan's bath — luxuriously fitted up, but 
 without some of the contrivances for comfort which 
 poorer people enjoy. A brass bar across a door we 
 were passing, told us, or at least the guides informed 
 us, that this was the entrance to the harem. No 
 profane foot may cross that threshold. No man but 
 the husband is allowed to enter the Turk's apartments 
 for his wives. But a long gallery opening near we 
 now entered, hung on one side with engravings, chiefly 
 of Napoleon's battles ; and on the other side, a row of 
 windows looked out on the court. This is the hall in 
 which the hundred and fifty wives of the Sultan are 
 daily assembled for the amusement of their common 
 lord. Here each one of them may exert her art to 
 win his favor ; and it is said that he drops his hand- 
 kerchief at the feet of the one who has been the most 
 successful. Through this hall we were led along to 
 the private armory of the Sultan, and while admiring 
 the pistols, swords, dirks, yataghans, cimeters, sa- 
 bres, etc., of elegant workmanship, adorned with gold 
 and precious stones, my attention was called to an 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 269 
 
 Bedchamber. Cottages for wives. 
 
 adjoining apartment, the Sultan's bedchamber. Two 
 janizaries with bayoneted guns stood before the open 
 door, and permitted me to look in, but not enter. It 
 was reported among the company in the other room, 
 that gentlemen were not allowed to go in ; and the 
 ladies, presuming on their privilege, hastened to step 
 in, but the crossed guns of the guards brought them 
 to a sudden halt on the threshold. We could see the 
 magnificent couch and its gold and crimson damask 
 canopy, and the sumptuous furniture of the chamber, 
 where the most uneasy man in the Turkish empire 
 has often sought in vain for sleep, that comes unwooed 
 to him who earns it with the sweat of his brow, and 
 does not wear a crown. 
 
 In the gardens of the palace, and near the water's 
 edge, are many beautiful but small cottages, which 
 from time to time have been erected at the desire of 
 one or another of the Stdtan's favorite wives. Fitted 
 up according to the taste of each fair inmate, we could 
 see in the low windows that open on the walks that 
 they were very elegant, and very Oriental. The Sul- 
 tan has the range of them all, as cages in which his 
 pet birds are confined. And then we gathered some 
 flowers ; for in the last of December the roses were 
 in full bloom in the open air, and every thing was 
 fresh and green as May. Underneath the palace was 
 the kitchen, and fires going as if an army were to be 
 fed from the great ranges and furnaces on which the 
 dinner was even now cooking. Some of the pastry 
 was served to us, and proved to be excellent, though 
 we did eat it in the kitchen. Yon Hammer says that 
 
270 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Armor}-. 
 
 there are nine several kitchens, and that forty thou- 
 sand oxen are yearly killed here and cooked, two 
 hundred sheep daily, one hundred lambs or goats, 
 and 850 fowls. But the Sultan does not reside in 
 the Seraglio ; he is at one of his many palaces along 
 the Bosphorus, and the cooking now in process was 
 merely for the retainers of the palace. His future resi- 
 dence will be in the marble palace on the Bosphorus. 
 
 A thousand horses stand in the royal stables, which 
 we passed on our way out ; and the harness and trap- 
 pings, covered with jewelry, are displayed in a room 
 over the stalls. 
 
 It required an hour to look through the old armory, 
 containing one of the rarest and richest collections of 
 helmets, greaves, breast-plates in form of stars, guns 
 of strange patterns in use before locks were invented, 
 and implements of war now obsolete, but terribly 
 effective in their day, and very curious now. The 
 stacks of arms all ready for use were fast diminishing 
 by the daily demand for the war ; and probably some 
 of the poor fellows that came on the steamer with me 
 were by this time equipped from this armory and 
 marching to the field. In a gallery was a collection 
 of the famous swords of successive Sultans, from the 
 splendid Damascus blade of Mohammed II. Here, 
 too, are the keys of all the cities of Turkey, mounted 
 with gold, and deposited in token of their fealty to 
 the Porte. For days one might be amused and in- 
 structed among these extraordinary gatherings of 
 ancient and modern times. But we are now to enter 
 upon a very different scene. 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 271 
 
 lues. Splendid, columns. 
 
 The first sight that fixed our eyes as we came into 
 the harbor was the dome of St. Sophia shining radi- 
 antly in the light of the rising sun, its four proud 
 minarets gleaming at its side. We are about to en- 
 ter its courts. Its history is a tale of more than 
 tragic interest, but we must not stop to tell it now. 
 It was built by Justinian, the Emperor, and com- 
 pleted a.d. 538. The world was made to pay tribute, 
 to this temple, dedicated to the Divine Wisdom, and 
 so named Santa Sophia. We come to the door and 
 take off our shoes ; for no foot that has trod the un- 
 hallowed earth may stand in these sacred precincts. 
 By a winding path, in total darkness, we feel our way 
 up by the tower, and come into the gallery for the 
 women, from which we look down on the interior of 
 the temple. The vast area startles us at once ; but 
 we soon begin to admire its proportions, and then to 
 contemplate the wonderful variety and beauty of its 
 pillars and walls. Four huge columns support a glo- 
 rious dome, and four more hold semicircular cupolas 
 on each side. These columns are of porphyry, and 
 once stood in the Eoman Temple of the Sun. Those 
 green granite pillars supporting the gallery once adorn- 
 ed the temple of the great goddess Diana of the Ephe- 
 sians. There are forty columns, some of serpentine 
 marble, some of Egyptian granite, and others of white 
 marble, with rose-colored stripes, and all of them plun- 
 dered from the temples of paganism ; so that this tem- 
 ple is sustained by the pillars of " Isis and Osiris, 
 of the Sun and the Moon at Heliopolis and Ephesus, 
 of Pallas at Athens, of Phoebus at Delos, and of 
 
272 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Moslems at prayer. The Muezzam. 
 
 Cybele at Cyzicus." The walls are of polished mar- 
 He, and the paved floor is covered with Turkey car- 
 pets and mats. Overhead and around on the walls 
 are inscriptions from the Koran, instead of paintings, 
 and the place is shown where the gold letters and 
 stars are made to conceal a picture of the Virgin Mary, 
 which was an ornament of the temple before Moham- 
 med wrested it from the Christians and defiled its 
 courts with his Moslem troops. 
 
 We will go down upon the floor of the mosque and 
 mingle with the worshippers. They are not numer- 
 ous now, for it is not the hour for prayer. But here 
 and there a devout Mussulman on his knees has his 
 Koran before him, on a little bench inlaid with moth- 
 er-of-pearl. He is reading from it in a wailing kind 
 of strain. There is one of the Ulemas, or teachers 
 of the people, sitting upon a mat, and expounding the 
 Koran to a group kneeling around him. These steps 
 lead up to the platform where the Sultan ascends to 
 pray when he comes to this mosque. Hark! the 
 Muezzim, or crier, has gone up the minaret, and with 
 a loud voice, to be heard by all in the vicinity of the 
 temple, he calls upon the people" to leave their work 
 and come to prayers. They obey the summons ; and 
 hastily washing themselves at the fountain in the 
 court, they enter and kneel, and rise and kneel, and 
 touch their heads to the floor, taking the various atti- 
 tudes which every Mohammedan must go through, 
 however frequent his devotions. 
 
 From St. Sophia we went to several other mosques 
 of more or less distinction, but none of them so dis- 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 273 
 
 Tombs of the Sultans. Alarms. 
 
 tinguislied as this in history, nor so gloriously adorn- 
 ed with the spoils of other temples and works of art. 
 We also visited the tombs of the Sultans. A small 
 temple — a mausoleum — we entered, and were im- 
 pressed with the solemn stillness that reigned in the 
 midst of the most gorgeous decorations which could 
 be gathered over the remains of the dead. An im- 
 mense sarcophagus contains the bones of the present 
 Sultan's father. It is covered with black velvet, and 
 surmounted by a cap and feathers ; and before it are 
 standing immense candles, or imitations of them. 
 Near to his side are small coffins, covered and enrich- 
 ed with ornaments, containing the ashes of the mother 
 and sisters of the Sultan. A great number of small 
 lamps are suspended over the bodies, as indeed there 
 are long rows of similar lamps in all the mosques, 
 which, when lighted, would shine as distant stars 
 over the immense space they are expected to fill. 
 
 In all the mosques were great piles of merchandise, 
 boxes and bales, stowed away in the galleries. These 
 were taken by the priests having charge of the holy 
 places, who keep them here for safety, the owners 
 paying for the storage. They are perfectly protected, 
 even if the people should break out in an insurrection, 
 for no Mussulman would invade the sanctuary for the 
 sake of plunder. 
 
 We found, on our return to our lodgings, that our 
 friends had been much alarmed on our account dur- 
 ing the day. It was reported that an outbreak had 
 occurred, in consequence of the government having 
 yielded too much to the demands of Russia; and 
 
 M* 
 
274 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 that the priests had excited the faithful to insurrec- 
 tion. In the morning, word was sent to our hotel 
 that it would not he safe for us to go over to Stam- 
 boul, but we were off before the messenger reached 
 us ; and we saw nothing, during the whole excursion, 
 that looked like a disturbance. 
 
 At Tophane we found a caique and a couple of 
 stout fellows to row, and we set off, on a bright morn- 
 ing, to make the trip up and down the Bosphorus. 
 The jpoetry °f boating is to sit down in the bottom 
 of a caique, with a book or the friend you wish for 
 company, and be pulled gently along these enchant- 
 ing shores. There is no other water in the wide 
 world presenting so many and such beauties in the 
 reach of twelve or fifteen miles. 
 
 After passing the new mosque of the Sultan's 
 mother, and then the new palace of the Sultan, 
 which, a few years ago, we could not venture to pass 
 without lowering our umbrellas, we come into the 
 midst of villages, and country-seats — Mosques — of the 
 wealthy Turks, so placed upon the water's edge, and 
 so near to eacli other, that they form, for long dis- 
 tances, an unbroken series. They are not more than 
 two stories high, and the upper windows are pro- 
 tected by the lattice blinds — -jalousies — behind which 
 the women may be peeking out at us as we are pass- 
 ing, but we can see nothing of them. The water is 
 deep, and the channel runs so near to the shores that 
 the bowsprit of a vessel sometimes intrudes without 
 ceremony into the very bosom of the family. The 
 summer palaces are surrounded by beautiful gardens, 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 Memorable places. 
 
 and where the shores rise rapidly, they hang, as it 
 were, over the houses, and disclose their fruits, flow- 
 ers, walks, and towering cypresses, to the admiring- 
 eye of the passer-by. Fable and history have made 
 many of these scenes famous. The tomb of the great 
 Turkish hero, Barbarossa, is here ; and a little further 
 up we come to the spot where was a tree, called the 
 laurel of Medea, planted by Medea on landing with 
 Jason, on his return from Colchis. Here, too, was 
 the church which Constantine erected in honor of the 
 Archangel Michael; where Symeon the Stylite re- 
 ceived the adoration of the multitudes while he lived 
 for years on the top of a column more than a hundred 
 feet high. The lovely village of Bebek, now a mis- 
 sionary station, was once the seat of a splendid Im- 
 perial palace ; and it would be hard to imagine a more 
 beautiful situation than this and the village on the 
 opposite shore. Just above it is the castle of Eou- 
 melin, at the narrowest part of the Bosphorus, and 
 near the spot where the strait was bridged for the 
 passage of the army of Darius. On the hill where the 
 castle stands is a rock, on which the Persian monarch 
 sat and beheld the progress of his army across the 
 water. The shores of Europe and Asia come within 
 half a mile of each other, and the castles on opposite 
 sites take their names from the continents on w^hich 
 they stand. We ran into one bay, and then around 
 a beautiful headland into another, and then, borne by 
 the current, we skim over upon the Asiatic shore, and 
 are soon back again under the banks of Europe. The 
 Franks have settled more on the latter, while the 
 
276 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The fleets. Northern gate. 
 
 former is covered with summer palaces of the Sultan 
 and the rich Turks, who have made paradises here for 
 themselves that fairly rival any that Mohammed ever 
 promised them. We went ashore at Buyukdere, and 
 wandered among its fairy-like gardens and villas, and 
 then sailed through the Allied fleets — the English, 
 French, Turkish, and Egyptian men-of-war, which 
 were now lying at anchor near the mouth of the Black 
 Sea. Landing again on the shores of Asia, we climbed 
 the Giant's Mountain, whence we could see the Eux- 
 ine, the Bosphorus, and Marmora, all at once, with 
 the cities and villages, palaces, hanging gardens, 
 mosques and minarets, castles and towers, and the 
 mightiest fleet that now floats on the sea. 
 
 I left my companions and wandered off on this hill 
 in Asia, and thought of the wonderful events that had 
 passed along the waters now lying near and around 
 me. From the voyage of discovery made by Jason in 
 quest of the Golden Fleece, through the twenty-four 
 sieges that the city of Constantine has sustained, down 
 to the present moment, when the fleets of the two 
 mighty empires of the West have come here to mingle 
 in the fray between the Crescent and the Cross. This 
 is the northern gate of Constantinople, as the Helles- 
 pont is the south. There are no fortresses here to 
 guard this entrance, and these wooden walls of France 
 and England are needed now. If these powers, or one 
 of them, had possession of these waters, the gates 
 would be locked and barred against the world. I sat 
 down and wrote these lines in full view of this excit- 
 ing and magnificent spectacle ; and then, as I looked 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 277 
 
 Egyptian sailors. In the fleet. 
 
 down the Bosplioru and off into the Sea of Marmora, 
 stretched like an ocean away under the sinking sun, 
 I strove to look into the future, to see what this grand 
 alliance with its fleets and armies will achieve, stand- 
 ing here, like a great destroying angel, with one foot 
 on sea and one on land ! One chapter more remains 
 to be written of Turkey, the bloodiest and the last. 
 
 I came down the hill through a deep ravine, and 
 found the crew of one of the Egyptian ships along the 
 hillsides, with kettles hung over fires, washing each 
 other and their clothes, for there were many waters 
 or much water there, and they were having a general 
 frolic on land. We once more embarked in our gay 
 little boat and pulled off for the fleet, running under 
 the bows of a Turkish three-decker ; all hands were 
 in the rigging or on deck, and they were going through 
 the drills of naval service — an animated spectacle — a 
 thousand men or more hurrying through the ship, 
 aloft and alow, with boldness and more skill than I 
 had given the Turkish sailor credit for. We had let- 
 ters to introduce us to the Admiral of the British 
 fleet, but warned by the sun that this day of beauty 
 would have a close, we pulled along. We kept nearer 
 to the Asiatic shore on our return, realizing all one's 
 dreams of Oriental scenery. Close by the tower of 
 Asia, on that shore is the " Valley of the heavenly wa- 
 ter," which the Oriental poets celebrate in their glow- 
 ing verse. And what poetry has left unsung, plainer 
 prose has essayed, for the village of Kandali is thus 
 described by a matter-of-fact writer, who professes to 
 deal only in sober truths : 
 
278 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 A beautiful spot Magic-lantern. 
 
 "It seems suspended in the vault of heaven like a 
 beacon of beauty to the earth, sending its rays of light 
 wide around, over the heights and depths of the Eu- 
 ropean and Asiatic shores. Many a traveller has 
 described with enthusiasm the walks along the Bos- 
 phorus, and attempted to represent in words the pic- 
 ture of the magic-lantern which both its shores pre- 
 sent in many-colored variety ; but few Europeans 
 have admired the beautiful panoramic view of the Bos- 
 phorus from this magic-lantern of Kandali ; and no 
 one has yet attempted to paint from this spot the 
 double union of nature and art, of grandeur and grace, 
 of the majestic and beautiful, which the Bosphorus 
 here offers to the eye. Vain is the attempt to describe 
 the separate or collective beauties of hills and dales, of 
 bights and bays, of meadows and springs, of dark 
 cypress groves and light rose-beds, of roaring currents 
 and lisping springs, of golden kiosks and marble fount- 
 ains ; this confusion of flag-bearing masts and tower- 
 ing minarets, of cupolas floating in air, and caiques 
 cleaving the waves, of currents and counter-currents, 
 of mountains and lakes, through which the mariner 
 at each new turn of the shore finds himself transported 
 to a new sea encircled by magic banks. This suc- 
 cession of the seven magic caldrons, in each of which, 
 as in that of Medea, ancient nature appears restored 
 to her youth and in new graces, is beheld from the 
 magic-lantern of Kandali. In the corner of a kiosk, 
 with his back to one of its columns, the traveller looks 
 down on one side on the dark Euxine, and on the 
 other on the gay Sea of Marmora, without moving his 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 279 
 
 The two lands. Friends at Bebek. 
 
 body, and simply turning his head to the right and 
 left. The land and the sea, Asia and Europe, appear 
 together before him in the bond of tranquil beauty, 
 and from this spot the eye is master of two continents 
 and two seas, while resting simultaneously on the 
 Thracian and Bithynian shores, the Cyanean rocks, and 
 the Islands of the Blest." 
 
 On our way down we stopped at Bebek, about five 
 miles above Pera, on the banks of the Bosphorus. 
 Here is the boarding-school for young men, in the 
 house of the Bev. Mr. Hamlin, who received me cord- 
 ially, and conducted me at once into the room where 
 the youth were at their studies. Thirty-five are in the 
 Armenian and fifteen in the Greek department, which 
 is under the care of the Bev. Mr. Biggs. The most 
 of them have learned to read the English language, 
 that they may have access to the literature and science 
 which no translation yet affords them ; and the course 
 of study carries them on into all those branches of 
 education which are pursued in the highest academies 
 of our country. Chemical and philosophical courses 
 of lectures, illustrated with experiments, are given, 
 and nothing seemed to be wanting for a thorough edu- 
 cation. And what is even more worthy of mention, 
 the young men appear to be wide awake to their ad- 
 vantages, and pushing on with ardor, showing how 
 highly they appreciate their opportunities. During 
 their vacations many of the students go out into the 
 interior, and sell or give away good books, converse 
 with their countrymen from door to door, and make 
 themselves useful while they are yet in training for 
 
280 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Mr. Hamlin's works. The Jews. 
 
 positions of still greater influence. The American 
 Board (under whose care are all these missions) makes 
 provision for the support of only forty pupils ; "but so 
 many urge their suit for admission, and so hard is it 
 to deny them when they come, that Mr. Hamlin has 
 devised and carried out a manual labor system, by 
 which he provides the means to sustain ten more. 
 With great ingenuity and tact he has set in operation 
 various mechanical operations, by which the lads are 
 enabled to produce articles for sale that yield them 
 material aid. Among these trades is the manufacture 
 of lasts for shoes, which are made in a lathe, as in 
 America ; and lately he has started a steam flouring- 
 mill, which promises to be a great establishment in 
 this country ; already he has been offered a large price 
 for it by the chief miller and baker in Bebek, who 
 perceives at once its great superiority over the bun- 
 gling machinery by which he has hitherto made his 
 flour. 
 
 The evening was spent with the Rev. Mr. Riggs 
 and family. He has long been engaged in the mis- 
 sion to the Greeks, and some of the most important 
 translations have been made by this indefatigable and 
 able scholar. Here also I met the Rev. Mr. Schauf- 
 fler, and passed the night at his house. His efforts 
 are made chiefly among the Jews, and he is now pre- 
 paring books for their use in Hebrew Spanish. The 
 three families of Mr. Hamlin, Mr. Riggs, and Mr. 
 Schaufner, are here associated in the same village, 
 which is delightfully situated, a healthful location, 
 and surrounded by an interesting population. They 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. '2Sl 
 
 Hon. G. P. Marsh. His opinion. 
 
 are doing good in a way that is telling efficiently on 
 the people. 
 
 The Hon. George P. Marsh, the American Minister 
 at the Porte, and who is now retiring with distil 
 guished honor, and the admiration of all the Frank 
 residents here, after having "been familiarly acquainted 
 with this work for the last four years, spoke to me in 
 terms of strong commendation of the mission at Con^ 
 stantinople. He said the people in America have no 
 idea of the work going on, nor of the influence it is 
 destined to have upon the country. No man can visit 
 the stations — three in number, Pera, Haskeuy, and Be- 
 bek — without feeling that he is in the midst of a great 
 moral movement, that is telling on the future. I felt 
 this deeply in the Mission Chapel at Pera, where the 
 Kev. Mr. Van Lennep was preaching in Armenian, 
 and perhaps still more when I went from one family 
 to another with Dr. Dwight, and conversed, through 
 him, with men, women, and children, who are as fa- 
 miliar with the truths of religion as persons of the 
 same age and condition in America. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 COASTS OF ASIA MINOR. 
 
 Departure from Constantinople — Our Passengers — "Women apart — 
 Turk with his two Wives — Merchants and Merchandise — Smyrna 
 — Islands of the Sea — Scio — Samos — Nicaria — The Harem in 
 Trouble — Patmos — Ehodes — Colossus — Turkish Concert of Music 
 — On Shore — Deserted Streets — Library — Sail again — Meet Vessel 
 out of her Way — Tarsus — Italian Mountebanks — Jew and Greek 
 Pilgrims — New-Year's in the East — Boston Rum — Alexandretta — 
 Latakea — Fearful Scene — Isle of Cyprus — Venus — Cyprian Wine 
 — Scriptural association. 
 
 Dec. 25. The setting sun was gilding the dome of 
 St. Sophia when we embarked to depart from Con- 
 stantinople, as did its morning beams when we came 
 to anchor in the mouth of the Golden Horn. The 
 steamer Invperatore was very slow in getting under 
 weigh. The lamps were flashing among the trees in 
 the Seraglio gardens before we left, and strains of 
 rich music came floating over the water, as if a festi- 
 val was there. Night settled on us while we yet lin- 
 gered, as if loth to leave the scene. Along the shore 
 and up the city, the lights were now sparkling like 
 jewels on the breast of beauty. At eight in the even- 
 ing we weighed anchor, and bade a reluctant farewell 
 to the city of the Moslem. The upper deck of the 
 steamer was spread with mats and carpets, and a sail 
 stretched over like a tent for the deck passengers, of 
 whom we had some fifty or sixty. The women were 
 
COASTS OF ASIA MINOR. 2S3 
 
 Our passengers. TVo wives. 
 
 separated from the men by a railing. Folding their 
 babies in their bosoms, they covered themselves up 
 with blankets, and tried to be comfortable. The men 
 sat smoking their nargalee, quite at their ease, with 
 the prospect of an out-of-door passage of days and 
 nights before them. At sunset, five of them stood up 
 in a line and performed their evening devotions, bowing 
 always toward Mecca, kneeling and then bending for- 
 ward so as to touch the floor with their foreheads, then 
 rising and prostrating themselves again, and all this in 
 profound silence. Of some thirty or forty on deck at 
 this time but these five prayed at sunset. Among the 
 cabin passengers was a genteel Turkish merchant, 
 with his two wives, and each of them with a babe. 
 He was dressed in a rich scarlet long-coat or gown 
 and full blue pantaloons, a girdle encircling his waist. 
 Sometimes he wore the red fez, and sometimes the 
 turban. His wives were closely vailed whenever 
 they left the state-room ; but as its door was just 
 opposite to mine, and often suddenly thrown open 
 by the motion of the ship, I had several forbidden 
 sights of the charms which the master of these vailed 
 women hoped to conceal. Their beauty was nothing 
 to boast of, and their vails quite superfluous in the 
 way of protection. The most of the time they were 
 deadly sea-sick. With the help of two Nubian slaves 
 the fond husband carried them up on deck, for the 
 sake of the air ; and the poor things suffered all but 
 death itself, their babes creeping around and over 
 them, as they lay on the mats, helpless and miser- 
 able. 
 
284 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Turkish traders. Among the isles. 
 
 Many of our passengers were traders who had been 
 buying goods at Constantinople, and were now re- 
 turning to the interior of Asia Minor, having their 
 stores in great leathern sacks, all ready to be loaded 
 on camels, at whatever seaport they should land, and 
 we were to touch at several on the way. They began 
 to trade among themselves, and shawls, robes, slip- 
 pers, and a hundred commodities were drawn from 
 the abyss of these bags and exchanged owners. Early 
 in the morning, after a stormy passage of three days, 
 we arrived at Smyrna, and renewed our acquaintance 
 with the missionaries, and the Messrs. Yan Lennep, 
 a family of great worth and respectability, the head 
 of which has been for a long term of years the Consul 
 of the Netherlands at this port. 
 
 December 27. Our steamer Stamboid left Smyrna 
 at ten o'clock in the evening. In the night we passed 
 the island of Scio, the scene of massacre and famine 
 during the Greek Revolution. In the morning, Samos 
 was on our left when we came upon deck ; and for a 
 long time we ran in sight of it. Then we passed 
 Nicaria, where Icarus, the son of Daedalus, fell, when 
 flying from Crete, with his wings of wax. Other 
 islands were constantly in sight. At nine o'clock in 
 the evening, when too dark for the vessel to run with 
 safety, we came to anchor between two of them. We 
 were greatly disturbed during the night by a commo- 
 tion in the harem. The two wives of our Turk had 
 a fearful quarrel about the children ; but the husband 
 went in and soon calmed the excitement, giving us, 
 however, a specimen of domestic peace which must 
 
COASTS OF ASIA MINOR. 285 
 
 Rocky isle. 
 
 prevail in the household where there are more wives 
 than one. 
 
 Then Patmos hove in sight — the Patmos of the 
 Eevelation. It is little more than a cluster of rocky 
 peaks, that cise abruptly from the eastern waters of 
 the Mediterranean, and wear perpetually a dreary 
 frown of barrenness. It was anciently numbered in 
 the group of the " Sporades," or Scattered Isles, fa- 
 mous in classic history. It then bore its scriptural 
 name ; but those islands are no longer grouped into 
 one geographical cluster : each is called by a separate 
 name, and claims for itself a distinct individuality ; 
 ancient Patmos has become the modern Palmosa. 
 The island is small, sterile, and neglected. Its cir- 
 cumference is measured by fifteen miles; and this 
 short strip of coast is composed of a succession of 
 high, bluff capes, that are difficult of access, and per- 
 ilous to the mariner. Between these promontories, 
 however, are several inlets of the sea that would form 
 good harbors, if they were ever needed to be occupied. 
 As yet, there is but one to which the scanty com- 
 merce of the island has ever invited vessels to resort. 
 
 At the edge of the bay which forms this haven is a 
 little, noiseless town, built upon a broad, high rock. 
 Anciently, Patmos had no city even as large as this. 
 The island was always so desolate and uninviting, 
 that it was hardly ever used for a better purpose than 
 as a place for convicts, banished thither under the 
 authority of the Eoman government. Its general re- 
 pute among the ancients was not unlike that of Van 
 Diemen's Land among ourselves. St. John was ex- 
 
286 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Heene of the vision. The grotto. 
 
 iled to its bleak, bare shores during the latter portion 
 of the reign of the Emperor Domitian, because of his 
 preaching the Gospel. " I, John, who also am your 
 brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the king- 
 dom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that 
 is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the tes- 
 timony of Jesus Christ." While under the sentence of 
 Eoman tyranny, he there recorded the prophetic Reve- 
 lation, as it glowed with heavenly inspiration before his 
 enraptured vision. "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, 
 which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants 
 things which must shortly come to pass ; and he sent 
 and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: 
 who bare record of the word of God, and of the testi- 
 mony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. 
 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the 
 words of this prophecy, and keep those things which 
 are written therein: for the time is at hand." At this 
 day there is pointed out to the traveller a natural 
 grotto, which is supposed to be the spot where he saw 
 the "glory that was revealed." Near the place a 
 small church now stands, connected with which is a 
 college where the ancient Greek is taught in its early 
 purity. 
 
 Upon the summit of the mountain on which the 
 town is built stands an old monastery, commanding 
 in its situation and majestic in appearance. It con- 
 tains a large library, in which are many valuable 
 books, together with an interesting collection of curi- 
 ous ancient manuscripts. 
 
 Dec. 28. Early in the morning we found ourselves 
 
COASTS OF ASIA MINOR. 287 
 
 Diving for sponges. Colossus of Rhodes. 
 
 on the northern coast of Lero. The Archangel Isles, 
 desert and barren, lay around us. After the storm 
 abated we passed Calymno and came by Cos, which 
 showed a beautiful range of hills, fertile fields, and a 
 smiling town, with minarets rising from the midst. 
 We passed several small islands, sparsely inhabited ; 
 the people being engaged chiefly in diving for sponges. 
 In the distance the wind-mills, and fortifications, and 
 minarets on the shores of the island of Rhodes, rise 
 to view, the old town stretching upward on the hills. 
 It was just at sunset ; the clouds hung in great glory 
 in the west, presenting a picturesque and exciting 
 scene as we ran between the castles of St. John and 
 St. Michael. Near where the great Colossus of 
 Rhodes once stood, stretching its giant limbs from 
 rock to rock, we came to anchor in a small bay. 
 This Colossus, one of the seven wonders of the world, 
 a statue of brass one hundred and fifty feet high, and 
 each finger larger than a man, was thrown down by 
 an earthquake fifty-six years after it was set up. 
 Then it lay here more than eight hundred years, when 
 the brass was sold to a Jew, who carried it off on 
 nine hundred camels. 
 
 We could not go ashore, as we were assured there 
 was not a decent place in town for a stranger to stay 
 in. Remaining on board, I visited in the course of 
 the evening the encampment of the Turks on deck. 
 Beneath a sail, which was spread as a tent over then- 
 heads, they had gathered for a sort of concert of 
 music, with rude cymbals, wires drawn over a round 
 head — somewhat resembling a drum — a sort of fiddle, 
 
288 EUKOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Concert of music. Rhodes. 
 
 and a hand-organ, and some other instruments. A 
 few of them made harsh discord, to which the crowd 
 around listened apparently with great enjoyment. 
 The Turks who were not engaged in the musical per- 
 formances sat cross-legged and smoking; while in the 
 background the vailed women clustered as near the 
 scene as possible. The steam from the crowd, and 
 the smoke of their pipes, rendered the place quite in- 
 supportable ; and I was glad, after the box had been 
 passed for a contribution, to make them my donation 
 and escape. 
 
 Early the next morning numerous boats came off 
 to the vessel, bringing the most delicious oranges, and 
 — what we had not had before — sweet lemons, re- 
 sembling the orange in shape and somewhat in taste. 
 We went ashore, passing under the site of the Colos- 
 sus. Landing in the midst of the fortifications, we 
 passed along into the street of St. John — a deserted 
 town, where the old walls of the stone houses are still 
 standing, with their curious architecture and ancient 
 escutcheons cut in the stone on the outside. 
 
 It was silent as Pompeii ; now and then we met a 
 vailed woman or a boy, who seemed to be wandering 
 as if lost in the wilderness of a vacant city. An art- 
 ist sat by the wayside sketching a Gothic gateway to 
 an ancient palace. The pavements, worn by wheels, 
 showed that we were in streets that had been once 
 busy with the stir of life, but that generations once 
 here were now passed away forever. Up the heights 
 we wound round an old wall to the ancient church of 
 St. John, now a mosque, with a fountain, cypress, and 
 
COASTS OF ASIA MINOR. 289 
 
 Old library. Wandering vessel. 
 
 some palm-trees, broken columns standing, strange 
 pavements, and curiously-carved doors. 
 
 An old priest sat at the door of what professed to 
 be a library. We walked in and chatted with him, 
 but found his literary stores to consist only of a few 
 manuscripts and books — a melancholy collection, but 
 quite in keeping with every thing we saw in this once 
 interesting and important city, once the residence of 
 the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, adorned, forti- 
 fied, and defended by them, as history tells us in 
 some of its most glowing chapters. 
 
 December 30. With fine weather we made good 
 time to-day. In the middle of the afternoon we saw 
 a vessel in the distance, with signals of distress flying. 
 We turned our course and bore down toward it, and 
 found her to be a Turkish schooner, bound to Beyroot ; 
 had lost her way, had no compass, and wanted to be 
 set right. She had about fifty Turks on board, who 
 sent up a shout imploring us to come on and give 
 them the direction. We complied with their request, 
 and the rickety concern stood off upon its course. 
 
 December 31. We reached Marsina, on the coast 
 of Asia, at nine in the morning, and put into a small 
 bay. A dozen vessels were laying at anchor, and a 
 few mean houses stood upon the beach. The town 
 itself lies back of the hill. After breakfast we went 
 ashore, and found a caravan of camels reclining on 
 the beach; they had brought down the produce of 
 the interior country, consisting chiefly of cotton, and 
 were now to receive for their return freight the west- 
 ern goods which had been brought by our ship. 
 Vol. II.— N 
 
290 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Turkish cannon. A performance. 
 
 The ancient city of Tarsus lies about five hours 
 distance over the hill. This is the place from which 
 Paul came, and to which Jonah attempted to flee. It 
 is now celebrated for its furnaces and foundries, where 
 cannon are cast for the Turkish government. A large 
 number of them were lying upon the beach, ready to 
 be shipped by the next steamer for Constantinople. 
 
 It is a miserably tedious way they have on these 
 steamers, of running only in the night and lying in 
 port all day. The arrangement is made for the sake 
 of the trade the steamer keeps up with various points 
 on the coast, as it goes around the Levant. To kill 
 the time which hangs so heavily on all hands, after 
 the freight had been discharged and received, a per- 
 formance was given by an Italian family of jugglers 
 and mountebanks, making the tour of the Mediterra- 
 nean, and giving exhibitions at all the important 
 places at which they touched. The world is very 
 much the same all over. But I doubt if they ever 
 had a more picturesque and varied set of spectators 
 than they had to-day. First and foremost a settee 
 was placed near the mat on which the performers 
 were to stand, and on the settee were the four Amer- 
 ican travellers occupying "the front reserved seats." 
 On the floor sat a row of turbaned Turks, smoking, 
 and trying to look as if they had nothing to do, and 
 didn't care what was going on. Some of them had 
 stuck their pistols in their belts, and rigged them- 
 selves with more taste than usual. The Greeks, with 
 white kilts and the red fez, were behind the Turks. 
 Twenty Jews on their way to the Holy City, now 
 
COASTS OF ASIA MINOE. 291 
 
 Mountebanks. Pilo-rims. 
 
 came up and stood looking on. The firemen and 
 crew in their dirty clothes, were on the rigging or the 
 machinery — any where to get a sight over the heads 
 of the passengers. The man who was to give the en- 
 tertainment now stepped forward, leading a little girl, 
 both of them dressed in tights, and went through 
 various feats of agility, which were received with 
 demonstrations of applause by the assembly. The 
 girl took two tumblers of water, held one on her 
 mouth and the other on her forehead, her head being 
 turned backward, and thus balancing the glasses, she 
 crept through the rounds of a chair and a dozen hoops, 
 without spilling the water. It was a long, trying, 
 and painful experiment. The man balanced a gun by 
 its bayonet on his teeth, and while thus holding it 
 discharged another gun. Then he put the girl on the 
 top of a pole, and resting the other end of the pole on 
 his teeth, whirled her in the air. Then he pressed 
 the bayonet point in the middle of his forehead, and 
 gave a whirl, but suddenly seized it, for, contrary to 
 his expectations, it bored a hole into his skull, and the 
 blood ran out on his face. He bound a handkerchief 
 over the wound and went on with other feats, till we 
 had seen more than enough. A collection was taken 
 up, and Turks, Greeks, Jews, Americans, and all 
 hands contributed, to the great satisfaction of the 
 manager. 
 
 I found that many of the Greeks and all of the 
 Jews were making a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepul- 
 chre. It is easier to be a pilgrim now than it was 
 before the days of steamers. Some of these Jews are 
 
292 EUEOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Jews gone to die. New-Year's Day. 
 
 very old, very dirty, very drunken, and are going to 
 Jerusalem to die there. One of them, a bloated, 
 blotched, and beastly drunkard, complained to the 
 captain this morning that some one had stolen all the 
 rum from a bottle he had with him. The others as- 
 sured the captain that the old sinner had drunk it all 
 the night before, and knew nothing of it in the 
 morning. 
 
 These Jews esteem it a great privilege to die at 
 Jerusalem. But, like all other mortals, they put the 
 evil day afar off, and set out to the Holy Land only 
 when there is no hope of their living any where. 
 Some of them die on the way. But if they have 
 contributed a certain sum — I forget the amount — to 
 the synagogue at home, they have a certificate of that 
 fact with them, and it secures them a support and 
 burial wherever they may be taken sick in their jour- 
 ney, the world over, if they come to a synagogue of 
 Jews. 
 
 January 1, 1854. A New Year! At anchor this 
 morning in the harbor of Alexandretta, on the coast 
 of Asia Minor. 
 
 Sabbath morning ! A forlorn and dreary place we 
 are in to celebrate the New Year and the Sabbath. 
 But the God of the rolling year is with us, at sea, at 
 home, or in the distant lands of the East. Our 
 thoughts are away with those who wish us a Happy 
 New Year; whose faces we can not see, whose lips 
 we shall not kiss to-day, whose voices, glad and glad- 
 dening, we shall not hear. God bless them all, and 
 make them happy ! Their prayer for us we know it is ; 
 
COASTS OF ASIA MINOR. 293 
 
 Land cursed. Boston rum. 
 
 our prayer for them it shall be, now and ever. Happy 
 New Year to you all, six thousand miles from us, but 
 just as near to God as we. 
 
 We are lying half a mile from the coast, where six 
 houses and as many cabins are planted. Barren and 
 rugged hills rise high, receding rapidly from the shore. 
 A gap in the mountains opens a passage to the town, 
 which lies an hour or two beyond. The hills have 
 no flocks, and the shores seem to have no inhabitants. 
 Silence reigns over the face of nature as if the land 
 were under a curse. Christianity once flourished 
 here, and all these ports were filled with ships — the 
 ships of Tarshish — and the commerce of India was 
 gathered here. Now the half-savage Turk and the 
 wandering Arab, with their camels — the "ships of the 
 desert" — keep up a small traffic, and an occasional 
 vessel touches on its way to more favored ports. Our 
 vessel was gayly trimmed with flags in honor of the 
 day. The crew rigged themselves in holiday attire 
 after the freight had been put ashore. Among the 
 rest were half a dozen barrels marked "Pure Bos- 
 ton Rum ;" these will be carried, on the backs of 
 camels, far into the interior of Asia, and the heads of 
 the people, to do its work of ruin. I have seen but 
 little drunkenness since I left Europe. The men on 
 board the ship are strongly tempted to drink, and a 
 shop is open all the time for the sale of liquors, but I 
 see few of them touching it. The captain, however, 
 is tipsy to-day; he has been ashore this morning, 
 and finding two or three consuls there, has had a re- 
 freshing time. But these natives, who are bringing 
 
294 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Syrian coney. The two wives. 
 
 coal on board from a vessel in the harbor, are wild 
 with the excitement of their work, and cany on like 
 semi-devils, pulling and hauling, shouting and laugh- 
 ing; yet they are not intoxicated. But such a ragged 
 set of tatterdemalions it would be hard to match in 
 the New World, and, I think, in the Old. Speak- 
 ing of liquors reminds me that brandy is often used 
 in France with coffee; but on this steamer I first met 
 with the use of rum in tea ! It was offered to me, 
 and, for the experiment, I tasted the villainous mix- 
 ture, and it was fairly nauseating. 
 
 The firemen went ashore with their guns, and 
 ranged the hills, bringing back but a single animal, 
 and that one quite new to all on board. I thought 
 him like an American wood-chuck, though twice as 
 large. Since that time I recognized his likeness in a 
 work on Natural History. He was the Syrian coney, 
 the animal mentioned in the Scriptures. 
 
 Here we parted with our friend, the Turk, with his 
 two wives. It was a relief to be rid of him, and even 
 more, to be delivered from his wives and children, 
 whose cries and quarrels had disturbed us night and 
 day. The Turk pressed my hand tenderly to his breast, 
 and wished me health and prosperity in all time to 
 come. The women toddled out of the cabin and over 
 the side of the ship as if they were of no more ac- 
 count than the luggage of the husband and master. 
 
 Jan. 2. In the course of the night we ran through 
 a very rough sea, the vessel rolling awfully, mak- 
 ing us all sea-sick, and at nine in the morning 
 we made the roadstead of Latakea. A few houses 
 
COASTS OP ASIA MINOR. 295 
 
 A boisterous bay. Rough time. 
 
 only were on the shore ; but there appeared to be 
 great numbers of olive-trees, and a little way back 
 we could see the cupolas and domes crowning some 
 low mosques, and here and there a minaret pointing 
 to the sky. A town of some importance is scattered 
 over the plain, which extends some two or three miles 
 to the hills. Eight row-boats are pulling rapidly over 
 the rolling billows toward the steamer, and we watch 
 them, expecting every moment to see them upset by 
 the waves. They manage them with great skill, and 
 come alongside of us, shouting for passengers to take 
 ashore. With yellow cotton handkerchiefs for tur- 
 bans, blue trowsers, white tunics, and red caps, with 
 all sorts of vests, belts, and petticoats, they were a 
 motley and merry group. I coaxed some of them to 
 stand on the seat of the boat, and let me have a fair 
 view of them. At the step-ladder they struggled for 
 the first chance to board us; and those who could 
 not get up, cried out to the passengers, and offered 
 to take them off. Some forty or fifty of our Turks 
 and Greeks went ashore. In the course of an hour, 
 and while we were putting off the freight into a 
 lighter, the wind, which had been high, rose to a 
 gale, and there was danger of our driving on the 
 beach. We signaled to the town that we were start- 
 ing, and then commenced the struggle of our passen- 
 gers to get on board again. Boat after boat came off, 
 but was beaten back by the increasing gale. Some 
 of the larger skiffs, but heavily loaded, pulled despe- 
 rately, now poised on the crest of a tremendous wave, 
 and then lost to our view so long we thought they 
 
296 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Woman fainting. Some left. 
 
 would never rise again; but on they came till one 
 after another they reached us. The first "brought, 
 among others, a woman, who, the moment she was 
 safely deposited on the deck and the awful expo- 
 sure was over, fainted away. The husband and son 
 of another of our female passengers had gone ashore, 
 and as they did not return, she wrung her hands, 
 wept, beat her breast, tore her hair, prayed, and 
 finally wrapt herself in a blanket, and gave up to 
 despair. When the objects of her anxiety finally 
 reached the vessel, they treated her concern with per- 
 fect contempt, and were only pleased at then* own 
 escape from the sea. The step-ladder, rendered use- 
 less by the violence of the billows, was extended over 
 the side of the vessel as a platform, which the pas- 
 sengers in the boats were to seize as they rose on the 
 top of the waves. The boatmen, improving the op- 
 portunity to extort higher fare from those whom they 
 brought aboard, would seize them by the legs, pull 
 them back into the boat, and hold them fast until 
 they had received as much as they wished, when 
 they would assist them to get on board. After the 
 steamer had started we saw two or three more boats 
 coming off with passengers, but it was too late for 
 them to reach us ; and the gale increased with so 
 much fury that we were obliged to hurry off, and 
 leave them to their disappointment. Doubtless they 
 returned, as did the many boats that were around us, 
 to the shore in safety. 
 
 January 3. Through the most violent storm that 
 we had ever encountered on the Mediterranean, we 
 
COASTS OP ASIA MINOR. 297 
 
 Venus's birth-place. On shore. 
 
 made our way across to the island of Cyprus, which 
 we reached early in the morning; and, to our great 
 joy, found ourselves once more in smooth water. A 
 long range of bleak sand-hills gave us no promise 
 of the isle of beauty we had hoped to see, in the 
 spot where Venus was born of the foam of the sea, 
 where her temple stood, and where her worship, more 
 than elsewhere, was for many years maintained. The 
 fable that has associated Venus and her worship with 
 this island was, doubtless, suggested by the voluptu- 
 ous pleasures of the inhabitants of Cyprus. Stretched 
 along the shore now stands the city of Larneca. A 
 few minarets, but no towers of any size, rise from the 
 farther side ; behind it, lofty hills swell into domes, 
 with a regularity almost unnatural, yet doubtless sug- 
 gestive of the style of architecture common in the 
 East. We went ashore and wandered through the 
 streets of this town. The houses are but one story 
 high, and have court-yards surrounded by mud walls ; 
 the roofs are made by laying poles over the rafters, 
 then covering them with earth, and finally sowing- 
 grass upon the top of that. The streets are narrow 
 and muddy, and are constructed with a raised side- 
 walk wide enough only for one person to walk upon. 
 Camels were trudging through the muddy ways, or in 
 their stables eating chopped straw, their common 
 food. A merchant on whom we called, inquired of 
 us concerning the missionaries whom he had seen in 
 Palestine and Syria ; for he had been a dragoman in 
 the East, and had frequently accompanied travellers 
 in their journeys through those countries. One of 
 
 N* 
 
298 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Cyprian wine. I'aul preaches here. 
 
 the officers of the ship, with whom we had come 
 ashore, was in search of the Cyprian wine, so famous 
 in ancient as well as in modern times. After much 
 search he found the merchant of whom he expected 
 to make his purchases. His store was on the hare 
 ground; in one corner was a pile of straw, chopped 
 and ready for sale for the use of camels ; in another, 
 a pile of wood, which he sold for twenty paras — one 
 cent — a stick ; in addition to this assortment, a little 
 earthenware completed the merchandise of the estab- 
 lishment. His wine was arranged in immense hogs- 
 heads around the wall ; and the purchaser was allow- 
 ed to taste the several qualities, which were drawn with 
 a syphon. After the officer had determined the qual- 
 ity of the wine which he preferred to purchase, the 
 man made every possible objection to his taking it, 
 and insisted upon putting up for him a quality which 
 he regarded to be decidedly inferior ; so that it was a 
 long time before he could overcome the various diffi- 
 culties which the merchant suggested, and secure a 
 couple of gallons of the sort he wanted for the use 
 of the ship. 
 
 On this island, in Paphos, the Apostle Paul, then 
 called Saul, preached the Gospel to Sergius Paulus. 
 Here he encountered Elymas the sorcerer, and de- 
 nounced the judgments of God upon him. Then, this 
 isle was filled with Jews and heathen, and was 
 covered with magnificent temples and abodes of 
 wealth and pleasure. Now, it is comparatively de- 
 serted ; and few, if any, vestiges of its ancient glory 
 
CHAPTER XXL 
 
 SYEIA MOUNT LEBANON. 
 
 Beyroot — Arrival — Eeception — Disappointment — Engaging a Drag- 
 oman — Contract — Social Life with the Missionaries — Grave of 
 Pliny Fisk — Mission Families — Arab Curses — Meeting an old 
 Classmate — Eide to Lebanon — Sacred History — Almonds, Figs, 
 Olives, and Kharibs — Fountains — Women wearing Horns — Sheep 
 with large Tails — The House of my Friend — His School — Arab 
 Curiosity — View from a peak of Lebanon — Tomb of a Druse 
 Saint — Cedars of Lebanon — Superstitions — Excursion to the Nin- 
 eveh of Syria — Ancient Inscription — Eemarkable Features — Arab 
 Eace. 
 
 January 4. The next morning we arose with the 
 light of day, and at sunrise "goodly Lebanon" stood 
 before us. Beyroot — beautiful for situation — was lying 
 on the shore, inviting us to the homes of friends who 
 we knew would give us a cordial welcome after our 
 weary tossing for ten days and nights upon the stormy 
 sea. The missionaries met us at the wharf, and in- 
 sisted upon conducting us immediately to their sev- 
 eral houses. With great reluctance they allowed us, 
 for the present, at least, to take up our quarters at 
 the hotel until we should have completed the neces- 
 sary arrangements for our journey in Syria. At 
 Malta we had engaged a dragoman to come on and 
 meet us at Beyroot, and have all necessary arrange- 
 ments made for our immediate departure from this 
 place. To our no small disappointment we found a 
 
300 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 A dragoman. Missionaries. 
 
 letter for us with intelligence that he had concluded 
 to go with another party into Egypt, and that we 
 must now look out for ourselves. But long before we 
 reached the hotel we were beset by many, who thrust 
 upon us their books of recommendation, and insisted 
 that they were, of all the dragomans in the East, the 
 very best, and could give us the most indisputable 
 evidence of their high qualifications for the responsi- 
 ble trust of conducting travellers through the Holy 
 Land into Egypt, or, indeed, into any part of the 
 Eastern world. The American Consul, J. Hosford 
 Smith, Esq., kindly gave us important assistance in 
 the selection of a suitable dragoman ; and, in the 
 course of the day, we completed our contract, which 
 was signed, sealed, and attested at the consulate, and 
 became a legal document, binding upon us and upon 
 the dragoman in any part of the land. By this agree- 
 ment Antonio was bound to furnish us with travelling 
 tents, bed and bedding, horses, camels, and daily 
 provisions ; the latter to consist of breakfast, lunch, 
 dinner, and supper, in quantity and quality becoming- 
 first-class passengers on board the steamers on the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 When these arrangements were completed we joy- 
 fully accepted the hospitalities of the missionaries. I 
 was welcomed to the house of the Rev. Mr. Whiting, 
 where, for four or five days, I had the calm repose and 
 social enjoyments of a Christian home. He and the 
 Rev. Dr. Eli Smith, Dr. De Forest, and Mr. Hurter, 
 the printer, are laboring in their respective depart- 
 ments — the first, a faithful preacher of the word : the 
 
SYHIA — MOUNT LEBANON. 301 
 
 Pliny Fisk's grave. Arab curse. 
 
 second, translating the Scriptures ; the third, teaching 
 a female seminary ; the fourth, publishing the Bible 
 and religious books ; and all of them, as they have 
 strength and opportunity, laboring in various ways to 
 promote the work of Christian missions. 
 
 In the burial-ground of the missionaries, near the 
 printing-house and chapel, I found the grave of the 
 Eev. Pliny Fisk, who died October 23, 1828, aged 
 thirty-three years. He was the first missionary of 
 the American Board in the city of Jerusalem. I after- 
 ward sought long and diligently for the grave of his 
 associate, Levi Parsons, who died and was buried at 
 Alexandria, in Egypt. Around the grave of Fisk were 
 those of the wives and children of several of the mis- 
 sionaries — a precious deposit which has here been 
 made of those who early perished in the service of 
 God in this Eastern field. 
 
 Walking in the street in company with one of the 
 missionaries, who understood the language of the 
 Arabs, by whom we were surrounded, I heard one of 
 them cursing another ; and the missionary interpreted 
 to me the language which he used. Even when an 
 ass is the object of the curse, they say, " Cursed be 
 the religion of your father, or of your father's father." 
 "May God bless the father of your beard," is a com- 
 mon form of pronouncing a benediction upon a friend. 
 The religion of an ass was something I had never 
 heard of before. 
 
 Twenty-five years ago — ah! how swiftly roll the 
 wheels of time — I had a classmate in college, of 
 whom, had any one predicted then that he would ever 
 
302 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 My classmate. Ahmoud. 
 
 be a missionary, he would have seemed to me as one 
 that mocked. In intellect decidedly the foremost of 
 his fellows, distinguished by the versatility of his pow- 
 ers and the range of his acquirements, with strong 
 tendencies toward the political arena as the destined 
 theatre of his future toil and triumph, we looked on 
 him as a man to make his mark high on the scroll of 
 his country's history. He was regarded as an enemy 
 of religion ; and of all the men in college, he was the 
 last to be counted on as likely to yield to her persua- 
 sions and become her champion. Perched on the 
 side, and nearly to the summit of Mount Lebanon, is 
 a small village, Abeih, some five kotos' ride from Bey- 
 root, looking out from its nest upon the Mediterra- 
 nean Sea. Here my old classmate, Rev. S. H. Cal- 
 houn, resides. He had heard that I was coming, 
 and when, from his window, he saw the smoke of the 
 steamer, he arose, saddled his horse, and came down. 
 What a tide of emotions did that meeting raise! 
 How strange the pathways by which we had been 
 led; how passing strange that here, in Syria, we 
 should, after such a separation, meet again ! 
 
 Ahmoud, the Arab dragoman of the American Con- 
 sul, mounted upon a handsome horse, with a sword 
 by his side — a tall old turbaned fellow — appeared at 
 our door this morning to escort us and a party of 
 ladies, who were to accompany us, to Mount Lebanon, 
 to make a visit to the house of my early friend, Cal- 
 houn. We mounted the horses that had been pre- 
 pared for us, and rode out of the city through the nar- 
 row streets that were lined with aged prickly pears, 
 
STRIA — MOUNT LEBANON. 303 
 
 Our side. High place of Baal. 
 
 which grow in rich luxuriance, and yield a fruit used 
 in great abundance by the natives. We passed 
 through large groves of pines, set out by the order 
 of Ibraham Pasha, of Egypt, and came upon the 
 olive plantations, so common in the Eastern country. 
 These are at least six miles in extent, and yield an 
 immense quantity of oil for export. The land is owned 
 by the government, but a thousand different persons 
 may be owners of the trees ; and the amount of a 
 man's possessions is measured by the number of his 
 trees. These olive-trees bear every other year, and 
 all are barren during the same year. 
 
 We soon came to the village of Hadeth, well known 
 as the place in which Assad Shidiak resided, whose 
 early sufferings and martyrdom in the cause of Christ 
 excited such wide-spread interest in the early history 
 of this Syrian mission. Off at the left we passed the 
 hill Deir el Skulah, on the top of which are the ruins 
 of the temple where the worship of Baal was once ob- 
 served. On the top of another hill, at our right, was 
 the Greek Catholic convent, whose priests were, a 
 year or two ago, in America, begging large sums of 
 money, under the pretence of the great necessities of 
 this convent, which actually possesses a rich valley 
 and highly cultivated lands, yielding a large revenue, 
 and providing abundantly against the possibility of 
 want on the part of the lazy monks whom we met 
 on our way. The Maronites, a hundred thousand in 
 number, and the Druses inhabit this region of country. 
 As we advanced we came in contact with so many 
 objects mentioned in Scripture, that we began indeed 
 
304 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Women's horns. Sheep with large tails. 
 
 to feel that we were now on sacred ground. The al- 
 mond-tree, the fig, the mulberry, the olive, and the vine 
 were all around; here, also, was the kharib, which 
 yielded the pod said to be the same as the "husks 
 which the swine did eat," mentioned in the parable of 
 the Prodigal Son. We came now to a fountain, before 
 which a wall of solid masonry and an arch had been 
 built, with the water pouring through an orifice. Wo- 
 men were there drawing the water with pitchers or 
 jars, which they brought on their heads and earned 
 away in the same manner. Now, for the first time, 
 we saw women with horns, giving us at once the 
 illustration of Scripture, where it speaks of "the horn 
 of the righteous being exalted," etc. These are some- 
 times made of silver, or brass, or tin, but more com- 
 monly of baked dough, and vary from eighteen inches 
 to two feet in length. They are fitted with a pad to 
 rest on the top of the head, and may be elevated to 
 any angle which is desired. A light vail is thrown 
 over the horn, which descends from it to cover the 
 head and shoulders. In seasons of sorrow this vail 
 is depressed as a sign of mourning, and in times of 
 joy is raised. On the hills which we are now 
 climbing are frequent flocks of goats. The sheep, of 
 which also we saw great numbers, grow to an enor- 
 mous size, and have tails which weigh from ten to 
 twenty, and even forty, fifty, and sixty pounds. In 
 various parts of Asia Minor, the tail of this sheep 
 grows to such immense proportions that it is no un- 
 common thing for the shepherd to place a little car- 
 riage behind the sheep, for its tail to rest upon ; and 
 
SYRIA — MOUNT LEBANON. 305 
 
 Fattening sheep. My friend's house. 
 
 I was told that here it often becomes so heavy as to 
 break from the body : it consists of an enormous lobe 
 of fat, which is used instead of lard ; and I afterward 
 ate cake that was made with it. The sheep itself, 
 when well fatted, will weigh two hundred pounds ; and 
 great care is taken in fattening the animal in order 
 to make it attain its greatest weight. It is fed until 
 it is unable to walk; then the food is brought to it 
 and put into its mouth, and even after it is unable any 
 longer to stand upon its feet, they continue to feed it 
 as it lies upon the ground. As long as it will eat 
 they endeavor to coax its appetite with whatever nu- 
 triment it will take. 
 
 Night overtook us as we were ascending the hill, 
 and it was quite dark before we reached the house of 
 our friend Calhoun. The village in which he lives 
 stands upon the side of Mount Lebanon, command- 
 ing a wide view of the Mediterranean. The houses, 
 built of stone and a single story high, usually stand 
 with their backs toward the mountain, while the roofs 
 are covered with earth, and either sown with grass or 
 rolled hard with a round stone, which we often saw 
 lying upon the tops of the houses for that purpose. 
 Mr. Calhoun lives in a house at least two hundred 
 years old, for which he pays about thirty dollars a 
 year rent. Its simplicity and antique appearance im- 
 pressed me with its peculiar fitness for the residence 
 of a missionary in the East. Hard by his dwelling 
 is the boarding-school, in which he has eighteen young 
 men under his care, pursuing a course of education 
 not only in the Scriptures, but in all the sciences 
 
306 EFROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Arab scholars. View from Lebanon. 
 
 necessary to qualify them for influence and usefulness 
 in the world. Some of them have already been fitted 
 as teachers, and have gone out for that purpose among 
 their countrymen. I examined these students in 
 philosophy and chemistry, and was astonished at the 
 degree of knowledge they had attained, but even more 
 at the inquiries which they addressed to me, in refer- 
 ence to scientific subjects, of which they had read in 
 the newspapers that had come to the mission from 
 America. They were anxious to know if it were true 
 that a man had ever walked in America like a fly, 
 with his feet against the wall and his head toward the 
 floor. When I assured them that I had repeatedly 
 seen the performance, they were highly gratified, and 
 requested an explanation. Accordingly I stretched 
 myself upon a bench, and to their infinite amusement 
 illustrated the process. When I came to leave the 
 school, they crowded around me, covered my hand 
 with kisses, and begged me to come and see them 
 again. 
 
 The next morning, with Mr. Calhoun, we made an 
 excursion to one of the loftiest summits of Lebanon ; 
 from which forty villages, vast plains, and the sea it- 
 self, are at once brought before the eye. From this 
 spot, call Mutaiyer, or the Flying-off Place, we saw 
 the cities of Sidon, and Sarepta, and Tyre. This 
 point right before us is the place where Antioclms met 
 the Egyptians at sea, and vanquished them. All this 
 is the land of the Canaanites, out of which they were 
 never driven. A spot could hardly be found in the 
 whole range of Lebanon from which so many points 
 
SYRIA MOUNT LEBANON. 307 
 
 Tomb of a saint. Cedars of Lebanon. 
 
 of interest in sacred and profane history are to be 
 taken in at a single view. A short distance off, we 
 visited the tomb of a Druse saint, consisting of four 
 square walls of stone surmounted with a low dome. 
 Within were the oil cans and lamps that were burnt 
 over his head every night, when he was first buried, 
 and afterward not so often — their theory being that 
 the soul visits the grave of the body for a consider- 
 able time after it is buried, and then takes possession 
 of the body of some one else that is born into the 
 world, thus becoming his regular successor. The old 
 doctrine of metempsychosis and the new theory of a 
 Boston divine, were made the subject of discussion as 
 we stood over the bones of this saint. 
 
 On the eastern side of the hill is the valley of Dah- 
 mour, through which the river pursues a meandering 
 course toward the sea. The heights of Lebanon above 
 are covered with snow; and the ridges, which are 
 many miles in extent, and are remarkable for their 
 form and height, form the backbone of the range. 
 The cedars of Scripture are fifty miles from here — a 
 grove not more than a quarter of a mile in circum- 
 ference, carefully guarded by the Maronite priests. 
 Some of them are claimed to be twenty-five hundred 
 years old. None of them are cut now ; and there is a 
 superstitious notion prevalent, that if any one boils 
 milk with the wood, it will turn to blood, and that if 
 any one takes away part of the tree without leave, he 
 will be visited by a fearful sickness. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Bird are associated with Mr. Calhoun 
 and his wife in their interesting labors in this mission 
 
308 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Nineveh of Syria. Venus and Adonis. 
 
 at Mount Lebanon ; and, secluded as they are from 
 society, I have met in none of my visits in the East 
 any families who seemed to be happier in their work 
 than they. I parted from them with tender regret, 
 blessing God that he puts it into the hearts of any of 
 his children thus to deny themselves for the sake of 
 giving light to those who sit in darkness. 
 
 Jan. 7. Dr. Eli Smith proposed an excursion to 
 the " Nineveh of Syria." Mr. Whiting, JNIr. Bird, and 
 Mr. Eddy, with some of the ladies of the mission, 
 joined us. Two young ladies, natives of the land, 
 who had been brought up in the family of Mr. Whit- 
 ing, rode on white donkeys, and dressed in the native 
 costume, with white vails falling over their shoulders, 
 made a striking feature in our party as we set off on 
 our horses for a ride on the shore of the sea. We 
 passed the spot where it is said that St. George killed 
 the Dragon, an event so famous that it is celebrated 
 in painting and sculpture in churches dedicated to the 
 saint. Over an ancient Roman bridge, and along a 
 road that still bears the pavement which those con- 
 querors laid, and round milestones which they set up, 
 and which still lie or stand, marking the miles to 
 Beyroot, we came to a narrow pass, where a spur of 
 Mount Lebanon crowds close to the sea. Just above is 
 the mouth of the ancient river Lycus, and still farther 
 up are the ruins of Akfeh, where was once the temple 
 of Yenus, and the scene of the original fable of the 
 death of Adonis. The river afterward took his name, 
 and at every return of the anniversary of his death 
 the waters were tinged with his blood. Dupuis sup- 
 
SYRIA — MOUNT LEBANON. 309 
 
 Inscriptions on the rocks. Figures. 
 
 poses that the red color was produced by an artifice 
 of the priests ; but it is more likely that the anniver- 
 sary came at the rainy season, when the red soil of 
 Lebanon would be washed down and tinge the stream. 
 This river springs out of a cave in the side of a preci- 
 pice several hundred feet high. 
 
 The only passage for an army from the north to 
 come down upon Syria and then upon Egypt, or for 
 the Syrians and Egyptians to go up, would be along 
 the shore of the sea ; and here the mountain presses 
 upon it so closely that a narrow passage, easily de- 
 fended, is left, and to make it in the face of opposition, 
 would be quite as great an exploit as to force the gate 
 of Thermopylae. The armies that in ancient times 
 have been here, have therefore left in the face of the 
 rocks records to mark the event. These have been 
 engraved upon brass tablets and let into the rocks, or 
 tablets have been cut into the face of the precipice, and 
 the letters carved in the stone. Some of them are 
 Roman, and others Arabic ; some are Assyrian, and 
 others Egyptian, with figures and characters that dis- 
 tinctly mark each of these people. The brazen plates 
 have been removed, and in some cases the inscription 
 of a succeeding conqueror has been made in the rock 
 from which it was taken. On one of them, the figure 
 of a man with a raised and extended arm is holding a 
 ball. The winged globe of Egypt is frequent. It is 
 thought that the Assyrian and Egyptain armies were 
 here at the same time. The Egyptian hieroglyphics 
 are supposed to relate to Remesis, the Sesostris of 
 old. 
 
310 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Horse-race. 
 
 Seated on the stones near the sea-side, and in the 
 midst of these monuments of the days of Sennacherib 
 and Alexander, we took our lunch, a missionary pic- 
 nic, and talked of the scenes that must have tran- 
 spired on this eventful spot, when the armies of the 
 South and the North contended here for the right of 
 way. 
 
 Our return was signalized by an adventure with 
 a drunken Arab, who, mounted on a fine horse, rode 
 up to our party and challenged any body to run a 
 race with him on the beach. He became so intoler- 
 able in his talk, that we were finally obliged to gratify 
 him, to get rid of him ; and one of us, the best mount- 
 ed, gave rein to his Arabian steed, and away went the 
 two like the wind. The beach was hard and smooth 
 as a threshing-floor. The horses were full bloods, 
 and splendid creatures ; and as this was the first 
 horse-race I ever saw in my life, and the animals 
 were running for the pleasure of it, and neither of 
 them was required to go faster than he pleased, I 
 enjoyed it greatly. Of course, our side beat, and the 
 crest-fallen Arab, left behind, soon left us altogether. 
 These full-blooded Arabian horses give us an idea 
 of the poetry of motion. They move as if they de- 
 served wings, seeming to spurn the earth, and with 
 their long limbs prancing so gracefully, that we were 
 sure they enjoyed the field and the saddle as much as 
 their riders. In the ship in which we returned to 
 France was one of them on his way to Lamartine, who 
 had sent out to Syria for an Arab steed. One of the 
 missionaries had a horse which might have been 
 
SYEIA MOUNT LEBANON. 311 
 
 Agrippa. Titus. Beyroot 
 
 bought here for fifty or sixty dollars, but lie would 
 bring a thousand readily in New York. 
 
 Spending several days at Beyroot, I had frequent 
 opportunities like this of seeing every thing of inter- 
 est in and about it, and was largely indebted to the 
 American Consul and the missionaries for their atten- 
 tions and aid. The town is very ancient, and the col- 
 umns that are now lying as a foundation under the 
 wharf on which we landed, show that it has once been 
 a city with imposing edifices. Agrippa built a theatre, 
 and Titus here gave splendid spectacles, hi which 
 gladiators fought, and Jews, whom he brought from the 
 ruined Holy City, were slain. Now the houses are 
 mostly very plain, built of stone, and the streets nar- 
 row and gloomy, with a path in the centre for camels, 
 who require a soft road to travel. The city rises 
 gradually from the shore, and on the hill are extensive 
 gardens and orchards, in the midst of which are hand- 
 some villas overlooking the sea. Behind the town, 
 and away to the north, the majestic heights of Leb- 
 anon are always in view ; not alone venerable for the 
 associations they stir, but solemn in their hoary grand- 
 eur, terraced and tilled to the summit, teeming with 
 villages, flocks, and herds. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 
 
 Punctual Dragoman — Leave-taking — Evil Eye — Khan Khulda — Sar- 
 cophagi — Cross a River and lunch under a Palm — Mr. Calhoun 
 joins us — Residence of Lady Hester Stanhope — Singular Facts — 
 Jonah's Tavern — A roving Englishman — Escape from Drowning — 
 Approach Sidon — Orange Groves — Jackals — Tents pitched — Rev. 
 Mr. Thompson welcomes us to Sidon — The Vice-Consul — Night 
 on the Wall— Old City — Leave in the Morning— Horde of Rob- 
 bers — Ancient Aqueduct — Sarepta — Tomb of Elijah — Tyre — El- 
 ders in the Gate— Rabble — Streets— Hovels— Sea-side— Columns 
 under Water — Walls — Dinner — Night in Tent — Alarm — Ras- 
 el-Ain— Acre— Oriental Tavern — Safura — Cana of Galilee— Naz- 
 areth — Convent — Hospice — Missionaries. 
 
 Monday, Jan. 9. Antonio was punctual. Of very 
 few men in the East, to say nothing of the West, 
 could this complimentary observation be made. But 
 he was in such haste to be off, that he sent for our 
 luggage on Saturday evening — and I make no doubt 
 he broke the Sabbath badly in packing — that he 
 might be ready to set off at nine o'clock this morn- 
 ing. 
 
 Our party was now to consist of four American 
 travellers, with Antonio the dragoman, Achmet the 
 cook, Habib the servant, and four muleteers, with 
 their mules to carry the tents, provisions, and the 
 baggage of the party. We were mounted, but not 
 well. We had made plenty of stipulations with An- 
 
SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 313 
 
 Promising man. Farewell. 
 
 tonio on this head — and had made two or three excur- 
 sions on horseback by way of testing the animals — and 
 he had made fair promises to provide horses whose 
 virtues were beyond suspicion, and their perseverance 
 unto the end of the journey unquestionable. 
 
 Alas for all human promises ! A Syrian drago- 
 man's word is no better than any other man's. But 
 a large committee of the Arab citizens of Beyroot 
 were present in the court of the hotel where we met 
 for the start, and they were unanimous in the opinion 
 that a finer set of horses could not be procured in their 
 country ; and as we were impatient to be moving, we 
 gave the word, and were off. 
 
 We called at the doors of our missionary friends, 
 whose hospitalities we had been enjoying for sev- 
 eral delightful days, and bade them farewell — a reluct- 
 ant farewell ; and received from them at parting vari- 
 ous little creature comforts in the way of eatables, such 
 as we should find refreshing in the wilderness, beyond 
 the substantial that Antonio had provided. 
 
 Several of the gentlemen, Dr. Smith, Mr. Whiting, 
 Mr. Bird, Mr. Hurter, and Mr. Eddy, were mounted, 
 and rode out with us through the gardens, and half 
 an hour beyond the city, along the field of sand which 
 is gradually covering the hill and approaching the 
 city. Dr. Smith told me it had advanced 2500 rods 
 since he came to Beyroot. Nothing grows upon it 
 but a species of wild onion, and the colycinth, a small 
 melon, which we could see lying like lemons that had 
 been dropped by a passing traveller. Under the 
 shade of an old sycamore tree we halted, and embrac- 
 Vol. II.— O 
 
314 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The Evil Eye. Houses of the dead. 
 
 ing our brethren of the mission, took leave of them, . 
 and they returned to their work while we pursued 
 our journey. 
 
 Our horses were decorated with beads and shells 
 attached to their head-gear, to protect them from the 
 Evil Eye. It was the first time we had come in con- 
 tact with the charms so common among savage and 
 semi-civilized people ; and we had not expected to be 
 making use of them at any time to shield us from the 
 powers of darkness. I laughed at them when Antonio 
 explained their use, and he said that he had no faith 
 in them, but the others had, and would have them. 
 
 Three hours from the city we come to khan Khul- 
 da, where is a fountain and a stopping-place for trav- 
 ellers. Strewed over the ground were a great number 
 of huge sarcophagi, hewn out of stone, the covers of 
 some lying near them. They may have been deposited 
 here in a cemetery, and this idea is confirmed by the 
 fact that a little way up the hill we found several 
 tombs cut into the side of the solid rocks. A city, 
 whose sepulchres remain to this day, has doubtless 
 once stood upon this spot. The living and their 
 abodes have disappeared — the houses of the dead re- 
 main. 
 
 Not long after leaving Khulda we crossed the river 
 Damur, and, on the southern bank, dismounted for 
 lunch. Habib spread mats upon the sand, and hap- 
 pily under the shade of some noble palms ; for, winter 
 as it was, we found a shade agreeable in the heat of 
 the day. From his ample stores Achmet produced 
 cold chickens and various relishes, with abundance 
 
SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 315 
 
 An old friend. Joyful meeting. 
 
 of fine oranges, which made a repast fit for a king. 
 While we were eating, a party of Arabs, with half a 
 dozen camels, crossed the stream as we had done, 
 and pursued their journey, taking no notice of our 
 party. We are on ground that is famous in history. 
 Antiochus the Great and the armies of Ptolemy fought, 
 218 years before Christ, and the Egyptians were de- 
 feated, with terrible slaughter, on the spot that now 
 furnishes us a table in the wilderness. 
 
 We were speaking of these events when we saw in 
 the distance, and coming down the hill, the man of all 
 others whom we had desired to bring with us on our 
 journey, my old friend Mr. Calhoun. He had left 
 his home at Abieh, on Lebanon, and rode down, ex- 
 pecting to intercept us on our way to Sidon, and, if 
 possible, to accompany us into the interior. A white 
 turbaned Druse was riding a mule by his side, and 
 in a few moments after we had spied them they 
 dashed into the stream, and joined us at our repast. 
 The Druseman was a neighbor of Mr. Calhoun in the 
 mountain, and was very willing to be employed in 
 our service, if we would take him along. We hailed 
 the arrival of Mr. Calhoun with gratitude and joy. 
 We had endeavored to persuade him to join us before 
 we set off, as his health required that he should leave 
 his work and travel for a while ; but he feared that 
 the weather might be unfavorable, and that he should 
 suffer from the exposure. But he was now with us, 
 and we thanked God, and took courage, as Paul did 
 when he saw his brethren at the Three Taverns. 
 
 Off at the left, on the brow of the hills, is the vil- 
 
316 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Lady Esther Stanhope. Jonah's Tavern. 
 
 lage where Lady Esther Stanhope led so strange a 
 life, and died so miserable a death. The Rev. Mr. 
 Thompson, of Sidon, the only European, except the 
 British Consul, who was present when she was bur- 
 ied, gave me many particulars of this extraordinary 
 woman. By many she was regarded as insane, and 
 doubtless she was on the subject of the personal reign 
 of Christ. Of noble family and handsome fortune, 
 she forsook her friends and home in England, and here, 
 on the southern slope of Lebanon, established her res- 
 idence, waiting for the coming of the Lord. The eccen- 
 tric missionary, Wolffe, was a great favorite of hers, 
 and while he was here, she kept two horses ready sad- 
 dled and bridled, which were washed every day with 
 soap-suds, and always stood in waiting for her and her 
 friend to go forth and meet the Lord, whenever it 
 should be announced that he was coming. Here she 
 secluded herself from the world, refusing to see stran- 
 gers, unless they came with such introductions as 
 seemed to impose a necessity upon her of receiving 
 them. She died alone. When she was so far gone 
 as to be unable to move, her servants plundered her 
 apartments, even carrying off her jewels before her 
 eyes ; and some of them made themselves rich by the 
 trade into which they entered with the property of 
 Lady Esther. 
 
 On the shore of the sea we came to a rude house 
 of refreshment called Jonah's Tavern. It is the spot 
 where tradition says that the disobedient prophet was 
 cast up by the great fish. Antonio asked me if I had 
 ever heard of the story of Jonah and the Whale, and 
 
SYEIA AND PALESTINE. 317 
 
 The whale story. On his own hook. 
 
 as I did not appear to be well informed on the sub- 
 ject, he related the circumstances as a tradition he 
 had heard of a man being swallowed by a whale, and 
 making his escape at this place. He made sad work 
 of the facts, but satisfied his hearer. Crossing a 
 bold promontory by steps cut into the rock, making 
 a difficult and somewhat dangerous pass, we came 
 down again upon the sandy beach, and pushed on 
 toward Sidon, which we could see on a point of land 
 before us, but receding as we approached. 
 
 We fell in with a young Englishman, whom Mr. 
 Calhoun had often me.t in Lebanon, and who was a 
 sort of missionary on his own account, wandering 
 among the Arabs, and depending on the good provi- 
 dence of God for his daily bread, refusing to have 
 any connection with the missionaries, but often re- 
 sorting to them when in straits. We invited him, 
 as he was travelling in our direction, to fall into our 
 party ; and we even offered him a mule to ride, for 
 the poor fellow was afoot. But he declined all our 
 advances ; and after walking by the side of us for an 
 hour or two, fell behind, in company with two or 
 three of the natives, who were bound to Sidon. A 
 little son of Mr. Thompson came galloping up the 
 beach from Sidon, bringing us the salutations of his 
 parents, who had heard that we were coming, and 
 they had sent him forward to conduct us at once to 
 their house. He was our guide over the river Auly, 
 and probably it was owing to his knowledge of the 
 stream that we were able to ford it in safety. This 
 we did ; but the young Englishman, coming on about 
 
318 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Half-drowned. Approaching Sidon. 
 
 half an hour afterward, attempted to cross very 
 nearly at the same place, lost his footing, got into a 
 deep hole, where the water was far beyond his depth, 
 and he would have been drowned but for the timely 
 aid of the natives who were with him, who got him 
 by the hair of his head and drew him out. Now we 
 are on the great Phoenician plain. We are near the 
 city of Sidon ; and for a mile or more we rode through 
 splendid orchards of oranges, loaded with fruit, and 
 tempting to the eye — like apples of gold, most beauti- 
 ful. The sun was setting; and Sidon, the ancient 
 and once glorious, was lying between us and his go- 
 ing down. All these fields, now teeming with groves, 
 were once covered with the magnificent city, and the 
 spurs of Lebanon, which here come down almost to 
 the sea, were crowned with the villas of the Sidon- 
 ians, whose merchandise was borne in ships to the 
 ends of the then known world. The shades of even- 
 ing drew around us, and the howls of the jackal be- 
 gan to be heard as we approached the walls of the 
 city. Outside, and not far from the gate, our men 
 had already pitched their snow-white tents, and were 
 far along with their preparations for dinner when we 
 arrived. The Rev. Mr. Thompson was there, await- 
 ing our coming, and invited us all to his house. We 
 were too many to consent to such a tax upon his hos- 
 pitality ; but Mr. Calhoun and I went in with him, 
 leaving the younger men to pass the night on the 
 tented field. 
 
 We learned at once that the inhabitants of the sur- 
 rounding country were in a high state of alarm at 
 
SYKIA AND PALESTINE. 319 
 
 Sidon. Rev. Mr. Thompson. 
 
 reports that a horde of Nablous robbers, a fierce and 
 lawless set of men, were coming to embark at Bey- 
 root for Constantinople to aid the Turks in the war. 
 The whole region round about us was in commotion, 
 and the people were bringing their effects within the 
 walls, for protection from the approaching army. 
 
 The houses on this side of the city are built on the 
 wall, and look off into the country. The gate was 
 closed upon us as we entered, and we walked through, 
 the narrow and winding streets, dirty and broken, for 
 a quarter of a mile, before we found the house of our 
 kind host. He was formerly a missionary at Bey- 
 root, but has recently established the station here, 
 where he is greatly encouraged in his labors. I met 
 no man in the East who is more thoroughly qualified 
 for usefulness than Mr. Thompson. His contribu- 
 tions to geographical science have been valuable. His 
 family — an accomplished wife, two sons, and daugh- 
 ter — received us with great warmth of hospitality, 
 and, seated around then' board, we soon forgot the 
 fatigues of a long day of travel, and felt ourselves 
 thoroughly at home in Sidon, by the sea-side. 
 
 While we were at table, the independent young En- 
 glishman made his appearance, having been drawn 
 out of the water after he had sunk two or three times. 
 Having no change of clothes, he made his way to the 
 house of the good missionary, whose wardrobe was 
 put at his service, and he joined us in the parlor. 
 With as much faith in Providence as this youth, I 
 thought he got this unexpected bath, and came very 
 near losing his life, because he did not embrace the 
 
320 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Evening party. On the walls. 
 
 opportunity the Lord provided for him of coming 
 safely to Sidon with us. He chose to look out for 
 himself, and so fell into the river. But he learned 
 nothing, being too wise in his own conceit to be taught 
 even by the Lord. 
 
 Ibrahim Nukkly, the Yice-Consul, called upon us 
 in the course of the evening — a very polite and intel- 
 ligent man. He had heard much of the disturbed 
 state of the country, and thought it dangerous to 
 travel, but still did not dissuade us from making the 
 experiment. He offered us hospitalities if we would 
 remain and visit him in his handsomely-furnished 
 house on the wall, and not far from our friend's. The 
 young men also came in from the tent, and were 
 guided to Mr. Thompson's, so that we had quite an 
 evening party, embracing friends from four or five dif- 
 ferent countries, who found mutual pleasure in this 
 reunion in Sidon. Late at night I retired to sleep. 
 My windows looked out upon the plain, in which was 
 an ancient cemetery, with monuments of the dead 
 lying and standing around. In one corner of it were 
 the tents, in which my young friends were sleeping. 
 The moon was shining brightly upon the peaceful 
 scene, and over the groves of mulberry and oranges 
 the mountains of Lebanon rose in the distance. I 
 was immediately on the wall of the city, as the side 
 of the house was but an upward continuation of the 
 wall, and could at once perceive how Paul was let 
 down by a basket from just such a house as this, and 
 escaped from his enemies. It was my first visit to a 
 city so old as to be mentioned in the book of Genesis 
 
SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 321 
 
 — * The governor. 
 
 Story of the city. . , 
 
 and the Iliad of Homer. It was one of the bound- 
 aries of the Canaanites (Gen., x. 19), and though 
 given to Asher in the division of the promised land, 
 the Israelites never conquered it, nor its great rival 
 Tyre. Shalmenezer knocked at its gates, and enter- 
 ed it' in triumph seven hundred and twenty years be- 
 fore Christ, and the Assyrian and Persian ruled over 
 Phoenicia for four hundred years, when Artaxerxes 
 Ochus destroyed the city. Eebuilt, it was taken, 
 332 B.C., by Alexander the Great. But a greater than 
 these mighty men had been in "the coasts of Tyre 
 and Sidon ;" and after his coming and his death, the 
 successive armies of the Crusaders had marched along 
 under these walls and on this shore on their way to 
 the Holy City; and in a.d. 1111, King Baldwin I. 
 planted the banner of the Cross on its ramparts. Be- 
 fore that century closed the Moslem had it again ; but 
 Saladin, after laying it waste, left it an easy prey to 
 the Crusaders, and from that time onward it has passed 
 through the hands of various conquerors. It is now, 
 as is all this country, under the dominion of the Sul- 
 tan of Turkey, who appoints the governor; and I 
 learned that, for some years, the man who had held 
 -this office was one of the servants of Lady Esther 
 Stanhope, who robbed her of her money while she 
 was on her dying bed. 
 
 There are not more than six or seven thousand in- 
 habitants in Sidon now. Its commerce is small, the 
 chief exports being derived from the large and beauti- 
 ful gardens and orchards of oranges, pomegranates, 
 figs, almonds, etc., which adorn the environs of this 
 
 0* 
 
322 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 About the tovni. - Ladies on the wall. 
 
 old town. The harbor is a poor one, not accessible 
 for vessels of much draught of water. An ancient 
 castle on the sea dates in the time of the Crusaders ; 
 and other ruins carry us back to a period long before 
 their day. 
 
 It will be thought a weakness, but I could not sleep 
 for a long time after retiring to my pleasant chamber, 
 "the prophet's chamber on the wall." It was so 
 strange to be here, in the midst of such old memories, 
 that I lay awake to enjoy them instead of dreaming. 
 
 Jan. 10. I rose with the sun, and looked out on 
 the tents of my brethren who were already astir, 
 walking about Sidon and telling her towers. Mr. 
 Calhoun consented to join the party, and to accom- 
 pany us on our journey ; and to add to our enjoy- 
 ments still more, Mr. William Thompson, the son of 
 our host, mounted his horse, and, with his father's 
 blessing, became our fellow-traveller also. The fields 
 and gardens were green as in June this morning 
 when we started from Sidon. As we rode away from 
 the city, we looked back and saw Mrs. Thompson 
 and her daughter on the wall, to whom we waved a 
 distant farewell, and then rode on under long rows of 
 the tamarisk tree and groves of acacia. Half an 
 hour from Sidon we came upon a broken column with 
 a Latin inscription, recording the victories of Septimus 
 Severas, and a few sarcophagi were by the way, just 
 before we reached the dry bed of the river Sauik. 
 
 No sooner had we crossed it than we saw in the 
 distance the expected horde of robbers from Nablous, 
 who were reported to us as laying waste the country. 
 
SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 323 
 
 The robber horde. The Aga and officers. 
 
 The parties in advance were mostly on foot, with a 
 few mules and several camels, on which women were 
 mounted. A wild set of men they appeared to be, 
 and of as many colors as the troops we had on the 
 steamer from Smyrna. They gave us no friendly 
 salutations, but fired their guns over our heads to 
 frighten us, and went on in high glee, laughing and 
 shouting as if they were off on a frolic. Soon we met 
 the main body, three or four hundred, with banners 
 flying, and long spears, and Crescent standards glisten- 
 ing in the sun. They were in admirable disorder, 
 preserving only the appearance of being in ranks, but 
 all pressing on in hot haste. The Aga or captain, 
 handsomely dressed, was mounted on a splendid horse, 
 and saluted us with great politeness as we passed 
 him. His officers, also on horseback, spoke respect- 
 fully as we came to them ; but no sooner had they 
 gone by, than the rear of the army surrounded us, 
 the musicians struck up their harsh discords, and all 
 clamored vociferously for backshish. We were at 
 their mercy completely, and probably they would 
 have taken what we were unwilling to give, had not 
 the Aga fortunately looked behind, and seeing what 
 was in the wind, came thundering back with his 
 mounted officers on their flying steeds, and swinging 
 their battle-axes, and some of them drawing their 
 sabres, charged in upon their own soldiers and drove 
 them into the ranks, delivering us from their importu- 
 nities, which were becoming more pressing than was 
 agreeable. I told Antonio to give the musicians a few 
 piastres, as they had sought honestly to charm us out 
 
324 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The Flowery. Sarepta. 
 
 of our money ; and then we left them, glad to have got 
 by so well. Poor fellows ! In less than six months 
 the most of you will be rotting on the banks of the 
 Danube : few of you will ever go rioting along these 
 shores again. 
 
 Two hours from Sidon we crossed the river Zahe- 
 rany — "the Flowery," a stream that bursts suddenly 
 out of the mountains, and in ten miles of its course to 
 the sea falls three thousand feet. An ancient Roman 
 aqueduct conveyed the water from this river to Sidon, 
 thirteen miles, over hill and valley. The cement is at 
 this day as solid as the stone itself. 
 
 A large mound — the remains of ancient fortifica- 
 tions — stood near the sea, and when we had passed 
 we came to the wide-spread ruins of a town, where 
 literally not one stone had been left upon another. 
 Even the foundations had been dug over to get out 
 stone, that had been carried to Sidon. It is the 
 Zarephath of the Old Testament, the Sarepta of the 
 New, where Elijah dwelt with the widow whose flour 
 and oil never failed, and whose dead son the prophet 
 restored to life. His tomb is here, but there is no 
 evidence that he returned from heaven to be buried 
 in it. On the hill, at the left of us, is the modern 
 village of Surafend; and the site of the ancient city 
 of Sarepta is below. It is believed that, when our 
 Lord was in these borders, the Syro-Phcenician woman 
 of great faith came from Sarepta, out of whose daugh- 
 ter he cast the devil. 
 
 We turned off to the foot of the mountain, per- 
 haps a mile from the shore, and under the overhang- 
 
SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 325 
 
 Grotto. Tombs. Baal -worship. 
 
 ing rocks found a place to spread the table — that is, 
 to lay a cloth on the ground — and take our refresh- 
 ments at noon. Near by was a large grotto or cave, 
 in which two or three camels were feeding. It had 
 doubtless served as a stable from the earliest times. 
 We are in the midst of a mighty sepulchre ! The 
 whole hillside of projecting rocks is a place of tombs. 
 They are cut out of the solid limestone, with an en- 
 trance about three feet square. We stepped into 
 them, and found niches for the bodies, usually two 
 or three in each tomb. The stone doors which had 
 once swung in front had been removed. Before the 
 door of each was a slight excavation, as if it had been 
 made for a bed of flowers. At least five hundred of 
 these tombs were here. It is about halfway between 
 Tyre and Sidon, and may have been the cemetery of 
 one or the other, or both of these cities ; or what is 
 more likely, of some place between the two, that has 
 now disappeared. Around the point of the hill, and 
 on the southern side, a lofty precipice is morticed 
 with holes to receive the ends of timbers that once 
 supported a platform, on which assemblies have, 
 doubtless, been gathered in the worship of Baal ; for 
 here was one of his high places, as these cisterns 
 and altars, and pits to receive the blood that flowed 
 from their sacrifices, abundantly show. Some of the 
 excavations we can give no account of; but these 
 steps in the rock that lead up to the altars, and the 
 broken columns, and these Corinthian capitals that 
 are strewed around, assure us that here was once a 
 magnificent temple, in sight of the sea, the cities. 
 
326 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Ruins of temple. mils of Paleettee. 
 
 and the great Phoenician plain. After an hour's 
 clambering among these rocks, in and out of the 
 tombs, empty and furnishing nothing like an inscrip- 
 tion or sign of the men who made them, we resumed 
 our journey, and soon came upon the ruins of a tem- 
 ple where nine stones, like columns, are still stand- 
 ing erect, with confused heaps around them. The 
 plain we are now traversing is tilled, and crops of 
 barley and wheat are raised with remarkable success, 
 considering the miserable system of cultivation pur- 
 sued, and that no manure has been used for centuries. 
 
 A ruined khan was at the river Aswad, which we 
 crossed near the remains of an ancient Roman bridge 
 of a single arch, still firm, and likely to stand as long 
 as it has stood before. From this point we see, in the 
 far distance on our left, the summit of Mount Her- 
 mon, now clad with snow, as it is the whole of the 
 year. It is part of a range of hills, twenty-five 
 miles from the sea, and showing the loftiest pinnacles 
 in Syria. Lebanon's highest point is 9500 feet above 
 the sea. 
 
 Two hours this side of Tyre we cross the river 
 Leontes, which rises at Balbec, and, by a winding 
 course, finds its way into the Mediterranean at this 
 point. An old caravansary, with immense stones in 
 the wall over the door, would have furnished us quar- 
 ters for the night, if we had wished to stay ; but we 
 pressed on, and were soon in sight of the once mag- 
 nificent, now miserable city of Tyre. Twenty old 
 men, with white turbans on their heads, were sitting 
 at the gate, smoking and chatting, as we entered. 
 
SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 327 
 
 Elders at the gate. Tyre. 
 
 The long array of our party seemed to excite no curi- 
 osity ; they merely looked up, and let us pass with- 
 out a word. In all these Eastern cities we found this 
 practice of "the elders sitting at the gate," indicating 
 that they are men of some importance, not confined 
 to the drudgery of business, but taking their leisure, 
 and enjoying the cool of the day. Frequent allusion 
 is made to the custom in the Old Testament. A rab- 
 ble of men and boys in red caps were in the streets, 
 but they made way for our procession. We took our 
 course through the narrow and muddy channel in the 
 middle of the path, left in this state for the feet of 
 camels ; and we never paused in oiu- march till we 
 passed through the town to the sea-side, and there 
 pitched our tents. In the clear waters before us, lie 
 in full view great masses of broken columns and cap- 
 itals ! They have been lying there for many cen- 
 turies, silent and solemn witnesses of the former 
 grandeur of Tyre, that once sat in her pride upon the 
 sea. On this sand where we pitch our tents, and 
 where nets are spread to dry, were her palaces and 
 temples. This bay was once filled with the Tyrian 
 fleets; "her merchants were princes, and her traffick- 
 ers the honorable of the earth." But terribly has the 
 prophecy (Ezekiel, xxvi. 4, 5) been fulfilled ; and the 
 evidence is before our eyes. A part of the old wall 
 on the north side is still standing; and in it we ob- 
 served hewn stones twenty feet long and ten feet 
 thick — more stupendous, we believed, than could be 
 raised by any machinery now in use. We are now 
 on the extreme outward verge of a peninsula. This 
 
328 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 was an island on which ancient Tyre stood in her 
 magnificence and beauty. Alexander the Great con- 
 nected it by a causeway with the mainland, and 
 the sand has gradually accumulated on it till it is 
 about half a mile in width. Tyre now, undeserving 
 the name of a city, is nothing more than a mass of 
 hovels, one story high, with dirty, crooked streets, 
 and perhaps three thousand people in them. 
 
 We had time to visit the old church of Eusebius — 
 a mere ruin, one large arch at the eastern end of it 
 still remaining, and enough of the walls to mark the 
 dimensions of the building, which Robinson and 
 Smith suppose to have been 250 feet long by 150 
 wide. The vas|; columns of red Syenite lying around, 
 were evidences of the former magnificence of the ca- 
 thedral for which Eusebius wrote the sermon of Con- 
 secration, and which he describes as the most splen- 
 did of all the temples of Phoenicia. This was in the 
 beginning of the fourth century of the Christian era. 
 
 The Consul, Yahab Akad, hearing of our arrival, 
 called to pay his respects, and invited us to find lodg- 
 ings at his house ; but we had made provision already 
 under our own tents, and declined his hospitality ; and 
 few would believe that we were in want of any man's 
 hospitality, if they saw the dinner that Achmet had 
 provided. It was ready when we returned from sur- 
 veying the city, and I subjoin the bill of fare, with the 
 remark that it was no better than on other days, and 
 left us no room or right to complain. We had soup, 
 of course, and then, in course, boiled chickens, boiled 
 mutton, ham, cauliflower, salad, and eggs ; pudding, 
 
SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 329 
 
 Tent life. Midnight alarm. 
 
 figs, nuts, oranges, and a cup of tea or coffee. This 
 was our usual variety, with such changes as the mar- 
 kets in mud villages and no villages afforded. 
 
 This was to be my first night in a tent. Warm as 
 the day had been, the winter nights were cold, and I 
 expected to suffer some, sleeping as we did on the 
 sea-coast, and in the midst of a high wind. Each ot 
 us had an iron "bedstead and mattress, with sheets and 
 "blankets ; and four of the cots just made the circuit 
 of the tent, while the dinner-table — two boards laid 
 across the portable legs — occupied the centre; and 
 when this was cleared away, we had room for two 
 more beds, so that six of us could sleep comfortably 
 within the same curtains. The servants occupied 
 another tent near to ours. I turned in before mid- 
 night, having many misgivings that the novelty of 
 the circumstances would drive away sleep. The wind 
 blew in upon me, and fearful of taking cold, I put up 
 my umbrella, resting the handle of it under my chin, 
 and thus fell quietly into the arms of the celebrated 
 restorer of tired nature. How long I slept I know 
 not, but was roused by terrific yells, as if an army 
 of Indians was at hand. It proved to be more of the 
 Nablous people on their way north, who arrived in 
 the night, and were hastened on board a vessel in the 
 harbor. This over, and it lasted an hour or more, I 
 slept again, and heard no more till morning. 
 
 Early in the morning the tent was struck while we 
 were at the breakfast-table, and we finished our re- 
 past in the chill air. The natives were around us in 
 great numbers, and Antonio kept a bright look out on 
 
330 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Sore eyes. "Wonderful fountains. 
 
 tliem, lest they should make off with some of the 
 "plunder" which was lying about while the morning 
 exercises of packing were going on. Many of the 
 children had sore eyes. After our attention was 
 turned to the fact, we counted sixty who were thus 
 diseased. Outside of the walls we stopped at a fount- 
 ain, where the women of the city were drawing water, 
 and carrying it away in pitchers on their heads. After 
 they had given water to our cattle in primitive style, 
 we were ready for a day's ride, and following the 
 shore of the bay, we rode on in sight of the noble aque^ 
 duct by which the city was formerly supplied. In 
 the course of an hour we reached Ras-el-Ain, or 
 Fountain-head. Three or four large fountains of wa- 
 ter, like immense living reservoirs, are here gushing 
 up near to the sea-shore, and on the summit of a 
 mound raised considerably above all the surrounding 
 country. One of these lakes is a hundred feet across, 
 and the other two are nearly as large. They are the 
 most remarkable fountains in the world, and must 
 be supplied by a subterranean river, that finds its out- 
 let here. Carefully guarded by solid mason-work em- 
 bankments, the water is carried off by aqueducts to 
 irrigate the fields, and in times past it has been con- 
 veyed to the city of Tyre. This old aqueduct is now 
 covered with vines, and the lime in the water, where it 
 has leaked through or run over, has formed great stal- 
 actites, presenting a singular combination of natural 
 beauty with the remains of ancient art. From this 
 spot we could look back on Tyre, which had been 
 supplied from these ever-gushing fountains, and think 
 
SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 331 
 
 Sick camels. Scandarnru. 
 
 of the wonderful changes that have taken place since 
 she was the mistress of commerce, and held in her 
 hands the keys of the world. How fallen ! Is that 
 Tyre, where Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander the Great, 
 and Greeks and Romans, have reveled in the pride of 
 their power ? So passes away the glory of man. 
 
 The Album Promontorium — the White Promontory 
 — jutting into the sea, a precipitous bluff, is to Tbe 
 crossed by steps cut out of the white rock, and -often 
 very near to the edge of the cliff, which is guarded by 
 a wall to keep the traveller from falling into the deep. 
 On the Scala — the stairs we were ascending — we 
 found two sick camels, deserted by the Nablous tribe, 
 and left here to die. The ruins of Scandarum lie in 
 our way after descending this ridge. We stopped at 
 a fountain, over which is an ancient wall and arch, 
 forming part of an aqueduct, from which immense 
 stalactites, at least eight feet long, were depending. 
 Ages would seem to be required to form them. Other 
 walls and broken masses are scattered thickly about 
 us, marking the site of a city of no small importance 
 in former times. So complete is the desolation, so 
 forsaken of man and apparently of God does the 
 whole region appear, it requires a strong act of faith 
 to believe that wealth and luxury have once been in 
 all their pomp and pride where now not even a bat or 
 an owl resides. 
 
 Off on the hill to the left of us stands a single col- 
 lumn crowned with a capital — the solitary fragment 
 of some temple that once stood on that commanding 
 site. The village of Nakurah is the next that we 
 
332 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 View of the Holy Land. Bad reports. 
 
 pass ; and now we come to the tomb of Helena, and 
 Antonio amuses us with the echo that returns from 
 the blank walls of the square, brick, tower-like build- 
 ing. We ascend the heights of Nakurah, and our 
 whole party, on horseback, form side by side in a 
 line, while Mr. Calhoun, who has often been over this 
 ground, calls our attention to the salient points of 
 contemplation in the wide-spread prospect. We are 
 looking down on the ancient Megiddo, and over a long 
 stretch of country that falls off into the plain of Es- 
 draelon. That ridge at the south, toward which we 
 are now journeying, is Mount Carmel, with its con- 
 vent on the western extremity, near the sea. That 
 blue dome away in the east is one of the mountains 
 beyond Jordan, and here are the hills of Galilee and 
 Samaria, and the Holy Land is before us, opening 
 to our eyes from the north as clearly and as invit- 
 ingly as to Moses when he went up to the top of 
 Nebo. We did not know at that moment how God 
 was saying to us as he did to Moses, " Thou shaft 
 see the land before thee, but thou shalt not go thither." 
 We descended into the plain and met a party of 
 Arabs, with camels, on their way to Tyre. They 
 told us that the country beyond Acre was in an un- 
 settled state, the Bedouins having come over the Jor- 
 dan and spread terror among the villages. They ad- 
 vised us not to travel into the interior, but to keep 
 along the coasts. We passed Zib, or Aczib, an old 
 town by the sea, a few palm-trees and miserable hovels 
 marking the site of an ancient city of renown, and one 
 boundary of the tribe of Asher. Still farther on we 
 
SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 333 
 
 Gardens of the Pasha. Musing. 
 
 found more of the evidence of civilization than we had 
 seen to-day, in the villa and gardens which Ibrahim 
 Pasha had here prepared for a summer retreat. At 
 great cost, to irrigate his grounds, he had caused to 
 he reared a splendid aqueduct on high and beautiful 
 arches, spanning a long reach of country, while the rows 
 of cypress and groves of orange in full bearing, luscious 
 to look at, and loading the air with their perfume, com- 
 pleted a picture that was refreshing after the desolation 
 that we had been travelling over during the day. 
 
 Our muleteers had gone ahead with the luggage, 
 and we gave them orders to halt a couple of hours 
 beyond, and be ready for our coming. Acre, famous 
 in ancient and modern times for its fortifications and 
 repeated sieges, was our destination for the day ; but 
 it was doubtful whether we could reach it before sun- 
 set, when the gates would be closed. Antonio and 
 young Thompson, being better mounted than any of 
 us, were dispatched to make all haste to the town to 
 learn what they could of the Consul concerning the 
 state of the country, and to bring us word to our en- 
 campment, a couple of miles out of the walls. The 
 rest of us rode leisurely on in the setting sun, speak- 
 ing of the wonderful fact that the man Christ Jesus 
 should come into the world, and make this little coun- 
 try in the East the scene of his labors, and here, in 
 this comparatively obscure and unimportant part of 
 the world, give utterance to those simple yet sublime 
 truths that have been working their way steadily on- 
 ward, ever since, over the whole earth, exalting other 
 lands to the loftiest pinnacle of human prosperity and 
 
334 EUEOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Lose our way. Hovels of the poor. 
 
 glory, while this, the first recipient of that truth, 
 has become as the basest of kingdoms. The bread 
 of the children has been given to the dogs. The 
 children have perished, and the Gentiles are blessed. 
 The sun was gone, and the twilight soon disap- 
 peared, and the darkness was around us, before we 
 knew that we had lost sight of our muleteers, who 
 should have pitched the tents on the plain we are 
 crossing. We pushed on rapidly till we came to the 
 road that turns off to Acre, and were then sure that 
 we had lost them. We were too late to get into the 
 town, and without shelter for the night. We shouted 
 at the top of our voices, and Achmet heard us not, 
 and no response from Habib came to our relief. In 
 the distance we could hear the barking of dogs, and 
 thinking they would be near some human habitations, 
 we put off for them. Following the sound, we were 
 not displeased when we found them, though the dogs 
 set upon us furiously. A few wretched hovels were 
 there, in the midst of some olive-trees, and we made 
 up to the only light we could see. The house had 
 but one small room in it ; and there, on the ground, 
 was the family, herding with their donkeys, and, of 
 course, with fleas and vermin that make a Christian 
 man sick to think of. We had been in the saddle for 
 twelve hours, and were scarce able to sit much longer, 
 but we preferred to ride twelve more to encountering 
 the perils of such a shelter. The old man who came 
 to the door at our call could give us no account of the 
 mules, but we learned from him that we were not far 
 from a famous khan Abdullah Pasha had erected. 
 
SYEIA AND PALESTINE. 335 
 
 Place of joy. Oriental tavern. 
 
 Our men had probably found it, and turned in there 
 for the night. The Mian was situated at a place 
 called Behjeh, which, being interpreted, is a "place 
 of joy," and such it proved to us, for in fifteen min- 
 utes after hearing of it, we galloped over the plain, 
 dashed into a large inclosure and through an open 
 portal into a court a hundred feet square, in the midst 
 of which was a noble fountain, and by its side our 
 beautiful tent already pitched, and the dinner over 
 the fire in front of the door ! Habib was as delighted 
 to see us as if we had been delivered from the dead. 
 He and Achmet had been despairing of our safety, for 
 they knew we must have passed them, but how we 
 should find out our mistake and return, they could 
 not imagine. 
 
 This is an Oriental tavern we are in now. The 
 hotel business is not conducted in this country on 
 the commercial principles of the West. Some rich 
 man, desiring to do a good deed to his fellow-men and 
 especially to the stranger, devotes a portion of his 
 money to the erection of such a building as this. A 
 row of apartments one story high surrounds a quad- 
 rangle. They are divided into numerous small rooms, 
 some for the beasts and some for the men, but they 
 are all alike, and might be occupied in common with- 
 out doing violence to the prejudices or tastes of the 
 people or the cattle. A passing caravan may turn in 
 and spend the night here, making use of the shelter 
 without charge. Indeed there is no one to " keep the 
 house," unless some man chooses to run his chance of 
 selling food for the men or beasts; but the most of 
 
336 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Too many cooks. Visit to Acre. 
 
 travellers take these witli them, and do not depend on 
 the khan for supplies. 
 
 We were desperately hungry as well as tired with 
 this extra long day's ride, and I took hold to assist in 
 roasting the chickens and making the soup. Proba- 
 bly Achmet thought that too many cooks spoil the 
 broth, for he evidently did not appreciate my services, 
 or was afraid that he would lose part of the glory, if 
 the dinner proved to be, what indeed it was, a great 
 success. As soon as I perceived the unpleasant 
 emotions my interference with his prerogatives was 
 awakening, I desisted with the utmost cheerfulness, 
 and patiently waited till his agony was over and 
 dinner was served. It was eaten with such an appe- 
 tite and a relish as no tongue that has not tasted can 
 tell. But where are the delegates we had dispatched 
 to Acre ? Bedtime came early, but they came neither 
 early nor late. Our snug little beds invited us to re- 
 pose, and nothing loth we turned in, after our good 
 friend Calhoun had commended us to the care of a 
 better friend on high. 
 
 Jan. 13. With the early morning Mr. Thompson 
 and Antonio returned. They had reached the city 
 before sundown, but the gates were shut ere they 
 had completed their business, so that they could not 
 get out. The Consul had entertained them hospit- 
 ably, and with the first light they had come to relieve 
 our anxieties. Immediately after breakfast we mount- 
 ed and rode over the plain two miles to the city, and 
 by the mound of Richard Cceur de Lion. The Consul, 
 G. Jemmal, met us. He rode a beautiful Arab mare 
 
SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 337 
 
 Work of ruin. Farming in Palestine. 
 
 that curveted around us with the playfulness of a 
 cat, and seemed to be proud of displaying her limbs 
 and fleetness. He led us through the gate and by 
 the narrow, dirty streets to the massive fortifications 
 on the land side and the sea. Although the works 
 have been repaired since the British bombardment in 
 1840, we can see on all sides of us the evidences of 
 the cruel ravages of war in the shattered walls of 
 houses and broken towers. The modern history of 
 Acre is familiar, and its ancient story runs back 
 through the fortunes of Napoleon and to the Crusad- 
 ers, and then away into the wars of the Canaanites, 
 who never yielded this stronghold to the tribe of 
 Asher, within whose lot it fell. 
 
 This day's journey was even more interesting than 
 any that had preceded it. Our ride was at first across 
 the plain, with Che Carmel ridge on our right and 
 mountains of Galilee in front. Often would we start 
 up the fleet and beautiful gazelles, who bounded away 
 with almost the swiftness of birds ; and we had no 
 idea of making fools of ourselves, as some travellers 
 have done, by giving them chase. Now and then we 
 passed a shepherd with a flock of poor sheep, or a 
 plowman with his team of two oxen, one in front of 
 the other, dragging the rude plow through the earth, 
 the surface of which was only scratched by the oper- 
 ation. Our path led us over a hill country, that was 
 covered with a low growth of scrub oak ; and An- 
 tonio remembered it as the spot where he was seized, 
 when a boy, by a party of Bedouin Arabs, and carried 
 into captivity, from which he fortunately escaped after 
 Vol. IL—P 
 
338 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Agriculture. Cana of Galilee. 
 
 two or three years' servitude. I afterward had reason 
 to know that he had great apprehensions of falling 
 again into their hands. Over this hill, we came into 
 another and a fertile plain, where the peasant people 
 were at their work plowing and sowing. But in the 
 wretched condition 'of their agricultural implements, 
 they can do but little toward deriving what they 
 ought from the land, which, under proper cultivation, 
 might "be made to yield a support for a vastly greater 
 population than now possess it. We passed two or 
 three villages on this lovely plain, wretched hovels, 
 where the inhabitants seemed to be scarcely above 
 the beasts that were among them ; and when we had 
 rode for an hour or more beyond any human habita- 
 tion, we met two men and a woman trudging along 
 by the side of two loaded donkeys. We asked them, 
 Where is Cana? At first they answered promptly, 
 they did not know of any such place. We found, as 
 other travellers have recorded, that these people are 
 afraid that strangers are seeking their villages with 
 hostile intentions, and they try to deceive them when- 
 ever they ask for information. I doubt if they were 
 disposed to lead us astray, for we soon learned from 
 them the course in which it lay; and others, whom 
 we met shortly afterward, gave us the directions, and 
 we soon came out upon the charming plain of Safura. 
 On our right is the Dio Ca?sarea of Josephus, an im- 
 posing village, crowning the summit of the hill ; and 
 on the left, at the foot of the mountain as it slopes 
 gradually to the plain, is Cana of Galilee — the scene 
 of our Lord's first miracle. Just across the range of 
 
SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 339 
 
 "Walks of the Saviour. Lovely vale. 
 
 hills in front of us is Nazareth ; and we can perceive 
 how naturally the Saviour would walk over in two 
 hours to this village to attend the marriage of a friend. 
 Not a human being is there now. The scattered rem- 
 nants of the buildings that once stood here — perhaps 
 the same stones that made the house in which the 
 water was made wine — are in confused heaps, an utter 
 ruin. We asked an old Arab whom we met what 
 place it was, and he answered Ka-nah. 
 
 In full view of this interesting sight, but on the 
 other side of the plain, near the ruins of a khan, we 
 spread our mats to lunch ; for here was a well, and 
 we had rode long without finding water for our beasts. 
 This is called the " Well of the Bedouin Woman." 
 Here we observed the many-colored soils of Palestine 
 — red, brown, and whitish, side by side, and as dis- 
 tinctly marked in their division as if crops of various 
 grains were growing on them. As we lay on our 
 mats I strove to imprint the scenery of this lovely 
 vale upon my mind for a pleasant memory. Its 
 beauty, at first view, had made me break out in ex- 
 clamations of delight ; and the truthfulness of Hebrew 
 poetry, in which this scenery of the Holy Land has 
 been celebrated, was exceedingly impressive. The 
 range of hills at the northeast lie between us and the 
 Sea of Tiberias. Capernaum was just over there, 
 where the mightiest of the Saviour's works were done. 
 We are now in the tribe of Zebulon, and at the head 
 of the valley is Napthali. We mount again and climb 
 the steep hill on which is the village of Safura, and 
 along the ruins of an ancient church, through wretched 
 
340 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Mary's native village. Childhood of the Saviour. 
 
 streets, sometimes so narrow that the mules with 
 their loads on their backs could not get along, and 
 we had to search for wider paths for their passage. 
 The inhabitants, on the tops of the low hovels, watch- 
 ed us suspiciously, and now and then threw stones at 
 us after we had gone by. We were not sorry to get 
 out of the town, that has no other claim to our in- 
 terest than its traditionary reputation of being the 
 residence of the mother of the Virgin, whose concep- 
 tion without the taint of sin has been incorporated 
 into the faith of the Romish Church. Emerging 
 from the village, we come out on the eastern side of 
 it into a valley strewed with the skeletons of dead 
 animals — a little Jehoshaphat that we hastened to get 
 away from, the stench and the sight being equally 
 disgusting. An hour or two more, and we were on 
 the hills that surround the city of Nazareth. We 
 followed a winding, but pleasant path, over which 
 the Lord of Glory had often walked in the season of 
 his youth as well as in later years. In the hollow, 
 and on the slope of the hill at the west — for we had 
 come around the town before we could look down 
 upon it, lay the city of Nazareth ! A secluded place ; 
 the vale is not half a mile across, and the horizon is 
 completely bounded by these hills. In this city our 
 Lord spent all the early years of his life — silent and 
 sad, the only man of virtue in this wicked place. 
 Often has he stood — a boy, a youth, a man — where 
 I now stand, and looked off upon that great plain 
 and those sacred mountains that rise around us. 
 This was not the scene of his glory, but of his secret 
 
SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 341 
 
 Nazareth. The Hospice. 
 
 preparation for his glorious work. And if we were 
 affected powerfully by treading in the footprints of 
 Socrates and Plato, how much more when we knew 
 that a greater than either of them, even the Son of 
 God, had often been here. 
 
 We rode down the hill and up a little way on the 
 other side. As we approached the city we passed a 
 fountain, and a host of ragged boys and girls about it, 
 near the Greek Catholic church, erected on the spot 
 where it is said the angel Gabriel announced to the 
 Virgin Mary that she should bear a son. A dozen 
 old men were sitting at the gate of the town as we 
 entered, and they kindly pointed out the way we 
 should take to find the lodgings which a servant 
 whom we had sent before us had engaged. We pass- 
 ed on through the winding streets till we reached the 
 Latin convent, on the spot where Joseph and Mary 
 lived. Attached to it is a Hospice, or hotel for pil- 
 grims. We entered the stone doorway into a paved 
 court, and passed up stairs to- a large chamber, fur- 
 nished with divans across both ends of it, and a table 
 running the whole length. In a few minutes one of 
 the monks appeared, welcomed us with politeness, and 
 proceeded at once to arrange rooms for our accommo- 
 dation, while our own servants set about preparation 
 for dinner. A notice, posted on the wall, informed us 
 that pilgrims, on their way to the Holy City, were 
 allowed to stay for three days, without charge, in 
 these comfortable quarters — paying only whatever it 
 might please them to give. A limit to the time al- 
 lowed was very wisely assigned ; for the quietness and 
 
342 III 1 P E A N D T 1 1 E E A S T. 
 
 Prophet's chamber. Arabs listening. 
 
 comfort with which they were surrounded might tempt 
 many to remain longer than was desirable for them- 
 selves or their host. In the evening Mr. Calhoun and 
 I walked out to find the missionaries of the Church 
 of England, who are laboring in Nazareth. The head 
 of the mission, an English clergyman, was absent, but 
 we found where his two German assistants were dwell- 
 ing. We ascended a flight of stairs on the outside of 
 a one-story stone building, and on the roof was a 
 prophet's chamber, in which they were lodged. How 
 richly primitive was this ! They were not at home ; 
 but we learned that they were meeting some of the 
 natives for religious instruction in a house not far off. 
 We crawled through a low stone doorway into a court- 
 yard, and entered a small, dirty, smoky apartment, 
 where eight or ten filthy Arabs were sitting on the 
 floor, with their teachers in the midst of them. A 
 cup of oil, having a wick hanging over the side, was 
 the lamp with which this gloomy room was partially 
 lighted. A pan of coals stood in the middle of the 
 apartment ; there was no chair or table of any sort in 
 the house. Yet in this disagreeable place we found 
 these devoted men engaged in giving instructions to 
 these inquiring Arabs, whose whole appearance indi- 
 cated exceeding interest in the subjects to which their 
 attention was turned. When these good Germans 
 understood who we were, they desired Mr. Calhoun 
 to address the natives in some words of religious in- 
 struction, which he delivered with much feeling, and 
 which they seemed to understand and appreciate. 
 One of these Germans, Mr. Hooper, had recently 
 
SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 343 
 
 Poor team. Dangers ahead. 
 
 come to Palestine, and had brought out with him, from 
 England, various agricultural implements, and among 
 others some American and English plows, designing 
 to introduce among the people, as soon as possible, 
 some improvements in agriculture, and in other useful 
 arts. He told me it was impossible for him to find a 
 joke of oxen strong enough to draw one of these plows 
 through the light soil of that country. 
 
 With many strange emotions w T e walked by moon- 
 light through the narrow streets of this ancient city, 
 on our way to our lodgings passing the shop that is 
 still pointed out as the one in which our Lord worked 
 at the trade of a carpenter, while he dwelt in Nazareth. 
 When we returned to the Hospice, we found the Con- 
 sular Agent, Saleh Saely, who had called to pay 
 his respects, having heard of our arrival. He had 
 also received intelligence of the ravages which the 
 Bedouins were making among the villages on our 
 way, and he strenuously resisted the idea of our go- 
 ing forward. If we ventured it, however, he advised 
 us to employ a guard of armed men. To this we con- 
 sented. He agreed to find those whom he could en- 
 dorse as reliable, and to have them on the ground in 
 the morning. This arrangement completed, we re- 
 tired to our bedchamber in the convent. It was well 
 furnished with large iron bedsteads, and abundant 
 clothing — better, we well knew, than any one our 
 Lord slept in during the many years he was a dweller 
 in Nazareth ; and better, Mr. Calhoun assured me, 
 than any one he had ever slept in while in Syria. 
 
 January 13. We rose early in the morning, and 
 
344 E UROPE AND T J I K E A s T. 
 
 ilonks iu chapel. The convent. 
 
 visited the chapel of the Latin convent, to which is 
 attached the Hospice in which we had been lodged. 
 We found the monks and the people engaged at their 
 morning devotions, in a chapel under ground, the latter 
 being upon the spot where the Romanists insist that 
 the Annunciation was made by Gabriel to the Virgin 
 Mary. Thus the Greeks at one end of the town, and 
 the Latins at the other, claim tlteir respective places as 
 the veritable sites of this event. One of the monks led 
 us along amidst massive stone walls and through cold 
 halls, showing us the extensive apartments and vari- 
 ous relics which had been gathered in this sacred 
 place. , 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 LAND OF PALESTINE. 
 
 Civil War breaks out — Bedouins from beyond Jordan — Guards em- 
 ployed — Leaving Nazareth — Looking on the Plain of Esdraelon 
 — Scripture History — Scenes on the Plain — Party of Bedouins — 
 Fulah — Jezreel and Shunem — Gilboa — Saul and Jonathan — A 
 new Guide — Invited — Cross the Kishon — Women at the Fount- 
 ain — Berkeen — Wretchedness of People — Sleeping with a Horse 
 — Quarrel with our Host — Swearing a Debt — Villages — Plain of 
 Dothan — Joseph's Pit — Samaria — Nablous. 
 
 In the morning we held a council of war. Further 
 intelligence had been received of the disturbed state 
 of the country. It was now definitely known that a 
 civil war had broken out in Palestine : two families, 
 long hostile, had seized the present as a favorable mo- 
 ment to revive an ancient feud, and to fight it out 
 when the government has higher aims than the set- 
 tlement of a petty quarrel between rival chieftains of 
 barbarous tribes. They had called upon the Bed- 
 ouins over the Jordan to give them their bloody aid; 
 and these men, the terror of the mountain, the desert, 
 and the plain, were haunting the roads, plundering 
 the traveller, burning villages, murdering men and 
 women, and filling the land with confusion and dis- 
 may. To return was dangerous ; but we were as- 
 sured we might pursue our journey two days farther, 
 to Nablous, without much apprehension, as the Bed- 
 
346 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Another start. The departure. 
 
 ouins were chiefly "beyond. It would be wise to take 
 an escort of two or three armed men, whose presence 
 would prevent an attack, although it would be impos- 
 sible to resist effectually in case we encountered a large 
 body of the robbers. Yielding to this counsel, we en- 
 gaged two men who had often acted as guards for trav- 
 elling parties, one of them a sheikh of decided char- 
 acter, who agreed to conduct us safely to Jerusalem. 
 
 It was a fan, bright, winter morning, and as de- 
 lightful weather for travelling as could be desired. 
 With varied feelings, yet all of them exciting and 
 intensely interesting, we mounted our horses in front 
 of the convent, and prepared to take our departure 
 -from Nazareth. A great crowd of the inhabitants as- 
 sembled, curious to see a party of strangers, and 
 many of them begging for backshish, the universal 
 cry of the east. The monks wished us a good jour- 
 ney, and the boys cheered us as we set off; but the 
 Consul, who had expressed great anxiety for our 
 safety, bade us adieu with much reluctance, and fear, 
 rather than hope, was expressed in his face. A cara- 
 van of twenty camels was coming in, as we rode out, 
 by a broad, smooth path toward the plain. At a gush- 
 ing fountain by the wayside, we gathered the whole 
 party, and watered our cattle, counting up our num- 
 bers, and calculating the chances of making a successful 
 journey. Ascending the hills that surround the town, 
 after following a pass for some distance to the south, 
 we stood upon a height that commanded a wide and 
 magnificent view of the great battle-plain of Esdrae- 
 lon. This precipice has been called the Mount of 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 347 
 
 View of the plain. Battle-fields. 
 
 Precipitation, as it' it were the height from which the 
 men of Nazareth sought to hurl the Son of God. But 
 it is too far from the city, and we place no faith on 
 the tradition that identifies it. But look off on this 
 glorious prospect. Mount Carmel stretches to the 
 sea on our right, Mount Tabor rises dome-like on our 
 left, Gilboa and the lesser Hermon are before us ; 
 and such a throng of scriptural and sacred associa- 
 tions come on the soul, as no spot of earth on which 
 I had ever stood could awaken and gather. This plain 
 is famous in the story of Elijah and Elisha; of Debo- 
 rah and Barak, and Sisera fleeing before them with 
 his chariots of iron ; of Saul and Jonathan slain on 
 the high places of Israel, in sight of us ; of the Shu- 
 namite mother and her dead boy revived ; of Jezreel 
 and Jezebel ; and the vineyard of Naboth ; and a host 
 of persons and scenes in ancient, and even in modem 
 history; for here Napoleon fought a pitched battle 
 with the Mamelukes. We can see the village of 
 Endor, whence came the witch to meet Saul; and 
 Nain, where the Saviour raised from his bier and 
 gave back to his mother the dead son of the widow. 
 A hundred passages of sacred story are made palpa- 
 ble, as we observe the location of these villages, and 
 the mountains, and see the routes by which the old 
 prophets made their journeys, and the walks of the 
 Saviour when he dwelt among men, and went about 
 doing good. We descend into the plain, where the 
 people are plowing, in their wretched way, the light 
 soil. No fences divide this wide level into farms ; 
 and we can not discover any marks by which one 
 
348 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Bedouins about JezreeL 
 
 man's portion is distinguished from another. The 
 path is straight, and leads us on, horn- after hour, 
 with little or nothing of incident to diversify the day. 
 A fierce-looking Koord, well mounted and armed, 
 came up to us, and offered to join us, as an additional 
 guard, for a small consideration ; and we enrolled 
 him in the corps. He soon had an opportunity of 
 displaying his courage with the rest of our brave sol- 
 diers. About noon we espied in the east, at the dis- 
 tance of a mile, a party of eight or ten Bedouins, rid- 
 ing in single file, and coming toward us. They rode 
 up to a mound on which were the ruins of the ancient 
 village of Fulah, and there, at a respectful distance, 
 reconnoitred us ; but our spy-glass gave us the ad- 
 vantage of them in this operation. With their long 
 spears glittering in the sun, and their guns swung 
 over their shoulders, they were formidable in appear- 
 ance ; but our party, now seventeen in number, with 
 more than twenty horses and mules, was not to be at- 
 tacked without danger, and they did not come near. 
 The guards, Arab-like, displayed their courage and 
 horsemanship by cutting great circles around us on 
 the plain, leveling their guns at us while at full 
 speed, and showing off to the hovering enemy what 
 antagonists they might expect if they left their lurk- 
 ing-place. 
 
 At our left, and not far from the route we are tak- 
 ing, in full sight is Zerin, the ancient Jezreel, with its 
 square tower, from which our friends Drs. Robinson 
 and Smith surveyed the plain. Here Ahab and Jez- 
 ebel had a summer palace, and Naboth had his vine- 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 349 
 
 The prophet. Saul and Jonathan. 
 
 yard which Ahab coveted. We are looking on the 
 scene of Jezebel's massacre, and mark the way by 
 which Jehu came to do his work of judgment. A 
 wide vale lies between Jezreel and the site of Shunem, 
 from which a view is had of the plain away to Mount 
 Carmel ; and we observe the course which the Shu- 
 namite mother took when she rode thither in all haste 
 to summon the prophet Elisha, on the death of her 
 son. What a simple and living reality is imparted to 
 the story when we read it in sight of the mount and 
 the village, on the plain where the reapers were at 
 work, where the boy complained of pain in his head — 
 "My head! my head!" and was carried home to his 
 mother. We are now riding along the foot of G ilboa, 
 and must be near the fountain where Saul and Jona- 
 than pitched their tents on the eve of their last battle, 
 while David was hovering around them. And as we 
 looked upward to the hillside where the king of Israel 
 and his sons were slain, we read the words of lament- 
 ation — " The beauty of Israel is slain upon the high 
 places : how are the mighty fallen ! Tell it not in 
 Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon ; lest 
 the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daugh- 
 ters of the uncircumcised triumph. Ye mountains of 
 Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain, 
 upon you, nor fields of offerings : for there the shield 
 of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, 
 as though he had not been anointed with oil." "Saul 
 and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, 
 and in their death they were not divided : they were 
 swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions." 
 
350 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 A new comer. Crossing the Kishon. 
 
 We were noAV approaching the southern side of the 
 plain, which is about eighteen miles across, and were 
 directing our course to the village of Jenin, where 
 travellers usually find quarters for the night. As we 
 approached the village of Mukeibeleh the people, in 
 rags and dirt, a sorry looking set as one would wish 
 to meet, came out to see us. A wild Arab young 
 man on horseback came dashing by the village, and 
 reined up in the midst of our muleteers. He had a 
 loose aba or cloak around him, confined with a girdle, 
 and a fez on his head, with so many rags in his clothes, 
 and such a crazy look in his eyes, that we were far 
 from thinking him a valuable acquisition to our socie- 
 ty. He soon learned that we were going to Jenin, 
 and immediately invited us to change our route and 
 go with him to Berkeen, a village where the inhabit- 
 ants, he said, are Catholic Christians, and his father is 
 priest. At Jenin they are all Mohammedans, and 
 now, excited by the breaking out of the war, it would 
 be unsafe for us to lodge there. It seemed to us that 
 we should be quite as likely to be taken in by this 
 story as by the people of Jenin, but as the course he 
 proposed would give us a route onward rarely trav- 
 ersed, we gave heed to his counsel, and kept to the 
 westward for half an hour, and then crossed the river 
 Kishon. This ancient river, famous in the history 
 and poetry of the Scriptures, which fought against 
 Sisera and his host in the battle of Deborah and Barak, 
 was here so shallow that we forded it without any diffi- 
 culty. One of our mules played us a trick not un- 
 usual with these provoking beasts, and actually took 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 351 
 
 A lazy mule. Fountain and village. 
 
 the liberty of lying down in the middle of the stream. 
 It happened that this animal was loaded with our 
 travelling kitchen and hardware furniture, which did 
 not suffer from the wetting as other baggage would 
 have done. It was no small trouble to get him up, 
 and out of the water in which heroes had perished be- 
 fore him. This celebrated stream has its source, I 
 was told, in a fountain near Jenin, and is dry during 
 a part of the year, so much of the water is led off 
 from the fountain to irrigate the plain. No sooner 
 were we on the other side of the Kishon, than we 
 were led by our new guide through groves of olives, 
 and up from the plain of Esdraelon into a gorge of the 
 mountain. Following a stony and very winding way 
 for an hour, we pushed on, overtaking the people who 
 were returning from -their day of labor on the plain 
 below. We came to a fountain far down in a vast 
 excavated limestone rock. The women were gather- 
 ing around it at even-tide, bringing their water-pitch- 
 ers on their heads, and stepping down to the water, 
 filled them and carried them away in the same primi- 
 tive fashion. I was carried back to New Testament 
 times, as these Oriental scenes passed before me. 
 On the top of the hill at whose base was this fountain, 
 was a miserable village of perhaps fifty or sixty 
 houses. Asaad, our Arab guide, had rode on in ad- 
 vance to prepare for our coming, and the ragged vil- 
 lagers were out in full costume to meet us. The 
 children were perched on the roofs of the low rude 
 hovels, a picturesque group of nearly naked boys and 
 girls, not half covered with a single garment. And a 
 
352 EUEOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Daughters of Judea. Sleeping with a horse. 
 
 woman crept up out of a door not three feet high, and 
 stood before us with only a single garment on her, and 
 that so loosely hung, that she was more naked than 
 clothed. Daughters of Judea, have ye come to this ? 
 Asaad had secured for us the best house in the 
 village: he said it belonged to his father. It was 
 cleared of whatever furniture it might have had, and 
 put at our service. It stood in a yard that was used 
 by night for the cattle, and was in a more filthy con- 
 dition than would be the yard to any decent man's 
 barn in our country. The house had but one room 
 in it, about twenty feet square. The half of it was 
 covered with a floor of cement, on which the family 
 dwelt, while the other half was appropriated to the 
 use of cattle when they were housed. It was the 
 forlornest place that I had ever entered to lodge in. 
 On the cemented part of the floor we arranged our 
 six narrow beds, just covering the whole space. All 
 the horses but one were accommodated in the yard. 
 Mr. Thompson's pony, being uneasy, insisted upon 
 occupying with us the only room we had, and we 
 yielded to the importunities of the beast and took 
 him in. Being established for the night, we strolled 
 among these people. They appeared to be wretch- 
 edly poor, and to have nothing to do. The children, 
 by scores, were at play ; the boys and girls in separ- 
 ate parties. I called some of them to me. The girls 
 were partially covered with dirty garments ; their nails 
 stained of a dark color, and their arms and faces 
 marked with a kind of tattoo. Some had bracelets of 
 brass, and beads on their arms ; and their heads were 
 
LAND OF J'ALESTIN E. 353 
 
 Wretched race. Table in the stable. 
 
 surrounded with ornaments of tin, or brass pieces, put 
 together like a string of coins. One had a brass but- 
 ton sticking to the side of her nose. They laughed, 
 and giggled, and ran off, half foolish and half wild, 
 with a vacant expression, like simple natives of a 
 country in which a stranger, for the first time, ap- 
 peared. 
 
 Into the yard of our house, at evening, came the 
 horses and cows, and goats and sheep, to be fed. A 
 large number of the men and women of the village 
 assembled there, and sitting upon the ground, looked 
 on while preparations were making for our dinner. 
 Wretched, degraded, beggarly, they seemed to be. 
 It is distressing to know that Palestine is so far down 
 in the scale of humanity. Not one in a hundred of 
 its people can read ; and the women are scarcely more 
 decent than the brutes they are living with. Many 
 of the men are not so decent as that. The vileness 
 of much of the native population of the Holy Land, 
 at the present hour, is such as may not be described. 
 It seemed to me that this village was as miserable a 
 specimen of humanity as could be seen out of the in- 
 terior of Africa. 
 
 Our table was spread just in the rear of the horse, 
 and it was covered with as excellent a dinner as one 
 could wish to have at home or abroad. The evening 
 we spent in reading over the stirring pages of Sacred 
 History, recording the events that have made all this 
 region so memorable. One after another of our party 
 dropped asleep ; and I sat alone, making these notes, 
 and marveling that at last I was to sleep in a stable 
 
354 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Storm in the night Waking, 
 
 in the country where my Lord and Master was horn 
 in a stahle and cradled in a manger. Commending 
 myself to His care, who, now that he has a throne 
 and a crown, is not unmindful of his native land, and 
 of those who love him, I slept too. 
 
 A clap of thunder waked me. A sudden storm 
 had burst upon us. The rain was pouring in torrents. 
 A stream of water was running across the ground- 
 floor, bringing in the filth of the yard, and passing 
 out at the other side. A cup of oil, fastened against 
 the wall, had a lighted rag hanging over the side, and 
 this was shedding a murky light on the scene, which 
 I sat up in my little bed to survey. The horse was 
 eating out of his manger, and, now and then, neigh- 
 ing for his absent companions. Antonio, the drago- 
 man, was lying in another manger, covered with a 
 blanket, and snoring a chorus to the horse's call. 
 Happy fellows were my five friends around me, sound 
 asleep, undisturbed by the war of elements outside, 
 or the hoarse music within. I strove to imitate their 
 good example; but the surroundings were unfavor- 
 able, and it was not an easy matter for me to forget 
 myself into their condition. The odor of a stable is 
 not pleasant for a bedchamber. The otto of roses is 
 sweeter. But I had worse places to sleep in after- 
 ward. 
 
 In the morning, reports w^ere brought to us that 
 the whole country around was beset by the Bedouins, 
 and that we would probably encounter them if we 
 undertook to press on. It was said that the shieklis 
 of the various tribes were holding a council, with a 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 355 
 
 Sudden arrest. Swearing a debt. 
 
 view to settle the disturbances, and that in the course 
 of a few days peace would probably be restored. On 
 the whole we determined to make our way, if pos- 
 sible, to Nablous. We got off at nine o'clock, and 
 had rode but a few minutes beyond the village, when 
 Asaad, our host, came rushing after us on horseback, 
 without saddle or bridle, having mounted in hot haste. 
 Riding up to us in high excitement, he declared that 
 Antonio had come off without paying for the lodgings 
 of the party, and that unless the matter was settled 
 at once he would rouse the people and take satis- 
 faction for the wrong that had been done him. Here 
 was a pretty quarrel on hand. Antonio was called 
 on for his statement, when he protested that he had 
 paid the full reckoning, and that this was only an at- 
 tempt to extort more money from him. Asaad raved, 
 stormed, swore, and tore his hair like a maniac, when 
 he found that Antonio denied the charge, and refused 
 to give him any further compensation. As the two 
 men offered their word against each other, there seem- 
 ed, at first view, no mode of settlement. But Ish- 
 mael, one of our guards, directed Asaad to take off 
 his fez, and laying his hand on the top of Asaad's 
 head, directed him to swear, by the holy New Testa- 
 ment and the forgiving God, that he had not received 
 a piastre from Antonio. One of our servants — a Druse 
 — demanded that he should also swear by his eyes. 
 Asaad, professing to be a Christian, swore both the 
 oaths without hesitation ; and it was then agreed, on 
 all hands, that he was entitled to his money, which 
 we required Antonio to pay. Whether it was the 
 
356 EUItOTE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Joseph's pit. Caravan route. 
 
 first or second time lie had paid it, we had no means 
 of knowing. 
 
 A village we left on our right hand, called Kefr- 
 Kund, and shortly after readied the plain of Dotlian, 
 where Joseph was let down into the pit by his breth- 
 ren and afterward sold into Egypt. Did we find the 
 pit ? We found one, dug out of the solid rock, as if 
 for a cistern. It was evidently very ancient. No 
 water is in it now ; and, for aught I know, it may 
 have been there from the time that Joseph was let 
 down into it — or one just like it — in this same neigh- 
 borhood. Some travellers would identify it beyond a 
 doubt. 
 
 A round old stone house, on the top of a hill and 
 in the midst of the ruins of a village, attracted our 
 attention. Inquiring of a few naked men, who were 
 plowing, we were told it was Dothan. The remains 
 of an aqueduct were standing at the foot of the hill. 
 The village of Erahbeh was off on the summit of an- 
 other hill at our right; and, by a beautiful opening 
 between the hills in front of us, a great road leads 
 toward the plain of Sharon. This is the route for 
 the caravans in going to and coming from Egypt, 
 and is the way by which Joseph was carried off into 
 that country, after he was sold by his brethren to the 
 merchants of Midian. Our way was gradually up- 
 hill, till we came to the large village of Ajjeh, where 
 was a tower, evidently more ancient and indicating 
 a higher civilization than the rude houses below 
 and around. The people seemed alarmed at the ad- 
 vent of such a company as ours, and fled as wc ap- 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 357 
 
 Landmarks. Hill of Samaria. 
 
 proached. This place commands a view of a lovely 
 valley, more highly tilled than any that we had yet 
 seen, in the very heart of Samaria. It is covered 
 with fields of grain all the way up to the crown of 
 the hill. Instead of fences, large stones are laid, at 
 short intervals, in lines across the field, marking the 
 division of the ground belonging to different persons ; 
 and we were struck with the propriety of the early 
 laws against removing landmarks — " Cursed be he 
 who removeth his neighbor's landmark." On an ad- 
 jacent hill, and higher up, is the village of Fahmeh ; 
 at the foot of it, another hard by is Im Fahmeh ; and 
 across the plain is one still larger than either of the 
 others, called Gebaah. This had been plundered by 
 the Bedouins a few days before we passed ; many of 
 the houses were destroyed, and some of the inhabit- 
 ants murdered. In one of the villages, not very far 
 from our route, no less than a hundred lives had been 
 destroyed within a very few days before we came by. 
 The village of Sileh is situated on the verge of a large 
 and beautiful valley, abounding in groves of olive, 
 and more picturesque in its landscape than any scen- 
 ery which we had passed to-day. 
 
 Half an hour beyond it, we came to the hill of Sa- 
 maria. Terraced as it formerly was to the summit, 
 and crowned with the magnificent palaces of Herod, 
 this city must have been, in the days of its glory, one 
 of the most magnificent in the Eastern world. We 
 rode up by a very steep path, and examined the ruins 
 of the ancient palaces, of which the columns are still 
 standing, and rise from the soil as if they had been 
 
358 EUEOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 John the Baptist. Splendid columns. 
 
 but recently planted in the earth. The ruins of the 
 Church of St. John the Baptist stand upon the brow 
 of the hill below the village. Tradition attributes this 
 church to Helena, but it is more likely to have been 
 built in the time of the Crusaders. The sepulchre of 
 St. John the Baptist is said to be here, and hence has 
 arisen the story that this was the place of his execu- 
 tion. We learn, however, from Josephus that John 
 was beheaded on the east of the Dead Sea. Near the 
 summit of the hill we found a number of marble col- 
 umns — some fifteen or twenty — still standing erect, 
 and others lying upon the ground. On the westerly 
 side is the famous colonnade which once surrounded 
 this side of the hill, and may have been the approach 
 to some magnificent temple or palace. At least sixty 
 of these columns still stand near each other, while 
 others are scattered at intervals around. Fragments 
 of many are also to be seen on other parts of the hill. 
 This splendid colonnade must have been more than 
 two thousand feet long. The dogs barked furiously 
 at us from the tops of the houses as we rode through 
 the streets ; but their incivility was even less than 
 that of the people, who treated us rudely, and threw 
 stones at us as we passed. They were a wretched 
 set of people ; the women filthy and ill-clad, witli 
 their naked and dirty breasts exposed without a sense 
 of shame to the eye of the stranger. And this is Sa- 
 maria — once the proud city of the proud Herod — the 
 scene of unparalleled splendor, revelry, and volup- 
 tuous sin ! On those plains below us lay the Syrian 
 army besieging the city, when they were startled by 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 359 
 
 The Bedouins. Shechem. 
 
 the voices from heaven and fled in wild disorder, leav- 
 ing their stores of provision to be the prey of the 
 starving people. 
 
 Coming clown from the hill, we pursued our journey 
 over a rough and intractable path, which we were 
 obliged to take to avoid two parties of Bedouins fight- 
 ing each other behind the range of hills we had to 
 cross. But we groped our way along as well as we 
 could, and toward night made our entry into the walls 
 of Nablous, the ancient Shechem or Sychar. It is 
 a strong city, of eight or ten thousand inhabitants. 
 The houses are chiefly of stone, many of them lofty, 
 and the streets narrow, and the whole town surround- 
 ed by a wall, so that it might be defended against a 
 considerable force. The people have a bad reputa- 
 tion even in this country of bad people. The Nablous 
 "robbers" was a term that seemed to be applied to 
 the inhabitants generally. But we were favorably 
 impressed with the men who sat in the doors of 
 their shops as we passed, and gave us respectful salu- 
 tations. The city is long and narrow, and we rode 
 nearly the whole length of it before we came to the 
 house of Auded Assam, a Protestant Christian to 
 whom we had been directed. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 LAND OF PALESTINE. 
 
 Our Quarters in Nablous — The House-top — Scripture Illustrations — 
 Place of Retirement or of Proclamation — Solomon's Idea — Man- 
 ners and Customs without Change — Rumors of Wars — Hostility 
 to Christians — Ebal and Gerizim — Blessing and Cursing — History 
 of the City — Jacob's Arrival — Congress of Israel — Sabbath Ser- 
 vices — Samaritans — Synagogue — Ancient Manuscripts — Ascend ' 
 Mount Gerizim — Place of Burnt Sacrifice — Holy Ground — View 
 of Salem and Region round about — Descent — Women at Dinner 
 — Eastern Salutation — The Guards back out — Muleteers mutiny. 
 
 By the time we reached the house of Assam, a 
 crowd of the natives had gathered about us, with offers 
 of their assistance, and we had no little trouble in 
 chiving them off, so fierce were their efforts to strip 
 the mules and carry the luggage into the house. Up 
 narrow, dark, and winding flights of stone stairs, we 
 were led to a large chamber which opened upon the 
 roof of the house ; and yet this was not the top, for 
 another short flight of steps conducted to still another 
 room. As this building was on the highest ground in 
 the city, our quarters commanded a view of the town 
 and the surrounding country ; and whichever way we 
 looked, we saw places that were associated with the 
 most interesting events in sacred history. Even be- 
 fore we had become settled in our lodgings, we were 
 studying the geography of the land in which we were 
 now strangers and pilgrims. 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 361 
 
 House-tops. Explanations. 
 
 Our promenade is on the roof. But our host im- 
 mediately prefers a request that we will be as circum- 
 spect as possible in our observations, for we overlook 
 the houses of his neighbors, and they are chiefly Mos- 
 lems, who resent the eyes of men when directed into 
 the dwellings of their women. A parapet about three 
 feet high surrounds the edge of our roof, and this is 
 pierced with small holes, through which one can see 
 without being seen. Instantly I was struck with the 
 force of two or three apparently conflicting allusions 
 to the house-top in the Sacred Scriptures. In the 
 Acts of the Apostles, chapter x. 9, we are told that 
 " Peter went up upon the house-top to pray" — which 
 implies that it was a place of retirement — and so it 
 may readily be, for the access to it from below may 
 be easily closed, and the wall that surrounds it would 
 exclude a person kneeling or lying from the view of 
 the neighbors. Again, in the gospels it is said, that 
 what is spoken in secret shall be proclaimed upon the 
 house-tops ; as if the greatest publicity would be 
 thereby given to the proclamation. And such would 
 be the fact, for the inhabitants of the cities and vil- 
 lages seek the tops of the houses for air and recreation 
 more than the streets ; neighbors converse from one 
 roof to another, and a cry upon the house-top would 
 be heard over a for larger part of the town than if 
 made in the highways. Solomon says in Proverbs, 
 xxi. 9, "It is better to dwell in a corner of the house- 
 top, than with a brawling woman in a wide house ;'' 
 and as if he felt the force of the illustration, or the 
 peculiar distress of a man afflicted with such a compan- 
 Vol. IT.— Q 
 
362 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Dwelling on the roof Brawling woman. 
 
 ion, lie repeats the observation, in the same words, a 
 few pages farther on in his book — chapter xxv. 24. 
 In some seasons of the year, and indeed in any season, 
 a man may make himself comfortable on the flat roof 
 of the house, surrounded with a wall, and especially 
 in the " corner" to which the king specially refers ; 
 for here he could readily protect himself from the 
 storms, and in fair weather it would be a very pleas- 
 ant abode. But no man can make himself comfort- 
 able, or hide himself from the storms, however " wide" 
 may be the house which he has to share with a brawl- 
 ing woman. A very sensible remark that was of 
 Solomon. Many of the houses in the smaller villages 
 are covered with earth and sown with grass, which, 
 however, in time of drought, would speedily wither; 
 and this explains the allusion in three portions of 
 Scripture to the herbs or grass on the house-top. 
 " Let the wicked," says the Psalmist (exxix. 6), "be as 
 the grass upon the house-tops, which withereth afore 
 it groweth up : wherewith the mower filleth not his 
 hand; nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom." Still 
 other roofs are made by laying branches and then 
 leaves over them, or straw, with more or less earth; 
 and these could be easily removed, as in the time of 
 our Saviour the friends of the paralytic man broke up 
 the roof, and let him down to the spot where Jesus 
 stood. From age to age the inhabitants of these 
 Eastern countries go on building their houses as their 
 fathers built them ; and, with the exception of the 
 mosques and monasteries, the same style of hoi 
 prevails now that was seen in these lands two and three 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 363 
 
 Lying by. 
 
 thousand years ago. The same remark applies to the 
 manners and customs of the people, which undergo no 
 change. This renders every day of residence in the 
 East an instructive commentary on the Bible, its 
 fidelity and "beauty "being brought out in delightful 
 relief by every thing that meets the eye. 
 
 In this upper chamber, on the roof of the house, 
 our beds were spread, and Antonio proceeded to make 
 us comfortable for a day or two. To-morrow was to 
 be the Sabbath, and we were to lie still, though it 
 was very much against the wishes of the dragoman 
 that there should be any interruption in the journey 
 on that account. He paid for his mules and horses 
 by the day, and as it cost him as much to rest as to 
 ride, he preferred to keep moving. But he was soon 
 reconciled to the idea of lying by ; for we had not 
 reached our chamber before we began to hear of the 
 ravages of the Bedouins from over the Jordan, who 
 were infesting the country, and filling it with alarm. 
 The whole country around us was in their possession. 
 They had, for a week or two past, been plundering 
 the villages, and robbing travellers ; murdering men, 
 women, and children, and cutting off all communica- 
 tion between Nablous and Jerusalem. The war had 
 just broken out between the Turks and Russians ;* 
 and it was regarded by all the Moslems here as a re- 
 vival of the old Avar between the Crescent and the 
 Cross. They knew nothing of any distinction be- 
 tween the Christian allies and the Christian enemies 
 of the Turkish government ; but looked upon every 
 Frank or Christian, every man in European dress, as 
 
364 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Refreshed. Sacred mountains. 
 
 a foe, whose destruction was a very agreeable duty. 
 This was the state of feeling at this moment, as we 
 found at Nablous. Our host, a conscientious, good 
 man, was very uneasy about our safety, even in his 
 house ; and he would have been very glad to see us 
 safely in some better place. But as we were thrown 
 upon his care, he would be faithful to the traditional 
 laws of hospitality, and in spite of the repeated inti- 
 mations we had of the unfriendly feelings of the Mo- 
 hammedans around us, he resolved to protect us to 
 the extent of his power. Under his roof, and in the 
 hands of a kind Providence, thankful for the preserv- 
 ing care we had so far experienced, we lay down and 
 slept, and awoke, refreshed and strengthened, on the 
 morning of the Sabbath. 
 
 It was a glorious day among the hills of Judea. 
 The morning sun was gilding the dome-like summits 
 of Ebal and Gerizim — the mountains of blessing and 
 cursing. The valley between them, at the upper end 
 of which is the city, is not more than five hundred 
 yards across. How vividly did the scenes of Old 
 Testament story come up before the mind as we 
 stood on the top of the house, in full view of these 
 sacred hills. Ebal is on our left hand, and Gerizim 
 on our right. On Ebal the altar of the Lord was 
 reared ; great stones covered with plaster ; and on it 
 "all the words of the law were written." No iron 
 tool was to be lifted up in erecting this altar ; but 
 whole stones, and large, were to be used. There are 
 enough scattered over it now to build a temple. Here, 
 upon these two hills, the bases of which come almost 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 365 
 
 Blessing and cursing. Sacred history. 
 
 to touch each other, the tribes were gathered; six 
 standing on Ebal, and six on Gerizim ; while the 
 Levites read the curses from Ebal, and the blessings 
 from Gerizim, and the multitudes of the people re- 
 sponded to each of the words with a loud Amen ! 
 kt Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or 
 molten image, an abomination unto the Lord, and all 
 the people shall say, Amen." Some have thought 
 that Ebal has been cursed with perpetual sterility, 
 while Gerizim has been more fertile. Such appeared 
 to us to be the present aspect of the mountains. They 
 are less than a thousand feet high; and while Ebal is 
 covered with rocks and loose stones, forbidding culti- 
 vation, the other hill was tilled to its summit. 
 
 This ancient city has figured in history from the 
 time when Jacob came from Padan-aram, and pitched 
 his tent before Shalem. It became the capital of the 
 kingdom set up by Abimelech in the time of the 
 Judges, and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously 
 with him, as they have done with many others since 
 his day. They set men to lie in wait on these hills, 
 to rob all that came along that way, and this narrow 
 pass would afford them a fair chance to stop and 
 plunder the traveller. It was here that the congress 
 of the tribes assembled in the time of Rehoboam, and 
 the new monarch of the revolted tribes made it the 
 capital of his kingdom, but afterward yielded to Sa- 
 maria, though it was for many ages the chief city of 
 the Samaritans, their temple and their worship being 
 confined to this holy hill, Gerizim, whose sides we 
 will soon ascend. 
 
366 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Arab service. Samaritans. 
 
 ]\lr. Assam, our host, brought a request to our mis- 
 sionary companion, Mr. Calhoun, to hold a religious 
 service in his house this morning. He complied with 
 much cheerfulness ; and about forty men assembled 
 and listened with close attention while Mr. Calhoun 
 expounded the Scriptures to them in the Arabic lan- 
 guage. They sat on the floor, in the Eastern man- 
 ner, and the women occupied an apartment separated 
 by a curtain from the one we were in, so that they 
 could hear without being seen. Though we could 
 not understand a word that was said, it was a matter 
 of some interest to watch the effect of the earnest 
 words of the speaker upon these people of a strange 
 tongue. I knew the power of the preacher in his 
 own language ; and he has now been so long accus- 
 tomed to speaking the Arabic, that he is probably 
 more at home in it than in his own. His words told 
 upon the hearts of the assembly, and the tears they 
 shed were silent but impressive tokens of their strong 
 emotion. 
 
 A remnant of the ancient Samaritans still lingers 
 in Nablous. After our morning service, we walked 
 out and found their synagogue, a low building, which 
 we reached by passing underneath the basement of 
 one or two houses, and up a narrow lane, till we came 
 to a platform, where the priest was smoking with sev- 
 eral of his friends around him. At our request, he 
 came down and led us through the court — in which a 
 large apricot-tree was standing, loaded with fruit — 
 and unlocking the door of the synagogue, he requested 
 us to take off our shoes, which we did ; and in onr 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 367 
 
 Synagogue. Old manuscript. 
 
 stockings we walked in. The room was low and 
 arched, with heavy, gloomy walls. A few lamps 
 were suspended across it, and book-shelves, on which 
 were scattered copies of parchment. At one side of 
 the room was a platform with a single step, and be- 
 hind a curtain, in a recess, were kept the sacred re- 
 cords. 
 
 The old priest asked us various questions about 
 Paris, and London, and America ; and whether there 
 were any Samaritans in our country, or in any of the 
 countries through which we had passed. He mani- 
 fested but very little interest when we told him that 
 we knew of none. He spoke of the Jews — whom 
 they hate as of old — and said that the Messiah was 
 not to come of Judah, but of Joseph ; and denied the 
 correctness of the interpretations which have been 
 given by modern commentators on the ancient rec- 
 ords. He then inquired of us if we would give him 
 a present for showing us the old manuscript which 
 they claim to be 3460 years old. We assented to 
 his terms, and he stepped behind the curtain and pro- 
 duced it. It was on wire rollers, and had an orna- 
 mented head-piece to the box which inclosed it. The 
 whole was covered with a rich silk embroidery, and 
 kept with great care. As it was brought out, a few 
 Samaritans, who had come in with us,, laid their 
 hands reverentially on their breasts, as if deeply af- 
 fected with veneration for the ancient manuscript. 
 We sat down, Turkish fashion, upon the floor, and 
 examined it. If it is as old as is pretended, it must 
 be the most remarkable preservation on earth ; but 
 
368 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The old priest Ascending Gerizim. 
 
 we had no faith whatever in the story. The vener- 
 able priest, with his long, white beard, discoursed 
 upon it, to our very slight edification, as we did not 
 understand a word he said, unless it was interpreted 
 by Mr. Thompson, who was our medium of conversa- 
 tion. The natives, with fixed eyes, listened as long 
 as it was open. We gave the old man a half-dollar, 
 according to agreement, and then, at his request, 
 doubled the donation. The door-keeper and two or 
 three others clamored also for a present ; and after 
 all had been about half satisfied, we took our de- 
 parture. 
 
 I must add, that some scholars regard this manu- 
 script as undoubtedly very ancient, and therefore of 
 great value. As this sect will doubtless soon become 
 extinct, those who believe in its importance have sug- 
 gested the expediency of taking measures to secure it 
 from destruction. 
 
 Taking a lad with us for our guide, we walked out 
 of the city, to wander for an hour or two among the 
 scenes of sacred interest that skirt this remarkable and 
 venerable town. It was natural that we should wish 
 to go from the synagogue of the Samaritans to the 
 hill on which they had worshipped from the earliest 
 ages of their history. Even now, and four times in 
 every year, they march in solemn procession, reading 
 the law as they go, and ascend to the summit of Ger- 
 izim and perform their worship, not without the shed- 
 ding of blood. It was, therefore, with strong and 
 strange emotions that we took their line of march, 
 and on the Sabbath-day, when, more than on any 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 369 
 
 Women at the fountain. Burnt-offering. 
 
 other, we could feel the contrast between our own and 
 the ancient Jewish forms of religion, we wended our 
 way out of the upper gate. The path led us through 
 well-tilled gardens, and among various fruit trees, to 
 a large fountain where several women were washing 
 clothes. They made themselves merry with our ap- 
 pearance, and we were pleased to see that they ven- 
 tured to enjoy themselves by the inspection of stran- 
 gers. The winding path up the hill, to avoid the 
 steepness of a more direct ascent, was rough, but in 
 twenty minutes we arrived at the ridge, and then 
 bore off to the eastward toward a wely, or tomb of a 
 saint. A short distance from this was a hole in the 
 ground stoned up, perhaps six feet deep and four 
 across ; ashes and brands were lying in it, the memo- 
 rials of recent sacrifice. For although we have the 
 impression that even in Judea there is no more sacri- 
 fice for sin, and the day has long since gone by when 
 the blood of bulls or of goats is shed in the worship 
 of the God of heaven, it is true that this remnant of 
 the ancient Samaritans come up hither, and once in 
 every year, at the Feast of the Passover, they slay 
 and burn seven lambs at the going down of the sun ! 
 They lodge all night in tents upon the mountain and 
 descend the next day. Again they come on the day 
 of Pentecost, and at the Feast of Tabernacles, and on 
 the day of Atonement ; a people over whose hearts is 
 a double vail, and who will doubtless never have it 
 removed. A little further on we came to the founda- 
 tions of a large fortress or temple, the walls of it 
 about ten feet thick and made of immense stones. 
 
370 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Bobinson and Smith. Holy Place. 
 
 We were ready to believe that this is the ancient tem- 
 ple of the Samaritans ; but Dr. Robinson determines 
 it to be the remains of a castle erected by Justinian. 
 There is no use in disputing Dr. Robinson and his 
 friend Dr. Smith; and when we have their united 
 opinion, the two witnesses put an end to all strife. 
 I have consulted books many, of foreign and domestic 
 production, to aid me in forming opinions on Pales- 
 tine antiquities ; but modern travellers are disposed, 
 as a general thing, to consider the " Researches" of 
 these gentlemen as exhausting the field of discussion. 
 Certain it is the Samaritans themselves attach no 
 saeredness to these ruins ; and their tradition would 
 undoubtedly have preserved the identity of these 
 stones with those of their temple, if such were the 
 fact. We examined with much attention a number 
 of flat stones, on the west side of the walls, lying on 
 the ground, under which we are told are the twelve 
 stones brought up by the children of Israel from the 
 river Jordan, and with which the altar of the Samar- 
 itans on this hill is said to have been built. Now 
 they are buried under these ; and here they are to lie 
 until the Guide, the Saviour of the Samaritans — not 
 the Messiah of the Jews — appears. 
 
 And then we came to the Holy Place — the Most 
 Holy — a broad flat rock, like a threshing-floor, level 
 with the surrounding earth, and sloping westward to 
 a cistern into which the blood of sacrifices may have 
 flowed. No one of their people now treads upon it 
 unless he first takes off his shoes. Wherever they 
 now pray, they turn their faces toward this sacred 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 371 
 
 Dying out. Salem in sight. 
 
 spot. Doubtless their temple stood over this rock, 
 and the site of its walls can be distinctly traced. In 
 their zeal to have a monopoly of the holy places, the 
 Samaritans show us on this height the spot where 
 Abraham offered, his sou. As we stood among these 
 memorials of this remarkable people, it was painful 
 to reflect that they are perishing from among men, 
 without the slightest evidence being given that any 
 of them are brought to the knowledge of the truth. 
 They are dwindling away, and one or two generations 
 more will probably terminate their race. Dr. Robin- 
 son thinks there are not more than one hundred and 
 fifty now left in their entire community. 
 
 The view is exceedingly interesting from this sum- 
 mit. On the rich plain below us are villages whose 
 associations are with the earliest records of Israel's 
 history. There lies Salem, the Shalim before which 
 Jacob pitched his tent. Before us lies the plain on 
 which Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel, and 
 gave them his dying charge, and made a dying cove- 
 nant with them, and took a great stone and set it up 
 under an oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. 
 And that stone which, Joshua said, had heard the 
 words of the Lord, was to be a witness unto them 
 lest they should afterward deny their God. Here 
 came the children of Israel with the bones of Joseph, 
 which they brought up out of Egypt ; and " they 
 buried them in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which 
 Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor:" and there is 
 his tomb to this day. And every hill-top that I see 
 on this bright Sabbath-day is not more lustrous with 
 
372 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Woman of Samaria. Old shepherd. 
 
 this Eastern winter sun than with the imprint of the 
 Divine presence, which faith discovers in all the mount- 
 ains and valleys of this holy land. 
 
 And just here, at our feet, at the base of Mount 
 Gerizim, is Jacob's Well — the scene of one of the 
 most interesting and instructive incidents in the life 
 of our Lord. We mark the route by which he was 
 journeying along through this valley ; how he would 
 naturally pause about the middle of the day — the sixth 
 hour — at this well, a mile and a half from the city, 
 while his disciples went there to buy food; the wo- 
 man of Samaria comes thither to draw water as he 
 was sitting on the well, which was stoned up a few 
 feet above the ground; and then followed that re- 
 markable conversation, in which she says, " Our fa- 
 thers worshipped in this mountain" — the Gerizim, on 
 which we are now standing. And then Jesus re- 
 vealed himself unto her as the Messiah, "the Saviour 
 of the world." 
 
 While we were on the ruins of the old fortress, and, 
 from the map before us, were selecting the points of 
 sacred interest in sight, an old shepherd, an Arab, 
 came up, with his gun in hand, and spoke with us. 
 He was tending sheep on the hillside ; and his mat- 
 ted beard, loose and ragged garments, and generally 
 forlorn appearance, gave us no flattering picture of 
 pastoral life on the mountains of Israel. He carried 
 his gun to protect himself and his flock from the rob- 
 bers. And well he might; for even now, while he 
 was speaking, a party of Bedouins rode in single file 
 along the foot of the mountain ; and the old man ad- 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 373 
 
 Selling us. Moslem beggars. 
 
 vised us earnestly not to venture in that direction, or 
 we might fall into their hands. At a tomb to which 
 we came on our way down, we met several of the 
 natives, who also cautioned us against going into the 
 plain ; and we kept around the hill till we came near 
 the city where some men were plowing. They were 
 not so friendly as the others we had met ; and as 
 they supposed no one of us could understand their 
 words, they said to the lad who was our guide, 
 
 "Why do you not take those Franks down toward 
 the well ? The Bedouins are there, and will plunder 
 them." 
 
 The lad very properly told them they were his 
 friends, and he wished to take them safely. 
 
 "But you would have a blessing if you would give 
 them to the robbers ; it would be a meritorious deed 
 to sell the dogs." 
 
 Quite a number of beggars, Moslem as they were, 
 did not scruple to take our hands and kiss them, 
 while they begged us imploringly for alms. We 
 scattered a few piastres among them, and made our 
 way into the city. 
 
 On my way up stairs to our lodgings, I dropped 
 in at the open door of a room where the women of 
 the family of our host were at dinner. There were 
 four of them sitting around a dish of olives, which 
 were roasting over a pan of coals. One was an old 
 lady, the mother of Assam's wife. She rose, and ap- 
 proaching me, kissed my hand. Two young women 
 came forward and gave me the same respectful salu- 
 tation. And then Mrs. Assam, a beautiful woman of 
 
374 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Beautiful woman. Guards desert 
 
 about twenty-five, in handsome dress — a yellow jack- 
 et, very open in front, embroidered tastefully, and a 
 blue shirt of silk, with ornaments of gold on her head 
 and neck — decidedly the most attractive woman it 
 was my fortune to meet in the land of Palestine, ap- 
 proached me and took my hand, and pressed her lips 
 upon it. All this was done with a gracefulness and 
 simplicity truly charming. They knew that I was 
 a guest of the master of the house, and they desired 
 to show me their kind feelings in the midst of an ill- 
 disposed and unfriendly people. As such, and as a 
 specimen of Oriental manners, it was a delightful 
 incident ; and although we could not speak a word 
 that either could understand, I sat down and con- 
 versed with Mrs. Assam in the language of signs, 
 which are intelligible all the world over. Necessity 
 is the mother of invention; and these telegraphic 
 communications are rapidly made when we wish to 
 exchange thoughts and have no words. 
 
 Ishmael was the name of the captain of our guard, 
 whom we had engaged at Nazareth. He had certifi- 
 cates of his remarkable tact and courage in conduct- 
 ing travellers in all parts of the country ; and we had 
 no reason to doubt his fidelity and willingness to en- 
 counter all reasonable risks in our protection. We 
 were sitting in our room on the afternoon of the Sab- 
 bath, expecting to set off on our journey the next 
 day, when Ishmael entered and announced that he 
 and his party had determined not to proceed any far- 
 ther, as they had heard that the roads were perfectly 
 impracticable, so many and so fierce were the Bed- 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 375 
 
 ouin Arabs who were plundering the villages at the 
 south of us. In vain we offered them their own 
 terms, and reasoned with them on the improbabilities 
 that peaceable travellers would be molested. Much 
 as they wanted money, and there are no people in 
 the world more greedy to get it, they declined to go 
 any farther with us, and we were obliged to give 
 them a discharge. Our landlord, and friends of his 
 in the city, called frequently to see us, and give us 
 the latest news, as it was brought in by those who 
 arrived in Nablous from the country; and the uni- 
 form testimony of all who came to us was, that trav- 
 elling was now out of the question, unless we were 
 under an escort strong enough to resist the attack of 
 parties of Bedouins from one hundred to five hun- 
 dred in number. Now I began to appreciate the 
 counsel which Mr. Marsh, the American Minister at 
 Constantinople, had given me — not to go to Pales- 
 tine at all. He assured me that he had recently re- 
 ceived such intelligence from that country, as to con- 
 vince him that travelling was altogether out of the 
 question ; and he thought I had better go directly to 
 Egypt, and leave the Holy Land till peace was re- 
 stored. It seemed to us that our way was now 
 hedged up, and we must either quietly stay where 
 we were, or make some extraordinary effort for deliv- 
 erance. At all events, we must not attempt to pro- 
 ceed to-morrow. 
 
 In the morning, the muleteers — to whom we had 
 not communicated our intention of lying still for the 
 present — sent a deputation up to our quarters, to say 
 
376 europe'and the east. 
 
 Train does not start. Men of Shechem. 
 
 that they were unwilling to proceed any farther to- 
 ward Jerusalem, unless the gentlemen would give 
 them security for the value of their property, in case 
 their mules were carried off by the Bedouins. A panic 
 was among them all. However willing we might 
 have been to go on, there was no help for us now. 
 The train would not start to-day. Our host was very 
 decided in resisting our attempts at advance, though 
 he would be greatly relieved when we should be 
 fairly from under his roof. We heard every hour of 
 discontent in the town ; and we had reason to fear 
 that some future historian of Nablous might have it to 
 say, "the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with 
 them." We sent our dragoman, and Mr. Assam went 
 with him, to the governor's house, to lay before him 
 our situation, and obtain a suitable escort. His Ex- 
 cellency was not yet prepared to see company, and 
 our delegation returned to report progress. There 
 was no farther objection to remaining as we were. 
 Providence had evidently hedged up our way, saying 
 to us very plainly, " Thus far shalt thou go, and no 
 farther." Very reluctantly we yielded to the neces- 
 sity of the case, and determined, since we could not 
 do as we would, to do as we could, and to spend the 
 day in looking at the objects of sacred interest in and 
 around the town, hoping that by the morrow a way 
 would be open for an escape. 
 
CHAPTER XXY. 
 
 LAND OF PALESTINE. 
 
 Excursion to Jacob's Well — Taking away the Stone — Getting in — 
 Measuring the Well — The Bedouins coming — Getting out — Mount- 
 ing in hot Haste — Flight — Pursuit — Overtaken — Assault — Mr. 
 Righter's Gallantry — He is wounded — Escape — Guides robbed — 
 Return to Town — Appeal to the Governor — Contract with a 
 Sheikh — Preparation — Party enlarged — Escape by retired Route 
 — Plain of Sharon — Antipathies — Village Life — Fight among 
 Muleteers — Maid at the Well — Reach Jaffa. 
 
 Toward noon we rode out to Jacob's Well. Our 
 party consisted of Messrs. Calhoun, Thompson, Groes- 
 bech, Hill, Bighter, and myself. The dragoman An- 
 tonio went as guide. Not apprehending any danger 
 in an excursion so near the town, we had left our 
 pistols in our room, and were now entirely unarmed. 
 One of the people of the town, a poor fellow who 
 hoped by following us to get a present, and the lad 
 who had been our guide to Gerizim the day before, 
 joined themselves to the party. Thus escorted, we 
 set off to the well. No one of the places of interest 
 in sacred history is more distinctly marked than this. 
 The scriptural account of its location is so definite, 
 the great value placed upon wells in early times, and 
 the easy tradition that would preserve the name of 
 such a spot, leave no room even for the incredulous to 
 hang a doubt as to the genuineness of the locality. 
 
378 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 In the well. Bedouins coming. 
 
 All parties, Mohammedans and Christians, Jews and 
 Samaritans, regard the place as identified. We were 
 half an hour in reaching it from the walls of the town. 
 Around the old well was a heap of rubbish, and a 
 large stone lay over the mouth. Our guides attempt- 
 ed to lift it, and failed ; but at my suggestion they 
 put a strap around one end of it and pulled it out. 
 We found that this was the opening through a plat- 
 form over the well, and that the real mouth was not 
 immediately beneath it, but about three feet to the 
 east. Mr. Kighter and I succeeded in squeezing our- 
 selves through the mouth of the platform, and bent over 
 the well. We had brought a line for measuring the 
 depth, and attaching a stone to the end of it, we 
 lowered it to the bottom. Just as the stone struck 
 the bottom, the dragoman called out to us to make 
 haste, as a band of Bedouins were coining upon us. 
 I told him to tie a knot in the cord that we might de- 
 termine the depth from the upper surface, and we 
 would come up. It took us some time to draw the 
 stone with the cord from the bottom of the well, 
 which we afterward measured and found to be seventy- 
 five feet deep. There was no water in it at this time ; 
 but our companion, Mr. Calhoun, who was here in 
 April, 1839, measured the well then, and found water 
 to the depth of ten or twelve feet. In March, Maun- 
 drel found fifteen feet. He describes it as covered 
 by an old stone vault, into which he "descended by a 
 narrow hole in the roof, and there found the proper 
 mouth of the well, a broad flat stone upon it." Some 
 travellers have stated the depth of the well to be a 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 379 
 
 Depth of well. Coming out. 
 
 hundred feet, and others, a hundred and five. It is 
 not improbable that formerly the well has been deeper 
 than it is now, and successive travellers have thrown 
 stones into it, till the accumulation of rubbish in the 
 bottom has diminished its depth. 
 
 Dr. Robinson examines the authorities in reference 
 to the well, and considers the question as conclusively 
 settled that this is the actual well of the patriarch, 
 and that it was dug by him in some connection with 
 the possession of the parcel of ground bought of 
 Hamor, the father of Shechem, which he gave to his 
 son Joseph, and in which Joseph and his brethren 
 were buried. Here our blessed Saviour sat when 
 wearied with his journey, and taught the woman and 
 his disciples and the people who thronged from the 
 city to hear him. Here, in full view of the mount on 
 which the Samaritans worshipped, he discoursed to 
 them on the worship of the only living and true God, 
 and the way of access to him. 
 
 During all the time that we had been engaged in 
 measuring the well, Antonio had been clamoring 
 loudly for us to come up, insisting upon it that the 
 Bedouins were near at hand. It was impossible for 
 me to believe that there was any actual danger, and I 
 proceeded to wind up the line around the stone, which 
 occupied some little time. Then Mr. Righter and I 
 emerged from the mouth of the well, and found our 
 party already mounted and ready to start. Antonio, 
 who was also upon his horse, told us to hasten, and 
 pointed to the south, where I saw, but a short distance 
 off, a company of Bedouins — some ten or twelve in 
 
380 EUKOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 No time to lose. Antonio runs. 
 
 number — riding slowly in single file, with their lances 
 at rest, and their guns slung over their shoulders. As 
 we had not a weapon among us, and they would have 
 been more than a match for us if we had, and as there 
 were none of our party disposed to encounter the haz- 
 ard of a skirmish with a party of armed Bedouins, 
 fresh from the plunder of- surrounding villages, and 
 now prowling in the vicinity of Nablous, in hope of 
 seizing upon passing travellers, it was evident that 
 our only safety was, under God, in making our way 
 as rapidly as possible toward the walls of the city. 
 Yet even then I was disposed to hold on, and parley 
 with the enemy, presuming that when they found out 
 that we were Franks, and had no hostile intention, 
 they would not molest us. But Antonio, coward as 
 he was, and as all braggarts are, led oif at full speed. 
 Imminent as the peril was, it was positively amusing 
 to see the figure this valorous dragoman cut, as he 
 went like a streak toward the city. His horse was 
 small, but tough and wiry, and the fleetest of the 
 party. Now put to his speed, his frightened rider 
 kicking his sides, his tail streaming in the wind, he 
 ran as if all the Bedouins this side of Jordan were 
 after him, and never halted in his flight till he was 
 safe within the walls of old Shechem. The rest of 
 us were soon following, as swiftly as our several horses 
 would carry us. Unfortunately, I was mounted on 
 one which had been selected for me on account of his 
 peculiar gentleness and easy carriage, and following 
 behind the rest, he refused to make any special effort 
 to escape. 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 381 
 
 The pursuit. Mr. Righter, 
 
 The Bedouins halted behind a spur of the hill, and 
 one of their number was dispatched to overtake us. 
 Looking over my shoulder, I saw him coming, in full 
 leap upon me, with his lance balanced and ready to 
 run it through my back. Mr. Righter could easily 
 have pressed on and made his escape, but seeing that 
 I was in danger of being left alone, and likely to fall 
 into the hands of the enemy, while the rest were 
 already so far ahead as to be sure of escape, with a 
 noble spirit of self-sacrifice, as rare in history as it is 
 beautiful to record, he reined up, and fell back be- 
 tween me and the Bedouin, who was instantly along- 
 side of us. Dashing by and wheeling suddenly in 
 front, he called out to us to stand ; and selecting my 
 friend as his first victim, drove his spear into his side, 
 then struck him twice with it over the head and back, 
 evidently designing to bring him from his horse, and 
 to detain him, and so the rest of us, till his party 
 should come up. Mr. Calhoun, looking around and 
 seeing our situation, returned, calling to the monster 
 in his own tongue to desist. It was a fearful sight to 
 see this black villain thrusting his spear into the body 
 of my , defenceless and devoted friend. I was within 
 six feet of him, only waiting my turn, expecting the 
 band to come up and surround us in a moment. 
 Whatever may have been my feelings of alarm while 
 we were pursued, they all gave way to calmness and 
 composure when I considered myself and friend as 
 captives in the hand of a savage foe, and entirely at 
 his mercy. It was my expectation that he would dis- 
 patch my friend, and then fall upon me. The return 
 
382 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The band coming. Guides robbed. 
 
 of Mr. Calhoun, and of Mr. Thompson who followed 
 him, seemed to suggest to the Bedouin the necessity 
 of calling for the rest of his party, who were hut a 
 few hundred yards from where we were arrested. 
 Ordering us to remain where we were, he dashed off 
 to his company, gave them the signal, and they sallied 
 forth in pursuit. This was our only chance for a des- 
 perate effort to reach the town, and we made the most 
 of it. Just as they came out from behind the rock 
 where they were hid, the two native guides, who had 
 been down to the well with us, appeared, and one 
 of them laid hold of the horse of the foremost Bed- 
 ouin by the bridle, and remonstrated with the rob- 
 bers against assailing us. These circumstances for- 
 tunately delayed them for a few moments ; for they 
 fell upon him, beat him to the earth, pierced him 
 with their spears, stripped him naked, and left him 
 to drag himself home. This delay gave us just the 
 time which we needed, in order to make good our 
 escape; and there can be no doubt but that we avail- 
 ed ourselves of all the time that was allowed us, and 
 by dint of hard riding reached the town in safety. 
 Our doughty dragoman, who should have stood by us 
 in the affray, had arrived some time in advance, alto- 
 gether unconscious of the narrow escape that we had 
 made, and of the peril through which we had passed. 
 We were hardly there and safe when the lad who 
 had followed us came rushing into our room, looking 
 more dead than alive — his eyes starting from his head 
 in fright. His red skull-cap had been pulled off by 
 the Arabs ; but as he had nothing else on him worth 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 383 
 
 The wounded guide. Mr. TMjrhter's wound. 
 
 stealing, they had let him go, and he had made the 
 best of his way to us to report the miserable fate of 
 his companion, who had fared worse in the hands of 
 these pitiless robbers. In the course of the day we 
 were called on by the friends of the poor fellow, who 
 told us a pitiful tale of his sufferings in our service, 
 and of the great loss he had sustained. They said 
 that he had sold a gun that morning, and had the 
 money with him, which was taken with his clothes. 
 Not a word of this did we believe ; but it was pru- 
 dent to keep the peace with these Nablous people, 
 and we did not care to be troubled with an example 
 of Holy Land law. So we requested our worthy host 
 to go and see the man, and pay him what was right. 
 A few dollars made it a profitable operation for him, 
 and probably hastened his recovery. 
 
 Our anxieties were now turned to Mr. Righter, the 
 only one of us who had suffered personal injury. The 
 spear had passed through his Mackintosh, his surtout, 
 frock-coat, and under-clothing, inflicting a flesh wound 
 just below the ribs on his left side. I washed it out 
 with cold water, and applied a plaster, dressing it as 
 well as we could, and wishing to conceal from our 
 men, and from the people of the town, the nature of 
 our adventure. There was alarm enough without our 
 adding excitement to the flame. My friend com- 
 plained of soreness in his limbs, and in the course 
 of the day and night following he had some fever; 
 but he rested better than could be expected, and in 
 the course of a week was free from any ill effects. 
 
 We now sent a deputation to the Aga, or governor 
 
384 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The governor. More news. 
 
 of the town, invoking his aid to secure us a safe pas- 
 sage. He replied, that at present all the roads were 
 impracticable ; but he hoped, in a few days, the quar- 
 rels among the people would be settled, when he 
 would send us out with an adequate escort. He had 
 but two hundred soldiers, and these were far from 
 sufficient to protect the town if the Bedouin Arabs 
 should turn their arms against it. Rumors were also 
 abroad of a threatened rising of the Nablous Moslems 
 against the Christians ; and, in the present wretched- 
 ly-distracted condition of the country, it was impos- 
 sible to anticipate the issues of a day. 
 
 Our situation was now becoming a matter of gen- 
 eral solicitude. Two of the chief men of the city 
 called to express their sympathy with us in our im- 
 prisonment, and to offer all the protection their favor 
 could afford. We treated them to pipes and coffee, 
 which they received in silence, and enjoyed for a 
 quarter of an hour, before a word was said. 
 
 In the evening a man was brought to us, who said 
 that he had just arrived from Jerusalem ; five hundred 
 Bedouins, in roving parties, held possession of the in- 
 tervening country; he had taken a way through the 
 mountains, and had made the passage. We heard, also, 
 of one or two villages more that had been plundered, 
 and many of the inhabitants butchered. The reports, 
 we had no doubt, were exaggerated ; but after making 
 every allowance for the public apprehension, which 
 magnified the facts, we knew that the sooner we were 
 out of the country the better ; and, if we escaped at 
 all, we must take our lives in our hands and flee. 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 385 
 
 A Turkish officer. Another move. 
 
 Abdullah Gunneh is an officer of the small Turk- 
 ish force in Nablous, and a man of wide repute in the 
 country. We were advised to apply to him to extri- 
 cate us out of the difficulties which were thickening 
 every moment. We sent for him, and he came to 
 our room ; a tall, solemn, silent man, with a heavy 
 beard, a stoop in his shoulders, and nothing to indi- 
 cate energy but a small, quick eye. Scarcely no- 
 ticing us, as he entered, he sat down on the divan, 
 adjusting his long, heavy sword, to his position, and 
 looked on the floor. The pipe was offered him, and 
 he took a few whiffs ; coffee followed, and he drank 
 the tiny cup without a word. Mr. Calhoun opened 
 the business, which was to ask him if it was in his 
 power to conduct us safely to Jerusalem, or to Jaffa ; 
 which places were equally distant — about the journey 
 of a day and a half. He said that he could not do 
 it by force. The highways were beleaguered by so 
 many of the Bedouins, he could only hope to carry 
 us through by his personal influence with those we 
 might meet. We made a bargain with him to take 
 a sufficient force to resist any small marauding par- 
 ties, and to be ready to start at daylight in the morn- 
 ing. 
 
 The prospect before us was not the most pleasing, 
 and the recollections of the day past were not com- 
 posing to nervous temperaments, but we rested well, 
 and taking an early breakfast, were on horseback be- 
 fore sunrise. We waited anxiously for the chief with 
 his escort, but he did not come. At last he sent word 
 that he had heard in the course of the night of so 
 Vol. IL— R 
 
386 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Worse and worse. A bargain. 
 
 much disturbance in the country, he could not insure 
 our safety, and he advised the delay of another day. 
 We had to submit ; and we soon heard the same sto- 
 ries that the chief had received, of the sacking of a 
 neighboring village by the Bedouins, who had cut the 
 throats of forty men and two women. A long and 
 gloomy day we dragged out, walking on the flat house- 
 top upon which the door of our chamber opened, and 
 looking on the sacred mountains near us, and up to 
 the heavens wherein He dwells who alone can help us 
 in this time of need. How often and how earnestly, 
 in all this captivity, we asked him to deliver us, I 
 will not say. In the evening the sheikh came again, 
 and having reported that the road to Jaffa was com- 
 paratively secure, he declared his readiness to make a 
 contract to conduct us there, and he would be respon- 
 sible for all our effects. The contract was as follows : 
 
 " The reason of this paper is — I, Abdullah Gunneh, 
 whose seal is affixed, agree to conduct Howadji Prime 
 and his companions, six in number, with ten horse- 
 men to Jaffa ; and to make good all the loss of prop- 
 erty which they shall represent on their conscience ; 
 and they shall pay me fifty piastres for each horse- 
 man, and one hundred and fifty piastres for myself." 
 
 Instead of signing his name to the writing, he 
 covered the signet on his right hand with ink, and 
 made the impression. Assam did the same with his, 
 and the bargain was sealed. 
 
 January 18. We rose at four o'clock this morning 
 and called the men, who were still sound asleep. It 
 was an important crisis in our journey, and with many 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 387 
 
 On the house-top. Mr. Assam. 
 
 misgivings we addressed ourselves to the day that 
 was before us. Mr. Calhoun, with great interest and 
 solemnity, conducted religious services in our room, 
 and commended lie and our absent families to God, 
 who alone is able to keep us in the midst of enemies. 
 While our breakfast was preparing, I walked on the 
 house-top with Mr. Calhoun, and spoke of Abraham, 
 and Jacob, and Joshua, who had been here in the 
 midst of these hills and plains, and had trusted God in 
 more trying circumstances than ours. The morning 
 sun was rising over Ebal and gilding the summit of 
 Gerizim, stealing along by degrees through the valley, 
 speaking to us of the smiles of heaven, awakening in 
 our bosoms hopes of a propitious day. We were 
 about to set our faces toward the sea, not knowing 
 what should befall us by the way, and exceedingly 
 doubtful as to the issue of our journey. While we 
 were at breakfast, word came from the sheikh Abdullah 
 Gunneh that he was ready for us, and would be in 
 waiting with his guard on the outside of the northern 
 gate of the town. Our friends Assam and his family 
 took an affectionate leave of us, commending us to 
 the kindly care of our Heavenly Father ; and it was 
 with unfeigned gratitude that we returned to this 
 amiable man our thanks for the great kindness which 
 he had shown us during our painful captivity within 
 his walls. He keeps a house for lodging travellers, 
 and I can commend it to those who may follow me, 
 as being without doubt the most desirable place of rest 
 in Nablous. In addition to the price which Antonio 
 paid him for the use of the rooms, according to his 
 
388 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The eruards. The party. 
 
 bargain, we insisted upon his receiving a present from 
 us, as some small token of our esteem for his faith- 
 fulness. 
 
 At his door we mounted our horses, and in single 
 file, through the narrow streets of the town, wound 
 our way out of the gate into the midst of the gardens 
 and the olive trees with which the town is surrounded, 
 and there awaited the coining of the shiekh and his 
 men. We feared at first that, as he had not arrived, 
 we were doomed to be disappointed, and might have 
 to return and wait still another day. Soon, however, 
 two men dressed as Bedouins, and armed with spears 
 and guns, and with pistols in then* girdles, rode up 
 and informed us that they belonged to the party of 
 the sheikh, who would soon make his appearance. 
 Presently he emerged from another quarter of the city, 
 having taken the precaution to assemble his guards 
 from different directions, in order that the appearance 
 of an armed body of men might not attract the atten- 
 tion of any of the Bedouins in the surrounding hills. 
 He was a man quite above the ordinary height, a 
 solemn Turk, with a heavy black beard, beautiful 
 blue cloth dress, with a red sash confining the loose 
 : cloak, which he soon threw off, and left exposed his 
 military dress. He wore loose blue trowsers, an ele- 
 gant pistol girdle, richly embroidered, and a long 
 heavy sword with steel scabbard. Decidedly he was 
 a man of mark: his appearance was well fitted to 
 command the respect, and, in case of an emergency, to 
 render him formidable in the eye of an enemy. The 
 soldiers whom he had brought with him were not in 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 389 
 
 Strolling players. We are oft 
 
 uniform, but were dressed each for a specific purpose. 
 One was his adjutant, and rode back and forth over 
 the long line of our company, which was often in 
 single file, and extended over a great distance; an- 
 other, and the fiercest, was armed with a long gun. 
 and a stiff, short dirk in his belt, and dressed with a 
 white aba and white turban, and might have been 
 taken for a priest but for his weapons and the fight 
 which was flashing in his eyes and tingling in his 
 fingers. 
 
 Just as we were ready to get under way, a large 
 party issued from the city, on mules and donkeys, and 
 in the gray of the morning, as they came out through 
 the olive groves, in their various costumes, they pre- 
 sented an extraordinary, and, for some time, mysteri- 
 ous appearance. We soon learned that they were 
 parties who had heard that an armed escort was that 
 morning to set off for Jaffa, to accompany Frank trav- 
 ellers, and as they, like us, had been confined to the 
 city for several days, waiting for a door of escape, 
 they had determined to set off under the protection 
 of our guns. Some of them were strolling musi- 
 cians, having been wandering among the villages of 
 Palestine and Syria, and were now on their way to 
 Egypt, by way of the sea. Their musical instruments 
 over their shoulders, had given to us the idea that we 
 were to be reinforced by a number of armed travellers ; 
 and probably, in case of an emergency, we should have 
 found their instruments quite as efficient as any weap- 
 ons which they might have brought with them. 
 
 Our sheikh proposed to conduct us off from the 
 
390 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Villages. Passes. Sharon. 
 
 ordinary routes of travel, and by unfrequented paths 
 among the mountains, to lead us to the plain of 
 Sharon. In the course of an hour after we left Na- 
 blous, we halted on the western side of the hill of 
 Samaria, which we had ascended from the east hut a 
 few days before. The villages of Keison, and Beitlicl, 
 and Raman were on the road that we took. The vil- 
 lagers came out to see us as we passed on. At other 
 times, when they first saw us coming, they would flee 
 and secrete themselves, as though they feared that we 
 were an enemy about to invade their peaceful homes. 
 The men who were at work in the fields were always 
 armed with guns to protect themselves ; like those 
 who built the wall of Jerusalem of old, with a tool in 
 one hand and a weapon in the other. 
 
 About noon the plain of Sharon opened to our view 
 — the widest and most extensive in Palestine — stretch- 
 ing from Mount Carmel on the north, away to the 
 Great Desert on the south, while the Mediterranean 
 Sea is before us under the western horizon. We 
 passed on the plain the village of Kulinsameh, in 
 which were the ruins of an ancient church ; and then 
 south we came on to the village of Tireh, and striking 
 off westward we halted, at four o'clock in the after- 
 noon, at Miskeh, a village near Antipatris, where Paul 
 was brought at night by the soldiers, from Jerusalem, 
 on his way to Rome. 
 
 The houses of the village were low, and the roofs 
 covered with grass. The people at first were alarmed 
 as we came up, but after we had chosen a plot of 
 ground, and proceeded to pitch our tents in peace, 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 391 
 
 Salutations. Maid at the well. 
 
 they gathered about us ; the chief received the salu- 
 tations of the older men, who came near and touched 
 heads, and laid their hands on their breasts, in token 
 of friendship. They then sat down upon the grass, 
 in a circle of some twenty or thirty, and lighting their 
 pipes, passed them around from one to another, thus 
 establishing an acquaintance at once. The women 
 of the village were out at an ancient Roman well, 
 eighty feet deep, and walled up with hammered stone. 
 A crotched tree over the mouth of it, with a grooved 
 roller in the crotch, answered for a wheel, round 
 which a rope was passed. An earthen jar was at- 
 tached to the rope ; and when this had been let down, 
 two women walked off with the rope to the distance 
 of eighty or a hundred feet, thus drawing the jar to 
 the surface. Righter and I stepped to the well, 
 where a pretty maiden was standing, with her jar 
 upon the platform, some four or five feet from the 
 ground. She was rather scantily dressed for a fair 
 girl of seventeen ; having nothing on but a coarse 
 sack, and a string around her waist, leading her 
 breasts, arms, and much of her lower limbs exposed 
 to the weather. She let down her pitcher, others 
 drew the rope, and when it came up full, she brought 
 it to the edge of the platform and tipped it over to 
 our lips, so that we drank as did Abraham's servant 
 at the hand of Rebecca. 
 
 It was now even-tide, and we sat in the door of our 
 tent at the close of a most beautiful day. It was 
 hard to persuade ourselves that danger lurked in the 
 midst of such a balmy clime. A shriek broke upon 
 
392 EUKOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 A fight Camp-fires. 
 
 our ears; and, running from the tents, we found 
 two of our muleteers clinched in fight. Mr. Calhoun 
 rushed between them to separate them; but as they 
 both fell, he was brought down to the ground with 
 them. I plunged into the melee to extricate my 
 friend, imploring him to let them fight it out between 
 themselves, rather than run the risk of losing his own 
 life in the affray. One seized a tent-pin, and smote 
 the other over the head; the other seized a mallet, 
 with which the pins were driven in the ground, and 
 rushed back to return the blow. I caught his arm, 
 and Mr. Calhoun laid hold of the stick with which 
 the other was about to renew the attack, and, with 
 the aid of Antonio, we finally succeeded in parting 
 the belligerents. 
 
 Our guards and servants built camp-fires in front 
 of the tent, and stretched themselves on their mats 
 around it, presenting a strange spectacle in the midst 
 of the darkness that was now settling around us. As 
 they lay on their backs, looking up at the stars in 
 this cle.ir, glorious night, I thought of the wise men 
 of the East, and the pursuit of the science of astron- 
 omy in Arabia and other countries of the East, as na- 
 tural to men who were accustomed to sleep out of 
 doors, with their attention so constantly attracted 
 toward the heavens. Mr. Eighter suffered much in 
 the night from the spear wound in his side ; he com- 
 plained of soreness in his bones, and had much fever, 
 but no inflammation, and there was every prospect 
 of his doing well. What a noble deed! What a 
 beautiful deed! To throw himself, as he did, be- 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 393 
 
 Rightcr's devotion. Off again. 
 
 tween me and a savage with a weapon of death in his 
 hand ! I long to tell of his devotion to my children. 
 I know they will cherish his name, and repeat the 
 story to those who come after them. History has 
 told us of soldiers who have died for their command- 
 ers ; of heroism in battle, when glory was to be gained 
 by self-sacrifice ; but here was no tie but that of 
 friendship ; no obligation, no expectation, but a mag- 
 nanimous exposure of a friend, who devotes his life 
 to protect me from death, and to give me an opportu- 
 nity to escape while he was in danger of being slain. 
 I rejoice that I had strength to resist any temptation 
 to flee; and though unarmed, and aware that other 
 enemies were at hand, was able to stand near my 
 friend so long as he was exposed to the same danger. 
 
 January 19. We rose at five in the morning, having 
 slept pleasantly, though waked occasionally by the 
 various cries and calls of men, horses, mules, jackals, 
 dogs, etc., by which the village and our tent were 
 surrounded. Abdullah Gunneh and his men had by 
 turns kept constant guard around us, determined to 
 be faithful to his trust, and feeling that we were not 
 yet in a place, of safety. When we rose, the mule- 
 teers were hard at work in packing, and the soldiers 
 impatient to set off. We present the appearance of a 
 small army about to enter the field. 3Ir. Righter has 
 slept well, and is decidedly better than last night. 
 My fears are relieved about the results of his wound, 
 though I should be still more pleased if the soreness 
 in his bones would leave him. 
 
 It is sunrise on the plains of Sharon. In the midst 
 
 R* 
 
394 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Plain of Sharon. Meeting Bedouins. 
 
 of our journey over this prairie, covered with flowers, 
 which we often paused to gather, we were surprised 
 by the sudden appearance of a large party of Bedouins, 
 handsomely mounted, with their spears at rest, and 
 each with a gun across his shoulders, which he lowered 
 and cocked as the whole body brought up at the side 
 of our party. Fortunately they were friends of our 
 chief, Abdullah Gunneh ; and after he had exchanged 
 a few words of friendly greeting with them, they suf- 
 fered us to pass on. They were handsomely equipped, 
 armed to the teeth, and a better-looking set of men 
 than the Nablous Arabs whom we had met a few 
 days before. Half an hour after passing them, we 
 came upon the black tents of the Bedouins. The 
 children were playing around them, the women at 
 work, and cattle grazing near. There were few vil- 
 lages upon this plain, which was but little cultivated, 
 being chiefly used for pasturage. As we were riding 
 over the plain, the chief came up to Antonio, who 
 was smoking, and said to him : "I suppose that pipe 
 was given you by your father, who had it by a will 
 from your grandfather, and that you mean to keep it 
 all to yourself, and to give it to your oldest son/' 
 Antonio took the hint and handed him the pipe, from 
 which he took a few whiffs, and returned it to its 
 owner. 
 
 About two hours from Jaffa, we came to a magnifi- 
 cent fountain, rising in the plain, and sending out 
 such copious supplies of water as to make quite a 
 river, which flows toward the sea. Through gardens 
 of oranges and lemon-trees, and prickly-pear hedges. 
 
LAND OF PALESTINE. 395 
 
 Jatfa. Simon the Tanner. 
 
 passing a large grave-yard, in which the women, close- 
 ly vailed, were sitting over the graves of their departed 
 friends, we approached the gates of Jaffa. Several 
 large caravans of camels and traders were on the out- 
 side. We pitched our tent near to the quarantine 
 ground, and proceeded at once to the Consul, Jacob 
 Murad, who received us with the greatest cordiality, 
 and insisted on our leaving the tents and taking pos- 
 session of his villa, about half a mile from the gate. 
 
 We spent a few days in the villa of the Consul ; 
 when Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Thompson returned by 
 the steamer, to Beyroot, and we waited for another to 
 come on, in which we would take passage for Egypt. 
 It was with great reluctance that we abandoned the 
 idea of penetrating into the interior of Palestine ; but 
 all the information that we could gain from travel- 
 lers who came in to Jaffa, confirmed the impressions 
 we formed from our own observation, that it was 
 unsafe to travel, and that we must defer our visit till 
 a more favorable season. We walked out on the sea- 
 side, near the spot which is still pointed out as the 
 place where abode Simon the Tanner, at whose house 
 Peter was staying when he had the vision of the sheet 
 let down from heaven by the four corners. (Acts, ii. 5). 
 
 There is nothing else of interest or importance in 
 and about this city, which is now a seaport for Jeru- 
 salem, at which the steamers around the coast of the 
 Mediterranean touch, on their way from Constantino- 
 ple to Egypt. Mr. Murad, the Vice-Consul, was in- 
 cessant in his attentions and kindnesses, of which we 
 cherish a grateful and pleasing memory. His villa 
 
396 EUROPE AND THE EASTo 
 
 Waiting. Going to Egypt. 
 
 gave us a quiet resting-place for a few days, while we 
 waited to hear of a more peaceful state of things. Mr. 
 Groesfaeck, one of our party, determined to remain 
 and take his chance of getting safely to Jerusalem. 
 Messrs. Calhoun and Thompson returned, by steam- 
 er, to Beyroot. With my friends, Messrs. Hill and 
 Kighter, I went down into Egypt, 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 EGYPT ALEXANDEIA. 
 
 Donkey-boys of Egypt — Mixed People — Alexandria — The Square — 
 Ruins of Alexandrian Library — Bastinado — Paying Workmen — 
 Penny a Day — Cleopatra's Needles — Alexander's Tomb — Pom- 
 pey's Pillar — Catacombs — Women with Children on their Shoul- 
 ders — Flies on their Eyes — Ophthalmia — Tyranny — Kecruits — 
 Funeral Customs. 
 
 One day and night Tby steamer brought us to 
 Alexandria from Jaffa, and five miserable days saw 
 us in a vile quarantine on the shore of Egypt. The 
 American Consul, Mr. De Leon, and friends to -whom 
 I had letters, strove to release us from the "house of 
 bondage," but in vain. We must serve our time. 
 And we did. On the morning of the fifth, a pomp- 
 ous little doctor pronounced us fit to go at large. 
 
 At the door of tlie prison the donkey-boys — a "pe- 
 culiar institution" of this country, as the dogs are of 
 Turkey — rushed upon us in a body, and shouting in 
 broken English and French the praises of their beasts, 
 fairly thrust them on us, while attempting to thrust 
 us upon them. 
 
 I fastened my eye upon the best looking one of the 
 lot, and nodded to the boy who held him. He fol- 
 lowed me outside of the gang, and I straddled the 
 little creature, and went tearing along the streets, 
 
398 
 
 EUROPE 
 
 AND 
 
 THE 
 
 E A S T. 
 
 
 Donkey-boys. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Piazza. 
 
 
 A LEXANDKiAN DONKEY-BO VS. 
 
 the boys running behind and thrashing the donkeys. 
 Meeting all sorts of people, Greeks, Arabs, and Franks, 
 soon we came out on the magnificent Piazza of Alex- 
 andria. 
 
 But were we really in Egypt ? We look out of the 
 windows of our hotel, but we see only a modern city. 
 Impatient of our confinement, we leave the house to 
 find the world of the past. In the court below we 
 are set upon by the boys with their donkeys. They 
 press into the doors : they pull, and shout, and shove, 
 till you are tempted to strike them in self-defense. 
 Again we are astride of these little animals, whose 
 gait is ambling and easy, so that a child or a lady is 
 at ease on their backs. "Now stick close to him," 
 said I to my boy ; to which he replied, "Me no stick 
 him now: me stick him when he lazy." 
 
EGYPT ALEXANDRIA. 399 
 
 The Library. 
 
 At the head of the square, some three or four hun- 
 dred workmen were digging up the ruins of a mighty 
 edifice which for centuries had been buried. Old 
 Egypt was rising from its grave. It is said to be the 
 site of the Alexandrian Library. The Ptolemies 
 founded and fostered it, and placed over its doors this 
 inscription: "The nourishment of the soul;" or, as 
 Diodorus has it, " The medicine of the mind." At the 
 death of the second Ptolemy it had within its walls 
 100,000 volumes, and afterward nearly 1,000,000. 
 Here the Seventy made the Greek translation of the 
 Old Testament under the direction of Ptolemy Phila- 
 delphus. To enrich this library no cost, nor toil, nor 
 fraud was wanting. To borrow books and not return 
 them, though a sore evil, is not a modern one. Ptol- 
 emy Euergetes took advantage of the famished Athe- 
 nians and borrowed their beautiful originals of Sopho- 
 cles and iEschylus, and Euripides, and returned them 
 copies, with an immense sum in money as a small 
 compensation for the treasure he had secured. Julius 
 Caesar set fire to the Egyptian fleet, and the flames, 
 spreading to the houses on shore, reached and laid in 
 ruins that portion of the library which was in the 
 museums. The remainder, in the Temple of Serapis, 
 was exposed to the storms of war, and perished in the 
 midst of those calamities which came down on this* 
 city under the Caliph Omar. That fanatical chief 
 gave up the library to the flames, declaring, as he 
 issued the order, "If these books agree with the book 
 of God, they are useless ; if not, they ought to be de- 
 stroyed." So the books were used for fuel in heating 
 
400 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Poor laborers. Bastinado. 
 
 the baths of the city, of which there were then four 
 thousand. 
 
 Workmen were now busy among these ruins. 
 Walls of brick and mortar, the mortar thicker and 
 harder than the bricks themselves, and the walls 
 twenty feet wide ; mighty arches to support the build- 
 ing and the marble floor still here ; and in the midst 
 of the superincumbent earth, great masses of molten 
 glass and stone, showing the work of ruin to have 
 been done by fire. Mingled in the mighty ruin, I saw 
 them disclosing beautiful Corinthian capitals and hand- 
 some white marble columns, in wild disorder strewn 
 over each other and through the pile, melancholy re- 
 mains of grandeur, on which successive generations 
 have walked, unconscious of what was hid below. 
 The laborers, men, women, and children, were at work ; 
 some of them with barrows, and others with baskets, 
 even little children who could carry but a few hand- 
 fuls being as busy as the rest. As we were climbing 
 over and among the ruins we came upon a couple of 
 fellows in a fight, beating each other's faces, biting, 
 and pulling hair. Presently the overseer, with a thong 
 of solid leather in his hand, appeared. At the sight 
 of him the fighting ceased. At the nod of the over- 
 seer, and without the need of a word, two men seized 
 one of the fighters and stretched him on the ground. 
 With his heavy whip the overseer laid twenty tremen- 
 dous blows across the poor fellow's hips and back. 
 One held his hands and another his feet while the 
 bastinado was applied ; and when the victim writhed 
 in his pain and wrenched his feet from the hands of 
 
EGYPT ALEXANDRIA. 401 
 
 Dinner. Penny a day. 
 
 him who held them, the overseer came down with the 
 same severity upon the one who had thus let go, and 
 beat him till he caught his legs again and held them 
 more firmly to the end of the punishment. The other 
 fellow, without waiting to be called or seized, threw 
 himself flat, and took the beating without squirming, 
 jumping up as soon as it was over, and resuming his 
 work as if nothing had happened. 
 
 It was now noon. At a given signal, the whole 
 body of laborers left their work, and coming out into 
 the street, sat down in a long row, as miserable a set 
 of people as could be found at work any where. A 
 man with a list of their names, an ink-horn by his 
 side and pen in his hand, came along with another 
 who had a bag of money. They paid this ragged com- 
 pany their daily wages, which in the case of the men 
 were about two cents a day, and the women and chil- 
 dren a penny or less, even lower wages than are men- 
 tioned in the New Testament as the price of a day's 
 work. How it is possible for any population to keep 
 soul and body together on such hire it is hard to un- 
 derstand. While this was going on, their dinner was 
 brought to many of them. It consisted of a soup 
 made of beans and onions, or a few olives roasted ; 
 scanty as well as miserable fare. The work now go- 
 ing on was at the expense of the government, and 
 these wretched fellahs, without decent and sufficient 
 food, are worked under the lash to the last point of 
 human endurance. 
 
 There are but two monuments of antiquity now 
 standing in Alexandria, and to one of these we now 
 
402 EUEOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The Needles. Tombs. 
 
 bent our steps. Cleopatra's Needles are as famous as 
 the Queen herself; hut these well-known shafts were 
 never erected by her authority, and ought not to bear 
 her name. One of them is lying on and under the 
 sand, where it fell from its pedestal. The other is 
 standing one hundred and fifty feet from it — a single 
 shaft of red Syenite, about seven and a half feet 
 through at the base, and tapering like a pyramid to 
 its summit, which is sixty-three feet from the ground. 
 The sides are covered with hieroglyphics, which 
 mark the names of Thothmes III., B.C. 1495, and 
 Remeses the Great. Formerly these obelisks were at 
 Heliopolis, and were brought down to Alexandria by 
 the Romans, to add to the embellishments of this city. 
 The one that is lying prostrate — a mute emblem of 
 Egypt — has been given away by the government to 
 England and France ; but neither is disposed to carry 
 it off. Indeed, the hieroglyphics are so defaced by 
 time, that it is hardly worth the cost of transporta- 
 • ion. It would not be strange if the other should soon 
 foil by its side, for the base of it has been hacked 
 off, and the substructure worked away, till it seems 
 strange that it retains its perpendicularity. This is 
 the site of the Ccesarium, or Temple of Cassar. The 
 palaces of the kings were in the same quarter, and 
 their tombs, and this must have been the most splen- 
 did part of the city. Here the Ptolemies were buried ; 
 and it is said that the body of Alexander the Great, 
 in a gold coffin, was brought hither from Memphis. 
 The natives point us to a tomb which they call Alex- 
 ander's ; and, after a long delay to get the key, we 
 
EGYPT ALEXANDRIA. 403 
 
 Pompey's Pillar. 
 
 were admitted into a little edifice, like a private chapel, 
 where we were called to look down into an empty 
 sarcophagus, and believe, if we could, that the body 
 of the conqueror had once been there. 
 
 Through rows of the tamarisk, and by the stately 
 palms, we rode out to a mound on the southeastern 
 side of the town, overlooking the lake Mareotis, and 
 the forts Constantino and Napoleon. There, on this 
 height commanding the city and a view far out to 
 sea, stands, " solitary and alone," the column of Dio- 
 cletian, or popularly known as Pompey's Pillar. One 
 must see it to appreciate the striking beauty of a sin- 
 gle pillar of polished red Syenite, rising ninety-eight 
 feet and eight inches from the ground to the top of 
 the capital. The column, without the pedestal and 
 capital, is an unbroken block of granite, nine feet in 
 diameter, and .seventy-three feet high. How such a 
 shaft as this could have been raised to its present po- 
 sition, our knowledge of ancient art does not enable 
 us to say. If it should fall, who could restore it to 
 its pedestal ? Such a calamity was feared a few years 
 ago, the curiosity of travellers and the cupidity of 
 the natives having led them to break off pieces of the 
 foundation, and to dig out the cement, until there was 
 actual danger that the column would fall. The Pasha 
 put an end to this Vandalism, and repaired the injury. 
 But the face of the monument has been injured by 
 the itching for notoriety, which has induced European 
 travellers to inscribe their names on it with paint, in 
 a strife to see who could write their names the high- 
 est. Smart travellers have ascended the pillar by 
 
404 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Sore eyes. Catacombs. 
 
 means of a rope ladder, carried to the top by a kite, 
 and there, on the capital, which is slightly depressed 
 to receive a statue, these unromantic people have had 
 a picnic, or written letters to their friends. The folly 
 and danger of such an experiment were so evident 
 that the semi-civilized Pasha forbade the refined and 
 prudent Europeans to expose themselves in this ex- 
 ploit again. The Greek inscription on this celebrated 
 pillar proves that it was reared by the Governor of 
 Egypt to the memory of the Roman Emperor Diocle- 
 tian, who took the city a.d. 296. But Pompey's 
 name has been associated with it so long, it will cling 
 to it forever. 
 
 The catacombs of Alexandria are on the sea-side, 
 an hour's ride west of the city. The way is lined 
 with the hovels of the Arab population. Women with 
 faces vailed, and breasts exposed, their lower limbs 
 loosely covered with a ragged cotton garment, carried 
 naked babies astride their shoulders or on the tops 
 of their heads : they seemed unconscious of danger. 
 Many of these children had black patches of flies about 
 their eyes, sucking the sores. The mothers did not 
 drive the flies off, knowing that a new set would take 
 their place, and make matters worse. 
 
 Near the water's edge we entered the catacombs, 
 and stood in silent astonishment before these ancient 
 subterranean structures. Through many successive 
 chambers, under portals of skillful workmanship, and 
 fitted up to receive the bodies of the dead, we fol- 
 lowed our guide with torches, and surveyed the most 
 interesting monuments of the former greatness and 
 
EGYPT ALEXANDRIA. 405 
 
 Funeral customs. Waitings. 
 
 magnificence of Alexandria. All this was once a 
 suburb of the city, and gardens and villas covered 
 the surface, while underneath the silent dead reposed 
 in these splendid tombs. We were led along into a 
 vaulted and circular chamber, which seems to have 
 been a temple, with niches, like chapels, at its side. 
 The Doric architecture of the portal differs from the 
 sculptures that are found on the monuments of Egypt. 
 Returning from this excursion we met two or three 
 funeral processions. I have been curious in all coun- 
 tries to inquire into the rites and customs that belong 
 to the dying and dead. Here in Egypt, as the sick 
 man is about to expire, a friend turns his face toward 
 Mecca, and closes his eyes. As he breathes his last, 
 the attendants cry, "Allah! there is no power but 
 God ! To God we belong, and to him we must re- 
 turn ! God have mercy on him ! " The women rend 
 the air with their shrieks, his wives and children 
 crying, "Oh my master!" "Oh my camel!" "Oh 
 my lion!" "Oh my glory!" and wailing-women, or 
 hired mourners, come in and assist in the lamenta- 
 tion. They bring instruments of music, and add to 
 the hideous sounds of woe with which the house is 
 filled. The same scenes are common in all the East 
 when the spirit leaves the body. My rest was broken 
 by these howls while at Nablous, and when first 
 roused from sleep, I thought there must be a general 
 alarm of fire in the town. In Egypt it is common to 
 bury the corpse on the same day of the death ; and a 
 superstitious dread prevails of keeping it in the house 
 over night. But if the death occurs in the after part 
 
406 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The body. The bier. 
 
 of the clay, the mourners remain around it, and keep 
 up the lamentations all night ; for they do not "bury 
 after sunset. The body is thoroughly washed, the 
 nose is stuffed with cotton, and the corpse is sprink- 
 led with camphor and water, and dressed, according 
 to the circumstances of the deceased, in white or green 
 colors, cotton or silk, and covered with a shawl. The 
 body, thus arrayed for the grave, is placed upon a 
 bier, without a coffin, and the procession is formed as 
 we met it in our ride to-day. A few poor men, Mr. 
 Lane says, mostly blind, walk on ahead, and chant, 
 in a melancholy strain, the universal Moslem cry, 
 "God is great, and Mohammed is his prophet." 
 Then come the relatives and friends of the deceased, 
 and some of the priests or holy men, bearing some 
 emblem of their order. Three or four boys, bearing 
 a copy of the Koran, come on chanting a song de- 
 scriptive of the last judgment. Then the bier is 
 borne on the shoulders of men who frequently relieve 
 one another of the load, and even persons who are 
 casually passing, lend a hand, and thus do a good 
 deed. The women follow the bier, with disheveled 
 hair, and wailing piteously, the immediate relatives 
 being distinguished by a blue cotton band about the 
 head, and tied in a knot behind, the ends hanging 
 down. A rich man goes to his grave in more pomp 
 than this. Three or four camels precede him, loaded 
 with bread and water, which are given to the poor at 
 his tomb. His horses are also sometimes led in the 
 procession. The body is taken to the mosque, when 
 the Imaum, or priest, stands on the left side of the 
 
EGYPT ALEXANDRIA. 407 
 
 The priest. The angels. 
 
 bier, the attendants behind the priest, and the women 
 behind the men, when the priest performs a funeral 
 service, in which he offers prayers for the soul of the 
 departed, and even for his body, that the earth may 
 be kept back from pressing against his sides. Re- 
 sponses are made by those standing around, and when 
 the ceremony is over the procession forms again, and 
 moves to the grave-yard. In the case of a person 
 who can afford the expense, a brick vault is prepared 
 with an arched roof, and so spacious that the dead 
 may be able to sit up in it when the two angels come 
 to examine him. A form of instruction is addressed 
 to the dead after he is laid in the vault, teaching him 
 what he must say when the angels come ; for it is 
 believed that they will visit him in his tomb, to learn 
 of his faith and his fitness to be taken to Paradise. 
 The men wear no kind of mourning-dress, but the 
 women put on blue or black vails, and stain their arms 
 and the walls of their chambers of the same color. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 CAIRO AND THE PYRAMIDS. 
 
 Egyptian Steamers — Omnibus — Canal — Women on Shore — Mounds 
 and Euins — Managing the Craft — English Captain throwing his 
 dead Child overboard — Funeral — Atfeh — The Nile — Overflow — 
 Boolak — Caravan — Cairo — The Streets at Night — The Streets by 
 Day — Citadel — Mosques — Mamelukes — Palace of the Pasha — The 
 Sphinx and the Pyramids. 
 
 We ride in an omnibus from the hotel in Alexan- 
 dria to the Mahmoodeh canal. We go by steamer to 
 Cairo. Next year we may go by railroad from one 
 city to the other. 
 
 If that is not sufficiently modern and common-place, 
 wait patiently a few years and you shall hear of the 
 cars for Gaza and Jerusalem. The omnibus inns 
 over to the Red Sea, and a ship canal is already pro- 
 jected. 
 
 The fare to Cairo was fifteen dollars, the distance 
 one hundred and sixty-six miles, the time thirty 
 hours. The steamer was to be off at eight o'clock in 
 the morning, and we were on board in good season. 
 The boat was short and clumsy, the managers Egyp- 
 tian, and the management ludicrous always. In their 
 native costume, with white turbans, loose jacket and 
 vest, with belt and big pantaloons, the hands on board 
 made noise enough for a man-of-war. On the bank 
 of the canal, in the midst of pleasant villas and gar- 
 
CAIRO AND THE PYRAMIDS. 409 
 
 Captain and crew. Mud huts. 
 
 dens, and near the lake Maroetis, we can see the new 
 railway stretching into the south, and a locomotive 
 practicing on it, by way of preparing for a trip to the 
 Pyramids. At nine o'clock we were actually off, 
 when a carriage came in sight, with a party who must 
 he taken on hoard. We came to and took them in. 
 One man tumbled into the canal in his haste and awk- 
 wardness, but he was soon picked out and dried. 
 The captain sits on a plank across the bows of the 
 boat, with a large tin horn in his hand, through which 
 he issues his orders, and often calls to the natives on 
 the shore. In one of the villas we are passing, a bevy 
 of women, nearly a dozen of them, are behind a screen 
 on the piazza, making themselves merry. Although 
 we can get only glimpses of them through the blinds, 
 we are glad to think that they are having something 
 to laugh at, poor things ! shut up like prisoners, lest 
 the profane eyes of us innocent travellers should see 
 them. 
 
 The country is flat as a floor, and nothing occurs 
 to relieve the monotony of the view, unless we see the 
 fellahs gathering grass for fuel — the grass that " to-day 
 is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven" — or sitting on 
 the ground by the side of their conical mud huts, that 
 look more like large ant-hills than small houses. The 
 wind is now so high that we raise a sail to help the 
 steamer on ; the confusion and uproar it occasions 
 would not be greater if we were clearing the decks for 
 action with an enemy. We come to villages of mud 
 huts, with palm-trees rising in the midst, holding their 
 green heads far above the filth and misery at their 
 Vol, II.— S 
 
410 EL'liOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Canal. English officers. 
 
 base; where the men and donkeys are huddled to- 
 gether in heaps of ordure, the smell of which loads the 
 breezes as we pass. Children nearly naked, and some 
 of them quite, come running along the shore and 
 stretching out their hands, imploring us to throw them 
 something to eat. 
 
 This canal we are now passing through is a great 
 work for modern Egypt, and was made as the Pyra- 
 mids were, by the mandate of a tyrant and the blood 
 of the people. Mohammed Ali made it in a year, set- 
 ting two hundred and fifty thousand men at work, 
 who scooped out the earth with their hands if they 
 could get no tools, and twenty thousand of the poor 
 laborers perished in the work. But what of that to 
 the master ? He wanted the canal, and did not want 
 the people after it was done. 
 
 On my passage down this canal, the overland pas- 
 sengers from India were in the boat with us, and 
 among them several officers of the British army, re- 
 turning with their families. One of them, Captain 
 
 , had his wife and three children. The oldest 
 
 of the children, a boy of three years, had been sick on 
 
 the journey, and died as they came on board at Cairo. 
 
 | It was wrapped up in a shawl and laid on the table 
 
 in the cabin, where, in the course of the day, it became 
 
 ; offensive to the passengers. To my surprise I was 
 
 | called on to perform a funeral service, but was still 
 
 more astonished when I learned the intention of the 
 
 father to throw the body of his child into the canal. 
 
 I assured him that in four or five hours we would be 
 
 in Alexandria, and the child could be decently buried 
 
CAlliO AND THE PYRAMIDS. 411 
 
 Dead child. On the Nile. 
 
 there. He said lie preferred to have it attended to 
 now, if I would oblige him by performing the service. 
 Going to the mother, I suggested the expediency of 
 postponing the burial till we should reach the city. 
 To my greater amazement she thought it would be 
 well to proceed. We then had the usual funeral ex- 
 ercises ; the father took up the corpse of his boy, which 
 was wound in white napkins, handed it to a brother 
 officer through the window of the cabin, and he dropped 
 it overboard into the canal. It floated behind us as 
 we kept on our way, and I presume it was eaten by 
 the dogs in twenty minutes. I strove to learn from 
 his countrymen who were with us some motive for 
 this extraordinary conduct. They could find no rea- 
 son but to save the expense of a burial on shore. 
 
 Atfeh is the mud town at the junction of the canal 
 with the Nile. Boats loaded with grain lined the 
 banks of the canal. A row of shade-trees on each 
 side quite relieved the monotony of the voyage as we 
 came to the lock, and after a tedious detention got 
 ashore, and made a general rush to the larger steamer 
 that was to carry us up the river to Cairo. 
 
 On the Nile — on the Nile ! and a broader, swifter, 
 altogether a more respectable river, than we had looked 
 for. Three or four steamers were lying here, and 
 gave quite a business-like appearance to the place. 
 They belong to the government, and are used in the 
 transport of passengers up and down the Nile, of 
 whom there are many thousands every year, over this 
 the grand highway between England and India. 
 
 The next morning we were far enough up the Nile 
 
412 
 
 EL'KUTE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Sand from the desert. 
 
 Water-wheel. 
 
 at daybreak to descry the Pyramids if the atmosphere 
 had been clear. But the right shore was covered with 
 sand, and the high wind was carrying it through the 
 air, so that it cut us uncomfortably on the boat in the 
 middle of the river. We felt that we were in Egypt, 
 and but for the w T ater on both sides of us, might have 
 thought ourselves in the desert. The left bank was 
 six or eight feet above the river, and a rude wheel we 
 
 v v ',.. 
 
 lit: I 
 
 IRRIGATING WHEEL. NILE BOAT. PYRAMIDS. 
 
 frequently saw at work, to raise water for irrigating 
 the soil. As this wide and level country opened on 
 either hand to our view and our imaginations, we 
 began to appreciate the wonderful value of this great 
 'central stream, the life-blood of Egypt. 
 
 At noon we readied Boolak, the landing-place of 
 Cairo. We stepped ashore into a large quadrangle, 
 among a caravan of camels just arrived with the over- 
 land mail from India. 
 
CAIRO AND THE PYRAMIDS. 413 
 
 Cairo iu the dark. Never rain?. 
 
 A broad straight road, two miles long and shaded 
 with large trees, led us to the city, and into the great 
 "oblong square" in the "city of Saladin and the 
 Arabian Nights." And as if my first impressions of it 
 were to be in keeping with our dreams of the city of 
 Haroun al Raschid, my first excursion into it was in 
 a dark evening. Cairo is not lighted by gas — not. 
 yet. Cairo has no lamps in its streets. Cairo sheds 
 no light from the latticed windows of its houses upon 
 the passer-by. Cairo sits in blackness of darkness 
 after the sunlight is gone. No man is allowed to go 
 out into her streets without a lantern in his hand ; and 
 streets that are thronged in the daytime with a busy 
 crowd of people are deserted and silent in the evening 
 as a street of tombs. Achmet would lead me to any 
 part of it. Taking a lantern he went before me, and 
 I soon lost myself in the labyrinth of streets not ten 
 feet wide, and the silent, gloomy houses coming nearer 
 and nearer, to each other as they ascend, till at the 
 top a narrow streak of sky, with a few stars, is to be 
 seen, and in some of the streets the houses actually 
 meet together at the eaves. As it never rains in 
 Cairo, there is no need of the sun to dry the streets ; 
 and being so narrow, they exclude the heat, which in 
 the summer would be more oppressive but for this 
 perpetual shade. It was the silence of utter solitude 
 as we trod the unpaved streets ; yet, when we knew 
 that all these houses were filled with living men and 
 women, and the tales of Oriental life, of which we 
 have read from childhood, were all made real in the 
 habitations on our right and left, a feeling of mvsteri- 
 
414 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Street gate. street scenes. 
 
 ous wonder stole over me, and I was excited in the 
 midst of the darkness and stillness that reigned. We 
 came to a gate across the street, and after long and 
 loud knocking we roused a surly keeper, who came 
 out and opened it for us to pass. We met a vailed 
 woman preceded "by a servant with a light in his 
 hand, but they shrank closely to the side of the street, 
 and held down their heads as if they were out on a 
 secret expedition, and were afraid of being recognized. 
 Women are rarely abroad here after night has fallen. 
 At the door that opened through a stone wall, and 
 promised to conduct us into a court, we knocked till 
 the stupid-looking servant, with a loose garment 
 around him and a light in his hand, opened the gate, 
 and assured us his master was not at home. We ex- 
 tended our walk through many of the streets, and 
 meeting no adventures worth a mention, returned to 
 our lodgings. 
 
 The next morning the caivasse of the Consul, with 
 a staff silver-headed as a badge of office, was to escort 
 us through the town, and open doors that might other- 
 wise be closed. Through the narrow and tortuous 
 streets we ran single file, scampering along as if we 
 were on a holiday frolic, now in peril of being knock- 
 ed over by a procession of camels, whose burdens 
 blockaded the streets, or a string of asses with timber 
 swinging from their sides, and dangling against any 
 tiling in the way. The water-carriers it was hard to 
 avoid, as they led their donkeys loaded with a hog- 
 skin bottle — the skin's head and legs sewed up and 
 made to hold water, so that it looks like the entire 
 
:/* ^fi 
 
CAIRO AND THE PYRAMIDS. 417 
 
 Curiosity of women. Lazy Arabs. 
 
 animal stuffed and laid across a donkey. When we 
 struck into a street that was not a thoroughfare, it was 
 exceedingly pleasant to ride in the cool shade, looking 
 up, as I confess I did often, to catch sight of the eyes 
 that were peering through the latticed windows to 
 meet the eyes of the passing Franks. One of them, 
 more curious than the rest, pushed a shutter open 
 and leaned out of the window, unvailed, and with only 
 a loosely-flowing shawl over her shoulders. A barber 
 on his knees was shaving the head of a man who was 
 also on his knees before him ; he had taken all the 
 hair off but a single tuft on his crown, with which the 
 angel is expected to pull him into Paradise. Ladies 
 mounted on donkeys, led by grave old servants, met 
 us frequently. They were clothed in rich silk dresses, 
 flowing and puffed out so as to give them the appear- 
 ance of two. or three single ladies rolled into one. But 
 no part of their faces could be seen, except their large, 
 watery, lustrous black eyes, which always fell the in- 
 stant they encountered the gaze of the profane Frank, 
 who stares as if he would read the soul that peers 
 through these crystal windows. Lazy Arabs, sitting 
 on the ground by the doors of the coffee-shops, were 
 smoking, and affected to care nothing for us if we 
 should run over them ; but the donkeys picked their 
 way among their legs, and ambled on. The ride, in 
 the novelty of the objects constantly meeting us, was 
 exciting, and Ave dashed up the hill to the citadel 
 with quite as much enthusiasm as if we were bent on 
 taking it by storm. 
 
 " Cairo the superb, the Holy City, the delight of 
 
418 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Mosques and minarets. Pyramids. 
 
 the imagination, greatest among the great, whose 
 splendor and opulence made the prophet smile" — 
 Cairo lies at our feet. The domes of four hundred 
 mosques are shining in the light of a cloudless sun, 
 and countless minarets rjoint to the sky. The tombs 
 of the Mameluke Sultans are seen in the east, leading 
 the eye along to the great wilderness of sand that 
 there stretches away to the horizon, an everlasting 
 ocean at rest. Turning to the south we look off upon 
 Heliopolis, the Athens of old Egypt ; and there, alone 
 in its grandeur, as if defiant of the ravages of four thou- 
 sand years, stands the obelisk on which, we are told 
 by the antiquaries, it is not unlikely that the father of 
 the faithful, even Abraham, gazed when he came into 
 this country. Around the city and near, the land is 
 green ; and the groves of orange and palm on the 
 plain, and the Nile in the midst of it, diffusing fruit- 
 fulness as it passes by, would indicate that we are 
 in the heart of a fertile land, the balmiest and bright- 
 est the sun shines on. And across the river, just on 
 the verge of the deserts of Lybia, rise, like carved 
 mountains, the pyramids of Gheezeh, and the myste- 
 rious Sphinx in the midst of them ; solemn, mighty 
 memorials of the past, the most stupendous works of 
 art that now survive the wrecks of time. A few miles 
 to the south of them, are the pyramids of Sakliara 
 and of Dashoor, sixteen in all, that are in sight from 
 this proud eminence. The view was to me most im- 
 pressive and subduing. I felt the weight of time 
 upon me. These are scenes with which Joseph was 
 familiar, when, in the midst of them, he was ruler over 
 
CAIRO AND THE PYRAMIDS. 419 
 
 Moses and Abraham. Old things new. 
 
 Egypt ; here Moses was born, and cradled in the 
 bulrushes of the Nile at my feet. Within the fields 
 on which I am now gazing with awe, the miracles of 
 the great prophet were wrought, and the first-born 
 of the families of Egypt perished in a night, while 
 the destroying angel passed by the houses of Israel. 
 I seem to be on the frontiers of the world, and look- 
 ing upon the earliest buildings that remain of the 
 workmanship of ages, perhaps before Abraham was. 
 The ruins of old Cairo crown the hill a little to the 
 south of us, and the island of Hhoda, with its villa* 
 and palaces in the Nile, is still nearer to us ; and then 
 we come thorough the acacias and palms to the city 
 at our feet, and from the mass of roofs, like a field of 
 red pavement, we select the various mosques and pal- 
 aces whose Arabian architecture or historic recollec- 
 tions command our wondering gaze. To the traveller 
 from a far-distant shore — from a shore where a young 
 nation is starting in the career of life, and the moss 
 has not grown upon a roof, and the ivy has scarcely 
 clung to a tower ; where the temple of a century is an 
 antiquity, and two centuries would press almost any 
 of its buildings into ruins, this view is indescribably 
 impressive. It is new because it is old. And even 
 more must the traveller be moved by this landscape, 
 who receives with veneration the records of the Old 
 Testament Scriptures, and knows that he is now in 
 the land of the Pharoahs, and of Joseph, and in the 
 house of Israel's bondage. 
 
 On this commanding height is the new mosque of 
 Mohammed Ali. In the centre of a marble-paved court 
 
420 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Interior of the mosque. 
 
 is a beautiful fountain, and on the sides are rows of 
 pillars of Egyptian marble. On the eastern side a 
 gate leads to the interior of the temple, which, after 
 taking off our shoes, we were permitted to enter. 
 The first blaze of splendor was dazzling, even in the 
 dim light that comes down from the magnificent dome 
 supported by four massive square columns. The gor- 
 geous pillars are of rose-tinted marble ; the walls are 
 lined with Oriental alabaster, and a hundred and fifty 
 lamps and chandeliers are hanging but a little above 
 our heads. The rich tomb of Mohammed Ali stands in 
 one corner, and around it the faithful were kneeling, 
 while the [Moolahs read from the Koran lying on a 
 low bench beside them. The style of this temple is 
 not so solemn as others that I have seen ; but it sur- 
 passes St. Peter's at Rome, or its great rival St. 
 Sophia at Constantinople, in the splendor of its archi- 
 tecture and the beauty of its decorations. The old 
 Turk, who followed us every step that we took with- 
 in the sacred inclosure, solicited the never-to-be-for- 
 gotten backshish, and received ^t with as much pleas- 
 ure as a donkey-boy. The large quadrangle in which 
 we are now standing is made famous in history, and 
 will be so in all the after records of Egypt, on account 
 of the massacre of the Mamelukes by Mohammed Ali. 
 Having learned that a powerful conspiracy had been 
 formed among them for his overthrow, he determined 
 to anticipate their action by striking a signal and 
 fatal blow. He was absent a day's journey from Cairo 
 with his army when the news of the intended insur- 
 rection was communicated to him. Without disclos- 
 
CAIRO AND THE PYRAMIDS. 421 
 
 Slaughter and escape. Pasha's palace. 
 
 ing his purposes to any one, lie hastened to the cap- 
 ital, and affecting total ignorance of what was in prep- 
 aration by his enemies, he invited the Mamelukes, to 
 the number of six hundred, to a feast at his palace. 
 Unsuspicious of danger, they assembled. After the 
 feast was over, while they were in the court, suddenly 
 a fire of musketry was opened upon them from the sur- 
 rounding ramparts. Every avenue of escape was cut 
 off, and the whole number slain, with the exception 
 of one man, who leaped over the wall on the south- 
 westerly side, and escaped. We stood on the wall 
 and looked over the precipice down which he pre- 
 cipitated himself on horseback, and wondered that 
 any one could make the leap and escape with life. 
 This was the end of the notorious aristocracy of the 
 Mamelukes, who for centuries had maintained a terri- 
 ble sway in Egypt. 
 
 From this we went down to the palace of Abbas 
 Pasha, and entered a court-yard some five hundred 
 feet square. In this inclosure the pilgrims on their 
 return from Mecca prostrate themselves side by side, 
 while the shiekh, mounted on horseback, rides over 
 the multitude — his horse stepping tenderly but steadi- 
 ly upon the living pavement, wounding, crushing, and 
 not unfrequently killing the miserable victims of a 
 superstition which teaches them that those are the 
 most blessed who suffer the most in this barbarous 
 rite. Our Consul told me that he witnessed the cere- 
 mony but a few weeks before my visit to this city. 
 He saw many of them on rising from the ground, with 
 the blood streaming from their wounds, sometimes 
 
422 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Harem. Pleasure-room. 
 
 from their mouths and nostrils on account of the in- 
 ternal injuries which they had received. At the door 
 of the palace six Nubian slaves, handsomely dressed, 
 were standing. The superintendent of the palace 
 conducted us through the spacious and magnificent 
 apartments. The audience chamber was splendidly 
 furnished with divans and sofas of Parisian manu- 
 facture, showing the eastward progress of western 
 luxuries. We passed by the door of the Harem, 
 where the numerous wives of the Pasha are confined. 
 The present Pasha is not so scrupulous as his prede- 
 cessor, who, being advised by his physicians to part 
 with the most of his harem, distributed them very free- 
 ly among the courtiers by whom he was surrounded. 
 Passing through the hall, some three or four hundred 
 feet long, out of which doors opened on every hand 
 into splendid apartments, we came at length to a room 
 at the extremity of the palace, to which the Pasha is 
 accustomed to retire after dinner to enjoy his pipe 
 and take repose. It is a lofty room about forty feet 
 square ; a divan extends across one end of it, while on 
 the opposite side are some thirty marble vases on the 
 the wall, through which jets of water rise, filling the 
 vases and then flowing over upon the marble floor, 
 into which channels are cut for the stream to meander 
 and murmur through the apartment, and finally ebb 
 away under the divan upon which the Pasha reclines. 
 The superintendent intimated to our party, that when 
 distinguished strangers were present, it was customary 
 to cause the fountain to play ; upon which the young 
 men of our number suggested in return, that if the 
 
CAIRO AND THE PYRAMIDS. 423 
 
 A royal treat. The way it was done. 
 
 Pasha was desirous of being celebrated in America 
 for his courtesy, it would be very well for him on 
 the present occasion to make the best display in his 
 power. We were then invited to seat ourselves in 
 the Oriental fashion upon the divan. Instantly from 
 every jet the water leaped into the air, and came 
 trickling over the vases, flowing gently and deliciously 
 through the room, cooling the atmosphere, and shed- 
 ding a delightful influence like that of soft music over 
 our frames. Then entered as many Circassian slaves 
 as there were guests, each slave bearing in his hand 
 the long pipe and silver saucer. Placing the saucer 
 upon the floor, and the bowl of the pipe in it, he took 
 the measure with his eye of the distance from the 
 bowl to the lip, and, with a graceful swing, brought 
 it around so that the amber tip just rested upon the 
 waiting lip of the guest. The dexterity of the serv- 
 ants is shown in taking the measurement so exactlv 
 as not to require the guest to move his head either 
 backward or forward for the purpose of receiving the 
 pipe. The slaves then returned, and spreading a 
 gold-embroidered napkin across our knees, presented 
 us with coffee, and afterward with sherbet. We were 
 then treated with sweetmeats, the mode of eating 
 them being peculiar. A saucer and spoon is given to 
 the guest, who takes first a spoonful of the preserves 
 in his mouth, and then a mouthful of water, suffering 
 the water to trickle through the preserves, and cany 
 down the taste of the fruit. After our entertainment 
 was completed, the superintendent intimated to some 
 of the party — what we very well knew before, from 
 
424 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Paying for it. Putting off our shoes. 
 
 our repeated former experiences of Oriental hospitality 
 — that it was expected of the guests to make a present, 
 in proportion to their wealth and dignity. When this 
 request was complied with, we found that our enter- 
 tainment at the palace of the Pasha had cost us quite 
 as much as it was worth, Ibut it had given us a fine 
 opportunity of seeing how things are done in the 
 high places of Egypt. 
 
 Cairo shows the domes of four hundred mosques, 
 and minarets without number. Several of these I 
 visited, as there was no such difficulty in the way of 
 obtaining admission as we encountered at Constanti- 
 nople. In Cairo, the keeper of the mosque is ready 
 to admit Franks at any time, attended by the caivasse 
 of the Consul ; and we presented ourselves, with such 
 an escort, at the door of the mosque of Sultan Hassan. 
 The magnificent porch by which we entered impress- 
 ed us instantly with the grandeur of the architecture 
 displayed in this sacred edifice. The keeper of the 
 mosque was provided with a large number of over- 
 shoes, made of straw or husks, which he insisted that 
 we should put on before we would be allowed to enter. 
 So, pulling off our boots, and availing ourselves of 
 the provision made for us, we proceeded to the inte- 
 rior. One of our number most profanely resolved 
 upon dispensing with the overshoes, and pushed his 
 way along without them, to the great indignation and 
 astonishment of the Moslems who were standing 
 around. 
 
 From the court, a recess on each side is surmounted 
 by a majestic arch — the one on the east being seventy 
 
~:"- ^^IBBa^-'* 
 
 
 MOSQUE OF THE SULTAN HASSAN. 
 
TOMH OF SULTAN KAITB.\Y. 
 
CAIRU AND THE PYRAMIDS. 42 
 
 Sultan's tomb. 
 
 feet across. Within it, is the sacred place of tlie chief 
 jDriest, who here offers prayer for the congregation, on 
 every holy day of the Moslems. Rows of beautiful 
 glass vases bear the name of the Sultan to whom the 
 mosque is dedicated. A tomb is in the rear of this 
 recess, and bears the date 764 of the Hejira, which 
 answers to 1363 of our era. A copy of the Koran 
 lies upon the tomb, and over it are suspended colored 
 lamps. 
 
 Once more upon our donkeys — with Achmet as our 
 dragoman and guide — we dashed through the streets, 
 and up the banks of the river to Old Cairo, surmount- 
 ed with the ruins of the ancient city and its mosque. 
 This was the Babylon of Egypt ; and the Roman sta- 
 tion near the mosque of Amer, is supposed to be the 
 fortress besieged by the Moslem invader. The walls 
 and towers that remain show its former strength. 
 Here is a village of Coptic Christians. In a fortress 
 over the eastern tower is an early Christian record, 
 on wood, of the time of Diocletian, and in hiero- 
 glyphics, showing that the early Egyptian Christians 
 used this style of writing, which was borrowed from 
 the pagans. 
 
 We passed the island of Rhoda, opposite Old Cairo, 
 on which is erected the jVilomete?\ a well or chamber, 
 in the centre of which is placed a graduated pillar for 
 the purpose of marking the daily height of the Nile. 
 This is proclaimed every morning in the streets of the 
 capital, during the inundation, by four criers ; to each 
 of whom a particular portion of the city is assigned. 
 Great importance is attached to this information, inas- 
 
428 EUKOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Moses in the Nile. Crossing. 
 
 much as the price of provisions, and the toll that is 
 paid for the transportation of produce, are measured 
 according to the state of the river. This Kilometer 
 is said to have borne an inscription dated 848 of out- 
 era ; hut it is known that one was constructed here 
 as far "back as the reign of Soolayman, who was caliph 
 about a.d. 714. 
 
 A tradition of the Arabs has assigned to Rhoda the 
 honor of being the spot where Moses was found by the 
 daughter of Pharaoh, whose name, Josephus tells us, 
 was Thermenthis. 
 
 About five miles from Cairo we crossed the Nile, 
 and set off from Gheezeh for the Pyramids. In this 
 miserable village large heaps of corn and barley were 
 lying for sale. A handful of the grain, which I took, 
 has since been planted in our country, and yielded 
 more than a hundred fold. 
 
 Through a grove of India rubber trees, acacias, 
 and palms, the cultivated grounds of the Pasha, and 
 along the banks of the canals, that are cut through the 
 plain to conduct water for irrigation, we rode to an 
 arm of the Nile, where our journey would have been 
 suddenly arrested but for the fortunate appearance of 
 a number of Arabs who were ready to ford the river, 
 and carry us across. Not without some misgivings, 
 however, as to the safety of taking seats astride their 
 shoulders, we submitted to the only mode of transpor- 
 tation that offered itself, and were borne in safety to 
 the other side. They returned, after having set us 
 down, and led our donkeys across, and we mounted 
 once more. As we approached the -edge of the desert. 
 
;>■--. - 
 
 ■ : : 
 
 ¥§ 
 
 >2 
 
CAIKO AND THE PYRAMIDS. 431 
 
 Sand storm. Sphinx. 
 
 we encountered a storm of sand that was Lome through 
 the air, and cut off all vieAv of the pyramids, until we 
 were almost upon them. At length we see them in 
 the midst of this mysterious cloud, sublime and sol- 
 emn — the mighty memorials of a dim and distant 
 past. They are even the more sublime as we now 
 behold them, in the sands of this desert, which seems 
 to be aroused like the ocean, and is rising and curling 
 around the heads of these hoary sentinels. The sand- 
 storm became so furious that some of the beasts re- 
 fused to proceed against it, and actually turned around 
 and headed the other way, until its violence was past. 
 Happily, it was of short continuance, and it afforded 
 us a fine opportunity of witnessing one of those ter- 
 rible commotions which, when encountered on the 
 desert, often prove terribly fatal to the unhappy cara- 
 vans they overtake. The storm is over ; the sun re- 
 turns. Before us are the pyramids of Gheezeh, and 
 in their midst the mighty Sphinx, looking out upon 
 the plain. 
 
 I confess to strange, almost superstitious feelings 
 as I halted before the Sphinx, and gazed upward on 
 this silent and mighty monument. A huge form ris- 
 ing sixty feet from the ground, one hundred and forty 
 feet long, and the head more than a hundred feet 
 round, with mutilated but yet apparent human fea- 
 tures, looking out toward the fertile land and the Nile. 
 It suddenly impressed me as if it were indeed the 
 divinity of ancient Egypt. The Arabs of the present 
 day call it Aboolhol "the Father of Terror" or im- 
 mensity. An ignorant people might be easily tempted 
 
432 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Temple in front. Si lid rock. 
 
 to regard it with reverence and fear. " In its state of 
 pristine perfection, no single statue in Egypt could 
 have vied with it. When," says Mr. Bartlett, " the 
 lower part of the figure, which had been covered up 
 "by the sand, was at length uncovered for a while by 
 laborious and Sisyphus-like toil (the sand slipping 
 down almost as fast as it could be removed), it 
 presented the appearance of an enormous couchant 
 Sphinx, with gigantic paws, between which crouched, 
 as if for protection, a miniature tempfe, with a platform 
 and flights of steps for approaching it, with others 
 leading down from the plain above. A crude brick 
 wall protected it from the sand. It is hardly possible 
 to conceive a more strange or imposing spectacle than 
 it must have formerly presented to the worshipper, 
 advancing, as he did, along this avenue of approach, 
 confined between the sand walls of the ravine, and 
 looking up over the temple to the colossal head of the 
 tutelary deity, which beamed down upon him from an 
 altitude of sixty feet, with an aspect of godlike benig- 
 nity." 
 
 As yet no entrance has been effected, and it is 
 probably carved from the solid rock. Neither is there 
 reason to suppose that it had relation to the pyramids, 
 in whose vicinity it stands. I think it very strange 
 that Herodotus makes no mention of the Sphinx, nor 
 Diodorus, nor, indeed, any ancient author before the 
 Roman age, though its great antiquity is well estab- 
 lished by the inscriptions that are found upon it. The 
 statue seems to be crumbling, and the head has been 
 mutilated so, that the cap which formerly covered if 
 
C A I R AND T II E PYRAMID S. 433 
 
 Its design. » Swarin of Arabs. 
 
 and the beard are nearly all gone. I rode around it, 
 and then walked out on the wave of sand to the ped- 
 estal, and crept along as nearly under the monster as 
 I could get, and found that the sense of veneration 
 wore away as I became familiar with the mass of 
 stone that stands here so mysteriously — a greater 
 wonder, in my view, than the pyramids themselves. 
 What is its original design ? Who made it ? These 
 are questions never to be answered by any thing safer 
 than conjecture. Doubtless the Sphinx was an ob- 
 ject of worship, and was carved out of a rock in the 
 Lybian range for that purpose. Viewed in this light, 
 or even in the dim twilight of utter ignorance as to 
 its design, it certainly remains the most mysterious 
 and impressive of the monuments of Egypt. If those 
 lips could speak, what a story would they tell! If 
 those eyes could see, on what wondrous scenes they 
 have looked in the four thousand years that those 
 stone orbs have been gazing upon the plains of 
 Egypt ! the rising and retiring of her wonderful river, 
 coming like a divinity to prepare her bosom for the 
 seed, and then retiring that the flower and fruits may 
 gladden the soil, and reward the laborer's toil. And 
 then we turned to the pyramids. 
 
 All the while I have been studying this stupen- 
 dous mystery, a swarin of disgusting Arabs have been 
 pestering me to engage them as my aids in explor- 
 ing the pyramids. I could not drive them off, or buy 
 them off, not even by a threat to have none of them 
 unless they quit, or a promise to take them all if they 
 would let me muse alone. 
 Vol. IT.— T 
 
434 
 
 EUKOPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Size of the Great Pyramid. 
 
 Grows upon you. 
 
 Have you ever stood in the centre of a twelve acre 
 lot? Mark off in your mind's plantation twelve acres, 
 and cover the ground with layers of huge hewn stone, 
 so nicely fitted that the joints can scarcely be dis- 
 cerned. Over this platform, but two feet within the 
 outer edge, put on another layer, and another, leav- 
 ing but a single narrow passage into a few small 
 chambers in the far interior of this immense mass, 
 that rises by gradually diminishing layers as it as- 
 cends, till it reaches an apex twice the height of the 
 loftiest church spire in New York, and you have some 
 idea of the outer dimensions of the Great Pyramid. 
 As at the first sight of every long-expected wonder, 
 we are not instantly overwhelmed with the magnitude 
 of the pile. It takes some time to adjust one's mind 
 to the object ; and probably not one man in a thou- 
 sand would believe that this pyramid covers five, 
 much less that it covers ten, and even twelve or thir- 
 
 TIIE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
CAIRO AND THE PYRAMIDS. 435 
 
 Mystery. Getting in. 
 
 teen acres of earth. But it is even so. And as great- 
 ness and mystery are elements of the highest sub- 
 limity, we are excited the longer we contemplate 
 these mighty structures, and strive to get them fairly 
 within the grasp of the mind. They grow every mo- 
 ment we look at them. They begin to take us in, 
 and we feel ourselves gradually absorbed by the 
 grandeur of the monument that forbids, yet invites 
 us to enter its mysterious portals. 
 
 We must have these rascally Arabs to go with us, 
 or we shall neither find our way in nor out, and no 
 one wishes to make for himself a living tomb among 
 the sepulchres of the Pharoahs. Achmet had brought 
 a supply of candles, which were now lighted, and one 
 Arab was engaged as an escort for each traveller. I 
 employed two of the fellows, one to go before and the 
 other behind me, and found the good of it before com- 
 pleting the tom\ The entrance is about forty feet 
 above the foundation, but the sand is drifted up to 
 the mouth, so that we stand before the two huge 
 blocks that form a pointed arch, and look down into 
 the abyss which we are to explore. The passage is 
 worn so smooth that we could not walk down the 
 slippery blocks of stone, at an angle of twenty-seven 
 degrees, but for the foot-holes that have been cut for 
 our aid. Sliding and creeping down eighty feet, we 
 came to the passage that has been opened into a 
 chamber under ground and nearly in a line with the 
 apex of the pyramid. This passage has been closed, 
 and we now commenced the ascent to the °;reat o-al- 
 lery. The passage up was fatiguing, and the more so 
 
436 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 The progress. King's Chamber. 
 
 from the incessant clamor of the fellows who pulled 
 me along up, continually extolling my generosity and 
 wealth, which they hoped to know more of when they 
 had come to the end of their work. The heat is very 
 oppressive. No circulation of ah* is had, and some of 
 the party abandoned further progress for fear of be- 
 ing suffocated. At the foot of the great gallery.is the 
 opening of a passage which leads down to the subter- 
 ranean chamber. We pass it, and press onward and 
 upward by the inclined plane one hundred and fifty- 
 eight feet, where we came to a horizontal avenue which 
 was once barred against the footsteps of forbidden 
 mortals by four granite portcullises, which moved in 
 grooves of stone. The art and violence of the invader 
 have broken them down, and we pursue our way, and 
 soon stand in the grand apartment of the pyramid of 
 Cheops, the Chamber of the King, his mighty and 
 gloomy bedchamber, where he thought to lie undis- 
 turbed forever. It is of red granite. The solid walls, 
 of massive blocks, have no inscriptions, no hieroglyph- 
 ics, and inclose nothing in their Egyptian darkness 
 and solitude but the great sarcophagus, from which 
 the body of the king has been removed. It is not 
 impressive from its vastness, being only thirty-four 
 feet long and seventeen broad ; and so profound is the 
 darkness that the few candles only serve to make the 
 darkness visible, and give us no idea of the extent of 
 the apartment. We held the lights up to the walls 
 and searched every corner, but met nothing of the 
 least interest, except the sarcophagus, seven feet four 
 inches long and three feet broad. Small tubes or 
 
CAIRO AND THE PYRAMIDS. 4o7 
 
 Internal arrangements. Queen's Chamber. 
 
 holes in the side walls lead up through the pyramid 
 to the outer surface, and above the king's chamber 
 are four small cavities, not more than three or four 
 feet high, left, it may be, for the secretion of treas- 
 ures, as it was easy to render them inaccessible even 
 to those who should penetrate the larger apartments. 
 They are represented by the four black marks over 
 the king's chamber in the drawing on page 434, 
 which will give the reader a more intelligible view of 
 the internal arrangements of a pyramid than the most 
 elaborate description. 
 
 Glad to get out of the stifling heat of this gloomy 
 chamber, we returned by the great gallery, and with 
 my guides I struck off by the horizontal avenue to 
 the Queen's Chamber. My friends had already seen 
 enough of the interior, and declined the excursion, so 
 that I found myself with the two Arabs in this apart- 
 ment alone. They shouted with all their might as 
 they came to the entrance, that I might hear the dead 
 sound given back from the walls. This is a much 
 smaller chamber than the other, and roofed with long 
 granite slabs, which rest against each other, and form 
 an angle about twenty feet from the floor. In the east 
 end of it is a niche where the Arabs have broken the 
 stones in search for treasure; and Wilkinson thinks 
 that if the pit where the king's body was deposited 
 does exist in any of these rooms, it should be looked 
 for beneath this niche. Streaming, or rather steam- 
 ing with perspiration, I hastened out and down the 
 inclined passage, rather carried than led by the Arabs, 
 who put their dirty arms around me with a disgusting 
 
438 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 Paying the Arabs. History. 
 
 familiarity ; and in hopes of better pay for their serv- 
 ices, declared they never did see so fine a gentleman. 
 Before we emerged into the light of day they begged 
 that I would pay them now whatever I designed, for 
 if their sheikh should see them receiving any thing- 
 he would take it away, leaving them only a small part 
 of it for their own. I gave them about half a dollar, 
 which, for a rarity in the East, was satisfactory, and 
 they lavished their praises upon me for my princely 
 liberality, while I thought it moderate for seeing a 
 pyramid. Of course, when we were out, they declared 
 they had received nothing, and in the presence of the 
 sheikh begged for backshish. 
 
 When this pyramid was first opened we have no 
 means of ascertaining. Caliph Mamoon, in the year 
 820, forced a passage into the Great Pyramid in the 
 hope of finding heaps of hidden treasure. He set his 
 engineers at work to discover an entrance ; and when 
 they failed in this, they were ordered to go through 
 the solid wall. A hundred feet in this rock, and they 
 found their way into the real passage, by which they 
 worked their way into the great gallery, and then into 
 the two chambers I have described. With eap-er ex- 
 pectations, sharpened by long and toilsome labor, they 
 rush into these secret recesses, where they shall find 
 the riches of old Cheops, and perhaps of his success- 
 ors. Alas ! some robber had anticipated them, and 
 not even the mummy of a king was found. The peo- 
 ple were enraged when the Caliph was about to aban- 
 don his search without finding any thing to reward 
 them for their toil; and to satisfy them, he conveyed 
 
CAlliU AND THE PYRAMIDS. 
 
 439 
 
 Second pyramid. 
 
 a heap of money secretly into the pyramid and bur- 
 ied it, where it was soon after dug up, to the great 
 delight of the clamorous multitude. 
 
 "The passages in the second pyramid are very 
 similar to those of the first ; but there is no gallery, 
 and they lead only to one main chamber, in which is 
 a sarcophagus sunk in the floor. When Belzoni 
 opened it, in 1816, he found, from an inscription in 
 the chamber, that it had been visited before by Sultan 
 Ali Mohammed, by whose order it was probably re- 
 closed." The third pyramid, like all the others, had 
 also been explored when Colonel Vyse reopened it, 
 so that the pyramids, beyond all doubt, were an old 
 
 THE PYRAMIDS. 
 
440 EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 story, inside as well as out, long before the period of 
 which modern history speaks. 
 
 We wandered for a while among the tombs in the 
 vicinity of the pyramids, cut out of the solid rocks, 
 and had debated the expediency of spending the night 
 in them, as some travellers do, who wish to see the 
 sun rise from the summit of these monuments. But 
 we were more than satisfied with what we had seen 
 and felt, and, mounting our donkeys, returned to 
 Cairo. 
 
 T H E E N D. 
 
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