CHAPTER XVII—ADVENTURES IN QUARANTINE.—RHODES AND ITS MARVELS.
Missing our Steamer—A Serious Dilemma—A Study of Faces—Making a Row and What Came of It—Under the Yellow Flag—Adventures of a Quarantined Traveller—Escaping the Plague—Mal-de-Mer—A Laughable Incident—Getting on Our Sea-Legs—Custom House Troubles—The Potency of “Backsheesh”—Oriental Fashions in New York—“Doing” a Custom House Inspector—A Curious Tradition—The “Lamb” as a Trade Mark—The Temple of Diana—One of the “Seven Wonders”—Singular Discoveries—A Horde of Scoundrels—The Island of Rhodes—The Colossus—A Wonderful City—The Knights of St. John—Their Exploits—Surrendering to the Turks.
WHEN I went on deck the morning after our departure from the Piraeus, the steamer was at anchor in the harbor of Syra. We expected to catch the French steamer that was to sail that afternoon for Smyrna and the Syrian coast, and I looked around for the Tibre, which was her name.
She was nowhere in sight, and a boatman who wanted a job was kind enough to inform me that she had come and gone twelve hours before.
Here was a pretty caldron of piscatorial productions. As the rest of our party made their appearance up the cabin stairs I broke the dreadful news to them, and made a careful study of their features as they received it. If there had been any profane persons in our number, I think a swearing band could have been organized without much difficulty.
Weren’t we on our ears and didn’t we go to the office of the company and make a row? We had a printed time-table and demanded why the steamer sailed before her advertised time. The agent explained that he was very sorry, but the fact was the steamer did not touch at Naples on account of the quarantine there, and therefore she had reached Syra twenty-four hours ahead of time. There was nothing for her to do at Syra and no reason why she should wait, and so he had let her go.
We demanded a special steamer to take us to Smyrna, in season to overtake the Tibre, but the agent wouldn’t give it. We could hire one for one thousand dollars, but that was paying rather high for our passage, and we demurred.
The only thing left for us was to take a small steamer of the Austrian Lloyd’s that was to leave next day and might get us to Smyrna in season to catch the Tibre. The agent telegraphed the state of the case to the agent at Smyrna, and away we went for the other boat.
There she lay in the harbor, a little, old, paddle steamer, named the Wien, a wooden craft that had been running a quarter of a century. She did not look inviting externally. We wanted to go aboard and take a look at her cabins, but here was a difficulty. A yellow flag floated from her topmast. She was in quarantine, and if we once set foot on her we could not go ashore again in Syra. She had come from Trieste by way of Italy, and there was a five days’ quarantine in Greece against all ships from Italy. So we waited until about the time of her departure. She was stopping for the steamer with the mails from Trieste, and there were no less than four steamers in port waiting the same mails.
We took a lounge around the public square of Syra, and drank beer and coffee at a restaurant; then we took another lounge and more beer and coffee, and then we took a couple of carriages and drove to the interior of the Island, where there were some pretty orange groves and some very attractive country seats. Then we came back and drank some beer and coffee, and went on the steamboat—the steamer that brought us from the Piræus—to sleep.
Next morning we started for the same sort of excitements as on the day before, and just as we started, we saw the Trieste steamer poking her nose around a headland and steaming toward the harbor. Then we gave up our projects, and prepared to transfer ourselves to the Wien.
She lay near the entrance to the harbor, and an ugly wind was blowing straight into the entrance. The wind wasn’t much for a steamer, though she rocked about considerably, but it was altogether different with a row boat, such as we engaged to transfer us. We made a contract for two boats, one for us and one for our baggage, for the sanitary reasons of the quarantine. The boat with our baggage was towed alongside by a rope about thirty feet long, and then a couple of men descended from the steamer and put the baggage on board. Then the boat was towed away again, and nobody could enter it until a plentiful supply of salt water had been thrown over it.
As for ourselves, we had gingerly work to get on board. Our boat went to the steamer’s gangway, and was held under it by means of hooks and ropes, but she was not allowed to touch it. The waves were short and choppy, and we had to watch our chances and jump one by one upon the gangway. The instant we touched it we were in quarantine, and so was everything about us. We got on board without accident, and then came the work of paying. The price had been fixed beforehand, and the boatman wanted his pay at starting, but we were firm in refusing. This was in accordance with our inflexible rule never to pay boatmen, hackmen, et id oinne genus, until their services were ended.
But there was reason in the request of the boatmen on this occasion, and we might have relaxed enough to pay him before getting on board the steamer. Had we paid in the boat he could have received the money directly from our hands without any nonsense. When we were all on board, one of our party went to the foot of the gangway and held out the stipulated napoleon. We and all our napoleons were infected the instant we came on board, and the boatman was obliged to receive his in a tin cup of salt water. And if the party who paid him had dropped overboard while leaning down, and the boatman had rescued him, the boat and all it contained would have gone into quarantine the prescribed number of days. Such an event has occurred several times in Syra and other ports. In time of quarantine a man must be very careful about his movements.
The Wien got away from Syra about four in the afternoon, and put out into a very rough sea. The lady of our party went to bed immediately, her husband didn’t feel very well, and two others of the party were as cheerful as a pair of chickens that have been caught in a thunder shower. The fifth member of the crowd knew he wouldn’t be seasick, but had no appetite worth mentioning, and I was left alone in my glory, to pace the deck or go below, as I pleased.
I haven’t been seasick for a reasonable number of years, and didn’t want to begin again at that time and place. I have a suspicion that I take a malicious delight in showing how well I can be when others around me are covering the sea with maledictions, and furnishing pleasure and undigested food to the fishes that follow in the wake of the ship.
To give an illustration of the way I can stand the rolling of the “deep and dark blue ocean,” let me relate one incident.
Several years ago I went on board a steamer at Civita Vecchia, for Genoa. When we left Leghorn there were about sixty passengers, as happy as though they had just returned from a wedding or a circus. When we got out to sea we struck into a Mediterranean squall, such as sometimes blows the strings out of a pair of laced gaiters, or shaves the hair from the back of a bull dog. Those passengers went below to study the interior construction of the ship. Among them was an Englishman, who told me he had made four voyages to China, and hadn’t been seasick since he was a boy. I was the only passenger that didn’t go below, and I eat my dinner alone and with an appetite that would terrify the keeper of a boarding house. My English friend was much disordered about the stomach, and when we got to Genoa it was all he could do to get himself on shore. I took care of his wife and carried her down the gangway and up again on shore, and was as polite as I knew how, and it was entire disinterestedness on my part, as I had never met her before, and her husband was a big fellow who could fight if he wanted to, and, moreover, seasickness had given her a bedraggled appearance that was not calculated to incite love making to any alarming extent.
She looked as though somebody had run her through a patent clothes wringer and forgotten to shake her out afterwards.
As soon as the Wien had left the harbor of Syra and got out to sea, she tossed about in a very lively way, and it was no joke to walk along her deck without falling. One needed to have as many legs as a spider or a caterpillar to keep himself straight, and when you were below deck, the creaking of the timbers was something surprising.
“As long as she creaks she holds,” is an old maxim of the mariners, and if it be true, there was never a holdinger ship than the Wien.
We passed Samos and Naxos and other islands of the Ægean Sea, and when the moon came out I propped and chocked myself into a corner on deck, and devoted the time to thinking about the siege of Troy and a dozen other things connected with the history of Greece.
Particularly did I think of the gold and silver things I had seen in Dr. Schliemann’s collection at Athens, things that were said to have come from the treasury chest of old King Priam, the same venerable oyster that fought Agamemnon and the other Kings of Greece.
They are dead now, every mother’s son of them, and it was a pleasure while looking at Priam’s personal property, to know “that the old fellow couldn’t come in to carry it off, and that no wandering heir could set up a Tichborne claim to it.” I read a great deal about Priam when I went to school; a man named Homer wrote something about him, and I got up quite an interest in Priam, and particularly in a young lady that they called Helen. Because somebody stole, or, as the pickpockets say, “raised” Helen, Troy was besieged and destroyed with all its palaces and other good houses.
We reached Smyrna about noon the day after leaving Syra, and found the Tibre at anchor. There was a delay in leaving the Wien, a vexatious delay, of nearly an hour, just when time was very precious. The formalities of the Turkish ports are not to be gone through in a hurry, as we found to our cost The doctor of the ship was rowed off to the health office to report everything correct. Then the Doctor of the Port, a Turkish official, with a good deal of bombast about him, was rowed out in his boat. The crew of the Wien was ordered to form in line at the ship’s side, where the Doctor could see them. He surveyed them as carefully as he could at a distance of twenty feet, and without coming on board he pronounced the ship all right, and admitted her to pratique. And then what a scramble among the boatmen, and what a scene of confusion!
There was shouting in all the languages of the Levant, and there was an amount of crowding and pushing that ought to have thrown half of the boatmen into the water. They swore at each other, or at least the accent of what they said was very much like the accent of swearing in other lands, and they clambered up the sides of the ship like so many monkeys. We had taken time by the forelock by engaging a boatman and closing a bargain with him while waiting for pratique, as we thought it would save a few minutes, and was easier to do when the boats and men were ten or fifteen yards distant, than when the latter were crowding the deck. We were to be taken to the Tibre with our baggage, then to shore, and then back to the Tibre again for a franc each.
On our way to the Tibre we were intercepted by a boat of the Custom House; the official was smoking his pipe in the rear of his craft, and just gave a glance at our baggage, as if to note the number of pieces; he then extended his hand and pronounced the word “backsheesh!”
I, as paymaster of the party, gave him a franc, he waved his hand to indicate that we were a numerous party and were liberally supplied with baggage. I added a franc, he nodded assent as his fingers closed on it, and the “formalites de la douane” were finished.
I unhesitatingly assert that the Orient has the most pleasing Custom House arrangements I have ever seen. No trouble, no overhauling of baggage, no exhibition of your unwashed linen to a crowd of staring idlers, and no rumaging around generally in the places you desire should not be rumaged at all. A little “backsheesh” to the official and everything is satisfactory.
In Liverpool or New York, and likewise on the continent, you can sometimes buy your way through, but you often hit the wrong man, and then there is a row. You may attempt to bribe an honest man, (generally a very newly appointed official,) and then you come off badly. In Turkey you cannot make any such mistake, as the whole Custom House staff is on the make, and will take your bribes without hesitation.
I observe with pleasure, that our officials in America are learning something from the sleepy Orientals.
On my last trip home one of my fellow passengers had a lot of stuff that was liable to duty, and he determined to get it through, if possible, free of charge. So he packed his trunk, putting these things on the bottom and a lot of old clothes on top. Then he spread open a ten dollar greenback and laid it upon the old clothes, slightly securing it with a pin. When his trunk was opened for examination my friend turned away so that the inspector might not be troubled with his presence.
The examination lasted about a quarter of a minute. The inspector closed the trunk with the remark that such a lot of old clothes wasn’t worth carrying around; the passenger departed for his hotel and when there and in the silence and solitude of his room he opened the trunk.
And behold, the pin that held the greenback was gone!
And the greenback was gone likewise!
What became of that greenback my friend never knew. He suggests that the pin, being of English manufacture, was liable to confiscation and the officer only did his duty in seizing it. In the hurry of removing the pin the greenback may have adhered to it and passed into the pocket of the officer without attracting his attention.
When he emptied his pockets that night he was doubtless astonished at finding the greenback, and still more when he examined it and found that it was counterfeit.
We had less than two hours on shore, and therefore saw very little of Smyrna. We walked or rather ran through the bazaars, not stopping to buy any anything, but threading our way among Turks, Arabs, Levantines, camels, donkeys, boxes, bales, filth, and other Oriental things. The pavements were rough, and in many places they were muddy and slippery, and by the time we got back to the landing we were thoroughly tired.
It had been our intention to make a journey to the ruins of Ephesus during the two days’ stay of the Tibre, but this was out of the question.
Though Smyrna has enjoyed the advantages of commerce for a very long time, there is still a great deal of prejudice among her people. Here is a story which was told me in illustration of this assertion: Some years ago, an English merchant sent a cargo of goods to Smyrna, and among the articles were a hundred pigs of block tin. The rest-of the cargo passed the custom house without trouble, but the tin could not be landed, and the ship, at its departure, brought the metal away.
And why?
Because of the trade mark upon it. The smelters of this particular lot had adopted the figure of a lamb as their trade-mark, and stamped it on each piece of tin. It happened that when the Crusaders went to Asia Minor, the banners of some of the divisions of their army were ornamented with the picture of a lamb. Consequently, the lamb became unpopular, and has continued so to this day.
The tin in question was re-cast without the representation of the hated animal, and sent again to Smyrna, where it was received without hesitation.
It was a great disappointment to us that we could not go to Ephesus, the seat of one of the “seven churches of Asia,” and a place of great historical interest. A railway runs there from Smyrna, so that the journey can be made with comparative ease. There is a considerable amount of walking and donkey-riding after one gets there, and the accommodations are not altogether palatial. Ephesus was one of the cities which claimed the honor of being the birth-place of Homer, and it had a reputation for a variety of things that do it very little good now. The greatest lion of Ephesus was the Temple of Diana, which was accounted one of the seven wonders of the world; Diana was accounted nearly as great a wonder, in some respects, but she would be of very little consequence at the present time.
The temple at Ephesus was said to be four hundred and twenty-five feet long by half that distance in width. Its roof was supported by one hundred and twenty-eight columns, each sixty feet high, and altogether the edifice was the largest of all the Greek temples, as it occupied four times the area of the Parthenon. Like the latter temple, it contained a statue of gold and ivory, and there was a vast amount of wealth about the building. The roof was set on fire one night by an incendiary named Erostratus, (whether John, Charles, or William, I am unable to say), who lost his head in consequence. He died happy, and avowed that he had no other object than to immortalize his name. Hence came the declaration—
“The daring youth that fired th’ Ephesian dome,
Outlives in fame the pious fool who raised it.”
The city and temple disappeared during the Middle ages, and at the beginning of the present century the site was marked only by heaps of rubbish, and by the Turkish village of Aya Soolook.
In the past twenty years, excavations have been made there at various times, and are still going on. The foundations of the temple have been discovered, and many interesting sculptures brought to light.
Ephesus at one time granted the right of asylum, and was known as a city of refuge.
Any scoundrel who had offended the laws and found things too hot for him at home, was all right in Ephesus; and the result was that the city was overrun with criminals to such an extent, that the respectable inhabitants asked the Emperor Augustus to abolish this right of asylum, which he did. Society was in the condition of that of Texas before her admission to the Union, and before she had any laws to keep rascals in check.
There used to be a couplet, to which our most South-western State was said to owe its name:
“When every other land rejects us,
This is the land that freely takes us.”
Possibly the thieves, murderers, bounty-jumpers, and Tammany officials of the olden time used to say:
“When law from the land would efface us,
We’ll pack up our trunks for Ephesus.”
Neat, isn’t it? Well, the Judge got that up just as we were sailing out of Smyrna.
We were on board the Tibre half an hour before her time of sailing. As we steamed out of the harbor, and the lovely bay on which the city stands, we had a most beautiful sunset, full of bright colors, in strong contrast to the dark and rugged hills that form the setting of the bay. The general features of Smyrna are not unlike those of Naples, when looked at from a distance of half a dozen miles. The harbor is one of the safest along this whole coast, and its trade appears to be quite prosperous. There is much wealth at Smyrna, and a great many foreigners are settled there in business. The population is estimated at one hundred and fifty thousand, of which the Turks and Arabs number a little more than half. Then there are forty thousand Greeks and Italians, fifteen thousand Jews, ten thousand Armenians, and about five thousand Europeans of various nationalities. There are mosques, churches, and synagogues among the places of worship, and the commercial character of the population imbues them with a great deal of liberality in religious matters.
A splendid quay was in course of construction at the time of my visit, and when it is finished the maritime importance of Smyrna will be greatly increased. The stone for this quay was made on the spot, from the sand of the harbor, in the same way as the artificial stone that forms the breakwater at Port Said, in Egypt.
There are three lines of steamers engaged in the coasting; trade of Syria and Palestine—the French, the Austrian, and the Russian. The French steamers run each way every fifteen days, the Russian every two weeks, and the Austrian three times a month. They touch at most of the ports, and make their voyages very leisurely. As a general thing, they run from one port to the next in the night, and rest there during the day. Take our steamer for an illustration.
She left Smyrna just before sunset; at noon next day she was at Rhodes, where she lay till sunset, and then moved on. At breakfast next day she was at Messina, and staid there till night, and so it went on, past Alexandretta (the port of Aleppo), Latakia, Tripoli, and Beyrout. It was a very pleasant way of making the journey, as we were at sea during the night, and could spend the day on shore, each time at a new place. The routes of the different lines vary somewhat, but all of them touch at Beyrout and Jaffa.
We went on shore at Rhodes, and wandered among its palm trees, over its curious walls, and up the famous street of the knights, where the armorial emblems over the doors are still in place, left there by the Turkish conquerors in honor of the Knights of St. John, and their gallant defense of the place before their surrender. The defence of Rhodes forms one of the brightest pages of history, a page that should never be soiled and never be effaced. The site of the Colossus of Rhodes was pointed out; it was on one of the bends of the land that form the harbor; the story that it stood across the entrance, and that ships sailed between its legs, is a beautiful fiction, more astonishing than true.
There are few places in Europe that have such a mediaeval appearance as this city of Rhodes; its walls and towers, and the ancient appearance of its houses, carry the visitor half a dozen centuries backward more easily than do most places in the track of the tourist. And the life there had a lazy, careless way about it, quite in keeping with the mural structures. People were lounging at the water’s edge, some in the cafés, and some under the palm trees in front of them. Nobody was in a hurry about anything, and even the servants of the cafés had caught the contagion, and moved around as listlessly as though they had been appointed to their own executions, and were trying to make as much delay as possible. There was little rivalry among the boatmen, and they good naturedly assisted each other in getting to or from the little dock where we landed.
Rhodes is the ancient Rhodes (a rose), and the name belongs both to the island and the city. The latter has a population of about ten thousand, and of these there are six thousand Turks, while the rest are Jews and Greeks. The city is built in the form of an amphitheatre, upon the bay that makes the harbor, but unfortunately the depth of water is not sufficient to afford anchorage for ocean going steamers. It was a warm, still, clear afternoon when we were there, and the town as we approached it had a very quiet and lazy appearance. The walls and towers, the work of the Knights of St John, carried us back to the middle ages, and it seemed as if Rhodes had gone to sleep half a millennium ago and nobody had disturbed her since. Strabo described the ancient city of Rhodes as a place of great magnificence, with many public edifices that were profusely adorned with works of art. There were said to have been three thousand statues in the city, and altogether it must have been a wonderful place. At present there are few remains of anything prior to the occupation by the Knights of St. John in the early part of the fourteenth century.
One of the brightest pages in the history of the Crusades and the events connected with them, is that whereon is written the chronicles of the Knights of St. John. At the time of the first crusade the institution was in high favor with the crusaders, many of whom joined it and bestowed their fortunes upon it. Up to that time it had been merely a secular institution, but its chief determined to organize it as a religious body whose members took the vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty, and were to devote their lives to the aid of the poor and sick in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem.
In the twelfth century the institution added another vow to those above mentioned,—that of bearing arms in defense of religion. The order thus assumed a military character and rapidly rose in wealth and power. In some of the Saracenic wars the knights performed deeds of great valor, and several battles were won by them. In the thirteenth century they were driven from the Holy Land, in consequence of the reverses suffered by the crusaders, particularly in the battle near St. Jean d’ Acre. After this they established themselves at Cypress. Here they assumed a naval character, as their ships carried pilgrims to and from the Holy Land, and had frequent sea fights with the Turks. In A. D. 1309 they seized Rhodes, which had been a resort of Moslem pirates, and fortified it in the manner we see it at the present day. They were several times assailed by the Turks, but repulsed every assault and made several expeditions into Asia Minor. Their numbers were steadily recruited from the nobility of Europe, and one time nearly all the best families of France, Spain, and Italy were represented among the Knights of St. John. In A. D. 1522 the Sultan Solyman the Magnificent, besieged them with an army twenty thousand strong; they held out for six months—their whole strength was less than six thousand men—they were at length forced to surrender. But their defence had been so heroic that the Turks allowed them to retire with the honors of war, carrying their arms and standards
and even some of their cannon. The Turkish fleet dipped its flags and fired a salute, as the Knights with tearful eyes sailed away from the island which their order had held for more than two centuries. It is recorded that the commander, Phillipe de l’Isle Adam, was the last to leave the island and that he turned and kissed his hand toward Rhodes as his ship sailed away. The trumpet that was blown at Rhodes to give the signal of the retirement of the Knights is preserved at Malta, and I had the pleasure of examining it several months after my visit to the scene of the heroic defence. After temporary sojourns in Candia, Sicily, and Italy, the Knights, in A. D. 1530, were established at Malta where they built a strong fortress which resisted several sieges by the Turks. They remained at Malta until 1798, when Napoleon, on his way to Egypt, seized the Island and virtually put an end to the existence of the order.
CHAPTER XVIII—SYRIA, THE LAND OF THE SUN.—DRAGOMEN, GUIDES, AND COURIERS.
A Rough Night on Shipboard—A Sea-sick Turk—What he said—Rum and Petroleum—Meditations on Turkish Hash—The Camel, his tricks and uses—A Knowing Brute—How he shirks a burden—George Smith, the Assyrian Savan—Beyrout—Its Antiquities and Wonders—Going on Shore—The Dragoman and his office—Eastern Guides and their Character—Travelling on Horseback in Syria—The road to Damascus—An unexpected trouble—Paying fare by Weight—Disadvantages of a heavy “party”—A trial of Wits—Waking up the Judge—Telling White Lies—The “Doubter’s” Predicament.
IT grew rough in the night, after we left Rhodes, and the Tibre tossed about in a very lively way.
There was a Turk in the state room on one side of me, and an Armenian woman in the room on the other side.
The Turk rolled about very uneasily; the springs of his bed were rather noisy, and I could hear them creak every time he turned over. I venture to say that he turned in his bed not far from 243,654 times in the night; not that I counted them, but only guessed. Every time the ship gave a lurch he shouted “Allah!” and between times he cleared his stomach or his conscience of everything that had rested there in the last ten years.
As for the Arménienne, she took out her share in groaning, and she did that so well as to entitle her to the first place at an Irish wake. Had she asked me for a diploma, I could have given her one that would have made her fortune, but she didn’t put in an appearance till she came out to leave the ship at Alexandretta. She wanted to say her prayers, but was too weak to do so, though she shouted “Constantine” as often as the Turk said “Allah.” As for the Turk, he stuck to his employment with most commendable zeal. Between the two, I didn’t get much sleep during the night, and was glad when morning came and the steamer anchored at Mersina.
It was too rough to go on shore with comfort, and there was nothing to see after getting there, as the place is small and has no special distinguishing features.
Next morning we were at Alexandretta, the port of Aleppo; and there we went on shore.
Almost the first object that caught my eye, as I stepped on shore, was a barrel of New England rum, with the name of the Boston manufacturer carefully stencilled on its head. In nearly every part of the world where I have been, I have found that the enterprise of Massachusetts has sent its rum, a harbinger of civilization, that must puzzle the heathen in their efforts to understand the principles of Christianity. A barrel of petroleum was just beyond it, another bearer of light from the New World to the nations wrapped in darkness.
Our poetic fancies, on the juxtaposition of these gifts of America to the old world, were cut short by our entrance to the bazaars, a series of low sheds with a street between them, little more than a couple of yards wide. Merchants were squatted in their shops, with their goods piled all round them; shop, goods, and merchant, all included, rarely occupied a space more than eight feet square.
The official known in American stores as a floor-walker would be entirely superfluous here; he might as well try to walk in the cage of a canary bird as in an Oriental shop.
The customer stands in the street, or sits on the low bench that forms the front of the shop; a party as large as ours—half-a-dozen—blocked the street and made it inconvenient for others to get around or for ourselves to see anything. Then there were camels, dogs, and donkeys moving about, and you had to look sharp to prevent being run over.
There was a restaurant a little larger than the rest of the shops, but still very small; and there was a butcher’s shop, where a couple of men, with large knives, were making mutton-hash for native consumption. The hash was rolled around on a large block, and cut with knives at every turn, and frequently the knife came so near the fingers of the operator as to endanger them. With ordinary carelessness, there ought to be about two per cent, of fingers in a lot of hash after its preparation is complete.
Outside the town we visited a group of camels.
These patient beasts have a dingy hide, with thin hair, and their appearance is so ungainly that I should think they would be ashamed of themselves. I would give something to know what is a camel’s idea of beauty; it must be something quite out of the ordinary run. A little distance away, they resemble large turkeys, and, with heads stretched out when they trot, you would take them for the aforesaid turkeys hunting after grasshoppers. A lot of the beasts were being loaded for the interior, and I was interested in watching the operation.
The camel is made to kneel, and then a quantity of old blankets is spread on his hump, on which to place the saddle. This is formed of a few sticks joined together, much like the ordinary mule saddle, only somewhat larger. The freight to be carried is fastened to this saddle by means of ropes, and the Arabs have a very keen eye for balancing the boxes and barrels that make up a camel’s load. My pity was roused for a camel that made half-a-dozen ineffectual efforts to rise after he was loaded, and was only brought to his feet by the assistance of one man pounding him and three others lifting at the load. But a gentleman of our party was familiar with the camel, and said: "The chances are two to one that the distress of the beast is a sham. They are up to all that sort of trick when being loaded, as they sometimes secure a diminution of their cargoes by playing it sharp. I have seen an old camel sold by putting a lot of empty boxes on him. They weighed very little, and yet he tried half-a-dozen times to rise, and couldn’t, until he was cudgeled. The whining and groaning of the camel is a good deal of a fraud. You have seen western pack-mules in America do the same thing.”
Sagacious beast the camel!
If the Hindostanee doctrine of metempsychosis is correct, I wonder what sort of spirits enter the bodies, of the ship of the desert?
We saw the camel-train move out on the road to Aleppo, ninety miles distant, and we walked a mile or so upon the road. Two passengers who were bound for Nineveh and Bagdad, on the Euphrates, left us here, and we saw them off on their journey. One of them was Mr. George Smith, who was making researches at Nineveh for the British Museum and the London Daily Telegraph conjointly.
He expected to be twenty-five days making the journey to Nineveh, and said it was possible that bad weather might make his route somewhat longer. He made some valuable discoveries in his first explorations there, and hoped to make many more. I am sure all the passengers of the Tibre wished him every possible success.
While I am writing these pages, his book on his explorations has been published in London, and is receiving the praises of the scientific world.
Camels and palm trees, ancient ruins, stray dogs, Arabs, water-pots, and other things, gave the road to Aleppo an Oriental appearance, and the temptation to push forward to the great desert and away to the eastward was by no means a light one. But this was not to be undertaken; we returned to the steamer, and were borne away towards Beyrout, where, three days later, after stopping at two unimportant points, we landed and set our faces toward Damascus. Bcyrout presents a pretty appearance from the water. The land on either side sweeps gracefully around to form a bay, and at the end of this bay the city is nestled. Back of it is the famous Mount Lebanon, from which were brought the cedars used in the construction of the Temple at Jerusalem; the sides of the mountain are steep, but not precipitous, and the summit is frequently covered with clouds.
Seen from the city, the mountain has a bleak, barren appearance, owing to the masses of white limestone cropping out at frequent intervals and reflecting the sunlight to such an extent as to give it the name by which it is known, “the White Mountain.” The sides of the mountain are cultivated in terraces, and the front walls of these terraces frequently consist of the solid limestone rocks. As one looks up the mountain, he sees only the faces of these terraces, the verdure which they sustain being out of sight.
The old town of Beyrout is very old, and its streets are narrow and very often rough and dirty. The new town, or rather the new part of the town, has wide streets and is sufficiently well paved to allow carriages and carts to move about; the pavement is excellent for Syria, but would have been considered very poor in an American city. The population is now about sixty thousand, which is three times what it was thirty years ago; it is a mixed population of Moslems, Christians, and Jews—about as mixed as that of Constantinople or Cairo. Business is active, and the city has a very pronounced air of prosperity.
Antiquities and curious sights for the ordinary tourist are few in number and not very interesting. There are Roman, Assyrian, and Arabic remains, in the shape of tablets sculptured on the rocky walls of the Nahr-el-Kelb or Dog River, about half an hour’s drive from Beyrout; and there are a few traces in the town itself of the Roman occupation. All of them can be seen in a short time, and to a stranger who has come straight from America, without stopping, they would doubtless be interesting. But where you have done Rome and Athens, and half the cities of Europe and Asia, you won’t linger long over the antiquities of Beyrout.
But all this time, while I have been droning about Beyrout and Mount Lebanon, I have kept you waiting at the gangway of the
steamer. Well, you have the consolation of knowing that you have put in the time while waiting for the ship to undergo the quarantine formalities and obtain pratique.
A crowd of dragomen and guides invaded the steamer as soon as they had permission to come on board, and were very energetic in endeavors to secure our patronage. They presented credentials that would have entitled them to anything short of canonization, and to read their credentials you would consider them the best and most honest men in the world.
We selected the guide belonging to the hotel which we had determined to patronize, and repelled as best we could all the others, by telling them we had no need of their services, and should not take them. We obtained a boat, with a little bargaining, and went on shore, where a dense crowd of Arab porters were in attendance. Two francs of “backsheesh” took us through the custom house, and we followed guides and porters to the hotel, and were followed by a guard of honor of about a dozen dragomen, very much as an organ-grinder is accompanied by a troop of small boys.
While we were coming on shore there was a row between the guide of the hotel, and the dragomen belonging to the same establishment, in consequence of the former trying to fasten himself upon us, for the journey to Damascus. The latter requested the guide to stick to his business, and imperatively told him to mind his place and keep it. Some of my readers may ask the difference between the two positions, and for their benefit I will venture an explanation.
A guide is a necessary evil of European or Oriental travel, particularly the latter; you can get along in Europe without a guide, unless you are pressed greatly for time and want to see things in the shortest possible limit, but in Oriental cities you will find a guide indispensable, at least for the first two or three days of your stay, until you get the run of the place. The “guide” belongs to the city and its surroundings; he is called guide in the Orient, and valet de place or commissionaire in Europe. In Europe he generally knows something of the history of the city, where he shows you about and can tell you of the curiosities, the date of the construction of the cathedral, palaces, et cetera. But in the Orient you must not expect anything of the kind; you must rely upon your guide book for all historical information, and as a general thing, must indicate to the guide the different places you wish to visit. His services generally consist in taking you to those places, and in acting as your interpreter. As for knowledge beyond his day and generation he has none. For example, a local guide in Venice will take you to the Doge’s palace, or the church of St. Mark, and tell you the date of construction, the name of the builder, the uses of each portion, and will go on step by step till he has delivered a sort of lyceum lecture, which he has carefully learned, has delivered a great many times before and expects to deliver as often as he can get an engagement for an indefinite number of years to come. In Constantinople you wish to visit the Mosque of St. Sophia; the guide will get the necessary ticket and take you there, and the most you can expect of him, after you get inside, is to tell you which is the floor and which is the roof. Sometimes he is not equal even to that effort of intellect.
In Europe there is the travelling courier; he is engaged by people willing to pay for luxuries, goes with them from city to city, looks after their baggage, makes most of their bargains, acts as their interpreter, and frequently as a local guide, and is supposed to know the continent and its belongings pretty thoroughly.
The dragoman is to the Orient what the courier is to Europe. The difference is caused by the difference of the two regions. In Europe you travel by rail and steamer; in the Orient there are no railways, and in all Syria and Palestine, with the exception of the one between Beyrout and Damascus, there is not a carriage road. You must travel on horseback, must sleep in tents, while between the cities, and must have a regular camp equipage.
The dragoman makes it his business to attend to all this. He supplies your parties with horses, tents, food, and everything else at a fixed price per day, and when in the cities he supplies you with a local guide, but never acts as one himself. He is to the guide what the horse is to the donkey, or a general to a captain, and he frequently puts on airs enough to set up a windmill. I hope I have made a clear enough explanation of the difference between the two. From Beyrout to Damascus there is an excellent road, equal to the best turnpikes of America, and the diligence roads of Europe. It was constructed by a French company under a charter or firman from the Sultan, and is a triumph of engineering skill. Twice a day there is a diligence each way over the road; the morning departure is at four A. M., and the evening at six P. M. The time from Beyrout to Damascus fourteen and one-half hours and from Damascus to Beyrout thirteen and one-half, owing to the difference of elevation.
We went at once to the office of the company, where we were politely received, and after considerable talk, and an examination of the diligences, we hired a special carriage, which was to take our party of six to Damascus and back, stopping midway long enough to allow us to visit Baalbek.
The entire cost, including the halt en route, and at Damascus, was about sixteen dollars (gold) for each person, certainly not an unreasonable price. But we came near having to pay more, and it happened this way.
We conducted our negotiations in the outer office, and when we had settled the whole matter, paid the money and received the ticket there arose a question about some trivial matter which the agent said he would refer to the manager. The manager’s office was across the hall, and as the agent entered it, he beckoned for us to follow. We sauntered in, one after the other, and on entering found manager and agent settling the question we had raised.
The manager raised his eyes as we entered. They rested upon us for an instant and then he started back as though somebody had drawn a revolver upon him.
“Mon Dieu!” he exclaimed, “and is this the party for Damascus?”
“Certainement, monsieur,” replied the agent, waving his hand toward us, whereat we bowed to the manager.
There was the portly form of the judge in the foreground. He weighed two hundred and thirty pounds, avoirdupois, net, before breakfast, and a great deal more after a square meal.
Then came my slender frame of six feet one, with corresponding breadth of beam and depth of hold. Gustave was as tall as I but not equal to me in diameter. He happened, however, to be wearing one of my overcoats so that he bulged very respectably.
Charley and the “Doubter” were in the rear. They were fair to middling in size but the manager didn’t see them, his eyes being wholly filled with the foremost trio, and if he had been a young widow on a hunt for a husband he couldn’t have watched us more eagerly.
“Ah, Mon Dieu, Mon Dieu!” continued the manager; “we can never carry this party on single tickets. And where is the sixth?”
“Madame is at the hotel,” I replied, “she is so small that we call her the baby. You should see her. Elle est très petite, très jolie, et trescharmante.”
My endeavor to divert his attention by an appeal to a Frenchman’s admiration for a pretty woman (many persons not of French birth are troubled the same way) was of no avail. He t measured our heavy trio and returned to the charge by asserting: "It is impossible to take you for that price. We calculated upon two horses for the carriage and we must have three. What enormous men you are.”
The judge now found tongue and repelled the insinuation that he was enorme.
“You think I am large? You should see my partner. He always rides in two carriages, and once when he slipped on the icy sidewalk, the people for half a mile around thought it was an earthquake.”
“Pardon, Monsieur,” I added, “Son Excellence, Monsieur le juge,” and I waved my hand in the direction of my friend, “is not as heavy as you may think. He is nothing but a big bag of wind, as you would find if you should stick a fork into him.”
This raised a laugh in which the manager joined. The judge retorted on me with a remark which personal respect impels me to keep back from this narrative. It was sufficient to raise another laugh, and under the diversion thus created we got the manager into good humor. We brought him around all right, but I firmly believe it would have cost us more if he had seen us before the ticket had been paid for and delivered. As we bowed out of the room the judge was in the rear and caught the manager’s remark to the agent.
“Mon Dieu! Ils sont énormes.”
The “Doubter,” not knowing French, was standing by during the conversation without the faintest idea of what was occurring. He looked on with an expression similar to that of a pig contemplating a railway train, and when we got outside he asked what it was all about.
“Something very serious,” said the judge. “The manager objected to so much weight, and wanted you to remain behind. We tried to compromise with him, but it was of no use, and you are to stay in Beyrout till we return.”
Then the “Doubter” exploded, said he wouldn’t stay, and furthermore, he believed the judge was not telling him the truth; his doubts were so strong on the subject, that when we reached the hotel he hired an English-speaking dragoman to accompany him to the stage company’s office and learn the exact state of the case.
