Bentley's Miscellany, Volume I

by Various

CHAPTER V.

Having bought some spangled stuffs for the trousers of the harem of our exalted grand vizier, (upon whom be blessings!) and despatched them, with letters, to the foot of the Shah's throne by an express Tatar, I joined my Greek companions at the Adrianople Gate, and left Constantinople for the country of the Francs.

I found my new friends were raving with the new malady. It seems that they now called themselves free,—a blessing which they endeavoured to persuade me was beyond all price; for, as far as I could learn from their definition of it, I found that now they could wear yellow slippers, put on a green coat, and wrap white muslin round their heads, without being called to account. However, in order to secure these advantages, it appeared that they were making no small sacrifices, for they were quarrelling amongst themselves to their hearts' content; and that more fell by the knives and stabs of their neighbours and countrymen than ever in former times fell even by the despotism of their Turkish rulers. Although I frequently asserted that quiet, peace, and security from danger were great objects in life; yet I found that I had a great deal to undergo before I could make them agree to that plain fact; and at length, seeing that they had made out a certain scheme of happiness of their own, the principal ingredient of which, was the endurance of every thing rather than to give power to the true believers, I allowed them to enjoy it without further molestation.

After many adventures,—such as robberies by Bulgars, an escape from shipwreck on the Danube, dislocation of bones in little carts in Wallachia, incarceration within four bare walls at the Austrian frontier on pretence of our being unclean men, contamination from pork and wine among the Majars, and disordered patience brought about by phlegmatic, smoking, slow-driving, ya! ya! post-boys in Germany,—we reached Vienna. It was a day upon which I frequently exclaimed "Ilham dulillah!" the day when I first saw the lofty spire of the great infidel church of that city; for I was tired of everything: tired of my companions, tired of my eternal hot seat in the corner of a coach, and longed to have a place to myself where I might bless and curse at my pleasure whomsoever I should like so to do.

My first care upon arriving here, was to inquire about the object of my mission,—the state of England. Wherever I went, I heard with a chuckle that she had had her day, that she was going down fast, that too much prosperity was daily destroying her; and every one added, with a sneer, "Ah, they thought themselves the wisest of the sons of the earth; but see! they are its greatest fools, for they do not know how to keep what they have got." One of the great proofs which I continually heard brought forward of the decay of her power and wealth, was the failure of an enterprise which to me was inexplicable, but which, every one said, in her better days would never have been abandoned. What I could make out of the story was this:—It seems the Ingliz, in their madness, were tired of going over their river in the common way,—that is, by bridges; and so they determined to try a new way,—that is, to go under it. Madness seized them; money poured in; they dug into the bowels of the earth like moles; the workmen heard the river flowing over them,—still they feared not, but dug on; at length it broke in upon them,—still they cared not; they were drowned,—still they dug. All the world was alive about it; everybody thought of the pleasure of cheating the old bridges, and the nation seemed charmed that they had found a totally novel mode of getting from one side of a river to another, without going over it, when, all at once, symptoms of decay broke out. They had got halfway when the work stopped; and the whole population, putting the finger of astonishment into the mouth of disappointment, went home, and, stepping over their thresholds with their right legs instead of their left, waited for a return of good-luck—but it came not; their luck evidently has turned, and there is the half-finished hole to attest it. "Poor Ingliz!" thought I, when I heard this; "where are now my old friends the Hoggs, my moon-faced Bessy, and her infidel Figsby? Shall I find them again? perhaps they may have been lost, with many others, in the mad enterprise of digging this great hole under their river!"

I left my Greeks at Vienna, and, taking a place in a moving caravan on wheels, called a diligence, but which went slower than one of our strings of camels, I travelled onwards through towns, cities, hamlets,—through forests, over rivers, over mountains peopled by various tribes of Francs, all indifferent about showing their women's faces, eating the unclean beast, drinking wine, shaving and washing just as they pleased: ignorant of the blessed Koran, and staring wide when such a country as Iran was mentioned to them. They all agreed in sneering at the Ingliz, and assuring me that I should find that nation upon their last legs, and their king with scarcely any power left him.

At length we reached the country of the French Francs. Here I heard that they had got rid of two or three kings since those days when I was last near them; and that, after having sworn to maintain new governments as fast as they were made, were now tired of the last king they had created, and were in the full enjoyment of all the wretchedness naturally flowing from change. I was told that they had been increasing in wealth and respectability, until they lost their last king, when their prosperity fell, as if by magic. Now, no man was certain of the possession of his property even for a day; and every one was obliged by turns to arm himself cap-a-pie, to do his duty as a soldier, in order to secure public happiness at the point of the bayonet.

We entered the happy city of Paris just at the moment when a large band of well-dressed soldiers were firing upon a mob, who were throwing large stones at them, and crying out, as the words were interpreted to us, "Liberty for ever!" "Down with the king!" This ceremony, we were assured, was performed about once a month. I asked my companions in the coach what they meant by liberty, but I found no one could give me any intelligible explanation; for it seems the French had all that they could possibly require, and that, if they wanted more, it must be to live without laws, without a king, without religion, and with a right to appropriate their neighbour's goods, or cut their neighbour's throat.

I trembled from head to foot all the time that I lived in this happy city, fearful of never being able to get out of it with a whole skin; at length I made an effort, and, accompanied by Mahboob, I took places in a travelling coach, and reached the sea-side opposite to the coast of England. I was lucky to see with my own eyes that this country was yet in existence after the many accounts I had heard of its total destruction.