No yachting match could be so pretty as these boats, tacking and changing their figures, with their white sails, painted sides, and elegant forms, as compared with our northern sea boats. Our superior sailing, however, was soon confessed, and we went past them. As we did so, several goodnaturedly threw cucumbers and other fruits on board.
We cast anchor not far from the second castle near the northern side, and put ashore to water where we saw a spring. It was evening, and under the shade of a fine plane tree, by a pool lined and edged with marble, before a fountain of elegant architecture, sat on variegated carpets some majestic Turks. They were armed and richly dressed. Their composed, placid countenances seemed unmoved at our approach. One of them spoke and made me a sign to draw nearer. I did so, and with an air at once courteous and commanding he signed to me to sit near him and offered me a long pipe to smoke. After some pause he put questions, and smiled when I could not answer them. By their gestures and the word Inglis I saw they were aware of our nationality. They looked approbation and admired the quality of my grey cloth coat. After some minutes I rose and left them with a bow, enchanted with their politeness, and fancying myself in a scene of the 'Arabian Nights.'
Shortly after we were visited by our consul and his son. We learnt later that they were Jews, but their handsome appearance imposed completely on us, and, in spite of the mixture of Jewish obsequiousness, their Turkish dignity made us conceive a prodigious opinion of them. The consul understood quickly that I was a milordo, and taking from his pocket an antique intaglio he begged my acceptance of it with a manner I in my innocence thought I could not refuse. I was anxious to show my sense of his courtesy by the offer of a pound of best Dartford powder, which, after some pressing, he accepted; but at the same time added, so far as I understood through the interpreter, that he hoped I did not mean to pay him for his intaglio. I was overcome with confusion, shocked at my own indelicacy in giving so coarse an expression to my gratitude, and I would have given worlds to have undone the whole affair. Of course my embarrassment was perfectly needless. A little experience of them taught me that this was only the shallow finesse of the Orientals, and looking back I have laughed to think of my ingenuous greenness at that time.
The following day Captain Cannady and myself, with my despatches and baggage, the Black Joke not being allowed to approach the capital,[3] embarked in a Turkish rowboat with a reis and twelve men, to go up to Constantinople. Now for the first time I felt myself thoroughly divided from England.
The wind and current were against us, and we were forced to put ashore early in the evening of the first day. I pitched my tent on the shore opposite Abydos. It soon attracted the notice of an aga who appeared on a fine Arab horse, and sent a message to know who and what we were. We made a fire and stayed there all night sitting round it, and I felt as if I was at the theatre, passing my first night on foreign soil among strange bearded faces and curious costumes lit up by the flames. I refused a bed and slept on a rug, but next day I thought I should have dropped with faintness and fatigue.
I soon got accustomed to lying on hard ground, and, in after times, I have slept for many a three months running without even taking off my clothes except to bathe, or having any other bed than my pamplona or my pelisse. The second night we slept at Gallipoli, and altogether, owing to the strong wind, we were no less than five days getting to Constantinople.
Our Turks were obliging and cheerful, but had very little air of discipline, and the work they did they seemed to do by courtesy. The reis was a grave, mild old man, who sang us Turkish songs.
We approached Constantinople as the sun rose, and as it shone on its glorious piles of mosques and minarets, golden points and crescents, painted houses, kiosks and gardens, our Turks pulled harder at their oars, shouting 'Stamboul, guzel azem Stamboul!' The scene grew more and more brilliant as we drew nearer, till it became overwhelming as we entered the crowded port. Nothing but my despatches under my arm recalled me from a sense of being in a dream. In forty days, spent as it were, in the main, in the sameness of shipboard, I had jumped from sombre London to this fantastic paradise.