After the death of his second wife, the doctor—I can but tell the story as I heard it—became a changed man, and—married again; this time a Swiss lady, of lovely Christian character. In his changed condition, he began to feel anxious to recover his children from the grasp of Rome. He wrote for information, but his sister refused to tell where they were, and his search could discover no trace of them. At length the father obtained leave of absence from the Seraglio, and armed with an autograph letter from Abdul Aziz to Pius IX., he went to Rome. The Pope gave him an order for the restoration of his children. He drove first to the convent to see his daughter. In place of the little girl whom he had years ago parted with, he found a young lady of extraordinary beauty, and a devoted Romanist. At first she refused to go with him, and it was only upon his promise to allow her perfect liberty of conscience, and never to interfere with any of the observances of her church, that she consented. Not daring to lose sight of her, he waited for her to pack her trunk, and then, putting her into a carriage, drove to the monastery where he heard, after many inquiries, that his boys were confined. The monk who admitted him denied that they were there, and endeavored to lock him into the waiting-room while he went to call the Superior. But the doctor anticipated his movements, and as soon as the monk was out of sight, started to explore the house. By good luck the first door he opened led into a chamber where a sick boy was lying on a bed. The doctor believed that he recognized one of his sons; a few questions satisfied him that he was right. “I am your father,” he said to the astonished lad, “run quickly and call your brother and come with me.” Monastic discipline had not so many attractions for the boys as convent life for the girl, and the child ran with alacrity and brought his brother, just as the abbot and a score of monks appeared upon the scene. As the celerity of the doctor had given no opportunity to conceal the boys, opposition to the order of the Pope was useless, and the father hastened to the gate where he had left the carriage. Meantime the aunt had heard of the rescue, and followed the girl from the convent; she implored her, by tears and prayers, to reverse her decision. The doctor cut short the scene by shoving his sons into the carriage and driving rapidly away. Nor did he trust them long in Rome.
The subsequent career of the boys is not dwelt on with pleasure. One of them enlisted in the Turkish army, married a Turkish wife, and, after some years, deserted her, and ran away to England. His wife was taken into a pasha's family, who offered to adopt her only child, a boy of four years; but the mother preferred to bring him to his grandfather. None of the family had seen her, but she established her identity, and begged that her child might be adopted by a good man, which she knew his grandfather to be, and receive a Christian training. The doctor, therefore, adopted the grandchild, which had come to him in such a strange way, and the mother shortly after died.
The daughter, whose acquired accomplishments matched her inherited beauty, married, in time, a Venetian Count of wealth; and the idler in Venice may see on the Grand Canal, among those mouldy edifices that could reveal so many romances, their sumptuous palace, and learn, if he cares to learn, that it is the home of a family happy in the enjoyment of most felicitous fortune. In the gossip with which the best Italian society sometimes amuses itself, he might hear that the Countess was the daughter of a slave of the Sultan's harem. I have given, however, the true version of the romantic story; but I am ignorant of the social condition or the race of the mother of the heroine of so many adventures. She may have been born in the Caucasus.
XXVII.—FROM THE GOLDEN HORN TO THE ACROPOLIS.
OUR last day in Constantinople was a bright invitation for us to remain forever. We could have departed without regret in a rain-storm, but it was not so easy to resolve to look our last upon this shining city and marvellous landscape under the blue sky of May. Early in the morning we climbed up the Genoese Tower in Galata and saw the hundred crescents of Stamboul sparkle in the sun, the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, shifting panoramas of trade and pleasure, the Propontis with its purple islands, and the azure and snowy mountains of Asia. This massive tower is now a fire-signal station, and night and day watchmen look out from its battlemented gallery; the Seraskier Tower opposite in Stamboul, and another on the heights of the Asiatic shore, keep the same watch over the inflammable city. The guard requested us not to open our parasols upon the gallery for fear they would be hailed as fire-signals.
The day was spent in last visits to the bazaars, in packing and leave-takings, and the passage of the custom-house, for the government encourages trade by an export as well as an import duty. I did not see any of the officials, but Abd-el-Atti, who had charge of shipping our baggage, reported that the eyes of the customs inspector were each just the size of a five-franc piece. Chief among our regrets at setting our faces toward Europe was the necessity of parting with Abd-el-Atti and Ahmed; the former had been our faithful dragoman and daily companion for five months, and we had not yet exhausted his adventures nor his stores of Oriental humor; and we could not expect to find elsewhere a character like Ahmed, a person so shrewd and obliging, and of such amusing vivacity. At four o'clock we embarked upon an Italian steamer for Salonica and Athens, a four days' voyage. At the last moment Abd-el-Atti would have gone with us upon the least encouragement, but we had no further need of dragoman or interpreter, and the old man sadly descended the ladder to his boat. I can see him yet, his red fez in the stern of the caique, waving his large silk handkerchief, and slowly rowing back to Pera,—a melancholy figure.
As we steamed out of the harbor we enjoyed the view we had missed on entering: the Seraglio Point where blind old Dandolo ran his galley aground and leaped on shore to the assault; the shore of Chalcedon; the seven towers and the old wall behind Stamboul, which Persians, Arabs, Scythians, and Latins have stormed; the long sweeping coast and its minarets; the Princes' Islands and Mt. Olympus,—all this in a setting sun was superb; and we said, “There is not its equal in the world.” And the evening was more magnificent,—a moon nearly full, a sweet and rosy light on the smooth water, which was at first azure blue, and then pearly gray and glowing like an amethyst.
Smoothly sailing all night, we came at sunrise to the entrance of the Dardanelles, and stopped for a couple of hours at Chanak Kalessi, before the guns of the Castle of Asia. The wide-awake traders immediately swarmed on board with their barbarous pottery, and with trays of cooked fish, onions, and bread for the deck passengers. The latter were mostly Greeks, and men in the costume which one sees still in the islands and the Asiatic coasts, but very seldom on the Grecian mainland; it consists of baggy trousers, close at the ankles, a shawl about the waist, an embroidered jacket usually of sober color, and, the most prized part of their possessions, an arsenal of pistols and knives in huge leathern holsters, with a heavy leathern flap, worn in front. Most of them wore a small red fez, the hair cut close in front and falling long behind the ears. They are light in complexion, not tall, rather stout, and without beauty. Though their dress is picturesque in plan, it is usually very dirty, ragged, and, the last confession of poverty, patched. They were all armed like pirates; and when we stopped a cracking fusillade along the deck suggested a mutiny; but it was only a precautionary measure of the captain, who compelled them to discharge their pistols into the water and then took them from them.