As he is the descendant of Mahommed, it is admitted here that his authority to govern the people is received on all emergencies from God. He is incapable of fearing any nation on the earth, as he thinks that his is head of all. If some day, the news went to his palace that the Bosphorus was covered with a fleet, and that one ball had already struck the dome of the mosque St. Sophia, he would, through all his resolutions, break his haughty heart, and no doubt tremble off his divan. They are talking about a war with Russia, and I can find no man here that thinks Russia can begin to fight them.
The Sultan’s harems are numerous. While the occupants of the large are removed to two small ones, we have permission to pass through it, to see its magnificence, by paying the sum of five dollars a piece. It is a government of itself. It has a large bath room of water, and one of vapor. The girls are as pure as silvan nymphs, and some have remained in this harem until they become old, on account of the Sultan’s fancy to certain ones. They are carried to the baths by black men, called eunuchs. They take their baths in all attitudes of pleasure, while these eunuchs lean over the large, stationary stone basins, and gaze at them in their Eve like costumes. But before these men are placed in this important position of servitude, they are privately handled to the disadvantage of displaying any demonstrations of manly pride, towards these vexed reflections that must naturally spring up in the reflective minds of virgins deprived of the luxuries of a life, built upon the confines of clandestine border thoughts of sexes.
GOING TO ATHENS WITH A PRIMA DONNA.
Having seen the Sultan’s great City, mosques, ambers, sponges, perfumeries and beads, I am now passing the Custom House, on my way back to Greece.
In the front part of this vessel the cabin is all one, and whoever gets any kind of a berth is lucky, as the passengers are numerous. The beds or berths are one over the other, like our lake boats’ second class cabin. One berth is a little higher than the other, they are three stories, and one person has to climb over another to get in bed, and even then you are too close together. The second class passengers find their own bedding, and sleep upon deck, and we have some very rich Greecian families aboard, with their bedding and food, who sleep on deck. Yesterday we passed by Smyrna, and stopped and took aboard three beautiful Albanian girls. When you see a pile of old rubbish lying about on these Dardanelle boats, there is always some owner lying under it.
These Albanian girls were dressed very different from the Turkish girls, and the pretty ones are not veiled. They had on a very pretty costume, but over it they wore a very large and coarse cloak, composed of either camel’s hair, or wool of some ugly animal. They have a bonnet attached to it, that they can either throw back, or wear on their heads, and this cloak drags the ground. On board of our vessel was two young gentlemen from New York, trying to attract the attention of these Albanian girls, though they had their beaux with them. These young gents are very rich, their wholesale oil establishment, in New York, is said to do a business of millions of dollars per annum, and their names were Bridgers. They were seen to follow these beauties wherever they promenaded the deck, still they received no encouragement. Sometimes these girls would hide themselves in their winding sheet, and throw the bonnet part over their heads, and fall down upon the deck as singular and as natural as an apple from a tree, and then they would appear as a pile of rubbish of old sacks. At last the gay Messrs. Bridgers lost them, and they hunted in all directions, but could not find these fairies. They got tired hunting, and seated themselves to talk on some old piles of blankets and quilts, but before he got seated. I mean only one, he was thrown flat on his face by one of these pretty girls. In choosing a comfortable seat, he picked the covered head of the prettiest girl. He felt very bad about the mistake he had made, and I felt ashamed for him, but worst of all, he could make no amends, as she spoke nothing but Greek. He said “I wish I could apologize,” but he could’nt. She did not seem to like it at all.
The first night out we had a good deal of contention about berths. We had more passengers than the law of this company allows; they are not allowed to take one passenger more than they can accommodate.
Among the passengers on board was the first dancer of Constantinople. Those who had spoken for berths went to bed soon for fear disputes would arise about the right of them. I made sure of mine by sitting by it and watching it. After all the berthers had taken possession of their respective places, I discovered many persons taking berths on the sofas around the cabin; there were some curtains hanging about to make screens, to dress and undress behind, and the lights always burned dimly. These sofas were on a level with the lower berths, consequently, whoever took a sofa berth, was almost sleeping with the occupant of the lower berth.