We kicked our shoes off on the steps, seated ourselves on a mat outside, and took our chibouk and coffee with an air of savoir faire that would not have disgraced the worthiest Moslem of them all. Verily, said I, as I looked at the dozing, smoking, coffee-sipping congregation around me, there are some good points about the Turks, after all. They never think—that hurts digestion; and they love chibouks and coffee—that shows taste and feeling. I fell into their humour, and for a while exchanged nods with my neighbours all around. Suddenly the bitterness of thought came upon me; I found that my pipe was exhausted. I replenished it, and took a sip of coffee. Verily, said I, there are few better things in this world than chibouks and coffee; they even make men forget there is blood upon their hands. The thought started me; I shrank from contact with my neighbours, cut my way through the volumes of smoke, and got out into the open air.
My companion joined me. We entered the walls and made a circuit of the town. It was a dirty little place, having one principal street lined with shops or bazars; every third shop, almost, being a cafteria, where a parcel of huge turbaned fellows were at their daily labours of smoking pipes and drinking coffee. The first thing I remarked as being strikingly different from a European city was the total absence of women. The streets were thronged with men, and not a woman was to be seen, except occasionally I caught a glimpse of a white veil or a pair of black eyes sparkling through the latticed bars of a window. Afterward, however, in walking outside the walls into the country, we met a large party of women. When we first saw them they had their faces uncovered; but, as soon as they saw us coming toward them, they stopped and arranged their long white shawls, winding them around their faces so as to leave barely space enough uncovered to allow them to see and breathe, but so that it was utterly impossible for us to distinguish a single one of their features.
Going on in the direction from which they came, and attracted by the mourning cypress, we came to a large burying-ground. It is situated on the side of a hill almost washed by the waves, and shaded by a thick grove of the funereal tree. There is, indeed, something peculiarly touching in the appearance of this tree; it seems to be endowed with feelings, and to mourn over the dead it shades. The monuments were generally a single upright slab of marble, with a turban on the top. There were many, too, in form like one of our oblong tombstones; and, instead of a slab of marble over the top, the interior was filled with earth, and the surface overrun with roses, evergreens, and flowers. The burying-grounds in the East are always favourite places for walking in; and it is a favourite occupation of the Turkish women to watch and water the flowers growing over the graves of their friends.
Toward evening we returned to the harbour. I withdrew from my companion, and, leaning against one of the gates of the city, fixed my eyes upon the door of a minaret, watching till the muezzin should appear, and, for the last time before the setting of the sun, call all good Mussulmans to prayer. The door opens toward Mecca, and a little before dark the muezzin came out, and, leaning over the railing with his face toward the tomb of the Prophet, in a voice, every tone of which fell distinctly upon my ear, made that solemn call which, from the time of Mohammed, has been addressed five times a day from the tops of the minarets to the sons of the faithful. "Allah! Allah! God is God, and Mohammed is his prophet. To prayer! to prayer!" Immediately an old Turk by my side fell upon his knees, with his face to the tomb of the Prophet; ten times, in quick succession, he bowed his forehead till it touched the earth; then clasped his hands and prayed. I never saw more rapt devotion than in this pious old Mussulman. I have often marked in Italy the severe observance of religious ceremonies; I have seen, for instance, at Rome, fifty penitents at a time mounting on their knees, and kissing, as they mounted, the steps of the Scala Santa, or holy staircase, by which, as the priests tell them, our Saviour ascended into the presence of Pontius Pilate. I have seen the Greek prostrate himself before a picture until he was physically exhausted; and I have seen the humble and pious Christian at his prayers, beneath the simple fanes and before the peaceful altars of my own land; but I never saw that perfect abandonment with which a Turk gives himself up to his God in prayer. He is perfectly abstracted from the things of this world; he does not regard time or place; in his closet or in the street, alone or in a crowd, he sees nothing, he hears nothing; the world is a blank; his God is everything. He is lost in the intensity of his devotion. It is a spectacle almost sublime, and for the moment you forget the polluted fountain of his religion, and the thousand crimes it sanctions, in your admiration of his sincerity and faith.
Not being able to find any place where we could sleep ashore, except on one of the mats of the coffee-house, head and heels with a dozen Turks, we went on board, and toward morning again got under weigh. We beat up to the mouth of the Gulf of Smyrna, but, with the sirocco blowing directly in our teeth, it was impossible to go farther. We made two or three attempts to enter, but in tacking the last time our old brig, which had hardly ballast enough to keep her keel under water, received such a rough shaking that we got her away before the wind, and at three o'clock P.M. were again anchored in the harbour of Foggi. I now began to think that there was a spell upon my movements, and that Smyrna, which was becoming to me a sort of land of promise, would never greet my longing eyes.
I was somewhat comforted, however, by remembering that I had never yet reached any port in the Mediterranean for which I had sailed, without touching at one or two intermediate ports; and that, so far, I had always worked right at last. I was still farther comforted by our having the good fortune to be able to procure lodging ashore, at the house of a Greek, the son of a priest. It was the Saturday before Easter Sunday, and the resurrection of our Saviour was to be celebrated at midnight, or, rather, the beginning of the next day, according to the rites and ceremonies of the Greek church. It was also the last of the forty days' fasting, and the next day commenced feasting. Supper was prepared for us, at which meat was put on the table for me only; my Greek friend being supposed not to eat meat during the days of fasting. He had been, however, two years out of Greece; and though he did not like to offend the prejudices of his countrymen, he did not like fasting. I felt for my fellow-traveller; and, cutting up some meat in small parcels, kept my eye upon the door while he whipped them into his mouth. After supper we lay down upon the divan, with large quilts over us, my friend having promised to rise at twelve o'clock and accompany me to the Greek church.
At midnight we were roused by the chant of the Greeks in the streets, on their way to the church. We turned out, and fell into a procession of five hundred people, making the streets as light as day with their torches. At the door of the church we found our host, sitting at a table with a parcel of wax tapers on one side and a box to receive money on the other. We each bought a taper and went in. After remaining there at least two hours, listening to a monotonous and unintelligible routine of prayers and chants, the priests came out of the holy doors, bearing aloft an image of our Saviour on the cross, ornamented with gold leaf, tassels, and festoons of artificial flowers; passed through the church, and out of the opposite door. The Greeks lighted their tapers and formed into a procession behind them, and we did the same. Immediately outside the door, up the staircase, and on each side of the corridor, allowing merely room enough for the procession to pass, were arranged the women, dressed in white, with long white veils, thrown back from their faces however, laid smooth over the tops of their heads, and hanging down to their feet. Nearly every woman, old or young, had a child in her arms. In fact, there seemed to be as great a mustering of children as of men and women, and, for aught that I could see, as much to the edification of the former as the latter. A continued chant was kept up during the movements of the procession, and perhaps for half an hour after the arrival of the priests at the courtyard, when it rose to a tremendous burst. The torches were waved in the air; a wild, unmeaning, and discordant scream or yell rang through the hollow cloisters, and half a dozen pistols, two or three muskets, and twenty or thirty crackers were fired. This was intended as a feu-de-joie, and was supposed to mark the precise moment of our Saviour's resurrection. In a few moments the phrensy seemed to pass away; the noise fell from a wild clamour to a slow chant, and the procession returned to the church. The scene was striking, particularly the part outside the church; the dead of night; the waving of torches; the women with their long white dresses, and the children in their arms, &c.; but, from beginning to end, there was nothing solemn in it.
Returned to the church, a priest came round with a picture of the Saviour risen; and, as far as I could make it out, holding in his hand the Greek flag, followed by another priest with a plate to receive contributions. He held out the picture to be kissed, then turned his hand to receive the same act of devotion, keeping his eye all the time upon the plate which followed to receive the offerings of the pious, as a sort of payment for the privilege of the kiss. His manner reminded me of the Dutch parson, who, immediately after pronouncing a couple man and wife, touching the bridegroom with his elbow, said, "And now where ish mine dollar?" I kissed the picture, dodged his knuckles, paid my money, and left the church. I had been there four hours, during which time, perhaps, more than a thousand persons had been completely absorbed in their religious ceremonies; and though beginning in the middle of the night, I have seen more yawning at the theatre or at an Italian opera than I saw there. They now began to disperse, though I remember I left a crowd of regular amateurs, at the head of whom were our sailors, still hanging round the desk of an exhorting priest, with an earnestness that showed a still craving appetite.
I do not wonder that the Turks look with contempt upon Christians, for they have constantly under their eyes the disgusting mummeries of the Greek church, and see nothing of the pure and sublime principles our religion inculcates. Still, however, there was something striking and interesting in the manner in which the Greeks in this Turkish town had kept themselves, as it were, a peculiar people, and, in spite of the brands of "dog" and "infidel," held fast to the religion they received from their fathers. There was nothing interesting about them as Greeks; they had taken no part with their countrymen in their glorious struggle for liberty; they were engaged in petty business, and bartered the precious chance of freedom once before them for base profits and ignoble ease; and even now were content to live in chains, and kiss the rod that smote them.
We returned to the house where we had slept; and, after coffee, in company with our host and his father, the priest, sat down to a meal, in which, for the first time in forty days, they ate meat. I had often remarked the religious observance of fast days among the common people in Greece. In travelling there I had more than once offered an egg to my guide on a fast day, but never could get one to accept anything that came so near to animal food, though, by a strange confusion of the principles of religious obligation, perhaps the same man would not have hesitated to commit murder if he had any inducement to do so. Mrs. Hill, at Athens, told me that, upon one occasion, a little girl in her school refused to eat a piece of cake because it was made with eggs.