The Story Teller of the Desert—"Backsheesh!" / or, Life and Adventures in the Orient

by Thomas Wallace Knox

She was nowhere in sight, and a boatman who wanted a job was kind enough to inform me that she had come and gone twelve hours before.

Here was a pretty caldron of piscatorial productions. As the rest of our party made their appearance up the cabin stairs I broke the dreadful news to them, and made a careful study of their features as they received it. If there had been any profane persons in our number, I think a swearing band could have been organized without much difficulty.

Weren’t we on our ears and didn’t we go to the office of the company and make a row? We had a printed time-table and demanded why the steamer sailed before her advertised time. The agent explained that he was very sorry, but the fact was the steamer did not touch at Naples on account of the quarantine there, and therefore she had reached Syra twenty-four hours ahead of time. There was nothing for her to do at Syra and no reason why she should wait, and so he had let her go.

We demanded a special steamer to take us to Smyrna, in season to overtake the Tibre, but the agent wouldn’t give it. We could hire one for one thousand dollars, but that was paying rather high for our passage, and we demurred.

The only thing left for us was to take a small steamer of the Austrian Lloyd’s that was to leave next day and might get us to Smyrna in season to catch the Tibre. The agent telegraphed the state of the case to the agent at Smyrna, and away we went for the other boat.

There she lay in the harbor, a little, old, paddle steamer, named the Wien, a wooden craft that had been running a quarter of a century. She did not look inviting externally. We wanted to go aboard and take a look at her cabins, but here was a difficulty. A yellow flag floated from her topmast. She was in quarantine, and if we once set foot on her we could not go ashore again in Syra. She had come from Trieste by way of Italy, and there was a five days’ quarantine in Greece against all ships from Italy. So we waited until about the time of her departure. She was stopping for the steamer with the mails from Trieste, and there were no less than four steamers in port waiting the same mails.

We took a lounge around the public square of Syra, and drank beer and coffee at a restaurant; then we took another lounge and more beer and coffee, and then we took a couple of carriages and drove to the interior of the Island, where there were some pretty orange groves and some very attractive country seats. Then we came back and drank some beer and coffee, and went on the steamboat—the steamer that brought us from the Piræus—to sleep.

Next morning we started for the same sort of excitements as on the day before, and just as we started, we saw the Trieste steamer poking her nose around a headland and steaming toward the harbor. Then we gave up our projects, and prepared to transfer ourselves to the Wien.

She lay near the entrance to the harbor, and an ugly wind was blowing straight into the entrance. The wind wasn’t much for a steamer, though she rocked about considerably, but it was altogether different with a row boat, such as we engaged to transfer us. We made a contract for two boats, one for us and one for our baggage, for the sanitary reasons of the quarantine. The boat with our baggage was towed alongside by a rope about thirty feet long, and then a couple of men descended from the steamer and put the baggage on board. Then the boat was towed away again, and nobody could enter it until a plentiful supply of salt water had been thrown over it.

As for ourselves, we had gingerly work to get on board. Our boat went to the steamer’s gangway, and was held under it by means of hooks and ropes, but she was not allowed to touch it. The waves were short and choppy, and we had to watch our chances and jump one by one upon the gangway. The instant we touched it we were in quarantine, and so was everything about us. We got on board without accident, and then came the work of paying. The price had been fixed beforehand, and the boatman wanted his pay at starting, but we were firm in refusing. This was in accordance with our inflexible rule never to pay boatmen, hackmen, et id oinne genus, until their services were ended.