They are dead now, every mother’s son of them, and it was a pleasure while looking at Priam’s personal property, to know “that the old fellow couldn’t come in to carry it off, and that no wandering heir could set up a Tichborne claim to it.” I read a great deal about Priam when I went to school; a man named Homer wrote something about him, and I got up quite an interest in Priam, and particularly in a young lady that they called Helen. Because somebody stole, or, as the pickpockets say, “raised” Helen, Troy was besieged and destroyed with all its palaces and other good houses.
We reached Smyrna about noon the day after leaving Syra, and found the Tibre at anchor. There was a delay in leaving the Wien, a vexatious delay, of nearly an hour, just when time was very precious. The formalities of the Turkish ports are not to be gone through in a hurry, as we found to our cost The doctor of the ship was rowed off to the health office to report everything correct. Then the Doctor of the Port, a Turkish official, with a good deal of bombast about him, was rowed out in his boat. The crew of the Wien was ordered to form in line at the ship’s side, where the Doctor could see them. He surveyed them as carefully as he could at a distance of twenty feet, and without coming on board he pronounced the ship all right, and admitted her to pratique. And then what a scramble among the boatmen, and what a scene of confusion!
There was shouting in all the languages of the Levant, and there was an amount of crowding and pushing that ought to have thrown half of the boatmen into the water. They swore at each other, or at least the accent of what they said was very much like the accent of swearing in other lands, and they clambered up the sides of the ship like so many monkeys. We had taken time by the forelock by engaging a boatman and closing a bargain with him while waiting for pratique, as we thought it would save a few minutes, and was easier to do when the boats and men were ten or fifteen yards distant, than when the latter were crowding the deck. We were to be taken to the Tibre with our baggage, then to shore, and then back to the Tibre again for a franc each.
On our way to the Tibre we were intercepted by a boat of the Custom House; the official was smoking his pipe in the rear of his craft, and just gave a glance at our baggage, as if to note the number of pieces; he then extended his hand and pronounced the word “backsheesh!”
I, as paymaster of the party, gave him a franc, he waved his hand to indicate that we were a numerous party and were liberally supplied with baggage. I added a franc, he nodded assent as his fingers closed on it, and the “formalites de la douane” were finished.
I unhesitatingly assert that the Orient has the most pleasing Custom House arrangements I have ever seen. No trouble, no overhauling of baggage, no exhibition of your unwashed linen to a crowd of staring idlers, and no rumaging around generally in the places you desire should not be rumaged at all. A little “backsheesh” to the official and everything is satisfactory.
In Liverpool or New York, and likewise on the continent, you can sometimes buy your way through, but you often hit the wrong man, and then there is a row. You may attempt to bribe an honest man, (generally a very newly appointed official,) and then you come off badly. In Turkey you cannot make any such mistake, as the whole Custom House staff is on the make, and will take your bribes without hesitation.