I believe that this account of the present condition of Cyrene, though vague, conveys a not unfaithful idea of its state. The destruction is, in fact, so complete, and the masses overthrown so gigantic, that one can hardly ascribe the present havoc to the hand of man, or the wasting decay of ages. Though there are now no appearances of volcanic action, we find mention of earthquakes in Synesius; and the whole of the sea-coast, as seen at Benghazi and Apollonia, has subsided—an evidence, at least, of the presence of volcanic forces; and by this agency alone does it seem possible that such utter destruction could have been caused. The greater devourer of the cities of antiquity, a modern town rising in the vicinity, has not here aided the destroyer; for the seventh century is the very latest date that can be ascribed to any single building in a very wide circuit; and the nature of the country, cut up by ravines, and for ages destitute of roads, renders the transport of heavy blocks of stone impossible. If its present destruction be due to the nomad tribes (of whose attacks Synesius speaks), who feared that Cyrene might again become a flourishing city, and their mistress, we cannot, after admiring the laborious energy of her builders, but wonder at the persevering fury of her destroyers.
The remains of sculpture, as I have indicated, though not few, are all of a late age, and none in the best style of art; I except the three dancing figures, a bas-relief on limestone, near the fountain, now, alas! sadly mutilated. They are even now worthy a place in a museum, as they are of great artistic interest, showing the passage from the archaic style of the Egina marbles to the more graceful execution of the classic school. I think I recognised, near the theatre in the street of Battus, the torso of a statue designed in Pacho’s work, and by him called a Cæsar, but it has suffered much from mutilation, and can never have possessed the merit he ascribes to it. Very many headless statues are scattered about, which would be beautiful decorations for a garden, but are all unworthy of a museum.
The rock which forms the hills, and of which the town is built, is a yellowish limestone, filled with fossil shells, for the most part bivalves, and of very unequal compactness. By exposure to the weather it acquires a gray tone, and frequently becomes honey-combed. In some places the marks of the chisel in the stones are as sharp as the day they were cut—in others, the air and rain have rounded off their edges; and one sees walls still standing which look as if built of flattened eggs, showing large interstices between the now rounded stones.
To sum up in a few words, the traveller finds enough to convey the general impression of the past splendour of a luxurious city, but little to satisfy a refined taste, and nothing of which it can be said, if we except the great reservoir, “This is indeed magnificent!” In a commercial community, containing philosophers and physicians, the theatre and the turf may be cultivated as relaxations from the money-getting toils of the desk, but, as far as I remember, excepting aristocratic Venice, history furnishes no example of such a people having attained more than an initiative excellence in the fine arts.
CHAPTER IV.
Interview with the Bey. — Arab Feast. — The Bey’s Hospitality.
August 10.—A few days after arriving in Grennah, having obtained a general idea of the ruins, and made such arrangements as were likely to conduce to a comfortable stay, I went to pay my respects to Bekir Bey, as the Turks call Bu Bekr Hadud, the Governor of the Arabs in this district. I had been introduced to him by the Kaimahan in Benghazi, who, besides a verbal recommendation, had furnished me with letters to him. His residence is a castle, which I found him still engaged in building, at Caicab, a place about four hours distant from Grennah, lying between the two roads to Derna; and from here, with the fifty soldiers who are at his orders, he manages to keep the country in subjection, and his enemies—who are many—say, to rob it into the bargain. His family has long been one of the most powerful in the country; and he is sheikh of the Berasa, a tribe counting ten clans. The sheikhs of the other clans are subordinate to him; and by intrigue or violence, each employed at the right time, he has made himself really the independent governor of the country, which he rules with an iron hand, under such protection as his guards afford him, amidst clans of his own tribe who have sworn his death. His life has been one of strange vicissitudes; at one time—under the last native sovereign, Youssouf Pacha, whom the Porte, with the help of the English Consul General, so cleverly dethroned, or rather, I should say, who so stupidly allowed himself to be smuggled out of his country—he was fourteen months a prisoner in irons in Tripoli. His language is now that of the most abject submission, but he carries things his own way notwithstanding. He pays to the Porte a yearly sum of 48,000 dollars, extracting from the Arabs nearly twice as much; the greater part is destined to swell his own money-bags, the rest being used, according to the approved receipt in this country, to anoint the eyes of his superiors in Benghazi and Tripoli. In person he is strongly built, but not tall, having the finest chest and arm I ever beheld; but his features are coarse, and his eye twinkles with indescribable cunning.
I arrived about eleven o’clock, and found the Bey seated in his divan, and surrounded by at least forty persons, most of whom were squatted on the floor; he was seated in the corner, on a raised board, not unlike a tailor’s, which ran about twelve feet along one side of the room. When I entered, the assembly was dismissed; and I seated myself beside him, having on my other hand three sheikhs of his tribe, one of whom, his brother, Mansour, is a still more ferocious, though less cunning, politician than himself. He it is who can eat an entire sheep at a sitting—a tale which I believe after seeing his performance at an extra meal which was prepared for me, when he excused himself for eating so little, on the score of bad health. In addition to these three, there remained also the Deftudar, or Secretary-Accountant, whose functions also included waiting at table. His place was on a straw sofa, on which were collected all the implements of his calling: a small box, a ream of paper, a pair of scissors for cutting his despatches or orders into proper form, a board for counting money, and a waist-inkstand; open letters with their answers were scattered round him, in what seemed inextricable confusion. After all the usual inquiries after health and temper, and when coffee and lemonade had been served, the Bey resumed his business, while several of the former assembly returned, some to have their complaints discussed, others to get a nearer view of the stranger. He, knowing that the Bedawin do not smoke, regarding this habit as a dirty trick (they only chew tobacco, mixed with nitre), had taken the precaution of carrying his pipe with him, to keep himself in countenance during the long pauses of an Arab visit. This and Mohammed’s exaggerated stories of him—how he ate and drank, and above all, how he washed in a tub, and slept on a bed—which were circulated in an undertone, made the company vote him no better than a Turk, a hateful, but highly respected character. The Bey from time to time turned round to bawl out some phrases of exaggerated compliment, in a voice like that of one of his camels, and then would continue to investigate the case before him, till, getting animated, he would utter a dozen “Wallahis” in a breath, throwing his arms about in a manner that might well alarm his neighbour; then he would pull his beard two or three times, and, finally, would finish the discussion by applying the interior of his thumb-nail to that of his upper teeth, making a slight cracking noise, which meant that nothing more was to be got out of him. But it is not to be supposed that the audience sat listening, in respectful silence, to this torrent of words: the subjects were as energetic as their ruler, and he who listened to the tones, or beheld the gestures which accompanied them, would think that they must soon come to blows. When I first met Bu Bekr in Benghazi, I was astonished at the loud, rough tone in which he spoke; but after seeing a little more of the Bedawin (who all speak as if from the mountain-tops), and assisting at a council at Caicab, it was easy to account for it. Indeed, the good man could not whisper: he tried to do so, putting his arms round a servant’s neck, and placing his lips close to his ear, when he ordered a luncheon, dinner, or whatever it must be called, to be prepared for me. I had arrived too late for their dinner; and, after much whispering in a loud tone, and the interchange of one or two notes with his Secretary (perhaps to show me that there is one Bey who can write), he ordered another dinner for me. I was not supposed to hear or understand anything of his hospitable intentions; and, after an hour and a half of fatiguing inaction, in the midst of this Babel-like hubbub, I rose to take my leave. This he would not allow, and seizing a shoulder with one iron hand, and a leg with the other, he pulled me back to my place. I thus had to sit, making what little conversation my confined vocabulary would admit of, for four hours longer, whilst the banquet was being prepared. When the carpet was at last spread, and the tray placed upon it, I confess I was disappointed, though little inclined to eat, to find that the ladies of the harem had not profited by this long interval to furnish some delicate cates. There was soup—a sort of greenish porridge, filled with rice and onions; then came two dishes of stewed mutton, with vegetables; this was followed by two dishes of stewed mutton, with potatoes; and, finally, a huge wooden bowl of rice, some thirty inches in diameter, crowned with an entire roasted lamb. Plates of water-melon, from Benghazi, completed the feast. I have described the dinner, all fear of criticism notwithstanding, as it was meant to be a splendid feed, and the host is the wealthiest man in the country. The chief fault I found with it was the long time it detained me in Caicab, thereby occasioning me two hours’ ride in the dark. The Bey, his brother, and Mohammed (whose last wife, by the way, was a divorcée of Bu Bekr’s), did honour to the entertainment; the two former picking out, and putting beneath my fingers, the delicate morsels; and I must do them the justice to say, that, with true politeness, not an effort was made to make me eat more largely than I was inclined to do. The appetite which comes in eating aided me to make a most substantial luncheon; but, beside the others, I was like a canary-bird amongst ostriches. Mohammed, I heard, could eat no supper; he was ill and useless all the next day.
This rough, but abundant hospitality, not unbefitting the traditional idea of an Arab sheikh, is exercised on a most liberal scale by Bu Bekr; and the enormous drain it must be on his fortune may, possibly, justify him in his own eyes for the unscrupulous means by which he augments it. At some seasons, the expenses of his court can be little short of 20l. a day; and to meet this, the Turkish Government allows him 11l. a month. An acquaintance, who spent some evenings with him this summer, told me that he had counted 378 rations for horses, given out in one evening for the guests; while 86 sheep had been slaughtered, to supply their personal wants. Perhaps he is by nature thus liberal, and only from education succumbs to the Arab fondness for the clinging metal.