Before we proceed on our travels, let us introduce our guide. Mr Walpole is a young naval officer, and there is in most of his narrative a dashing impetuous style, which savours of his profession. In this there is a certain charm, imparting as it does an air of frank and fearless confidence in his reader's quick perception and favourable construction. There is in his writings what we would also hope is professional—a chivalrous feeling and generous sentiment, that is never obscured by a sordid thought or unworthy imputation. As he sees clearly, of course he also sees faults in men, and minds, and manners; but such discoveries are made in a tone of regret rather than of triumph; or thrown off in a strain of good-humoured satire that could not offend even its objects. His descriptive powers are graphic, and often very vivid; his humour is very original, being generally tinged with melancholy, in such sort as that of a philanthropic Jacques might be: finally, he does not fear to display a profound and manly reverence for holy things and sacred places. On the other hand, to set against all these high merits, we must confess that many faults afford some drawback to his book. It is often incoherent, and deficient in arrangement. The first volume is rather the groundwork than the accomplishment of what an author with Mr Walpole's powers and material should have effected. Most of these faults, however, may find their excuse in the circumstances under which they were composed. They smack of the tent, the boat, and the bivouac, as old wine does of the borachio. Whatever they may be, this work is one that will be widely read; and wherever it is read with appreciation, it will direct the interest not only to its subject, but its author: his individuality, unostentatiously and unconsciously, is impressed on every page; and his genius, however erratic, is unquestionable.
The cockpit, and even the gun-room of a man-of-war, are little favourable to intellectual effort, or the habit or the love of learning which it can alone accomplish. We can therefore make greater allowances for errors in composition, and concede greater credit for the attainments in languages and general knowledge which our young author has achieved. This is perhaps still more striking in a work written by Mr Walpole three years ago, entitled Four Years in the Pacific, which, though written in a midshipman's berth, abounds in passages of beauty, and in his peculiar and original humour. Having said so much in his praise and dispraise, and only premising, in addition, that he speaks Arabic and Turkish, so as to interpret for himself the quaint unusual thoughts of the people among whom he lives, we enter upon a survey of what he saw.
We have unwillingly passed over the whole of our author's outward voyage, which is graphically, and almost dramatically, described. We shall only refer to one or two passages respecting the Levant. The following sentence may dispel some fanciful visions of the sunny climate of Stamboul:—
"Snow, 'thick and deep' enveloped the city; cupola, dome, and cypress were burdened with icicles; above, was an angry winter sky with a keenly piercing wind.... English fires and English coals were the best things we saw—we were actually blockaded by the weather.... At length we embarked: the crew were shovelling the deep snow-drift off the deck, so we rushed below into a cabin whose bulkheads were beautifully varnished, sofas perfect, skylights closed, the whole atmosphere tobacco. We were off, gliding past the Seraglio Point, which was swathed in snow, and looking like a man in summer clothes caught in a wintry storm.... Masses animate and inanimate encumbered the deck; the former for the most part consisting of the Sultan's subjects; among the latter our baggage, which was thrown into the general heap, and kicked about until it found quiet in the hold.... The numbers thus congregated were principally pilgrims, on their way to Jerusalem and to the Jordan; though others, on more worldly journey bent, were mingled with the rest. Each family had taken a spot on the deck, and there, piled over with coverings, and surrounded with their goods, they remained during the voyage: one side of the after-deck was alone kept clear for the first-class passengers, and even this was often invaded by others, who wisely remarked that we had cabins below.
"Each family forms a scene in itself; and an epitome of life in the East is found by a glance around. Four merchants, on their return from a trading tour, have bivouacked between the skylights; and they sing and are sick; call kief[13] and smoke, with true Moslem indifference. On the starboard quarter, our notions of Eastern domesticity are sadly put out, for there a Moslem husband is mercilessly bullied by a shrill-voiced Houri. It is curious to observe her perseverance in covering her face, even during the agonies of sea-sickness. Their black servant has taken us into the number of licensed ones, and her veil now hangs over her neck like a loosened neck-cloth.
"On the other side, a Greek family in three generations lies along the deck, fortified by a stout man-servant across their legs, whose attentions to the girls during his own heart-rending ailments is very pretty. The huge grandmother was set on fire and smouldered away most stoically, until her foot began to burn, when, while others put her out, she sank blubbering to sleep again. The pretty granddaughters find the long prostration more irksome; but send their flashing eyes about with careless movement, and so the mass goes on. Here one appears to be offering up nazam, but nearer inspection shows that his shoe is only receiving the offering to the heaving waves....
"Our steamer had passed sad hours of toil, and pitched and tossed us all out of temper before we entered the calm waters to leeward of Rhodes, and at last, passing the low points covered with detached houses and windmills, we shot round in front of the harbour. Our view of the intervening coast had been too vague to form a judgment upon it; but here and there a peak towered up above the mists, all else being veiled by the cloudy sky.... No place it has ever been my fortune to visit, more, by its appearance, justifies its character than Rhodes. Around the harbour's shore, one continued line of high castellated wall, unbroken save by flanking towers or frowning portals; from the wave on either side, dovetailed to the rock, rise the knightly buildings; and as the eye reaches round, no dissonant work mars the effect, save that one lofty palm rears its tropic head—but it adds to, rather than lessens, the effect. Above the walls, a mosque with its domed roof or minaret appears; and the fragile building speaks, how truly! in its contrast to the massive walls and ponderous works of former rulers, that the battle is not always to the strong."
In speaking of the sister island-fortress, Malta, our author remarks (in a former page) the immediate contrast presented by these luxurious arsenals:—
"The Eastern reclines on the cushioned divan, the embodiment of repose; the softest carpets, the freshest flowers, surround him—soft women attend the slightest motion of his eye—all breathes of indolence, abandonment, and ease; yet his girdle bristles with arms—his gates are locked and guarded. So at Malta, the bower is a bastion, the saloon a casemate, the serenade the call of martial music, the draperies war-flags, the ornaments shot in ready proximity."
Proceeding to Tarsus, we pass on to Alexandretta, "a wretched collection of hovels. The harbour is splendid; the ruins of the old, the skeleton of the new town, standing on the beach. Behind it, in every direction, stretches a fetid and swampy plain, which only requires drainage to be rendered fertile and wholesome." This is the seaport of Aleppo, on the road to which lies the town of Beilau, and the village of Mortawan, where Pagan rites, especially those of Venus, are still said to be maintained. But again we reimbark—
"Again the vessel cuts the wave. The mountains become a feeble bleached outline, save Cassius on the north, who frowns on his unrecorded fame. Yes, noble hill! though not so high as Strabo tells, though not lofty and imposing; though dark thy path now—unnoticed, solitary. There blazed up the last effort of the flame of pagan civilisation: there Julian the Great—whatever other title men may bestow upon him—offered his solemn sacrifice to Jupiter the Avenger, previous to his last campaign, when the eagles were to wave over Mesopotamia.
"The Sabbath dawned fresh, unclouded, and beautiful, as we anchored in the pretty little port of Latakia, the ancient Laodicea. The town of Latakia, built by Seleucus Nicator, in honour of his mother, is comprehended in the Pashalic of Saida, or Beyrout. It stands on a spur of the Ansayrii Mountains. About half a mile inland, the spur falls into the sea, and forms Cape Zairet; the town stands on its southern slope, and is joined, by gardens and a port, to the sea. The port is small and well sheltered; but time, Turks, and ruins, are filling it up. The buildings on the shore, having their backs to the sea, present the appearance of a fortification. On a reef of rock that shelters the harbour stands a pile of building of different eras. It seems to be castle, mosque, and church. Along the beach lie hundreds of shafts of columns, and many are built into the walls, of whose remains you catch a glimpse on the southern side."
Here we must pause, though our traveller proceeds to Beyrout, of which he gives a charming account, which our limits forbid us to quote. We reserve our space for more novel scenes, and must pass over a chapter on Damascus, which is rich in legends and graphic pictures. Thence, en route to Homs, by the way of the desert, eastward of the Anti-Lebanon, we have a sketch that is too characteristic of Eastern travel to pass over:—
"North, south and east, dead plain; west, a low range of hills, and beyond, the fair Anti-Lebanon in all its snowy beauty. Desert all around us, but no dreary waste. Here and there were loose stones and rocks; the rest a carpet of green, fresh, dewy grass, filled with every hue of wild-flowers—the poppy in its gorgeous red, the hyacinth, the simple daisy and others, thick as they could struggle up, all freshened with a breeze heavy with the scents of thyme. The lark sent forth its thrill of joy in welcome to the coming day; before us the pennon of the spearmen gleamed as they wound along the plain. We passed the site of an Arab encampment strewn with fire-blackened stones, bones, and well picked carcasses. Storks and painted quails sauntered slowly away at our approach, or perched and looked as if they questioned our right to pass. At eight o'clock halted at a khan called Hasiah also. The population consisting of robust, wild-looking fellows; and very pretty women poured out to sell hard-boiled eggs, leban, bread, and milk: they were all Mussulmans....
"We were soon disturbed by a multitude of sick, which recalled to one's mind how in this land, of old, the same style of faces, probably in the same costumes, crowded to Him who healed. The lame, carried by the healthy; feeble mothers with sickly babes; hale men showing wounds long self-healed; others with or without complaints."