As my life is set forth hour by hour in the Itinéraire, I should have no more to say here, if I had not kept some hitherto unknown letters written or received during and after my voyage. Julien, my servant and companion, wrote his own Itinerary side by side with mine, just as passengers on a vessel keep their private logs on a journey of discovery. The little manuscript which he places at my disposal will serve as a check upon my narrative: I shall be Cook, he will be Clarke[691].
In order to bring into clearer light the different manner in which one is impressed according to one's place in the social order and in the intellectual hierarchy, I will mingle my narrative with Julien's[692]. I shall let him begin by speaking first, because he relates some days' sailing without me from Modon to Smyrna.
Julien's Itinerary.
"We went on board[693] on Friday the 1st of August; but, the wind not being favourable to leave harbour, we waited until daybreak the next morning. Then the harbour-pilot came to tell us that he could bring us out. As I had never been on the sea, I had formed an exaggerated idea of the danger, for I saw none during two days. But, on the third, a tempest rose; lightning, thunder and, in short, a terrible storm attacked us and beat up the sea frightfully. Our crew consisted of only eight sailors, a captain, a mate, a pilot and a cook, and five passengers, including Monsieur and myself, which made seventeen men in all. Then we all set ourselves to help the seamen in furling the sails, in spite of the rain with which we were soon drenched, having taken off our coats to move more freely. This work filled my thoughts and made me forget the danger, which, indeed, is more terrible through the idea which one forms of it than it is in reality. The storms followed one another during two days, which seasoned me in my first days of sea-faring; I was in no way inconvenienced. Monsieur was afraid lest I should be ill at sea; when calm set in again, he said to me:
"'Now I am reassured about your health; as you have borne these two stormy days so well, you can set your mind at rest as to any other mischance.'
"None occurred during the remainder of our crossing to Smyrna. On the 10th, which was a Sunday, Monsieur made them heave-to near a Turkish town called Modon, where he landed to go to Greece. Among the passengers who were with us were two Milanese, who were going to Smyrna to follow their trade of tinmen and pewter-founders. One of the two, called Joseph, spoke the Turkish language fairly well, and Monsieur proposed that he should go with him as servant interpreter, and mentions him in his Itinéraire. He told us, on leaving us, that the journey would only take a few days, that he would join the vessel at an island where we were to pass in four or five days, and that he would wait for us in that island if he arrived there before us. As Monsieur found that man to suit him for that short journey[694], he left me on board to continue my voyage to Smyrna and to look after all our luggage. He had given me a letter of recommendation to the French Consul, in case he did not join us, which was what happened. On the fourth day, we arrived at the appointed island and Monsieur was not there. We passed the night and waited for him till seven o'clock in the morning. The captain went back on shore to leave word that he was compelled to go on, having a fair wind and being obliged to take his crossing into consideration. Besides, he saw a pirate who was trying to approach us, and it was urgent that we should place ourselves promptly on the defensive. He made the men load his four pieces of cannon and bring on deck his muskets, pistols and side-arms; but, as the wind favoured us, the pirate gave us up. We arrived, on Monday the 18th, at seven o'clock in the evening, at the port of Smyrna."
*
Greece.
After crossing Greece, and touching Zea and Chio, I found Julien at Smyrna. To-day I see Greece in my memory as one of those dazzling circles which one sometimes beholds on closing one's eyes. Against that mysterious phosphorescence are outlined ruins of a delicate and admirable architecture, the whole rendered still more resplendent by I know not what brightness of the Muses. When shall I see again the thyme of Mount Hymettus, the oleanders of the banks of the Eurotas? One of the men whom I have left with the greatest envy on foreign shores is the Turkish custom-house officer of the Piræus: he lived alone, the guardian of three deserted ports, turning his gaze over bluey isles, gleaming promontories, golden seas. There I heard nought save the sound of the billows in the shattered tomb of Themistocles and the murmur of distant memories; in the silence of the ruins of Sparta, fame itself was dumb.
In the cradle of Melesigene I left my poor dragoman, Joseph, the Milanese, at his tinman's shop, and set out for Constantinople. I went to Pergamos, wishing first to go to Troy, from motives of poetic piety; a fall from my horse awaited me at the commencement of my road; not that Pegasus stumbled, but I slept. I have recalled this accident in my Itinéraire; Julien relates it also, and he makes remarks concerning the roads and the horses to the exactness of which I can certify.
Julien's Itinerary.
"Monsieur, who had fallen asleep on his horse, tumbled off without waking. His horse stopped forthwith, as did mine, which followed it. I at once alighted to know the reason, for it was impossible for me to see it at a fathom's distance. I saw Monsieur half asleep beside his horse, and quite astonished to find himself on the ground; he assured me that he had not hurt himself. His horse did not try to run away, which would have been dangerous, for there were precipices very near to the spot where we were."
On leaving the Soma, after passing Pergamos, I had the dispute with my guide which I describe in the Itinéraire. Here is Julien's version:
Julien's Itinerary.
"We left that village very early, after renewing our canteen. A little way from the village, I was greatly surprised to see Monsieur angry with our guide; I asked him the reason. Monsieur then told me that he had arranged with the guide, at Smyrna, that he would take him to the plains of Troy on the way, and that he was now refusing, saying that the plains were infested with brigands. Monsieur declined to believe a word of it, and would listen to no one. As I saw that he was getting more and more out of temper, I made a sign to the guide to come near the interpreter and the janissary to explain to me what he had been told about the dangers to be risked in the plains which Monsieur wished to visit. The guide told the interpreter that he had been assured that one had to be in great numbers not to be attacked; the janissary told me the same thing. Thereupon I went to Monsieur and told him what they had all three said, and that, besides, we should find a little village at a day's march where there was a sort of consul who would be able to inform us of the truth. After this statement, Monsieur composed himself, and we continued our road till we reached that place. He at once went to the consul, who told him of all the dangers he would risk if he persisted in his wish to go in such small numbers to those plains of Troy. Thereupon Monsieur was obliged to abandon his project, and we continued our road for Constantinople."
Constantinople.
I arrived at Constantinople.
My Itinerary.
"The almost total absence of women, the dearth of wheeled carriages, and the packs of ownerless dogs were the three distinctive characteristics that first struck me in this extraordinary town. As nearly every one walks in papouches, as there is no noise of carriages and carts, as there are no bells and scarcely any hammering trades, the silence is continual. You see around you a voiceless crowd which seems to wish to pass unnoticed, and which always looks as though it were stealing away from its master's sight. You constantly come to a bazaar or a cemetery, as though the Turks were only there to buy, sell, or die. The cemeteries, unwalled and placed in the middle of the streets, are magnificent cypress-woods: the doves build their nests in the cypress-trees and share the peace of the dead. Here and there one discovers some ancient monuments which have no connection with the modern men, nor with the new monuments by which they are surrounded; it is as though they had been transported to this eastern town by the working of a talisman. No sign of joy, no appearance of happiness shows itself to your eyes; what you see is not a people but a herd whom an iman drives and a janissary slays. Amidst the prisons and the gaols rises a seraglio, the capitol of servitude: it is there that a sacred guardian carefully preserves the germs of pestilence and the primitive laws of tyranny."
Julien does not soar so near the clouds[695].