Constantinople is not the place to come to on a hot November day, and the commercial port is, I hold, utterly unfit for shipping. We have a good deal of diarrhoea on board, nor can you wonder, when you remember that into this one spot flows all the filth and sewage of Galata. It is worse than Naples; it is worse than Athens, and that is saying a good deal. Coleridge’s Cologne, with its numerous stenches, is nothing to it. If there be any truth in sanitary science, there must be an awful waste of life in these parts. Here we hear not a whisper of the Turkish crisis, or of the driving out of the Turk, ‘bag and baggage,’ as Lord Stratford de Redcliffe wrote fifty years before Mr. Gladstone adopted the celebrated phrase. Be that as it may, Constantinople gives you an idea of a densely-populated city. It is with real difficulty that you make your way anywhere. The fat official Turk, who dines in some gorgeous palace – and the place is full of them – and drives in his brougham and pair, may have an easy time of it; but the majority of the inhabitants, in their narrow shops and darkened houses, must have a bad time of it. I sigh for the wings of a dove, that I may fly away and be at rest. Under this pestiferous atmosphere and bright, blazing sun, it is impossible to do anything but sleep; but that is not easy in one’s small cabin, floating on this wide waste of sewage. There seems nothing to amuse the people. In the course of my peregrinations I met with but one minstrel, and he was far away. Next to the mosques, the coolest place I have yet visited is the new museum, with a fine collection of Greek and Roman and Egyptian antiquities; but I am no friend to a hurried visit to a museum, which leaves the mind rather confused and uninformed. As yet I have made no attempt to penetrate into the mysteries of the harem. For one thing, I am rather past that sort of thing. But if I may judge from what I have seen outside the harem, there can be but little to tempt one to enter within; and with the poet I exclaim, ‘Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.’
I fancy we are most of us tired of Constantinople. To me it is a place where a little sight-seeing goes a long way. Our gallant captain, on the contrary, tells me that he could put in three months here very well. As it is, there are about 2,000 English here, to say nothing of naturalized Greeks and Maltese. I suppose Constantinople is not a bad place for a short residence. The hotels are good, and in some you may have a bedroom for four francs a day. Provisions are not dear, but house-rent is very expensive. The population of the place is dense, at which I wonder, as Constantinople seems to me the most unhealthy city I have ever seen. The only nuisances are the guides, who will persist in following you everywhere, and whose knowledge of English and of the things you really want to know is very limited. For instance, I passed two obelisks one day. I asked my guide about them. ‘They come from Egypt,’ was his reply. I could have told him as much myself.
If you need rest, seek it not in Constantinople, with its noisy crowds by day and its noisy dogs by night; seek it not in its narrow streets, where horses and asses and big bullocks, dragging along the most rickety of waggons, are ever to be seen; seek it not as you drive along its uneven and disgracefully-paved streets. The mosques are cool and spacious – there you may rest; but if there is a service, you are not permitted to remain unless you are a Mohammedan. One advantage of the mosques is that there is generally a large open space attached to them, where people can wash themselves and also hold a market. People seem to do much as they like, as they talk and smoke and play cards, and indulge in coffee or lemon-and-water. I have never yet seen a drunken man or – what is worse – a drunken woman, and yet an English lady, a clergyman’s wife, told me that she only went on shore once, and was so shocked that she resolved never to set foot in the place again. The people were so degraded; the poor porters were so overburdened; and, then, they were all such awful idolaters. I presume the lady knows nothing of parts of London where worse sights are to be seen every day.
The Bosphorus is beautiful beyond description. It beats the Rhine, it beats the American Hudson; indeed, it is the grandest panorama in the world. At its back rise the green wooded hills, and the front is lined with pleasant villas and palaces – white or yellow, built in Turkish fashion, with innumerable windows everywhere. There must be great wealth in the district to build and support such places. Everywhere there is a great appearance of religion. Go into a mosque any hour you will, and you see a priest or layman sitting in a quiet corner, fenced with a wooden rail, cross-legged, repeating the Koran. One of the oddest sights I saw in the grand Mosque of St. Sophia was that of an old-fashioned London clock. One of my troubles as I explored the mosque – the floor of which is lined with Indian matting – was to keep on my Turkish slippers. An attendant who followed me had to stoop down every minute to put them on, that I might not reveal the deck-shoes which I wore inside. A gentleman who had visited the mosque told me that on one occasion, when he took off a pair of new boots there which he was wearing, he never saw them again.
It is wonderful how cheap provisions are: beef, threepence a pound; bread, a halfpenny; grapes, a halfpenny; fowls for sevenpence; and mountains of melons everywhere. There is free education, and an abundant supply of schools. The labouring classes are well employed. The English here are chiefly merchants or agents or engineers. On our way back we pass that favourite resort of the Turkish holiday-makers – the Valley of Sweet Waters – and have a good view of the hospital at Scutari, built by Florence Nightingale – now utilized as barracks – and of the monuments in front of the cemetery in memory of the British officers and soldiers who died during the Crimean War.
It is a relief to us all to get back into the Dardanelles and sail over the spot where Xerxes built his famous bridge, the narrow strait across which Leander swam nightly to visit his lady-love – a feat performed by our great poet Byron at a later age – and wander in fancy as we again catch sight of the plains of Troy, the spot where the Greek hero Protesilaus first struck the Trojan strand, and thus gave occasion to our Wordsworth to write his immortal poem – a poem that will be read and admired when all the puny poets of the present age are dead and forgotten. Out in the Ægean Sea the weather is almost cool and delightfully refreshing, just like a fine morning in spring at home. The first isle of any importance we make is Tenedos, behind which, on the mainland, lies Troas, visited by the Apostle Paul. To the north lies Besika Bay, where once the French and English fleets assembled prior to their passage of the Dardanelles, and where the British fleet, under Admiral Hornby, lay in 1887–88 during the Russo-Turkish War. Next we reach the ancient Lectum, the most westernly point of Asia, and get a glimpse of the beautiful island of Mitylene, the ancient Lesbos. Mitylene, on the east coast, is prettily situated, and does a considerable trade. There are few remains of the ancient city. The island has 115,000 inhabitants, mostly Greeks.
CHAPTER VIII
SMYRNA
I write now from one of the most ancient cities in the world. There is a wonderful lot of ancient history in these parts. The mind quite staggers under the ever-accumulating load of facts and figures and legends. The Æolians, who founded on this site the first Greek city, claimed it as the birthplace of Homer. It was there that his poetry flourished; then, under the successors of Alexander, it became celebrated for its schools of science and medicine. Christianity early made its way into Smyrna, which has enjoyed the reputation of being one of the Seven Churches of Asia alluded to in Revelation. It was there that Polycarp suffered martyrdom, and it is there they still show you, or profess to show you, his tomb. Defended by the Knights of Rhodes, Smyrna fell when Timur, the terrible Mogul, appeared before it and put all that breathed to the sword. As it was, I felt satisfied and charmed with modern Smyrna, and did not climb the hill behind on which stands the ruins of a castle, and where brigands still lie in wait for the unwary traveller. Nor did I take the train to Ephesus, a run of nearly two hours, to wander under the hot sun and amidst the rough winds to see what remains, amidst bushes and rocks and cornfields, of ancient Ephesus – notwithstanding the fact that there Christian synods have been held, and that in a cave adjoining slept those marvellous Seven Sleepers; that there stood the temple of the goddess Diana, whose worshippers the great Apostle of the Gentiles woke up to cry excitedly for the craft by which they lived. It is a scene of desolation, which certainly does not repay the ordinary tourist the trouble of a visit.
But I revelled in Smyrna – one of the brightest, cleanest, and most prosperous cities under Turkish sway. Its white houses, chiefly hotels and restaurants and theatres, line the bay, with dense shipping in the forefront, while the mountains behind, up the slopes of which modern Smyrna is gradually planting herself, act as guard and shelter. At the time of my visit there stretched across the bay quite an imposing display of ironclads of all nations – American, English, Italian, French – and it made me shudder to think of them bombarding this scene of life and gaiety and spreading terror amongst its hard-working people. A tramway runs along the whole front of the city for about a couple of miles, and, as you stand thinking of the wonders of modern civilization, you hear a bell tinkle, and see half a dozen camels laden with sacks of grain striding past, generally led by a man on a donkey. Sometimes the donkey had no rider, and yet the patient camel followed all the same. It was intensely amusing: the contrast between the little donkey leading and the big camel behind. It set me thinking of the many parallel passages in modern history – of parties, Churches, States, led by donkeys. Smyrna has an enormous bazaar, into which it is easier to find one’s way than to get out. It has fine mosques and handsome Greek churches. It shelters the ships and people of all nations, but my chief delight was to watch the string of camels as they ever came and went. Even in the narrow passages of the bazaar there were the camels, and it was all you could do to get out of the way of these grand animals, for such they were.
One place that I visited much interested me. It was the Sailors’ Rest on the quay, a fine room with a library and reading-room, where the sailors come and go, and where they are supplied with refreshments of a non-intoxicating character, carried on in connection with the Greek Evangelical Alliance, founded in Smyrna in 1883. Depression in business, and consequent poverty and other causes, such as the declining number of British merchants who come to Smyrna, ousted, I presume, by more enterprising rivals, and troubles in the interior, have hindered the work, which, however, is successfully carried on. The average attendance last year was: Sunday morning service, 83; afternoon, 59; Tuesday prayer-meeting, 41; Gospel service at the Rest, 50. At the Sunday-school the average attendance has been about 60. Owing to the shifting population of Smyrna, many of the church members have become scattered in many lands. The bitterest enemies of the work are the members of the Orthodox Greek Church, who have no sympathy with an Evangelical Alliance of any kind, and care not a rap for the union of the Churches. As an illustration, take the following: ‘In 1895 it was expected that the official permit for the building of a chapel on a site assigned by Government would be granted to the Evangelicals. In fact, in the middle of January permission was granted for the opening of the school, but the local authorities, desiring to avoid any possible outbreak on the part of ‘the Orthodox,’ tried to bring about a friendly compromise. It was all in vain, the Orthodox declaring that they would listen to no terms unless the Evangelicals were entirely thrust out from the central quarter of the town, and that they would never allow the chapel to be built or the site prepared for it. Thus foiled, the Evangelicals opened their school, but ‘the Orthodox’ attacked the building with stones, defacing it almost entirely, and quite destroying all the furniture within. The result was that the Evangelicals had to commence their labours anew elsewhere. After two months’ labour the ire of the Orthodox was again aroused; they drove out the workmen, pulled down part of the walls, and finally remained masters of the situation. It is true that fifteen of the Orthodox were imprisoned, but the Evangelicals were advised to leave the situation also, and to remove to some other site more acceptable to their opponents. This advice the Evangelicals refused to accept, and, after a long delay, by the personal efforts and goodwill of the new Turkish Governor the building was restored. Orthodoxy seemed to be a sad stumbling-block in the way of good work everywhere. The Sailors’ Rest at Smyrna may be much aided by British Christians, both by presents of books or by pecuniary contributions. During the last year it seems that 229 visits have been paid to ships, 64 bags of books sent out, 20 pledges taken. I fear there is a good deal of drunkenness in Smyrna. Seven thousand six hundred visits have been made in the year by sailors to the Rest, 797 have attended the meetings, 676 Bibles, Testaments, and portions have been given away, and many were the letters sent home by sailors from the Rest. It seems to me that it might be kept open a little later at night with advantage, as I find it is the fashion to keep many of the drinking-shops open all night. The work among the Greeks has been reviving, and it is regarded as hopeful. The meetings are well attended, and especially so the Wednesday evening meeting in the Corner Room at the Rest. This meeting is described as the fishing-net of the Greek work, as many of those who became regular attendants at the other services held in the American Chapel began at the Rest. At Smyrna our American fellow-passengers hear the result of the Presidential contest in America, and greatly rejoice. Their country is saved – at any rate, this time. Local lines of steamers run from Smyrna to Messina and Beirut, touching at all the important coast towns and at several of the islands, at which we have a peep, such as Cos, the birthplace of Hippocrates; Halicarnassus, where Herodotus was born, and where stood the famous mausoleum, one of the wonders of the world; and Rhodes, far-famed. But we may not tarry even in order to gratify such a laudable curiosity; no, not even at Cyprus, which has prospered so much under English rule. It is enough for us to have explored Smyrna, a city which in every way, as regards cleanliness in the streets and the absence of abominable smells, is a great improvement on Constantinople. It has a population of nearly half a million, of which less than one-fourth is Moslem, and more than half Greek. There are large Armenian and Jewish colonies, that of the Jews, of course, being the most squalid, unhealthy and debased. The town is governed by a municipality. Europeans are under the jurisdiction of their consuls. Its gas lights beamed on us brilliantly as we steamed out in the dark into the open sea. The one nuisance of Smyrna are the boys, who go to learn English at the schools taught by the missionaries, and these persistently pester you to be taken on as guides. The professional guides are nuisance enough, but these boys are infinitely worse.
CHAPTER IX
JAFFA TO JERUSALEM
You see nothing of Jerusalem till you get inside the city, and to enjoy a visit requires a greater enthusiasm than any to which I can lay claim. We were safely landed at Jaffa, which by this time ought to have a more decent landing-place; thence, after a glance at the house where Simon the Tanner carried on business, I made my way – along tortuous roads, more or less blocked with stones and rubbish, and more or less exposed to a burning sun – to the station, whence we were to start for Jerusalem, a hot ride of nearly four hours in railway-carriages of very second-rate quality. The land about Jaffa is fertile and well cultivated; fig-trees and olive-trees and orange-groves are abundant, and at Jaffa the chief business seemed to be packing them in boxes for export. At one particular spot our conductor told us that it was there that Samson set the cornfields of the Philistines on fire. Certainly the ground seemed dry and baked up enough. Then Arithmea was reached. On our way we got our first sight of a native village, built of mud huts, into which it seemed difficult to find an entrance. A Kaffir village is infinitely to be preferred. The scene of desolation was complete. On the neighbouring rocks nothing was to be seen but flocks of goats. A little fairer scene opened on us as we passed the neat German colony that has settled down here, almost under the shadow of the walls of Jerusalem. Then the terminus is gained, and we are whirled in a cloud of dust, in rickety carriages, driven by their hoarsely-shouting drivers at full gallop, all of us white as millers, being clothed with dust. I wash at Howard’s Hotel, swallow a cup of tea, and, as we do not dine till six, make my way into Jerusalem by the Jaffa Gate. A little of Jerusalem goes a long way. It is dark and stifling, swarming with people and camels and asses, and noisy beyond description. A sort of Rag Fair, only with a few touches of the East, such as a veiled woman, or a stately Turk in turban and flowing robes, or a black-coated, black-bearded Greek priest, or a low row of shopkeepers, sitting patiently in their dark and tiny shops, thrown in. You must keep moving, or you will be run over by a donkey or a camel, for, as the country round Jerusalem grows nothing, the necessaries of life have all to be brought from a distance. My respected countrymen and countrywomen are in a state of gush all the while, not to be wondered at when you think of the Jerusalem of David, and Solomon, and Jesus Christ. As it is in reality, I own I see very little to gush about. I reach the Via Dolorosa – there is no trace of Christ there; I pass the Church of the Sepulchre and the mosque which marks the site where Solomon built his Temple. I think of the royal Psalmist who here poured forth the wailings of his heart in language which has formed the penitential chant of all the ages. But if I would see the Christ I must get out of this city, all crammed with lies and living upon lies. I muse by myself in the Garden of Gethsemane; I climb the Mount of Olives. It is outside the city, away from its old and new churches, that I see the living Christ and Calvary, and feel how true it is that
‘Each soul redeemed from sin and death
Must know its Calvary.’
I have had enough of Jerusalem. My fellow-travellers leave me to go to Jericho. I have no wish to be sent to Jericho, and prefer to remain under the grateful shelter of my hotel, just outside the Jaffa Gate. What strikes me most is the prosperity of the place. It is growing fast, in spite of Turkish rule. The people are robbed by the tax-collectors; nevertheless, the place gains, and the population outside the city walls is quite as great as that within. One reason, of course, is that wealthy Christians in England and America spend large sums of money in keeping up proselytizing establishments here, and in erecting fine buildings for the same end. Of course we have a Bishop here, but he is High Church, and seems, from all I hear, more inclined to bridge over the gulf between his Church and the Greek than to promote general and undenominational Christian work. The number of poor Jews is enormous. They come here from all parts of the world to die in the Sacred City, and have many charities established on their behalf. The Britisher has this advantage – that he pays no taxes. The Jew is not permitted to hold a bit of land unless he has been a resident here five years. The Turk holds Jerusalem to be a sacred city only second to Mecca. No wonder, then, that the nations have fought bitterly for the possession of its so-called sacred shrines; no wonder that Christians from all parts of the world hasten to Jerusalem, and that you meet in the streets and shops and hotels such a mixture of men and women – brought by excursion-parties from London – as, perhaps, you have never seen before, and, perchance, may wish never to see again. I suppose it has ever been so. Those old Crusaders must have been rather a mixed lot. As it is, the Russian Church seems most in evidence. It has spent, apparently, a great deal of money in building purposes. Its new church, half-way up the Mount of Olives, is one of the finest buildings to be seen outside the walls. The Russian is wily; he knows what he is about – at any rate, better than many of his rivals in the race for empire.
I think most of my party are getting tired of Jerusalem – even the clergy, of whom we have many. Exertion of any kind is painful on these dusty highways and under this blazing sun. There has been no rain for six months, and the Jews in the synagogue are praying for it daily, and yet it seems as far off as ever. One thing that is really enjoyable is the cool splendour of these cloudless skies by night. I have seen the moon rise in many lands, but never – no, not even under the Southern Cross – a moon so full, so fair, so bright, as that of Judæa, as it throws its silvery light over old walls and peasants’ huts, on hill and dale – I may not say ancient ruins, for all is new outside Jerusalem, and as regards most of the city a similar remark may be made. For Saracen and Roman have devastated and destroyed entirely the real Jerusalem, which is now only being disinterred by the labours of the agents of the Palestine Exploration Fund, of whom Dr. Bliss is the chief.
The Jews preponderate everywhere, apparently poor and depressed. The real Turk, sleek and well robed, is an imposing figure, but the dragomans – chiefly Greeks, or of the Greek Church – are active and intelligent, and very ready to use their English, of which, apparently, they have but an imperfect knowledge. The Jews speak the common dialect of the country, but are taught Hebrew in the many schools established for their benefit. The food displayed in their cook-shops is, however, by no means tempting, and nowhere, unless it be at such an international hotel as that of Chevalier Howard, is the commissariat department very strong. But we have clean, cool, delightful bedrooms. And Mr. Chevalier himself is a remarkably intelligent and active man, and offers the traveller facilities for excursions such as he can find nowhere else. When one thinks of Palestine and the place it fills in the world’s history, it is hard to realize what a small extent of country it contains. Its length is about 200 miles, and its average breadth 75 miles. On one side is the Mediterranean Sea, and on the other the desert plain of Arabia. A mountain range runs through it from north to south. Its chief rivers are the Jordan, the Litany, the Abana, and the Pharpar. I fancy it is better to come here in the spring than in the autumn.