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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:12:16 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:12:16 -0700 |
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diff --git a/39252-h/39252-h.htm b/39252-h/39252-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..17ceaaf --- /dev/null +++ b/39252-h/39252-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4396 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Near East, by Robert Hichens. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +small { font-size:70%; } +big { font-size:140%; } + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + + +/* Vertical Spacing */ + +.medskip { +padding-top: 1em; +} + +.bigskip { +padding-top: 1.25em; +} + +.hugeskip { +padding-top: 3em; +} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.transnote {background-color:#EEE; color: inherit; margin: 2em 10% 1em 10%; +font-size: 80%; padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em; text-align: left;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +ins {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray;} +.tnote {border:dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; +padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; padding-left: .5em; +padding-right: .5em;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Near East, by Robert Hichens + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Near East + Dalmatia, Greece and Constantinople + +Author: Robert Hichens + +Illustrator: Jules Guerin + +Release Date: March 24, 2012 [EBook #39252] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEAR EAST *** + + + + +Produced by Adrian Mastronardi, JoAnn Greenwood, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h1>THE NEAR EAST</h1> + +<a name="i003" id="i003"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/i003.jpg" width="400" height="600" alt="THE MOSQUE OF SULEIMAN AT CONSTANTINOPLE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE MOSQUE OF SULEIMAN AT CONSTANTINOPLE</span> +</div> + +<div class="hugeskip"></div> + + +<h1> +THE<br /> +NEAR EAST<br /> +<br /> +<small>DALMATIA, GREECE<br /> +AND CONSTANTINOPLE</small></h1> + +<div class="bigskip"></div> +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>ROBERT HICHENS</h2> + +<div class="bigskip"></div> +<h3><small>ILLUSTRATED BY</small><br /> +JULES GUÉRIN<br /> +<small>AND WITH PHOTOGRAPHS</small></h3> + +<div class="hugeskip"></div> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 155px;"> +<img src="images/title-deco.jpg" width="155" height="156" alt="" title="" /> +</div><br /> + +<div class="hugeskip"></div> +<div class="center">LONDON<br /> +HODDER AND STOUGHTON<br /> +1913</div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h5>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES BY THE DE VINNE PRESS</h5> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Chapter I</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#PICTURESQUE_DALMATIA">PICTURESQUE DALMATIA</a></td><td align="right">1</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Chapter II</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#IN_AND_NEAR_ATHENS">IN AND NEAR ATHENS</a></td><td align="right">49</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Chapter III</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#THE_ENVIRONS_OF_ATHENS">THE ENVIRONS OF ATHENS</a></td><td align="right">95</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Chapter IV</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#DELPHI_AND_OLYMPIA">DELPHI AND OLYMPIA</a></td><td align="right">137</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Chapter V</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#IN_CONSTANTINOPLE">IN CONSTANTINOPLE</a></td><td align="right">181</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Chapter VI</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#STAMBOUL_THE_CITY_OF_MOSQUES">STAMBOUL, THE CITY OF MOSQUES</a></td><td align="right">225</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i003">The Mosque of Suleiman at Constantinople</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right"><i>Frontispiece</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i016">The Roman Amphitheater at Pola</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">4</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i024">The Market-Place at Spalato</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">9</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i027">Zara—Piazza delle Erbe</a></td><td align="right">14</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i032">The Harbor of Mezzo</a></td><td align="right">17</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i037">Spalato—Peristilio</a></td><td align="right">24</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i042">Trau—Vestibule of the Cathedral</a></td><td align="right">27</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i045">Ragusa</a></td><td align="right">32</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i052">The Rector's Palace and the Public Square at Ragusa</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">37</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i060">The Jesuits' Church and the Military Hospital, Ragusa</a></td><td align="right">45</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i065">The Parthenon at Athens</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">52</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i070">The Acropolis, with a View of the Areopagus and Mount Hymettus, from the West</a></td><td align="right">55</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i075">The Theater of Dionysus on the southern slope of the Acropolis</a></td><td align="right">62</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i080">The Temple of the Olympian Zeus at Athens</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">65</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i083">In the Portico of the Parthenon</a></td><td align="right">70</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i090">The Temple of Athene Nike at Athens</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">75</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i095">The Stadium, Athens</a></td><td align="right">82</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i102">The Academy, Mount Lycabettus in the background</a></td><td align="right">87</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i105">The Acropolis at Athens, early morning</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">92</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i110">The Temple of Poseidon and Athene at Sunium</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">98</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i117">The Temple of Athene, Island of Ægina</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">103</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i120">The Theater of Dionysus, Athens</a></td><td align="right">108</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i127">The Plain of Marathon</a></td><td align="right">113</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i132">A Monastery at the foot of Hymettus</a></td><td align="right">120</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i139">Ruins of the Great Temple of the Mysteries at Eleusis</a></td><td align="right">125</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i147">The Odeum of Herodes Atticus in Athens</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">133</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i152">The Site of Ancient Delphi</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">140</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i157">Delphi—Gulf of Corinth in the distance</a></td><td align="right">143</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i162">The Lion of Chæronea, the Acropolis and Mount Parnassus</a></td><td align="right">150</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i166">Place of the famous Oracle, Delphi</a></td><td align="right">154</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i173">View of Mount Parnassus</a></td><td align="right">159</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i179">Ruins of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi</a></td><td align="right">165</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i182">The Temple of Hera at Olympia</a></td><td align="right">170</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i189">Olympia—Entrance to the Athletic Field</a></td><td align="right">175</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i196">The Grand Bazaar in Constantinople</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">184</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i202">The Bosphorous—Constantinople in the distance</a></td><td align="right">190</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i207">Galata Bridge, which connects Galata and Pera</a></td><td align="right">193</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i212">The Water-front of Stamboul, with Pera in the distance</a></td><td align="right">200</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i217">Looking down Step Street, Constantinople</a></td><td align="right">203</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i220">Public Letter-writers in a Constantinople Street</a></td><td align="right">208</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i227">The Courtyard of the "Pigeon's Mosque"</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">213</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i235">Street Scene in Constantinople</a></td><td align="right">221</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i240">The Mosque of the Yeni-Validé-Jamissi, Constantinople</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">228</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i245">The Royal Gate leading to the old Seraglio</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">231</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i250">The Mosque of Santa Sophia</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">238</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i255">In the Cemetery of Eyub, on the Golden Horn</a><br /><small>From a painting by Jules Guérin</small></td><td align="right">241</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i258">Interior of Santa Sophia</a></td><td align="right">246</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i265">St. George's Greek Church, now a mosque, Constantinople</a></td><td align="right">251</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i270">Street vista in Galata from end of bridge, Constantinople</a></td><td align="right">258</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#i277">A view over Constantinople showing the Mosque of Santa Sophia</a></td><td align="right">263</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PICTURESQUE_DALMATIA" id="PICTURESQUE_DALMATIA"></a>PICTURESQUE DALMATIA</h2> + +<a name="i016" id="i016"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 398px;"> +<img src="images/i016.jpg" width="398" height="600" alt="THE ROMAN AMPHITHEATER AT POLA" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE ROMAN AMPHITHEATER AT POLA</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE NEAR EAST</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter I</span></h2> + +<h3>PICTURESQUE DALMATIA</h3> + + +<p>Miramar faded across the pale waters of the Adriatic, which lay like a +dream at the foot of the hills where Triest seemed sleeping, all its +activities stilled at the summons of peace. Beneath its tower the +orange-colored sail of a fishing-boat caught the sunlight, and gleamed +like some precious fabric, then faded, too, as the ship moved onward to +the forgotten region of rocks and islands, of long, gray mountains, of +little cities and ancient fortresses, of dim old churches, from whose +campanile the medieval voices of bells ring out the angelus to a people +still happily primitive, still unashamed to be picturesque. By the way +of the sea we journeyed to a capital where no carriages roll through the +narrow streets, where there is not a railway-station, where the citizens +are content to go on foot about their business, and where three quarters +of the blessings of civilization are blessedly unknown. We had still to +touch at Pola, in whose great harbor the dull-green war-ships of Austria +lay almost in the shadow of the vast Roman amphitheater, which has +lifted its white walls, touched here and there with gold, above the sea +for some sixteen hundred years, curiously graceful despite its gigantic +bulk, the home now of grasses and thistles, where twenty thousand +spectators used to assemble to take their pleasure.</p> + +<p>But when Pola was left behind, the ship soon entered the watery +paradise. Miramar, Triest, were forgotten. Dalmatia is a land of +forgetting, seems happily far away, cut off by the sea from many +banalities, many active annoyances of modern life.</p> + +<p>Places that are, or that seem to be, remote often hold a certain +melancholy, a tristesse of "old, unhappy, far-off things." But Dalmatia +has a serene atmosphere, a cheerful purity, a clean and a cozy gaiety +which reach out hands to the traveler, and take him at once into +intimacy and the breast of a home. Before entering it the ship coasts +along a naked region, in which pale, almost flesh-colored hills are +backed by mountains of a ghastly grayness. Flesh-color and steel are +almost cruelly blended. No habitations were visible. The sea, protected +on our right by lines of islands, was waveless. No birds flew above it; +no boats moved on it. We seemed to be creeping down into the ultimate +desolation.</p> + +<p>But presently the waters widened out. At the foot of the hills appeared +here and there white groups of houses. A greater warmth, like a breath +of hope, stole into the air. White and yellow sails showed on the breast +of the sea. Two sturdy men, wearing red caps, and standing to ply their +oars, hailed us in the Slav dialect as they passed on their way to the +islands. The huge, gray Velebit Mountains still bore us company on our +voyage to the South, but they were losing their almost wicked look of +dreariness. In the golden light of afternoon romance was descending upon +them. And now a long spur of green land thrust itself far out, as if to +bar our way onward. The islands closed in upon us again. A white town +smiled on us far off at the edge of the happy, green land. It looked +full of promises, a little city not to be passed without regretting. It +was Zara, the capital without a railway-station of the forgotten +country.</p> + +<p>Zara, Trau, Spalato, Ragusa, Castelnuovo, Cattaro, Sebenico—these, with +two or three other places, represent Dalmatia to the average traveler. +Ragusa is, perhaps, the most popular and interesting; Spalato the most +populous and energetic; Cattaro the most remarkable scenically. Trau +leaves a haunting memory in the mind of him who sees it. Castelnuovo is +a little paradise marred in some degree by the soldiers who infest it, +and who seem strangely out of place in its tiny ways and its +tree-shaded piazza on the hilltop. But Zara has a peculiar charm, half +gay, half brightly tender. And nowhere else in all Dalmatia are such +exquisite effects of light wedded to water to be seen as on Zara's +Canale.</p> + +<p>Zara, like other sirens, is deceptive. The city has a face which gives +little indication of its soul. Along the shore lie tall and cheerful +houses,—almost palaces they are,—solid and big, modern, with windows +opening to the sea, and separated from it only by a broad walk, edged by +a strip of pavement, from which might be taken a dive into the limpid +water. And here, when the ship tied up, a well-dressed throng of joyous +citizens was taking the air. Children were playing and laughing. Two or +three row-boats slipped through the gold and silver which the sun, just +setting behind the island of Ugljan opposite, showered toward the city. +Music came from some place of entertainment. A simple liveliness +suggested prosperous homes, the well-being of a community apart, which +chose to live "out of the world," away from railroads, motor-cars, and +carriage traffic, but which knew how to be modern in its own quiet and +decorous way.</p> + +<p>Yet Zara had a great soaring campanile—it had been visible far off at +sea—and tiny streets and old buildings, San Donato, the duomo, San +Simeone; and five fountains,—the <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">cinque pozzi</i>,—and a Venetian +tower,—the <span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Torre di Buovo d'Antona</span>,—and fortification gardens, and +lion gateways. Where were all these? A sound of bells came from behind +the palaces. And these bells seemed to be proclaiming the truth of Zara.</p> + +<a name="i024" id="i024"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/i024.jpg" width="400" height="600" alt="THE MARKET-PLACE AT SPALATO" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE MARKET-PLACE AT SPALATO</span> +</div> + +<p>Bells ringing in hidden places behind the palaces; bells calling across +strange gardens lifted high on mighty walls; bells whispering among +pines and murmuring across green depths of glass-like water; bells +chiming above the yellowing vines on tiny islands! Who that remembers +Zara remembers not Zara's bells?</p> + +<p>Walk a few steps from the sea, passing between the big houses which +front it into the Piazza delle Erbe, and you come at once into a busy +strangeness of Croatia girdled about by Italy. Dalmatia has been +possessed wholly or in part by Romans, Goths, Slavs, Hungarians, Turks, +Venetians. Now smart Austrian soldiers make themselves at home in Zara, +but Italy seems still to rule there, stretching hands out of the past. +Italian may be heard on all sides, but the peasants who throng the +<i>calle</i> and the market-place and the harbor speak a Slavonic dialect, +and in the piazza on any morning, almost in the shadow of the Romanesque +cathedral, and watched over by a griffin perched on a high Corinthian +column hung with chains, which announce its old service as a pillory, +you may hear their chatter, and see the gay colors of costumes which to +the untraveled might perhaps suggest comic opera.</p> + +<p>There is a wildness of the near East in this medieval Italian town, a +wildness which blooms and fades between tall houses of stone, facing +each other so closely that friend might almost clasp hand with friend +leaning from window to opposite window. Against the somber grays and +browns of façades, set in the deep shadows of the paved alleys which are +Zara's streets, move brilliant colors, scarlet and silver, blue and +crimson and silver. Multitudes of coins and curious heavy ornaments +glitter on the caps and the dresses of women. Enormous boys and great, +striding men, brave in embroidered jackets, with bright-red caps too +small for the head, silver buttons, red sashes stuck full of weapons and +other impedimenta, gaiters, and pointed shoes, march hither and thither, +calmly intent on some business which has brought them in from the +outlying districts. It varies, of course, with the changing seasons. In +the latter part of October and beginning of November most of the male +peasants were selling very large hares. Live cocks and hens were being +disposed of by many of the women, and it is a common thing in Zara to +see well-dressed people bearing about with them bunches of puffed-out +and drearily blinking poultry, which they have bought casually at some +corner; by the great Venetian tower; or near the round, two-storied +church of San Donato, founded on the spot where once stood a Roman +forum, whose pavement still remains; or perhaps by San Simeone, close to +the palace of the governor, where under the black eagles of Austria the +sentry, in blue and bright yellow, stands drowsily in the sunshine +before his black and yellow box.</p> + +<a name="i027" id="i027"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/i027.jpg" width="600" height="466" alt="ZARA—PIAZZA DELLE ERBE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">ZARA—PIAZZA DELLE ERBE</span> +</div> + +<p>Sometimes the peasants bring live stock to church. One morning, on a +week day, I went into San Simeone, to which Queen Elizabeth of Hungary +gave the superb arca of silver gilt which contains, it is said, the +remains of the saint. I found there a number of peasants, men and women, +all in characteristic costumes. Only peasants were there. Some were +quietly sitting, some kneeling, some standing, with their market-baskets +set down on the pavement beside them. In a hidden place behind the high +altar, above which is raised the great, carved sarcophagus, priests were +droning the office. A peasant in red, with a gesture, invited me to sit +beside him. I did so, and he whispered in my ear some words I could not +understand; but I gathered that something very important was about to +take place. Every face was expectant. All eyes were earnestly fixed upon +the sarcophagus. A woman came in, carrying in her arms a turkey, which +looked anxious-minded, crossed herself, and waited with us, gazing. The +droning voices ceased. A sort of carillon sounded brightly. We all +knelt, the woman with the turkey, too, as a priest in scarlet and white +mounted the steps which divide the altar from the area. There was a +moment of deep silence. Then the great, glittering, and sloping lid, +with its recumbent figure of the saint, slowly rose between the bronze +supporting figures. My peasant friend touched me, stood up, and led the +way toward the altar. I followed him with the rest of the congregation, +and we filed slowly up the steps, and one by one gazed down into the dim +coffin. There I saw a skull, and the vague brown remains of what had +once been a human being, lying in the midst of votive offerings. On the +fingers of one hand, which looked as if made of tobacco leaf, were +clusters of rings. The fat, bronze faces on each side seemed smiling. +But the peasants stood in awe. And presently the great lid sank down. +All made the sign of the cross. The market-baskets were picked up, and +the turkey was restored to the sunlight.</p> + +<a name="i032" id="i032"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/i032.jpg" width="600" height="400" alt="THE HARBOR OF MEZZO" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE HARBOR OF MEZZO</span> +</div> + +<p>Close to San Simeone are the cinque pozzi—five fountains in a row, with +iron wheels above them. They are between four and five hundred years +old, and lie almost at the foot of the Venetian tower, near a Corinthian +column and the fragments of a Roman arch. Just behind them some steps +lead up to one of the delicious shady places of Zara. Mount them, and +you will have a happy surprise such as the little Dalmatian cities +are always ready to give you.</p> + +<a name="p19" id="p19"></a> +<p>You have been walking away from the sea, with your back to the harbor, +and here is another, but minute, harbor nestling under a great fortress +wall above which, in a garden, some young soldiers are idly leaning and +laughing under trees with leaves of gold and red-brown. Brightly painted +vessels, closely packed together, lie on the blue-green water. Beyond +them are the trees of Blažeković Park. And just beneath you, on +your right, is the great, yellow stone Porta di Terra Ferma, with its +winged lion of St. Mark. Beyond, over the narrow exit from the harbor, +the landlocked Canale di Zara, which sometimes, especially at evening, +reminded me of the Venice lagoons, lies glittering in the sun. And a +Venetian fort on the peak of Ugljan shows like a strange and determined +shadow against the blue of the sky.</p> + +<p>The great white campanile which dominates Zara, and which from the sea +looks light and graceful, is the campanile of the duomo, Sant' +Anastasia, and was partly built by the Venetians, and completed not many +years ago. From the narrow street which skirts the duomo this campanile, +though majestic, looks heavy and almost overwhelming, too huge, too +tremendously solid, for the little town in which it is set. And, its +blanched hue, beautiful from the sea, has a rather unpleasant effect +against the deep, time-worn color of the church, the façade of which, +with its two rose windows, one large, one small, its three beautiful, +mellow-toned doorways, and its curious and somehow touching, though +stolid, statues, is very fine. The interior, not specially interesting, +contains some glorious Gothic stalls dating from the fifteenth century. +They are of black wood, relieved with bosses and tiny statuettes of +bright gold, and above each one is the half-length of a gilded and +painted man, wearing a beard and holding a scroll. The Porta Marina, +through which the chief harbor is gained, is remarkable for its carved, +dark-gray lion, companioned by two white cherubs of stone brilliantly +full of life despite their almost terrifying obesity. One of the most +beautiful things in Zara is the delicate and lovely campanile of Santa +Maria, over six hundred years old. St. Grisogono, the church of the +city's patron saint, was in the hands of workmen and could not be +visited when I was in Dalmatia.</p> + +<p>Almost the whole of Zara is surrounded by water. On the great walls of +the ancient fortifications are gardens, and from these gardens you look +down on quiet inlets of the sea. Old buildings, old walls and gardens, +tiny, medieval streets through which no carriage ever passes, fountains, +lion gateways, painted boats lying on clear and apparently motionless +waters shut in from the open sea by long lines of mountainous islands, +pine-trees and olives and golden vineyards, and over all an ancient +music of bells. It is difficult to say good-by to Zara, even though +Spalato sends out a summons from the <i>riviera</i> of red and of gold, even +though Ragusa calls from its leafy groves under the Fort Imperiale.</p> + +<p>Bora, the wind of the dead, blew when our ship rounded the lighthouse of +Spalato long after darkness had fallen. And the following day was the +"<i lang="it" xml:lang="it">giorno dei morti</i>." The strange cathedral, octagonal without, circular +within, once the mausoleum of the Emperor Diocletian, was crowded with +citizens and peasants devoutly praying. Incense rose between the dark, +hoary walls, the columns of granite and porphyry, to the dome of brick. +Outside in the wind the black hornblende sphinx kept watch on those who +came and went, mourning for their departed. The sky was a heavy gray, +and the temple was dark, and looked wrinkled and seared with age, and +sad despite its pagan frieze showing the wild joys of the chase, despite +the loveliness of its thirteenth-century pulpit of limestone and marble, +raised high on wonderfully graceful columns with elaborately carved +capitals.</p> + +<p>Spalato is the biggest, most bustling town of Dalmatia. Much of it is +built into the great palace of Diocletian, which lies over against the +sea, huge, massive, powerful, once probably noble, but now disfigured +by the paltry windows and the green shutters of modern dwellings, by a +triviality of common commercial life, sparrows where eagles should be. +When nature takes a ruin, she usually glorifies it, or touches it with a +tenderness of romance. But when people in the wine trade lay hold upon +it, hang out their washing in it, and establish their cafés and their +bakeries and their butchers' shops in the midst of its rugged walls, its +arches, and its columns, the ruin suffers, and the people in the wine +trade seem to lose in value instead of gaining in importance.</p> + +<a name="i037" id="i037"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 441px;"> +<img src="images/i037.jpg" width="441" height="600" alt="SPALATO—PERISTILIO" title="" /> +<span class="caption">SPALATO—PERISTILIO</span> +</div> + +<p>Spalato is a strange confusion of old and new. It lacks the delicacy of +Zara, the harmonious beauty of Ragusa. One era seems to fight with +another within it. Here is a noble twelfth-century campanile, nearly a +hundred and eighty feet high, there a common row of little shops full of +cheap and uninviting articles. Turning a corner, one comes unexpectedly +upon a Corinthian temple. It is the Battistero di San Giovanni, once +perhaps the private temple of Diocletian. For the moment no one is near +it, and despite the icy breath of Bora raging through the city and +crying, "This is the day of the dead!" a calm of dead years infolds you +as you enter the massive doorway and pass into the shadow beneath the +stone wagon-roof. A few steps, and the smell of fish assails you, +hundreds of strings of onions greet your eyes, and the heavy rolling +of enormous barrels of wine over stone pavements breaks through the +noise of the wind. You have come unexpectedly out through a gateway of +the palace on to the quay to the south, and are in the midst of +commercial activities. The contrasts are picturesque, but they are +rough, and, when complicated by Bora, are confusing, almost distressing. +Nevertheless, Spalato is well worth a visit. It contains a small, but +remarkable, museum, specially interesting for its sarcophagi found at +Salona and its collection of inscriptions. The sarcophagus showing the +passage of the Red Sea is very curious. Apart from the now disfigured +palace, the Battistero, the very interesting and peculiar cathedral, +with its vestibule, its rotunda, and its Piazza of the Sphinx, like +nothing else I have seen, the town is full of picturesque nooks and +corners; and its fruit market at the foot of the massive octagonal +Hrvoja Tower, which dates from 1481, is perhaps even more animated, more +full of strangeness and color, than Zara's Piazza delle Erbe. Here may +be seen turbans of crimson on the handsome heads of men, elaborately +embroidered crimson jackets covering immense shoulders and chests, women +dressed in blue and red, white and silver, or with heads and busts +draped in the most brilliant shade of orange color. When Bora blows, the +men look like monks or Mephistopheles; for some—the greater +number—wrap themselves from head to foot in long cloaks and hoods of +brown, while others of a more lively temperament shroud themselves in +red. They are a handsome people, rustic-looking, yet often noble, with +kind yet bold faces, steady eyes, and a magnificent physique. Their gait +is large and loose. There are giants in Dalmatia in our days. And many +of the women are not only pretty, but have delightful expressions, open, +pure, and gay. There seems to be nothing to fear in Dalmatia. I have +driven through the wilds, and over the flanks of the mountains, both in +Dalmatia and Herzegovina, in the dead of the night, and had no +unpleasant experience. The peasants have a high reputation for honesty +and general probity as well as for courage. And beggars are scarce, if +they exist at all, in Dalmatia.</p> + +<p>Trau has a unique charm. The riviera of the Sette Castelli stretches +between it and Spalato, along the shore of an inlet of the sea which is +exactly like a blue lake. And what a marvelous blue it is on a cloudless +autumn day! Every one knows what is meant by a rapture of spring. Those +who traverse that riviera at the end of October, or even in the opening +days of November, will know what a rapture of autumn can be.</p> + +<a name="i042" id="i042"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 440px;"> +<img src="images/i042.jpg" width="440" height="600" alt="TRAU—VESTIBULE OF THE CATHEDRAL" title="" /> +<span class="caption">TRAU—VESTIBULE OF THE CATHEDRAL</span> +</div> + +<p>Miles upon miles of bright-golden and rose-red vineyards edge the +startling blue of the sea. And the vines are not stunted and ugly, +but large, leafy, growing with a rank luxuriance. Among them, with +trunks caught as it were in the warm embraces of these troops of +bacchantes, are thousands of silver-green olive-trees. And peasants in +red, peasants in orange-color, move waist-deep, sometimes shoulder-deep, +through the glory, under the glory of the sun. Here and there in a +grass-grown clearing, like a small islet in the ocean of vines, appears +a hut of brushwood and woven grasses, and under the trees before it sit +peasants eating the grapes they have just picked warm from the plants. +Now and then a sportsman may be seen, in peasant costume, smoking a +cigarette, his gun over his shoulder, passing slowly with his red-brown +dog among the red-gold vines. Now and then a distant report rings out +among the olives. Then the warm silence falls again over this rapture of +autumn. And so, you come to Trau.</p> + +<p>Trau is a tiny town set on a tiny island approached by bridges, +medieval, sleepy, yet happy, almost drowsily joyous, in appearance, with +that air of half-gentle, half-blithe satisfaction with self which makes +so many Dalmatian places characteristic and almost touching. How odd to +live in Trau! Yet might it not be a delicious experience to live in dear +little Trau with the right person, separated from the world by the +shining water,—for who comes over the bridges, when all is +said?—guarded by the lion and the statue which crown the gateway, +cradled in peace and mellow fruitfulness?</p> + +<p>The gateway passed, a narrow alley or two threaded, a corner turned, +and, lo! a piazza, a loggia with fine old columns, a tiled roof and a +clock-tower, a campanile and a cathedral with a great porch, and +underneath the porch a marvel of a doorway! Can tiny Trau on its tiny +island really possess all this?</p> + +<p>The lion doorway of the duomo at Trau is certainly one of the finest +things in Dalmatia. The duomo dates from the thirteenth century, but has +been twice enlarged. It is not large now, but small and high, dim, full +of the smell of stale incense, blackened by age, almost strangely +silent, almost strangely secluded. In the choir is a deep well with an +old well-head. There are many tombs in the pavement. The finely carved +pulpit, with its little lion, and the fifteenth-century choir-stalls are +well worth seeing, and the roof of the chapel of St. Giovanni Orsini, +which contains a great marble tomb, has been made wonderful by age, like +an old face made wonderful by wrinkles. But Radovan's doorway is +certainly the marvel of Trau. In color it is a rich, deep, dusty brown, +and it is elaborately and splendidly carved with two big lions, with +Adam on a lion and with Eve on a lioness. The lioness is grasping a +lamb. There is a multiplicity of other detail. The two big lions, +which stick out on each side of the round-arched doorway, as if about to +step forth into the alleys of Trau, have a fine air of life, though they +both look tame. Their mouths are open, but almost smiling.</p> + +<a name="i045" id="i045"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/i045.jpg" width="600" height="394" alt="RAGUSA" title="" /> +<span class="caption">RAGUSA</span> +</div> + +<p>When you leave the duomo, wander through the Venetian streets of this +wonderful little island city, where Gothic windows and beautifully +carved balconies look out to, lean forth to, the calm, blue waters, +edged by the red and the gold of the vines. For this place is unique and +has an unique charm. Peace dwells here, and beauty has found a quiet +abiding-place, where it lingers, and will linger, I hope, for many +centuries yet, girdled by olive-groves, by vineyards, by sun-kissed +waters, guarded by the lions of Venice.</p> + +<p>From Spalato I visited the white ruins of Salona, where the Emperor +Diocletian was born, and near which, in his palace at Spalato, he spent +the last eight years of his life, cultivating his garden, seeking after +philosophy, and, let us hope, repenting of his bitter persecution of the +Christians. From the hill, on the site of the Basilica Urbana, I saw one +of those frigid and almost terrible lemon sunsets which come with the +wind of the dead. I stayed till night despite the intense cold, till the +fragments of the city, scattered far over the sloping ground above the +riviera of the Sette Castelli, and creeping up to the solitary +dwelling-house built by Professor Bulic of old Roman stones, took on sad +and unnatural pallors in the darkness, till lonely columns stood up like +watching specters, and fragments of wall were like specters crouching. +For a long while the lemon hue persisted in the western sky, and the +voice of the wind rose with the night, crying among the burial-places.</p> + +<p>A few hours' voyage on a splendid ship, and you step ashore at Gravosa, +the port for Ragusa, the most popular place in Dalmatia, and in many +ways the most attractive. For it is embowered in woods and gardens; +contains remarkable old buildings; is girdled about by tremendous +fortress walls, and by forts perched on bastions of rock overlooking the +sea and the isle of Lacroma, where Richard Cœur de Lion touched land +and founded a monastery; is thoroughly and deliciously medieval, yet +full of Slav and Austrian life; possesses a railway-station, many +well-built villas, and a good hotel, and is surrounded by delightful +country. Perhaps in all Dalmatia Ragusa is the best center from which to +take long walks and make expeditions. It is cheery, cozy, and wonderful +at the same time. The terrific walls of the fortresses do not appal or +overwhelm, for all about them cluster the gardens. Ivy climbs over the +archways. In what was once a moat the grass grows thickly, the flowers +bloom, and many trees give shade. This is a medieval paradise, and its +inhabitants have reason to rejoice in it and to say there is no place +like it.</p> + +<p>Though small, it is intricate. At every moment one is surprised by some +unexpected view, by some marvel of masonry, militant or ecclesiastical; +by a fountain or a statue, an old doorway, a courtyard, a campanile, an +exquisite façade, with arches and lovely columns, balconies and carved +window-frames; by cloisters, a strange alley ending in flights of steps, +which lead to a mountain from which a fort looks down; by a secret +harbor, or a secret garden, or a little magical grove nestling beneath a +protecting wall which dates from the Middle Ages, when Ragusa was a +proud republic.</p> + +<p>Was Burne-Jones ever in Ragusa? It is like one of the little enchanted +towns he loved to paint in the backgrounds of his pictures. Was William +Morris ever there? It is like a city in one of his poems. It is full of +churches, and their towers are full of bells. Monks and priests pass +perpetually through the narrow streets with smartly dressed Austrian +soldiers. And military music, the triumph of bugles and trumpets, the +beat and rattle of drums, joins with the drowsy sound of church organs, +and the old voices of clocks chiming the hours, to make the symphony of +Ragusa. Men and women from the Breno Valley, from Canali the golden, +where oaks grow among the rocks, and the autumn vineyards are a wonder +forever to haunt the memory, from Melada and the Stag Islands, from the +Ombla and Herzegovina, pass all day down "the Stradone," stroll in the +Brsalje, a piazza with mulberry-trees overlooking the sea, talk by the +Amerling fountain, or sit on the wall by Porta Pille under the statue of +San Biagio, the patron saint of the town. And each one is in a +picturesque, perhaps even a brilliant, costume. The men often wear long +chains, and carry handsomely chased weapons and long, elaborate pipes. +Some have sheepskins flung jauntily over their shoulders, and bright-red +caps. The women wear golden ornaments, embroidered jackets, and +marvelous aprons almost like prayer-rugs, handsome pins, pleated +head-dresses, bright-colored handkerchiefs or tiny caps, coins hanging +on chains over their thickly growing hair.</p> + +<p>The chief hotels, the villas, and the railway-station, where a row of +victorias is drawn up,—for this is no Zara, but a city which believes +that it "moves with the times,"—lie among roses, oleanders, single +rhododendrons, trees, and masses of luxuriant vegetation outside Porta +Pille. As soon as you have passed beneath San Biagio and descended the +hill, you are in a bright, medieval world, in the heart of one of the +most original and fascinating little cities that exists in Europe.</p> + +<a name="i052" id="i052"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 406px;"> +<img src="images/i052.jpg" width="406" height="600" alt="THE RECTOR'S PALACE AND THE PUBLIC SQUARE AT RAGUSA" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE RECTOR'S PALACE AND THE PUBLIC SQUARE AT RAGUSA</span> +</div> + +<p>On the left of the Stradone, the chief street and the newest, between +two and three hundred years old, at right angles to it, shadowed by tall +and ancient houses, tiny alleys, ending in steep flights of steps, lead +up toward the mountain. On the flat to its right is a happy maze of +alleys, clean, strange, old, yet never sad. A delicious cheerfulness +reigns in Ragusa. From the dimness of venerable doorways smiling faces +look forth. They lean down from carved stone balconies. Gay voices +chatter at the foot of frowning walls, huge bastions, mighty +watch-towers; before the statue of Roland, near the Dogana which has a +loggia and Gothic windows; by the fine and massive Onofrio fountain, +which for over four hundred and seventy years has given water to the +inhabitants; among the doves by Porta Place, which leads to the harbor. +The wide, but intimate, Stradone toward noon and evening is thronged +with cheerful and neatly dressed citizens, strolling to and fro in the +soft air between the delicious little shops full of fine rugs, weapons, +chains, and filigree ornaments.</p> + +<p>Opposite the fountain of Onofrio are the church, monastery, and +cloisters of the Franciscans, with a courtyard and an old pharmacy +containing some wonderful vases. At the east end of the Stradone, away +to the right, are the church of San Biagio, the cathedral, and the +Palazzo dei Rettori. On the other side of the street are the military +hospital and the church of the Jesuits. Not far away is the Dominican +monastery.</p> + +<p>Of these the most remarkable is the rector's palace. But the cloisters +of the Franciscans are beautiful and hold an extraordinary charm and +peace. The rector's palace is a noble Renaissance building, with a +courtyard containing a very handsome staircase, and with a really +splendid fifteenth-century colonnade fronting the piazza. The carving of +the capitals of the columns is wonderfully effective. Three are said to +be inferior to the remaining four, which were the work of an architect +of Naples, Onofrio. But all are remarkable. The little winged boys have +a tenderness and liveliness, a softness and activity, which are quite +exquisite. The windows of Venetian Gothic are beautiful; and the whole +effect of this façade, with its carved doorway, the round arches, richly +dark, with notes of white, the two tiers of stone seats raised one above +the other, and the double rows of windows, square and arched, in the +shadow of the colonnade, is absolutely noble.</p> + +<p>The cathedral is not very interesting, and the "Assumption" over the +high altar, though attributed to Titian, cannot be by him. Much more +attractive is a copy of the Madonna della Sedia of Raphael. The treasury +contains some remarkable jewels and silver and many relics.</p> + +<p>In the Dominican church there is a genuine Titian, and there are some +very curious and interesting pictures by Nicolo Ragusano, a painter of +Ragusa who lived in the fifteenth century. The cloisters contain a white +well-head, guarded by graceful columns, orange-trees, and flowers, above +which peer the small windows of the monks. But if one had to be a monk +in Ragusa, surely it would be wise to cast in your lot with the +Franciscans at the other end of the street, whose Romanesque +fourteenth-century cloisters with octagonal columns are quite beautiful +and in excellent preservation. The capitals of the columns are carved +with animals. Palms flourish there, and roses. Above, a terrace, with a +wonderful balustrade—a series of tiny arches resting on tiny columns, a +sort of stone echo of the arches and columns below,—runs all round the +court. The peace is profound, but not sad. As one lingers there one can +understand, indeed one can scarcely help understanding, the very +peculiar charm which must often attach to the monkish life.</p> + +<p>Ragusa contains some nine thousand inhabitants. One of them remarked +that eight hundred of these were ecclesiastics. And he was unsympathetic +enough to add, "<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">E molto troppo</span>!" Perhaps his statement was untrue. But +certainly the ways of Ragusa swarm with religious. Nevertheless,—one +thinks of Rome, with its crowds of priests and its crowds of +free-thinkers,—the inhabitants of Ragusa seem to be very devout. In +almost all of the many churches, at all times of the day, people may be +found praying, meditating, telling their beads, worshiping at shrines of +the saints.</p> + +<p>Around Ragusa there are many beautiful walks, on Lacroma, on Lapad by +Gravosa, on Monte Sergio, on Monte Petka. A really superb drive is the +expedition to Castelnuovo in the Bocche di Cattaro, along the Dalmatian +riviera, which is as fine as almost any part of the French riviera, and +which is still wild and natural, not yet turned into a vanity-box. Those +who take this glorious drive will cross the frontier into Herzegovina, +and, best of all, they will pass by the wonderful vineyards of Canali, +which roll in waves of gold to the very feet of a chain of naked and +savage mountains.</p> + +<p>The voyage from Ragusa to Cattaro is one of the finest in Europe. The +entrance into the bocche, the journey through them, and the arrival at +Cattaro, hidden away like some precious thing that must not be revealed +to the dull gaze of the ordinary world, almost, but mercifully not +quite, under the giant shadow of the Black Mountain, make for the +voyager what comes to seem at length a deliberately planned, and +triumphantly carried out, scenic crescendo, which closes in sheer magic.</p> + +<p>The coast of Dalmatia is guarded by chains of islands and is pierced by +many long and narrow inlets. During the voyage from Triest or Fiume to +the extreme south of the country, the ship, often for many hours, seems +to be traveling over a series of lakes. Rarely does she emerge into open +water. But between Gravosa and the bocche there is open sea. Nature has +not neglected to make her preparations. She gives you the stretch of +open sea as a contrast to what is coming. And just when you are +beginning to feel its monotony, the prow of the vessel veers to the +left, seems to be sensitively searching for some unseen opening in the +rugged coast. She finds that opening between Punta d'Ostro and Punta +d'Arza, leaving the little isle of Rondoni, with its round, yellow fort, +on the right and the open sea behind.</p> + +<p>The mountains which guard the bocche are nearly six thousand feet high, +bare, cruelly precipitous, in color a peculiar, almost ashy, gray. When +you are at a long distance from them they seem to descend sheer into the +water; but as you draw nearer over the waveless sea, you find that along +their bases runs a strip of beautiful fertile country, green, thickly +wooded in many places, with gay little villages set among radiant +gardens, with a white highroad, along which peasants are passing. There +is Castelnuovo on its hill among leafy groves, with its old, narrow +fortress on the rock fought for by Turks and Venetians; near by is +Zelenika; and there another large fortress, with the Austrian flag +above it. The sensitive prow of the ship veers again, this time to the +southeast, where the ash-gray precipices surely hold the sea forever in +check. But the ship knows better. The Canale di Kumbur shows itself, +leading to the splendid Bay of Teodo surreptitiously observed from afar +by the mountains of Montenegro. If you held your breath and listened, +might you not hear the boom of guns by the lake of Scutari? All sense of +being at sea fades from you as the ship penetrates ever more deeply into +the secret recesses of the mountains. This is like superb lake scenery, +austere, grand, almost terrible, and yet radiant. Nature is even +coquettish on this perfect morning of autumn, for in these remoter +regions she has cast a swathe of the lightest and whitest possible mist, +like one of those scarfs of Tunis, over the cultivated land which edges +the precipices. As the ship draws near, the mist seems to disperse in a +sparkle of gold, revealing intimate beauties, full of charming detail: a +little Byzantine church with a pale-green cupola, a priest in a sunny +garden leaning over a creeper-covered wall, white horses trotting +briskly along a curly, white road, soldiers marching through a village +with a faint beat of drums, children perhaps going to school through a +riot of green. But the mist is ever there in the distance, part of the +spirit of autumn.</p> + +<a name="i060" id="i060"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 434px;"> +<img src="images/i060.jpg" width="434" height="600" alt="THE JESUITS' CHURCH AND THE MILITARY HOSPITAL, RAGUSA" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE JESUITS' CHURCH AND THE MILITARY HOSPITAL, RAGUSA</span> +</div> + +<p>Do not miss the tiny twin islands with their two little churches. One of +them, Santa Maria dello Scalpello, is a place of pilgrimage. Old, gray, +minute yet dignified, with its few tall cypresses about it, it so +completely covers the island that you see only a church with cypresses +apparently floating upon the water. Now there is a scatter of +ivory-white birds on the steel-colored surface, a glint of powder-blue +on the ridges made by the ship. Marvelous harmonies of pearl color, +gray, and blue, with here and there faint dashes of primrose-yellow, +make magic in the distance before you. This is really an enchanted +place, home of a peace that seems touched with eternity. And the ship +creeps on, as if fearing perhaps to disturb it, farther and farther into +places more secret still, and of a peace even more profound, till the +pearl color and the gray, with their hints of yellow and blue, begin to +give way to another dominion. The last bay has been gained. The secret +of Cattaro is to be at length revealed. Through the wondrous delicacies +of the now rather suggested than actually seen mist, and above them, +dawns a marvelous pageant of autumn, which bears a curiously exact +resemblance to one of Turner's superb visions.</p> + +<p>It is like a dream, but a dream of ardor and power, in which browns, +reds, russets, greens, and many shades of gold and of yellow march +together from the circle of the waters through climbing valleys to the +mountains, which here at last give pause to the sea. And bells are +ringing in this great, this triumphant dream. And now surely faint +outlines are becoming visible, as of turrets and cupolas striving to +break in glory through the mist. The fires of autumn glow more fiercely, +like a furnace fanned. Trails of smoke show here and there. Mist, smoke, +and fire—it is like a grand conflagration. The turrets reveal +themselves as great groups of trees. But the smoke rises from household +fires; the cupolas are cupolas of churches; and the bells are the bells +of Cattaro, calling from this vale of enchantment to the cannon which +are thundering before Scutari beyond the mountains of Montenegro.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IN_AND_NEAR_ATHENS" id="IN_AND_NEAR_ATHENS"></a>IN AND NEAR ATHENS</h2> + +<a name="i065" id="i065"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 402px;"> +<img src="images/i065.jpg" width="402" height="600" alt="THE PARTHENON AT ATHENS" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE PARTHENON AT ATHENS</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter II</span></h2> + +<h3>IN AND NEAR ATHENS</h3> + + +<p>What Greece is like in spring, I do not know, when rains have fallen, +and round Athens the country is green, when the white dust perhaps does +not whirl through Constitution Square and over the garden about the +Zappeion, when the intensity of the sun is not fierce on the road to the +bare Acropolis, and the guardians of the Parthenon, in their long coats +the color of a dervish's hat, do not fall asleep in the patches of shade +cast on the hot ground by Doric columns. I was there at the end of the +summer, and many said to me, "You should come in spring, when it is +green."</p> + +<p>Greece must be very different then, but can it be much more beautiful?</p> + +<p>Disembark at the Piræus at dawn, take a carriage, and drive by Phalerum, +the bathing-place of the Athenians, to Athens at the end of the summer, +and though for just six months no rain has fallen, you will enter a bath +of dew. The road is dry and dusty, but there is no wind, and the dust +lies still. The atmosphere is marvelously clear, as it is, say, at +Ismailia in the early morning. The Hellenes, when they are talking quite +naturally, if they speak of Europe, always speak of it as a continent in +which Greece is not included. They talk of "going to Europe." They say +to the English stranger, "You come to us fresh from Europe." And as you +drive toward Athens you understand.</p> + +<p>This country is part of the East, although the Greeks were the people +who saved Europe from being dominated by the races of Asia. All about +you—you have not yet reached Phalerum—you see country that looks like +the beginning of a desert, that holds a fascination of the desert. The +few trees stand up like carved things. The small, Eastern-looking +houses, many of them with flat roofs, earth-colored, white, or tinted +with mauve and pale colors, scattered casually and apparently without +any plan over the absolutely bare and tawny ground, look from a distance +as if they, too, were carved, as if they were actually a part of the +substance of their environment, not imposed upon it by an outside force. +The moving figure of a man, wearing the white fustanella, has the +strange beauty of an Arab moving alone in the vast sands. And yet there +is something here that is certainly not of Europe, but that is not +wholly of the East—something very delicate, very pure, very sensitive, +very individual, free from the Eastern drowsiness, from the heavy +Eastern perfume which disposes the soul of man to inertia.</p> + +<a name="i070" id="i070"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/i070.jpg" width="600" height="388" alt="THE ACROPOLIS, WITH A VIEW OF THE AREOPAGUS AND MOUNT +HYMETTUS, FROM THE WEST" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE ACROPOLIS, WITH A VIEW OF THE AREOPAGUS AND MOUNT +HYMETTUS, FROM THE WEST</span> +</div> + + +<p>It is the exquisite, vital, one might almost say intellectual, freshness +of Greece which, between Europe and Asia, preserves its eternal +dewdrops—those dewdrops which still make it the land of the early +morning.</p> + +<p>Your carriage turns to the right, and in a moment you are driving along +the shore of a sea without wave or even ripple. In the distance, across +the purple water, is the calm mountain of the island of Ægina. Over +there, along the curve of the sandy bay, are the clustering houses of +old Phalerum. This is new Phalerum, with its wooden bath-houses, its one +great hotel, its kiosks and cafés, its shadeless plage, deserted now +except for one old gentleman who, like almost every Greek all over the +country, is at this moment reading a newspaper in the sun.</p> + +<p>Is there any special charm in new Phalerum, bare of trees, a little +cockney of aspect, any exceptional beauty in this bay? When you have +bathed there a few times, when you have walked along the shore in the +quiet evening, breathing the exquisite air, when you have dined in a +café of old Phalerum built out into the sea, and come back by boat +through the silver of a moon to the little tram station whence you +return to Athens, you will probably find that there is. And from what +other bay can you see the temple of the Parthenon as you see it from the +bay of Phalerum?</p> + +<p>You have your first vision of it now, as you look away from the sea, +lifted very high on its great rock of the Acropolis as on a throne. +Though far off, nevertheless its majesty is essentially the same, casts +the same tremendous influence upon you here as it does when you stand at +the very feet of its mighty columns. At once you know, not because of +the legend of greatness attaching to it, or because of the historical +associations clinging about it, but simply because of the feeling in +your own soul roused by its white silhouette in this morning hour, that +the soul of Greece—eternal majesty, supreme greatness, divine calm, and +that remoteness from which, perhaps, no perfect thing, either God-made +or, because of God's breath in him, man-made, is wholly exempt—is +lifted high before you under the cloudless heaven of dawn.</p> + +<p>You may even realize at once and forever, as you send on your carriage +and stand for a while quite alone on the sands, gazing, that to you the +soul of Greece must always seem to be Doric. From afar the Doric +conquers.</p> + +<p>The ancient Hellenes, divided, at enmity, incessantly warring among +themselves, were united in one sentiment: they called all the rest of +the nations "barbarians." The Parthenon gives them reason. +"Unintelligible folk" to this day must acknowledge it, using the word +"barbarian" strictly in our modern sense.</p> + +<p>But the sun is higher, the morning draws on; you must be gone to Athens. +Down the long, straight, new road, between rows of pepper-trees, passing +a little church which marks the spot where a miscreant tried to +assassinate King George, and always through beautiful, bare country like +the desert, you drive. And presently you see a few houses, like the +houses of a quiet village; a few great Corinthian columns rising up in a +lonely place beyond an arch tawny with old gold; a public garden looking +new but pleasant,—not unlike a desert garden at the edge of the Suez +Canal,—with a white statue (it is the statue of Byron) before it; then +a long, thick tangle of trees stretching far, and separated from the +road and a line of large apartment-houses only by an old and slight +wooden paling; a big square with a garden sunken below the level you are +on, and on your right a huge, bare white building rather like a +barracks. You are in Athens, and you have seen already the Olympieion, +the Arch of Hadrian, the Zappeion garden, Constitution Square, and the +garden and the palace of the king.</p> + +<p>Coming to Athens for the first time by this route, it is difficult to +believe one is in the famous capital, even though one has seen the +Acropolis. And I never quite lost the feeling there that I was in a +delightful village, containing a cheery, bustling life, some fine modern +buildings, and many wonders of the past. Yet Athens is large and is +continually growing. One of the best and most complete views of it is +obtained from the terrace near the Acropolis Museum, behind the +Parthenon. Other fine views can be had from Lycabettus, the solitary and +fierce-looking hill against whose rocks the town seems almost to surge, +like a wave striving to overwhelm it, and from that other hill, +immediately facing the Acropolis, on which stands the monument of +Philopappos.</p> + +<p>It is easy to ascend to the summit of the Acropolis, even in the fierce +heat of a summer day. A stroll up a curving road, the mounting of some +steps, and you are there, five hundred and ten feet only above the level +of the sea. But on account of the solitary situation of the plateau of +rock on which the temples are grouped and of its precipitous sides, it +seems very much higher than it is. Whenever I stood on the summit of the +Acropolis I felt as if I were on the peak of a mountain, as if from +there one must be able to see all the kingdoms of the world and the +glory of them.</p> + +<a name="i075" id="i075"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 440px;"> +<img src="images/i075.jpg" width="440" height="600" alt="THE THEATER OF DIONYSUS ON THE SOUTHERN SLOPE OF THE +ACROPOLIS" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE THEATER OF DIONYSUS ON THE SOUTHERN SLOPE OF THE +ACROPOLIS</span> +</div> + +<p>What one does see is marvelously, almost ineffably beautiful. Herodotus +called this land, with its stony soil and its multitudes of bare +mountains, the "rugged nurse of liberty." Though rugged, and often +naked, nevertheless its loveliness—and that soft word must be used—is +so great and so pure that, as we give to Greek art the crown of wild +olive, so we must give it surely also to the scenery of Greece. It is a +loveliness of outline, of color, and above all of light.</p> + +<p>Almost everywhere in Greece you see mountains, range upon range, closing +about you or, more often, melting away into far distances, into outlines +of shadows and dreams. Almost everywhere, or so it seemed to me, you +look upon the sea. And as the outlines of the mountains of Greece are +nearly always divinely calm, so the colors of the seas of Greece are +magically deep and radiant and varied. And over mountains and seas fall +changing wonders of light, giving to outline eternal meanings, to color +the depth of a soul.</p> + +<p>When you stand upon the Acropolis you see not only ruins which, taking +everything into consideration, are perhaps the most wonderful in the +world, but also one of the most beautiful views of the world. It is +asserted as a fact by authorities that the ancient Greeks had little or +no feeling for beauty of landscape. One famous writer on things Greek +states that "a fine view as such had little attraction for them," that +is, the Greeks. It is very difficult for those who are familiar with +the sites the Greeks selected for their great temples and theaters, such +as the rock of the Acropolis, the heights at Sunium and at Argos, the +hill at Taormina in Sicily, etc., to feel assured of this, however +lacking in allusion to the beauty of nature, unless in connection with +supposed animating intelligences, Greek literature may be. It is almost +impossible to believe it as you stand on the Acropolis.</p> + +<p>All Athens lies beneath you, pale, almost white, with hints of mauve and +yellow, gray and brown, with its dominating palace, its tiny Byzantine +churches, its tiled and flat roofs, its solitary cypress-trees and +gardens. Lycabettus stands out, small, but bold, almost defiant. Beyond, +and on every side, stretches the calm plain of Attica. That winding +river of dust marks the Via Sacra, along which the great processions +used to pass to Eleusis by the water. There are the dark groves of +Academe, a place of rest in a bare land. The marble quarries gleam white +on the long flanks of Mount Pentelicus, and the great range of Parnes +leads on to Ægaleos. Near you are the Hill of the Nymphs, with its +observatory; the rocky plateau from which the apostle Paul spoke of +Christ to the doubting Athenians; the new plantation at the foot of +Philopappos which surrounds the so-called "Prison of Socrates." +Honey-famed Hymettus, gray and patient, stretches toward the +sea—toward the shining Saronic Gulf and the bay of Phalerum. And there, +beyond Phalerum, are the Piræus and Salamis. Mount Elias rules over the +midmost isle of Ægina. Beneath the height of Sunium, where the Temple of +Poseidon still lifts blanched columns above the passing mariners who +have no care for the sea-god's glory, lies the islet of Gaidaronisi, and +the mountains of Megara and of Argolis lie like dreaming shadows in the +sunlight. Very pure, very perfect, is this great view. Nature here seems +purged of all excesses, and even nature in certain places can look +almost theatrical, though never in Greece. The sea shines with gold, is +decked with marvelous purple, glimmers afar with silver, fades into the +color of shadow. The shapes of the mountains are as serene as the shapes +of Greek statues. Though bare, these mountains are not savage, are not +desolate or sad. Nor is there here any suggestion of that "oppressive +beauty" against which the American painter-poet Frederic Crowninshield +cries out in a recent poem—of that beauty which weighs upon, rather +than releases, the heart of man.</p> + +<a name="i080" id="i080"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 397px;"> +<img src="images/i080.jpg" width="397" height="600" alt="THE TEMPLE OF THE OLYMPIAN ZEUS AT ATHENS" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE TEMPLE OF THE OLYMPIAN ZEUS AT ATHENS</span> +</div> + +<p>From this view you turn to behold the Parthenon. A writer who loved +Greece more than all other countries, who was steeped in Greek +knowledge, and who was deeply learned in archæology, has left it on +record that on his first visit to the Acropolis he was aware of a +feeling of disappointment. His heart bled over the ravages wrought by +man in this sacred place—that Turkish powder-magazine in the Parthenon +which a shell from Venetians blew up, the stolen lions which saw Italy, +the marbles carried to an English museum, the statues by Phidias which +clumsy workmen destroyed.</p> + +<p>But so incomparably noble, so majestically grand is this sublime ruin, +that the first near view of it must surely fill many hearts with an awe +which can leave no room for any other feeling. It is incomplete, but not +the impression it creates.</p> + +<p>The Parthenon, as it exists to-day, shattered, almost entirely roofless, +deprived of its gilding and color, its glorious statues, its elaborate +and wonderful friezes, its lions, its golden oil-jars, its Athene +Parthenos of gold and ivory, the mere naked shell of what it once was, +is stupendous. No memory of the gigantic ruins of Egypt, however +familiarly known, can live in the mind, can make even the puniest fight +for existence, before this Doric front of Pentelic marble, simple, even +plain, but still in its devastation supreme. The size is great, but one +has seen far greater ruins. The fluted columns, lifted up on the marble +stylobate which has been trodden by the feet of Pericles and Phidias, +are huge in girth, and rise to a height of between thirty and forty +feet. The architrave above their plain capitals, with its projecting +molding, is tremendously massive. The walls of the cella, or sanctuary +of the temple, where they still remain, are immense. But now, where +dimness reigned,—for in the days when the temple was complete no light +could enter it except through the doorway,—the sunlight has full +possession. And from what was once a hidden place the passing traveler +can look out over land and sea.</p> + +<a name="i083" id="i083"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 463px;"> +<img src="images/i083.jpg" width="463" height="600" alt="IN THE PORTICO OF THE PARTHENON" title="" /> +<span class="caption">IN THE PORTICO OF THE PARTHENON</span> +</div> + +<p>Some learned men have called the Parthenon severe. It is wonderfully +simple, so simple that it is not easy to say exactly why it produces +such an overpowering impression of sublimity and grandeur. But it is not +severe, for in severity there is something repellent, something that +frowns. It seems to me that the impression created by the Parthenon as a +building is akin to that created by the Sphinx as a statue. It +suggests—seems actually to send out like an atmosphere—a tremendous +calm, far beyond the limits of any severity.</p> + +<p>The whole of the Parthenon, except the foundations, is of Pentelic +marble. And this marble is so beautiful a substance now after centuries +of exposure on a bare height to the fires of the sun, to the sea-winds +and the rains of winter, that it is impossible to wish it gilded, and +painted with blue and crimson. From below in the plain, and from a long +distance, the temple looks very pale in color, often indeed white. But +when you stand on the Acropolis, you find that the marble holds many +hues, among others pale yellow, cocoa color, honey color, and old gold. +I have seen the columns at noonday, when they were bathed by the rays of +the sun, glow with something of the luster of amber, and look almost +transparent. I have seen them, when evening was falling, look almost +black.</p> + +<p>The temple, which is approached through the colossal marble Propylæa, or +state entrance, with Doric colonnades and steps of marble and black and +deep-blue Eleusinian stone, is placed on the very summit of the +Acropolis, at the top of a slope, now covered with fragments of ruin, +scattered blocks of stone and marble, sections of columns, slabs which +once formed parts of altars, and broken bits of painted ceiling, but +which was once a place of shrines and of splendid statues, among them +the great statue of Athena Promachos, in armor, and holding the lance +whose glittering point was visible from the sea. The columns are all +fluted, and all taper gradually as they rise to the architrave. And the +flutes narrow as they draw nearer and nearer to the capitals of the +columns. The architrave was once hung with wreaths and decorated with +shields. The famous frieze of the cella, which represented in marble a +great procession, and which ran round the external wall of the +sanctuary, is now in pieces, some of which are in the British Museum, +and some in Athens. A portion of this frieze may still be seen on the +west front of the temple. The cella had a ceiling of painted wood. On +one of its inner walls I saw traces of red Byzantine figures, one +apparently a figure of the Virgin. These date from the period when the +Parthenon was used as a Christian church, and was dedicated to Mary the +mother of God, before it became a mosque, and, later, a Turkish +powder-magazine. The white marble floor, which is composed of great +blocks perfectly fitted together, and without any joining substance, +contrasts strongly with the warm hues of the inner flutes of the Doric +columns. Here and there in the marble walls may be seen fragments of red +and of yellow brick. From within the Parthenon, looking out between the +columns, you can see magnificent views of country and sea.</p> + +<p>Two other temples form part of the Acropolis, with the Propylæa and the +Parthenon, the Temple of Athene Nike and the Erechtheum. They are +absolutely different from the profoundly masculine Parthenon, and almost +resemble two beautiful female attendants upon it, accentuating by their +delicate grace its majesty.</p> + +<p>The Temple of Nike is very small. It stands on a jutting bastion just +outside the Propylæa, and has been rebuilt from the original materials, +which were dug up out of masses of accumulated rubbish. It is Ionic, +has a colonnade, is made of Pentelic marble, and was once adorned with a +series of winged victories in bas-relief.</p> + +<p>Ionic like the Temple of Nike, but much larger, the Erechtheum stands +beyond the Propylæa, and not far from the Parthenon, at the edge of the +precipice beneath which lies the greater part of Athens. A marvelously +personal element attaches to it and makes it unique, giving it a charm +which sets it apart from all other buildings. To find this you must go +to the southwest, to the beautiful Porch of the Caryatids, which looks +toward the Parthenon.</p> + +<p>There are six of these caryatids, or maidens, standing upon a high +parapet of marble and supporting a marble roof. Five of them are white, +and one is a sort of yellowish black in color, as if she had once been +black, but, having been singled out from her fellows, had been kissed +for so many years by the rays of the sun that her original hue had +become changed, brightened by his fires. Four of the maidens stand in a +line. Two stand behind, on each side of the portico. They wear flowing +draperies, their hair flows down over their shoulders, and they support +their burden of marble with a sort of exquisite submissiveness, like +maidens choosing to perform a grateful and an easy task that brings with +it no loss of self-respect.</p> + +<a name="i090" id="i090"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 396px;"> +<img src="images/i090.jpg" width="396" height="600" alt="THE TEMPLE OF ATHENE NIKE AT ATHENS" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE TEMPLE OF ATHENE NIKE AT ATHENS</span> +</div> + +<p>I once saw a great English actress play the part of a slave girl. By +her imaginative genius she succeeded in being more than a slave: she +became a poem of slavery. Everything ugly in slavery was eliminated from +her performance. Only the beauty of devoted service, the willing service +of love,—and slaves have been devoted to their masters,—was shown in +her face, her gestures, her attitudes. Much of what she imagined and +reproduced is suggested by these matchlessly tender and touching +figures; so soft that it is almost incredible that they are made of +marble, so strong that no burden, surely, would be too great for their +simple, yet almost divine, courage. They are watchers, these maidens, +not alertly, but calmly watchful of something far beyond our seeing. +They are alive, but with a restrained life such as we are not worthy to +know, neither fully human nor completely divine. They have something of +our wistfulness and something also of that attainment toward which we +strive. They are full of that strange and eternal beauty that is in all +the greatest things of Greece, from which the momentary is banished, in +which the perpetual is enshrined. Contemplation of them only seems to +make more deep their simplicity, more patient their strength, and more +touching their endurance. Retirement from them does not lessen, but +almost increases, the enchantment of their very quiet, very delicate +spell. Even when their faces can no longer be distinguished and only +their outlines can be seen, they do not lose one ray of their soft and +tender vitality. They are among the eternal things in art, lifting up +more than marble, setting free from bondage, if only for a moment, many +that are slaves by their submission.</p> + +<p>About two years ago this temple was carefully cleaned, and it is very +white, and looks almost like a lovely new building not yet completed. +Here and there the white surface is stained with the glorious golden hue +which beautifies the Parthenon, the Propylæa, the Odeum of Herodes, the +Temple of Theseus, the Arch of Hadrian, and the Olympieion. The interior +of the temple is full of scattered blocks of marble. In the midst of +them, and as it were faithfully protected by them, I found a tiny tree +carefully and solemnly growing, with an air of self-respect. Above the +doorway of the north front is some very beautiful and delicate carving. +This temple was once adorned with a frieze of Eleusinian stone and with +white marble sculpture. Its Ionic columns are finely carved, and look +almost strangely slender, if you come to them immediately after you have +been among the columns of the Parthenon. Majesty and charm are supremely +expressed in these two temples, the Parthenon and the Erechtheum, the +smaller of which is on a lower level than the greater. One thinks again +of the happy slave who loves her lord.</p> + +<p>The group of magnificent, gold-colored Greco-Roman columns which is +called the Olympieion stands in splendid isolation on a bare terrace at +the edge of the charming Zappeion garden. In this garden, full of firs +and pepper-trees, acacias, palms, convolvulus, and pink oleanders, I saw +many Greek soldiers, wearied out with preparations for the Balkan war +against Turkey, which was declared while I was in Athens, sleeping on +the wooden seats, or even stretched out at full length on the light, +yellow soil. For there is no grass there. Beyond the Olympieion there is +a stone trough in which I never saw one drop of water. This trough is +the river-bed of the famous Ilissus!</p> + +<p>The columns are very splendid, immense in height, singularly beautiful +in color,—they are made of Pentelic marble,—and with Corinthian +capitals, nobly carved. Those which are grouped closely together are +raised on a platform of stone. But there are two isolated columns which +look even grander and more colossal than those which are united by a +heavy architrave. The temple of which they are the remnant was erected +in the reign of Hadrian to the glory of Zeus, and was one of the most +gigantic buildings in the world.</p> + +<p>From the Zappeion garden you can see in the distance the snow-white +marble Stadium where the modern Olympic and Pan-Hellenic games take +place. It is gigantic. When full, it can hold over fifty thousand +people. The seats, the staircases, the pavements are all of +dazzling-white marble, and as there is of course no roof, the effect of +this vastness of white, under a bright-blue sky, and bathed in golden +fires, is almost blinding. All round the Stadium cypress-trees have been +planted, and their dark-green heads rise above the outer walls, like +long lines of spear-heads guarding a sacred inclosure. Two comfortable +arm-chairs for the king and queen face two stelæ of marble and the +far-off entrance. The earthen track where the sports take place is +divided from the spectators by a marble barrier about five feet high, +and till you descend into it, it looks small, though it is really very +large. The entrance is a propylæum. It is a great pity that immediately +outside this splendid building the hideous panorama should be allowed to +remain, cheap, vulgar, dusty, and despicable. I could not help saying +this to a Greek acquaintance. He thoroughly agreed with me, but told me +that the Athenians were very fond of their panorama.</p> + +<a name="i095" id="i095"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/i095.jpg" width="600" height="424" alt="THE STADIUM, ATHENS" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE STADIUM, ATHENS</span> +</div> + +<p>In a straight line with the beautiful Arch of Hadrian, and not far off, +is the small and terribly defaced, but very graceful, Monument of +Lysicrates, a circular chamber of marble, with small Corinthian columns, +an architrave, and a frieze. It is surrounded by a railing, and +stands rather forlornly in the midst of modern houses.</p> + +<p>The Temple of Theseus, or more properly of Hercules, on the other side +of the town, is a beautifully preserved building, lovely in color, very +simple, very complete. It is small, and is strictly Doric and very +massive. Many people have called it tremendously impressive, and have +even compared it with the Parthenon. It seems to me that to do this is +to exaggerate, to compare the very much less with the very much greater. +There really is something severe in great massiveness combined with +small proportions, and I find this temple, noble though it is, severe.</p> + +<p>Athens contains several very handsome modern buildings, and one that I +think really beautiful, especially on a day of fierce sunshine or by +moonlight. This is the Academy, which stands in the broad and airy +University Street, at whose mouth are the two cafés which Athenians call +"the Dardanelles." It is in a line with the university and the national +library, is made of pure white marble from Pentelicus, and is very +delicately and discreetly adorned with a little bright gold, the +brilliance of which seems to add to the virginal luster of the marble. +The central section is flanked by two tall and slender detached columns +crowned with statues. Ionic colonnades relieve the classical simplicity +of the façade, with some marble and terra-cotta groups of statuary. The +general effect is very calm, pure, and dignified, and very satisfying. +The Athenians are proud, and with reason, of this beautiful building, +which they owe to the generosity of one of their countrymen.</p> + +<p>Modern Athens, despite its dust, is a delightful city to dwell in. +Nobody in it looks rich,—that dreadful look!—and scarcely anybody +looks poor. The king and the princes stroll casually about the streets, +or may be met on the Acropolis or walking by the sea at Phalerum. I was +allowed to wander all over the palace gardens, which are full of palms +and great trees, and which resemble a laid-out wood. A Rumanian friend +of mine told me that one day when he was in the garden, on turning a +corner, he came upon the king and queen, with the crown-princess, who +had just come down from the terrace in front of the royal apartments. +All the center of the palace was burned out more than a year ago, and is +now being slowly rebuilt. Greece is the home of genuine democrats, but +democracy is delightful in Greece. Nobody thinks about rank, and +everybody behaves like a gentleman. The note of Athens is a perfectly +decorous liveliness, which is never marred by vulgarity. The stranger is +welcomed and treated with the greatest possible courtesy, and he is +never bothered by objectionable people such as haunt many of the cities +of Italy, and of other lands where travelers are numerous. Athens indeed +is one of the most simpatica of cities, wonderfully cheerful, simply +gay, of a perfect behavior, yet unceremonious.</p> + +<p>I have said that the Greeks are democrats. Nevertheless, like certain +other democrats of whom one has heard, there are Greeks who love to +think that they are not quite as all other Greeks. America, I am +informed, has her "four hundred." Greece has her "fifty-two." In New +York the "four hundred" consider themselves the advance-guard of +fashion, if not of civilization. In Athens the "fifty-two" rejoice in a +similar conviction. They do daring things sometimes. There is a +card-game beloved of the Greeks called "Mouse." The fifty-two have +introduced bridge and despise "Mouse." In Athens they frequent one +another's houses. In the summer they "remove" to Kephisia in the +pine-woods, where there are many pleasant, and some very fantastic, +villas, and where picnics, tennis, and card-parties, theatrical +performances and dances, fleet the hours, which are always golden, away. +They are sometimes criticized by the "outsiders," for even gods are +subject to criticism. People say now and then, "What will the fifty-two +do next?" or, "Really there is no end to the folly of the fifty-two!" +But have not similar remarks been heard even at Newport or upon Fifth +Avenue pavements? Nevertheless, despite the fifty-two, you have only to +look at the thin and decrepit palings of King George's garden to +realize that at last you have found the true democracy, and a democracy +sensible enough to understand the advantage of possessing a royal +family. Every society needs a leader, and royalty leads far more +effectively than any one else, however self-assured, however glittering. +The Greeks are not without wisdom.</p> + +<p>Their manners are charming and excellent. I had an unusual opportunity +of putting them to the test. I was in Athens just before and just after +the declaration of war against Turkey, when spies were everywhere, when +a Turkish spy was discovered in Athens disguised as a Greek priest, and +a woman was caught near Lycabettus in the act of poisoning the +water-supply of the city. One morning early, when I was on the sea near +Salamis in a small boat with a Greek fisherman, I was arrested on +suspicion of being a spy, and was brought before the admiral in supreme +command of the fleet. My passport was in Athens at my hotel, the admiral +evidently disbelieved my explanations, and I was handed over to the +police at the Piræus, accompanied by a report from the admiral in which, +as was afterward made known to me, he stated that I was "a very +suspicious character." And now to the test of Hellenic good manners.</p> + +<a name="i102" id="i102"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 440px;"> +<img src="images/i102.jpg" width="440" height="600" alt="THE ACADEMY, MOUNT LYCABETTUS IN THE BACKGROUND" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE ACADEMY, MOUNT LYCABETTUS IN THE BACKGROUND</span> +</div> + +<p>Eventually a guard of police carrying rifles was sent to convey me from +the Piræus to Athens, and in the middle of the afternoon I was obliged +to walk as a prisoner through the streets of the Piræus, to take the +tram to Phalerum, to get out there and wait for half an hour at a +railway-station, and to travel in the train to Athens. In Athens I was +made to walk three times, always guarded closely, through the principal +streets and squares of the city, and twice past my hotel in the +Constitution Square during the most busy hour of the day. Eventually, at +night, I was released. Now, the Hellenes are considered by many people +to be very inquisitive. During my public exposure as a prisoner I met +with no really disagreeable curiosity from the crowd. Many people +discreetly inquired of my guards who I was and what I had done, and +naturally a great many more stared at me. But nobody followed me and my +attendants as we marched on our way from one police station to another, +to the War Office, etc. There was no pushing or jostling, such as there +would certainly have been in an English town if a prisoner with guards +was exposed to the public gaze. Curiosity was, as a rule, almost +carefully dissembled, and inquiries were made with a charming +discretion. I confess I felt grateful to the Greeks that day, though not +to the admiral who had me arrested, or to the police who put me to so +much inconvenience. And I was grateful for one thing more, that I was +released just in time to see King George's arrival in Athens on the eve +of the war.</p> + +<p>The Hellenes are not an enthusiastic people, as a rule. They are +critical, intellectual, sometimes rather cynical. But that night they +gave way to emotion. Great crowds were lined up in Constitution Square, +and were massed on the brow of the hill before the palace, when at +length the police let me go. Darkness had long since fallen, but the +square was illuminated brightly. All the balconies were packed with +people. The terrace before the Grande Bretagne was black with +sight-seers. And everywhere in the forefront were rows of eager, +vivacious Greek children, many of them the soldiers of the future.</p> + +<p>We had to wait for a very long time. But at last the king came in an +open carriage, driving with "the Diádochos," as the crown-prince is +always called in Greece. Both were in uniform. There was no ceremonial +escort, so the people formed an unceremonial one. They ran with the +carriage, shouting, waving their hats and handkerchiefs, cheering till +they were hoarse, and crying, "War! War!" The great square rang with the +clapping of thousands of hands. "Never before," said a Greek to me, "has +the king had such a reception." When the carriages containing the rest +of the royal family and the ministers had gone by, we ran in our +thousands to the palace. Above the great entrance porch there is a +balcony, and after a short time slim King George stepped out, rather +cautiously, I thought, upon it, followed by all the princes and +princesses. It was very dark, but a footman accompanied his Majesty, +holding an electric light, and we had our speech.</p> + +<a name="i105" id="i105"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 401px;"> +<img src="images/i105.jpg" width="401" height="600" alt="THE ACROPOLIS AT ATHENS, EARLY MORNING" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE ACROPOLIS AT ATHENS, EARLY MORNING</span> +</div> + +<p>The king read the first part of it in a loud, unemotional voice, bending +sometimes to the light. But at the close he spoke a few words extempore, +commending the Hellenic cause, if war should come, to the mercy of God. +And then, again with precaution, he retired into the palace amid a storm +of cheers.</p> + +<p>I was afterward told that, with the whole of the royal family, his +Majesty had been standing upon some loose planks which spanned an abyss. +The royal palace, owing to the disastrous fire, is not yet what it +seems. Fortunately, the Greek army has proved more solid, and the God of +battles, so solemnly invoked by their king, has been favorable to the +arms of the Greeks. No one, I think, who was in Greece during that time +of acute tension, who saw the feverish preparations, the devotion of the +toiling soldiers, the ardor of the volunteers; no one who witnessed, as +I did, the return to Athens of the "American Greeks," who gave up +everything and crossed the ocean to fight for their little, splendid +country, could wish it otherwise.</p> + +<p>The descendants of those who made the Parthenon have shown something of +that Doric soul which is surely the soul of Greece.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_ENVIRONS_OF_ATHENS" id="THE_ENVIRONS_OF_ATHENS"></a>THE ENVIRONS OF ATHENS</h2> + +<a name="i110" id="i110"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 399px;"> +<img src="images/i110.jpg" width="399" height="600" alt="THE TEMPLE OF POSEIDON AND ATHENE AT SUNIUM" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE TEMPLE OF POSEIDON AND ATHENE AT SUNIUM</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter III</span></h2> + +<h3>THE ENVIRONS OF ATHENS</h3> + + +<p>Upon the southern slope of the Acropolis, beneath the limestone +precipices and the great golden-brown walls above which the Parthenon +shows its white summit, are many ruins; among them the Theater of +Dionysus and the Odeum of Herodes Atticus, the rich Marathonian who +spent much of his money in the beautification of Athens, and who taught +rhetoric to two men who eventually became Roman emperors. The Theater of +Dionysus, in which Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides produced their +dramas, is of stone and silver-white marble. Many of the seats are +arm-chairs, and are so comfortable that it is no uncommon thing to see +weary travelers, who have just come down from the Acropolis, resting in +them with almost unsuitable airs of unbridled satisfaction.</p> + +<p>It is evident to any one who examines this great theater carefully that +the Greeks considered it important for the body to be at ease while the +mind was at work; for not only are the seats perfectly adapted to their +purpose, but ample room is given for the feet of the spectators, the +distance between each tier and the tier above it being wide enough to do +away with all fear of crowding and inconvenience. The marble arm-chairs +were assigned to priests, whose names are carved upon them. In the +theater I saw one high arm-chair, like a throne, with lion's feet. This +is Roman, and was the seat of a Roman general. The fronts of the seats +are pierced with small holes, which allow the rain-water to escape. +Below the stage there are some sculptured figures, most of them +headless. One which is not is a very striking and powerful, though +almost sinister, old man, in a crouching posture. His rather round +forehead resembles the very characteristic foreheads of the +Montenegrins.</p> + +<p>Herodes Atticus restored this theater. Before his time it had been +embellished by Lycurgus of Athens, the orator, and disciple of Plato. It +is not one of the gloriously placed theaters of the Greeks, but from the +upper tiers of seats there is a view across part of the Attic plain to +the isolated grove of cypresses where the famous Schliemann is buried, +and beyond to gray Hymettus.</p> + +<p>Standing near by is another theater, Roman-Greek, not Greek, the Odeum +of Herodes Atticus, said to have been built by him in memory of his +wife. This is not certain, and there are some authorities who think +that, like the beautiful arch near the Olympieion, this peculiar, very +picturesque structure was raised by the Emperor Hadrian, who was much +fonder of Athens than of Rome.</p> + +<p>The contrast between the exterior, the immensely massive, three-storied +façade with Roman arches, and the interior, or, rather, what was once +the interior, of this formerly roofed-in building, is very strange. They +do not seem to belong to each other, to have any artistic connection the +one with the other.</p> + +<p>The outer walls are barbarically huge and heavy, and superb in color. +They gleam with a fierce red-gold, and are conspicuous from afar. The +almost monstrous, but impressive, solidity of Rome, heavy and bold, +indeed almost crudely imperious, is shown forth by them—a solidity +absolutely different from the Greek massiveness, which you can study in +the Doric temples, and far less beautiful. When you pass beyond this +towering façade, which might well be a section of the Colosseum +transferred from gladiatorial Rome to intellectual Athens, you find +yourself in a theater which looks oddly, indeed, almost meanly, small +and pale and graceful. With a sort of fragile timidity it seems to be +cowering behind the flamboyant walls. When all its blanched marble seats +were crowded with spectators it contained five thousand persons. As you +approach the outer walls, you expect to find a building that might +accommodate perhaps twenty-five thousand. There is something bizarre in +the two colors, fierce and pale, in the two sizes, huge and +comparatively small, that are united in the odeum. Though very +remarkable, it seems to me to be one of the most inharmonious ruins in +Greece.</p> + +<p>The modern Athenians are not very fond of hard exercise, and except in +the height of summer, when many of them go to Kephisia and Phalerum, and +others to the islands, or to the baths near Corinth for a "cure," they +seem well content to remain within their city. They are governed, it +seems, by fashion, like those who dwell in less-favored lands. When I +was in Athens the weather was usually magnificent and often very hot. +Yet Phalerum, perhaps half an hour by train from Constitution Square, +was deserted. In the vast hotel there I found only two or three +children, in the baths half a dozen swimmers. The pleasure-boats lay +idle by the pier. I asked the reason of this—why at evening dusty +Athens was crammed with strollers, and the pavements were black with +people taking coffee and ices, while delightful Phalerum, with its +cooler air and its limpid waters, held no one but an English traveler?</p> + +<p>"The season is over," was the only reply I received, delivered with a +grave air of finality. I tried to argue the matter, and suggested that +anxiety about the war had something to do with it. But I was informed +that the "season" closed on a certain day, and that after that day the +Athenians gave up going to Phalerum.</p> + +<a name="i117" id="i117"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 398px;"> +<img src="images/i117.jpg" width="398" height="600" alt="THE TEMPLE OF ATHENE, ISLAND OF ÆGINA" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE TEMPLE OF ATHENE, ISLAND OF ÆGINA</span> +</div> + +<p>The season for many things seemed "over" when I was in Athens. Round +about the city, and within easy reach of it, there is fascinating +country—country that seems to call you with a smiling decision to enjoy +all Arcadian delights; country, too, that has great associations +connected with it. From Athens you can go to picnic at Marathon or at +Salamis, or you can carry a tea-basket to the pine-woods which slope +down to the Convent of Daphni, and come back to it after paying a visit +to Eleusis. Or, if you are not afraid of a "long day," you can motor out +and lunch in the lonely home of the sea-god under the columns at Sunium. +If you wish to go where a king goes, you can spend the day in the thick +woods at Tatoï. If you are full of social ambition, and aim at +"climbing," a train in not many minutes will set you down at Kephisia, +the summer home of "the fifty-two" on the slope of a spur of Mount +Pentelicus.</p> + +<p>Thither I went one bright day. But, as at Phalerum, I found a deserted +paradise. The charming gardens and arbors were empty. The villas, +Russian, Egyptian, Swiss, English, French, and even now and then Greek +in style, were shuttered and closed. All in vain the waterfalls sang, +all in vain the silver poplars and the yellow-green pines gave their +shade. No one was there. I went at length to a restaurant to get +something to eat. Its door was unlocked, and I entered a large, deserted +room, with many tables, a piano, and a terrace. No one came. I called, +knocked, stamped, and at length evoked a thin elderly lady in a gray +shawl, who seemed alarmed at the sight of me, and in a frail voice +begged to know what I wanted. When I told her, she said there was +nothing to eat except what they were going to have themselves. The +season was over. Eventually she brought me <i>mastika</i> and part of her own +dinner to the terrace, which overlooked a luxuriant and deserted garden. +And there I spent two happy, golden hours. I had sought the heart of +fashion, and found the exquisite peace that comes to places when fashion +has left them. Henceforth I shall always associate beautiful Kephisia +with silence, flowers, and one thin old woman in a gray shawl.</p> + +<a name="i120" id="i120"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/i120.jpg" width="450" height="600" alt="THE THEATER OF DIONYSUS, ATHENS" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE THEATER OF DIONYSUS, ATHENS</span> +</div> + +<p>Greece, though sparsely inhabited, is in the main a very +cheerful-looking country. The loneliness of much of it is not +depressing, the bareness of much of it is not sad. I began to understand +this on the day when I went to the plain of Marathon, which, +fortunately, lies away from railroads. One must go there by carriage or +motor or on horseback. The road is bad both for beasts and machinery, +but it passes through country which is typical of Greece, and through +which it would be foolish to go in haste. Go quietly to Marathon, spend +two hours there, or more, and when you return in the evening to Athens +you will have tasted a new joy. You will have lived for a little while +in an exquisite pastoral—a pastoral through which, it is true, no pipes +of Pan have fluted to you,—I heard little music in Greece,—but which +has been full of that lightness, brightness, simplicity, and delicacy +peculiar to Greece. The soil of the land is light, and I believe, though +Hellenes have told me that in this belief I am wrong, that the heart of +the people is light. Certainly the heart of one traveler was as he made +his way to Marathon along a white road thickly powdered with dust.</p> + +<p>Has not each land its representative tree? America has its maple. +England its oak, France its poplar, Italy its olive, Turkey its cypress, +Egypt its palm, and so on. The representative tree of Greece is the +pine. I do not forget the wild olive, from which in past days the crowns +were made, nor the fact that the guide-books say that in a Greek +landscape the masses of color are usually formed by the silver-green +olive-trees. It seemed to me, and it seems to me still in remembrance, +that the lovely little pine is the most precious ornament of the Grecian +scene.</p> + +<p>Marathon that day was a pastoral of yellow and blue, of pines and sea. +On the way I passed through great olive-groves, in one of which long +since some countrymen of mine were taken by brigands and carried away to +be done to death. And there were mighty fig-trees, and mulberry-trees, +and acres and acres of vines, with here and there an almost black +cypress among them. But the pines, more yellow than green, and the +bright blue sea made the picture that lives in my memory.</p> + +<p>Not very long after we were clear of the town we passed not far from the +village of "Louis," who won the first Marathon race that was run under +King George's scepter, Marousi, where the delicious water is found that +Athens loves to drink. And then away we went through the groves and the +little villages, where dusty soldiers were buying up mules for the +coming war; and Greek priests were reading newspapers; and olive-skinned +children, with bright, yet not ungentle, eyes, were coming from school; +and outside of ramshackle cafés, a huddle of wood, a vine, a couple of +tables, and a few bottles, old gentlemen, some of them in native dress, +with the white fustanella, a sort of short skirt not reaching to the +knees, and shoes with turned-up toes ornamented with big black tassels, +were busily talking politics. Carts, not covered with absurd but lively +pictures, as they are in Sicily, lumbered by in the dust. Peasants, +sitting sidewise with dangling feet, met us on trotting donkeys. Now +and then a white dog dashed out, or a flock of thin turkeys gobbled and +stretched their necks nervously as they gave us passage. Women, with +rather dingy handkerchiefs tied over their heads, were working in the +vineyards or washing clothes here and there beside thin runlets of +water. Two German beggars, with matted hair uncovered to the sun, red +faces, and fingers with nails like the claws of birds, tramped by, going +to Athens. And farther on we met a few Turkish Gipsies, swarthy and full +of a lively malice, whose tents were visible on a hillside at a little +distance, in the midst of a grove of pines. All the country smiled at us +in the sunshine. One jovial man in a fustanella leaned down from a cart +as we passed, and shouted in Greek: "Enjoy yourselves! Enjoy +yourselves!" And the gentle hills, the olive- and pine-groves, the +stretching vineyards, seemed to echo his cry.</p> + +<p>What is the magic of pastoral Greece? What is it that gives to you a +sensation of being gently released from the cares of life and the +boredom of modern civilization, with its often unmeaning complications, +its unnecessary luxuries, its noisy self-satisfactions? This is not the +tremendous, the spectacular release of the desert, an almost savage +tearing away of bonds. Nothing in the Greece I saw is savage; scarcely +anything is spectacular. But, oh, the bright simplicity of the life and +the country along the way to Marathon! It was like an early world. One +looked, and longed to live in those happy woods like the Turkish +Gipsies. Could life offer anything better? The pines are small, +exquisitely shaped, with foliage that looks almost as if it had been +deftly arranged by a consummate artist. They curl over the slopes with a +lightness almost of foam cresting a wave. Their color is quite lovely. +The ancient Egyptians had a love color: well, the little pine-trees of +Greece are the color of happiness. You smile involuntarily when you see +them. And when, descending among them, you are greeted by the shining of +the brilliant-blue sea, which stretches along the edge of the plain of +Marathon, you know radiance purged of fierceness.</p> + +<p>The road winds down among the pines till, at right angles to it, appears +another road, or rough track just wide enough for a carriage. This leads +to a large mound which bars the way. Upon this mound a habitation was +perched. It was raised high above the ground upon a sort of tripod of +poles. It had yellow walls of wheat, and a roof and floor of brushwood +and maize. A ladder gave access to it, and from it there was a wide +outlook over the whole crescent-shaped plain of Marathon. This dwelling +belonged to a guardian of the vineyards, and the mound is the tomb of +those who died in the great battle.</p> + +<a name="i127" id="i127"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 438px;"> +<img src="images/i127.jpg" width="438" height="600" alt="THE PLAIN OF MARATHON" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE PLAIN OF MARATHON</span> +</div> + +<p>I sat for a long time on this strange tomb, in the shadow of the rustic +watch-house, and looked out over the plain. It is quite flat, and is now +cultivated, though there are some bare tracts of unfruitful ground. In +all directions I saw straggling vines. Not far away was one low, +red-tiled house belonging to a peasant, whose three small, dirty, and +unhealthy-looking children presently approached, and gazed at me from +below. In the distance a man on a white horse rode slowly toward the +pine-woods, and to my left I saw a group of women bending mysteriously +to accomplish some task unknown to me. No other figures could I see +between me and the bright-blue waters that once bore up the fleet of +Persia. Behind me were stony and not very high hills, ending in the +slopes down which Miltiades made his soldiers advance "at a running +pace." One hundred and ninety-two brave men gone to dust beneath me; +instead of the commemorative lion, the little watch-house of brushwood +and wheat and maize; silence the only epitaph. The mound, of hard, +sun-baked earth, was yellow and bare. On one side a few rusty-looking +thorn-bushes decorated it harshly. But about it grew aloes, and the wild +oleander, with its bright-pink flowers, and near by were many great +fig-trees. A river intersects the plain, and its course is marked by +sedges and tall reeds. Where the land is bare, it takes a tawny-yellow +hue. Some clustering low houses far off under the hills form the +Albanian village of Marathon. Just twenty-two miles from Athens, this +place of an ancient glory, this tomb of men who, I suppose, will not be +forgotten so long as the Hellenic kingdom lasts, seems very far away, +hidden from the world between woods and waters, solitary, but not sad. +Beyond the plain and the sea are ranges of mountains and the island of +Eubœa.</p> + +<p>A figure slowly approaches. It is the guardian of the vineyards, coming +back to his watch-house above the grave of his countrymen, smiling, with +a cigarette between his white teeth. As I go, he calls out "Addio!" Then +he mounts his ladder carefully and withdraws to his easy work. How +strange to be a watcher of vineyards upon the tumulus of Marathon!</p> + +<p>If you care at all for life in the open, if you have the love of camping +in your blood, Greece will call to you at every moment to throw off the +dullness of houses, to come and stay under blue heaven and be happy. Yet +I suppose the season for all such joys was over when I was in Greece, +for I never met any citizens of Athens taking their pleasure in the +surrounding country. In Turkey and Asia Minor, near any large town, when +the weather is hot and fine, one may see cheerful parties of friends +making merry in the open air, under trees and in arbors; or men +dreaming idly in nooks that might have made old Omar's delight, shaded, +and sung to by a stream. In Greece it is not so. Once you are out in the +country, you come upon no one but peasants, shepherds, goatherds, +Gipsies, turkey-drivers, and, speaking generally, "sons of the soil."</p> + +<p>In the very height of summer, I am told, the Athenians do condescend to +go to the pine-woods. They sleep during part of the day, and stay out of +doors at night, often driving into the country, and eating under the +trees or by the sea. But even in the heat of a rainless September, if I +may judge by my own experience, they prefer Constitution Square and "the +Dardanelles" to any more pastoral pleasures.</p> + +<p>I did not imitate them, but followed the Via Sacra one morning, past the +oldest olive-tree in Greece, a small and corrugated veteran said to have +been planted in the time of Pericles, to the Convent of Daphni, now +fallen into a sort of poetic decay.</p> + +<p>Once more I was among pine-trees. They thronged the almost park-like +slopes under Ægaleos. They crowded toward the little Byzantine church, +which stands on the left of the road on the site of a vanished temple of +Apollo, with remains of its once strongly fortified walls about it. +Lonely, but smiling, as though with a radiant satisfaction at its own +shining peace, is the country in whose bosom the church lies. A few +sheep, small, with shaggy coats of brown and white, were grazing near +it; a dog lay stretched out in the sun; and some lean, long-tailed +horses were standing with bowed heads, as if drowsing. An ancient and +very deep well was close by. In the marble well-head the friction of +many drawn cords has cut grooves, some of them nearly an inch in depth. +The court of the convent is roughly paved and is inclosed within rough +walls. In it are a few trees, an acacia or two, a wild pepper-tree, and +one gigantic cypress. From a branch near the entrance a big bell hung by +a chain. But the only sound of bells came to me from without the walls, +where some hidden goats were moving to a pasture. Fragments of broken +columns and two or three sarcophagi lay on the hot ground at my feet. To +my right, close to the church, a flight of very old marble steps led to +a rustic loggia with wooden supports, full of red geraniums and the +flowers of a plant like a very small convolvulus. From the loggia, which +fronted her abiding-place, a cheerful, kindly-faced woman came down and +let me into the church and left me with two companions, a black kitten +playing with a bee under the gilded cupola.</p> + +<a name="i132" id="i132"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/i132.jpg" width="600" height="354" alt="A MONASTERY AT THE FOOT OF HYMETTUS" title="" /> +<span class="caption">A MONASTERY AT THE FOOT OF HYMETTUS</span> +</div> + +<p>The church, like almost all the Byzantine churches I saw in Greece, is +very small, but it is tremendously solid and has a tall belfry. The +exterior, stained by weather, is now a sort of earthy yellow; the +cupola is covered with red tiles. The interior walls look very +ancient, and are blackened in many places by the fingers of Time. Made +more than eight hundred years ago, the remains of the Byzantine mosaics +are very curious and interesting. In the cupola, on a gold ground, is a +very large head of a Christ ("Christos Pantokrator"), which looks as if +it were just finished. The face is sinister and repellent, but +expressive. There are several other mosaics, of the apostles, of +episodes in the life of the Virgin, and of angels. None of them seemed +to me beautiful, though perhaps not one looks so wicked as the Christos, +which dominates the whole church. Until comparatively recent times there +were monks attached to this convent, but now they are gone.</p> + +<p>I passed through a doorway and came into a sort of tiny cloister, shaded +by a huge and evidently very ancient fig-tree with enormous leaves. Here +I found the remains of an old staircase of stone. As I returned to the +dim and massive little church, glimmering with gold where the sunlight +fell upon the mosaics, the eyes of the Christos seemed to rebuke me from +the lofty cupola. The good-natured woman locked the door behind me with +a large key, handed to me a bunch of the flowers I had noticed growing +in the loggia, and bade me "Addio!" And soon the sound of the goat-bells +died away from my ears as I went on my way back to Eleusis.</p> + +<p>There is nothing mysterious about this road which leads to the site of +the Temple of the Mysteries. It winds down through the pine-woods and +rocks of the Pass of Daphni into the cheerful and well-cultivated +Thriasian plain, whence across a brilliant-blue stretch of water, which +looks like a lake, but which is the bay of Eleusis, you can see houses +and, alas! several tall chimneys pouring forth smoke. The group of +houses is Eleusis, now an Albanian settlement, and the chimneys belong +to a factory where olive-oil soap is made. The road passes between the +sea and a little salt lake, which latter seems to be prevented from +submerging it only by a raised coping of stone. The color of this lake +is a brilliant purple. In the distance is the mountainous and rocky +island of Salamis.</p> + +<p>When I reached the village, I found it a cheery little place of small +white, yellow, and rose-colored houses, among which a few cypress-trees +grow. Although one of the most ancient places in Greece, it now looks +very modern. And it is difficult to believe, as one glances at the +chimneys of the soap factory, and at two or three black and dingy +steamers lying just off the works to take in cargo, that here Demeter +was worshiped with mysterious rites at the great festival of the +Eleusinia. Yet, according to the legend, it was here that she came, +disguised as an old hag, in search of her lost Persephone; here that +she taught Triptolemus how to sow the plain, and to reap the first +harvest of yellow wheat, as a reward for the hospitable welcome given to +her by his father Celeus.</p> + +<p>The ruins at Eleusis are disappointing to the ordinary traveler, though +interesting to the archæologist. They have none of the pathetic romance +which, notwithstanding the scoldings of many vulgar persons set forth in +a certain visitors' book, broods gently over poetic Olympia. Above the +village is a vast confusion of broken columns, defaced capitals, bits of +wall, bits of pavement, marble steps, fallen medallions, vaults, +propylæa, substructures, scraps of architraves carved with inscriptions, +and subterranean store-rooms. In the pavement of the processional way, +by which the chariots came up to the Temple of Demeter, the chief glory +and shrine of Eleusis, are the deep ruts made by the chariot-wheels. The +remnants of the hall of the initiated bears witness to the long desire +of poor human beings in all ages to find that peace which passeth our +understanding. Of beauty there is little or none. Nevertheless, even +now, it is not possible in the midst of this tragic <i>débâcle</i> to remain +wholly unmoved. Indeed, the very completeness of the disaster that time +and humanity have wrought here creates emotion, when one remembers that +here great men came, such men as Cicero, Sophocles, and Plato; that +here they worshiped and adored under cover of the darkness of night; +that here, seeking, they found, as has been recorded, peace and hope to +sustain them when, the august festival over, they took their way back +into the ordinary world along the shores of sea and lake. Eleusis is no +longer beautiful. It is a home of devastation. It is no longer +mysterious. A successful man is making a fortune out of soap there. But +it is a place one cannot easily forget. And just above the ruins there +is a small museum which contains several very interesting things, and +one thing that is superb.</p> + +<p>This last is the enormous and noble upper part of the statue of a woman +wearing ear-rings. I do not know its history, though some one assured me +that it was a caryatid. It was dug up among the ruins, and the color of +it is akin to that of the earth. The roughly undulating hair is parted +in the middle of a majestic, goddess-like head. The features are pure +and grand; but the two things that most struck me, as I looked at this +great work of art, were the expression of the face, and the deep bosom, +as of the earth-mother and all her fruitfulness. In few Greek statues +have I seen such majesty and power, combined with such intensity, as +this nameless woman shows forth. There is indeed almost a suggestion of +underlying fierceness in the face, but it is the fierceness that may +sometimes leap up in an imperial nature. Are there not royal angers +which flame out of the pure furnaces of love? This noble woman seems to +me to be the present glory of Eleusis.</p> + +<a name="i139" id="i139"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 439px;"> +<img src="images/i139.jpg" width="439" height="600" alt="RUINS OF THE GREAT TEMPLE OF THE MYSTERIES AT ELEUSIS" title="" /> +<span class="caption">RUINS OF THE GREAT TEMPLE OF THE MYSTERIES AT ELEUSIS</span> +</div> + +<p>The mountainous island of Salamis, long and calm, with gray and orange +rocks, lies like a sentinel keeping guard over the harbor of the Piræus. +It is so near to the mainland that the sea between the two shores looks +like a lake, lonely and brilliant, with the two-horned peak called "the +throne of Xerxes" standing out characteristically behind the low-lying +bit of coast where the Greeks have set up an arsenal. Whether Xerxes did +really watch the famous battle from a throne placed on the hill with +which his name is associated is very doubtful. But many travelers like +to believe it, and the kind guides of Athens are quite ready to stiffen +their credulity.</p> + +<p>The shores of this beautiful inclosed bit of sea are wild. The water is +wonderfully clear, and is shot with all sorts of exquisite colors. The +strip of mainland, against which the liquid maze of greens and blues and +purples seems to lie motionless, like a painted marvel, is a tangle of +wild myrtle and dwarf shrubs growing in a sandy soil interspersed with +rocks. Gently the land curves, forming a series of little shallow bays +and inlets, each one of which seems more delicious than the last as you +coast along in a fisherman's boat. But, unfortunately, the war-ships of +Greece often lie snug in harbor in the shadow of Salamis not far from +the arsenal, and, as I have hinted already, their commander-in-chief has +little sympathy with the inquiring traveler. I shall not easily forget +the expression that came into his face when, in reply to his question, +"What did you come here for?" I said, "To visit the scene of the +celebrated battle." A weary incredulity made him suddenly look very old; +and I believe it was then that, taking a pen, he wrote on the margin of +his report about me that I was "a very suspicious person."</p> + +<p>It is safer, especially in war-time, to keep away from Salamis; but if +you care for smiling wild places where the sea is, where its breath +gives a vivid sense of life to the wilderness, you may easily forget her +myrtle-covered shores and the bays of violet and turquoise.</p> + +<p>Of the many wonderful haunts of the sea which I visited in Greece, Cape +Sunium is perhaps the most memorable, though I never shall forget the +glories of the magnificent drive along the mountains between Athens and +Corinth. But Sunium has its ruined temple, standing on a great height. +And in some of us a poet has wakened a wondering consciousness of its +romance, perhaps when we sat in a Northern land beside the winter fire. +And in some of us, too, an immortal painter has roused a longing to see +it, when we never thought to be carried by our happy fate to Greece.</p> + +<p>In going to Sunium I passed through the famous mining district of +Laurium, where now many convicts work out their sentences. In ancient +times slaves toiled there for the benefit of those citizens who had +hereditary leases granted by the state. They worked the mines for +silver, but now lead is the principal product. It happened that just as +we were in the middle of the dingy town, or village, where the miners +and their families dwell,—for only some of them are convicts,—a tire +of the motor burst. This of course delayed us, and I was able to see +something of the inhabitants. In Athens I had heard that they were a +fierce and ill-mannered population. I found them, on the contrary, as I +found almost all those whom I met in Greece, cheerful, smiling, and +polite. Happy, if rather dirty, children gathered round us, delighted to +have something to look at and wonder about. Men, going to or coming from +the works, paused to see what was the matter and to inquire where I came +from. From the windows of the low, solid-looking houses women leaned +eagerly out with delighted faces. Several of the latter talked to me. I +could not understand what they said, and all they could understand was +that I came from London, a circumstance which seemed greatly to impress +them, for they called it out from one to another up the street. We +carried on intercourse mainly by facial expression and elaborate +gesture, assisted genially by the grubby little boys. And when I got +into the car to go we were all the best of friends. The machine made the +usual irritable noises, but from the good people of Laurium came only +cries of good-will, among them that pleasant admonition which one hears +often in Greece: "Enjoy yourself! Enjoy yourself!"</p> + +<p>When Laurium was left behind we were soon in wild and deserted country. +Now and then we passed an Albanian on horseback, with a gun over his +shoulder, a knife stuck in his belt, or we came upon a shepherd watching +his goats as they browsed on the low scrub which covered the hills. All +the people in this region are Albanians, I was told. They appeared to be +very few. As we drew near to the ancient shrine of Poseidon we left far +behind us the habitations of men. At length the car stopped in the +wilderness, and on a height to my left I saw the dazzling white marble +columns of the Temple of Sunium.</p> + +<p>Almost all the ruins I saw in Greece were weather-stained. Their +original color was mottled with browns and grays, with saffron, with +gold and red-gold. But the columns of Sunium have kept their brilliant +whiteness, although they stand on a great, bare cliff above the sea, +exposed to the glare of the sun and to the buffeting of every wind of +heaven. They are raised not merely on this natural height, but also on +a great platform of the famous Poros-stone. In the time of Byron there +were sixteen columns standing. There are now eleven, with a good deal of +architrave. These columns are Doric, and are about twenty feet in +height. They have not the majesty of the Parthenon columns, but, on the +contrary, have a peculiar delicacy and even grace, which is lacking both +in the Parthenon and in the Theseum. They do not move you to awe or +overwhelm you; they charm and delight you. In their ivory-white +simplicity, standing out against the brilliant blue of sea and sky on +the white and gray platform, there is something that allures.</p> + +<p>Upon one of the columns I found the name of Byron carved in bold +letters. But I looked in vain for the name of Turner. Byron loved the +Cape of Sunium. Fortunately, nothing has been done to make it less +wonderful since his time. It is true that fewer columns are standing to +bear witness to the old worship of the sea-god; but such places as +Sunium are not injured when some blocks of marble fall, but when men +begin to build. Still the noble promontory thrusts itself boldly forward +into the sea from the heart of an undesecrated wilderness. Still the +columns stand quite alone. All the sea-winds can come to you there, and +all the winds of the hills—winds from the Ægean and Mediterranean, from +crested Eubœa, from Melos, from Hydra, from Ægina, with its +beautiful Doric temple, from Argolis and from the mountains of Arcadia. +And it seems as if all the sunshine of heaven were there to bathe you in +golden fire, as if there could be none left over for the rest of the +world. The coasts of Greece stretch away beneath you into far distances, +curving in bays, thrusting out in promontories, here tawny and volcanic, +there gray and quietly sober in color, but never cold or dreary. White +sails, but only two or three, are dreaming on the vast purple of +Poseidon's kingdom—white sails of mariners who are bound for the isles +of Greece. Poets have sung of those isles. Who has not thought of them +with emotion? Now, between the white marble columns, you can see their +mountain ranges, you can see their rocky shores.</p> + +<p>Behind and below me I heard a slight movement. I got up and looked. And +there on a slab of white marble lay a snow-white goat warming itself in +the sun. White, gold, and blue, and far off the notes of white were +echoed not only by the mariner's sails, but by tiny Albanian villages +inland, seen over miles of bare country, over flushes of yellow, where +the pines would not be denied.</p> + +<a name="i147" id="i147"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/i147.jpg" width="400" height="600" alt="THE ODEUM OF HERODES ATTICUS IN ATHENS" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE ODEUM OF HERODES ATTICUS IN ATHENS</span> +</div> + +<p>There is an ineffable charm in the landscape, in the atmosphere, of +Greece. No other land that I know possesses an exactly similar spell. +Wildness and calm seem woven together, a warm and almost caressing +wildness with a calm that is full of romance. There the wilderness is +indeed a haven to long after, and there the solitudes call you as if +with the voices of friends.</p> + +<p>As I turned at last to go away from Poseidon's white marble ruin, a +one-armed man came up to me, and in English told me that he was the +guardian of the temple.</p> + +<p>"But where do you live?" I asked him, looking over the vast solitude.</p> + +<p>Smiling, he led the way down to a low whitewashed bungalow at a little +distance. There, in a rough but delicious loggia, paved and fronting the +sea, I found two brown women sitting with a baby among some small pots +of flowers. Remote from the world, with only the marble columns for +neighbors, with no voice but the sea's to speak to them, dwell these +four persons. The man lived and worked for many years in Pittsburgh, +Pennsylvania, where he lost his arm in some whirring machinery. Now he +has come home and entered the sea-god's service. Pittsburgh and the +Hellenic wilderness—what a contrast! But my one-armed friend takes it +philosophically. He shrugs his shoulder, points to his stump, and says, +"I guess I couldn't go on there like this, so I had to quit, and they +put me here."</p> + +<p>They put him "here," on Cape Sunium, and on Cape Sunium he has built +himself a house and made for himself a loggia, white, cool, brightened +with flowers, face to face with the purple sea, and the isles and the +mountains of Greece. And at Sunium he intends to remain because, +unfortunately, having lost an arm, he is no longer wanted in Pittsburgh.</p> + +<p>I gave him some money, accepted the baby's wavering but insistent hand, +and left him to his good or ill fortune in the exquisite wilderness.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="DELPHI_AND_OLYMPIA" id="DELPHI_AND_OLYMPIA"></a>DELPHI AND OLYMPIA</h2> + +<a name="i152" id="i152"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 397px;"> +<img src="images/i152.jpg" width="397" height="600" alt="THE SITE OF ANCIENT DELPHI" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE SITE OF ANCIENT DELPHI</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter IV</span></h2> + +<h3>DELPHI AND OLYMPIA</h3> + + +<p>There are two ways of going from Athens to Delphi: by sea from the +Piræus to Itea and thence by carriage; or by motor. Despite the rough +surfaces of the roads and the terrors of dust, I chose the latter; and I +was well rewarded. For the drive is a glorious one, though very long and +fatiguing, and it enabled me to see a grand monument which many +travelers miss—the Lion of Chæronea, which gazes across a vast plain in +a solitary place between Thebes and Delphi.</p> + +<p>Leaving Athens early one morning, I followed the Via Sacra, left Eleusis +behind me, traversed the Thriasian plain, the heights of Mount Geraneia, +and the rich cultivated plain of Bœotia, passed through the village +of Kriekouki, and arrived at Thebes. There I halted for an hour. After +leaving Thebes, the journey became continually more and more interesting +as I drew near to Parnassus: over the plain of Livadia, through the +village and khan of Gravia, where one hundred and eighty Greeks fought +heroically against three thousand Turks in 1821, over the magnificent +Pass of Amblema, across the delightful olive-covered plain of Krissa, +and up the mountain to Delphi.</p> + +<p>Throughout this wonderful journey, during which I saw country +alternately intimate and wild, genial and majestic, and at one point +almost savage, I had only one deception: that was on the Pass of +Amblema, which rises to more than eight thousand feet above the level of +the sea. Delphi, I felt, ought to be there. Delphi, I believed, must be +there, hidden somewhere among the rocks and the fir-woods, where wolves +lurk, and where the eagle circles and swoops above peaks which are cold +and austere. Only when we began to descend in serpentine curves, when I +saw far below me great masses of olive-trees, and the distant shining of +the sea, did I realize that I was mistaken, and that Delphi lay beyond, +in a region less tragically wild, more rustic, even more tender.</p> + +<p>During this journey of, I believe, about three hundred kilometers or +more, I realized fully the loneliness that happily shadows a great part +of Greece. We seemed to be almost perpetually in the midst of a +delightful desolation, gloriously alone with nature, now far up on bare +flanks of the hills, now traveling through deserted pine-woods or +olive-groves, now upon plains which extended to shadowy ranges of +mountains, and which here and there reminded me of the plains of +Palestine. Strange it seemed to come upon an occasional village of +Greeks or Albanians, strayed, surely, and lost and forgotten in the +wilderness; stranger still to see now and then some tiny Byzantine +church, perhaps with a few cypresses about it, perched on a mountain +height that looked as if it never had been trodden by foot of man. The +breezes that met us were alive with a tingling purity of hilltop and +sea, or sweet and wholesome with the resinous odor of pine. And the +light that lay over the face of the land made nearly all things magical.</p> + +<a name="i157" id="i157"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/i157.jpg" width="600" height="475" alt="DELPHI—GULF OF CORINTH IN THE DISTANCE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">DELPHI—GULF OF CORINTH IN THE DISTANCE</span> +</div> + +<p>Again we met Turkish Gipsies. In Greece they have made the wild life +their own. No longer one hears of brigands, though only a few years ago +these highways were dangerous, and men traversed them armed and at their +own peril. Now the Gipsies are in happy possession, and travel from +place to place in small caravans, with their mules, donkeys, and dogs, +and their tiny peaked tents, telling the <i>bonne aventure</i> to the +superstitious, and, so the Greeks declare, stealing whatever they can +lay their dark hands on. They look wild and smiling, crafty rather than +ferocious; and they greet you with loud cries in an unknown tongue, and +with gestures expressive of the perpetual desire to receive which seems +inherent in all true vagabonds. They pitch their tents usually on the +outskirts of the villages, staying for days or weeks, as the luck serves +them. And, so far as I could judge, people receive them with good +nature, perhaps grateful for the excitement they bring into lives that +know little variation as season follows season and year glides into +year. Just outside Thebes I found eleven of their tents set upon some +rough ground, the beasts tethered, the dogs on guard, the babies +toddling and sprawling, while their mothers were cooking some mysterious +compound, and the men were away perhaps on some nefarious errand among +the excited Thebans. For that day Greek officers were visiting the town, +and in front of the café, among the trees, and above the waterside, +where we stopped to lunch, there was a parade of horses, mules, and +donkeys from all the neighborhood. War was taking its toll of the +live-stock, and the whole population was abroad to see the fun.</p> + +<p>As soon as I had descended from the car and begun to unpack my +provisions, an elderly man came up, asked whether we were from Athens, +and then put the question that is forever on the lips of the Greek, +"What is the news?" Every Greek has a passion for the latest news. +Often, when I was traveling through the country, people I passed on the +way called out to me, "What is the news?" or, "Can you give us a +newspaper?"</p> + +<p>Thebes, where, according to legend, Hercules was born; where the stones +gathered themselves together when Amphion struck his lyre; where blind +Tiresias prophesied; and, seated upon a block of stone, the Sphinx asked +her riddle of the passers-by and slew them; where Œdipus ruled and +suffered his hideous fate; where the Epigoni took their vengeance; and +Epaminondas showed how one man can lift a city and set it on a throne +above all the cities of its fatherland—Thebes, where letters were first +brought into use among the Greeks, and where weak-voiced Demosthenes by +his eloquence persuaded the people to march to their glorious death +against Philip of Macedon, is now just a busy village on the flank of a +hill. Frequently devastated by earthquakes, which are the scourge of +this region, it looks newly built, fairly clean and neat. It dominates +the plain in which Plutarch was born, and the murmur of its waters is +pleasant to the ear in a dry and thirsty land. But though Thebes is not +specially interesting, below it, in that plain once celebrated for its +flowers,—iris and lily, narcissus and rose,—beyond all sound of the +voices of chattering peasants or determined soldiers, solitary in its +noble rage and grief, is that most moving of monuments, the Lion of +Chæronea.</p> + +<p>I came upon it unexpectedly. If I had not happened to be looking toward +the left my chauffeur would have driven me on without pause to +Parnassus, the mighty flanks of which were already visible in the +distance. When he pulled up we were already almost out of sight of the +lion. And I was glad as I walked back alone, still more glad when I +stood before it in solitude, surrounded by the great silence of the +plain.</p> + +<p>There where the lion sits, raised now on a high pedestal and with +cypresses planted about him, was fought the great battle of Chæronea +between the Greeks and Philip of Macedon; and there the Greeks lost +much, but not their honor. Had it been otherwise, would the lion be +there now after so many centuries, testifying to the grief of men long +since dead, to their anger, even to their despair, but not to their +cowardice or shame? I have heard people say that the face of the lion +does express shame. It seems to me nobly passionate, loftily angry and +sad, but not ashamed. The Thebans raised it to commemorate those of +their comrades in arms who died on the battle-field. What shame can +attach to such men? For long years the lion lay broken in pieces and +buried in the earth. Only in 1902 were the fragments fitted together, +though long before that they had lain above ground, where many noted +travelers had seen them. The restoration has been splendidly successful, +and has given to Greece one of the most memorable manifestations in +marble of a state of soul that exists not merely in Greece, but in +the world. Lion-hearted men are superbly commemorated by this lion.</p> + +<a name="i162" id="i162"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 445px;"> +<img src="images/i162.jpg" width="445" height="600" alt="THE LION OF CHÆRONEA, THE ACROPOLIS AND MOUNT PARNASSUS" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE LION OF CHÆRONEA, THE ACROPOLIS AND MOUNT PARNASSUS</span> +</div> + +<p>The height of the statue from the top of the pedestal is about twenty +feet. The material of which it is made, marble of Bœotia, was once, I +believe, blue-gray. It is now gray and yellow. The lion is sitting, but +in an attitude that suggests fierce vitality. Both the huge front paws +seem to grasp the pedestal almost as if the claws were extended in an +impulse of irresistible anger. The head is raised. The expression on the +face is wonderful. There is in it a savage intensity of feeling that is +rarely to be found in anything Greek. But the savagery is ennobled in +some mysterious way by the sublime art of the sculptor, is lifted up and +made ideal, eternal. It is as if the splendid rage in the souls of all +men who ever have died fighting on a losing side had been gathered up by +the soul of the sculptor, and conveyed by him whole into his work. The +mysterious human spirit, breathed upon from eternal regions, glows in +this divine lion of Greece.</p> + +<p>Various writers on the scenery of Greece have described it as "alpine" +in character. One has even used the word in connection with some of the +mountain-ranges that may be seen from the plain of Attica. Such +distracting visions of Switzerland did not beset my spirit as I traveled +through a more beautiful and far more romantic land, absolutely +different from the contented republic which has been chosen by Europe as +its playground. But there were moments, as we slowly ascended the Pass +of Amblema, when I thought of the North. For the delicate and romantic +serenity of the Greek landscape did here give way to something that was +almost savage, almost spectacular. The climbing forests of dark and +hardy firs made me think of snow, which lies among them deep in winter. +The naked peaks, the severe uplands, the precipices, the dim ravines, +bred gloom in the soul. There was sadness combined with wildness in the +scene, which a premature darkness was seizing, and the cold wind seemed +to go shivering among the rocks.</p> + +<p>It was then that I thought of Delphi, and believed that we must be +nearing the home of the oracle. As we climbed and climbed, and the cold +increased, and the world seemed closing brutally about us, I felt no +longer in doubt. We must be close to Delphi, old region of mysteries and +terror, where the god of the dead was thought to be hidden, where Apollo +fought with Python, where men came with fear in their hearts to search +out the future.</p> + +<a name="i166" id="i166"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 446px;"> +<img src="images/i166.jpg" width="446" height="600" alt="PLACE OF THE FAMOUS ORACLE, DELPHI" title="" /> +<span class="caption">PLACE OF THE FAMOUS ORACLE, DELPHI</span> +</div> + +<p>But presently we began to descend, and I learned that we were still a +long way from Delphi. The sun set, and evening was falling when we were +once more down on the sea-level, traversing one of the most delightful +and fertile regions of Greece, the lovely plain of Krissa, which +extends to the sea. The great olive-gardens stretch away for miles on +every hand, interspersed here and there with plane-trees, +mulberry-trees, medlars, cypresses, and the wild oleander. Many battles +have been fought in that sylvan paradise, which now looks the home of +peace, a veritable Garden of Eden lying between mountains and sea. +Pilgrims traveling to Delphi were forced to pay toll there, and +eventually the extortion became so intolerable that it led to war. That +evening, as we drove along a road cut straight through the heart of the +olive-woods, the whole region seemed sunk in a dream. We met no one; we +heard no traffic, no voices, no barking of dogs. The thousands of +splendid trees, planted symmetrically, were moved by no breeze. Warmth +and an odorous calm pervaded the shadowy alleys between them. Here and +there a soft beam of light shone among the trees from the window of a +guardian's dwelling. And once we stopped to take Turkish coffee under a +vine-trimmed arbor, solitary and lost in the sweet silence, in the +silver dusk of the forest. A lodge in the wilderness! As I looked at the +dark, bright-eyed man who served us, I, perhaps foolishly, envied him +his life, his strange little home, remote, protected by his only +companions, the trees.</p> + +<p>In this plain camels are used for transport, and, I believe, for plowing +and other work. They are to be found nowhere else in Greece. I saw none +that night; but one morning, after leaving Delphi, I met a train of them +pacing softly and disdainfully along the dusty road, laden with bales +and with mysterious bundles wrapped round with sacking.</p> + +<p>In the dark we began to climb up once more. At last we were actually on +Parnassus, were approaching the "navel of the earth." But I was not +aware of any wildness, such as that of Amblema, about us. The little I +could see of the landscape did not look savage. I heard goat-bells +tinkling now and then not far off. Presently some lights beamed out +above us, as if in welcome. We passed through a friendly village street, +came out on the mountain-side, and drew up before a long house, which +stood facing what was evidently a wide view, now almost entirely hidden, +though a little horned moon hung in the sky, attended by the evening +star. The village was Kastri; the long house was the "Hôtel d'Apollon +Pythien."</p> + +<p>Delphi is memorable, but not because of wildness or terror. In +retrospect it rises in my mind as a lonely place of light, gleaming on +volcanic rocks and on higher rocks that are gray; of a few mighty +plane-trees, pouring a libation of green toward olive-trees on the +slopes beneath them; of a perpetual sweet sound of water. And beside the +water travelers from the plain of Krissa, and travelers from Arachova, +that wonderfully placed Parnassian village, renowned for its beautiful +women, are pausing. They get down from their horses and mules to lave +their hands and to drink. They cross themselves before the little +Christian shrine under the trees by the roadside. They sit down in the +shadows to rest.</p> + +<p>It is very sweet to rest for long hours by the Castalian fountain of +Delphi, remote from all habitations upon the great southern slope of +Parnassus, under the tree of Agamemnon; to listen to the voice of the +lustral wave. There, in the dead years, the pilgrims piously sprinkled +themselves before consulting the oracle; there, now, the brown women of +the mountains chatter gaily as they wash their clothes. The mountain is +bare behind the shrine, where perhaps is a figure of Mary with Christ in +her arms, or some saint with outspread wings. Its great precipices of +rock are tawny. They bloom with strong reds and yellows, they shine with +scars of gold. Among the rocks the stream is only a thread of silver, +though under the bridge it flows down through the olive-gardens, a broad +band of singing happiness.</p> + +<p>Delphi has a mountain charm of remoteness, of lofty silence; it has also +a seduction of pastoral warmth and gentleness and peace. Far up on the +slope of gigantic Parnassus, it faces a narrow valley, or ravine, and a +bare, calm mountain, scarred by zigzag paths, which look almost like +lines sharply cut in the volcanic soil with an instrument. In the +distance, away to the right, the defile opens out into the plain of +Krissa, at the edge of which lies a section of sea, like a huge uncut +turquoise lying in a cup of the land. Beyond are ranges of beautiful, +delicate mountains.</p> + +<p>The ruins of Delphi lie above the highroad to the left of it, between +Kastri and the Castalian fountain, unshaded, in a naked confusion, but +free from modern houses and in a fine loneliness. Once, and not very +long ago, the village of Kastri stood close to the ruins, and some of it +actually above them. But when excavations were undertaken seriously, all +the houses were pulled down, and set up again where they stand to-day. +Like the ruins at Eleusis and Olympia, the remains at Delphi are +fragmentary. The ancient Hellenes believed that the center of the earth +was at a certain spot within the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, where the +eagles of Zeus, flying from the two ends of the earth, had met. The +foundations, and some portions of the walls of this celebrated shrine, +in which two golden eagles stood, may be visited, but very little of it +remains. On the foundation has been set up a large Roman column, upon +which once stood a statue. The fallen blocks of Doric columns are +gigantic, and from them it is possible to gain some faint idea of the +temple's immense size and massiveness. In the midst of a pit of +stone, not far from the columns, I found a solitary fig-tree growing. It +is interesting to notice that the huge outer wall of the temple was +constructed of quantities of blocks, each one differing in shape from +its neighbors. These were ingeniously fitted close together without the +aid of any joining material. Although it is impossible not to wonder at +and admire the cleverness shown in this wall, it produced on my mind an +impression of confusion that was almost painful. The multitudes of +irregular lines distressed my eyes. There is little repose in a puzzle, +and this wall is like a mighty puzzle in stone.</p> + +<a name="i173" id="i173"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 435px;"> +<img src="images/i173.jpg" width="435" height="600" alt="VIEW OF MOUNT PARNASSUS" title="" /> +<span class="caption">VIEW OF MOUNT PARNASSUS</span> +</div> + +<p>Among the masses of broken fragments which cover much of the hillside +stands out a small, solid building of Parian marble, very pure, very +clean, almost shining under the rays of the sun. It resembles a great +marble casket in which something very precious might be placed and +sealed up. This is the treasury of the Athenians, which has been +reconstructed since Kastri was moved from the fragments of the original +temple. It is, in fact, a tiny Doric temple. The marble, of a beautiful +yellow-white color, is mingled here and there with limestone. This +little temple stands on a platform, with the clearly defined Sacred Way +winding up the hill beside it. The front of it is approached by two +steps, and it has two Doric columns, containing, however, only two +blocks of the original marble, brown, with touches of old gold. The +remaining blocks of these columns are of white Poros marble, brought +from a distance, and they look rough and almost glaring. Poros marble +may always be recognized by the minute shining grains, like specks of +gold, that are scattered through it. Although a fine substance, it looks +vulgar when placed beside Parian marble.</p> + +<p>The semicircular places in which the priests of Delphi used to sit may +still be seen, facing a fine view. The sea is hidden by a shoulder of +the mountain, but the rolling slopes beyond the road are covered thickly +with olive-trees, among which the goat-bells chime almost perpetually; +and on the far side of the narrow valley the bare slopes, with their +tiny, red paths, lead calmly toward rocky summits. To the left the +highroad turns sharply round a rock in the direction of the Castalian +fountain.</p> + +<p>In the fairly well-preserved theater to the northwest, quantities of +yellow flowers were growing, with some daisies. Among the gray limestone +blocks of the orchestra I found a quantity of excellent blackberries. +Where once was the stage, there are now brown grasses dried up by the +sun. This theater is very steep, and above it towers a precipice. Near +by, between the theater and the stadium, Parnassus gives back to your +cry a swift and sharp echo. The gold, red-gold, and gray stadium, which +lies farther up the mountain than the theater, is partly ruined, but in +parts is well preserved. As I stood in it, thinking of the intellectual +competitions that used to take place there, of the poems recited in it, +of the music the lyre gave forth, and of the famous Pythian games, +which, later, used to be celebrated in this strange mountain fastness, I +saw eagles wheeling over me far up in the blue, above the wild gray and +orange peaks.</p> + +<p>In the museum, which stands in a splendid position on the mountain-side, +with a terrace before it, there are many fine things. Delphi in the time +of its greatness contained thousands of statues, great numbers of which +were in bronze. Nero, Constantine, and others carried hundreds of them +away. One which they left, a bronze charioteer in a long robe, faces you +as you enter the museum. It is marvelously alive, almost seems to glow +with vitality. The feet should be specially noticed. They are bare, and +are miracles of sensitiveness. Farther on there is a splendid Antinous, +robust, sensual, egoistic, a type of muscular beauty and crude +determination, without heart or any sparkle of intellect. Two other +statues which I thought exceptionally interesting are of a sturdy, +smiling child and of a headless and armless woman. The latter, numbered +1817 in the catalogue, is very gracious and lovely. The back of the +figure and the drapery, especially that part of it which flows from +under the left arm to the heel of the right foot, are exceptionally +beautiful.</p> + +<p>There is a very fine view from the terrace. Toward evening it becomes +wonderfully romantic. Far off, the village of Arachova, perched on its +high ridge, bounds the horizon. It is a view closed in by mountains yet +not oppressive; for there is width between the two ranges, and the large +volcanic slopes are splendidly spacious. Here and there on these slopes +are large wine-colored splashes such as you see often on the mountains +of Syria, and these splashes give warmth to the scene. Above the +Castalian fountain the two peaks of the Phædriadæ, a thousand feet high, +stand up magnificently. Between them is the famous cleft from which the +cold stream issues, to flow down through the olive-groves.</p> + +<a name="i179" id="i179"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 438px;"> +<img src="images/i179.jpg" width="438" height="600" alt="RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO AT DELPHI" title="" /> +<span class="caption">RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO AT DELPHI</span> +</div> + +<p>When evening falls, follow the winding white road a little way toward +Arachova. From the soft dusk of the defile that spreads out into the +plain of Krissa the goat-bells still chime melodiously. I have heard +them even very late in the night. The section of sea that was turquoise +now looks like solid silver. Behind it the mountains, velvety and black, +flow away in delicate shapes. They are dreamlike, but beyond them rise +other ethereal ranges which seem to you, as you gaze on them, +impalpable, fluid almost, like a lovely imagination of mountains +summoned up in your mind. Black-green is the plain. Under the tree of +Agamemnon glows a tiny light, like an earth-bound star. Where once the +pilgrims gathered who knew only the gods, Christian hands have tended +the lamp before the holy picture. And a little farther on, among the +foliage of the olive-trees, shines another of these Christian stars, +which, in the darkness of Delphi's solitudes, shed their light, faintly +perhaps, but faithfully, upon a way once often trodden by pagans who now +sleep the last long sleep. To what changes in the human soul do these +earth-bound stars bear witness! I sat beneath Agamemnon's tree, +listening to the cry of the fountain, watching the little lights, till +the night was black about me.</p> + +<p>I must always think of Olympia as the poetic shrine of one of the most +poetic statues in the world. As the Parthenon seems to be the soul of +Athens, so the Hermes of Praxiteles seems to be the soul of Olympia, +gathering up and expressing its aloofness from all ugly things, its +almost reflective tenderness, its profound calm, and its far-off freedom +from any sadness. When I stayed there I was the only traveler. Never did +I see any human being among the beautiful ruins, or hear any voice to +break their silence. Only the peasants of that region passed now and +then on the winding track below the hill of Cronus, to lose themselves +among the pine-trees. And I heard at a distance the wonderful sound, +eternity's murmur withdrawn, that the breeze makes among their branches, +as I sat by the palace of Nero.</p> + +<p>Nature has taken Olympia into her loving arms. She has shed her +pine-needles and her leaves of the golden autumn upon the seats where +the wrestlers reposed. She has set her grasses and flowers among the +stones of the Temple of Zeus. Her vines creep down to the edge of that +cup of her earth which holds gently, as a nurse holds a sleeping child, +palaces, temples, altars, shrines of the gods and ways for the chariots. +All the glory of men has departed, but something remains which is better +than glory—peace, loveliness, a pervading promise of lasting things +beyond.</p> + +<p>Among the ruins of Nero's palace I watched white butterflies flitting +among feathery, silver grasses and red and white daisies. Lizards basked +on the altar of Zeus. At the foot of the Heræum, the most ancient temple +that may be seen in Greece at this time, a jackal whined in its +dwelling. Sheep-bells were sounding plaintively down the valley beyond +the arch leading to the walled way by which the great stadium, where the +games took place, was entered. When I got up presently to stroll among +the ruins, I set my foot on the tiny ruts of an uneven pavement, +specially constructed so that the feet of contending athletes should not +slip upon it.</p> + +<a name="i182" id="i182"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/i182.jpg" width="600" height="346" alt="THE TEMPLE OF HERA AT OLYMPIA" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE TEMPLE OF HERA AT OLYMPIA</span> +</div> + +<p>The ruins lie in a sheltered and remote valley far away from the sea, +and surrounded by gentle hills, woods, and delightful pastoral country. +At some distance is the last railway station of the Peloponnesian +railway line, which connects with the main line at Pyrgos. Between the +station and the low hill on which stand the hotel and the museum is +strung out a small, straggling hamlet of peasants' houses. It is very +difficult to realize that this remote sanctuary, hidden away in the +green glades and amid the pastures of Elis, where the waters of Cladeus +and Alpheus glide among reeds and rushes, was ever crowded with people +from all parts of Greece; that emperors dwelled there; that there the +passions of the mob were roused to intense expression; that there men +gained the desire of their hearts or were exposed to the sneers and +opprobrium of their fellows. For Olympia to-day looks like an ideal home +for the great god Pan.</p> + +<p>I have called the ruins beautiful, and I think them so, partly because +of their situation, with which they seem to me to combine harmoniously, +and partly because of nature's collaboration with them, which is lacking +from the ruins at Eleusis and even at Delphi. At Olympia many trees grow +among the remains of the temples. A river runs by them. Excavations, +though usually interesting, are often both dusty and ugly. At Olympia +they are pastoral. Dryads might love them. Pan might sit happily on +almost any bit of the walls and play his pipe. They form a unique sylvan +paradise, full of wonderful associations, in which one is tempted to +rest for hours, whereas from many ruins one wishes only to get away once +they have been examined. And yet Olympia is so fragmentary that many +persons are bitterly disappointed with what they find there, as the +visitors' book in the little hotel bears witness.</p> + +<p>In all the mass of remains, and they cover a very large extent of +ground, I think I saw only four complete columns standing. Two of these +were columns of the Heræum, in which the Hermes of Praxiteles was found +lying among the remnants. They are golden-brown in color, and are of +course Doric, very massive and rather squat. The temple, the base of +which is very clearly marked, must have looked very powerful, but, I +should think, heavy rather than really majestic. I cannot imagine the +wonderfully delicate Hermes standing within it. It is believed that the +original columns of the Heræum were of wood, and that when they began to +rot away the stone columns were put up in their places. Much of the +temple was made of brick. The Hermes stood between two of the columns.</p> + +<p>It will be evident to any one who examines carefully all that is left of +the Temple of Zeus that it must have been very grand. Fragments of the +shafts of its columns, which are heaped in confusion on the ground, are +enormous. One block, which I found poised upright on its rounded edge, +was quite six feet high. This temple was made of limestone, which is now +of a rather dreary, almost sinister, gray color. Exposure to the weather +has evidently darkened it. The foundations are terrific. They suggest +titanic preparations for the bearing up of a universe of stone. It seems +to me that from what is left of this celebrated building, which stands +in the middle of the sacred precinct, and which once contained Phidias's +statue of Zeus, about forty feet high, one can gather something of what +was the builders' conception of the chief of all the gods of Olympus. To +them he must surely have been simply the Thunderer, a deity terrific and +forbidding, to whose worship must be raised a temple grand but probably +almost repellent. Legend relates that when Phidias had completed his +great statue of Zeus, and it had been placed in position, Zeus sent down +a thunderbolt which struck the ground close to the statue. The Greeks +considered the thunderbolt to be the god's characteristic expression of +content. Instead of the eagles of Zeus, I saw hovering over, and +perching upon, this ruin black and white birds, with long tails, not +unlike magpies. The statue of Zeus has disappeared. It is known to have +been taken to Constantinople, and in that tempestuous city it vanished, +like so much else. In the time of Olympia's glory the temple was +elaborately decorated, with stucco, painting, gilding, marble tiles, +shields, and vases, as well as with many statues. But despite this, I +think it must have been far less satisfying than the calm and glorious +Parthenon, in which seems to dwell rather the spirit of a goddess than +the spirit of any human builders.</p> + +<p>Earthquakes are frequent at Olympia, and have been so since the most +ancient times. One destroyed the greater part of Zeus's temple about +four hundred years after Christ. By that time the Olympic games had +ceased to be held, and no doubt the place was beginning to fall into the +neglect which, with the lapse of the centuries, has become so romantic. +After it was forgotten by men, nature began to remember and love it. +Very little of the famous stadium has been excavated. I found flocks of +sheep and goats feeding peacefully above it, and near by a small, +barefooted boy, with a little gun, out after quail.</p> + +<p>On the first day of my visit to Olympia, after spending a few hours +alone among the ruins I crossed the river, where I saw some half-naked +men dragging for fish with hand-nets, and mounted the hill to the +museum, which looks out over the delicious valley, and is attended by +some umbrella-pines. It was closed, but the keeper came smiling from +his dwelling close by to let me in. He did not follow me far, but sat +down in the vestibule among the Roman emperors.</p> + +<a name="i189" id="i189"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/i189.jpg" width="600" height="362" alt="OLYMPIA—ENTRANCE TO THE ATHLETIC FIELD" title="" /> +<span class="caption">OLYMPIA—ENTRANCE TO THE ATHLETIC FIELD</span> +</div> + +<p>On my right I saw the entrance to what seemed a small gallery, or +perhaps a series of small rooms. In front of me was a large, calm, +well-lighted hall, with a wooden roof and walls of a deep, dull red, +round which were ranged various objects. My eyes were attracted +immediately to one figure, a woman apparently almost in flight, +radiantly advancing, with thin draperies floating back from an +exquisitely vital form—the celebrated "Victory" of Pæonius, now more +than two thousand years old. Beyond this marvel of suggested motion I +saw part of another room very much smaller than the hall and apparently +empty. It drew me on, as in certain Egyptian temples the dim holy of +holies draws the wanderer onward with an influence that may not be +resisted. I took no more heed of the "Victory," of Hercules winning the +apples of the Hesperides, or of anything else, but walked forward, came +into the last room, and found myself alone with the Hermes of Olympia.</p> + +<p>The room in which the Hermes stands—alone save for the little child on +his arm—is exactly opposite the distant entrance of the museum. The +keeper, when letting me in, had left the big door wide open. In my heart +I thanked him, but not at that moment, for just then I did not notice +it. I was looking at the Hermes.</p> + +<p>A great deal of sad nonsense is talked in our day by critics of art, +music, and literature about "restraint." With them the word has become a +mere parrot cry, a most blessed word, like Mesopotamia. They preach +restraint very often to those who have little or nothing to restrain. +The result is nullity. In striving to become "Greek," too many unhappy +ones become nothing at all. Standing before the Hermes of Olympia, one +realizes as never before the meaning, the loveliness, of restraint, of +the restraint of a great genius, one who could be what he chose to be, +and who has chosen to be serene. This it is to be Greek. Desire of +anything else fails and lies dead. In the small and silent room, hidden +away from the world in the green wilderness of Elis, one has found that +rare sensation, a perfect satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Naked the Hermes stands, with his thin robe put off, and flowing down +over the trunk of a tree upon which he lightly leans. He is resting on +his way to the nymphs, but not from any fatigue. Rather, perhaps, +because he is in no haste to resign his little brother Dionysus to their +hands for education. Semele, the mother, is dead, and surely this +gracious and lovely child, touching because of his innocent happiness, +his innocent eagerness in pleasure, looks to Hermes as his protector. He +stretches out one soft arm in an adorable gesture of desire. The other +clings to the shoulder of Hermes. And Hermes watches him with an +expression of divine, half-smiling gentleness, untouched by sadness, by +any misgiving, such as we often feel about the future of a little child +we love; Hermes watches him, contemplative, benign, celestial.</p> + +<p>There is a pause in the hurry, in the sorrow, of this travailing world; +there is a hush. No more do the human cries sound in the midst of that +darkness which is created by our misunderstanding. No longer do the +frantic footfalls go by. The golden age has returned, with its knowledge +of what is not needed—a knowledge that we have lost.</p> + +<p>I looked up from Hermes and the little brother, and, in the distance, +through the doorway of the museum, I saw a tiny picture of Elis bathed +in soft, golden light; a calm hillside, some green and poetic country, +and, in the foreground, like a message, a branch of wild olive.</p> + +<p>That is what we need, what secretly we desire, our branch, perhaps our +crown, of wild olive. And all the rest is as nothing.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IN_CONSTANTINOPLE" id="IN_CONSTANTINOPLE"></a>IN CONSTANTINOPLE</h2> + +<a name="i196" id="i196"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/i196.jpg" width="400" height="600" alt="THE GRAND BAZAAR IN CONSTANTINOPLE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE GRAND BAZAAR IN CONSTANTINOPLE</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter V</span></h2> + +<h3>IN CONSTANTINOPLE</h3> + + +<p>Constantinople is beautiful and hateful. It fascinates and it repels. +And it bewilders—how it bewilders! No other city that I have seen has +so confused and distressed me. For days I could not release myself from +the obsession of its angry tumult. Much of it seems to be in a perpetual +rage, pushing, struggling, fighting, full of ugly determination to +do—what? One does not know, one cannot even surmise what it desires, +what is its aim, if, indeed, it has any aim. These masses of dark-eyed, +suspicious, glittering people thronging its streets, rushing down its +alleys, darting out of its houses, calling from its windows, muttering +in its dark and noisome corners, gathering in compact, astonishing +crowds in its great squares before its mosques, blackening even its +waters, amid fierce noises of sirens from its innumerable steamers and +yells from its violent boatmen, what is it that they want? Whither are +they going in this brutal haste, these Greeks, Corsicans, Corfiotes, +Montenegrins, Armenians, Jews, Albanians, Syrians, Egyptians, Arabs, +Turks? They have no time or desire to be courteous, to heed any one but +themselves. They push you from the pavement. They elbow you in the road. +Upon the two bridges they crush past you, careless if they tread upon +you or force you into the mud. If you are in a caique, traveling over +the waters of the Golden Horn, they run into you. Caique bangs into +caique. The boatmen howl at one another, and somehow pull their craft +free. If you are in a carriage, the horses slither round the sharp +corners, and you come abruptly face to face with another carriage, +dashing on as yours is dashing, carelessly, scornfully, reckless +apparently of traffic and of human lives. There seems to be no plan in +the tumult, no conception of anything wanted quietly, toward which any +one is moving with a definite, simple purpose. The noise is beyond all +description. London, even New York, seems to me almost peaceful in +comparison with Constantinople. There is no sound of dogs. They are all +dead. But even their sickly howling, of which one has heard much, must +surely have been overpowered by the uproar one hears to-day, except +perhaps in the dead of night.</p> + +<p>Soldiers seem to be everywhere. To live in Constantinople is like living +in some vast camp. When I was there, Turkey was preparing feverishly for +war. The streets were blocked with trains of artillery. The steamers in +the harbor were vomiting forth regiments of infantry. Patrols of +horsemen paraded the city. On my first night in Pera, when, weary with +my efforts to obtain some general conception of what the spectacular +monster really was, what it wanted, what it meant, what it was about to +do, I had at length fallen asleep toward dawn, I was wakened by a +prolonged, clattering roar beneath my windows. I got up, opened the +shutters, and looked out. And below me, in the semi-darkness, I saw +interminable lines of soldiers passing: officers on horseback, men +tramping with knapsacks on their backs and rifles over their shoulders; +then artillery, gun-carriages, with soldiers sitting loosely on them +holding one another's hands; guns, horses, more horses, with officers +riding them; then trains of loaded mules. On and on they went, and +always more were coming behind. I watched them till I was tired, +descending to the darkness of Galata, to the blackness of old Stamboul.</p> + +<p>Gradually, as the days passed by, I began to understand something of the +city, to realize never what it wanted or what it really meant, but +something of what it was. It seemed to me then like a person with two +natures uneasily housed in one perturbed body. These two natures were +startlingly different the one from the other. One was to me +hateful—Pera, with Galata touching it. The other was not to be +understood by me, but it held me with an indifferent grasp, and from it +to me there flowed a strange and almost rustic melancholy that I cared +for—Stamboul. And between these two natures a gulf was fixed—the gulf +of the Golden Horn.</p> + +<p>Pera is a mongrel city, set on a height and streaming blatantly to +Galata; a city of tall, discolored houses not unlike the houses of +Naples; of embassies and churches; of glaring shops and cafés glittering +with plate-glass, through which crafty, impudent eyes are forever +staring out upon the passers-by; of noisy, unattractive hotels and wizen +gardens, where bands play at stated hours, and pretentious, painted +women from second-rate European music-halls posture and squall under the +light of electric lamps. There is no rest, no peace in Pera. There seems +to be no discipline. Motor-cars make noises there even in the dead of +night, and when standing still, such as I never before heard or +imagined. They have a special breed of cars in Pera. Bicyclists are +allowed to use motor sirens to clear the way before them. One Sunday +when, owing to a merciful strike of the coachmen, there was comparative +calm, I saw a boy on horseback going at full gallop over the pavement of +the Grande Rue. He passed and repassed me five times, lashing his horse +till it was all in a lather. Nobody stopped him. You may do anything, it +seems, in Pera, if it is noisy, brutal, objectionable. Pera has all +that is odious of the Levant: impudence, ostentation, slyness, +indelicacy, uproar, a glittering commonness. It is like a blazing ring +of imitation diamonds squeezing a fat and dirty finger. But it is +wonderfully interesting simply because of the variety of human types one +sees there. The strange thing is that this multitude of types from all +over the East and from all the nations of Europe is reduced, as it were, +by Pera to a common, a very common, denominator. The influence of place +seems fatal there.</p> + +<a name="i202" id="i202"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 442px;"> +<img src="images/i202.jpg" width="442" height="600" alt="THE BOSPHOROUS—CONSTANTINOPLE IN THE DISTANCE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE BOSPHOROUS—CONSTANTINOPLE IN THE DISTANCE</span> +</div> + +<p>Stamboul is a city of wood and of marble, of dusty, frail houses that +look as if they had been run up in a night and might tumble to pieces at +any moment, and of magnificent mosques, centuries old, solid, huge, +superb, great monuments of the sultans. The fire-tower of Galata looks +toward the fire-tower of Stamboul across a forest of masts; but no +watchfulness, no swiftness of action, can prevent flames from +continually sweeping through Stamboul, leaving waste places behind them, +but dying at the feet of the mosques. As one looks at Stamboul from the +heights of Pera, it rises on its hills across the water, beyond the sea +of the Golden Horn, like a wonderful garden city, warm, almost ruddy, +full of autumnal beauty, with its red-brown roofs and its trees. And out +of its rich-toned rusticity the mosques heave themselves up like +leviathans that have nothing in common with it; the Mosque of Santa +Sophia, of the Sultan Achmet, with its six exquisite minarets, of +Mohammed the Conqueror, of Suleiman the Magnificent, and how many +others!</p> + +<p>There is no harmony between the mosques of Stamboul and the houses of +Stamboul. The former are enduring and grand; the latter, almost like +houses of cards. And yet Stamboul is harmonious, is very beautiful. +Romance seems brooding over it, trailing lights and shadows to clothe it +with flame and with darkness. It holds you, it entices you. It sheds +upon you a sense of mystery. What it has seen, Stamboul! What it has +known! What a core of red violence that heart has and always has had! +When the sunset dies away among the autumnal houses and between the +minarets that rise above the city like prayers; when the many cypresses +that echo the minarets in notes of dark green become black, and the +thousands of houses seem to be subtly run together into a huge streak of +umber above the lights at the waterside; when Seraglio Point stretches +like a shadowy spear toward the Bosporus and the Black Sea, and the +coasts of Asia fade away in the night, old Stamboul murmurs to you with +a voice that seems to hold all secrets, to call you away from the world +of Pera to the world of Aladdin's lamp. Pera glitters in the night and +cries out to heaven. Old Stamboul wraps itself in a black veil and +withdraws where you may not follow.</p> + +<a name="i207" id="i207"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 484px;"> +<img src="images/i207.jpg" width="484" height="600" alt="GALATA BRIDGE, WHICH CONNECTS GALATA AND PERA" title="" /> +<span class="caption">GALATA BRIDGE, WHICH CONNECTS GALATA AND PERA</span> +</div> + +<p>When I think of Constantinople as a whole, as seen, say, from the top of +the Galata tower, set up by the Genoese, I think of it as the most +wonderful, the most beautiful, and the most superbly situated city I +ever have seen.</p> + +<p>It is an Eastern city of the sea, pierced by water at its heart, giving +itself to the winds from Marmora, from the Golden Horn, from the +Bosporus, from the Black Sea. The snows of Asia look upon it across the +blue waters of Marmora, where the Iles des Princes sleep in a flickering +haze of gold. Stamboul climbs, like Rome, to the summits of seven hills, +and gazes over the great harbor, crowded with a forest of masts, echoing +with sounds of the sea, to Galata, and to Pera on the height. And the +Golden Horn narrows to the sweet waters of Europe, but broadens toward +Seraglio Point into the Bosporus, that glorious highway of water between +Europe and Asia, lined with the palaces and the villas of sultans and +pashas, of Eastern potentates and of the European Powers: Yildiz, and +Dolma bagtché, Beylerbey, and Cheragan, the great palace of the Khedive +of Egypt's mother, with its quay upon the water, facing the villa of her +son, which stands on the Asian shore, lifted high amid its woods, the +palace of the "sweet waters of Asia," the gigantic red-roofed palace +where Ismail died in exile. Farther on toward Therapia, where stand the +summer embassies of the Powers, Robert College, dignified, looking from +afar almost like a great gray castle, rises on its height above its +sloping gardens. Gaze from any summit upon Constantinople, and you are +amazed by the wonder of it, by the wonder of its setting. There is a +vastness, a glory of men, of ships, of seas, of mountains, in this grand +view which sets it apart from all other views of the world. Two seas +send it their message. Two continents give of their beauty to make it +beautiful. Two religions have striven to sanctify it with glorious +buildings. In the midst of its hidden squalor and crime rises what many +consider the most beautiful church—now a mosque—in the world. Perhaps +no harbor in Europe can compare with its harbor. For human and +historical interest it can scarcely be equaled. In the shadow of its +marvelous walls, guarded by innumerable towers and girdled by forests of +cypresses, it lies like some great magician, glittering, mysterious, +crafty, praying, singing, intriguing, assassinating, looking to East and +West, watchful, and full of fanaticism.</p> + +<p>I crossed the new bridge. The famous old timber bridge, which rocks +under your feet, has been moved up the Golden Horn, and now spans the +sea by the marine barracks. Evening was falling; a wind had brought +clouds from the Black Sea. The waters were colorless, and were licked +into fretful wavelets, on which the delicate pointed caiques swayed like +leaves on a tide. Opposite to me, at the edge of Stamboul, the huge +Mosque of Yeni-Validé-Jamissi rose, with its crowd of cupolas large and +small and its prodigious minarets. Although built by two women, it +looked stern and male, seemed to be guarding the bridge, to be +proclaiming to all the mongrels from Galata and Pera, who hurried from +shore to shore, that Stamboul will make no compromise with the infidel, +that in the great space before this mosque the true East in Europe +begins.</p> + +<p>Russia was in the wind, I thought. The breath of the steppes was +wandering afar to seek—what? The breath of the desert? The great mosque +confronted it, Islam erect, and now dark, forbidding under the darkening +sky. Even the minarets had lost their delicate purity, had become +fierce, prayers calling down destruction on unbelievers. And all the +cries of Stamboul seemed to gather themselves together in my ears, +keening over the sea above which I stood—voices of many nations; of +Turks, Arabs, Circassians, Persians, of men from the wilds of Asia and +the plains of India; voices of bashi-bazouks and of slaves; even, thin +high voices of eunuchs. From the quays to right and left of the bridge +crowds of people rose to my sight and hurried away; to them crowds of +people descended, sinking out of my sight. Soldiers and hamals passed, +upright and armed, bending beneath the weight of incredible loads. Calls +of Albanian boatmen came up from the sea. From the city of closely +packed fishermen's vessels rose here and there little trails of smoke. +On their decks dim figures crouched about wavering fires. A gnarled +beggar pushed me, muttering, then whining uncouth words. Along the +curving shore, toward the cypress-crowned height of Eyub, lights were +strung out, marking the waterside. Behind me tall Pera began to glitter +meretriciously. The Greek barbers, I knew, were standing impudently +before the doors of their little saloons, watching the evening pageant +as it surged slowly through the Grande Rue and toward the Taxim Garden. +Diplomats were driving home from the Sublime Porte in victorias. The +"cinemas" were gathering in their mobs. Tokatlian's was thronged with +Levantines whispering from mouth to mouth the current lies of the day. +Below, near the ships, the business men of Galata were rushing out of +their banks, past the large round-browed Montenegrins who stand on the +steps, out of their offices and shops, like a mighty swarm of disturbed +bees. The long shriek of a siren from a steamer near Seraglio Point tore +the gloom. I went on, despite menacing Validé Sultan, I lost myself in +the wonderful maze of Stamboul.</p> + +<a name="i212" id="i212"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 426px;"> +<img src="images/i212.jpg" width="426" height="600" alt="THE WATER-FRONT OF STAMBOUL WITH PERA IN THE DISTANCE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE WATER-FRONT OF STAMBOUL WITH PERA IN THE DISTANCE</span> +</div> + +<p>Stamboul near the waterside is full of contrasts so sharp, so strange +that they bewilder and charm, and sometimes render uneasy even one who +has wandered alone through many towns of the East. Sordid and filthy, +there is yet something grandiose in it, something hostile and +threatening in the watchful crowds that are forever passing by. Between +the houses the sea-wind blows up, and you catch glimpses of water, of +masts, of the funnels of steamers. Above the cries of the nations rise +the long-drawn wails and the hootings of sirens. The traffic of the +streets is made more confusing by your constant consciousness of the +traffic of the sea, embraced by it, almost mingling with it. Water and +wind, mud and dust, cries of coachmen and seamen, of motor-cars and +steamers, and soldiers, soldiers, soldiers passing, always passing. +Through a window-pane you catch a glitter of jewels and a glitter of +Armenian eyes gazing stealthily out. You pass by some marble tombs +sheltered by weary trees, under the giant shadow of a mosque, and a few +steps farther on you look through an arched doorway and see on the +marble floor of a dimly lighted hall half-naked men, with tufts of black +hair drooping from partly shaved heads and striped towels girt round +their loins, going softly to and fro, or bending about a fountain from +which water gushes with a silvery noise. This is a Turkish bath. +Throughout Stamboul there are bath-houses with little cupolas on their +roofs, and throughout Stamboul there are tombs; but the uneasy and +watchful crowds throng the quarters near the waterside and the great +bazaars and the spaces before the principal mosques. They are not spread +throughout the city. Many parts of Stamboul are as the waste places of +the earth, abandoned by men.</p> + +<p>By night they are silent and black; by day they look like the ways of a +great wooden village from which the inhabitants have fled. In their open +spaces, patches of waste ground, perhaps a few goats are trying to +browse among rubbish and stones, a few little children are loitering, +two or three silent men may be sitting under a vine by a shed, which is +a Turkish café. There is no sound of steps or of voices. One has no +feeling of being in a great city, of being in a city at all. Little +there is of romance, little of that mysterious and exquisite melancholy +which imaginative writers have described. Dullness and shabbiness brood +over everything. Yet an enormous population lives in the apparently +empty houses. Women are watching from the windows behind the grilles. +Life is fermenting in the midst of the dust, the discomfort, the almost +ghastly silence.</p> + +<a name="i217" id="i217"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 438px;"> +<img src="images/i217.jpg" width="438" height="600" alt="LOOKING DOWN STEP STREET, CONSTANTINOPLE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">LOOKING DOWN STEP STREET, CONSTANTINOPLE</span> +</div> + +<p>The great bazaar of Stamboul is a city within a city. As you stand +before its entrance you think of a fortress full of immured treasures. +And there are treasures of price under the heavy arches, in the long +roofed-over lanes. The bazaars of Tunis seem minute, of Damascus +ephemeral, of Cairo dressed up, of Jerusalem crushed together and +stifling, when compared with the vast bazaars of Stamboul, which have a +solidity, a massiveness, unshared by their rivals. I saw there many +cheap goods such as I have seen on certain booths in the East End of +London, but they were surrounded with a certain pomp and dignity, with a +curious atmosphere of age. Some parts of the bazaars are narrow. Others +are broad and huge, with great cupolas above them, and, far up, wooden +galleries running round them. Now and then you come upon an old fountain +of stained marble and dim faience about which men are squatting on their +haunches to wash their faces and hands and their carefully bared arms. +The lanes are paved and are often slippery. Just under the lofty roof +there are windows of white glass, and about them, and on arches and +walls, there are crude decorations in strong blues and purples, yellows +and greens. The serious merchants from many lands do not beset you with +importunities as you pass; but sometimes a lustrous pair of eyes invites +you to pause, or a dark and long-fingered hand gently beckons you toward +a jewel, a prayer-carpet, a weapon, or something strange in silver or +gold or ivory.</p> + +<p>One day a man from Bagdad invited me to buy a picture as I drew near to +him. It was the portrait of a dervish's cap worked in silk. The cap, +orange-colored and silver, was perched upon a small table (in the +picture) above which hung curtains in two shades of green. A heavy gilt +frame surrounded this "old master" of the East. We bargained. The +merchant's languages were broken, but at length I understood him to say +that the cap was a perfect likeness. I retorted that all the dervishes' +caps I had seen upon living heads were the color of earth. The merchant, +I believe, pitied my ignorance. His eyes, hands, arms, and even his +shoulders were eloquent of compassion. He lowered the price of the +picture by about half a farthing in Turkish money, but I resisted the +blandishment and escaped into the jewel bazaar, half regretting a lost +opportunity.</p> + +<p>Many Turkish women come to the bazaars only to meet their lovers. They +cover a secret desire by a pretense of making purchases. From the upper +floor of the yellow-blue-and-red kiosk, in which Turkish sweets are +sold, and you can eat the breasts of chickens cooked deliciously in +cream and served with milk and starch, I have watched these subtle +truants passing in their pretty disguises suggestive of a masked ball. +They look delicate and graceful in their thin and shining robes, like +dominoes, of black or sometimes of prune-color, with crape dropping +over their faces and letting you see not enough; for many Turkish women +are pretty.</p> + +<a name="i220" id="i220"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 439px;"> +<img src="images/i220.jpg" width="439" height="600" alt="PUBLIC LETTER-WRITERS IN A CONSTANTINOPLE STREET" title="" /> +<span class="caption">PUBLIC LETTER-WRITERS IN A CONSTANTINOPLE STREET</span> +</div> + +<p>One day I was in the upper room of a photographer's shop when two +Turkish women came in and removed their veils, standing with their backs +to the English infidel. One was obviously much younger than the other, +and seemed to have a beautiful figure. I was gazing at it, perhaps +rather steadily, when, evidently aware of my glance, she turned slowly +and deliberately round. For two or three minutes she faced me, looking +to right and left of me, above me, even on the floor near my feet, with +her large and beautiful blue-gray eyes. She was lovely. Young, perhaps +eighteen, she was slightly painted, and her eyebrows and long curling +lashes were blackened. Her features were perfect, her complexion was +smooth and brilliant, and her expression was really adorable. It seemed +to say to me quietly:</p> + +<p>"Yes, you are right. It is foolish ever to conceal such a face as this +with a veil when really there is not too much beauty in the world. <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Mais +que voulez-vous? Les Turcs!</span>" And the little hanum surely moved her thin +shoulders contemptuously. But her elderly companion pulled at her robe, +and slowly she moved away. As the two women left the room, the +photographer, a Greek, looked after them, smiling. Then he turned to me, +spread out his thin hands, and said, with a shrug, "<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Encore des +désenchantées</span>!"</p> + +<p>I thought of the disenchanted one day as I sat among the letter-writers +in the large and roughly paved court of the "Pigeon's Mosque," or Mosque +of Bajazet II. For hours I had been wandering on foot through the upper +quarters of old Stamboul, and I could not release my mind from the dull +pressure of its influence. All those wooden houses, silent, apparently +abandoned, shuttered—streets and streets of them, myriads of them! Now +and then above the carved wood of a lattice I had seen a striped +curtain, cheap, dusty, hanging, I guessed, above a cheap and dusty +divan. The doors of the houses were large and solid, like prison doors. +Before one, as I slowly passed by, I had seen an old Turk in a long +quilted coat of green, with a huge key in his hand, about to enter. He +glanced to right and left, then thrust the key into the door. I had felt +inclined to stop and say to him:</p> + +<p>"That house has been abandoned for years. Every one has migrated long +ago from this quarter of Stamboul. If you stay here, you will be quite +alone." But the old Turk knew very well that all the houses were full of +people, of imprisoned women. What a fate to be one of the prisoners!</p> + +<p>That was my thought as I looked at the sacred pigeons, circling in happy +freedom over the garden where Bajazet slumbers under his catafalque, +fluttering round the cupolas of their mosque, and beneath the +gray-pink-and-white arcade, with its dull-green and plum-colored +columns, or crowding together upon the thin branches of their +plane-tree. A pure wind blew through the court and about the marble +fountain. The music made by the iridescent wings of the birds never +ceased, and their perpetual cooing was like the sweet voice of content. +The sunshine streamed over the pavement and penetrated under the arches, +making the coral beads of a rosary glow and its gold beads glitter, +giving to the amber liquid carried on a tray by a boy to a barber +beneath his awning a vivacity almost of flame. Beside me a lover was +dictating a letter to a scribe, who squatted before his table, on which +were arranged a bright-blue inkstand and cup, a pile of white paper, and +a stand with red pens and blue pencils. Farther on, men were being +shaved, and were drinking coffee as they lounged upon bright-yellow +sofas. Near me a very old Turk, with fanatical, half-shut eyes, was +sitting on the ground and gazing at the pink feet of the pigeons as they +tripped over the pavement, upon which a pilgrim to the mosque had just +flung some grain. As he gazed, he mechanically fingered his rosary, +swiftly shifting the beads on and on, beads after beads, always two at a +time. Some incense smoldered in a three-legged brazier, giving out its +peculiar and drowsy smell. On the other side of the court a fruit-seller +slept by a pile of yellow melons. The grain thrown by the pilgrim was +all eaten now, and for a moment the sunshine was dimmed by the cloud of +rising and dispersing birds, gray and green, with soft gleams like +jewels entangled in their plumage. Some flew far to the tall +white-and-gray minaret of their mosque, others settled on the cupola +above the fountain. A few, venturous truants, disappeared in the +direction of the seraskierat wall, not far off. The greater number +returned to their plane-tree on the right of the lover and the scribe. +And as the lover suggested, and the scribe wrote from right to left, the +pigeons puffed out their breasts and cooed, calling other pilgrims to +remember that even the sacred have their carnal appetites, and to honor +the poor widow's memory before going up to the mosque to pray.</p> + +<p>One day I went up the hill toward Yildiz to see the Selamlik. That +morning the sultan was going to pray in the mosque of wood which Abdul +Hamid built close to the mysterious, walled-in quarter of palaces, +harems, kiosks, gardens, barracks, and parks which he made his prison. +From the Bosporus you can see it extending from the hilltop almost to +the sea, a great property, outside the city, yet dominating it, with +dense groves of trees in which wild animals were kept, with open spaces, +with solitary buildings and lines of roofs, and the cupola of the +mosque of the soldiers. All about it are the high walls which a coward +raised up to protect him and his fear. The mosque is below the great +entrance-gates on a steep hillside beyond the walls. A large modern +house, white, with green shutters, in which Abdul Hamid used to grant +audiences and, I believe, to give banquets, looks down on it. From the +upper windows of this dwelling the Turks say the ex-sultan often stared +at his city through powerful glasses.</p> + +<a name="i227" id="i227"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 393px;"> +<img src="images/i227.jpg" width="393" height="600" alt="THE COURTYARD OF THE "PIGEON'S MOSQUE"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE COURTYARD OF THE "PIGEON'S MOSQUE"</span> +</div> + +<p>The mosque is not large. It is yellow and white, with a minaret of +plaster on the side next the sea, and a graveled courtyard surrounded by +green iron railings and planted with a few trees. On the side next to +Yildiz is a steep bank. A road runs up the hill to the left of the +mosque as you face Yildiz, and another hidden road descends from the +gates and gives access to the courtyard behind the mosque. The sultan +has therefore a choice of two routes, and nobody seems to know +beforehand which way he will come. There were very few tourists in +Constantinople when I was there. People were afraid of war, and before I +left the Orient express had ceased to run. But I found awaiting the +padishah many Indian pilgrims, a large troop of pilgrims from Trebizond +who were on their way to Mecca, several Persians wearing black toques, +and a good many Turks. These were in the courtyard close to the mosque, +where I was allowed to stand by the aristocratic young chief of police, +who wore a woolly, gray, fez-shaped cap. Outside the railings stood a +dense crowd of veiled women.</p> + +<p>Soon after I arrived a squadron of the body-guard rode up from the city, +carrying red-and-green pennons on long staffs, and halted before the +gates of the palace. And almost at the same moment the palace musicians, +in dark-blue, red, and gold, wearing short swords, and carrying shining +brass instruments, marched into the inclosure. They stood still, then +dropped their instruments on the ground, moved away, and sat down on the +bank, lolling in easy attitudes. Time slipped by, and important people +strolled in, officers, court officials, attendants. Eunuchs shambled +loosely past in wonderfully fitting, long frock-coats, wearing turquoise +rings on their large weak hands, and looking half-piteously impudent. +Men hurried into the mosque carrying brown Gladstone bags. Nazim Pasha, +weary and grave, the weight of war already on his shoulders, talked with +the master of the ceremonies beside some steps before which lay a +bright-yellow carpet.</p> + +<p>This is the sultan's entrance to the mosque. It is not imposing. The two +flights of steps curve on right and left to a trivial glass porch which +reminded me of that bulbous addition to certain pretentious houses which +is dignified by the name "winter garden." Some smart, very strong +Turkish sailors lined up opposite me. Not far from the porch stood a +group of military doctors in somber uniforms. A second yellow carpet was +unrolled to cover the flight of steps on the left of the porch, more +eunuchs went by, more Gladstone bags were carried past me. Then came +soldiers in yellowish brown, and palace officials in white and blue, +with red collars. Two riding-horses were led by two grooms toward the +back of the mosque. The musicians rose languidly from the bank, took up +their instruments, turned round, and faced toward Yildiz. Through the +crowd, like a wind, went that curious stir which always precedes an +important event for which many people are waiting. Nazim Pasha spoke to +the chief of police, slowly moving his white-gloved hands, and then from +the hilltop came a rhythmical, booming noise of men's voices, very deep, +very male: the soldiers before the gates were acclaiming their +sovereign. I saw a fluttering movement of pennons; the sultan had +emerged from the palace and was descending by the hidden road to perform +his devotions.</p> + +<p>In perhaps five minutes an outrider appeared from behind the mosque, +advancing slowly parallel with the bank, followed by a magnificent +victoria, covered with gold and lined, I think, with satin, drawn by two +enormous brown horses the harness of which was plated with gold. They +were driven from the box by a gorgeous coachman, who was standing. The +musicians, turning once more, struck up the "Sultan's Hymn," the +soldiers presented arms; the brown horses wheeled slowly round, and I +saw within a few paces of me, sitting alone in the victoria in a +curious, spread-out attitude, a bulky and weary old man in a blue +uniform, wearing white kid gloves and the fez. He was staring straight +before him, and on his unusually large fair face there was no more +expression than there is on a white envelop. Women twittered. Men +saluted. The victoria stopped beside the bright-yellow carpet. After a +moment's pause, as if emerging from a sort of trance, the Calif of Islam +got up and stepped slowly and heavily out, raising one hand to his fez. +Then, as if with an abrupt effort to show alertness, he walked almost +quickly up the steps to the glass porch, turned just before entering it, +stood for an instant looking absolutely blank, again saluted, swung +round awkwardly, and disappeared. Almost immediately afterward one of +his sons, a rather short and fair young man with a flushed face, +attended by an officer, hurried past me and into the mosque by another +entrance.</p> + +<p>A few persons went away while his Majesty was praying; but all the +pilgrims stayed, and I stayed with them. Several of the officials walked +about on the gravel, talked, smoked, and drank orangeade, which a +servant brought to them on a silver tray. Now and then from within the +mosque came to us the loud murmur of praying voices. The soldiers of the +body-guard descended the hill from the gates of Yildiz on foot, leading +their horses, and assembled outside the courtyard. They were followed by +a brilliant squadron of cavalry in dark-blue-and-red uniforms, with +green-and-red saddle-cloths; their blood-red flag was borne before them, +and their own music accompanied them. The soldiers in yellowish brown +had piled arms and were standing at ease, smoking and talking. Twenty +minutes perhaps went by, then a Gladstone bag was carried out of the +mosque. We all gazed at it with reverence. What was in it? Or, if there +was nothing, what had been recently taken out of it? I never shall know. +As the bag vanished, a loud sound of singing came from within, and a +troop of palace guards in vivid-red uniforms, with white-and-red toques +trimmed with black astrakhan, marched into the court led by an officer. +Some gendarmes followed them. Then the chief of police tripped forward +with nervous agility, and made us all cross over and stand with our +backs to the bank in a long line. An outrider, dressed in green and +gold, and holding a big whip, rode in on a huge strawberry-roan horse. +Behind him came a green-and-red brougham with satin cushions, drawn by +a pair of strawberry roans. A smart coachman and footman sat on the box, +and on each side rode two officers on white horses.</p> + +<p>Now the singing ceased in the mosque. People began to come out. The +sultan's son, less flushed, passed by on foot, answering swiftly the +salutes of the people. The brougham was drawn up before the +bright-yellow carpet. Nazim Pasha once more stood there talking with +several officials. The soldiers had picked up their arms, the sailors +were standing at attention.</p> + +<p>Then there was a very long wait.</p> + +<p>"The sultan is taking coffee."</p> + +<p>Another five minutes passed.</p> + +<p>"The sultan is sleeping."</p> + +<p>On this announcement being made to me, I thought seriously of departing +in peace; but a Greek friend, who had spoken to an official, murmured in +my ear:</p> + +<p>"The sultan is awake and is changing his clothes."</p> + +<p>This sounded promising, and I decided to wait.</p> + +<a name="i235" id="i235"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 434px;"> +<img src="images/i235.jpg" width="434" height="600" alt="STREET SCENE IN CONSTANTINOPLE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">STREET SCENE IN CONSTANTINOPLE</span> +</div> + +<p>It seemed to me that his Majesty was a very long time at his toilet; but +at last we were rewarded. Abruptly from the glass porch he appeared in +European dress, with very baggy trousers much too long in the leg and a +voluminous black frock-coat. He stood for a moment holding the +frock-coat with both hands, as if wishing to wrap himself up in it. +Then, still grasping it, he walked quickly down the steps, his legs +seeming almost to ripple beneath the weight of his body, and stepped +heavily into the brougham, which swung upon its springs. The horses +moved, the carriage passed close to me, and again I gazed at this mighty +sovereign, while the Eastern pilgrims salaamed to the ground. +Mechanically he saluted. His large face was still unnaturally blank, and +yet somehow it looked kind. And I felt that this old man was weary and +sad, that his long years of imprisonment had robbed him of all vitality, +of all power to enjoy; that he was unable to appreciate the pageant of +life in which now, by the irony of fate, he was called to play the +central part. All alone he sat in the bright-colored brougham, carrying +a flaccid hand to his fez and gazing blankly before him. The carriage +passed out of the courtyard, but it did not go up the hill to the +palace.</p> + +<p>"The sultan," said a voice, "is going out into the country to rest and +to divert himself."</p> + +<p>To rest, perhaps; but to divert himself!</p> + +<p>After that day I often saw before me a large white envelop, and the most +expressive people in the world were salaaming before it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="STAMBOUL_THE_CITY_OF_MOSQUES" id="STAMBOUL_THE_CITY_OF_MOSQUES"></a>STAMBOUL, THE CITY OF MOSQUES</h2> + +<a name="i240" id="i240"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 402px;"> +<img src="images/i240.jpg" width="402" height="600" alt="THE MOSQUE OF THE YENI-VALIDÉ-JAMISSI, CONSTANTINOPLE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE MOSQUE OF THE YENI-VALIDÉ-JAMISSI, CONSTANTINOPLE</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter VI</span></h2> + +<h3>STAMBOUL, THE CITY OF MOSQUES</h3> + + +<p>Stamboul is wonderfully various. Compressed between two seas, it +contains sharp, even brutal contrasts: of beauty and ugliness, grandeur +and squalor, purity and filth, silence and uproar, the most delicate +fascination and a fierceness that is barbaric. It can give you peace or +a sword. The sword is sharp and cruel; the peace is profound and +exquisite.</p> + +<p>Every day early I escaped from the uproar of Pera and sought in Stamboul +a place of forgetfulness. There are many such places in the city and on +its outskirts: the mosques, the little courts and gardens of historic +tombs; the strange and forgotten Byzantine churches, lost in the maze of +wooden houses; the cemeteries vast and melancholy, where the dead sleep +in the midst of dust and confusion, guarded by giant cypresses; the +lonely and shadowed ways by the walls and the towers; the poetic glades +and the sun-kissed terraces of Seraglio Point.</p> + +<p>Santa Sophia stands apart from all other buildings, unique in beauty, +with the faint face of the Christ still visible on its wall; Christian +in soul though now for so long dedicated to the glory of Allah and of +his prophet. I shall not easily forget my disappointment when I stood +for the first time in its shadow. I had been on Seraglio Point, and, +strolling by the famous Royal Gate to look at the lovely fountain of +Sultan Ahmed, I saw an enormous and ugly building decorated with huge +stripes of red paint, towering above me as if fain to obscure the sun. +The immensity of it was startling. I asked its name.</p> + +<p>"Santa Sophia."</p> + +<p>I looked away to the fountain, letting my eyes dwell on its projecting +roof and its fretwork of gold, its lustrous blue and green tiles, +splendid ironwork, and plaques of gray and brown marble.</p> + +<p>It was delicate and enticing. Its mighty neighbor was almost repellent. +But at length—not without reluctance, for I feared perhaps a deeper +disappointment—I went into the mosque by the Porta Basilica, and found +myself in the midst of a vast harmony, so wonderful, so penetrating, so +calm, that I was conscious at once of a perfect satisfaction.</p> + +<p>At first this happy sense of being completely satisfied seemed shed upon +me by shaped space. In no other building have I had this exact feeling, +that space had surely taken an inevitable form and was announcing +itself to me. I stood beneath the great dome, one hundred and +seventy-nine feet in height, and as I gazed upward I felt both possessed +and released.</p> + +<a name="i245" id="i245"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 396px;"> +<img src="images/i245.jpg" width="396" height="600" alt="THE ROYAL GATE LEADING TO THE OLD SERAGLIO" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE ROYAL GATE LEADING TO THE OLD SERAGLIO</span> +</div> + +<p>For a long time I was fully aware of nothing but the vast harmony of +Santa Sophia, descending upon me, wrapping me round. I saw moving +figures, tiny, yet full of meaning, passing in luminous distances, +pausing, bending, kneeling; a ray of light falling upon a white turban; +an Arab in a long pink robe leaning against a column of dusky red +porphyry; a dove circling under the dome as if under the sky. But I +could not be strongly conscious of any detail, or be enchanted by any +separate beauty. I was in the grasp of the perfect whole.</p> + +<p>The voice of a child disturbed me.</p> + +<p>Somewhere far off in the mosque a child began to sing a great tune, +powerfully, fervently, but boyishly. The voice was not a treble voice; +it was deeper, yet unmistakably the voice of a boy. And the melody sung +was bold, indeed almost angry, and yet definitely religious. It echoed +along the walls of marble, which seemed to multiply it mysteriously, +adding to it wide murmurs which were carried through all the building, +into the dimmest, remotest recesses. It became in my ears as the +deep-toned and fanatical thunder of Islam, proclaiming possession of the +church of Divine Wisdom which had been dedicated to Christ. It put me +for a time definitely outside of the vast harmony. I was able at last to +notice details both architectural and human.</p> + +<p>Santa Sophia has nine gates leading to it from a great corridor or outer +hall, lined with marble and roofed with old-gold mosaic. As you enter +from the Porta Basilica you have an impression of pale yellow, gold, and +gray; of a pervading silvery glimmer, of a pervading gleam of delicate +primrose, brightly pure and warm. You hear a sound of the falling of +water from the two fountains of ablution, great vases of gray marble +which are just within the mosque.</p> + +<p>Gray and gold prevail in the color scheme, a beautiful combination of +which the eyes are never tired. But many hues are mingled with them: +yellow and black, deep plum-color and red, green, brown, and very dark +blue. The windows, which are heavily grated, have no painted glass, so +the mosque is not dark. It has a sort of lovely and delicate dimness, +touching as the dimness of twilight. It is divinely calm, almost as +Nature can be when she would bring her healing to the unquiet human +spirit. We know that during the recent war Santa Sophia was crowded with +suffering fugitives, with dying soldiers and cholera patients. I feel +that even upon them in their agony it must have shed rays of comfort, +into their hearts a belief in a far-off compassion waiting the +appointed time to make itself fully manifest.</p> + +<p>The great dome is of gold, and of either black or very deep blue. +Myriads of chandeliers, holding tiny glass cups, hang from the roof. +Pale yellow matting covers the plain of the floor. The silvery glimmer +comes from the thousands of cups, the primrose gleam from the matting. +The walls are lined with slabs of exquisite marble of many patterns and +colors. Gold mosaic decorates the roof and the domes. Galleries, +supported by marble arcades, and leaning on roofs of dim gold, run round +a great part of the mosque; which is subtly broken up, and made +mysterious, enticing, and various by curved recesses of marble, by +innumerable arches, some large and heavy, some fragile and delicate, by +screens, and by forests of columns. Two-storied aisles flank the vast +nave, through which men wander looking almost like little dolls. So huge +is the mosque that the eyes are deceived within it, and can no longer +measure heights or breadths with accuracy. When I first stood in the +nave I thought the chandeliers were hanging so near to the ground that +it must be dangerous for a tall man to try to pass underneath them. They +are, of course, really far higher than the head of a giant.</p> + +<p>In Santa Sophia intricacy, by some magical process of genius, results in +simplicity. Everything seems gently but irresistibly compelled to +become a minister to the beauty and the calmness of the whole: the +arcades of gray marble and gold; the sacred mosaics of Holy Mary, and of +the six-winged Seraphim, which still testify to another age and another +religion; the red columns of porphyry from Baalbec's Temple of the Sun; +the Ephesus columns of verde antico; the carved capitals and the bases +of shining brass; the gold and gray pulpit, with its long staircase of +marble closed by a gold and green curtain, and its two miraculously +beautiful flags of pearly green and faint gold, by age made more +wonderful than when they first flew on the battle-field, or were carried +in sacred processions; the ancient prayer-rugs fixed to the walls; the +Sultan's box, a sort of long gallery, ending in a kiosk with a gilded +grille, and raised upon marble pillars; the great doors and the curtains +of dull red wool; the piled carpets that are ready against the winter, +when the cool yellow matting is covered up; the great green shields in +the pendentives, bearing their golden names of God and his prophet, of +Ali, Osman, Omar, and Abu-Bekr. Everything slips into the heart of the +great harmony, however precious, however simple, even however crude. +There are a few ugly things in Santa Sophia: whitewash covering mosaics, +stains of fierce yellow, blotches of plaster which should be removed. +They do not really matter; one cannot heed them when one is immersed +in such almost mysterious beauty.</p> + +<a name="i250" id="i250"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 399px;"> +<img src="images/i250.jpg" width="399" height="600" alt="THE MOSQUE OF SANTA SOPHIA" title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE MOSQUE OF SANTA SOPHIA</span> +</div> + +<a name="p239" id="p239"></a> +<p>Men and birds are at ease in Santa Sophia. Doves have made their home in +the holy place. They fly under the long arcades, they circle above the +galleries, they rest against blocks of cool marble the color of which +their plumage resembles. And all day long men pass in through the +gateways, and become at once little, yet strangely significant in the +vastness which incloses and liberates them. They take off their shoes +and carry them, or lay them down in the wooden trays at the edges of +those wide, railed-in platforms covered with matting, called <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'masbata'">mastaba</ins>, +which are characteristic of mosques, and which are supposed to be for +the use of readers of the Koran. Then they are free of the mosque. Some +of them wander from place to place silently gazing; others kneel and +pray in some quiet corner; others study, or sing, or gossip, or sink +into reverie or slumber. Many go up to the <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'masbata'">mastaba</ins>, take off their outer +garments and hang them over the rails, hang their handkerchiefs beside +them, tuck their legs under their bodies, and remain thus for hours, +staring straight before them with solemn eyes as if hypnotized. +Children, too, go to the <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'masbata'">mastaba</ins>, settle cozily down and read the Koran +aloud, interspersing their study with gay conversation. On one of them I +found my singing boy. Small, fanatical, with head thrown back and the +fez upon it, he defiantly poured forth his tune, while an older +companion, opposite to him and looking not unlike an idol in its shrine, +stared impassively as if at the voice.</p> + +<p>Santa Sophia is mystical in its twilight beauty. Its vastness, its +shape, its arrangement, its beautifully blended colors, the effects of +light and of sound within it, unite in creating an atmosphere that +disposes the mind to reverie and inclines the soul to prayer. Along the +exquisite marble walls, in the mellow dimness, while Stamboul just +outside is buying and selling, is giving itself to love and to crime, +the murmur of Islam's devotion steals almost perpetually, mysterious as +some faint and wide-spread sound of Nature. The great mosque seems to be +breathing out its message to the Almighty, and another message—to man. +The echoes are not clear, but dim as the twilight under the arches of +marble and beneath the ceilings of gold. They mingle without confusion +in a touching harmony, as all things mingle in this mosque of the great +repose.</p> + +<a name="i255" id="i255"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 401px;"> +<img src="images/i255.jpg" width="401" height="600" alt="IN THE CEMETERY OF EYUB, ON THE GOLDEN HORN" title="" /> +<span class="caption">IN THE CEMETERY OF EYUB, ON THE GOLDEN HORN</span> +</div> + +<p>And yet not all things!</p> + +<p>One day I saw standing alone in the emperor's doorway a child in +blood-colored rags. The muezzin had called from the minaret the summons +to the midday prayer, and far off before the mihrab, and the sacred +carpet on which the prophet is said to have knelt, the faithful were +ranged in long lines: pilgrims on the way to Mecca; Turks in quilted +coats and in European dress; two dervishes with small, supple limbs and +pale faces smoldering with reverie; and some hard-bitten, sun-scorched +soldiers, perhaps bound for the battle-fields of the Balkan War. Moving +almost as one man they bent, they kneeled, they touched the floor with +their foreheads, leaned back and again bowed down. Their deep and +monotonous voices were very persistent in prayer. And the echoes, like +secret messengers, bore the sound along the arcades, carried it up into +the vast space of the dome, under the transverse arches and the vaulted +openings of the aisles, past the faint Christ on the wall, and the "Hand +of the Conqueror," with horrible outspread fingers, the Sweating Column, +and the Cradle of Jesus, to the child in the blood-red rags. He stood +there where Theophilus entered, under the hidden words, "I am the Light +of the World," gazing, listening, unconscious of the marvelous effect +his little figure was making, the one absolutely detached thing in the +mosque. The doves flew over his head, vanishing down the marble vistas, +becoming black against golden distances. The murmur of worship increased +in power, as more and more of the faithful stole in, shoeless, to join +the ranks before the mihrab. Like incense from a thurible, mysticism +floated through every part of the mosque, seeming to make the vast +harmony softer, to involve in it all that was motionless there and all +that was moving, except the child in the emperor's doorway, who was +unconsciously defiant, like a patch of fresh blood on a pure white +garment. The prayers at last died away, the echoes withdrew into +silence. But the child remained where he was, crude, almost sinister in +his wonderful colored rags.</p> + +<p>Close to Santa Sophia in the Seraglio grounds is the old Byzantine +Church of Saint Irene, now painted an ugly pink, and used by the Turks +as an armory and museum. It contains many spoils taken by the Turks in +battle, which are carefully arranged upon tables and walls. Nothing is +disdained, nothing is considered too paltry for exhibition. I saw there +flags riddled with bullets; but I saw also odd boots taken from Italian +soldiers in Tripoli; caps, belts, water-bottles, blood-stained tunics +and cloaks, saddles, weapons, and buttons. Among relics from Yildiz +Kiosk was a set of furniture which once belonged to Abdul Hamid, and +which he is said to have set much store by. It shows a very distinctive, +indeed a somewhat original taste, being made of red plush and weapons. +The legs of the tables and chairs are guns and revolvers. As I looked at +the chairs I could not help wondering whether ambassadors were invited +to sit in them, after they had been loaded to their muzzles, or whether +they were reserved for subjects whom the ex-Sultan suspected of +treachery. Near them were several of Abdul Hamid's favorite +walking-sticks containing revolvers, a cane with an electric light let +into the knob, his inkstand, the mother-of-pearl revolver which was +found in his pocket, and the handkerchief which fell from his hand when +he was taken prisoner by the Young Turks, who have since brought their +country to ruin.</p> + +<a name="i258" id="i258"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 445px;"> +<img src="images/i258.jpg" width="445" height="600" alt="INTERIOR OF SANTA SOPHIA" title="" /> +<span class="caption">INTERIOR OF SANTA SOPHIA</span> +</div> + +<p>In a series of galleries, under arches and ceilings of yellow and white, +stands, sits, reclines, and squats, in Eastern fashion, a strange +population of puppets, dressed in the costumes of the bygone centuries +during which Turkey has ruled in Europe. Those fearful ex-Christians, +the Janissaries, who were scourges of Christianity, look very mild now +as they stand fatuously together, no longer either Christian or +Mussulman but fatally Madame Tussaud. Once they tucked up their coats to +fight for the "Father" who had ravished them away from their fathers in +blood. Now, even the wicked man, who flees when no one pursueth, could +scarcely fear them. Near them the chief eunuch, a plump and piteous +gentleman, reclines absurdly upon his divan, holding his large black +pipe, and obsequiously attended by a bearded dwarf in red, and by a thin +aide-de-camp in green. The Sheikh-ul-Islam bends beneath the coiled +dignity of his monstrous turban; a really lifelike old man, with a +curved gray beard and a green and white turban, reads the Koran +perpetually; and soldiers with faces made of some substance that looks +like plaster return blankly the gaze of the many real soldiers who visit +this curious show.</p> + +<p>One day, when I was strolling among the puppets of Saint Irene, some +soldiers followed me round. They were deeply interested in all that they +saw, and at last became interested in me. Two or three of them addressed +me in Turkish, which alas! I could not understand. I gathered, however, +that they were seriously explaining the puppets to me, and were giving +me information about the Janissaries, and Orchan, who was the founder of +that famous corps. I responded as well as I could with gestures, which +seemed to satisfy them, for they kept close beside me, and one, a +gigantic fellow with pugnacious mustaches, frequently touched my arm, +and once even took me by the hand to draw my attention to a group which +he specially admired. All this was done with gravity and dignity, and +with a childlike lack of self-consciousness. We parted excellent +friends. I distributed cigarettes, which were received with smiling +gratitude, and went on my way to Seraglio Point, realizing that there is +truth in the saying that every Turk is a gentleman.</p> + +<p>Upon Seraglio Point I found many more soldiers, resting in groups by the +edge of the sea, upon the waste ground that lies at the foot of the +walls, beyond the delightful abandoned glades that are left to run wild +and to shelter the birds. If you wish to understand something of the +curious indifference that hangs, like moss, about the Turk, visit +Seraglio Point. There, virtually in Stamboul, is one of the most +beautifully situated bits of land in the world. Though really part of a +great city, much of it has not been built upon. Among the trees on the +ridge, looking to Marmora and Asia, to the Bosporus and the palaces, to +the Golden Horn, Galata, and Pera, lie the many buildings and courts of +the Old Seraglio, fairy-like in their wood. The snowy cupolas, the +minarets, and towers look ideally Eastern. They suggest romantic and +careless lives, cradled in luxury and ease. In that white vision one +might dream away the days, watching from afar the pageant of the city +and the seas, hearing from afar the faint voices of the nations, +listening to strange and monotonous music, toying with coffee and +rose-leaf jam in the jewel-like Kiosk of Bagdad, and dreaming, always +dreaming. There once the Sultan dwelt in the Eski-Serai, which exists no +longer, and there was built the great Summer Palace, which was inhabited +by Suleiman I, and by his successors. Hidden in the Old Seraglio there +are many treasures, among them the magnificent Persian throne, which is +covered with gold and jewels. Beyond this neglected wonder-world the +woods extend toward the waters; hanging woods by the sea—and the Turks +care nothing about them. One may not wander through them; one may not +sit in them; one may only look at them, and long to lose oneself in +their darkness and silence, to vanish in their secret recesses. The Turk +leaves them alone, to rot or to flourish, as Allah and Nature will it.</p> + +<p>On the third of Stamboul's seven hills stands the Mosque of Suleiman the +Magnificent, all glorious without, as Santa Sophia is not, but +disappointing within, despite its beautiful windows of jeweled glass +from Persia, and the plaques of wonderful tiles which cover the wall on +either side of the mihrab. Somber and dark, earth-colored and gray, +dark-green and gold, it has a poorly painted cupola and much plastered +stone which is ugly. But there is fascination in its old dimness, in its +silence and desertion. More than once I was quite alone within it, and +was able undisturbed to notice its chief internal beauty, the exquisite +proportions which trick you at first into believing it to be much +smaller than it is.</p> + +<a name="i265" id="i265"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 444px;"> +<img src="images/i265.jpg" width="444" height="600" alt="ST. GEORGE'S GREEK CHURCH, NOW A MOSQUE, CONSTANTINOPLE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">ST. GEORGE'S GREEK CHURCH, NOW A MOSQUE, CONSTANTINOPLE</span> +</div> + +<p>When seen from without it looks colossal. It is splendid and imposing, +but it is much more, for it has a curiously fantastic, and indeed almost +whimsical charm, as if its builder, Sinan, had been a playful genius, +full of gaiety and exuberance of spirit, who made this great mosque with +joy and with lightness of heart, but who never forgot for a moment +his science, and who could not be vulgar even in his most animated +moments of invention. Massiveness and grace are blended together in this +beautiful exterior. Round the central dome multitudes of small +domes—airy bubbles thrown up on the surface of the mosque—are grouped +with delightful fantasy. Four minarets, the two farthest from the mosque +smaller than their brethren, soar above the trees. They are gray, and +the walls of the mosque are gray and white. In the forecourt there is a +fine fountain covered with a cupola; the roof of the cloisters which +surround it is broken up into twenty-four little domes. A garden lies +behind the mosque, and the great outer court is planted with trees.</p> + +<p>In the garden are the turbehs, or tombs, of Suleiman the Magnificent and +of Roxalana, "the joyous one," that strange captive from Russia, who by +her charm and the power of her temperament subdued a nation's ruler, who +shared the throne of the sultan, who guided his feet in the ways of +crime, and who to the day of her death was adored by him. For Roxalana's +sake, Suleiman murdered his eldest son by another wife, and crept out +from behind a curtain to look upon him dead; and for Roxalana's sake +that son's son was stabbed to death in his mother's arms. Now the fatal +woman sleeps in a great octagonal marble tomb near the tomb of her lord +and slave.</p> + +<p>An atmosphere of peace and of hoary age broods over these tombs and the +humble graves that crowd close about them. Mulberry-trees, fig-trees, +and cypresses throw patches of shade on the rough gray pavement, in +which is a small oval pool, full of water lest the little birds should +go thirsty. A vine straggles over a wall near by; weeds and masses of +bright yellow flowers combine their humble efforts to be decorative; and +the call to prayer drops down from the mighty minarets to this strange +garden of stones, yellow flowers, and weeds, where the lovers rest in +the midst of Stamboul, which once feared and adored them. They were two +criminals, but there was strength in their wickedness, strength in their +pride and their passion. Romance attended their footsteps, and romance +still lingers near them.</p> + +<p>One morning, as I sat beneath the noble fig-tree which guards Roxalana's +tomb, and listened to the voice of the muezzin floating over old +Stamboul, and watched the birds happily drinking at the edge of their +little basin in the pavement, I thought of the influence of cities. Does +not Stamboul forever incite to intrigue, to lawlessness, to bloodshed? +The muezzin calls to prayer, but from old Stamboul arises another voice +sending forth an opposing summons. Suleiman heard it echoed by Roxalana, +and slew his son; Roxalana heard and obeyed it; and how many others have +listened and been fatally moved by it! It has sounded even across the +waters of the sea and over the forests of Yildiz; and Armenians have +been slain by thousands while Europe looked on. And perhaps in our day, +and after we are gone, old Stamboul will command from its seven hills +and will be horribly obeyed.</p> + +<p>I shall always remember, among many less famous buildings, the small +mosque of Rustem Pasha near the Egyptian Bazaar, with its beautiful +arcade and its strangely confused interior, full of loveliness and bad +taste, of atrocious modern painting and oleographic horrors, mingled +with exquisite marble and perfect tiles. The wall of the arcade gleams +with lustrous faience, purple and red, azure and milk-white, and with +patterns of great flowers with green centers and turquoise leaves. I +recall, too, the Mosaic Mosque, once the church of the monastery of the +Chora, which stands on a hill from which Stamboul looks like a beautiful +village embowered in green, cheerful and gaily fascinating. The church +is ugly outside, yellow and lead-colored, with a white plaster minaret, +and it is surrounded by wooden shanties like booths. But its mosaics are +very interesting and beautiful, and its chief muezzin, Mustafa Effendi, +is a delight in his long golden robe and his yellow turban.</p> + +<p>Mustafa Effendi was born near Brusa in Asia Minor, but for forty-two +years he has held the office of chief muezzin at the Mosaic Mosque, on +which all his thoughts seem centered. He speaks English a little, and +has an almost inordinate sense of humor. As he pointed out the mosaics +to me with his wrinkled hand he abounded in comment, and more than once +his thin voice was almost overwhelmed by ill-suppressed laughter. He +seemed specially entertained as he drew my attention to two birds on the +wall—"Monsieur Peacock and Madame Peahen"; and he was obliged to +abandon all dignity and to laugh outright when we came to a company of +saints and angels.</p> + +<p>The most sacred mosque in Turkey lies outside of Stamboul, at Eyub, far +up the Golden Horn and not very distant from the "sweet waters of +Europe." In it, on their accession, the sultans are solemnly girded with +Osman's sword instead of being crowned. Eyub is a place of tombs. Chief +eunuchs and grand vizirs sleep near the sea in great mausoleums inclosed +within gilded railings, and some of them surrounded by gardens; on the +hillside above them thousands of the faithful rest under cypresses in +graves marked by dusty headstones leaning awry.</p> + +<a name="i270" id="i270"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 439px;"> +<img src="images/i270.jpg" width="439" height="600" alt="STREET VISTA IN GALATA FROM END OF BRIDGE, +CONSTANTINOPLE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">STREET VISTA IN GALATA FROM END OF BRIDGE, +CONSTANTINOPLE</span> +</div> + +<p>The center or heart of Eyub is a pleasant village, which gathers closely +about the mosque, and is full of a quietly cheerful life. Just beyond +the court of the mosque is a Turkish bath, where masseurs, with shaven +heads and the usual tuft, lounge in the sunshine while waiting for +customers. Near by are many small shops and cafés. In one of the latter +I ate an excellent meal of rice and fat mutton, cooked on a spit which +revolved in the street. If you stray from the center of the village +toward the outskirts you find yourself in a deserted rummage of tombs, +of white columns, white cupolas, cloisters, rooms for theological +students, mausoleums of white and pink marble. No footsteps resound on +the pavement of the road, no voices are heard in the little gardens, no +eyes look out through the railings. As I wandered through the sunshine +to the small stone platform, where the Sultan descends from his horse +when he comes to be girded with the sword, I saw no sign of life; and +the only noise that I heard was the persistent tap of a hammer near the +sea, where his Majesty is building an imperial mosque of white stone +from Trebizond.</p> + +<p>Presently, growing weary of the white and silent streets of the tombs, I +turned into a narrow alley that ran by a grated wall, above which great +trees towered, climbing toward heaven with the minaret of the Mosque of +Eyub, but failing in their journey a little below the muezzin's balcony. +They were cypresses, and creepers climbed affectionately with them. Just +beyond them I came into the court of the mosque, and found myself in the +midst of a crowd of pilgrims before the tomb of Abu Eyub, which is +covered with gilding and faience. Near it is a fountain protected by +magnificent plane-trees which are surrounded by iron railings decorated +with dervish caps.</p> + +<p>I had been told more than once that the Christian dog is unwelcome in +Eyub, and I was soon made aware of it. In the façade of the tomb there +is a hole through which one can look into the interior. Taking my turn +among the pilgrims, I presently stood in front of this aperture, and was +about to peep in discreetly when a curtain was sharply drawn across it +by some one inside. I waited for a moment, but in vain; the curtain was +not drawn back, so at last I meekly went on my way, feeling rather +humiliated. A Greek friend afterward told me that an imâm was stationed +within the tomb, and that no doubt he had drawn the curtain against me +because I was an unbeliever.</p> + +<p>Duly chastened by this rebuff, I nevertheless went on to the mosque, and +was allowed to go in for a moment on making a payment. The attendant was +very rough and suspicious in manner, and watched me as if I were a +criminal; and the pilgrims who thronged the interior stared at me with +open hostility. I thought it wiser, therefore, to make only a cursory +examination of the handsome marble interior, with its domes and +semi-domes, and afterward, with a sense of relief, took my way up the +hillside, to spend an hour among the leaning gravestones in the shade of +the cypresses. Each stone above the grave of a man was carved with a +fez, each woman's stone with a flower; and tiny holes formed receptacles +to collect the rain-water, so that the birds might refresh themselves +above the dust of the departed.</p> + +<p>The great field of the dead was very tranquil that day. I saw only two +closely veiled women moving slowly in the distance near the small tekkeh +of the Mevlevi dervishes, and an old Turk sitting with a child, at the +edge of the hill before a café. The women, who were shrouded in black, +disappeared among the gigantic cypresses, seeking perhaps among the +thousands of graves one stone with a flower or a fez that was dear to +their hearts because of the sleeper beneath it. The old Turk rolled a +cigarette in his knotty fingers, looking dreamily down at the child, who +sat with his little legs under him silently staring at the water below, +upon which no vessels, no caiques were moving. On the bare hill to my +left I saw the white gleam of the stones in a Jewish cemetery; and, +beneath, the pale curve of the Golden Horn, ending not far off in the +peace of the desolate country. Red-roofed Eyub, shredding out into +blanched edges of cupolas and tombs by the sultan's landing-place, +marked the base of the hill; and, beyond, in the distance, mighty +Stamboul, brown, with red lights here and there where the sun struck a +roof, streamed away to Seraglio Point. The great prospect was closed by +the shadowy mountains of Asia, among which I divined, rather than +actually saw, the crest of Olympus.</p> + +<p>In these Turkish cemeteries there is a romantic and poignant melancholy +such as I have found in no other places of tombs. They breathe out an +atmosphere of fatalism, of bloodless resignation to the inevitable. +Their dilapidation suggests rather than mere indifference a sense of the +uselessness of care. Dust unto dust—and there an end! But far off in +Stamboul the minarets contradict the voices that whisper over the fields +of the dead. For the land of the Turk is the home of contradictions; and +among them there are some that are welcome.</p> + +<a name="i277" id="i277"></a> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 437px;"> +<img src="images/i277.jpg" width="437" height="600" alt="A VIEW OVER CONSTANTINOPLE SHOWING THE MOSQUE OF SANTA +SOPHIA" title="" /> +<span class="caption">A VIEW OVER CONSTANTINOPLE SHOWING THE MOSQUE OF SANTA +SOPHIA</span> +</div> + +<p>To rid myself of the clinging impression of sadness that stole over me +among the cypresses of Eyub, I took a boat, later in the day, to the +shore of Asia, and visited the English graveyard at Haidar Pasha, where +long ago Florence Nightingale established her hospital for soldiers +wounded in the Crimean War, and where now Germans have built an +elaborate station from which some day we shall be able to set out for +Bagdad. Already smart corridor cars, with white roofs and spotlessly +clean curtains, and with "Bagdad" printed in large letters upon them, +are running from the coast to mysterious places in the interior of +Asia. In the excellent restaurant beer flows freely. If the mystic word +"Verboten" were not absent from the walls, one might fancy himself in +Munich on entering the station at Haidar Pasha. On the hill just above +the station lies the English cemetery, a delightful garden of rest, full +of hope and peace. It is beautifully kept, and contains the home of the +guardian, a British soldier, who lives with his wife and daughters in a +cozy stone bungalow fronted by flower-beds and trees. Close to his house +is a grave with a broken column, raised on a platform which is +approached by three steps and surrounded by a circular grass-plot. Here +I found a serious Montenegrin, one of the workers in the cemetery, +busily employed. He had spread sheets of paper all over the grass-plot, +and up the steps of the grave, and had scattered above them a great mass +of wool which suggested a recent sheep-shearing. When I came up he was +adding more wool to the mass with a sort of grave ardor. I asked him +what the wool was for and why he was spreading it out. He glanced up +solemnly and replied:</p> + +<p>"It is for my bed. I live in that shed over there and am preparing my +mattress for the winter."</p> + +<p>And he continued quietly and dexterously to scatter the wool over the +tomb.</p> + +<p>The cemetery, which looks out over the sea and the beautiful shores of +Europe, is full of the graves of soldiers who died of wounds received in +the Crimean War, or of maladies caught in camp and in the trenches. +Among them lie the bodies of many devoted women who worked to allay +their sufferings.</p> + +<p>Bent perpetually on escape from the uproar of Pera, in which at night I +was forced to dwell, I made more than one excursion to the walls and the +seven towers of Stamboul. There are three sets of walls: the land, the +sea, and the harbor walls. The seven towers, Yedi Kuleh, are very near +to the Sea of Marmora, and are now unused and deserted; the home no +longer of imprisoned ambassadors, of sultans and vizirs, but of winds +from the islands and from Asia, of grass, yellow wild-flowers, and the +fallen leaves of the autumn. When I went there I was alone, save for one +very old man, the peaceful successor of the Janissaries who long ago +garrisoned this marvelous place of terror and crime. With him at my +heels I wandered among the trees of the deserted inclosure surrounded by +gray and crenellated walls, above which the towers rose up grimly toward +the windy sky; I penetrated through narrow corridors of stone; I crawled +through gaps and clambered over masses of rubble and fallen masonry; I +visited tiny and sinister chambers inclosed in the thickness of the +walls; peered through small openings; came out unexpectedly on +terraces. And the old man muttered and mumbled in my ears, monotonously +and without emotion, the history of crime connected with the place. Here +some one was starved to death; here another was strangled by night; in +this chamber a French ambassador was held captive; the blood of a sultan +dyed these stones red; at the foot of this bit of wall there was a +massacre; just there some great person was blinded. And, with the voice +in my ears, I looked and I saw white butterflies flitting, with their +frivolous purity, among the leaves of acacia-trees, and snails crawling +lethargically over rough gray stones. Near the Golden Gate, where an +earthquake has shaken down much of the wall, and the Byzantine dove of +carved stone still remains—ironically?—as an emblem of peace, was a +fig-tree giving green figs; Marmora shone from afar; in the waterless +moat, that stretches at the feet of the walls, the grasses were waving, +the ivy grew thickly, here and there big patches of vegetables gave +token of the forethought and industry of men. And beyond, stretching +away as far as eye could see, the cemeteries without the city +disappeared into distances, everywhere shadowed by those tremendous, +almost terrible, cypresses that watch over the dead in the land of the +Turk.</p> + +<p>Beauty and sadness, crime and terror, wonderful romance, and a ghastly +desolation seemed brooding over this strange region beyond the reach of +the voices of the city. Even the ancient man was silent at last. He had +recited all the horrors his old memory contained, and at my side he +stood gazing, with bleary eyes, across the moat and the massy cypresses, +and, with me, he turned to capture the shining of Marmora.</p> + +<p>On the farther verge of the moat three dogs, which had somehow escaped +the far-flung nets, wandered slowly seeking for offal; some women +hovered darkly among the graves; a thin, piercing cry, that was not +without a wild sweetness, rose to me from somewhere below. I looked down +and there, among the rankly growing grasses of the moat, I saw a young +girl, very thin, her black hair hanging and bound with bright +handkerchiefs, sketching vaguely a danse du ventre. As I looked she +became more precise in her movements, and her cries grew more fierce and +imperative. From some hovel, hidden among the walls, other children +streamed out, with cries and contortions, to join her. For here, among +the ruins, the Turkish Gipsies have made their home. I threw down some +coins and turned away. And as I went, returning through the old places +of assassination, I was pursued by a whining of pipes and a thrumming of +distant guitars. The Gipsies of old Stamboul were trying to lure me down +from my fastness to make merry with them among the tombs.</p> + +<div class="transnote"> +<h3>Transcriber's Notes</h3> +<p>Obvious spelling and punctuation errors have been repaired. Other +unusual period spellings and grammatical uses were retained.</p> + +<p><a href="#p19">P. 19</a>: "Blazekovic Park;" diacritical markings were removed in the +text version, but retained in the utf-8 and html versions.</p> + +<p><a href="#p239">P. 239</a>: three uses of "mastaba;" original used "masbata."</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Near East, by Robert Hichens + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEAR EAST *** + +***** This file should be named 39252-h.htm or 39252-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/2/5/39252/ + +Produced by Adrian Mastronardi, JoAnn Greenwood, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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