Sketches Part 12

The most striking picture, however, of this charming retreat is a lake surrounded by light cloisters of white marble, and in its centre a fountain of crocodiles, carved in the same material. That material as well as the art, however, are European. It was Carrara that gave the pure and glittering blocks, and the Tuscan chisel called them into life.

It is a pity that the honourable board of directors, in their recent offering of the silver fountain to the pasha, had not been aware of the precedent thus afforded by his highness's own creation for the introduction of living forms into Moslem sculpture and carving. They might have varied their huge present with advantage. Indeed, with the crocodile and the palm-tree, surely something more beautiful and not less characteristic than their metallic mausoleum might easily have been devised.

This marble pavilion at s...o...b..a, indeed, with its graceful, terraced peristyles, its chambers and divans, the bright waters beneath, with their painted boats, wherein the ladies of the harem chase the gleaming shoals of gold and silver fish, is a scene worthy of a sultan; but my attendant, a Greek employed in the garden, told me I ought to view it on some high festival, crowded by the court in their rich costumes, to appreciate all its impressive beauty. This was a scene not reserved for me, yet my first visit to s...o...b..a closed with an incident not immemorable.

I had quitted the marble pavilion and was about to visit the wilderness where roam, in apparent liberty, many rare animals, when I came, somewhat suddenly, on a small circular plot into which several walks emptied, cut through a thick hedge of myrtle. By a sun-dial stood a little man, robust, though aged, rather stout, and of a very cheerful countenance; his attire plain and simple, a pelisse of dark silk, and a turban white as his snowy beard; he was in merry conversation with his companion, who turned out to be his jester. In the background, against the myrtle wall, stood three or four courtiers in rich dresses--courtiers, for the little old man was their princely master--the great Pasha of Egypt.

EDEN AND LEBANON

I FOUND myself high among the mountains, and yet amid a series of green slopes. All around me sparkled with cultivation--vineyards, gardens, groves of young mulberry trees, cl.u.s.tering groups of the sycamore and the walnut. Falling around, the cascades glittered in the sun, until, reaching the bottom of the winding valley, they mingled with the waters of a rivulet that glided through a glade of singular vividness.

On the broad bosom of a sunny hill, behind which rose a pyramid of bare rock, was a most beautiful village--flat cottages with terraced roofs, shaded by spreading trees, and surrounded by fruit and flowers. A cerulean sky above; the breath of an infinite variety of fragrant herbs around; and a land of silk and wine; everywhere the hum of bees and the murmur of falling streams; while, on the undulating down, a band of beauteous children were frolicking with the kids.

The name of this village, the fairest spot in the region of Lebanon, is _Eden_, which, rendered from the Arabic into the English tongue, means a 'Dwelling of Delight.'

I ascended the peak that overhung this village. I beheld ridges of mountains succeeding each other in proportionate pre-eminence, until the range of the eternal glaciers, with their l.u.s.trous cones, flashed in the Syrian sun. I descended into the deep and solemn valleys, skirted the edges of rocky precipices, and toiled over the savage monotony of the dreary table-land. At length, on the brow of a mountain, I observed the fragments of a gloomy forest--cedar, and pine, and cypress. The wind moaning through its ancient avenues and the hoa.r.s.e roar of a cataract were the only sounds that greeted me.

In the front was a scanty group of gigantic trees, that seemed the relics of some pre-Adamite grove. Their grey and ma.s.sive trunks, each of which must have been more than twelve yards in girth, were as if quite dead; while, about twenty feet from the ground, they divided into five or six huge limbs, each equal to a single tree, but all, as it were, lifeless amid their apparent power.

Bare of all foliage, save on their ancient crests--black, blasted, riven, and surrounded by deep snows--behold the trees that built the palaces of Solomon!

When I recall the scene from which I had recently parted, and contrasted it with the spectacle before me, it seemed that I had quitted the innocence and infancy of Nature to gaze on its old age--of exhausted pa.s.sions and desolate neglect.

A SYRIAN SKETCH

THE sun was quivering above the horizon, when I strolled forth from Jaffa to enjoy the coming breeze amid the beautiful gardens that environ that agreeable town. Riding along the previous day, my attention had been attracted by a marble gate, the fragment of some old temple, that now served as the entrance to one of these enclosures, their secure boundary otherwise formed by a picturesque and impenetrable hedge of Indian fig.

It is not a hundred yards from the town; behind it stretches the plain of Ramie--the ancient Arimathea-broad and fertile, and, at this moment, green; for it was just after the latter rains, when Syria is most charming. The caravan track winding through it led to Jerusalem.

The air was exquisitely soft and warm, and sweet with the perfume of the orange bowers. I pa.s.sed through the marble portal, adorned with some florid yet skilful sculptures, and found myself in a verdant wilderness of fruit-trees, rising in rich confusion from the turf, through which not a single path seemed to wander. There were vast groups of orange and lemon-trees, varied occasionally with the huge offspring of the citron-tree, and the glowing produce of the pomegranate; while, ever and anon, the tall banana raised its head aloft with its green or golden cl.u.s.ters, and sometimes the graceful and languid crest of the date-bearing palm.

While I was in doubt as to the direction I should bend my steps, my ear was caught by the wild notes of Turkish music; and, following the sounds, I emerged upon a plot of turf, clear from trees, in the middle of which was a fountain, and, by its margin, seated on a delicate Persian carpet, a venerable Turk. Some slaves were near him, one of whom, at a little distance, was playing on a rude lyre; in the master's left hand was a volume of Arabian poetry, and he held in his right the serpentine tube of his narghileh, or Syrian pipe. When he beheld me, he saluted me with all the dignity of the Orient, pressing his hand to his heart, but not rising. I apologised for my intrusion; but he welcomed me with serene cordiality, and invited me to share his carpet and touch his pipe.

Some time elapsed in answering those questions respecting European horses and European arms, wherein the Easterns delight. At length, the solemn and sonorous voice of the muezzin, from the minarets of Jaffa, came floating on the air. The sun had set; and, immediately, my host and his companions performed their ablutions in the fountain; and kneeling towards Mecca, repeated their accustomed prayers. Then rising, the Turkish aga, for such was his rank, invited me to enjoy the evening breeze, and accompany him in a walk round his garden.

As we proceeded, my companion plucked an orange, and taking a knife from his girdle, and cutting the fruit in half, offered me one moiety, and threw the other away. More than once he repeated this ceremony, which somewhat excited my surprise. At length he inquired my opinion of his fruit. I enlarged, and with sincerity, on its admirable quality, the racy sweetness of its flavour, which I esteemed unequalled; but I could not refrain from expressing my surprise, that of fruit so exquisite he should studiously waste so considerable a portion.

'Effendi,' said the Turk, with a grave though gracious smile, 'to friends we give only the sunny side.'

THE BOSPHORUS

THE stranger whose felicity it has been to float between the sh.o.r.es of the Bosphorus will often glance back with mingled feelings of regret and satisfaction to the memory of those magical waters. This splendid strait, stretching from the harbour of Constantinople to the mouth of the Euxine, may be about twenty miles in length, and its ordinary breadth seldom exceeds one mile. The old Greek story tells that one might hear the birds sing on the opposite sh.o.r.e. And thus two great continents are divided by an ocean stream narrower than many rivers that are the mere boundaries of kingdoms. Yet it is strange that the character of these two famous divisions of our earth is nowhere more marked than on the sh.o.r.es of the Bosphorus. The traveller turns without disappointment from the gay and glittering sh.o.r.es of Europe to the sublimer beauty and the dusky grandeur of Asia.

The European side, until you advance within four or five miles of the Black Sea, is almost uninterruptedly studded with fanciful and ornamental buildings: beautiful villages, and brilliant summer palaces, and bright kiosks, painted in arabesque, and often gilt. The green background to the scene is a sparkling screen of terraced gardens, rising up a chain of hills whose graceful undulations are crowned with groves of cypress and of chestnut, occasionally breaking into fair and delicate valleys, richly wooded, and crossed by a grey and antique aqueduct.

But in Asia the hills rise into mountains, and the groves swell into forests. Everything denotes a vast, rich and prolific land, but there is something cla.s.sical, antique, and even mysterious in its general appearance. An air of stillness and deep repose pervades its less cultivated and less frequented sh.o.r.es; and the very eagles, as they linger over the lofty peak of 'the Giant's grave,' seem conscious that they are haunting some heroic burial-place.

I remember that one of the most strange, and even sublime, spectacles that I ever beheld occurred to me one balmy autumnal eve as I returned home in my caique from Terapia, a beautiful village on the Bosphorus, where I had been pa.s.sing the day, to Pera. I encountered an army of dolphins, who were making their way from the aegean and the Sea of Marmora through the Strait to the Euxine. They stretched right across the water, and I should calculate that they covered, with very little interval, a s.p.a.ce of three or four miles. It is very difficult to form an estimate of their number, but there must, of course, have been many thousands. They advanced in grand style, and produced an immense agitation: the snorting, spouting, and splas.h.i.+ng, and the wild panting rush, I shall never forget. As it was late, no other caique was in sight, and my boatmen, apprehensive of being run down, stopped to defend themselves with their oars. I had my pistols with me, and found great sport, as, although the dolphins made every effort to avoid us, there were really crowds always in shot. Whenever one was. .h.i.t, general confusion ran through the whole line. They all flounced about with increased energy, ducked their round heads under water, and turned up their arrowy tails. We remained thus stationary for nearly three-quarters of an hour, and very diverting I found the delay. At length the mighty troop of strangers pa.s.sed us, and, I suppose, must have arrived at the Symplegades about the same time that I sought the elegant hospitality of the British Palace at Pera.

AN INTERVIEW WITH A GREAT TURK

WHEN I was in Egypt the great subject of political speculation was the invasion of Syria; not that the object of the formation of the camp at Alexandria was generally known; on the contrary, it was a secret,-but a secret shared by many ears. Forty thousand well-disciplined troops were a.s.sembled at Cairo; and it was whispered at Court that Abdallah Pasha of Acre might look to himself, a young and valiant chief, by-the-bye, whom I well know, but indulging in dissipation, extraordinary even in the Levant. I was exceedingly anxious of becoming in some manner attached to this expedition; and as I was not without influence in the proper quarters, there appeared little probability of my wish not being gratified. With these views I remained in Egypt longer than I had intended, but it would seem that the invaders were not quite as ardent as their intended volunteer, for affairs at Alexandria progressed but indifferently. Orders and counter-orders, marches and counter-marches, boats pressed on the Nile for the pa.s.sage of troops from the capital, which were all liberated the next day, many divans and much smoking; but still the troops remained within pistol-shot of the citadel, and months glided away apparently without any material advancement.

I had often observed that although there was in most subjects an excellent understanding between the two Pashas, Mehemet Ali and Ibrahim, a degree of petty jealousy existed between them on the point of their mutual communications with foreigners; so that if I happened one morning to attend the divan of the Grand Pasha, as the Franks styled the father, I was sure, on some excuse or other, of being summoned the next day to the levee of the son; I was therefore not surprised when, one day, on my return from paying my respects to the divan at the citadel of Cairo, I found a Nubian eunuch in attendance at my quarters, telling me that Ibrahim Pasha was anxious to see me.

I accordingly repaired without loss of time to the sumptuous palace of that chieftain: and being ushered into his presence, I found the future conqueror of Syria attended only by his dragoman, his secretary; and an aide-de-camp.

A pipe was immediately brought me, but Ibrahim himself did not smoke.

After the usual compliments, 'Effendi,' said Ibrahim, 'do you think the English horses would live in Egypt?'

I was too practised an observer of the Turkish character to suppose that English horses were really the occasion of my summons. The Turks are very diplomatic, and are a long time coming to the point. I answered, however, that, with English grooms, I was of opinion that English horses would flourish in any climate. A curt, dry, uninteresting conversation about English horses was succeeded by some queries, which I had answered fifty times before, about English pistols: and then came a sly joke or two about English women. At length the point of the interview began to poke its horns out of this sh.e.l.l of t.i.ttle-tattle.

'If you want to go with the army,' said his Highness, ''tis I who am the person to speak to. They know nothing about those things up there'

(meaning the citadel).

I answered his Highness that I had attended the divan merely as a matter of ceremony, and that I had not interchanged a word with the Grand Pasha on the subject of the expedition.

'I suppose you talked with Boghaz?' said Ibrahim.

Boghaz was the favourite of Mehemet Ali.

'Neither with Boghaz nor any one else. Your Highness having once graciously promised me that I should attend you, I should have thought it both impertinent and unnecessary to apply to any other person whatever.'

'Tahib!' exclaimed his Highness, which meant that he was satisfied.

'After all, I do not know whether the army will march at all. You have been in Syria?'

I answered, in the affirmative, a question which had often been addressed to me.

'Do you think I could march as far as Gaza?' inquired Ibrahim, with a smile.

This was a question of mockery. It was like asking whether the Life Guards could take Windsor. I therefore only returned the smile, and said that I did not doubt the enemy would agree to settle affairs upon that condition.

'Tahib! Well I think I can march as far as they speak Arabic!' This was a favourite phrase of his Highness.

I answered that I hoped, if I had the honour of attending his Highness, the army would march till we could see another ocean.

'It is all talk up there,' replied Ibrahim; 'but my life is a life of deeds.'