University of Virginia Library

89. LETTER LXXXIX.

Dardanelles.—The oddest invitation I ever had
in my life was from a Turkish bey to a féte champêtre,
on the ruins of Troy! We have just returned, full
of wassail and pillaw, by the light of an Asian moon.

The morning was such a one as you would expect
in the country where mornings were first made. The
sun was clear, but the breeze was fresh, and as we sat
on the bey's soft divans, taking coffee before starting,
I turned my cheek to the open window, and confessed
the blessing of existence.

We were sixteen, from the ship, and our boat was
attended by his interpreter, the general of his troops,
the governor of Bournabashi (the name of the Turkish
town near Troy), and a host of attendants on foot and
horseback. His cook had been sent forward at daylight
with the provisions.

The handsome bey came to the door, and helped
to mount us upon his own horses, and we rode off,
with the whole population of the village assembled to
see our departure. We forded the Scamander, near
the town, and pushed on at a hard gallop over the
plain. The bey soon overtook us upon a fleet gray
mare, caparisoned with red trappings, holding an umbrella
over his head, which he courteously offered to
the commodore on coming up. We followed a grass
path, without hill or stone, for nine or ten miles, and
after having passed one or two hamlets, with their
open thrashing-floors, and crossed the Simois, with
the water to our saddle-girths, we left a slight rising
ground by a sudden turn, and descended to a cluster
of trees, where the Turks sprang from their horses,
and made signs for us to dismount.

It was one of nature's drawing-rooms. Thickets
of brush and willows enclosed a fountain, whose clear
waters were confined in a tank, formed of marble slabs,
from the neighboring ruins. A spreading tree above,
and soft meadow-grass to its very tip, left nothing to
wish but friends and a quiet mind to perfect its beauty.
The cook's fires were smoking in the thicket, the
horses were grazing without saddle or bridle in the
pasture below, and we lay down upon the soft, Turkish
carpets, spread beneath the trees, and reposed from
our fatigues for an hour.

The interpreter came when the sun had slanted a
little across the trees, and invited us to the bey's gardens,
hard by. A path, overshadowed with wild brush,
led us round the little meadow to a gate, close to the
fountain-head of the Scamander. One of the common
cottages of the country stood upon the left, and in
front of it a large arbor, covered with a grape-vine,
was underlaid with cushions and carpets. Here we
reclined, and coffee was brought us with baskets of
grapes, figs, quinces, and pomegranates, the bey and
his officers waiting on us themselves with amusing
assiduity. The people of the house, meantime, were
sent to the fields for green corn, which was roasted for
us, and this with nuts, wine, and conversation, and a
ramble to the source of the Simois, which bursts from
a cleft in the rock very beautifully, whiled away the
hours till dinner.

About four o'clock we returned to the fountain. A
white muslin cloth was laid upon the grass between
the edge and the overshadowing tree, and all around
it were spread the carpets upon which we were to recline
while eating. Wine and melons were cooling
in the tank, and plates of honey and grapes, and new-made
butter (a great luxury in the archipelago), stood
on the marble rim. The dinner might have fed Priam's
army. Half a lamb, turkeys, and chickens, were
the principal meats, but there was, besides, “a rabble
route” of made dishes, peculiar to the country, of ingredients
at which I could not hazard even a conjecture.

We crooked our legs under us with some awkwardness,
and producing our knives and forks (which we
had brought with the advice of the interpreter), commenced,
somewhat abated in appetite by too liberal a
lunch. The bey and his officers sitting upright, with
their feet under them, pinched off bits of meat dexterously
with the thumb and forefinger, passing from one
to the other a dish of rice, with a large spoon, which
all used indiscriminately. It is odd that eating with
the fingers seemed only disgusting to me in the bey.
His European dress probably made the peculiarity
more glaring. The fat old governor who sat beside
me was greased to the elbows, and his long grey beard
was studded with rice and drops of gravy to his girdle.
He rose when the meats were removed, and waddled
off to the stream below, where a wash in the clean
water made him once more a presentable person.

It is a Turkish custom to rise and retire while the
dishes are changing, and after a little ramble through
the meadow, we returned to a lavish spread of fruits
and honey, which concluded the repast.

It is doubted where Troy stood. The reputed site
is a rising ground, near the fountain of Bournabashi,
to which we strolled after dinner. We found nothing
but quantities of fragments of columns, believed by
antiquaries to be the ruins of a city, that sprung up
and died long since Troy.

We mounted and rode home by a round moon,
whose light filled the air like a dust of phosphoric silver.
The plains were in a glow with it. Our Indian
summer nights, beautiful as they are, give you no idea
of an Asian moon.

The bey's rooms were lit, and we took coffee with
him once more, and, fatigued with pleasure and excitement,
got to our boats, and pulled up against the
arrowy current of the Dardanelles to the frigate

A long, narrow valley, with precipitous sides, commences
directly at the gate of Trieste, and follows a
small stream into the mountains of Friuli. It is a
very sweet, green place, and studded on both sides
with cottages and kitchen-gardens, which supply the
city with flowers and vegetables. The right hand
slope is called the Boschetto, and is laid out with pretty
avenues of beach and elm as a public walk, while,
at every few steps, stands a bowling-alley or drinking
arbor, and here and there a trim little restaurant, just
large enough for a rural party. It is, perhaps, a mile
and a half in length, and one grand café in the centre,
usually tempts the better class of promenaders into
the expense of an ice.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and all Trieste was pouring
out to the Boschetto. I had come ashore with
one of the officers, and we fell into the tide. Few
spots in the world are so variously peopled as this
thriving seaport, and we encountered every style of
dress and feature. The greater part were Jewesses.
How instantly the most common observer distinguishes
them in a crowd! The clear sallow skin, the sharp
black eye and broad eyebrow, the aqueline nose, the
small person, the slow, cautious step of the old, and

the quick, restless one of the young, the ambitious ornaments,
and the look of cunning, which nothing but
the highest degree of education does away, mark the
race with the definiteness of another species.

We strolled on to the end of the walk, amused constantly
with the family groups sitting under the trees
with their simple repast of a fritata and a mug of beer,
perfectly unconscious of the presence of the crowd.
There was something pastoral and contented in the
scene that took my fancy. Almost all the female
promenaders were without bonnets, and the mixture
of the Greek style of head-dress with the Parisian
coiffure, had a charming effect. There was just
enough of fashion to take off the vulgarity.

We coquetted along, smiled upon by here and there
a group that had visited the ship, and on our return
sat down at a table in front of the café, surrounded by
some hundreds of people of all classes, conversing and
eating ices. I thought as I glanced about me, how
oddly such a scene would look in America. In the
broad part of an open walk, the whole town passing
and repassing, sat elegantly dressed ladies with their
husbands or lovers, mothers with their daughters, and
occasionally a group of modest girls alone, eating or
drinking with as little embarrassment as at home, and
preserving toward each other that courtesy of deportment
which in these classes of society can result only
from being so much in public.

Under the next tree to us sat an excessively pretty
woman with two gentlemen, probably her husband
and cavalier. I touched my hat to them as we seated
ourselves, and this common courtesy of the country
was returned with smiles that put us instantly upon
the footing of a half acquaintance. A caress to the
lady's greyhound, and an apology for smoking, produced
a little conversation, and when they rose to leave
us, the compliments of the evening were exchanged
with a cordiality that in America would scarce follow
an acquaintance of months. I mention it as an every-day
instance of the kind-hearted and open manners of
Europe. It is what makes these countries so agreeable
to the stranger and the traveller. Every café, on
a second visit, seems like a home.

We were at a rural fête last night, given by a wealthy
merchant of Trieste, at his villa in the neighborhood.
We found the company assembled on a terraced observatory,
crowning a summer-house, watching the
sunset over one of the sweetest landscapes in the world.
We were at the head of a valley broken at the edge
of the Adriatic by the city, and beyond spread the
golden waters of the gulf toward Venice, headed in on
the right by the long chain of the Friuli. The country
around was green and fertile, and small white villas
peeped out everywhere from the foliage, evidences
of the prosperous commerce of the town. We watched
the warm colors out of the sky, and the party having
by this time assembled, we walked through the
long gardens to a house open with long windows from
the ceiling to the floor, and furnished only with the
light and luxurious arrangement of summer.

Music is the life of all amusement within the reach
of Italy, and the waltzing was mingled with performances
on the piano (and very wonderful ones to me)
by an Italian count and his friend, a German. They
played duetts in a style I have seldom heard even by
professors.

The supper was fantastically rural. The table was
spread under a large tree, from the branches of which
was trailed a vine, by a square frame of lattice-work in
the proportions of a pretty saloon. The lamps were
hung in colored lanterns among the branches, and the
trunk of the tree passed through the centre of the table
hollowed to receive it. The supper was sumptuously
splendid, and the effect of the party within, seen
from the grounds about, through the arched and vine-concealed
doors, was the most picturesque imaginable.

A waltz or two followed, and we were about calling
for our horses, when the whole place was illuminated
with a discharge of fireworks. Every description of
odd figures was described in flame during the hour
they detained us, and the bright glare on the trees,
and the figures of the party strolling up and down the
gravelled walks, was admirably beautiful.

They do these things so prettily here! We were
invited out on the morning of the same day, and expected
nothing but a drive and a cup of tea, and we
found an entertainment worthy of a king. The simplicity
and frankness with which we were received, and
the unpretendingness of the manner of introducing the
amusements of the evening, might have been lessons
in politeness to nobles.

A drive to town by starlight, and a pull off to the
ship in the cool and refreshing night air, concluded a
day of pure pleasure. It has been my good fortune
of late to number many such.