degradation of their character. We are disposed to feel a certain respect for individuals of a tranquil, and sometimes majestic figure, until we have suffered from their cupidity and perfidy. To this remark, there are, it is true, many exceptions; but, beguiled by a stature above the ordinary proportions, a solemn demeanour, and a venerable beard, where I expected to find the patriarchal virtues, I had oftimes to experience the depravity of the vilest servitude. It is difficult to explain the duration of the Ottoman empire, and more especially the existence of the Turks in Europe, on a close inspection of the want of discipline of the subsidiary troops, the deranged state of the finances, the ruinous condition of the fortresses, and, lastly, the independence of the Pachas of Albania, the Morea, Egypt, and Damascus. The title alone of Calif still supports the Sultan on the most tottering throne of Europe. The most formidable neighbour of the Turkish Empire, by allowing it to subsist in Europe, is freed from the embarrassment of forming establishments elsewhere, amid the perplexities it experiences in founding institutions at home. Hallowed predictions, and the results of the late European war, place beyond every doubt the credit Russia enjoys at Constantinople. She there possesses the advantages of power, without having to dread the effect of a jealousy which such a conquest as European Turkey would necessarily inspire. Almost the whole of the Greek merchants, more especially those belonging to the most flourishing islands, such as Idra, Spezzia, and Yysara, navigate under the Russian flag. Its influence is established throughout, and its protection as much sought after, and as anxiously desired, by the Christians of the respective rites at Saint-Jean-d'Acre, Jerusalem, and Cairo, as it is at Constantinople. During my stay at Constantinople the kiosques of the Seraglio were fresh gilt, and additions made to the buildings. It was never before, I was told, occupied by more captivating beauties, nor were they ever more numerous. The Sultan has two sons: his mother, whom he had recently lost, had in her life time a great ascendancy over him. The city of Athens formed a part of her numerous domains; and her protection served, in a certain degree, as a substitute for that of Minerva over the city of Cecrops. I quitted Constantinople on the 15th of October, and embarked for Smyrna on board the brig le Lezard. A few hours after our departure, a sudden and violent gust of wind came on: the topsails were reefed-and, after lying-to for some time, the brig at length was brought to anchor on the coast of Asia, at Rodosto. The dread of the plague prevented any one from landing, a cifcumstance by which I was not a little mortified. A fresh breeze enabled us afterwards to reach Nagara, where an officer landed to present the Firman at the castle of the Dardanelles. Notwithstanding a severe squall, which had like to have driven the brig on the rocks of Carabournou, we succeeded in entering the port of Smyrna on the morning of Sunday, the 20th of October. I found my old companion, Mr. Huyot, in a very enfeebled state, but recovering from the effects of an accident. He had resided two months at the convent of the missions, where the reverend fathers had watched over him with the most tender solicitude. The tranquillity which the monks enjoy, is a proof among many others which might be adduced of the toleration of the Turks of Smyrna. The Catholic church is very capacious and richly ornamented; the doors are constantly open; and the true believers, resident in the bazars, hear without indignation the psalmodies of the Chris tians. Interments, preceded by a cross, oftentimes fall in with the obsequies of a Mussulman; the baptisms and marriages of the Greeks and I atins have to encounter the train of a circumcision; and the gilt cope of the priest comes in peaceable contact, in the street, with the beniche of an Osmanli, or the veil of a Turkish lady. The spirit of commerce which prevails in the city of Smyrna, thus softens down asperities, and brings together men of every sect and persuasion. This great factory presents unceasingly a mixture of European manners and oriental customs: lovely females, tastefully dressed in the French style, are to be seen, passing with nimble steps, through a long file of camels belonging to a caravan of Seyde, or Damascus. Greek ladies, seated at their windows, engage in a lively conversation with the passengers beneath, while others amuse themselves with dancing in groups in returning from the baths, or repair in parties to the delightful plains of Bournabat-all feel the influence of a fine climate, that of smiling and voluptuous Ionia. I should have devoted a much great er portion of my time to the study of this celebrated part of Asia, if I had not been constrained to seize the opportunity the departure of le Lezard for Syria afforded me: I should have ascended the course of the Meander, and have visited Magnesia, Sardes, and Samos. The season was, however, too far advanced to enable me to undertake this; and I embarked for Palestine on the 29th of October. After having got under way at four in the morning, with a gentle breeze from the north-east, the brig had to work to windward the whole of the day, and found considerable difficulty in doubling cape Carbournou. On the 31st, at seven in the morning, we were abreast of the island of Scio: the city, which appeared to me to be of considerable extent, is surrounded by country-houses. Pleasant villages are interspersed in the valleys, which are in a high state of cultivation: the rocks which encompass them resemble, in colour and form, the mountains in the environs of Toulon. The inhabitants of Scio are remarkable for the amenity of their manners. They owe to the cultivation of the Lentiscus, the shrub which yields the gum mastich, several privileges which make them not a little proud; and, among these, that of wearing, like the Osmanlis, the white turban, is not the least in their estimation. I made a drawing of the islands of Spalmadori, and opposite to Scio, of the city of Tchesma in Asia Minor. This strand, which witnessed the defeat of the galleys of Antiochus, one hun dred and ninety one years before the Christian era, saw likewise, in 1770, the entire destruction of the Turkish fleet by the Russians: several of the Ottoman ships were burned; and the flames which lighted the massacre of a great part of the crews, favoured the escape of the remainder. From this dreadful blow-from this terrible catastrophe, the Turkish marine has never recovered. The winter evenings are very dreary on shipboard, and in boisterous weather inspire an invincible sadness. I vainly interrogated myself why I had quitted my country,my friends,and calm repose, when the waves covered the vessel's deck, when the moon was concealed by black clouds, across which the lightnings gleamed, and when the fatigued and disheartened crew ceased to hear the captain's voice. The best reasons then appear either frivolous or absurd. Constant sufferings and dangers towhich we appear to be fruitlessly exposed, are not, however, entirely lost on us : great and profound impressions give a new stimulus to the mind, and exalt it to the pitch of the noblest meditations. It is perhaps on the deck of a vessel beaten by the storm that the world is best judged, and its grandeurs and miseries most truly appreciated. What a destiny is that of the navigator! He sets out on his voyage full of life and hope: suddenly exposed to the horrors of shipwreck, he has still to struggle against his destiny, to form an estimate of the danger, to calculate the duration of his own agonies, and, lastly, to have recourse to expedients which may lead to his inevitable destruction. On the morning of the sixth of November land was seen from the masthead. A general anxiety was displayed, to catch, through a thick haze, the glimpse of a mountain, the form of which each drew, according to his own fancy, in a different way. Mount Carmel was at length descried, having for its base an uneven strand: this was the bay of Caïfa. The brig came to anchor, opposite the small village of Caïfa, at the foot of Mount Carmel. We had to cross the bay, in a boat, to land at Saint-Jeand'Acre. The sea was still rough, with high surges, so that we had great difficulty in reaching the small port.* The high walls of the pier have fall en down in an irregular manner; but a part of the breastworks, surmounted by battlements, are still standing. We entered by a breach to avoid the surf which covered the mole, the work of the crusaders, with its foam. Saint-Jean-d'Acre, the ancient Ptolemaïs, is surrounded by high walls and deep moats: the new fortifications now form a double enclosure, terrassed and flanked by bastions. It is also defend ed by the old ramparts thrown up by the Christians, and by the recent works of European engineers: its form is that of a semi-circle, having the sea in front. The waves break on the towers with which the sea is lined. In this city, a mixture of gothic ruins and modern constructions is every where to be seen here, a church in an entirely ruinous state meets the view; there monasteries, a palace, and hospital, alike abandoned; still further, a new, rich, and elegant mosque; minarets, the bases of which rise from amid heaps of rubbish; and, lastly, the seraglio, the gardens of which, laid out in terraces, separate the ramparts. Sycamores, orange-trees, and the finest palms, nod their heads gracefully over this motley assemblage; and this view alone softens the sadness and disgust which a residence at Saint-Jean-d'Acre inspires. The streets are narrow and filthy; the houses built of free-stone, low, huddled, with flat roofs, and small doors, resemble prisons. The terraces of the different habitations communicate with each other by clumsy arcades. The European consuls reside in the kans, which are large square buildings, having in the centre a court, and which, in times of difficulty, become fortresses. In the interior, the ascent to the upper apartments is by steep and narrow staircases, which scarcely afford a passage to a single person; three flights of wide corridors, opened in arcades, face the court, in the centre of which is a fountain. There it was that I was greeted by the hospitality of M. Pillavoine, the consul of France in Syria: he found some difficulty in providing me with a corner in which I could be lodged with any degree of comfort. Eight or ten thousand Turks, Arabs, Jews, and Christians, are to be seen parading the streets of Saint-Jeand'Acre, and the infected bazars, with an aspect at once savage and sombre. The senses each in its turn, are disagreeably affected by the most hideous deformities: beings, who seem to have risen from their graves, crawl about half naked, wrapped up in large blankets of a dirty white, striped with black, and the head muffled in rags which serve as a turban. At each step, at the side of the victims of opthalmia, are to be seen the victims of Gezzar Pacha,‡ either blind, or wretches without a nose, and without ears. This assemblage of men, sluggish, miserable, and disgusting, may be constantly seen lying in the sun beneath the walls of the gardens of the seraglio. Soliman Pacha, who inhabits this palace, seldom stirs abroad to show himself to the public: this successor of Gezzar, deaf to the cries of an unfortunate population, spends his life in myrtle groves, beneath the shade of plantains, watered by deep and limpid brooks. The conduct of affairs is entirely abandoned by him to a Jew, named Haïm Farhi. This man, who was the intendant of Gezzar Pacha, preserved The name of Syria bestowed by the Greeks on the country where I landed, is probably derived from that of Assyria, a celebrated empire of Asia, the limits of which were extended to this coast at the time the Assyrians of Nineveh made this part of Syria a province of their empire. Syria, at that epoch, did not comprehend either Phenicia or Palestine. It is named by the Arabs Barr-el-Châm, or the country to the left; for it is in this way they distinguish all the space comprehended in the area from Alexandretta to the Euphrates, and from Gaza to the Desert, taking the Mediterranean as the base of this area. Damascus, the reputed capital of Syria, is by them called el-Cham Mecca therefore becomes the centre between the Yémen, or the country to the right, and Barr-el-Châm, or the country to the left. t Likewise known by the name of okels. El-Gezzar, the butcher. the confidence of his master by submitting implicitly to his whimsical caprices. The tyrant doubled his wages, and heaped benefits on him, on the very day when he had his nose mutilated in so cruel a manner, that this sarraf has ever since been horribly disfigured. Haïm, who is supple and adroit, has hoarded together incalculable treasures. The present pacha of Saint-Jean-d'Acre owes to the intrigues of this Jew the advantage of having been chosen the successor of Gezzar when the latter was on his death bed, this puppet was brought forward, and placed foremost in the rank of those who paid to him their dissembled homages and respects. Soliman and Haïm Farhi are engaged in an exclusive and despotic commerce: they are the sole proprietors of the immense grounds which surround Saint-Jean-d'Acre and Nazareth. The extortions, the oppressions, and the tyranny of the details of this odious government, inspire the most profound contempt for those who submit to it. Haïm Farhi is the chief of the Hebrews of Syria. He has a sumptuous palace at Damascus, but received me in a small house, where he was surrounded by his family, and a great number of slaves. I was admitted on the following day to the Pacha's audience. Soliman is about sixty years of age he was born in Georgia; and his fine figure recommended him to Gezzar, whose slave he was. By that depraved character Soliman was appointed Pacha of Seyde, the ancient Sidon; but the ungrateful favourite conspired against his patron, was detected and exiled. He wandered for a long time among the Bedouin Arabs; but, being at length wearied of this life of independence, threw himself at the feet of his master. For some minutes, with the cimeter drawn to sever the head from the body of the proscribed fugitive, Gezzar hesitated; but at length pardoned him, and gave him back his pachalik. were silent and attentive, with their hands laid across their breast, and scarcely dared to smile at the jests of a buffoon who was, it would seem, a great court favourite. The Pacha seated me at his side, and smoked while he paid a particular attention to my side-arm, and every part of my uniform. He politely granted what I asked of him through the medium of the drogoman. Coffee was served up in gold cups set round with diamonds, with which the pipe and poignard of Soliman were covered. He put but few questions to me; but insisted that I should inspect the new fortifications of Saint-Jean-d'Acre, and his Arabian breed of horses, which seemed to interest him most particularly. To his kindness, and to the terror he inspires, I was indebted for the perfect tranquillity and facility with which I was enabled to delineate the most remarkable spots. The curiosity we excited in passing through the bezestans, was not productive of the slightest affront, or the smallest menace. Wherever my curiosity led me, I stopped to make sketches, and, among them, that of Saint-Jean-d'Acre, at the very spot where this city was unsuccessfully cannonaded by the French troops under General Buonaparte. With the help of the English, Gezzar Pacha sustained a vigorous and well directed fire, and the most desperate assaults: the capture of Saint-Jean-d'Acre was to be the signal to sixty thousand Druses to join the French troops; and it is probable that this would have decided the fate of the Turkish empire. The foreign consuls feel the necessity of affording each other a mutual aid against such a government, and live together accordingly on the most amicable terms. M. Catafago, a rich Greek merchant, the consul of Russia, received me in a saloon furnished in the Turkish style: his wife and children seated on a very low and wide divan, or ottoman, were dressed in the turkish costume, with fillets, ornamented with sequins, bound round the head. They wore velvet robes embroidered with gold: and their hair, in tresses, and perfumed, hung on the shoulders. § Confidential Secretary. I found Soliman squatted at one extremity of a sofa embroidered with gold, his officers and mamelouks being all assembled on the occasion: they Two of the young ladies were pretty, but listless, and motionless as statues, insomuch that at first sight one would scarcely have suspected them to be animated beings. M. Malagamba, the English consul, resides in the same kan with M. Pillavoine and the missionaries, who have a small church in this vast edifice, gradually falling into decay. The officers of the Dalmatian and Bosniac militia gave me pressing invitations to take coffee with them at their quarters, when I made my sketches on the ramparts several of them accompanied me in my rural excursions, and offered me their horses. The Pacha's first black eunuch, a young Ethiopian admirably skilled in all the military exercises, afforded me the spectacle of the djeryd, in the vast plain which surrounds the remains of the French redoubt. His Arabian horses, of the breed of Guelfé, were selected from the haras of Solyman, whose confident and particular favourite he was. His admiration, his astonishment, on seeing a sketch, set all comparison at defiance. He enquired of me, through an interpreter, whether the secrets of my art did not go the length of enabling me to divine what was passing in the interior of the edifices, the external form of which he could trace on the paper. It was not without some difficulty that I quieted his apprehensions on this head; but still cannot help fancying that he was not fully convinced of my innocence. On the 12th of November I quitted Saint-Jean-d'Acre with a pretty numerous caravan, which was joined by several officers belonging to the brig. At this time the Abbe Janson left us, to visit Mount Libanon, and the religious establishments of Sidon and Damascus. After having traversed Caïfa, and passed beneath Mount Carmel, we came to a sandy beach, and to a range of barren hills stretching along the sea shore, from which they are distant about a league. The ruins of an extensive city, and those of the last fortress built by the crusaders, rise above tufts of mastics and carob trees. Athmatha displays her long deserted towers; her port choked with sand; her ramparts, once the noble refuge of the Christians of Palestine; and her gardens, now become impassable morasses which breathe an infected air. We were overtaken by the night near the most wretched hamlet in Syria: the kan of Tantoura was occupied by a caravan which had arrived be fore ours, and we were forced to take up our lodgings in small huts, the habitual residence of toads, and of hungry insects, whose bites molested us to such a degree, that we sallied forth and kindled a large fire. Around it the Arabs danced and sung during the re mainder of the night; but their festivity did not dispel the gloomy recollec tions of Tantoura, which I still retain. As I was particularly anxious to visit Cesarea, we set out before day-light. This city,the position of which is similar to that of Athmatha, is entirely deserted; but its ramparts, port, and monuments, are so well preserved as to excite an inexpressible surprise. and squares still remain ; and if the gates which belonged to its lofty and formidable walls, were to be re-built, Cesarea might still be inhabited and defended. A calamitous event appears to have been fatal to, or to have put to flight, its numerous population within these few years, perhaps even within a few months. The walls of the church are blackened with the smoke of the incense of the Christians; and the pulpit, which resounded with the eloquent discourses of the courageous and enlightened bishops, is still entire. The tombs are open, and the bones heaped around them are sole testimonies of the past residence of man in this appalling solitude. The silence which prevails at Cesarea, is alone interrupted by the regular and monotonous noise of the sea: the waves seem indignant at having to encounter useless obstacles, and to obey those who are now no more; they break furiously, and cover with foam the jetty and quays of the port. Their reiterated efforts have shaken the enormous masses of granite; the tower of the pharos is dilapidated; and the stair-case and partitions of the château thrown open to the birds of prey who there take up their abode. To be continued. |