In The Levant 40

In The Levant 40

When I came down in the morning, Achmed was in the hall.

 

"Well, Achmed, how are you?"

 

"Firste-class," closing his eyes with a humorous twinkle. "I'm in it

now."

 

"In what?"

 

"In the case with Mohammed Abd-el-Atti. That Ouardy says I pay him

damage twenty thousand francs. Twenty thousand francs, I wish he may get

it! How much, I s'pose, for the consul? Take my advice, the consul want

money."

 

"Then the suit will keep you here with Abd-el-Atti?"

 

"Keep, I don't know. I not pay him twenty thousand francs, not one

thousand, not one franc. What my ladies do? Who go to Constantinople

with my ladies? To-morrow morning come the steamer. To leave the old man

alone with these thiefs, what would anybody say of Mohammed Achmed for

that? What for consul is this? I want to go to Constantinople with my

ladies, and then to see my family in Alexandria. For one day in five

months have I see my wife and shild. O yes, I have very nice wife. Yes,

one wife quite plenty for me. And I have a fine house, cost me twenty

thousand dollars; I am not rich, but I have plenty, God forgive me. My

shop is in the silk bazaar. I am merchant. My father-in-law say what for

I go dragoman? I like to see nice peoples and go in the world. When I

am dragoman, I am servant. When I am merchant, O, I am very well in

Alexandria. I think I not go any more. Ah, here is Abd-el-Atti. Take my

advice, he not need to be dragoman; he is pooty off. Good morning, my

friend. Have they told you I am to be put in jail also?"

 

"So I hear; Ouardy sue you and Abdallah so you cannot be witness."

 

"O, they think they get money from us. Mebbe the pasha and the consul. I

think so."

 

"So am I," responded Abd-el-Atti in his most serious manner. The

"Eastern question," with these experienced dragomans, instantly resolves

itself into a question of money, whoever is concerned and whatever is

the tribunal. I said that I would see the consul in the morning, and

that I hoped to have all proceedings stopped, so that we could get off

in the steamer. Abd-el-Atti shook his head.

 

"The consul not to do anything. Ouardy have lent him money; so I

hunderstood."

 

Beyrout had a Sunday appearance. The shops were nearly all closed, and

the churches, especially the Catholic, were crowded. It might have been

a peaceful day but for our imbroglio, which began to be serious; we

could not afford the time to wait two weeks for the next Cyprus steamer,

we did not like to abandon our dragomans, and we needed their services.

The ladies who depended upon Achmed were in a quandary. Notes went to

the consul, but produced no effect. The bankers were called into the

council, and one of them undertook to get Achmed free. Travellers,

citizens, and all began to get interested or entangled in the case.

There was among respectable people but one opinion about the consul's

dragoman. At night it was whispered about that the American consul had

already been removed and that his successor was on his way to Beyrout.

Achmed came to us in the highest spirits with the news.

 

All day Monday we expected the steamer. The day was frittered away in

interviews with the consul and the pasha, and in endeavoring to learn

something of the two cases, the suit for damages and for the debt,

supposed to be going on somewhere in the seraglio. After my interview

with the consul, who expressed considerable ignorance of the case and

the strongest desire to stop it, I was surprised to find at the seraglio

all the papers in the consul's name, and all the documents written

on consular paper; so that when I appeared as an American citizen,

to endeavor to get my dragoman released, it appeared to the Turkish

officials that they would please the American government by detaining

and punishing him.

 

The court-room was a little upper chamber, with no furniture except a

long table and chairs; three Moslem judges sat at one end of the table,

apparently waiting to see what would turn up. The scene was not unlike

that in an office of a justice of the peace in America. The parties to

the case, witnesses, attendants, spectators, came and went as it pleased

them, talked or whispered to the judges or to each other. There seemed

to be no rule for the reception or rejection of evidence. The judges

smoked and gathered the facts as they drifted in, and would by and by

make up their minds. It is truth to say, however, that they seemed to

be endeavoring to get at the facts, and that they appeared to be above

prejudice or interest. A new complication developed itself, however;

Antoine Ouardy claimed to be a French citizen, and the French consul was

drawn into the fray. This was a new device to delay proceedings.

 

When I had given my evidence to the judges, which I was required to

put in writing, I went with Abd-el-Atti to the room of the pasha. This

official was gracious enough, but gave us no hopes of release. He took

me one side and advised me, as a traveller, to look out for another

dragoman; there was no prospect that Abd-el-Atti could get away to

accompany me on this steamer,--in fact, the process in court might

detain him six months. However, the best thing to do would be to go to

the American consul with Ouardy and settle it. He thought Ouardy would

settle it for a reasonable amount. It was none of his business, but

that was his advice. We were obliged to his Excellency for this glimpse

behind the scenes of a Turkish court, and thanked him for his advice;

but we did not follow it. Abd-el-Atti thought that if he abandoned the

attempt to collect a debt in a Turkish city, he ought not, besides, to

pay for the privilege of doing so.

 

Tuesday morning the steamer came into the harbor. Although we had

registered our names at the office of the company for passage, nothing

was reserved for us. Detained at the seraglio and the consul's, we

could not go off to secure places, and the consequence was that we were

subject to the black-mail of the steward when we did go. By noon there

were signs of the failure of the prosecution; and we sent off our

luggage. In an hour or two Abd-el-Atti appeared with a troop of friends,

triumphant. Somewhere, I do not know how, he and Achmed had raked up

fourteen witnesses in his favor; the judges would n't believe Ouardy nor

any one he produced, and his case had utterly broken down. This mountain

of a case, which had annoyed us so many days and absorbed our time,

suddenly collapsed. We were not sorry to leave even beautiful Beyrout,

and would have liked to see the last of Turkish rule as well. At sunset,

on the steamer _Achille_, swarming above and below with pilgrims from

Jerusalem and Mecca, we sailed for Cyprus.

 

 

 

 

XVIII.--CYPRUS.

 

|IN the early morning we were off Cyprus, in the open harbor of

Larnaka,--a row of white houses on the low shore. The town is not

peculiar and not specially attractive, but the _Marina_ lies prettily

on the blue sea, and the palms, the cypresses, the minarets and

church-towers, form an agreeable picture behind it, backed by the lovely

outline of mountains, conspicuous among them Santa Croce. The highest,

Olympus, cannot be seen from this point.

 

A night had sufficed to transport us into another world, a world in

which all outlines are softened and colored, a world in which history

appears like romance. We might have imagined that we had sailed into

some tropical harbor, except that the island before us was bare of

foliage; there was the calm of perfect repose in the sky, on the sea,

and the land; Cyprus made no harsh contrast with the azure water in

which it seemed to be anchored for the morning, as our ship was. You

could believe that the calm of summer and of early morning always rested

on the island, and that it slept exhausted in the memory of its glorious

past.

 

Taking a cup of coffee, we rowed ashore. It was the festival of St.

George, and the flags of various nations were hung out along the _riva_,

or displayed from the staffs of the consular residences. It is one of

the chief _fête_ days of the year, and the foreign representatives,

who have not too much excitement, celebrated it by formal visits to the

Greek consul. Larnaka does not keep a hotel, and we wandered about for

some time before we could discover its sole _locanda_, where we purposed

to breakfast. This establishment would please an artist, but it had

few attractions for a person wishing to break his fast, and our unusual

demand threw it into confusion. The _locanda_ was nothing but a kitchen

in a tumble-down building, smoke-dried, with an earth floor and a

rickety table or two. After long delay, the cheerful Greek proprietor

and his lively wife--whose good-humored willingness both to furnish us

next to nothing, but the best they had, from their scanty larder, and to

cipher up a long reckoning for the same, excited our interest--produced

some fried veal, sour bread, harsh wine, and tart oranges; and we

breakfasted more sumptuously, I have no doubt, than any natives of the

island that morning. The scant and hard fare of nearly all the common

people in the East would be unendurable to any American; but I think

that the hardy peasantry of the Levant would speedily fall into

dyspeptic degeneracy upon the introduction of American rural cooking.

 

After we had killed our appetites at the _locanda_, we presented our

letters to the American consul, General di Cesnola, in whose spacious

residence we experienced a delightful mingling of Oriental and Western

hospitality. The kawâss of the General was sent to show us the town.

This kawâss was a gorgeous official, a kind of glorified being, in silk

and gold-lace, who marched before us, huge in bulk, waving his truncheon

of office, and gave us the appearance, in spite of our humility, of a

triumphal procession. Larnaka has not many sights, although it was the

residence of the Lusignan dynasty,--Richard Cour de Lion having, toward

the close of the twelfth century, made a gift of the island to Guy de

Lusignan. It has, however, some mosques and Greek churches. The church

of St. Lazarus, which contains the now vacant tomb of the Lazarus who

was raised from the dead at Bethany and afterwards became bishop of

Citium, is an interesting old Byzantine edifice, and has attached to

it an English burial-ground, with tombs of the seventeenth century. The

Greek priest who showed us the church does not lose sight of the gain

of godliness in this life while pursuing in this remote station his

heavenly journey. He sold my friend some exquisite old crucifixes,

carved in wood, mounted in antique silver, which he took from the

altar, and he let the church part with some of its quaint old pictures,

commemorating the impossible exploits of St. Demetrius and St. George.

But he was very careful that none of the Greeks who were lounging about

the church should be witnesses of the transfer. He said that these

ignorant people had a prejudice about these sacred objects, and might

make trouble.