In The Levant 43

In The Levant 43

A little later the Oriental prince turns out to be only a Turkish pasha,

who has a state-room below for himself, and another for his harem; but

in another compartment of our flower-bed of a deck is a merchant-prince

of Damascus, whose gorgeousness would impose upon people more

sophisticated than we.

 

"He no prince; merchant like me," explains Achmed, "and very rich, God

be merciful."

 

"But why don't you travel about like that, Achmed, and make a fine

display?"

 

"For why? Anybody say Mohammed Achmed any more respect? What for I show

my rich? Take my advice. When I am dragoman, I am servant; and dress

[here a comico-sarcastic glance at his plain but handsome dragoman

apparel] not in monkey shine, like Selim--you remember him--at Jaffa,

fierce like a Bedawee. I make business. When I am by my house, that is

another thing."

 

The pasha has rooms below, and these contiguous squares on deck are

occupied, the one by his suite and the other by _their_ ladies and

slaves, all veiled and presumably beautiful, lolling on the cushions in

the _ennui_ that appears to be their normal condition. One of them is

puffing a cigarette under her white veil at the risk of a conflagration.

One of the slaves, with an olive complexion and dark eyes, is very

pretty, and rather likes to casually leave her face uncovered for the

benefit of the infidels who are about; that her feet and legs are bare

she cares still less. This harem is, however, encroached upon by Greek

women, who sprawl about with more freedom, and regard the world without

the hindrance of a veil. If they are not handsome, they are at least not

self-conscious, as you would think women would be in baggy silk trousers

and embroidered jackets.

 

In the afternoon we came in sight of the ancient coasts of Pamphylia and

Lycia and a lovely range of what we took to be the Karamanian mountains,

snow-covered and half hid in clouds, all remote and dim to our vision as

the historical pageant of Assyrian, Persian, and Roman armies on these

shores is to our memory. Eastward on that rugged coast we know is

Cilicia and the Tarsus of Paul and Haroun al Raschid. The sunset on

the Lycian mountains was glorious; the foot by the water was veiled

in golden mist; the sea sank from indigo to purple, and when the light

waves broke flecks of rose or blood flowed on the surface.

 

After dark, and before we were abreast of old Xanthus, we descried the

famous natural light which is almost as mysterious to the moderns as it

was to the ancients. The Handbook says of it: "About two miles from the

coast, through a fertile plain, and then ascending a woody glen, the

traveller arrives at the _Zanar_, or volcanic flame, which issues

perpetually from the mountain." Pliny says: "_Mount Chimaera_, near

Phaselis, emits an unceasing flame that burns day and night." Captain

Beaufort observed it from the ship during the night as a small but

steady light among the hills. We at first mistook it for a lighthouse.

But it was too high above the water for that, and the flame was too

large; it was rather a smoky radiance than a point of light, and yet

it had a dull red centre and a duller luminous surrounding. We regarded

with curiosity and some awe a flame that had been burning for over

twenty centuries, and perhaps was alight before the signal-fires were

kindled to announce the fall of Troy,--Nature's own Pharos to the

ancient mariners who were without compass on these treacherous seas.

 

Otherwise, this classic coast is dark, extinguished is the fire on the

altar of Apollo at Patera, silent is the winter oracle of this god, and

desolate is the once luxurious metropolis of Lycia. Even Xanthus, the

capital, a name disused by the present inhabitants, has little to show

of Greek culture or Persian possession, and one must seek the fragments

of its antique art in the British Museum.

 

Coming on deck the next morning at the fresh hour of sunrise, I found

we were at Rhodes. We lay just off the semicircular harbor, which is

clasped by walls--partly shaken down by earthquakes--which have noble

round towers at each embracing end. Rhodes is, from the sea, one of the

most picturesque cities in the Mediterranean, although it has little

remains of that ancient splendor which caused Strabo to prefer it to

Rome or Alexandria. The harbor wall, which is flanked on each side by

stout and round stone windmills, extends up the hill, and, becoming

double, surrounds the old town; these massive fortifications of the

Knights of St. John have withstood the onsets of enemies and the tremors

of the earth, and, with the ancient moat, excite the curiosity of

this so-called peaceful age of iron-clads and monster cannon. The city

ascends the slope of the hill and passes beyond the wall. Outside and on

the right towards the sea are a picturesque group of a couple of dozen

stone windmills, and some minarets and a church-tower or two. Higher

up the hill is sprinkled a little foliage, a few mulberry-trees, and an

isolated palm or two; and, beyond, the island is only a mass of broken,

bold, rocky mountains. Of its forty-five miles of length, running

southwesterly from the little point on which the city stands, we can see

but little.

 

Whether or not Rhodes emerged from the sea at the command of Apollo, the

Greeks expressed by this tradition of its origin their appreciation of

its gracious climate, fertile soil, and exquisite scenery. From remote

antiquity it had fame as a seat of arts and letters, and of a vigorous

maritime power, and the romance of its early centuries was equalled if

not surpassed when it became the residence of the Knights of St. John.

I believe that the first impress of its civilization was given by the

Phoenicians; it was the home of the Dorian race before the time of the

Trojan war, and its three cities were members of the Dorian Hexapolis;

it was in fact a flourishing maritime confederacy, strong enough to

send colonies to the distant Italian coast, and Sybaris and Parthenope

(modern Naples) perpetuated the luxurious refinement of their founders.

The city of Rhodes itself was founded about four hundred years before

Christ, and the splendor of its palaces, its statues and paintings,

gave it a pre-eminence among the most magnificent cities of the ancient

world. If the earth of this island could be made to yield its buried

treasures as Cyprus has, we should doubtless have new proofs of the

influence of Asiatic civilization upon the Greeks, and be able to trace

in the early Doric arts and customs the superior civilization of the

Phoenicians, and of the masters of the latter, in science and art, the

Egyptians.

 

Naturally, every traveller who enters the harbor of Rhodes hopes to see

the site of one of the seven wonders of the world, the Colossus. He is

free to place it on either mole at the entrance of the harbor, but he

comprehends at once that a statue which was only one hundred and five

feet high could never have extended its legs across the port. The fame

of this colossal bronze statue of the sun is disproportioned to the

period of its existence; it stood only fifty-six years after its

erection, being shaken down by an earthquake in the year 224 b.c., and

encumbering the ground with its fragments till the advent of the Moslem

conquerors.

 

When we landed, the town was not yet awake, except the boatmen and the

coffee-houses by the landing-stairs. The Greek boatman, whom we accepted

as our guide, made an unsuccessful excursion for bread, finding only a

black uneatable mixture, sprinkled with aromatic seeds; but we sat

under the shelter of an old sycamore in a lovely place by the shore, and

sipped our coffee, and saw the sun coming over Lycia, and shining on the

old towers and walls of the Knights.

 

Passing from the quay through a highly ornamented Gothic gateway, we

ascended the famous historic street, still called the Street of the

Knights, the massive houses of which have withstood the shocks of

earthquakes and the devastation of Saracenic and Turkish occupation.

At this hour the street was as deserted as it was three centuries and

a half ago, when the Knights sorrowfully sailed out of the harbor in

search of a new home. Their four months' defence of the city., against

the overwhelming force of Suleiman the Magnificent, added a new lustre

to their valor, and extorted the admiration of the victor and the most

honorable terms of surrender. With them departed the prosperity of

Rhodes. This street, of whose palaces we have heard so much, is not

imposing; it is not wide, its solid stone houses are only two stories

high, and their fronts are now disfigured by cheap Arab balconies, but

the façades are gray with age. All along are remains of carved windows.

Gothic sculptured doorways, and shields and coats of arms, crosses and

armorial legends, are set in the walls, partially defaced by time and

accident; for the Moslems, apparently inheriting the respect of Suleiman

for the Knights, have spared the mementos of their faith and prowess.

I saw no inscriptions that are intact, but made out upon one shield the

words _voluntas mei est_. The carving is all beautiful.

 

We went through the silent streets, waking only echoes of the past, out

to the ruins of the once elegant church of St. John, which was shaken

down by a powder-explosion some thirty years ago, and utterly flattened

by an earthquake some years afterwards. Outside the ramparts we met, and

saluted frith the freedom of travellers, a gorgeous Turk who was

taking the morning air, and whom our guide in bated breath said was the

governor. In this part of the town is the Mosque of Suleiman; in the

portal are two lovely marble columns, rich with age; the lintels are

exquisitely carved with flowers, arms, casques, musical instruments,

the crossed sword and the torch, and the mandolin, perhaps the emblem of

some troubadour knight. Wherever we went we found bits of old carving,

remains of columns, sections of battlemented roofs. The town is

saturated with the old Knights. Near the mosque is a foundation of

charity, a public kitchen, at which the poor were fed or were free to

come and cook their food; it is in decay now, and the rooks were sailing

about its old round-topped chimneys.

 

There are no Hellenic remains in the city, and the only remembrance of

that past which we searched for was the antique coin, which has upon one

side the head of Medusa and upon the other the rose (_rhoda_) which gave

the town its name. The town was quiet; but in pursuit of this coin in

the Jews' quarter we started up swarms of traders, were sent from Isaac

to Jacob, and invaded dark shops and private houses where Jewish women

and children were just beginning to complain of the morning light. Our

guide was a jolly Greek, who was willing to awaken the whole town in

search of a silver coin. The traders, when we had routed them out,

had little to show in the way of antiquities. Perhaps the best

representative of the modern manufactures of Rhodes is the wooden shoe,

which is in form like the Damascus clog, but is inlaid with more taste.

The people whom we encountered in our morning walk were Greeks or Jews.

 

The morning atmosphere was delicious, and we could well believe that the

climate of Rhodes is the finest in the Mediterranean, and also that it

is the least exciting of cities.

 

"Is it always so peaceful here?" we asked the guide.