Sketches and Travels in London

by William Makepeace Thackeray

wonderful people have remained unchanged; and how, from the days of

  Jacob downwards, they have believed and swindled!

  The Rhodian Jews, with their genius for filth, have made their

  quarter of the noble desolate old town the most ruinous and

  wretched of all. The escutcheons of the proud old knights are

  still carved over the doors, whence issue these miserable greasy

  hucksters and pedlars. The Turks respected these emblems of the

  brave enemies whom they had overcome, and left them untouched.

  When the French seized Malta they were by no means so delicate:

  they effaced armorial bearings with their usual hot-headed

  eagerness; and a few years after they had torn down the coats-of-

  arms of the gentry, the heroes of Malta and Egypt were busy

  devising heraldry for themselves, and were wild to be barons and

  counts of the Empire.

  The chivalrous relics at Rhodes are very superb. I know of no

  buildings whose stately and picturesque aspect seems to correspond

  better with one's notions of their proud founders. The towers and

  gates are warlike and strong, but beautiful and aristocratic: you

  see that they must have been high-bred gentlemen who built them.

  The edifices appear in almost as perfect a condition as when they

  were in the occupation of the noble Knights of St. John; and they

  have this advantage over modern fortifications, that they are a

  thousand times more picturesque. Ancient war condescended to

  ornament itself, and built fine carved castles and vaulted gates:

  whereas, to judge from Gibraltar and Malta, nothing can be less

  romantic than the modern military architecture; which sternly

  regards the fighting, without in the least heeding the war-paint.

  Some of the huge artillery with which the place was defended still

  lies in the bastions; and the touch-holes of the guns are preserved

  by being covered with rusty old corselets, worn by defenders of the

  fort three hundred years ago. The Turks, who battered down

  chivalry, seem to be waiting their turn of destruction now. In

  walking through Rhodes one is strangely affected by witnessing the

  signs of this double decay. For instance, in the streets of the

  knights, you see noble houses, surmounted by noble escutcheons of

  superb knights, who lived there, and prayed, and quarrelled, and

  murdered the Turks; and were the most gallant pirates of the inland

  seas; and made vows of chastity, and robbed and ravished; and,

  professing humility, would admit none but nobility into their

  order; and died recommending themselves to sweet St. John, and

  calmly hoping for heaven in consideration of all the heathen they

  had slain. When this superb fraternity was obliged to yield to

  courage as great as theirs, faith as sincere, and to robbers even

  more dexterous and audacious than the noblest knight who ever sang

  a canticle to the Virgin, these halls were filled by magnificent

  Pashas and Agas, who lived here in the intervals of war, and having

  conquered its best champions, despised Christendom and chivalry

  pretty much as an Englishman despises a Frenchman. Now the famous

  house is let to a shabby merchant, who has his little beggarly shop

  in the bazaar; to a small officer, who ekes out his wretched

  pension by swindling, and who gets his pay in bad coin.

  Mahometanism pays in pewter now, in place of silver and gold. The

  lords of the world have run to seed. The powerless old sword

  frightens nobody now--the steel is turned to pewter too, somehow,

  and will no longer shear a Christian head off any shoulders. In

  the Crusades my wicked sympathies have always been with the Turks.

  They seem to me the better Christians of the two: more humane,

  less brutally presumptuous about their own merits, and more

  generous in esteeming their neighbours. As far as I can get at the

  authentic story, Saladin is a pearl of refinement compared to the

  brutal beef-eating Richard--about whom Sir Walter Scott has led all

  the world astray.

  When shall we have a real account of those times and heroes--no

  good-humoured pageant, like those of the Scott romances--but a real

  authentic story to instruct and frighten honest people of the

  present day, and make them thankful that the grocer governs the

  world now in place of the baron? Meanwhile a man of tender

  feelings may be pardoned for twaddling a little over this sad

  spectacle of the decay of two of the great institutions of the

  world. Knighthood is gone--amen; it expired with dignity, its face

  to the foe: and old Mahometanism is lingering about just ready to

  drop. But it is unseemly to see such a Grand Potentate in such a

  state of decay: the son of Bajazet Ilderim insolvent; the

  descendants of the Prophet bullied by Calmucs and English and

  whipper-snapper Frenchmen; the Fountain of Magnificence done up,

  and obliged to coin pewter! Think of the poor dear houris in

  Paradise, how sad they must look as the arrivals of the Faithful

  become less and less frequent every day. I can fancy the place

  beginning to wear the fatal Vauxhall look of the Seraglio, and

  which has pursued me ever since I saw it: the fountains of eternal

  wine are beginning to run rather dry, and of a questionable liquor;

  the ready-roasted-meat trees may cry, "Come eat me," every now and

  then, in a faint voice, without any gravy in it--but the Faithful

  begin to doubt about the quality of the victuals. Of nights you

  may see the houris sitting sadly under them, darning their faded

  muslins: Ali, Omar, and the Imaums are reconciled and have gloomy

  consultations: and the Chief of the Faithful himself, the awful

  camel-driver, the supernatural husband of Khadijah, sits alone in a

  tumbledown kiosk, thinking moodily of the destiny that is impending

  over him; and of the day when his gardens of bliss shall be as

  vacant as the bankrupt Olympus.

  All the town of Rhodes has this appearance of decay and ruin,

  except a few consuls' houses planted on the sea-side, here and

  there, with bright flags flaunting in the sun; fresh paint; English

  crockery; shining mahogany, &c.,--so many emblems of the new

  prosperity of their trade, while the old inhabitants were going to

  rack--the fine Church of St. John, converted into a mosque, is a

  ruined church, with a ruined mosque inside; the fortifications are

  mouldering away, as much as time will let them. There was

  considerable bustle and stir about the little port; but it was the

  bustle of people who looked for the most part to be beggars; and I

  saw no shop in the bazaar that seemed to have the value of a

  pedlar's pack.

  I took, by way of guide, a young fellow from Berlin, a journeyman

  shoemaker, who had just been making a tour in Syria, and who

  professed to speak both Arabic and Turkish quite fluently--which I

  thought he might have learned when he was a student at college,

  before he began his profession of shoemaking; but I found he only

  knew about three words of Turkish, which were produced on every

  occasion, as I walked under his guidance through the desolate
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  streets of the noble old town. We went out upon the lines of

  fortification, through an ancient gate and guard-house, where once

  a chapel probably stood, and of which the roofs were richly carved

  and gilded. A ragged squad of Turkish soldiers lolled about the

  gate now; a couple of boys on a donkey; a grinning slave on a mule;

  a pair of women flapping along in yellow papooshes; a basket-maker

  sitting under an antique carved portal, and chanting or howling as

  he plaited his osiers: a peaceful well of water, at which knights'

  chargers had drunk, and at which the double-boyed donkey was now

  refreshing himself--would have made a pretty picture for a

  sentimental artist. As he sits, and endeavours to make a sketch of

  this plaintive little comedy, a shabby dignitary of the island

  comes clattering by on a thirty-shilling horse, and two or three of

  the ragged soldiers leave their pipes to salute him as he passes

  under the Gothic archway.

  The astonishing brightness and clearness of the sky under which the

  island seemed to bask, struck me as surpassing anything I had seen-

  -not even at Cadiz, or the Piraeus, had I seen sands so yellow, or

  water so magnificently blue. The houses of the people along the

  shore were but poor tenements, with humble courtyards and gardens;

  but every fig-tree was gilded and bright, as if it were in an

  Hesperian orchard; the palms, planted here and there, rose with a

  sort of halo of light round about them; the creepers on the walls

  quite dazzled with the brilliancy of their flowers and leaves; the

  people lay in the cool shadows, happy and idle, with handsome

  solemn faces; nobody seemed to be at work; they only talked a very

  little, as if idleness and silence were a condition of the

  delightful shining atmosphere in which they lived.

  We went down to an old mosque by the sea-shore, with a cluster of

  ancient domes hard by it, blazing in the sunshine, and carved all

  over with names of Allah, and titles of old pirates and generals

  who reposed there. The guardian of the mosque sat in the garden-

  court, upon a high wooden pulpit, lazily wagging his body to and

  fro, and singing the praises of the Prophet gently through his

  nose, as the breeze stirred through the trees overhead, and cast

  chequered and changing shadows over the paved court, and the little

  fountains, and the nasal psalmist on his perch. On one side was

  the mosque, into which you could see, with its white walls and

  cool-matted floor, and quaint carved pulpit and ornaments, and

  nobody at prayers. In the middle distance rose up the noble towers

  and battlements of the knightly town, with the deep sea-line behind

  them.

  It really seemed as if everybody was to have a sort of sober

  cheerfulness, and must yield to indolence under this charming

  atmosphere. I went into the courtyard by the sea-shore (where a

  few lazy ships were lying, with no one on board), and found it was

  the prison of the place. The door was as wide open as Westminster

  Hall. Some prisoners, one or two soldiers and functionaries, and

  some prisoners' wives, were lolling under an arcade by a fountain;

  other criminals were strolling about here and there, their chains

  clinking quite cheerfully; and they and the guards and officials

  came up chatting quite friendly together, and gazed languidly over

  the portfolio, as I was endeavouring to get the likeness of one or

  two of these comfortable malefactors. One old and wrinkled she-

  criminal, whom I had selected on account of the peculiar

  hideousness of her countenance, covered it up with a dirty cloth,

  at which there was a general roar of laughter among this good-

  humoured auditory of cut-throats, pickpockets, and policemen. The

  only symptom of a prison about the place was a door, across which a

  couple of sentinels were stretched, yawning; while within lay three

  freshly-caught pirates--chained by the leg. They had committed

  some murders of a very late date, and were awaiting sentence; but

  their wives were allowed to communicate freely with them: and it

  seemed to me that if half-a-dozen friends would set them flee, and

  they themselves had energy enough to move, the sentinels would be a

  great deal too lazy to walk after them.

  The combined influence of Rhodes and Ramazan, I suppose, had taken

  possession of my friend the Schustergesell from Berlin. As soon as

  he received his fee, he cut me at once, and went and lay down by a

  fountain near the port, and ate grapes out of a dirty pocket-

  handkerchief. Other Christian idlers lay near him, dozing, or

  sprawling, in the boats, or listlessly munching water-melons.

  Along the coffee-houses of the quay sat hundreds more, with no

  better employment; and the captain of the "Iberia" and his

  officers, and several of the passengers in that famous steamship,

  were in this company, being idle with all their might. Two or

  three adventurous young men went off to see the valley where the

  dragon was killed; but others, more susceptible of the real

  influence of the island, I am sure would not have moved though we

  had been told that the Colossus himself was taking a walk half a

  mile off.

  CHAPTER IX: THE WHITE SQUALL

  On deck, beneath the awning,

  I dozing lay and yawning;

  It was the grey of dawning,

  Ere yet the sun arose;

  And above the funnel's roaring,

  And the fitful wind's deploring,

  I heard the cabin snoring

  With universal nose.

  I could hear the passengers snorting,

  I envied their disporting:

  Vainly I was courting

  The pleasure of a doze.

  So I lay, and wondered why light

  Came not, and watched the twilight

  And the glimmer of the skylight,

  That shot across the deck;

  And the binnacle pale and steady,

  And the dull glimpse of the dead-eye,

  And the sparks in fiery eddy,

  That whirled from the chimney neck:

  In our jovial floating prison

  There was sleep from fore to mizen,

  And never a star had risen

  The hazy sky to speck.

  Strange company we harboured;

  We'd a hundred Jews to larboard,

  Unwashed, uncombed, uubarbered,

  Jews black, and brown, and grey;

  With terror it would seize ye,

  And make your souls uneasy,

  To see those Rabbis greasy,

  Who did nought but scratch and pray:

  Their dirty children pucking,

  Their dirty saucepans cooking,

  Their dirty fingers hooking

  Their swarming fleas away.

  To starboard Turks and Greeks were,

  Whiskered, and brown their cheeks were,

  Enormous wide their breeks were,

  Their pipes did puff alway;

  Each on his mat allotted,

  In silence smoked and squatted,

  Whilst round their children trotted

  In pretty, pleasant play.

  He can't but smile who traces

  The smiles on those brown faces,

  And the pretty prattling graces
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  Of those small heathens gay.

  And so the hours kept tolling,

  And through the ocean rolling,

  Went the brave "Iberia" bowling

  Before the break of day -

  When a SQUALL upon a sudden

  Came o'er the waters scudding;

  And the clouds began to gather,

  And the sea was lashed to lather,

  And the lowering thunder grumbled,

  And the lightning jumped and tumbled,

  And the ship, and all the ocean,

  Woke up in wild commotion.

  Then the wind set up a howling,

  And the poodle-dog a yowling,

  And the cocks began a crowing,

  And the old cow raised a lowing,

  As she heard the tempest blowing;

  And fowls and geese did cackle,

  And the cordage and the tackle

  Began to shriek and crackle;

  And the spray dashed o'er the funnels,

  And down the deck in runnels;

  And the rushing water soaks all,

  From the seamen in the fo'ksal

  To the stokers, whose black faces

  Peer out of their bed-places;

  And the captain he was bawling,

  And the sailors pulling, hauling;

  And the quarter-deck tarpauling

  Was shivered in the squalling;

  And the passengers awaken,

  Most pitifully shaken;

  And the steward jumps up, and hastens

  For the necessary basins.

  Then the Greeks they groaned and quivered,

  And they knelt, and moaned, and shivered,

  As the plunging waters met them,

  And splashed and overset them;

  And they call in their emergence

  Upon countless saints and virgins;

  And their marrowbones are bended,

  And they think the world is ended.

  And the Turkish women for'ard

  Were frightened and behorror'd;

  And, shrieking and bewildering,

  The mothers clutched their children;

  The men sung, "Allah Illah!

  Mashallah Bismillah!"

  As the warring waters doused them,

  And splashed them and soused them;

  And they called upon the Prophet,

  And thought but little of it.

  Then all the fleas in Jewry

  Jumped up and bit like fury;

  And the progeny of Jacob

  Did on the main-deck wake up

  (I wot those greasy Rabbins

  Would never pay for cabins);

  And each man moaned and jabbered in

  His filthy Jewish gaberdine,

  In woe and lamentation,

  And howling consternation.

  And the splashing water drenches

  Their dirty brats and wenches;

  And they crawl from bales and benches,

  In a hundred thousand stenches.

  This was the White Squall famous

  Which latterly o'ercame us,

  And which all will well remember

  On the 28th September:

  When a Prussian Captain of Lancers

  (Those tight-laced, whiskered prancers)

  Came on the deck astonished,

  By that wild squall admonished,

  And wondering cried, "Potztausend!

  Wie ist der Sturm jetzt brausend!"

  And looked at Captain Lewis,

  Who calmly stood and blew his

  Cigar in all the bustle,

  And scorned the tempest's tussle.

  And oft we've thought thereafter

  How he beat the storm to laughter;

  For well he knew his vessel

  With that vain wind could wrestle;

  And when a wreck we thought her

  And doomed ourselves to slaughter,

  How gaily he fought her,

  And through the hubbub brought her,

  And, as the tempest caught her,

  Cried, "GEORGE! SOME BRANDY-AND-WATER!"

  And when, its force expended,

  The harmless storm was ended,

  And, as the sunrise splendid

  Came blushing o'er the sea;

  I thought, as day was breaking,

  My little girls were waking,

  And smiling, and making

  A prayer at home for me.

  CHAPTER X: TELMESSUS--BEYROUT

  There should have been a poet in our company to describe that

  charming little bay of Glaucus, into which we entered on the 26th

  of September, in the first steam-boat that ever disturbed its

  beautiful waters. You can't put down in prose that delicious

  episode of natural poetry; it ought to be done in a symphony, full

  of sweet melodies and swelling harmonies; or sung in a strain of

  clear crystal iambics, such as Milnes knows how to write. A mere

  map, drawn in words, gives the mind no notion of that exquisite

  nature. What do mountains become in type, or rivers in Mr.

  Vizetelly's best brevier? Here lies the sweet bay, gleaming