The Lands of the Saracen - Bayard Taylor
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Accompanied by Signor di Picciotto, we spent two or three days in
visiting the houses of the principal Jewish and Christian families in
Aleppo. We found, it is true, no such splendor as in Damascus, but more
solid and durable architecture, and a more chastened elegance of taste.
The buildings are all of hewn stone, the court-yards paved with marble,
and the walls rich with gilding and carved wood. Some of the larger
dwellings have small but beautiful gardens attached to them. We were
everywhere received with the greatest hospitality, and the visits were
considered as a favor rather than an intrusion. Indeed, I was frequently
obliged to run the risk of giving offence, by declining the refreshments
which were offered us. Each round of visits was a feat of strength, and we
were obliged to desist from sheer inability to support more coffee,
rose-water, pipes, and aromatic sweetmeats. The character of society in
Aleppo is singular; its very life and essence is etiquette. The laws which
govern it are more inviolable than those of the Medes and Persians. The
question of precedence among the different families is adjusted by the
most delicate scale, and rigorously adhered to in the most trifling
matters. Even we, humble voyagers as we are, have been obliged to regulate
our conduct according to it. After our having visited certain families,
certain others would have been deeply mortified had we neglected to call
upon them. Formerly, when a traveller arrived here, he was expected to
call upon the different Consuls, in the order of their established
precedence: the Austrian first, English second, French third, &c. After
this, he was obliged to stay at home several days, to give the Consuls an
opportunity of returning the visits, which they made in the same order.
There was a diplomatic importance about all his movements, and the least
violation of etiquette, through ignorance or neglect, was the town talk
for days.
This peculiarity in society is evidently a relic of the formal times, when
Aleppo was a semi-Venetian city, and the opulent seat of Eastern commerce.
Many of the inhabitants are descended from the traders of those times, and
they all speak the _lingua franca_, or Levantine Italian. The women wear a
costume partly Turkish and partly European, combining the graces of both;
it is, in my eyes, the most beautiful dress in the world. They wear a rich
scarf of some dark color on the head, which, on festive occasions, is
almost concealed by their jewels, and the heavy scarlet pomegranate
blossoms which adorn their dark hair. A Turkish vest and sleeves of
embroidered silk, open in front, and a skirt of white or some light color,
completes the costume. The Jewesses wear in addition a short Turkish
_caftan_, and full trousers gathered at the ankles. At a ball given by Mr.
Very, the English Consul, which we attended, all the Christian beauties of
Aleppo were present. There was a fine display of diamonds, many of the
ladies wearing several thousand dollars' worth on their heads. The
peculiar etiquette of the place was again illustrated on this occasion.
The custom is, that the music must be heard for at least one hour before
the guests come. The hour appointed was eight, but when we went there, at
nine, nobody had arrived. As it was generally supposed that the ball was
given on our account, several of the families had servants in the
neighborhood to watch our arrival; and, accordingly, we had not been there
five minutes before the guests crowded through the door in large numbers.
When the first dance (an Arab dance, performed by two ladies at a time)
was proposed, the wives of the French and Spanish Consuls were first led,
or rather dragged, out. When a lady is asked to dance, she invariably
refuses. She is asked a second and a third time; and if the gentleman does
not solicit most earnestly, and use some gentle force in getting her upon
the floor, she never forgives him.
At one of the Jewish houses which we visited, the wedding festivities of
one of the daughters were being celebrated. We were welcomed with great
cordiality, and immediately ushered into the room of state, an elegant
apartment, overlooking the gardens below the city wall. Half the room was
occupied by a raised platform, with a divan of blue silk cushions. Here
the ladies reclined, in superb dresses of blue, pink, and gold, while the
gentlemen were ranged on the floor below. They all rose at our entrance,
and we were conducted to seats among the ladies. Pipes and perfumed drinks
were served, and the bridal cake, made of twenty-six different fruits, was
presented on a golden salver. Our fair neighbors, some of whom literally
blazed with jewels, were strikingly beautiful. Presently the bride
appeared at the door, and we all rose and remained standing, as she
advanced, supported on each side by the two _shebeeniyeh_, or bridesmaids.
She was about sixteen, slight and graceful in appearance, though not
decidedly beautiful, and was attired with the utmost elegance. Her dress
was a pale blue silk, heavy with gold embroidery; and over her long dark
hair, her neck, bosom, and wrists, played a thousand rainbow gleams from
the jewels which covered them. The Jewish musicians, seated at the bottom
of the hall, struck up a loud, rejoicing harmony on their violins,
guitars, and dulcimers, and the women servants, grouped at the door,
uttered in chorus that wild, shrill cry, which accompanies all such
festivals in the East. The bride was careful to preserve the decorum
expected of her, by speaking no word, nor losing the sad, resigned
expression of her countenance. She ascended to the divan, bowed to each of
us with a low, reverential inclination, and seated herself on the
cushions. The music and dances lasted some time, accompanied by the
_zughareet_, or cry of the women, which was repeated with double force
when we rose to take leave. The whole company waited on us to the street
door, and one of the servants, stationed in the court, shouted some long,
sing-song phrases after us as we passed out. I could not learn the words,
but was told that it was an invocation of prosperity upon us, in return
for the honor which our visit had conferred.
In the evening I went to view a Christian marriage procession, which,
about midnight, conveyed the bride to the house of the bridegroom. The
house, it appeared, was too small to receive all the friends of the
family, and I joined a large number of them, who repaired to the terrace
of the English Consulate, to greet the procession as it passed. The first
persons who appeared were a company of buffoons; after them four
janissaries, carrying silver maces; then the male friends, bearing colored
lanterns and perfumed torches, raised on gilded poles; then the females,
among whom I saw some beautiful Madonna faces in the torchlight; and
finally the bride herself, covered from head to foot with a veil of cloth
of gold, and urged along by two maidens: for it is the etiquette of such
occasions that the bride should resist being taken, and must be forced
every step of the way, so that she is frequently three hours in going the
distance of a mile. We watched the procession a long time, winding away
through the streets--a line of torches, and songs, and incense, and noisy
jubilee--under the sweet starlit heaven.
The other evening, Signor di Picciotto mounted us from his fine Arabian
stud, and we rode around the city, outside of the suburbs. The sun was
low, and a pale yellow lustre touched the clusters of minarets that rose
out of the stately masses of buildings, and the bare, chalky hills to the
north. After leaving the gardens on the banks of the Koweik, we came upon
a dreary waste of ruins, among which the antiquarian finds traces of the
ancient Aleppo of the Greeks, the Mongolian conquerors of the Middle Ages,
and the Saracens who succeeded them. There are many mosques and tombs,
which were once imposing specimens of Saracenic art; but now, split and
shivered by wars and earthquakes, are slowly tumbling into utter decay. On
the south-eastern side of the city, its chalk foundations have been
hollowed into vast, arched caverns, which extend deep into the earth.
Pillars have been left at regular intervals, to support the masses above,
and their huge, dim labyrinths resemble the crypts of some great
cathedral. They are now used as rope-walks, and filled with cheerful
workmen.
Our last excursion was to a country-house of Signor di Picciotto, in the
Gardens of Babala, about four miles from Aleppo. We set out in the
afternoon on our Arabians, with our host's son on a large white donkey of
the Baghdad breed. Passing the Turkish cemetery, where we stopped to view
the tomb of General Bem, we loosened rein and sped away at full gallop
over the hot, white hills. In dashing down a stony rise, the ambitious
donkey, who was doing his best to keep up with the horses, fell, hurling
Master Picciotto over his head. The boy was bruised a little, but set his
teeth together and showed no sign of pain, mounted again, and followed
us. The Gardens of Babala are a wilderness of fruit-trees, like those of
Damascus. Signor P.'s country-house is buried in a wild grove of apricot,
fig, orange, and pomegranate-trees. A large marble tank, in front of the
open, arched _liwan_, supplies it with water. We mounted to the flat roof,
and watched the sunset fade from the beautiful landscape. Beyond the
bowers of dazzling greenness which surrounded us, stretched the wide, gray
hills; the minarets of Aleppo, and the walls of its castled mount shone
rosily in the last rays of the sun; an old palace of the Pashas, with the
long, low barracks of the soldiery, crowned the top of a hill to the
north; dark, spiry cypresses betrayed the place of tombs; and, to the
west, beyond the bare red peak of Mount St. Simon, rose the faint blue
outline of Giaour Dagh, whose mural chain divides Syria from the plains of
Cilicia. As the twilight deepened over the scene, there came a long,
melodious cry of passion and of sorrow from the heart of a starry-flowered
pomegranate tree in the garden. Other voices answered it from the gardens
around, until not one, but fifty nightingales charmed the repose of the
hour. They vied with each other in their bursts of passionate music. Each
strain soared over the last, or united with others, near and far, in a
chorus of the divinest pathos--an expression of sweet, unutterable,
unquenchable longing. It was an ecstasy, yet a pain, to listen. "Away!"
said Jean Paul to Music: "thou tellest me of that which I have not, and
never can have--which I forever seek, and never find!"
But space fails me to describe half the incidents of our stay in Aleppo.
There are two things peculiar to the city, however, which I must not omit
mentioning. One is the Aleppo Button, a singular ulcer, which attacks
every person born in the city, and every stranger who spends more than a
month there. It can neither be prevented nor cured, and always lasts for a
year. The inhabitants almost invariably have it on the face--either on the
cheek, forehead, or tip of the nose--where it often leaves an indelible
and disfiguring scar. Strangers, on the contrary, have it on one of the
joints; either the elbow, wrist, knee, or ankle. So strictly is its
visitation confined to the city proper, that in none of the neighboring
villages, nor even in a distant suburb, is it known. Physicians have
vainly attempted to prevent it by inoculation, and are at a loss to what
cause to ascribe it. We are liable to have it, even after five days' stay;
but I hope it will postpone its appearance until after I reach home.
The other remarkable thing here is the Hospital for Cats. This was founded
long ago by a rich, cat-loving Mussulman, and is one of the best endowed
institutions in the city. An old mosque is appropriated to the purpose,
under the charge of several directors; and here sick cats are nursed,
homeless cats find shelter, and decrepit cats gratefully purr away their
declining years. The whole category embraces several hundreds, and it is
quite a sight to behold the court, the corridors, and terraces of the
mosque swarming with them. Here, one with a bruised limb is receiving a
cataplasm; there, a cataleptic patient is tenderly cared for; and so on,
through the long concatenation of feline diseases. Aleppo, moreover,
rejoices in a greater number of cats than even Jerusalem. At a rough
guess, I should thus state the population of the city: Turks and Arabs,
70,000; Christians of all denominations, 15,000; Jews, 10,000; dogs,
12,000; and cats, 8,000.
Among other persons whom I have met here, is Ferhat Pasha, formerly
General Stein, Hungarian Minister of War, and Governor of Transylvania. He
accepted Moslemism with Bem and others, and now rejoices in his
circumcision and 7,000 piastres a month. He is a fat, companionable sort
of man; who, by his own confession, never labored very zealously for the
independence of Hungary, being an Austrian by birth. He conversed with me
for several hours on the scenes in which he had participated, and
attributed the failure of the Hungarians to the want of material means.
General Bem, who died here, is spoken of with the utmost respect, both by
Turks and Christians. The former have honored him with a large tomb, or
mausoleum, covered with a dome.
But I must close, leaving half unsaid. Suffice it to say that no Oriental
city has interested me so profoundly as Aleppo, and in none have I
received such universal and cordial hospitality. We leave to-morrow for
Asia Minor, having engaged men and horses for the whole route to
Constantinople.
Chapter XVI.
Through the Syrian Gates.
An Inauspicious Departure--The Ruined Church of St. Simon--The Plain of
Antioch--A Turcoman Encampment--Climbing Akma Dagh--The Syrian
Gates--Scanderoon--An American Captain--Revolt of the Koords--We take a
Guard--The Field of Issus--The Robber-Chief, Kutchuk Ali--A Deserted
Town--A Land of Gardens.
"Mountains, on whose barren breast
The lab'ring clouds do often rest."
Milton.
In Quarantine (Adana, Asia Minor), _Tuesday, June_ 15, 1852.
We left Aleppo on the morning of the 9th, under circumstances not the most
promising for the harmony of our journey. We had engaged horses and
baggage-mules from the _capidji_, or chief of the muleteers, and in order
to be certain of having animals that would not break down on the way, made
a particular selection from a number that were brought us. When about
leaving the city, however, we discovered that one of the horses had been
changed. Signor di Picciotto, who accompanied us past the Custom-House
barriers, immediately dispatched the delinquent muleteer to bring back the
true horse, and the latter made a farce of trying to find him, leading the
Consul and the capidji (who, I believe, was at the bottom of the cheat) a
wild-goose chase over the hills around Aleppo, where of course, the animal
was not to be seen. When, at length, we had waited three hours, and had
wandered about four miles from the city, we gave up the search, took leave
of the Consul and went on with the new horse. Our proper plan would have
been to pitch the tent and refuse to move till the matter was settled. The
animal, as we discovered during the first day's journey, was hopelessly
lame, and we only added to the difficulty by taking him.
We rode westward all day over barren and stony hills, meeting with
abundant traces of the power and prosperity of this region during the
times of the Greek Emperors. The nevastation wrought by earthquakes has
been terrible; there is scarcely a wall or arch standing, which does not
bear marks of having been violently shaken. The walls inclosing the
fig-orchards near the villages contain many stones with Greek
inscriptions, and fragments of cornices. We encamped the first night on
the plain at the foot of Mount St. Simon, and not far from the ruins of
the celebrated Church of the same name. The building stands in a stony
wilderness at the foot of the mountain. It is about a hundred feet long
and thirty in height, with two lofty square towers in front. The pavement
of the interior is entirely concealed by the masses of pillars, capitals,
and hewn blocks that lie heaped upon it. The windows, which are of the
tall, narrow, arched form, common in Byzantine Churches, have a common
moulding which falls like a mantle over and between them. The general
effect of the Church is very fine, though there is much inelegance in the
sculptured details. At the extremity is a half-dome of massive stone, over
the place of the altar, and just in front of this formerly stood the
pedestal whereon, according to tradition, St. Simeon Stylites commenced
his pillar-life. I found a recent excavation at the spot, but no
pedestal, which has probably been carried off by the Greek monks. Beside
the Church stands a large building, with an upper and lower balcony,
supported by square stone pillars, around three sides. There is also a
paved court-yard, a large cistern cut in the rock and numerous
out-buildings, all going to confirm the supposition of its having been a
monastery. The main building is three stories high, with pointed gables,
and bears a strong resemblance to an American summer hotel, with verandas.
Several ancient fig and walnut trees are growing among the ruins, and add
to their picturesque appearance.
The next day we crossed a broad chain of hills to the Plain of Antioch,
which we reached near its northern extremity. In one of the valleys
through which the road lay, we saw a number of hot sulphur springs, some
of them of a considerable volume of water. Not far from them was a
beautiful fountain of fresh and cold water gushing from the foot of a high
rock. Soon after reaching the plain, we crossed the stream of Kara Su,
which feeds the Lake of Antioch. This part of the plain is low and swampy,
and the streams are literally alive with fish. While passing over the
bridge I saw many hundreds, from one to two feet in length. We wandered
through the marshy meadows for two or three hours, and towards sunset
reached a Turcoman encampment, where the ground was dry enough to pitch
our tents. The rude tribe received us hospitably, and sent us milk and
cheese in abundance. I visited the tent of the Shekh, who was very
courteous, but as he knew no language but Turkish, our conversation was
restricted to signs. The tent was of camel's-hair cloth, spacious, and
open at the sides. A rug was spread for me, and the Shekh's wife brought
me a pipe of tolerable tobacco. The household were seated upon the
ground, chatting pleasantly with one another, and apparently not in the
least disturbed by my presence. One of the Shekh's sons, who was deaf and
dumb, came and sat before me, and described by very expressive signs the
character of the road to Scanderoon. He gave me to understand that there
were robbers in the mountains, with many grim gestures descriptive of
stabbing and firing muskets.
The mosquitoes were so thick during the night that we were obliged to fill
the tent with smoke in order to sleep. When morning came, we fancied there
would be a relief for us, but it only brought a worse pest, in the shape
of swarms of black gnats, similar to those which so tormented me in Nubia.
I know of no infliction so terrible as these gnats, which you cannot drive
away, and which assail ears, eyes, and nostrils in such quantities that
you become mad and desperate in your efforts to eject them. Through glens
filled with oleander, we ascended the first slopes of Akma Dagh, the
mountain range which divides the Gulf of Scanderoon from the Plain of
Antioch. Then, passing a natural terrace, covered with groves of oak, our
road took the mountain side, climbing upwards in the shadow of pine and
wild olive trees, and between banks of blooming lavender and myrtle. We
saw two or three companies of armed guards, stationed by the road-side,
for the mountain is infested with robbers, and a caravan had been
plundered only three days before. The view, looking backward, took in the
whole plain, with the Lake of Antioch glittering in the centre, the valley
of the Orontes in the south, and the lofty cone of Djebel-Okrab far to the
west. As we approached the summit, violent gusts of wind blew through the
pass with such force as almost to overturn our horses. Here the road from
Antioch joins that from Aleppo, and both for some distance retain the
ancient pavement.
From the western side we saw the sea once more, and went down through the
_Pylae Syriae_, or Syrian Gates, as this defile was called by the Romans. It
is very narrow and rugged, with an abrupt descent. In an hour from the
summit we came upon an aqueduct of a triple row of arches, crossing the
gorge. It is still used to carry water to the town of Beilan, which hangs
over the mouth of the pass, half a mile below. This is one of the most
picturesque spots in Syria. The houses cling to the sides and cluster on
the summits of precipitous crags, and every shelf of soil, every crevice
where a tree can thrust its roots, upholds a mass of brilliant vegetation.
Water is the life of the place. It gushes into the street from exhaustless
fountains; it trickles from the terraces in showers of misty drops; it
tumbles into the gorge in sparkling streams; and everywhere it nourishes a
life as bright and beautiful as its own. The fruit trees are of enormous
size, and the crags are curtained with a magnificent drapery of vines.
This green gateway opens suddenly upon another, cut through a glittering
mass of micaceous rock, whence one looks down on the town and Gulf of
Scanderoon, the coast of Karamania beyond, and the distant snows of the
Taurus. We descended through groves of pine and oak, and in three hours
more reached the shore.
Scanderoon is the most unhealthy place on the Syrian Coast, owing to the
malaria from a marsh behind it. The inhabitants are a wretched pallid set,
who are visited every year with devastating fevers. The marsh was partly
drained some forty years ago by the Turkish government, and a few
thousand dollars would be sufficient to remove it entirely, and make the
place--which is of some importance as the seaport of Aleppo--healthy and
habitable. At present, there are not five hundred inhabitants, and half of
these consist of the Turkish garrison and the persons attached to the
different Vice-Consulates. The streets are depositories of filth, and
pools of stagnant water, on all sides, exhale the most fetid odors. Near
the town are the ruins of a castle built by Godfrey of Bouillon. We
marched directly down to the sea-shore, and pitched our tent close beside
the waves, as the place most free from malaria. There were a dozen vessels
at anchor in the road, and one of them proved to be the American bark
Columbia, Capt. Taylor. We took a skiff and went on board, where we were
cordially welcomed by the mate. In the evening, the captain came to our
tent, quite surprised to find two wandering Americans in such a lonely
corner of the world. Soon afterwards, with true seaman-like generosity, he
returned, bringing a jar of fine Spanish olives and a large bottle of
pickles, which he insisted on adding to our supplies. The olives have the
choicest Andalusian flavor, and the pickles lose none of their relish from
having been put up in New York.
The road from Scanderoon to this place lies mostly along the shore of the
gulf, at the foot of Akma Dagh, and is reckoned dangerous on account of
the marauding bands of Koords who infest the mountains. These people, like
the Druses, have rebelled against the conscription, and will probably hold
their ground with equal success, though the Turks talk loudly of invading
their strongholds. Two weeks ago, the post was robbed, about ten miles
from Scanderoon, and a government vessel, now lying at anchor in the bay,
opened a cannonade on the plunderers, before they could be secured. In
consequence of the warnings of danger in everybody's mouth, we decided to
take an escort, and therefore waited upon the commander of the forces,
with the firman of the Pasha of Aleppo. A convoy of two soldiers was at
once promised us; and at sunrise, next morning, they took the lead of our
caravan.
In order to appear more formidable, in case we should meet with robbers,
we put on our Frank pantaloons, which had no other effect than to make the
heat more intolerable. But we formed rather a fierce cavalcade, six armed
men in all. Our road followed the shore of the bay, having a narrow,
uninhabited flat, covered with thickets of myrtle and mastic, between us
and the mountains. The two soldiers, more valiant than the guard of
Banias, rode in advance, and showed no signs of fear as we approached the
suspicious places. The morning was delightfully clear, and the
snow-crowned range of Taurus shone through the soft vapors hanging over
the gulf. In one place, we skirted the shore for some distance, under a
bank twenty feet in height, and so completely mantled with shrubbery, that
a small army might have hidden in it. There were gulleys at intervals,
opening suddenly on our path, and we looked up them, expecting every
moment to see the gleam of a Koordish gun-barrel, or a Turcoman spear,
above the tops of the myrtles.