Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 434, December, 1851

The cockpit, and even the gun-room of a man-of-war, are little favourable to intellectual effort, or the habit or the love of learning which it can alone accomplish. We can therefore make greater allowances for errors in composition, and concede greater credit for the attainments in languages and general knowledge which our young author has achieved. This is perhaps still more striking in a work written by Mr Walpole three years ago, entitled Four Years in the Pacific, which, though written in a midshipman's berth, abounds in passages of beauty, and in his peculiar and original humour. Having said so much in his praise and dispraise, and only premising, in addition, that he speaks Arabic and Turkish, so as to interpret for himself the quaint unusual thoughts of the people among whom he lives, we enter upon a survey of what he saw.

We have unwillingly passed over the whole of our author's outward voyage, which is graphically, and almost dramatically, described. We shall only refer to one or two passages respecting the Levant. The following sentence may dispel some fanciful visions of the sunny climate of Stamboul: —

"Snow, 'thick and deep' enveloped the city; cupola, dome, and cypress were burdened with icicles; above, was an angry winter sky with a keenly piercing wind… English fires and English coals were the best things we saw – we were actually blockaded by the weather… At length we embarked: the crew were shovelling the deep snow-drift off the deck, so we rushed below into a cabin whose bulkheads were beautifully varnished, sofas perfect, skylights closed, the whole atmosphere tobacco. We were off, gliding past the Seraglio Point, which was swathed in snow, and looking like a man in summer clothes caught in a wintry storm… Masses animate and inanimate encumbered the deck; the former for the most part consisting of the Sultan's subjects; among the latter our baggage, which was thrown into the general heap, and kicked about until it found quiet in the hold… The numbers thus congregated were principally pilgrims, on their way to Jerusalem and to the Jordan; though others, on more worldly journey bent, were mingled with the rest. Each family had taken a spot on the deck, and there, piled over with coverings, and surrounded with their goods, they remained during the voyage: one side of the after-deck was alone kept clear for the first-class passengers, and even this was often invaded by others, who wisely remarked that we had cabins below.

"Each family forms a scene in itself; and an epitome of life in the East is found by a glance around. Four merchants, on their return from a trading tour, have bivouacked between the skylights; and they sing and are sick; call kief11 and smoke, with true Moslem indifference. On the starboard quarter, our notions of Eastern domesticity are sadly put out, for there a Moslem husband is mercilessly bullied by a shrill-voiced Houri. It is curious to observe her perseverance in covering her face, even during the agonies of sea-sickness. Their black servant has taken us into the number of licensed ones, and her veil now hangs over her neck like a loosened neck-cloth.

"On the other side, a Greek family in three generations lies along the deck, fortified by a stout man-servant across their legs, whose attentions to the girls during his own heart-rending ailments is very pretty. The huge grandmother was set on fire and smouldered away most stoically, until her foot began to burn, when, while others put her out, she sank blubbering to sleep again. The pretty granddaughters find the long prostration more irksome; but send their flashing eyes about with careless movement, and so the mass goes on. Here one appears to be offering up nazam, but nearer inspection shows that his shoe is only receiving the offering to the heaving waves…

"Our steamer had passed sad hours of toil, and pitched and tossed us all out of temper before we entered the calm waters to leeward of Rhodes, and at last, passing the low points covered with detached houses and windmills, we shot round in front of the harbour. Our view of the intervening coast had been too vague to form a judgment upon it; but here and there a peak towered up above the mists, all else being veiled by the cloudy sky… No place it has ever been my fortune to visit, more, by its appearance, justifies its character than Rhodes. Around the harbour's shore, one continued line of high castellated wall, unbroken save by flanking towers or frowning portals; from the wave on either side, dovetailed to the rock, rise the knightly buildings; and as the eye reaches round, no dissonant work mars the effect, save that one lofty palm rears its tropic head – but it adds to, rather than lessens, the effect. Above the walls, a mosque with its domed roof or minaret appears; and the fragile building speaks, how truly! in its contrast to the massive walls and ponderous works of former rulers, that the battle is not always to the strong."

In speaking of the sister island-fortress, Malta, our author remarks (in a former page) the immediate contrast presented by these luxurious arsenals: —

"The Eastern reclines on the cushioned divan, the embodiment of repose; the softest carpets, the freshest flowers, surround him – soft women attend the slightest motion of his eye – all breathes of indolence, abandonment, and ease; yet his girdle bristles with arms – his gates are locked and guarded. So at Malta, the bower is a bastion, the saloon a casemate, the serenade the call of martial music, the draperies war-flags, the ornaments shot in ready proximity."

Proceeding to Tarsus, we pass on to Alexandretta, "a wretched collection of hovels. The harbour is splendid; the ruins of the old, the skeleton of the new town, standing on the beach. Behind it, in every direction, stretches a fetid and swampy plain, which only requires drainage to be rendered fertile and wholesome." This is the seaport of Aleppo, on the road to which lies the town of Beilau, and the village of Mortawan, where Pagan rites, especially those of Venus, are still said to be maintained. But again we reimbark —

"Again the vessel cuts the wave. The mountains become a feeble bleached outline, save Cassius on the north, who frowns on his unrecorded fame. Yes, noble hill! though not so high as Strabo tells, though not lofty and imposing; though dark thy path now – unnoticed, solitary. There blazed up the last effort of the flame of pagan civilisation: there Julian the Great – whatever other title men may bestow upon him – offered his solemn sacrifice to Jupiter the Avenger, previous to his last campaign, when the eagles were to wave over Mesopotamia.

"The Sabbath dawned fresh, unclouded, and beautiful, as we anchored in the pretty little port of Latakia, the ancient Laodicea. The town of Latakia, built by Seleucus Nicator, in honour of his mother, is comprehended in the Pashalic of Saida, or Beyrout. It stands on a spur of the Ansayrii Mountains. About half a mile inland, the spur falls into the sea, and forms Cape Zairet; the town stands on its southern slope, and is joined, by gardens and a port, to the sea. The port is small and well sheltered; but time, Turks, and ruins, are filling it up. The buildings on the shore, having their backs to the sea, present the appearance of a fortification. On a reef of rock that shelters the harbour stands a pile of building of different eras. It seems to be castle, mosque, and church. Along the beach lie hundreds of shafts of columns, and many are built into the walls, of whose remains you catch a glimpse on the southern side."

Here we must pause, though our traveller proceeds to Beyrout, of which he gives a charming account, which our limits forbid us to quote. We reserve our space for more novel scenes, and must pass over a chapter on Damascus, which is rich in legends and graphic pictures. Thence, en route to Homs, by the way of the desert, eastward of the Anti-Lebanon, we have a sketch that is too characteristic of Eastern travel to pass over: —

"North, south and east, dead plain; west, a low range of hills, and beyond, the fair Anti-Lebanon in all its snowy beauty. Desert all around us, but no dreary waste. Here and there were loose stones and rocks; the rest a carpet of green, fresh, dewy grass, filled with every hue of wild-flowers – the poppy in its gorgeous red, the hyacinth, the simple daisy and others, thick as they could struggle up, all freshened with a breeze heavy with the scents of thyme. The lark sent forth its thrill of joy in welcome to the coming day; before us the pennon of the spearmen gleamed as they wound along the plain. We passed the site of an Arab encampment strewn with fire-blackened stones, bones, and well picked carcasses. Storks and painted quails sauntered slowly away at our approach, or perched and looked as if they questioned our right to pass. At eight o'clock halted at a khan called Hasiah also. The population consisting of robust, wild-looking fellows; and very pretty women poured out to sell hard-boiled eggs, leban, bread, and milk: they were all Mussulmans…

"We were soon disturbed by a multitude of sick, which recalled to one's mind how in this land, of old, the same style of faces, probably in the same costumes, crowded to Him who healed. The lame, carried by the healthy; feeble mothers with sickly babes; hale men showing wounds long self-healed; others with or without complaints."

Arrived at Homs, we have —

"Fish for dinner, from the Lake of Kades, whose blue waters we saw in the distance to-day. The Lebanon opens behind that lake, and you may pass to the sea, on the plain, without a hill. This plain, but rarely visited, is among the most interesting portions of Syria, containing numerous convents, castles, and ruins, and its people are still but little known. Maszyad, the principal seat of the sect called Ismayly: the Ansayrii also, and Koords, besides Turks, Christians, and gipsys, may be found among its varied population. The ancient castle of El Hoshn, supposed, by the lions over its gates, to have been built by the Count of Thoulouse, is well worth a visit. The Orontes, taking its rise in a rock, from whence it gushes just west of the Tel of Khroumee, – (true bearing from Homs from south 60° 32' east,) – flows through the Lake of Kades, and passes about 2° to the west of Homs: it is called Nahr El Aazzy, or "the rebel river," some say because of its running north, while all the other rivers run south; more probably, however, on account of its rapidity and strength of current. It is an historical stream; on its banks were altars, and the country it waters is almost unmatched for beauty —

'Oh, sacred stream! whose dustIs the fragments of the altars of idolatry.'"

It was at Homs – the ancient Emessa – that Zenobia was brought as a captive into the presence of Aurelian.

"Why did she not there fall? why add the remaining lustreless years to her else glorious life? why, in the words of Gibbon, sink insensibly into the Roman matron? Zenobia fat, dowdy, and contented – profanation! Zimmerman, however, invests the close of her career with graceful philosophy: at Tivoli, in happy tranquillity, she fed the greatness of her soul with the noble images of Homer, and the exalted precepts of Plato; supported the adversity of her fortunes with fortitude and resignation, and learnt that the anxieties attendant on ambition are happily exchanged for the enjoyments of ease and the comforts of philosophy."

From Homs we reach Aleppo in four days.

"It was a spring morning, and a gentle keenness, wafted from snow-clad mountains, rendered the climate delightful. The town lay beneath me, and each terrace, court, serai, and leewan lay open to my view. I saw Aleppo was built in a hollow, from which ran plains north and west, surrounded by mountains. To the north, Djebel Ma Hash and his range, untouched by the soft smiles of the young spring, lay deep in the snow; the flat connected grass-grown roofs and well-watered sparkling courts, with their carefully-tended trees, relieving the glare of the houses, while all around the town lay belted in its garden. The scene was pretty and pleasing; here and there the forests of tomb-stones, the perfect minaret, the Eastern dome swelling up from the mob of flat roofs, – these formed a sight that told I was in the East, in the cradle of mankind – the home of history."…

"And here, though sorely pressed for time, we must stop for a picnic, which E – and myself were told it would be right to give. We provided carpets, nargillehs, horse-loads of sundries, cushions, a cargo of lettuces; and thus equipped, we sallied out, a very numerous party. The first thing to select was a garden, a point on which our own choice, and not the owner's will, seemed alone to be consulted. Let not the reader fancy an Eastern garden is what a warm Western fancy would paint it – wild with luxuriant but weedless verdure, heavy with the scent of roses and jessamine, thrilling with the songs of the bulbul and the nightingale, where fair women with plaited tresses touch the soulful lute in graceful attitudes. No; it is a piece of ground enclosed by high walls, varying in size. A wretched gate, invariably badly made, probably ruined, admits you to the interior. Some enclose a house with two or three rooms – windowless, white-washed places. Before this is a reservoir of dirty, stagnant water, turned up from a neighbouring well by an apparatus as rude as it is ungainly and laborious: this is used to irrigate the ground, which therefore is alternately mud and dust. Fruit trees or mulberries are planted in rows, and the ground beneath, being ploughed up, is productive of vegetables or corn. One or two trees, for ornament, may be planted in the first row, but nothing more; and weeds, uncut, undestroyed, spring up in every direction. Such, without exaggeration, is the Bistan zareff quiess!– the Lovely Garden.

"We selected one that belonged to the Mollah. Oh, true believer! in thy pot we boiled a ham; on thy divan we ate the forbidden beast; thy gardener, for base reward, assisting to cook – who knows, but also to eat the same? We chose a spot shaded by a noble walnut tree, and spread carpets and cushions. Fire was lighted, nargillehs bubbled, and kief began."

On the 2d of May we start for the Euphrates, and follow for some time nearly the route recommended by Colonel Chesney for the great Indian railway to Bussora, on the Persian Gulph. The distance is little more than 800 miles – scarcely thirty steam-winged hours – the level surpassingly uniform. Truly those who desire to find either solitude, or what our author calls kief, in the East, must repair thither quickly, for the iron of the engineer has already entered into its soul. Already the blue and white rivers of the Nile are more easily attainable than were the Tiber and the Po to our grandfathers. Beyrout and Latakia will soon be fashionable watering-places; Baalbec as well known as Melrose Abbey; and the excavated ruins of Nimroud will come under the range of "return tickets." The grim Arab will look out from any quiet spot that the all-searching Cockney may have spared him; and he will gaze with wonder on the awful processions of the "devil-goaded" tourists, as they rush with magic speed across his wilderness – only to retrace their steps. The Turk, at the utmost bounds of the Othman Empire, will marvel at this new freak of kismet (destiny;) with a sigh he will abandon his beloved bockra (the "to-morrow" in which he loves to live;) and commending himself to Islam, or resignation in its most trying form, he will "jump in" like the mere Giaours, and be hurled along with the rest across the desert behind the Afreet stoker.

But at present the wilderness knows nothing of all this, and we have before us the scenery of other days as Abram beheld it. We now cross the Chalus River, and enter upon a series of vast plains, varied by mysterious tels or mounds, rising up from the level surface like bubbles on a pool. On, or among these, the ever restless Turkomans pitch their tents, and welcome the traveller kindly to their wandering homes. On the third day from Aleppo we reach Aintab, on the river Sadschur, "which, fresh and young, danced brightly on, as if eager to join the Euphrates and see the wide world beyond."

"At Aintab, among other visitors was Doctor Smith, an American missionary. He was a well-bred, sensible man, a clever linguist, and, from all I ever heard, an earnest and zealous servant of his heavenly Master. His mission already shows results which must indeed be a source of peace to his heart, and proves that some are allowed even in this world to reap the fruits of their toil for the Lord. In that very town, whence a few years ago he was insulted and abused, a faithful flock now join in humble prayers to God; and surely they pray for him, the instrument of their salvation. I was much pleased at the plain unexaggerating way in which he told the history of his mission… The good work has progressed, and he now has from one hundred and fifty to three hundred pupils in his school, many the children of non-converted parents. And in this year's enrolment – great glory to our ambassador at Constantinople! – the Protestants are enrolled as a separate religious community: the males are two hundred and odd here.

"All sects recognised by the Porte are enrolled separately, as their taxes, &c., are apportioned by their own heads (chiefs.)"

Many of the Armenians here have been converted to the Church of England, and this has proved to be a most advantageous change for their women.

"They are now emancipated from the bondage they have so long been held in – I do not mean personal bondage, for perhaps there is less of it in the East than in the West – but their whole moral position has undergone a vast change. The man is now first taught that the woman is his best friend; his firmest, truest companion; his equal in the social scale, as God made her – a help meet for him, not a mere piece of household furniture. The woman is also taught to reverence the man as her head; thus imparting that beautiful lesson, 'He for God only, she for God through him.' She is also taught perhaps a harder lesson, a more painful task – to relinquish all her costly ornaments, when such may be more usefully employed in trade and traffic; to consider necessaries more beautiful than costly clothes or embroidered suits. Gradually she is allowed to unite with the man in prayers, which is permitted by no other sect in the East, women always having a portion of the church set apart for them, and the Moslems praying at different times. May it please Him who gives and dispenses all things, to prosper this and all other good and holy works!.. On leaving Aintab, we passed over the hills that environ the town, and entered a pretty valley, through which the Sadschur river accompanies us. Here, at a small village called Naringa, we chose a pretty spot under some trees, and pitched our tents. The horses browsed at our door, the stream jumped by before us as we took our evening's repose. And repose it is to sit thus at the close of a day of travel, to enjoy the view of the lovely regions given man to dwell in; to see the various changes time, circumstances, and religion have wrought in the family of Adam, or, as the Arabs say, in the Beni Adam. It was a lovely evening; and as I reclined apart from my more gregarious fellow-travellers, I felt

'That the night was filled with music,And the cares that infested the dayHad folded their tents, like the Arab,And as silently stolen away.'"

From Naringa our route lies eastward over low undulated hills, still marked by frequent tels, generally surmounted by a village. "Are these mounds natural, or does man still fondly cling to the ruined home of his fathers?" Crossing the river Kirsan, we arrive at Nezeeb, lying among vineyards and plantations of figs, pistachios, and olives, interspersed with fields of wheat. At this village the Sultan's forces, 70,000 strong, were defeated by Ibrahim Pasha with 45,000 men – a bootless victory, soon neutralised by a few lines from our "Foreign Office." On the 6th day after leaving Aleppo, we find ourselves on the Euphrates, the Mourad Shai, or "Water of desire."12

"In all its majesty, it glides beneath our gaze. It is needless to tell the history of this river, renowned in the earliest traditions. Watering the Paradise of earth, it has been mingled with the fables of heaven; the Lord gave it in his covenants unto Abram; Moses, inspired, preached it in his sermon to the people. In its waters are bound the four angels, and, at the emptying of the sixth vial, its waters will dry up, that the 'way of the kings of the East may be prepared.' In every age it has formed a prominent feature in the diorama of history, flashing with sunshine, or sluggish and turbid with blood; and here, on its bank, its name unchanged, all now is solitude and quiet.

"Descending amidst wide burial-grounds, where here and there a kubbé sheltered some clay more revered than the rest, we reached its shores, and patiently took up our quarters beneath the shade of a tree, till a boat should arrive to carry us over. The redoubt, Fort William, as it was called, of the Euphrates expedition still remains. In ancient times four shallows existed where there were bridges over the Euphrates: the northernmost at Samosata, now unused; Rum Kalaat, further south, being the route frequented; Bir, the khan and eastern bank of which is called Zeugma, or the Bridge, to this day; and the fourth at Thapsacus, the modern Thapsaish, where Cyrus, Alexander, and Crassus passed into Mesopotamia. The Arabs now generally pass here, or else by fords known only to themselves. Julian crossed at a place called Menbidjy, which was probably abreast of Hierapolis.

"But what avails to recount individual cases? – the whole land is history. Near us is Racca, once the favourite residence of Aaron the Just. Here he delighted to spend his leisure —

'Entranced with that place and time,So worthy of the golden primeOf good Haroun Alraschid.'"

We cross the Euphrates to the town of Bir, and proceed still eastward, along a flat desert, strewn with a small-bladed scanty grass, aromatic flowers, and wormwood. "One small gleam, like a polished shield or a dark sward, is all we see of the mighty river that flows around us. Every hour of the day changes the aspect of the desert: now it is wild and gloomy, as scudding clouds pass over the sun; now smiling with maiden sweetness, as the sun shines out again." Often we pass by the tented homes of the desert tribes, with their flocks and herds tended by busy maidens, now screaming wildly after their restless charge – now singing songs as wild, but sweeter far. Then comes sunset with its massed clouds of purple, blue, and gold; the air is full of bleatings as the flocks all tamely follow their shepherds home. On the tenth day after leaving Aleppo, we descend into a plain covered with some dusty olive-trees: we come to a hill with a low wall, and a castle on its summit. "And this is the Ur of the Chaldees, the Edessa of the Romans, the Orfa of the Arabs. Here God spake to Abram." From this city, very fruitful in legends, we reach Haran in six hours; travelling over a plain strewn with tels and encampments of the Koords.

"Perhaps by this very route Abraham of old and those with him travelled; nor is it extravagance to say, the family we now meet may exhibit the exact appearance that the patriarchs did four thousand years ago – the tents and pots piled on the camels; the young children in one saddle-bag balancing the kids in the other; the matron astride on the ass; the maid following modestly behind; the boys now here, now there; the patriarch himself on his useful mare, following and directing the march. As we pass, he lays his hand on his heart, and says, 'Peace be with you; where are you going? – Depart in peace.'"

Haran appears to be, without doubt, the ancient city of Nahor, where Laban lived, and where Jacob served for Leah and Rachel. Here, too, is Rebekah's well, and here our traveller beheld the very counterpart of the scene that Eleazar saw when he sought a bride for his master's son. By this time our author had so far identified himself with the desert tribes, their language, their interests, their enjoyment of the desert life, and their love of horses, that he seems to feel, and almost to speak, in the Arab style. We have never seen that interesting people so happily described and so vividly illustrated. If we had not so much before us still to investigate, we would gladly dwell upon the desert journey from Haran to Tel Bagdad, and on the raft voyage thence down the Tigris to Mosul. One graphic sketch of an Arab sheik must serve for many: his characteristic speech contains volumes of his people's history.