His earlier and less ambitious, though perhaps more charming, book was rejected by several publishers, but proved an immense success. It caught the popular fancy at once, and after the lapse of more than fifty years still maintains an honourable position. In the year after its first appearance it passed through three editions, containing several variations from the editio princeps which have attracted the attention of those who are interested in bibliography. It is only fair to reprint the book with these corrections, which seem mostly due to the author’s laudable desire for greater accuracy. For instance, he was apparently seized with qualms as to his assertion (end of chap. xiii.) that when he emerged from the Dead Sea after bathing therein his “skin was thickly encrusted with sulphate of magnesia,” and cautiously substituted “salts” for the more chemical expression. Yet I observe that the most recent Encyclopædia states that “the water of the Dead Sea is characterised by the presence of a large quantity of magnesian salts,” so perhaps his first statement was not so wrong after all. He also found that he had talked of Jove when he should have said Neptune in his account of the Troad, and, conceiving a mistrust of the former deity, removed his name not only from this passage but also from chap. xviii., in which he altered “That touch was worthy of Jove” into “In that touch was true hospitality.” I confess that I think this regard for truth might have moved him to expunge his account of the advances made to him by the young ladies of Bethlehem (end of chap. xvi.); I cannot believe that narrative to be even probable, but anyone may retort that my scepticism is due to the absence of those attractive qualities which Kinglake possessed.
In chap. xvi. he says that shrouds are dipped in the holy water of the Jordan and “preserved as a burial dress which shall inure” (later editions “enure”) “for salvation in the realms of death.” Some critical scholar of eminence should be called upon to emend or explain this mysterious passage. At least, if people are allowed to print such things in the nineteenth century what right have we to emend the classical authors when they choose to be unintelligible?
The truth is that Eothen, despite its great literary merits, is often comfortably slipshod. And very properly so, for if there is to be any correspondence between subject and style, it must be inappropriate for a traveller recounting confidentially his diversions and mishaps to adopt the phraseology of Gibbon. Matthew Arnold, in his “Essay on the Literary Influence of Academies,” selected the History of the Crimean War as an example of what he called the Corinthian style. Eothen certainly presents specimens of this manner, but they are hardly characteristic; it is often “urbane,” and has “the warm glow, blithe movement, and pliancy of life,” which, according to the critic’s definition, Corinthians lack. It is not devoid of unity, but it is many sided and kaleidoscopic. The author varies from the trivial to the solemn, from boisterous exuberance to careful austerity, from flippancy to rhapsody, and is perhaps never quite serious. One wonders whether one is reading a clever but somewhat slangy letter, or a long-meditated essay polished and repolished by incessant labor limæ. Perhaps between 1834 and 1844 he worked up and rearranged old spontaneous effusions, as indeed his preface suggests. He often writes like a schoolboy, and sometimes like a philosopher; he is at his best when he records what he has seen in phrases not without rhetoric and not without humour, but distinct and clear as his own impressions. “The foot falls noiseless in the crumbling soil of an Eastern city, and silence follows you still. Again and again you meet turbans, and faces of men, but they have nothing for you—no welcome—no wonder—no wrath—no scorn—they look upon you as we do upon a December’s fall of snow—as a ‘seasonable,’ unaccountable, uncomfortable work of God, that may have been sent for some good purpose to be revealed hereafter.” How vivid and how true!
But perhaps the reader may ask, as I ask myself, whether an introduction to Eothen is really necessary. The book is so simple and complete in itself that it seems to require no explanation or commentary. But for the benefit of those who are not acquainted with the Levant of to-day, it is well to explain that the sixty-four years which have elapsed since Kinglake made his Eastern tour have brought about important changes in the extent, and some few in the condition, of the Turkish Empire. The “unchanging East” is a popular phrase which is only true in a very limited sense. It has arisen chiefly from the habit of pious publishers of representing Abraham in the costume of a modern Bedouin Sheikh, and it is peculiarly audacious to apply it to regions like Constantinople and Egypt, which have witnessed exceptional vicissitudes and undergone remarkable changes—political, religious, and linguistic. It is however just to say that the Turk is unchanging—and it is to the presence of the Turk that are due the peculiar characteristics of the Levant, as the region visited by Kinglake may conveniently be termed; like the Bourbons, he forgets nothing and learns nothing; as he was on the day when he entered Europe, so he was in 1834 and so he is now. The boundaries of Turkey have changed; there are now no Pashas at Belgrade, or even at Sofia; and Ottoman territory is no longer plague-stricken. But whenever one crosses the Turkish frontier, one may find functionaries like the delightful potentate of Karagholookoldour, and be conscious of effecting within the space of a few hundred yards a change greater than can be experienced in any amount of travel in other European countries, including Russia. One passes from regions where people have roughly the same habits and ideas as ourselves—where they believe in political economy, get drunk in public, sit upon chairs, and do not feel there is anything indelicate in mentioning their wives—to a land where people do none of these things, where the naked desolation of the country at the side of the railway offers a startling contrast to the smug prosperity of the Balkan States, where people prefer to sit curled up on hard sofas, and where it is bad taste to condole with a man on his wife’s death.
In 1834, the year of Kinglake’s journey, Turkey in Europe was considerably more extensive than at the present day. Greece had already revolted and been recognised as an independent state. Wallachia and Moldavia were in process of securing their freedom. But the territories now known as Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Herzegovina were still integral portions of the Ottoman Empire; and though Servia (in which the scene of the opening chapters of Eothen is laid) had been constituted a principality under Milosh Obrenovich as prince, in 1830, several of the fortresses were still garrisoned by Ottoman troops, which accounts for the presence of the Pasha at Belgrade. It is interesting to observe that though our Author must have proceeded to Adrianople straight across Bulgaria, he never mentions the name of that country. This apparently strange omission is really quite natural. The Bulgarians, though in some ways the most vigorous element among the Balkan races, passed through greater trials than the Servians or Roumanians, and for a time lost their national consciousness more completely. They were nearer Constantinople, and therefore any political movement was more easily kept in check; while all the religious and educational establishments of the country were in the hands of Greek priests who practically proscribed the Bulgarian language. I have been informed by a gentleman who has resided forty years in Turkey, that when he first entered the Ottoman dominions every educated Bulgarian called himself a Greek, and would have been ashamed to employ his national designation, which was hardly in general use before the movement of 1860. Another striking omission of Eothen is that it contains hardly any allusion to the Sultan. At the present day the descendant of Osman, who claims to be also the successor of the Prophet, is a well-known figure to the British public. The Pall Mall Gazette familiarly calls him “The Shadow.” [xiv] The friends of the Armenians hold him personally responsible for the massacres; and a modern Kinglake, even if bent on avoiding “political disquisitions,” would certainly describe the Selamlik or weekly visit of the Sovereign to the mosque. You cannot travel in Turkey without hearing the name of “Our Master” (Effendimiz) or “the Imperial Person” (Zat-i-Shahane) daily mentioned, and feeling that his wishes (which usually do not coincide with those of European travellers, and affect the minutest details) are the only real power in the country. This state of things is due almost entirely to the personal energy of the present occupant of the Ottoman throne, who for good or evil has succeeded in concentrating all power into his hands, and in displaying the greatest example of practical autocracy ever seen. In 1834 Mahmoud was Sultan, one of the most vigorous of Ottoman princes, but then near his end, and doubtless wearied out by a reign