intimidation, haughtiness, and defiance of all regulations are the only means of impressing Orientals; and chronicles with great satisfaction his own exploits in this line, concluding with “the Surprise of Satalieh.” What he says is true enough as long as the Oriental believes that the traveller is a prince in his own country, and that any interference with his mad whims will bring severe punishment. But unfortunately the secret is out. Enlightened officials are well aware that many Englishmen are not cousins of the Queen, and have a shrewd suspicion that hindrances placed in the way of the prying European are not displeasing to the Imperial Government. The “Lord of London,” who fifty years ago obtained a firman which made every provincial official bow before him, may now be kept waiting days or weeks for a travelling passport; and, unless he uses tact as well as bumptiousness, may find himself in a position to write to the Times about the interior of Turkish provincial prisons, and become the subject of a Blue Book. Still even now, if travellers will be cautious and polite in dealing with people of whose language and customs they are profoundly ignorant, and not bluster unless they know very well what they are about (for I admit that bluster has its uses), they will find travelling more interesting, diverting, and enjoyable in the Levant than in any other part of the world.
I write these lines as I sit in the hall of the largest hotel in New York, a newly arrived stranger, somewhat dazed by the bustle and the glare. The whole establishment is on a greater scale than anything else in the world—except its own bills. Everything is made of gold and marble, including, I fancy, the food—at least this hypothesis plausibly reconciles the quality and texture of the viands with the value the vendors seem to attach to them. Enormous lifts shoot their living freights up into spheres unseen, or engulf them in abysmal chasms. All round people are ringing electric bells, telephoning, telegraphing, stenographing, polygraphing, and generally communicating their ideas about money to their fellow-creatures by any means rather than the voice which God put in the larynx for the purpose of quiet conversation. On one side an operatic concert is being performed, on the other porters and luggage jostle a brilliant throng of fashionably dressed people. It is as if someone had given an evening party at a railway station. “Whirr! whirr! all by wheels! whizz! whizz! all by steam!” and electricity, as the immortal Pasha of Karagholookoldour would have said. Now my mind (like the Pasha’s) comprehends locomotives, and I am an enthusiast for progress, but amidst all the whizz and whirr and ringing of electric bells, my memory turns somewhat regretfully to a hotel where I resided not long ago in the “Exalted Country”—that fine old Stamboul’s jargon is so much more soothing to the tongue than the strange abbreviations and initials they use over here—which was certainly more interesting, and not, I think, more uncomfortable than this Transatlantic Caravanserai. Perhaps I shall write an introduction congenial to the Shade of Kinglake (if indeed the Shades are interested in new editions of their works) if instead of instituting a comparison between the Levant of to-day and of 1834, I recount a journey to the town of Karakeui in the year of grace 1898, and describe the local hotel. Let not the reader in pursuit of that “sound learning” which Kinglake kept at arm’s length rashly identify Karakeui with the first town he finds on the map bearing that name. The Turk has not a great variety of local designations. When possible he adopts one from some other language, treating it with the scant courtesy which long-winded, infidel polysyllables deserve (e.g. Edirné, Fílibé, for Adrianople and Phílippopoli); but when forced to have recourse to his own invention he calls most places Karakeui (or Blacktown), except those which are dubbed Oldtown, Newtown, or Whitetown.
It has been justly said that the East begins on the other side of Vienna, but, out of deference to the susceptibilities of the Magyars, who consider themselves in the van of civilisation, the Orient Express affects to be extremely European during its transit through Hungary. It bustles and shakes, and is very uncomfortable. In Servia it is more at its ease, though it still makes a pretence of thinking that time is money by only stopping ten minutes at every station. In Bulgaria it ceases to imitate Western ways, and becomes frankly Oriental, reposing for half an hour at spots where there are no passengers and no traffic. The part of the journey which lies on Turkish territory follows a singularly tortuous and corkscrew course, across a perfectly level plain which presents no obvious engineering difficulties. The Porte confided the construction of this line to an eminent Israelite at a remuneration of so much for every kilometre built. The eminent Israelite was straightway possessed by the spirit of his ancestors, and made a large fortune by laying the rails along a road as lengthy and complicated as that selected by Moses when he spent forty years in traversing a distance which anyone else can accomplish in a few days.
On arriving in Turkey we are at once seized by the representatives of the Board of Health. After all, times have indeed changed since Eothen was written. Instead of being put in quarantine by Europe, Turkey now puts Europe in quarantine. It is true that good Moslems still hold that men’s souls leave their bodies when God calls them, and count it impious to suppose that neglect or precaution can hasten or delay the Divine summons. But though the Porte are not disposed to amend the sanitary condition of Mecca, they enforce quarantine regulations all round Constantinople with fanatical rigour. This is due partly to the fears of the Palace, and partly, I think, to a sense of humour. It is an excellent joke to apply a parody of European rules to Europeans in the name of sanitary science: to keep a set of fussy business people waiting a few days because they have come from a country which has not imposed quarantine on another country where there has been a doubtful case of cholera, or to detain a ship with a valuable cargo while embassies and merchants scream that thousands of pounds are being lost daily. On the present occasion we are told we must wait a day under inspection, to see if we develop the symptoms of any terrible malady, and are accordingly lodged in damp little wooden huts on a muddy plain, where we are certainly likely to fall ill even if hale and hearty on arriving. Turkish soldiers prevent us from crossing an imaginary line and contaminating the surrounding desert. The quarantine doctor, however, explains to me that he has a peculiar respect for my character, sanitary and general, and would like to take a walk with me outside the limits of the establishment. He has a remarkable pedigree. His father was a Bohemian monk who found convent life too narrow for his taste, and accordingly embraced Islam. Once within the true fold he made up for lost time by marrying as many wives as his new liberty allowed, and this is one of the results. He confides to me that his one ambition is to wear decorations, and that in return for his civilities strangers of distinction have procured for him the orders of their respective countries. The Siamese Minister, who recently passed through, made him a Commander of the Order of the White Elephant. Could I not obtain for him the Order of the Garter? Doubtless I possess it myself. With blushing mendacity I lead him to believe that I do, but explain that the distinction is only given to Englishmen and not to foreigners. I see that he does not believe me, and meditates revenge. Before we leave the quarantine station we have to be disinfected. The doctor attaches a garden hose to a reservoir filled with a fetid and corrosive fluid. The victims are led up one by one by the military authorities as if to execution, and the jet is turned upon them, causing their garments to burst out into leprous spots. I see by the doctor’s eye that he means to make me pay for my unfriendliness in the matter of the decoration, and therefore, casting scruple to the winds, I assure him that if he will only treat me gently he shall have the Fourth Class of the Garter. He is at once all civility and consideration, and when I am led up in front of his infernal machine, directs an odoriferous douche to the right and left, leaving me unwetted in the middle.
Truly the way into Turkey is beset with as many difficulties as the road to paradise. After the quarantine comes the Custom House. The entry of most things is absolutely prohibited, and those which do enter pay a high duty. Books are treated with incredible severity. No work is allowed to pass the frontier which hints that the Turks were ever defeated, or that the Ottoman Government or the Mohammedan religion have any imperfections. Turkish officials having found by experience that very little European literature comes up to their high standard, simply confiscate as “seditious” every publication which mentions Turkey or the Mohammedan East. Eothen, even without the present highly seditious preface, is placed on the index, as are also Shakespeare, Byron, Dante, the Encyclopædia Britannica, Baedeker, and Murray. In practice, of course, certain familiar argumenta ad hominem modify this Draconian system, but even the golden key sometimes fails to open the door. The officials watch one another, and know that they are much more likely to obtain a Turkish decoration by confiscating some infamous