close inspection of whom
on their own ground, with their queer ways of butchering and cooking and
what not, was interesting, but not altogether unattended with a spice of
danger to a solitary _Giaour_. We had visited and entertained the
Russians and the Austrians, and they had returned our civilities and
tried to make things cheerful; but we were very weary of Suda Bay long
before orders came permitting us to go over to Smyrna; which place, when
we got there, seemed a very Naples by comparison with Canea.

The Bay of Smyrna is far famed as a fine one. The _imbat_, or
sea-breeze, usually blows every day and all day long, so that, however
close one may lie to the town, the odors from its filthy, narrow streets
are all blown the other way--sufficiently rich, one would think, to
fertilize any soil over which they may be wafted. I suppose there is no
better instance of the whited sepulchre than Smyrna. The view of the
city and its environs from an anchorage in the bay, with the sun shining
upon its blue waters dancing and crisping under the brisk imbat; the
Greek spires and the minarets of the mosques relieved by the cypresses
of the graveyards; the amphitheatrical situation of the whole place,
crowned by Mount Pagus with its picturesque ruined castle, and the fine
mountain-scenery in the background,--must impress every visitor. And yet
nowhere has the plague so often reaped its harvest, owing to neglect of
everything which goes to make life clean and decent.

We had been many days in Smyrna, and had eaten many bunches of grapes,
each as fine as any the spies brought from Eshkol. We had seen the
famous _rahat-li-coom_ boiling in the caldrons, and then flavored and
beaten and drawn, and then had eaten it. We had smoked many okes of
Latakia. We had spent pleasant evenings among the foreign residents at
Bournabat, where the dress-coat and claret-jug and piano represent
Western civilization to the merchants and consuls tired after a long day
in the hot, reeking, noisy town. We had learned to find our way through
the bazaar without a guide, and had bought shawls and rugs in the
Persian khan, driving close bargains, as we thought, after hours of
patient sitting and much smoking and coffee-drinking, and being cheated
frightfully, as we found out afterward on comparing notes with resident
ladies. We had ridden up, on donkeys, to the huge ruined castle
dominating the city, said, popularly, to have been built by the English
Richard,