y savours strongly of the Gallic
ingredient. And a most agreeable mixture it makes, affording the blended
essences of many nations. Few who have seen much of that society can
entertain its reflection without pleasure; and all are wise to make the
most of its image, as the wide world affords no twin establishment.
Coming from many parts of Europe, the colonists have, by the influences
of climate and association, been blended into a general assimilation of
character, yet retaining the one or two salient points of nationality.
Their physiognomies express the wild influences of Ionia; and it would
be vain to seek in their native countries such beautiful specimens of
French or Italian women (I except Englishwomen) as are to be found in
this birth-place of poetry. It is a city of wonderful linguists, for the
necessities of intercourse demand at least three, and in many cases
four, languages: Greek with the servants, Italian with the shop-keepers,
and French among the polished. Many of them possess more than this
number, and truly wonderful it is to see them turn from one guest to
another in their pleasant assemblies, and to each address the tongue of
his proper country. The same causes that loosened the vowels and
softened the utterance of the old Greek in Ionia, have dipped in honey
the tongues of the modern Levantines; and whatever they be speaking it
is always mellifluously. It is no less true that the old grace of these
shores revives in the persons of the ladies, and gives a Lydian softness
to all that they do. Whether you mark the Armenian matron, languid from
her siesta, seeking the breeze at her lattice; or the more active Frank
maiden at the hour of her evening promenade, you are ever struck with
the idea of grace and poetry. But chiefly is it pleasant to mark them
when the unruffled sea, and cloudless moon, invite them to wander on the
marina, and embark on the waters--when the hot sun has persecuted the
day, and evening first allowed to breathe freely. There is the bay alive
with boats, and resonant of music and laughter, and the shore alive with
gay promenaders. There are certain seasons when it might be presumed
that the Smyrnists divorce night from sleep; for often have I listened
to the cheerful sound till long past midnight, and still has some
passing boat brought music to contribute to my dreams. Or, take your
hat, and wander forth at evening to the banks of Meles, where Homer
sang--whose waters have washed the