Chapter VII: Particular Accounts (3)

"When I got into the bazaar among this race, somehow I felt as if they were all friends. There sat the merchants in their little shops, quiet and solemn, but with friendly looks. There was no smoking, it was the Ramazan; no eating--the fish and meats fizzing in the enormous pots of the cook-shops are only for the Christians. The children abounded; the law is not so stringent upon them, and many wandering merchants were there selling figs (in the name of the Prophet, doubtless), for their benefit, and elbowing onward with baskets of grapes and cucumbers. Countrymen passed bristling over with arms, each with a huge bellyful of pistols and daggers in his girdle; fierce, but not the least dangerous. Wild swarthy Arabs, who had come in with the caravans, walked solemnly about, very different in look and demeanor from the sleek inhabitants of the town. Greeks and Jews squatted and smoked, their shops tended by sallow-faced boys, with large eyes, who smiled and welcomed you in; negroes bustled about in gaudy colors; and women, with black nose-bags and shuffling yellow slippers chattered and bargained at the doors of the little shops. There was the rope quarter and the sweetmeat quarter, and the pipe bazaar and the arm bazaar, and the little turned-up shoe quarter, and the shops where ready-made jackets and pelisses were swinging, and the region where, under the ragged awnings, regiments of tailors were at work. The sun peeps through these awnings of mat or canvas, which are hung over the narrow lanes of the bazaar and ornaments them with a thousand freaks of light and shadow. Cogia Hassan Alhabbal's shop is in a blaze of light; while his neighbor, the barber and coffee-house keeper, has his premises, his low seats and narghilés, his queer pots and basins, in the shade. The cobblers are always good-natured; there was one who, I am sure, has been revealed to me in my dreams, in a dirty old green turban, with a pleasant wrinkled face like an apple; twinkling his little gray eyes as he held them up to the gossips, and smiling under a delightful old gray beard, which did the heart good to see. You divine the conversation between him and the cucumber man, as the Sultan used to understand the language of birds. Are any of those cucumbers stuffed with pearls, and is that Armenian with the black square turban Haroun Alraschid in disguise, standing yonder by the fountain where the children are drinking--the gleaming marble fountain, checked all over with light and shadow, and engraved with delicate Arabesques and sentences from the Koran?

"But the greatest sensation of all is when the camels come. Whole strings of real camels, better even than in the procession of Blue Beard, with soft rolling eyes and bended necks, swaying from one side of the bazaar to the other to and fro, and treading gingerly with their great feet. Oh, you fairy dreams of boyhood! Oh, you sweet meditations of half-holidays, here you are realized for half an hour! The genius which presides over youth led up to do a good action that day. There was a man sitting in an open room ornamented with fine long-tailed sentences of the Koran; some in red, some in blue; some written diagonally over the paper; some so shaped as to represent ships, dragons, or mysterious animals. The man squatted on a carpet in the middle of this room, with folded arms, waggling his head to and fro, swaying about, and singing through his nose choice phrases from the sacred work. But from the room above came a clear voice of many little shouting voices, much more musical than that of Naso in the matted parlor, and the guide told us it was a school, so we went upstairs to look.

"I declare, an my conscience, the master was in the act of bastinadoing a little mulatto boy; his feet were in a bar, and the brute was laying on with a cane; so we witnessed the howling of the poor boy, and the confusion of the brute who was administering the correction. The other children were made to shout, I believe, to drown the noise of their little comrade's howling; but the punishment was instantly discontinued as our hats came up over the stair-trap, and the boy cast loose, and the bamboo huddled into a corner, and the schoolmaster stood before us abashed. All the small scholars in red caps, and the little girls in gaudy handkerchiefs turned their big wondering dark eyes toward us; and the caning was over for _that_ time, let us trust. I don't envy some schoolmasters in a future state. I pity that poor little blubbering Mahometan; he will never be able to relish the 'Arabian Nights' in the original as long as he lives.

"From this scene we rushed off somewhat discomposed to make a breakfast off red mullets and grapes, melons, pomegranates, and Smyrna wine, at a dirty little comfortable inn to which we were recommended; and from the windows of which we had a fine, cheerful view of the gulf and its busy craft, and the loungers and merchants along the shore. There were camels unloading at one wharf, and piles of melons much bigger than the Gibraltar cannon-balls at another. It was the fig season, and we passed through several alleys encumbered with long rows of fig-dressers, children and women for the most part, who were packing the fruit diligently into drums, dipping them in salt water first, and spreading them neatly over with leaves; while the figs and leaves are drying, large white worms crawl out of them and swarm over the decks of the ships which carry them to Europe and to England, where small children eat them with pleasure--I mean the figs, not the worms--and where they are still served at wine parties at the universities. When fresh they are not better than elsewhere; but the melons are of admirable flavor, and so large that Cinderella might almost be accommodated with a coach made of a big one, without any very great distention of its original proportions.

"Our guide, an accomplished swindler, demanded two dollars as the fee for entering the mosque, which others of our party subsequently saw for sixpence, so we did not care to examine that place of worship. But there were other cheaper sights, which were to the full as picturesque, for which there was no call to pay money, or indeed, for a day, scarcely to move at all. I doubt whether a man who would smoke his pipe on a bazaar counter all day, and let the city flow by him, would not be almost as well employed as the most active curiosity hunter.

"To be sure he would not see the women. Those in the bazaar were shabby people for the most part, whose black masks nobody would feel a curiosity to remove. You could see no more of their figure than if they had been stuffed in holsters; and even their feet were brought to a general splay uniformity by the double yellow slippers which the wives of true believers wear. But it is in the Greek and Armenian quarters, and among those poor Christians who were pulling figs, that you see the beauties; and a man of a generous disposition may lose his heart half a dozen times a day in Smyrna. There was the pretty maid at work at a tambour frame in an open porch, with an old duenna spinning by her side, and a goat tied up to the railings of the little court garden; there was the nymph who came down the stair with the pitcher on her head, and gazed with great calm eyes, as large and stately as Juno's; there was the gentle mother, bending over a queer cradle, in which lay a small crying bundle of infancy. All these three charmers were seen in a single street in the Armenian quarter, where the house doors are all open, and the women of the families sit under the arches in the court. There was the fig girl, beautiful beyond all others, with an immense coil of deep black hair twisted round a head of which Raphael was worthy to draw the outline, and Titian to paint the color. I wonder the Sultan has not swept her off, or that the Persian merchants, who come with silks and sweetmeats have not kidnapped her for the Shah of Tehean.

"We went to see the Persian merchants at their khan, and purchased some silks there from a swarthy, black-bearded man with a conical cap of lambswool. Is it not hard to think that silks bought of a man in a lambswool cap, in a caravanseria, brought hither on the backs of camels, should have been manufactured after all at Lyons? Others of our party bought carpets, for which the town is famous; and there was one absolutely laid in a stock of real Smyrna figs, and purchased three or four real Smyrna sponges for his carriage; so strong was his passion for the genuine article.

"I wonder that no painter has given us familiar views of the East; not processions, grand sultans, or magnificent landscapes, but faithful transcripts of everyday Oriental life, such as each street will supply to him. The camels afford endless motives, couched in the market places, lying by thousands in the camel square, snorting and bubbling after their manner, the sun blazing down on their backs, their slaves and keepers lying behind them in the shade; and the Caravan Bridge, above all, would afford a painter subjects for a dozen of pictures. Over this Roman arch, which crosses the Meles river, all the caravans pass on their entrance to the town. On one side, as we sat and looked at it, was a great row of plane trees; on the opposite bank a deep wood of tall cypresses, in the midst of which rose up innumerable gray tombs, surmounted with the turbans of the defunct believers. Beside the stream the view was less gloomy. There was under the plane trees a little coffee house, shaded by a trellis-work, covered over with a vine and ornamented with many rows of shining pots and water-pipes, for which there was no use at noonday now, in the time of Ramazan.

"Hard by the coffee house was a garden and a bubbling marble fountain, and over the stream was a broken summerhouse, to which amateurs may ascend for the purpose of examining the river, and all round the plane trees plenty of stools for those who were inclined to sit and drink sweet, thick coffee or cool lemonade made of fresh green citrons. The master of the house, dressed in a white turban and light blue pelisse, lolled under the coffee-house awning; the slave in white with a crimson striped jacket, his face as black as ebony, brought up pipes and lemonade again, and returned to his station at the coffee house, where he curled his black legs together and began singing out of his flat nose to the thrumming of a long guitar with wire string. The instrument was not bigger than a soup ladle, with a long straight handle, but its music pleased the performer, for his eyes rolled shining about, and his head wagged, and he grinned with an innocent intensity of enjoyment that did one good to look at. And there was a friend to share his pleasure; a Turk dressed in scarlet and covered all over with dagger and pistols, sat leaning forward on his little stool, rocking about and grinning quite as eagerly as the black minstrels. As he sang and we listened, figures of women bearing pitchers went passing over the Roman bridge which we saw between the large trunks of the planes; or gray forms of camels were seen stalking across it, the string preceded by the little donkey, who is always here their long-eared conductor.

"These are very humble incidents of travel. Wherever the steamboat touches the shore adventure retreats into the interior, and what is called romance vanishes. It won't bear the vulgar gaze; or rather the light of common day puts it out, and it is only in the dark that it shines at all. There is no cursing and insulting of Giaours now. If a cockney looks or behaves in a particularly ridiculous way, the little Turks come out and laugh at him. A Londoner is no longer a spittoon for true believers; and now that dark Hassan sits in his divan and drinks champagne, and Selim has a French watch, and Zuleika perhaps takes Morrison's pills, Byronism becomes absurd instead of sublime, and is only a foolish expression of cockney wonder. They still occasionally beat a man for going into a mosque, but this is almost the only sign of ferocious vitality left in the Turk of the Mediterranean coast, and strangers may enter scores of mosques without molestation. The paddlewheel is the great conqueror. Wherever the captain cries 'Stop her!' civilization stops, and lands in the ship's boat, and makes a permanent acquaintance with the savages on shore. Whole hosts of crusaders have passed and died and butchered here in vain. But to manufacture European iron into pikes and helmets was a waste of metal; in the shape of piston rods and furnace pokers it is irresistible; and I think an allegory might be made showing how much stronger commerce is than chivalry, and finishing with a grand image of Mahomet's crescent being extinguished in Fulton's boiler.

"This I thought was the moral of the day's sights and adventures. We pulled off the steamer in the afternoon--the Inbat blowing fresh and setting all the craft in the gulf dancing over its blue waters. We were presently under weigh again, the captain ordering his engines to work only at half power, so that a French steamer which was quitting Smyrna at the same time might come up with us and fancy she could beat the irresistible _Tagus_. Vain hope! Just as the Frenchman neared us, the _Tagus_ shot out like an arrow and the discomfited Frenchman went behind. Though we all relished the joke exceedingly, there was a French gentleman on board who did not seem to be by any means tickled with it; but he had received papers at Smyrna containing news of Marshal Bugeaud's victory at Isley and had this land victory to set against our harmless little triumph at sea.

"That night we rounded the Island of Mitylene, and next day the coast of Troy was in sight, and the tomb of Achilles--a dismal-looking mound that rises on a low, dreary, barren shore--less lively and not more picturesque than the Schelot or the mouth of the Thames. Then we passed Tenedos and the forts and town at the mouth of the Dardanelles. The weather was not too hot, the water as smooth as at Putney, and everybody happy and excited at the thought of seeing Constantinople tomorrow. We had music on board all the way from Smyrna. A German _commis voyageur_, with a guitar, who had passed unnoticed until that time, produced his instrument about midday and began to whistle waltzes. He whistled so divinely that the ladies left their cabins and men laid down their books. He whistled a polka so bewitchingly that two young Oxford men began whirling round the deck and performed that popular dance with much agility until they sank down tired. He still continued an unabated whistling, and as nobody would dance, pulled off his coat, produced a pair of castanets and whistling a mazurka, performed it with tremendous agility. His whistling made everybody gay and happy--made those acquainted who had not spoken before, and inspired such a feeling of hilarity in the ship that that night, as we floated over the Sea of Marmora, a general vote was expressed for broiled bones and a regular supper party. Punch was brewed and speeches were made, and, after a lapse of fifteen years, I heard the 'Old English Gentleman' and 'Bright Chanticleer Proclaims the Morn,' sung in such style that you would almost fancy the proctors must hear and send us all home."

--William Makepeace Thackeray.

"A Journey from Cornhill to Cairo."

=A Trip from Currimao to Laoag=

Late in the afternoon of last April third, Mr. C. Guia and I left Currimao for San Nicolas and Laoag, respectively. We traveled in a cart drawn by a fat gray cow.

At first it was not altogether pleasant to go now up then down the irregular road, and besides, the cart--a shoe-box-shaped sort of buggy with bamboo sides and floor--was far from being comfortable. The driver was a sturdy broad-shouldered country fellow, dressed in a red home-spun shirt worn outside of his tight dark-green trousers, rolled up above his knees. His big bolo, suspended from his tough belt that he wore outside, was at his left; while his callugung--a saucer-shaped hat made from a dried wild squash--was dangling at his right.

Since we left Currimao he had not addressed us a single word, but all of a sudden when the cart stopped in front of a ragged cottage, he cried out loud as if we were deaf, "Apu, arac quen maiz," which means, "Sirs, wine and corn." Mr. Guia and I rose from our squatting posture on the floor by the side of our steamer trunks and suit cases and got down to buy for our driver the things that he needed.

When we entered, the inner appearance of the cottage in the dim light of a small oil lamp hanging from the middle of the ceiling aroused somewhat my pity for the occupants. In one corner a rather old though fat woman was cooking supper, while in another corner were fishing nets, a new plow, a hunting spear and a callugung. In the corner near the door were rough boxes on which were ragged mats and red pillows. In the middle of the room was a basket of corn which an old, muscular man was husking when we entered and which he left to attend to our needs. We were invited to sit on a long bamboo bench which occupied one side of the room and where we remained as mute as statues until our driver, having filled his stomach with vino and having given his animal enough corn, summoned us to continue our journey.

We went out, and as the moon was now shining brightly, we had a front view of the cottage. The cogon roof, on which were perched some chickens, was pyramid-like, and the walls, broken at places but patched with rice-sacks through which the dim light of the lamp was visible, were made of bamboo. The porch, at the middle of which was a wooden staircase shaded by broad eaves, was piled full of corn.

After we paid the old man for what he supplied our now half-drunk driver, we again assumed our uncomfortable position in the cart. The road was now smooth and I was surprised to find ourselves suffering still the disagreeable upward and downward movement of the cart. I examined the two solid wooden wheels, and I found that they were not round, but oval. But the beautiful panorama of the country soon made me forget my discomfort in the cart. On our left and right were square rice-fields--some yellow with ripe grain and others green with young leaves--dotted here and there with hamlets or solitary trees so that they resembled a checker-board.

All the while that I was admiring this view, Mr. Guia seemed to be buried in deep thought. We were cabin-mates in the steamship _Bustamante_ that brought us from Manila, and therefore I had known him for but three days, during which he was always cheerful and gay. But now what a sad and mournful countenance! His youthful and oval face, hitherto jovial and beaming with health, was pale. I was very sorry to see my companion thus afflicted with grief, and I said in a sympathetic voice, "Mr. Guia, are you sick?" He answered, "No, I am not. But, my friend, my mo-mo-mother died nine days ago, and that's why, as you see, I am mourning." Indeed, he was mourning, for he wore a black cap, suit, tie and shoes. I dared not continue our conversation along that line, for I knew it would but grieve him the more. So I expressed my condolence by silence. After a moment of quietude he told the driver something in Ilocano which I did not understand.

Suddenly the driver began to sing with a tremulous voice a common country ditty called "Dalla-dalluc." As it was getting late, I was soon lulled into a sound sleep. I think I had slept for about two hours when a loud barking of five dogs awoke me. When I looked around, I found that we were in a town, for we were passing by a church whose stone wall was black with moss and at whose rear a river was flowing. I asked Mr. Guia in what town we were and he answered, "Why, we are in San Nicolas now." I replied, "Then here we part." He exclaimed, "Oh, no! You are very tired, and it would be better for you to spend the rest of the night at my house. Besides you will not, I am sure, be able to wake the _banquero_ (boatman), for it is now past midnight. To-night is also the celebration of what we call _Umbras_ in honor of my dead mother, and I should like you to be my special guest." I thanked him very much for his kind invitation, and, of course, in the face of the obstacle he foretold, I was glad enough to accept.

The cart turned a corner and stopped suddenly in front of a somewhat large wooden corrugated iron roofed house--a typical town residence in the Philippines. We got down immediately from the cart, and we were met at the gate by a boy of about fifteen years of age. After Mr. Guia told the boy to look to our baggage, he conducted me to the sala, where he met his relatives.

While the affectionate greetings were going on between Mr. Guia and his family, I had time to observe all that was in the room. In one corner were young women and young men playing cards around a circular marble table, while in another corner were old women, talking of the high merits of the departed one. In the corner near the door where I was standing, a crowd of old fellows were drinking _basi_--a wine made from sugar cane--and I noticed our driver joining them. The walls seemed to be very plain; indeed all the decorations were covered with black cloth. In the center of the _sala_ was a large rectangular table on which were different kinds of food ready to be eaten. The viands, however, were cold, so I judged that the table must have been set early in the evening.

As I was wondering why the table was placed there, Mr. Guia came and took me into his room where my baggage was put. My thought was still centered upon the table, and my curiosity led me to ask my friend about it. Before he answered me, he smiled, and then said, "You must know that it is the custom of the Ilocanos the ninth night after the death of any grown-up person to celebrate a mourning festival called _Umbars_. Each friend of the dead person brings during that day food either cooked or uncooked. That on the table is the cooked food, which is considered to be sacred and which, as you have just seen, is being watched by the people in the room. Nobody is supposed to touch the food before the prayer, which will begin at three o'clock. After the prayer is over, which will last for about two hours, then all the guests will eat the food, but at the head of the table a vacant seat is left for the spirit of the dead to sit. After the feast the guests depart, and the festival ends."

During the time that Mr. Guia was explaining to me the _Umbras_, I was able to wash myself and to change my traveling suit. So after he finished, he conducted me into the dining-room where we both ate a hearty meal. Naturally, after we had finished eating, we joined the company of young men and young women, to each of whom I was introduced and with whom we played cards until the time for prayers. In the midst of the prayer I asked the permission of Mr. Guia to go to his room to pack up my things so that I should be able to leave after the prayer.

When all the guests had departed, I bade good-bye to my friend and his sorrow-stricken relatives. Within fifteen minutes I reached Laoag, and was once more safe in the hands of a brother with whom I spent a pleasant three weeks' sojourn.

--Fernando M. Maramág.