Part 30 (2/2)
”We, the undersigned, claim five claims of two hundred feet each, (and one for discovery,) on this ledge or lode of oyster-sh.e.l.ls, with all its dips, spurs, angles, variations and sinuosities, and fifty feet on each side of the same, to work it, etc., etc., according to the mining laws of Smyrna.”
They were such perfectly natural-looking leads that I could hardly keep from ”taking them up.” Among the oyster-sh.e.l.ls were mixed many fragments of ancient, broken crockery ware. Now how did those ma.s.ses of oyster-sh.e.l.ls get there? I can not determine. Broken crockery and oyster-sh.e.l.ls are suggestive of restaurants--but then they could have had no such places away up there on that mountain side in our time, because n.o.body has lived up there. A restaurant would not pay in such a stony, forbidding, desolate place. And besides, there were no champagne corks among the sh.e.l.ls. If there ever was a restaurant there, it must have been in Smyrna's palmy days, when the hills were covered with palaces. I could believe in one restaurant, on those terms; but then how about the three? Did they have restaurants there at three different periods of the world?--because there are two or three feet of solid earth between the oyster leads. Evidently, the restaurant solution will not answer.
The hill might have been the bottom of the sea, once, and been lifted up, with its oyster-beds, by an earthquake--but, then, how about the crockery? And moreover, how about three oyster beds, one above another, and thick strata of good honest earth between?
That theory will not do. It is just possible that this hill is Mount Ararat, and that Noah's Ark rested here, and he ate oysters and threw the sh.e.l.ls overboard. But that will not do, either. There are the three layers again and the solid earth between--and, besides, there were only eight in Noah's family, and they could not have eaten all these oysters in the two or three months they staid on top of that mountain. The beasts--however, it is simply absurd to suppose he did not know any more than to feed the beasts on oyster suppers.
It is painful--it is even humiliating--but I am reduced at last to one slender theory: that the oysters climbed up there of their own accord.
But what object could they have had in view?--what did they want up there? What could any oyster want to climb a hill for? To climb a hill must necessarily be fatiguing and annoying exercise for an oyster. The most natural conclusion would be that the oysters climbed up there to look at the scenery. Yet when one comes to reflect upon the nature of an oyster, it seems plain that he does not care for scenery. An oyster has no taste for such things; he cares nothing for the beautiful. An oyster is of a retiring disposition, and not lively--not even cheerful above the average, and never enterprising. But above all, an oyster does not take any interest in scenery--he scorns it. What have I arrived at now?
Simply at the point I started from, namely, those oyster sh.e.l.ls are there, in regular layers, five hundred feet above the sea, and no man knows how they got there. I have hunted up the guide-books, and the gist of what they say is this: ”They are there, but how they got there is a mystery.”
Twenty-five years ago, a mult.i.tude of people in America put on their ascension robes, took a tearful leave of their friends, and made ready to fly up into heaven at the first blast of the trumpet. But the angel did not blow it. Miller's resurrection day was a failure. The Millerites were disgusted. I did not suspect that there were Millers in Asia Minor, but a gentleman tells me that they had it all set for the world to come to an end in Smyrna one day about three years ago. There was much buzzing and preparation for a long time previously, and it culminated in a wild excitement at the appointed time. A vast number of the populace ascended the citadel hill early in the morning, to get out of the way of the general destruction, and many of the infatuated closed up their shops and retired from all earthly business. But the strange part of it was that about three in the afternoon, while this gentleman and his friends were at dinner in the hotel, a terrific storm of rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning, broke forth and continued with dire fury for two or three hours. It was a thing unprecedented in Smyrna at that time of the year, and scared some of the most skeptical. The streets ran rivers and the hotel floor was flooded with water. The dinner had to be suspended. When the storm finished and left every body drenched through and through, and melancholy and half-drowned, the ascensionists came down from the mountain as dry as so many charity-sermons! They had been looking down upon the fearful storm going on below, and really believed that their proposed destruction of the world was proving a grand success.
A railway here in Asia--in the dreamy realm of the Orient--in the fabled land of the Arabian Nights--is a strange thing to think of. And yet they have one already, and are building another. The present one is well built and well conducted, by an English Company, but is not doing an immense amount of business. The first year it carried a good many pa.s.sengers, but its freight list only comprised eight hundred pounds of figs!
It runs almost to the very gates of Ephesus--a town great in all ages of the world--a city familiar to readers of the Bible, and one which was as old as the very hills when the disciples of Christ preached in its streets. It dates back to the shadowy ages of tradition, and was the birthplace of G.o.ds renowned in Grecian mythology. The idea of a locomotive tearing through such a place as this, and waking the phantoms of its old days of romance out of their dreams of dead and gone centuries, is curious enough.
We journey thither tomorrow to see the celebrated ruins.
CHAPTER XL.
This has been a stirring day. The Superintendent of the railway put a train at our disposal, and did us the further kindness of accompanying us to Ephesus and giving to us his watchful care. We brought sixty scarcely perceptible donkeys in the freight cars, for we had much ground to go over. We have seen some of the most grotesque costumes, along the line of the railroad, that can be imagined. I am glad that no possible combination of words could describe them, for I might then be foolish enough to attempt it.
At ancient Aya.s.salook, in the midst of a forbidding desert, we came upon long lines of ruined aqueducts, and other remnants of architectural grandeur, that told us plainly enough we were nearing what had been a metropolis, once. We left the train and mounted the donkeys, along with our invited guests--pleasant young gentlemen from the officers' list of an American man-of-war.
The little donkeys had saddles upon them which were made very high in order that the rider's feet might not drag the ground. The preventative did not work well in the cases of our tallest pilgrims, however. There were no bridles--nothing but a single rope, tied to the bit. It was purely ornamental, for the donkey cared nothing for it. If he were drifting to starboard, you might put your helm down hard the other way, if it were any satisfaction to you to do it, but he would continue to drift to starboard all the same. There was only one process which could be depended on, and it was to get down and lift his rear around until his head pointed in the right direction, or take him under your arm and carry him to a part of the road which he could not get out of without climbing.
The sun flamed down as hot as a furnace, and neck-scarfs, veils and umbrellas seemed hardly any protection; they served only to make the long procession look more than ever fantastic--for be it known the ladies were all riding astride because they could not stay on the shapeless saddles sidewise, the men were perspiring and out of temper, their feet were banging against the rocks, the donkeys were capering in every direction but the right one and being belabored with clubs for it, and every now and then a broad umbrella would suddenly go down out of the cavalcade, announcing to all that one more pilgrim had bitten the dust. It was a wilder picture than those solitudes had seen for many a day. No donkeys ever existed that were as hard to navigate as these, I think, or that had so many vile, exasperating instincts. Occasionally we grew so tired and breathless with fighting them that we had to desist,--and immediately the donkey would come down to a deliberate walk. This, with the fatigue, and the sun, would put a man asleep; and soon as the man was asleep, the donkey would lie down. My donkey shall never see his boyhood's home again. He has lain down once too often. He must die.
We all stood in the vast theatre of ancient Ephesus,--the stone-benched amphitheatre I mean--and had our picture taken. We looked as proper there as we would look any where, I suppose. We do not embellish the general desolation of a desert much. We add what dignity we can to a stately ruin with our green umbrellas and jacka.s.ses, but it is little.
However, we mean well.
I wish to say a brief word of the aspect of Ephesus.
On a high, steep hill, toward the sea, is a gray ruin of ponderous blocks of marble, wherein, tradition says, St. Paul was imprisoned eighteen centuries ago. From these old walls you have the finest view of the desolate scene where once stood Ephesus, the proudest city of ancient times, and whose Temple of Diana was so n.o.ble in design, and so exquisite of workmans.h.i.+p, that it ranked high in the list of the Seven Wonders of the World.
Behind you is the sea; in front is a level green valley, (a marsh, in fact,) extending far away among the mountains; to the right of the front view is the old citadel of Aya.s.salook, on a high hill; the ruined Mosque of the Sultan Selim stands near it in the plain, (this is built over the grave of St. John, and was formerly Christian Church); further toward you is the hill of Pion, around whose front is cl.u.s.tered all that remains of the ruins of Ephesus that still stand; divided from it by a narrow valley is the long, rocky, rugged mountain of Coressus. The scene is a pretty one, and yet desolate--for in that wide plain no man can live, and in it is no human habitation. But for the crumbling arches and monstrous piers and broken walls that rise from the foot of the hill of Pion, one could not believe that in this place once stood a city whose renown is older than tradition itself. It is incredible to reflect that things as familiar all over the world to-day as household words, belong in the history and in the shadowy legends of this silent, mournful solitude.
We speak of Apollo and of Diana--they were born here; of the metamorphosis of Syrinx into a reed--it was done here; of the great G.o.d Pan--he dwelt in the caves of this hill of Coressus; of the Amazons--this was their best prized home; of Bacchus and Hercules both fought the warlike women here; of the Cyclops--they laid the ponderous marble blocks of some of the ruins yonder; of Homer--this was one of his many birthplaces; of Cirmon of Athens; of Alcibiades, Lysander, Agesilaus --they visited here; so did Alexander the Great; so did Hannibal and Antiochus, Scipio, Lucullus and Sylla; Brutus, Ca.s.sius, Pompey, Cicero, and Augustus; Antony was a judge in this place, and left his seat in the open court, while the advocates were speaking, to run after Cleopatra, who pa.s.sed the door; from this city these two sailed on pleasure excursions, in galleys with silver oars and perfumed sails, and with companies of beautiful girls to serve them, and actors and musicians to amuse them; in days that seem almost modern, so remote are they from the early history of this city, Paul the Apostle preached the new religion here, and so did John, and here it is supposed the former was pitted against wild beasts, for in 1 Corinthians, xv. 32 he says:
”If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus,”
&c.,
when many men still lived who had seen the Christ; here Mary Magdalen died, and here the Virgin Mary ended her days with John, albeit Rome has since judged it best to locate her grave elsewhere; six or seven hundred years ago--almost yesterday, as it were--troops of mail-clad Crusaders thronged the streets; and to come down to trifles, we speak of meandering streams, and find a new interest in a common word when we discover that the crooked river Meander, in yonder valley, gave it to our dictionary.
It makes me feel as old as these dreary hills to look down upon these moss-hung ruins, this historic desolation. One may read the Scriptures and believe, but he can not go and stand yonder in the ruined theatre and in imagination people it again with the vanished mult.i.tudes who mobbed Paul's comrades there and shouted, with one voice, ”Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” The idea of a shout in such a solitude as this almost makes one shudder.
It was a wonderful city, this Ephesus. Go where you will about these broad plains, you find the most exquisitely sculptured marble fragments scattered thick among the dust and weeds; and protruding from the ground, or lying p.r.o.ne upon it, are beautiful fluted columns of porphyry and all precious marbles; and at every step you find elegantly carved capitals and ma.s.sive bases, and polished tablets engraved with Greek inscriptions.
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