The Spirit of the East, illustrated in a Journal of Travels through Roumelia during an eventful period

Front matter

THE SPIRIT OF THE EAST. VOL. LONDON : PRINTED BY JAMES MOYES, CASTLE 5TI1EET, I tn ESTER SQUARE. THE SPIRIT OF THE EAST, ILLUSTRATED IN A JOURNAL OF TRAVELS THROUGH ROUMELI DURING AN. EVENTFUL PERIOD. BY D. URQUHART, Esq. AUTHOR OF ••TURKEY AND ITS RESOURCES," "ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA, AND TURKEY," &c ••Men are not influenced by Facts, but by Opinions respecting Facts."— Epicteths. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1838. CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

Chapter I. Descent To The Vale Of Tempe Arrival At Ambelakia

When our siesta was over, and when the sun had already set behind our lofty horizon, we mounted and proceeded towards Rapsana. After skirting the lake, we turned to the left, over a low hill, and descended into a deep glen, or " lac," opening to the sea. We could not see it ; but a sea-scented breeze came winding through the hills. Here we came upon a party of villagers, who had just killed a wild boar. It was with great difficulty that we got away from them, for they insisted on our spending the night at their village, and ran over the bill of fare to which we should be treated. First, there was the boar, appealing directly to our senses with eloquence in ruby tints, and rhetoric in rounded forms ; then there were kids, still tender, that had just returned from Olympus;* venison, * By keeping the flocks very high up,ewing time is delayed.

VOL. II. B from a fine deer which they had shot an hour before ; moor-fowl, pheasants, golden plovers, wild ducks, from Nizeros ; and all that the fold, the barn-yard, or the dairy could bestow, without number or measure. We effected, however, our escape from so fearful an infliction, and, on ascend ing the steep hill on the opposite side of the lac, we just saw the edge of the moon appearing over Kessova (Ossa), which shewed, by the deep and gloomy shades, the tremendous chasm rent be tween Ossa and Olympus, where resided of old the Muses, and through which flows the Peneus. Turning to the left, and descending along the back of a ridge that runs parallel to Tempe, we at length looked out from Thessaly on the sea, and on the Delta of the Peneus, with its waters silvered by the moon, glittering, here and there, through the trees.

Turning again towards the poetic vale, we descended on Rapsana, a heap of ruins, but where we were received in most comfortable quarters, and had a supper presented to us, which would not have shamed the bill of fare of the vil lagers on the road. The night was far advanced, when, as I had to start early next morning, for Ambelakia, the task, and a hard one it always is, of leave-taking came on. Captain Demo declared that the day of my arrival should be kept as a festival at Caria ; and I would not have got to bed until it was time to get up, unless I had promised to revisit Olympus, and spend some months there. " We will go," he said, " and hunt deer and boars, wolves and foxes, shoot pheasants, partridges, and all the tribe of water-fowl that frequent the Nizeros ; we will, now and then, visit the people that live below, in the plains, and shoot fish in the Salembria: then you may go, as often as you like, to the sum mit of Olympus, and hunt all the country over for old stones ; but, remember not to forget the potatoes."

All impatience to find myself in the Vale of Tempe, I quitted Rapsana at dawn, and soon after, in scrambling over the crest of a rock, came sud denly in view of the picture which I shall attempt to sketch. Right before me was the towering and conical mass of Ossa. Below was the narrow vale of Tempe, with the greenish stream meandering through the trees, and forming islets in its bed. To the right, the vale opens out, and forms a triangular plain. The side of Ossa on the left, and of Olympus on the right, framed the view, till met, in the perspective, by the roots of a hill which stands in the plain, before the entrance to Tempe. This hill forms the base of the apparently triangular plain ; then open out again, in the distance, beyond this hill and the outline of Ossa on one side, and of Olympus on the other, two plains, which again have a triangular aspect, presenting each its apex towards you.

In that to the left, and touching almost to Ossa, may be descried Larissa, with its smiling oasis ; in that to the right, Tournovo, with b the white bed of the Titaressus ; and, beyond these, the indistinct chains of the Pindus meet the horizon. The Peneus comes sweeping round the base of Ossa, amidst rich fields and verdant groves ; and, where it enters the narrow pass, stands the village of Baba, adorned with mosques and cypresses. Where the opposite Ossa is least wild and rugged, and where industrious terraces have restrained the scanty soil in which the vine delights, Ambelakia is stuck, rather than built, and its magnificent-looking mansions appear as if made fast to the rocks. This was immediately in face of the point where I stood, and almost in a line with the summit of Ossa, which towered on high.

At Baba, commences the Vale of Tempe ; but I could follow it, as it swept to the left, through only a small portion of its course : for the precipices, approaching from either side, made Ossa and Olympus appear to meet, and the vale, where visible be tween the rocks, looked like the entrance to a vast cavern. The sight of Tempe produced an effect upon my nerves rather than upon my imagination. I felt my lungs dilate, and my limbs become elastic, as I inhaled its air and trod its steeps. There is no more describing such impressions, than there is producing them by description. I called up no images of the past, I quoted no verses from Pindar or from Lucan, but I felt an enlargement of existence, and an intensity of enjoyment, in looking on the unrivalled landscape spread before me, to each spot of which attached names so proud, and yet so familiar.

No scene, hallowed by antiquity, ever produced on me such an effect as Tempe. The reason may be, that here the genius of man is associated, not with perishable monuments, but with the indestructible grandeur of nature itself, fresh and smiling with all its varieties of life and wayward ness of effects, as when the bards of old sought inspiration from its aspect, or poured forth adora tion at its shrine. Here no cornice has fallen away, no tints have lost their freshness, no rhe toric its flowers : here is nothing to supply, but all to enjoy ; no actors swept away to mourn for, no lost language to interpret, no effaced records to restore. Ossa is lofty as it ever was ; Olympus majestic still ; the plains of Larissa as wide ; the waters of Peneus glide still betwixt banks that bear the myrtle and the daphne.

Thousands of years have not wasted the hues with which the morning breaks over this land of enchantment, or impaired the grandeur of its setting sun. It was some part, too, of the effect, to descend on Tempe from Olympus, and with men who might have been the comrades of Theseus. While descending the rugged cliffs, our at tention was suddenly called to Ambelakia, on the opposite side of the chasm, by the reports of mus ketry. We halted to observe the manner of the fight, and consider who the parties might be. During twenty minutes, along the upper skirts of the burgh, the firing continued, but we could not make out whether it was an attack on the town, or a squabble of the inhabitants between themselves. Captain Demo had sent two men to accompany me. They insisted on returning to Rapsana. I insisted on going on, but told them to return if they liked ; and, as people always are ready with their services when certain that their services are not wanted, they declared that they were ready to follow me to the other end of the world, and, that being the case, they had no objection to go as far as Baba.

After carefully changing their priming, we proceeded, crossed the Peneus in a punt, and reached Baba. The Aga said that he did not know what the firing meant ; but if the spinners above had come by any harm, he would have heard of it by this time. I, therefore, proceeded to climb the sides of Ossa, and, in about twenty minutes, found myself scrambling through the narrow lines of the once celebrated and wealthy, but now bankrupt and sequestered, Ambelakia. Throughout the whole of this country, the arts of dyeing, weaving, tanning and curing of leather, are domestic avocations ; the ingredients, implements, and processes used, are, consequently, subject to continual variation. To my inquiries respecting these matters, the universal answer was, " Inquire at Ambelakia." " You will learn all that at Ambelakia."

Whenever I put questions respecting the agriculture, administration, and sta tistics of the country, I was told, " Wait till you go to Ambelakia ; there are men with long heads ; there you will find men who have been brought up in Europe, and who will inform you of all things." I arrived, therefore, at this place, not merely filled with the most exaggerated expectations, but having suspended my opinions upon all these objects un til I should be enlightened by the sages of Ambe lakia. Never was disenchantment more complete. The half-day I spent at Ambelakia first opened my eyes as to the moral effects which accrue from sending young Easterns to acquire the manners of the West, or rather, I should say, to lose every trace of what is worthy, amiable, and attractive, in their own. I now saw the Greek mind in masquerade, and can conceive all the contempt and aversion with which it must inspire those who have only seen it thus attired.

What will Greece be when the va rious influences of Europe will have come to act as effectively on this new state as they have done on Ambelakia ? Two days before, the Klephts had carried off one of the principal proprietors of Ambelakia. The Aga, with a body of the townsfolks, amount ing to fifty or sixty in number, with their long robes tied up round their middles, mounted on ponies, mules, and asses, had set forward in pursuit. It was the return of this expedition, in triumph, which was announced by the firing we had seen and heard from the opposite mountain. The triumph which they had celebrated was, how ever, not the recapture of the lost Primate, but the flight of the captors, who had never ventured to shew their faces ! I was very much amused at this exhibition of the warlike spirit of the Ambe lakiotes.

I have before referred to Mr. Dodwell's attributing the prosperity of Magnesia to the " number and bravery " of the armed Greeks, who " set the Turks at defiance." Mr. Beaujour, in his " Tableau du Commerce de la Grece," in like manner refers the wealth and prosperity of Ambe lakia to the bravery ofthe Ambelakiotes, and to the equal dexterity with which they wielded the shuttle and the musket ! Now, what would we say of a Turkish traveller, who, after a tour in England, told his countrymen that a stick of eighteen inches was found a much more powerful weapon than a musket and bayonet ; and that we had a race of Rustems, called constables, any one of whom could, single handed, beat a whole regiment ? And yet the learned lucubrations of Mr. Beaujour, about the connexion of the bravery of the Ambelakiotes with their truly wonderful commercial speculations and prosperity, or those of Mr. Dodwell respecting the Zagorites, are not a whit more fantastical than the supposed inferences of a stranger respecting the power, in England, of a constable's baton.

At Ambelakia, I was taken to the Serai, as it is called, of one of the primates ; spacious and lofty, laid out in the Turkish style, painted in gaudy colours, and ornamented with abundance of gild ing, decorations, fretted work, and arabesque. I, of course, expected to see every thing European, whereas every thing was the very antithesis of Europe. Floors raised, floors depressed ; rails cutting through rooms ; couches spread in cor ridors ; windows from one apartment to another ; double rows of windows to all the rooms, and abundance of stained glass ; nowhere passages flat tening the nose ; none of that huddling of box on box, called rooms, as if the rooms had coalesced to drive the house out of doors ; nowhere implements for being half seated, called chairs ; nowhere raised floors, for getting food on, called tables : but, on every side, airy spaces for circulation ; couches for rest, that really seemed belonging to the house, and shewing no daylight between them and the floors ; freedom of motion in the centre ; invita tions to repose around ; and, wherever you turned your eyes, the thick-set windows, without inter vening objects, presented at once a full view of the magnificence of surrounding nature.

I here found my companion, who had come from Larissa to wait for me, convalescent from the ague, but much alarmed for my safety, and ex cessively disappointed with, and irritated by, the character of the inhabitants of a place, which he had entered with expectations similar to mine. The difference between this and every other place we had visited, would almost have made us think that we had passed from one world to another. Here were no visits from the principal men to bid us welcome ; none of that delicacy and warmth of feeling which, every where else, made us feel in stantaneously at home. When we attempted to see the people of the house, they stared at us, or ran away. The women wrapped handkerchiefs round their faces, and the men quitted the house. Determined on arriving at the bottom of so strange and unwonted a reception, I sallied forth into the street, and, seeing a very handsome house with the door open, walked up stairs and entered the divan khane, where I found several of the natives in con sultation.

Elsewhere, such a visit would have called forth expressions of welcome, and even of gratitude and thanks : here it was astonishment and embarrassment. I explained to them that I was a stranger, who had been attracted by the fame of Ambelakia and the beauties of Tempe. They asked me if I had a buyourdi from the Pasha of Larissa f I said, amongst the Klephts of Olym pus I had not been asked for a buyourdi. They informed me that there was nothing to be seen in Ambelakia, that they had no information to give me, and that our presence might injure and com promise them with the Turks. I could not help expressing my extreme surprise at the reception I met with, in a place that I had approached with so much interest, and at the contrast between them and their compatriots ; whilst I expected, in men who had had so much connexion with Europe, feelings of a very different character.

One of them replied, " In Europe, are you in the habit of going and living in the houses of people whom you don't know, and at the expense of people who don't know you 1 What is the meaning of two young men coming and staying in a village where they have no business, and in a house where there are only women ?" I quitted them in disgust (after, however, repeating a good many of the terms I had learned from Diogenes, who had hit off ad mirably the character of his compatriots), and, returning to my companion, proposed immediately quitting the inhospitable place, and trying if we should be better treated by the Turks at Baba. It is, perhaps, superfluous to say, that we had not made forcible entrance, either into the village or the house, a joint recommendation having been forwarded from the Greek Archbishop and the Kehaya Bey, at Larissa, to have this house prepared for our reception.

The proposal to quit the place was no sooner made than adopted. A difficulty, however, occurred. My faithful Aristotle was the only four footed animal the services of which we could command ; we had, therefore, to heap our saddles and our baggage on his single back, and drive him before us to Baba. Just as we had made this ar rangement, which we had to carry into effect our selves, for every soul ran from us as if we had been plague-patients, an Albanian ascended the stairs, and swaggering, like a rattling trophy of arms, into the divan khane, where we were seated, sat down and addressed our astonished ears as follows: — " Brothmakers,* get up and be off." " Whence comes," we inquired, "this civil greeting?" "I am," he answered, " the Cavash of the Aga ; and the Codga Bashi (the Greek Primate) orders you immediately to quit his house, and go (eig to xuXko) about your business."

The Cavash made his exit even less ceremoniously, but more expeditiously, than his entry, and never was a flight of stairs cleared in better style. The household first, and then the Ambelakiotes in general, were thunder struck at this result of their coup d'etat, and, before Aristotle was laden, the whole women of the esta blishment, for still the men kept aloof, came about us to beg and implore that we would not leave them. The Cavash was a wild Albanian, a savage, a barbarian, and knew neither our merits nor our greatness, and sued for forgiveness. We said that was a matter now between them and the Pasha. This announcement produced a strange scene of tearful expostulation, and sufficed to disgust us in every way with the churlish, insolent, and cringing * Tchorbadgi, calk, git. wretches, of which this community seemed to be composed ; an instance, in a small way, of the tftoral gangrene that takes possession of a trading people when they break down.

We now proceeded downwards, under the silent gaze of the population, which had turned out to witness our retreat. First marched my com panion's valet, a Circassian, with a horribly fierce frowning countenance, firmly grasping, and man fully hauling a rope, which was Aristotle's halter ; then came Aristotle, his head and neck stretched out horizontally, with a Pelion of baggage piled up upon his Ossa : we followed, each with a lusty stick to stay the baggage and to drive the mule. We returned scowl for scowl to the Ambelakiotes as we passed, and shook the dust from our soles as we cleared the town ; and about sunset reached the village of Baba, to claim hospitality and to ask for shelter. The few people we saw stared at us and got out of the way, thinking, no doubt, it was disreputable to be seen in such company.

We took refuge in a huckster's shop. The shopkeeper was an Albanian ; some allusions to his country opened his heart, and a small room over the shop was cleared out for our reception ; and, as my companion returned to Larissa next morning, I remained, for above a week, the solitary tenant of this cell — a hermit in Tempe !

Chapter II. Rise And Fall Of The Commercial Municipality Of Ambelakia

In Turkey, the people, free in principle and feeling, combine with the Sultan to restrain the power, or to avenge the oppression of the governors. In Europe, the people, after they had been reduced to a state of serfage, and a legalised sacrifice had been made of their rights, coalesced with the King to over throw the feudal aristocracy, who, originally, were governors, but who had succeeded in converting authority into possession, and in rendering that possession permanent, hereditary, and legal. But in Turkey the evils have not yet taken root in her system ; they are not sanctioned by prescrip tion, epithets, or law ; they are marked as aber rations, they are reprobated as crimes. The cultivator of the soil is not a serf; he is not even a labourer, he is a proprietor. Here emancipated slaves have not to fly to a city of refuge, there to establish, as distinct from their race and national administration a municipal community of outcasts ; but, with their paternal fields, the whole mass of the population inherits those simple in stitutions to which — when accidentally they sprung upon her soil— Europe owes her actual progress and her liberties.

On discovering the existence of urban muni cipalities and commercial corporations in the East, I was naturally led to compare these with the municipal cities and republics of the middle ages, which, in remote corners, or on hitherto neglected shores, burst forth into splendid contrast with the surrounding barbarism, owing their wealth, pro sperity, liberty, and intelligence, not to the acci dents of origin, soil, or circumstance, but solely to principles of administration. Do the antecedent pages of history — does the map of the Mediterranean, indicate any peculiarly happy combinations that could promise to Amalphi, Montpellier, Barcelona, or Ancona — places which had no power to make themselves respected; no anterior connexion or habits of business, which are not in the passage of com merce ; not blessed with local fertility, or cele brated for indigenous manufactures — the prospe rity that dazzles by its rise, but has not instructed by its decay ?

Their deserted halls, these tenant less structures, these princely relics of departed wealth, now only record the proneness of man's mind to legislate, and the results of legislation. With these Ambelakia furnishes the means of instituting a comparison : its history furnishes the proof that the fundamental rights, which the municipalities of Europe in the middle ages excep tionally obtained or forcibly extorted, are, in the East, common to the whole people, and are the basis of opinion and government. Ambelakia was, perhaps, the spot, amid all the rich recollections of Thessaly, which I visited with the greatest interest ; and, but for the -lordly mansions that still overlook the Vale of Tempe, the traveller might doubt the reality of a story which appears almost fabulous. I extract from Beaujour's " Ta bleau du Commerce de la Grece," published at the commencement of this century, the details he has preserved respecting it, in as far as they were confirmed to me by the information I obtained on the spot.

" Ambelakia, by its activity, appears rather a borough of Holland than a village of Turkey. This village spreads, by its industry, movement, and life, over the surrounding country, and gives birth to an immense commerce, which unites Ger many to Greece by a thousand threads. Its population has trebled in fifteen years, and amounts at present (1798) to four thousand, who live in their manufactories, like swarms of bees in their hives.* In this village are unknown both the * But the principal portion of the yarn was home-spun in the surrounding districts, and disposed of to the Ambelakiotes to be dyed. vices and cares engendered by idleness ; the hearts ofthe Ambelakiotes are pure, and their faces serene ; the slavery which blasts the plains watered by the Peneus, and stretching at their feet, has never ascended the sides of Pelion (Ossa) ; and they govern themselves, like their ancestors, by their protoyeros (primates, elders), and their own ma gistrates.

Twice the Mussulmans of Larissa at tempted to scale their rocks, and twice were they repulsed by hands which dropped the shuttle to seize the musket. " Every arm, even those of the children, is employed in the factories ; whilst the men dye the cotton, the women prepare and spin it. There are twenty-four factories, in which, yearly, two thousand five hundred bales of cotton yarn, of one hundred okes each, are dyed (6138 cwts). This yarn finds its way into Germany, and is disposed of at Buda, Vienna, Leipsic, Dresden, Anspach, and Bayreuth. The Ambelakiote merchants had houses of their own in all these places. These houses belonged to distinct associations at Ambelakia. The competition thus established, reduced very considerably the common profits ; they proposed, therefore, to unite them selves under one central commercial administration.* Twenty years ago this plan was suggested, * This competition was of a peculiar character ; these houses were agents of one factory, and the competition between the agents did not allow the produce of the factory its fair advan- VOL. II.

C and in a few years afterwards it was carried into execution. The lowest shares in this joint-stock company were five thousand piastres (between 600/. and 700/.), and the highest were restricted to twenty thousand, that the capitalist might not swallow up all the profits. The workmen sub scribed their little profits, and, uniting in societies, purchased single shares ; and, besides their capital, their labour was reckoned in the general amount : they received their portion of the profits accord ingly, and abundance was soon spread through the whole community. The dividends were, at first, restricted to ten per cent, and the surplus profit was applied to the augmenting ofthe capital, which, in two years, was raised from 600,000 to 1,000,000 piastres (120,000/.). " Three directors, under an assumed firm, managed the affairs of the company ; but the signature was also confided to three associates at Vienna, whence the returns were made.

These two firms of Ambelakia and Vienna had their correspondents at Peste, Trieste, Leipsic, Salonique, Constanti nople, and Smyrna, to receive their own staple, effect the return, and to extend the market for the tages against other factories. The factories had a common ad ministration at home, and it sent its goods to market at its own expense and risk — combining the profits of merchant, broker, and manufacturer; as it was carried on by an association of capital and labour, which equalised the profits so much that the poorest could wait for a return, to reap the benefits of the speculation, as well as receive the wages of his labour. cotton-yarn of Greece. An important part of their trust was to circulate the funds realised, from hand to hand, and from place to place, according to their own circumstances, necessities, and the rates of exchange," Thus the company secured to itself both the profits of the speculation and the profit of the banker, which was exceedingly increased by the command and choice which these two capacities gave of time, market, and speculation.

When the exchange was favourable, they remitted specie ; when unfavourable, they remitted goods ; or they specu lated in Salonica, Constantinople, or Smyrna, by purchase of bills, or by the transmission of German goods, according to the fluctuations and demands of the different markets, of which their extensive relations put them immediately in possession, and by which the rapid turning of so large a capital gave them always the means of profiting. " Never was a society established upon such economical principles ; and never were fewer hands employed in the transaction of such a mass of business. To concentrate all the profits of Ambe lakia, the correspondents were all Ambelakiots ; and, to divide the profits more equally amongst them, they were obliged to return to Ambelakia, after three years' service ; and they had then to serve one year at home, to imbibe afresh the mercantile principles of the company.

" The greatest harmony long reigned in the c association; the directors were disinterested, the correspondents zealous, and the workmen docile and laborious. The company's profits increased every day, on a capital which had rapidly become immense. Each investment realised a profit of from sixty to one hundred per cent ; all which was distributed, in just proportions, to capitalists and workmen, according to capital and industry. The shares had increased tenfold." The disturbances which succeeded to this pe riod of unrivalled prosperity, are attributed, by Beaujour, with that provoking vagueness that substitutes epithets for causes, to the " surabond ance de richesse," to " assemblies tumultueuses," to the workmen's quitting the shuttle for the pen, to the exactions of the rich, and to the insubordi nation of the inferior, but still wealthy orders.

To us it may, on the contrary, be matter of surprise such a body could exist, so long and so prospe rously, in the absence of judicial authority to settle, in their origin," disputes, and litigated interests, which, in the absence of such authority, could only be decided by violence. The infraction of an injudicious bye-law gave rise to litigation, by which the community was split into two factions. For several years, at an enormous expense, they went about to Constantinople, Salonica, and Vienna, transporting witnesses, and mendicating legal decisions, to reject them when obtained ; and the company separated into as many parts as there were associations of workmen in the original firm. At this period, the Bank of Vienna, in which their funds were deposited, broke ; and, with this misfortune, political events combined to over shadow the fortunes of Ambelakia, where prospe rity, and even hope, were finally extinguished by the commercial revolution produced by the spinning-jennies of England.

Turkey now ceased to supply Germany with yarn : she became tributary for this, her staple manufacture, to England. Finally, came the Greek Revolution. This event has reduced, within the same period, to a state of as complete desolation, the other flourishing town ships of Magnesia, Pelion, Ossa, and Olympus. Even on the opposite heights of Olympus, across the valley of Tempe, Rapsana, from a thousand wealthy houses, which ten years ago it possessed, is now, without being guilty of either " luxury" or " tumult," reduced to ten widowed hearths. But Beaujour's praise is as little merited as his censure is ill-deserved. " Here," says he, " spring up anew grand and liberal ideas, on a soil devoted for twenty years to slavery ; here the ancient Greek character arose in its early energy, amidst the torrents and caverns of Pelion (Ossa) ; and, to say all in a word, here were all the talents and virtues of ancient Greece born again in a corner of modern Turkey."