BOOK I. SERVI A. CHAPTER I. SYRIA ΤΟ BELGRADE. It was after several years' residence in Egypt and Syria, that I embarked for Turkey in Europe, in one of those comfortable, but not showy Austrian steamers, that ply along the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean. Our first station was at Rhodes, where I felt as if an enchanter had waved his wand; in reading of the wondrous world of the ancients, one feels a desire to get a peep at Rome before its destruction by barbarian hordes. A leap backwards of half this period is what one seems to make at Rhodes, a perfectly preserved city and fortress of the middle ages. Here has been none of the Vandalism of Vauban, Cohorn, and those mechanical-pated fellows, who, with their Dutch dyke-looking parapets, made such havoc of donjons and picturesque turrets in Europe. Here is every variety of mediæval battlement; so perfect is the illusion, that one wonders the warder's horn should be mute, and the walls devoid of bowman, knight, and squire. Two more delightful days of steaming among the Greek Islands now followed. The heat was moderate, the motion PATON. I. 1 gentle, the sea was liquid lapis lazuli, and the hundredtinted islets around us, wrought their accustomed spell. Surely there is something in climate which creates permanent abodes of art! The Mediterranean, with its hydrographical configuration, excluding from its great peninsulas the extremes of heat and cold, seems destined to nourish the most exquisite sentiment of the Beautiful. Those brilliant or softly graduated tints invite the palette, and the graces of the mind, shining through lineaments thorough-bred from generation to generation, invites the sculptor to transfer to marble grace of contour and elevation of expression. But let us not envy the balmy South. The Germanic or northern element, if less susceptible of the beautiful, is more masculine, better balanced, less in extremes. It was this race that struck down the Roman empire, that peoples America and Australia, and rules India; and more than any other on the face of the globe, superadds Patient Effort and Invincible Perseverance, to whatever genius the Almighty has given it, in Art, Science and Literature. The most remarkable of our fellow passengers was an American Presbyterian clergyman, with furibond dilated nostril and a terrific frown. "You must lose Canada," said he to me one day, abruptly, "ay, and Bermuda into the bargain." "I think you had better round off your acquisitions. with a few odd West India Islands." "We have stomach enough for that too." "I hear you have been to Jerusalem." "Yes; I went to recover my voice, which I lost; for I have one of the largest congregations in Boston." "But, my good friend, you breathe nothing but war and conquest." "The fact is, war is as unavoidable as thunder and lightning; the atmosphere must be cleared from time to time." "Were you ever a soldier?" "No; I was in the American navy. Many a day I was after John Bull on the shores of Newfoundland." "After John Bull?" "Yes, Sir, sweating after him: I delight in energy; give me the man who will shoulder a millstone, if need be." "The capture of Canada, Bermuda, and a few odd West India Islands, would certainly give scope for your energy. This would be taking the bull by the horns." "Swinging him by the tail, say I." The burlesque vigour of his illustrations sometimes ran to anti-climax. One day, he talked of something (if I recollect right, the electric telegraph), moving with the rapidity of a flash of lightning, with a pair of spurs clapped into it. In spite of all this ultra-national bluster, we found him to be a very good sort of man, having nothing of the bear but the skin, and in the test of the quarantine arrangements, the least selfish of the party. "I am One day he passed from politics to religion. fond of fun," said he, "I think it is the sign of a clear conscience. My life has been spent among sailors. I have begun with many a blue jacket hail-fellow-well-met in my own rough way, and have ended in weaning him from wicked courses. None of your gloomy religion for me. When I see a man whose religion makes him melancholy, and averse from gaiety, I tell him his god must be my devil." The originality of this gentleman's intellect and manners, led me subsequently to make further inquiry; and I find one of his sermons reported by a recent traveller, who, after stating that his oratory made a deep impression on the congregation of the Sailors' chapel in Boston, who sat with their eyes, ears, and mouths open, as if spellbound in listening to him, thus continues: "He describes a ship at sea, bound for the port of Heaven, when the man at the head sung out, 'Rocks ahead!' 'Port the helm,' cried the mate. 'Ay, ay, sir,' was the answer; the ship obeyed, and stood upon a tack. But in two minutes more, the lead indicated a shoal. The man on the out-look sung out, 'Sandbreaks and breakers |