Isle of Rhodes.-Knights' Templars.-Earthquake.- Mosque.-Smyrna.-Historical Sketch.-Departure INTRODUCTION. Er träumt von einer Palme HEINRICH HEINE. To find oneself sitting under a palm-tree in the solitary wastes of an African desert, in the midst of tents, camels, and Arabs, is rather a novelty in this practical age of steamers and railways. Yet many of these pages are written under the palm of the desert, that tree of all others associated with our earliest fancy pictures of the East, and which so gracefully breaks the other B 2 INTRODUCTION. wise dreary monotony of Egyptian and Syrian landscape, the tall stately tree that presides in its green loveliness over the dreary wastes of earth, that tree so often mentioned in Scripture, and so often sung by poets. The wind moves not the foliage to a joyous rustle, but sighs languidly through its crown of leaves,' as if whispering mournfully bygone snatches of Egypt's more prosperous days. The seat, too, is no mossy trunk, nor daisied turf, but a heap of sand, where Arab and stranger find alike their noon-day rest. And, from the associations that whisper around me, let me endeavour to give my reader some idea of life and travel in this remote corner of the old world: not attempting to excite your imaginations with hair-breadth escapes or thrilling adventures, nor asking you to dive very deeply into antiquarian research. For the former you have the brilliant pages of Eöthen to enjoy, and for the latter such erudite authorities as Champollion, Wilkinson, or Mr. Gliddon. I only offer you a few pictures out of a long gallery in the chambers of memory, which, if they please, you may frame and hang up for their own sakes, but if you weary with their number, you may turn their faces to the wall and forget them. As you enter my gallery, in a shady nook, you will observe the picture of a venerable pilgrim. He has laid down his well-worn staff, and stoops to unbuckle his sandals; an act which tells the story of some goal reached, some object in life accomplished. His long snowy beard, dust-stained garments, and scallop shell, indicate him as a palmer returned from Eastern lands. Now this is indeed a picture, an ideal, a mere romance of the middle ages. There are no such pilgrims in this our busy, practical, nineteenth century. The thousands of Greek, Russian, 4 INTRODUCTION. and Armenian pilgrims who yearly flock to the shores of the Holy Land, offer a most unpicturesque contrast to the one just described. Stout women, young men, children of all ages, attracted perhaps as much from superstitious love of adventure as from religious zeal, now throng the narrow paths which cross the Judean hills; and the modern traveller can, comparatively speaking, boast of no great heroism. The Eastern world is gathered again into the family of nations. Hotels are built for the accommodation of travellers, where once the convent walls were the only shelter, and steam-boats and other improvements are fast superseding the primitive order of things. A railway is already projected between the coast of Asia Minor and the Euphrates; and before many months have passed the shrill steam-whistle will waken the sleeping echoes of the Asian hills. What a contrast from one's high flights of |