A MAP OF THE ROADS OF CRIM TARTARY, THE ANCIENT CHERSONESUS TAURICA
A JOURNEY THROUGH THE CRIMEA TO CONSTANTINOPLE.
IN A SERIES OF LETTERS FROM THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ELIZABETH LADY CRAVEN, TO HIS SERENE HIGHNESS THE MARGRAVE OF BRANDEBOURG, ANSPACH, AND BAREITH.
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR MDCCLXXXVI.
DUBLIN: PRINTED FOR H. CHAMBERLAINE, R. MONCRIEFFF, W. COLLES, G. BURNET, W. WILSON, L. WHITE, P. BYRNE, P. WOGAN, H. COLBERT, J. MOORE, J. JONES, and B. DORNIN. M,DCC,LXXXIX.
TO HIS SERENE HIGHNESS THE MARGRAVE OF BRANDEBOURG, ANSPACH, AND BAREITH.
CUSTOM has long given a Preface to every book that has been published—It is likewise accompanied with a Dedication. I have always thought the last made the first unnecessary—Indeed both may be dispensed with, if an author does not think his stile requires an apology for offering to the Public a work, which his humility or justice may lead him to think fit only to put his readers to sleep—The greatest part of the public has my permission to doze over the following sheets, as I expose them to the malice of my enemies, without reserve, merely to oblige many of my friends; who, knowing I had taken a long and extraordinary journey, have desired me to give them some account of it. The best I could give, and in the most agreeable manner to myself, was by transcribing part of my letters to you—in which, though in a cursory manner, I have given you a faithful picture of what I have seen. Beside curiosity, my friends will in these Letters see at least for some time where the real Lady Craven has been, and where she is to be found—it having been a practice for some years past, for a Birmingham coin of myself to pass in most of the inns in France, Switzerland, and England, for the wife of my husband—My arms and coronet sometimes supporting, in some measure, this insolent deception; by which, probably, I may have been seen to behave very improperly. I think it my duty to aver upon my honour, that it has frequently happened to me, travelling with my sweet child, to find a landlady, who has shewn a particular desire of serving me in the most menial offices, with tears in her eyes, and upon my asking the reason, in the honest indignation of her heart, she said, she had been imposed upon, at such a time, by a traveller who called herself by my name. If I had possessed the invaluable blessing of having you for my real brother—this curious and unheard of treason to my birth and character would long since have been punished in the person who could only countenance the deceit. But let me thank Heaven that I have found in you, Sir, all the virtues which I could desire in a
brother,
and that affection and respect which leads me to dedicate these Letters to you. My actions in future will prove more than this feeble tribute, how deeply impressed I am with all the feelings of esteem that can fill a grateful heart; your people, Sir, your many virtues, that make all that approach you happy, will justify my dedicating my studious, as my social hours to you—
ELIZA CRAVEN.
GROTTO OF ANTIPAROS.
LADY CRAVEN's JOURNEY TO CONSTANTINOPLE.
LETTER 1.
PARIS,
June 15, 1785.
THE honour you do me, in wishing to hear from me, deserves in return a greater entertainment than my letters can afford; and if it was not for the precious name of sister, which you order me to take, I should perhaps be a long time before I could venture to write to you; but when you command me to look upon you as my brother, the idea coincides so perfectly with the esteem and friendship I feel for you, that I obey with pleasure—
Since your Highness left Paris, I have had my brother and sister here; the south of France has entirely recovered her, and she is in a fair way of producing an heir—I have many nephews, but none of that name yet —
I shall set out to-morrow for Touraine, called by the French
le Jardin de la France;
and at three o'clock in the morning, as it is very hot—My harp is in the coach with me; for though my intention is not to stay above three weeks where I am going to—I cannot be so long absent from the sound of an instrument that I prefer to every other.
I have sent you some English garden-seeds which were given me by Lady —. I hope when you are eating your sallads this summer, you will think of your adopted Sister, and believe that it must be very good reasons, that deter her from visiting Franconia, in preference to all other places —
I have the honour to subscribe myself your very affectionate sister, faithful friend and servant,
ELIZA. CRAVEN.
LETTER II.
I SLEPT at Orleans last night—and as the weather is extremely hot, I rested in the middle of the day at Blois, where I examined the Royal
Chateau,
a house composed of different orders of architecture, built at different periods of time, and by various persons. The most modern addition has been made by Gaston Duc d'Orleans, who chose to place an Italian structure in the midst of the various irregularity belonging to the ancient Gothic, one part of which was built by Francis the First—The ornaments of this (several of them) were to me as incomprehensible as Egyptian hieroglyphics would have been. I wished my friend Mr. W. at my elbow, whose knowledge in, and taste for the Gothic, might have explained them. The porter who conducted me about, seemed a good historian for a person of his condition. I need not tell you, how many extraordinary personages and events this
Chateau
called to my mind. If the confusion which ambition naturally creates in history, should at this moment prevent your memory from placing them before you—I refer you to the
Nouveau Voyage de la France, par Mr. Piganiol de la Force,
who gives a cursory account of Blois, and this Chateau—but he does not say, what I can assert, that so many persons have scraped the stone on which Henry Duc de Guise's blood fell, that there remains but one half of it. My old conductor told me those who preserved the powder as a relick, were people related to the Guise family, and curious travellers—I was not one of them. This letter would be too long if I inserted an adventure which happened to me at the post beyond Blois. You shall have it in my next. I will only add to this, that if ever you go from Blois to Tours, do not go by night—the road is on a causeway, the Loire on your left, and a precipice into meadows on your right, without any fence to prevent an accident, if your postillions were drunk, or your horses frightened.
The uncommon dryness of the season prevented my judging of the much boasted beauties of the Loire, which is now reduced to the narrowest rivulet I have seen—There are many castles on the banks which ornament the landscape—and were probably fortified, in former days; one in particular put me in mind of dear B. Castle. I suppose they are left now, as most habitations in France are (distant from Versailles) for a
Concierge
to keep his pigs and chickens in—Adieu—
LETTER III.
AT the post beyond Blois, while the horses were changing, (an operation not performed in one minute as in England) one of my servants came up to the door and said,
ces maudits postillons ne veulent point laisser monter cet enfant derriere la voiture.
The word
enfant
always strikes to my heart: among the many reasons I had before, I have now an additional one for feeling about an
enfant
of any sort.
I am at this moment above a hundred miles distant from the most affectionate, the most engaging, and the most beautiful child that ever mother had—and for the first time I have ever left him —
QUEL ENFANT? says I, looking out on the left towards the hind wheel of my
Berline
—I saw a boy, seemingly about ten years old, decently dressed in mourning—a crape round his hat, and black buckles in his shoes.
Madame;
says he—and the tears in his eyes stopped his voice—
Eh bien, mon enfant; parlez—
Madame, le Maitre de poste à Blois m'a conseillé de monter derriere votre Berline, comme il n'y avait point de malle—à présent les postillons ne veulent pas m'y laisser—
Comment vous appellez vouz?
Cassius.
Cassius—voila un beau nom; oui, Madame,
said the child; who had never heard or read of any other Cassius but himself—
mon pere était géntilhomme,—
and he gave me a pocket-book which contains letters. One of these was from a lady of quality to the child's distant relations at la Rochelle, desiring them to place him on board a ship.
Comment,
says I;
wous voudriez servir
Servir
in French conversation always means serve in a military capacity, and not as a servant—
.—
Oui, Madame; je ne saurais étre domestique, parce que mes peres étaient gentilhommes,
—and among a variety of questions which I asked him—and to which he answered modestly and pertinently—whenever he recollected that circumstance, it was a painful idea. He had a brother and sister at Paris, who had sent him to go from thence to la Rochelle on foot, with six livres, and his letters of recommendation, for his support and protection. What unfeeling people!
Avez vous diné aujourd' hui?
It was then about six o'clock.
Oui, Madame, le maitre de poste à Blois m'a donné à diner—ce sont les postillons d'ici qui ne veulent pas que je monte derriere votre voiture.
The postillions by this time were listening to my conversation with the child, and one of them with a gruff voice said—
si ce petit monsieur veut payer un cinquieme cheval, il
montera.—Et si j'avais une grande malle, comme de coûtume?
says I.
Montez, montez mon enfant,
and turning to the postillion,
vous aurez de quoi boire à sa santé;
so he was pleased, and the boy delighted; but as in France more than in any other country in the world, the value of every thing is—
"So much money as 'twill bring;"
—my maid was surprized at my
bonté d'ame.
—As I never eat but once a day in travelling, and that at the end of my journey—I shall never forget my supper last night—I had got into my bed fatigued, and ordered my maid to bring me a soup. I had lain half an hour; the room was dark; and when the door opened, the first thing I saw was Cassius holding two wax-lights, preceding my maid. He said, Mademoiselle might go to her supper, and he would wait upon me, and his countenance had a mixture of comfort, joy, and gratitude in it, scarcely to be seen but in the candour of youth. This morning I had settled with the mistress of the inn that she should agree with a waggoner to take Cassius safe to Rochelle—I had given him some money (too little for charity to name—perhaps what the avaricious would think too much) and a recommendation signed with my name, and my seal upon it, when the postillions I had ordered to take me to—came to inform me, that, as it was a cross-country road, they expected three times the sum usually paid—As I might just as effectually argue with a horse as with a French postillion, I asked where the post-house was?
Only two doors off.
I went there; the master was out, but his wife was at home; and while I was settling matters with her, one of the old fashioned French post-chaises stopt at the door, with an officer in it, seemingly emaciated by sickness, and his head wrapp'd up very much.—Cassius was at my elbow:
Madame, Madame,
says he,
ce monsieur n'a point de malle,
(in fact all the luggage was before;)
Jirais bien plus vite à la Rochelle, si vous vouliez lui demander de me laisser monter sur sa voiture.
—I went up to the chaise, and curtsied very low; the officer bowed slightly; I stept back; but Cassius pulled me by the sleeve,—so I once again advanced and curtsied—
Monsieur—
Madame—
I brought Cassius forward—
Voici un pauvre orphelin qui va à la Rochelle—Il est venu depuis Blois sur ma Berline; si vous voulez bien lui permettre de monter derriere votre voiture ce sera moi qui vous en aurai Pobligation—Moi—
I repeated in a higher tone of voice. The officer had begun by staring at me from head to foot; and before I had finished my speech he endeavoured, but in vain, to draw off his night-cap—
Tout ce que vous ordonnez—tout ce qu'il vous plaira, Madame—
And I had the satisfaction of seeing the little orphan comfortably seated, and flying towards la Rochelle, certain that he would neither be robbed nor beaten on the road—
I am setting out for * * * from whence I will write you an account of any thing I shall observe worthy of being related—
LETTER IV.
—EN TOURAINE,
June 21, 1785.
MY approach to this place was through bad cross-country roads. I have seen nothing yet that could justify the idea of this province being
le Jardin de la France.
I saw many
chateaux,
which from the singular towers, their only ornaments, my fancy might have represented heralds, giants, or dwarfs, issuing forth to enquire what bewildered heroine came so near—
mais hélas
—I did not see one
preux chevalier,
nor any thing about these ancient structures that could make me imagine they belonged to gentlemen, much less to noble warriors—Besides I was gravely seated in a comfortable coach, varnished and gilt, instead of being on a white palfrey. To be serious, I am probably writing in a room once inhabited by one of
Marguerite Reine de Navarre's
ladies of honour; for this chateau was built by Francis the First for his sister. The outside is neither regular nor beautiful, and I cannot guess what order of architecture was intended to be shewn in the building—One front is towards the river Cher, flanked by two large round towers with spiral tops, and the ground floor, towards the court, is at least four stories high from the meadows in which the Cher runs; this suite of apartments was probably royal, the rooms remarkably lofty and well proportioned—I am told the
proprietaire
had laid out four thousand pounds to repair the house and beautify the gardens—As to the first, it is in the same state most country-houses in France are—wanting painting, white-washing, and repairs of every sort—The ornaments in the garden are these: many canals small enough to look like troughs—and statues made in plaister, all mutilated; the little that remains of them made me wish they had never existed—Part of the castle-ditch remains, and under it are cellars and subterraneous passages of an enormous size and length—In this part of the country, the peasant's habitation is chiefly hewn in the rock, the door being the only wooden part of it; the labourers catch agues and fevers frequently, by returning home warm, and resting in these damp cells. From my windows I could see the Loire if at its usual height, and I have the prospect of a
Chateau
where the heiress of
Bretagne
gave with her hand that province to France.—In a few days I shall go to Tours, from whence I shall again write, and assure you how much I am your affectionate
sister
—
LETTER V.
TOURS,
June 25, 1785.
I GALLOPED all the way here on horseback, along a delightful meadow, and got off my horse at the bottom of the
Mail,
a very fine walk shaded by some venerable elms, which, by some strange prodigy, have escaped the
cizeau
of the
tondeur
—and spread their majestic branches much to the comfort of the
Bourgeoifie
of Tours, who here find a cool
promenade.
But I am told they are soon to be cut down.
Ils sont trop vieux
—If Mr. d'Eclusel, the late
intendant,
was alive, he would oppose this horrid scheme; for as he had lived in England some months, and had sense enough to adopt what was good with us, he has given this town a clean appearance by adding
trottoirs
on each side of the new streets—I am lodged at the archiepiscopal palace.
Monseigneur
is not here, which I regret—I am told he is a man of letters—of taste I am sure he is, by a chapel he has just added to his palace.—There is a large cathedral close to it, the outside Gothic—the stone-work is worth seeing—nothing in the inside but what is very
mediocre.
Another large church here, de St. Martin
The king is chanoine de St. Martin—a very singular
rcumstance—In the cloister is a most beautiful frize, done by the masterly hand of Michael Angelo.
, is so nearly connected with our St. Martin's in the Fields in London, that the Tours clergy were obliged to send to London to get some ancient charter explained—There are many English here —
Adieu, I remain yours most affectionately.
P. S. I recollect that you may not know what I mean by the
cizeau
of the
tondeur;
to explain which I must inform you, that shearing the trees in a French garden is a custom as ancient, and thought as necessary, as shaving the beard; and
tondeurs
are paid for it by the year, as barbers are by the month. I have had several reasons given to me for this Gothic custom; among the rest, that it made a tree grow more beautiful and strong; which last excuse must no longer be mentioned, naturalists having discovered lately, that a tree draws as much nourishment from the fluid received by the leaves, as from the root itself, — But nature may plead in vain her cause for centuries to come in France, she will long go disguised—The gardens and the poetry exhibit melancholy proofs of this truth, without my mentioning any more at present.
LETTER VI.
June 30, 1785.
I HAVE been to see Veret, a house of the Duc d' Aguillon's, where there is nothing worth looking at, and
Richelieu,
where not only the palace but the town was built by the Cardinal of that name—I rode to a village called
Lillebouchar,
lost my way, and rambled above thirty miles over the country, before I could find out the
Cure
's house I was going to dine with. He is a good sort of a map, sensible and learned, and had assembled all the good company in the neighbourhood to dine under a large tent in the garden with me—I must not forget to tell you that I passed close by the church from whence Joan of Are took her invincible sword, placed there by Divine Power. Lillebouchar is only two leagues from Richelieu; where at the first gate of the avaunt-cour two old guards, with clothes as ancient as their faces, their bayonets on their shoulders, precede the company to the inner court. Here the concierge shews first, statues of the Roman emperors and heroes, tolerable copies. The chapel is next shewn, where there is a picture that pleased me much, and which is said to have been painted by Michael Angelo—I take it to be a copy—It is spoiling for want of care—and I was told most of the good pictures were sent to Paris. I was led through many rooms—the palace is immensely large. One apartment was called the Queen's
For the Queen's apartment, and all the rooms, according to their destinations, are shewn.
—It was the Cardinal's first intention to bring the whole court to Richelieu—Every beam of wood was shewn in the cielings of those times—Here they are almost all carved and gilt over—judge of the expence. There is a whole-length picture of the Cardinal, by an Italian master, and a good one. After being walked over the house, large enough to tire a very able walker, I was offered to see the
Jardins;
but from the windows I had perceived the taste of them, and therefore declined that pleasure—I imagine the reason why the Cardinal prevented the court from ever coming to Richelieu, was the same policy that he introduced, and that exist even now, of drawing all the rich nobles from the seats of their ancestors—involving them in all the expences of the court at Versailles, that they might not feel they had a protection in their home—but look for that, and support likewise, from royal favour alone—A cunning idea of making the nobles support him in his measures, and particularly if he acted contrary to the good of his country.
The nobles of my country may thank heaven, when they reflect that they are members of a great nation, enjoying their ancient seats, and expecting honours and emoluments from the court as they may deserve them from their country.
The French noblesse, at present, indeed have a comfort under the weight of debts their fathers may have left them—they have a young monarch, generous and just—and I really believe one of the best kings that ever existed. As his power is great—if the nobles deserve—he will bestow greatly—
Adieu, Dear Sir, Yours.
P. S. I cannot see Chanteloup, the
Due de Choiseul's
house the
Scellé
is put on. He is dead but lately—so I can give you no account of that place—
I was obliged to assure the
Intendant,
and some more French, the other day at his house, that Sir George Elliot
Sir George must not be highly flattered at this, for the French are so fond of monopolizing all that is worth possessing, that Prince Eugene and our Capability Brown, with many others, are claimed by them.
was not a Frenchman. Since he has immortalized his name at Gibraltar, I find this nation is extremely desirous of claiming him—but I took upon me to say I believed Scotland might boast of being his native land, and that of most of his forefathers—However, if indeed they would choose to date from a much earlier period, most of us old English would be found to be Danes, Normans, &c.
You will be surprized to find, that instead of returning to Paris I am going Southward—My eldest brother, Lord B—, has written me word, that it is possible he may pass the winter in Italy; as it is so long since he has been out of England. I have given him two
routes,
and have told him I shall proceed gently to Florence; there to wait for him—
LETTER VII.
LYONS,
July 15.
I AM safely arrived here, and to avoid going round some leagues I came a cross-country road; look on your post-map for Cormery, Loches, Buxancely, Chateauroux, Ardante, la Chatre, Montmarau-Culan, Roanne—But, dear Sir, follow me only on paper; for the roads in some places were so bad, and the lanes so narrow, that my coach is scratched—and the drivers, with difficulty persuaded to go to the places I ordered them, sometimes lost their way. I went through great part of the Bourbonnais—and within ten miles of Vichy, where the king's aunts were taking the waters. The Auvergne mountains were fine objects to the right. On my approaching Lyons, I felt a great difference in the air—A warmer climate was easily to be perceived—The small conic winding hills, round which the country girls with their strange straw hats, and their distaff at their side, were conducting their goats as they spun, formed a landscape new to me—particularly as the flat roofs to the cottages gave a lightness to the buildings that pleased me much—
A simple kind of plough likewise, drawn by two oxen, brought that period to my mind, when the Romans were conquering towns, or founding colonies—The evening coming on, with a stormy sky, made me almost fancy that a Roman legion was here and there concealed by the rocks, which crown almost every one of the conic hills I have before mentioned, and which might serve as small batteries; nay the very clouds, which I often saw resting between the hills, might have served for momentary concealment.
But we will step out of these clouds if you please—for I am neither a Roman general nor a goddess, but at this moment a very much satigued mortal in a handsome apartment,
Hôtel Dauphin, rue de l' Arsenal,
where I shall eat a good supper, drink your health, and wish you as good a night's rest as I am likely to enjoy—
LETTER VIII.
LYONS,
July 18.
ON the sixteenth I was too much fatigued to look at any thing but the junction of the Soane and the Rhone, but on the 17th I saw the paintings in the
Hotel de Ville,
mostly by Blanchet: his works are spoiling under the cold hands of neglect and time—The Taurobolum may be very fine, and much to be admired by all lovers of antiquity; but I, who cannot admire what I do not think beautiful, looked at it with great indifference—Spon and other writers give a learned account of this, and of the brass-plate on which is engraved the speech made by Claudius in favour of the town, and which is lest within the reach of mischievous boys or idle beggars. The people of Lyons seem to pay a greater regard to the vanity of the moderns than to the pride of the ancients. I saw a beautiful sarcophagus in a lawyer's court-yard that served as a cistern—and, in many old walls and houses, carvings or inscriptions which I wished to examine, while the tradesmen within these habitations siared at the strangers, who could be more anxious about ruins than the new silks or embroidery they wished to sell. I cannot help thinking any antiquary might find many more things well worthy of the cabinet of the curious here than have already been discovered. As to the town's being handsome, which I was told it was, I must assert that many parts of it are positively frightful; that the houses are crouded together; each story, as it rises, projecting over the other—and the streets, as narrow and stinking as those of Paris; but the environs are beautiful, and it is extremely amusing to go in a boat every way out of the town—I took several sketches from different points, one from a little island, which was formerly called Insula Barbara. You recollect a large round tower which crowns the prison of Pierreencise. The proportions of it struck my ideas of symmetry very much—and after looking at it for some time, I landed at the foot of the prison, and walked up a hundred and twenty steps cut in the rock: the guards let me in very civilly, and, to my utter surprise, among the prisoners I found the — whom you must remember, as he was very often with — He asked me a thousand questions about J—, and laughed very much in talking over several parties with him and —; but I laughed on my part at his taking Mr. — for Lord B—.
I had been told Pierre-encise was a state prison, but it is no such thing: it serves as a temporary retreat for people of fashion who live too fast—and are placed there by Lettres de cachet, till it pleases the kind parents who have obtained them to release their prisoners. — declares, whenever he obtains his liberty, he shall revisit England, which I suppose at this time, more than at any other, seems to him a paradise, as there is no such thing as a Lettre de cachet there—
Do you recollect a most charming picture by Rubens, in the chapelle
des Penitents?
I examined it a long time with great delight—And did you ever observe that all the fine pictures in France are spoiling, but those possessed by the church? Indeed knowledge and taste are chiefly confined to the clergy—all other
etats
in France not having leisure to form their taste; of which truth I must give a most ridiculous example—Every body last year, that would be quite
à l' Anglaise
at Paris, had to wait on them, what they called a
Jakay,
a little boy with straight, lank, unpowdered hair, wearing a round hat—and this groom-like looking thing waited upon them at dinner, and was frequently stuck up with three tall footmen behind a fine gilt coach—It was in vain for me to assert to some grave old French people that jockey meant riding-groom in a running-horse stable, and that no grooms ever waited upon us, nay scarcely ever came into the house, and certainly nothing but servants, as well dressed and powdered as the French, waited upon us, or went behind our carriages. They answered, it must then be a new fashion, for it was
tout-à-fait à l' Anglaise—et comme on fesait à Londres—
I am called away to go up to the tower of Fourviere to look over all the town at once,
Yours, Adieu.
LETTER IX.
LYONS,
July 21.
THE fine prospect I was promised from the tower was immensely so indeed—Landscapes so various, and objects so vast and innumerable, that the eye seeks in vain for a resting place—I do not know, dear Sir, if you are of my opinion; but I like that my sight as well as my mind should be collected, to enjoy one pleasing subject at a time—Vary the scene as often as you please—but I hate confusion so much, that if I was obliged to choose a house, situated on an eminence, commanding a large city, many windings of a river, and an immense tract of country, or one at the bottom of that eminence, with a view so confined that I could see only to the end of a small garden, I think I should prefer the latter—I know this may seem very stupid, but I never could comprehend the pleasure of what is usually called a fine prospect, where it is only with a telescope that the wanderings of the sight are to be fixed—
I have hired a boat to take me down the Rhone to Avignon; it is only a few planks nailed together that brought wood from Savoy, a sort of raft, but looks quite strong enough to contain me and my small retinue. I send my horse by the
coche d'eau
—Do not suppose that my love for the ancients has totally made me overlook the modern artists here; a Lyonnais merchant, whom I bought silks of in London, has shewn me all the new silks and patterns. An ill taste prevails universally as to dress in France; the last new designs for waistcoats, particularly, are frightful great sprawling butterflies—the very man who was shewing them shrugged up his shoulders:
Que voulez vouz, Madame? Il faut toujours du nouveau—
There is a curious mill to wind silk on bobbins here; a horse in a garret on the fourth story turns one wheel which sets several on all the other floors in motion, and those turn many thousand bobbins.
Every ancient building here is stuck upon a rock; and I cannot help thinking they look like teeth, the rocks serving as roots to them.—I was assured the Saone ran in a different channel from what it now does, and that it was the Swiss who had cut through the rocks to give the river its present course—but if it ever was turned, I should think it was done by the Romans, whose works, great and useful, stamped their date—The remains, that testify how much they did in the environs of this place, may fairly excuse my supposition—if Caligula's successor could now peep out of his grave—or Nero, who re-established this town—they might have some difficulty in believing it was the same—
Adieu, Dear Sir, Yours.
LETTER X.
AVIGNON,
July 30, 1785.
NOTHING can be more delightful than my last method of travelling by water. I have had high and contrary winds; but the Rhone's famed rapidity that I had heard so much of, was neither surprising nor terrifying—the shores on each side were rocks interspersed with vine-yards and castles—I landed the first day at Condrieux, where I bought some excellent wine for 25 sols a bottle, the growth of that place—About a league from thence is la Montagne Tupain, belonging to Mr. de la Condamine, where the best Côte-rotie wine is to be had; that word signifies really and truly roasted-coast, the grapes being almost broiled by the sun. The wine is of a red and strong kind—reckoned very fine; but like many other fine things, I did not relish it,—A little farther on the left is l'Hermitage, a spot so called because formerly a hermit lived upon that hill, the wine of which is too much known for me to say any thing about it. I gave three livres a bottle for it, but found the white so much better than the red that I ordered some to be sent to Marseilles, from whence I shall have it shipped for England.
There is a small town called Vienne, that has a fine Gothic cathedral, which I went on shore to look at, together with a monument belonging to the Montmorin family, well executed.
I saw several people on the banks of the Rhone sifting gravel; they find among it little bits of solid gold, washed down from the mountains; a most horrid employment in this hot weather I should think; but what will not poor mortals do for gold, since the rich are often slaves to that which they ought to be masters of —
Montelimart is a castle from whence I am told three kingdoms are seen, and seven provinces. I did not stop to see this or any other of the many castles I passed by.
At the Pont St. Esprit, which is a noble bridge indeed, I think the passage might be dangerous, if the boatmen were not very attentive.—My coach is so large, and has such excellent blinds, that I have not suffered from the heat at all—The shores lose all their beauty near Avignon, which I could not see, because it is surrounded by a high turreted wall.—
Madame de Brancas, the Duc de Crillon's sister, was very civil to me, and we talked about — I dined with Lord —, whose health is much impaired, and I hope this climate will do him good.—Adieu, dear Sir, yours—
P. S. I am told, by some one who knows the Duc de Crillon very well, that his sister is exactly like him; which I can easily conceive, for she has as many projects about her gardens and houses as her brother had about the taking of Gibraltar: I hope they will succeed better than his have, for she is very good-humoured.
LETTER XI.
MARSEILLES,
August 5, 1785.
DEAR Sir, I thought it unnecessary to give you any description of Avignon, because you have been there, but as you did not take the same road to it as I did in coming from it, I will endeavour to give you some faint idea of a natural curiosity that I have seen, and which pleased me highly—the much famed Fontaine de Vaucluse.—
I set out from Avignon in the middle of the day, and arrived at a town called Lille, where I took a French post chaise, and went in it by the side of the Sorgue's clear stream, till the road was too narrow for the carriage to proceed; I then walked in a narrow path winding round the immense rocky mountains to the left, with the stream rapidly flying by me to the right about a mile, till a cavern, pretty much in the shape of those which lions come out of in an opera, presented itself to my view, and from that flows the river. I am told it is an unfathomable abyss. Why it is called a
Fontaine,
I am at a loss to guess.
Monstrous rocks rise over and on each side of this craggy arch; these seem to bend forward to meet or crush the curious.—Which ever way I turned my eyes, I saw gigantic and fantastic shapes, which nature seems to have placed there to astonish the gazer with a mixture of the melancholy, terrible, and cheerful; for the clearness and rapidity of the river make it a lively object, and where there is a flat place on the banks, though not above a few feet in circumference, the peasants have planted trees or sowed gardens—you lift up your eyes, and see the most perfect contrasts to them—the birds, which hovered towards the upper part of the rocks, were scarcely perceptible. In looking into the cavern, it appears horrible and gloomy; I could almost have fancied the river ran thus fast, rejoiced to quit the mansion from whence it sprung. No wonder Petrarch's song was plaintive, if he courted his muse with this scene perpetually before his eyes; Love and all his laughing train must fly the human imagination, where nature displays her features in the majestic and terrible stile, and I was very glad to find so good an excuse as this situation for Petrarch's eternal complaint—till now I was puzzled to guess, how a man of his sense could pass the greatest part of his life in eternizing a lady's contempt of a faithful passion—but I now believe there was no Laura—or if there existed one, he found in either case his imagination particularly turned to poetry, and that of the melancholy kind, in this, probably his summer's residence. I, who you know —, and have as playful a muse as ever smiled upon mortal, sat examining the astonishing picture before me with a silent reverential sort of admiration— and should have remained there till night, if I had not been informed that it grew very late, and I must see the pictures of Petrarch and Laura in the Chateau of the Marquis de Chamont, which is a miserable house a few steps from the
Fontaine.
These pictures are very modern—probably as like you as the persons they were drawn for.—I returned to Lille, and eat crawfish and trout, the most excellent that I ever tasted, which abound in the Sorgue—I passed through Aix, to come to this place; I did not stop, as I expected a letter at Marseilles, the contents of which interested me very much: for —
I saw many plantations of canes, which I wonder we do not cultivate in our water-meadows in England—and I bought very excellent melons out of the fields for five sols a piece.
A country flowing with wine and oil, and where figs and melons are to be gathered on each side of the public road, may be a very fine thing; but a want of verdure and fine trees gives it a most uncomfortable and ungentlemanlike appearance. When I compared England and the scene before me together, I could almost have fancied I had the
maladie du pays
upon me—so much did I wish to see a green carpet under my feet, and some of our beautiful foliage over my head—
Adieu, dear Sir; how often I wish to be with you I leave the justice of your heart to determine. I remain yours most affectionately—
P. S. I forgot to tell you, that while I was changing horses at Lille, I talked to Captain B—, a sailor, who lives with his wife and two children in that neighbourhood—He very civilly invited me to pass the evening at his house, talked about my brother G—, and informed me that the source of the Sorgue was at this time remarkably low; and I found by the marks the torrent had left on the rocks when at its height, that it must be at least forty feet lower now than when it takes its winter-course: as I saw it, it creeps humbly from the cavern under part of the rock, and becomes rapid as it finds its level and forms a river; whereas, when it is in all its glory, it tumbles over the rock a wild cascade, which must add considerably to its terrific beauties —
I was informed by the inhabitants of Vaucluse, that people, who are tired of life, fling themselves into the cavern, where, as I told you before, the water is unfathomable; upon this information, I asked if bodies were often found there; I was answered in the affirmative, and that they were chiefly the bodies of priests—Adieu—
P. S. I never felt any heat like that which I experience here—
LETTER XII.
MARSEILLES,
Aug. 8, 1785.
I HAVE examined the rocks just out of this harbour, and think some of them most fortunately situated to defend the port, but what surprised me much, was being assured by the boatmen who row me out twice a day (to get a breath of air) that, at all times of the night, boats are suffered to come in and out of the harbour without being examined —
People of all nations, that fili every day the great walk leading to the quay, made me think on my arrival that some important event had drawn all the people from the houses and the ships together—but a repetition of the same scene soon convinced me of my mistake. There are two very fine pictures, painted by Puget, representing some of the horrid scenes at the time of the plague at Marseilles; they are only too well executed; I saw several dying figures taking leave of their friends and looking their last anxious kind and wishful prayer on their sick infants, that made the tears flow down my cheeks—I was told the physicians and noblemen who were assisting the sick and dying were all portraits. I can easily conceive it, for in some of the faces there is a look of reflexion and concern which could only be drawn from the life—
I have spoke to Captain —, who commands the King-Fisher; he is obliged to perform quarantine here, though he had already done his duty in that way at Leghorn and Genoa before; but the plague rages very much all along the Barbary coast, from whence he is come; and one cannot be surprised at any precaution taken at Marseilles to avoid this danger—
I do not think Marseilles a beautiful town; and the country houses in the environs, which they call here Bastides, are frightful.
I have just got a note from on board the King-Fisher, that has been soaked in vinegar; the direction is scarcely legible—Adieu, dear Sir; the heat is so excessive here that I am absolutely stupified by it.
Believe me yours affectionately.
LETTER XIII.
HYERES,
Aug. 10, 1785.
I STOPPED in my way here at Toulon, and intended to look at the dock-yards, but was refused, which surprised me very much, as an English lady of my acquaintance was suffered to go into them at the time of the last war with France, when her husband and all the gentlemen with her were sent out of the town—I could get no other reason assigned for the refusal, but this—that since Lord — had seen them, nothing of
English blood
should ever be permitted to go into them. So I walked about, and all I could see was that the finest ports in the world, and ships worthy of being commanded by our admirals, will never make (at least for a great while to come) good sailors of the French—my reasons I will tell you, when we meet. —
Mr. de S—, who refuses to let any English person see the dock-yards at Toulon, expressed a great dislike to our nation, saying he had reason; you will laugh when I tell you, that his reason for hating us is, that in the late war two thirds of his squadron were taken, with the greatest part of his convoy, destined for the East-Indies, and had he not bravely ran away himself, he would certainly have fallen a prey to those
opiniatres, feroces matelots
as he calls our sailors—
The gentleman who waited upon Soulanges to ask permission and plead my cause, wishing to recollect what defence Mr. de Soulange's squadron had made, asked an officer in the room the name of the French ships, which the poor Mr. de Soulanges so bitterly lamented, he answered he should recollect them if he heard their names, but could not exactly remember—
My friend asked if it was—the Ville de Paris, le Glorieux—le Centaur—l'Artois—le Caton—l'Argonaut—le Jason— le
rothee—le Solitaire—le Pegase—here the gentleman stared at him, and said, le Pegase was one of them—
Soulanges said, yes, but the Foudroyant that took her was one of the largest ships in our navy, and commanded by that
feroce matelot
Captain Jervais, who would attack the devil, if he met him at sea; but, added he, Jervais could not have taken the
Pegase,
unless assisted by other ships—
My friend told him, the Foudroyant was a two decker and carried only six more guns than the Pegase, and was taken in the war before the last, by the English ship the Monmouth, commanded by Captain Gardiner, that carried but 64 guns—that, though he had not the pleasure of being personally known to Captain Jervais, from his public character he was sure he would do his best in time of war to burn, sink, or take the devil, if under French colours—He had a great inclination to have told Mr. de Soulanges what is very well known, that Captain Jervais took the Pegase after an action of little more than half an hour, without any help whatsoever, but his commands to a gallant crew—and that the other sail of the line under Soulange's command struck to the Queen, Captain Maitland, after receiving a single broadside; but he thought a repetition of naval actions, fairly stated, might be painful to many officers who were present, and who paid the tribute due to our navy, in expressing the highest esteem for it; and so took his leave.
The
Pegase
in question is the very ship my brother commanded last war. I have often been told that she could not sail, by the French—but I always assured them, that she has profited so much by the trim he gave her, that she goes now perfectly well—
They have also talked much of the improvement made in their marine the last war; but unless it is in the cloathing their ships' company, I cannot find out in what—Old English officers have told me, they always found their hearts lay in the same place as heretofore—and that whenever they could sail fast enough to get along side of the enemy, the business was presently settled—I think I need no better proof of this assertion than one, which I hope may stand unaltered in the book of Fame for centuries to come; it is this—our marine is in part composed of line-of-battle ships taken from our enemies; whereas there exists not a power upon the face of the globe that can boast of having in their marine one ship of the line taken from the British nation—
I do not doubt but that the
Ministre de la marine de France,
and French officers, are excellent naval officers in theory—but when that is to be put in practice, I hope events will prove, that we remember we have no other ramparts to defend our country and our liberties but the ocean, and that we ever were, are, and must be, a race of
feroces, opiniatres, matelots
—You say amen to this wish, I am sure—so remain yours most affectionately.
I think the drive from Marseilles to Toulon is beautiful—the rocks are as stupendous and nearly as fantastic as those about Vaucluse, and for some miles they are covered with fir trees—
You may form some idea of the magnitude of the hills and rocks by my protesting, that the trees and a few cottages which adorn them, look, the first like tooth-picks, and the latter like the smallest Dutch toys—the road winds round most gracefully; wherever there was a little valley, I saw large flocks of goats—As I came nearer to Toulon, I began to see many orange and pomegranate trees in the gardens; and the caper, which is a pretty but stinking creeper, grows wild, wherever it is permitted to take root—
From Toulon to Hyeres I was gradually apprised of the charming situation of the latter place, by the approach to it, which grew more and more lovely every step I took—The hedges on the road are composed of myrtle, pomegranate, and wild vine; I passed by several neat-looking white houses, the gardens of which are full of large orange trees.
The town of Hyeres is about a league from the sea, placed on the side of a hill. I shall wait patiently here for that letter I expected at Marseilles—This happy spot is refreshed by sea-breezes—and from the elegant cheerfulness which reigns here, it might almost tempt one to devote many months to solitude and study.
LETTER XIV.
HYERES,
Aug 15, 1785.
I WENT up last night on horseback to a chapel situated on a hill near the sea, called
notre Dame de Consolation:
there is a man who calls himself a hermit, by name
Laurent,
and who by his medical knowledge, as he assures me, and the assistance of the Blessed Virgin, cures the King's Evil. I talked to him some time; his ignorance and simplicity amused me very much; but I pity those who trust to his physical knowledge; I gave him some very curious receipts, all impromptu, as you may guess, assuring him, among other things, that bathing people in aqua fortis was an infallible remedy for the disorder he cured—
I desire, if ever chance should bring you to Hyeres, that you will ascend this hill, and examine the scenes around, towards the sea; the islands of Portecroix and Pourquerolle are beautiful objects, and a peninsula called Gien which is joined to the land only by a narrow road, forms a landscape worthy of a great master's pencil—On looking towards the land, mountains on every side, whose tops are decorated with firs and rocks alternately, and towards the bottom, with olive, orange, and fig trees, form a beautiful circle, seemingly intended by nature to prevent the sea from extending any farther—At a little distance, inland, rises the hill, on the side of which is built the town of Hyeres: above the town are seen rocks and remains of the ancient town and wall.—I could have sat and looked at all this beautiful scenery for ever; but the evening closing sent me home to my harp and my books.
Yours affectionately—
LETTER XV.
HYERES,
Aug. 18, 1785.
I HOPE the following lines will amuse you, for a moment; I only wish they may make you laugh as much as I did, when I read the French officer's melancholy story in prose; whosoever he may be, should he take offence at my having turned his tragedy into a farce, I shall bear his anger patiently, when I think that the princes of the House of Bourbon, all the Spaniards, Lord Howe, and Sir George Elliot, each of whose valour he slights, will certainly laugh with me.—I have marked the pages where I have literally translated his own phrases, that you may not suppose I have invented the strange things he says—and I send you his pamphlet that you may compare the one with the other—
VERSES Written at Hyeres, on reading a pamphlet called
l'Histoire du Siège de Gibraltar, par un officier de l'Armée Française, imprimée à Cadiz, l'an
1783.
SWEET muse, who hast with fragrant roses spread
The thorny path of life, which mortals tread;
Who hast, with fancy's gayest varied flowers,
Bedeck'd with many a wreath my youthful hours;
If e'er and oft thy song beguil'd my care,
Smiling maliciously, O Muse appear—
Apollo form'd this sea-girt orange-grove,
Fit haunt for playful Muse, or happy love;
Here myrtle-blossoms gracefully entwine,
And mix their perfume with th'encircling vine—
And this, a youthful poet might suppose,
The spot where Venus from the waves arose—
O Muse, approach, with all thy mirth and fire,
While Momus, laughing, shall new-string my lyre,
That I may briefly sing in numbers gay,
What I have heard a prosing Frenchman say;
His country's disappointment to assuage,
He tells a tale, of fam'd Gibraltar's siege;
A Tom-Thumb story of this siege relates—
Of Gallic fame, heroic Gallic feats;
Of Crillon's Duke, and all his conquer'd men,
Who stalk'd out with him—to stalk home again.—
My lyre bestrong, for chords perchance may break,
When Frenchmen of their arms and valour speak;
While wond'ring worlds of Elliot's justly ring:
Thus spoke the grieving Frenchman, thus I sing:
P. 5.
Seven thousand men, and eke York-town,
line 1.
Artillery immense our own,
Lately all taken by my nation,
l. 3.
Has added to its reputation—
The conquest of St. Kit's adorn'd,
Names henceforth never to be scorn'd,
The names of (as new worlds can shew)
l. 6.
Washington, Bouille, Rochambeau,
p. 6.
Bussy,
with our friend Hyder Kan.
l. 2.
Suffrein,
unconquerable man,
Promis'd in Asia greater feats,
Than e'er were sung in Paris' streets;
l. 3.
Promis'd us victory and teas;
Our streamers glorying o'er the seas,
Proudly display'd on th' eastern shore,
l. 6
Where English banners wav'd before.
l. 9.
Minorca too we call our own,
Which adds to
Crillon
's name, Mahon.
l. 12.
Past conquests, oft bring fresh in view:
Thus set we out in eighty-two,
l. 13.
Like the most brilliant summer's morn,
A Dauphin at that time was born;
l. 16.
The people all were drunk with joy,
To see so fine a royal boy.
l. 17.
Russia's young heir from Northern courts,
l. 20.
Came to admire our superb ports,
Our industry, fertilisation—
And Paris rais'd his admiration.
What circumstances these, t' inflame
Our minds with glory and with fame!
p. 28.
But to these splendors, sad reverse!
Unpleasant news our joys disperse;
For Rodney's vict'ry reach'd our ears
Which chang'd our vap'ring into tears,
p. 32.
Our fetes to mourning, hopes to fears.
Since the year twenty-seven had Spain
Thought of Gibraltar's rock in vain;
In awful silence long had star'd,
p. 7.
But to attack it never dar'd;
l. 18.
Till
A paper-merchant offered the Duke an immense Kite, at the Tail of which a Man in a sack was to ascend, and was to pour aquafortis over the officers and soldiers at the Parade.—I am told that the Duke had the kite sent over the rock—
himself into the sack, the
was lifted off the ground.
Crillon offer'd gold and pensions,
For such unheard-of new-inventions,
As might this sturdy rock invade,
For this full many a scheme was laid:
p. 6.
The House of Bourbon squadrons mann'd
l. 33.
Collected armies, batt'ries plann'd;
These preparations, vast and great,
All Europe knew, were to defeat
p. 7.
Brave Elliot in his snug retreat
l. 2.
Le Chevalier d'Arçon, whose floating batteries deserved a different fate from what they experienced; they were neither executed nor seconded according to his plan. I have examined the invention, with persons whose judgment I can trust to, and am convinced that it is a very good one—and if justice had been done in the execution of them, the batteries, I do believe, were incombustible and insubmersible, as he asserted they were; but as to their assisting towards taking of Gibraltar—from the prudence of the general who defended it, I rather think we have to regret, and the combined armies to rejoice, that they succeeded no better.
D'Arçon of floating batt'ries spoke;
Great Crillon hasten'd to St. Roque,
To take upon him the command
Of th' army, both by sea and land.
p. 11.
Four hundred workmen, under d'Arçon,
l. 9.
(Whose batteries were made a farce on)
Incessant work'd by day and night,
To finish them, which gave delight
To Monseigneur d'Artois, who came
l. 16.
With laurels to bedeck his name.—
Now martial feats his senses warming,
And warlike stores around him swarming;
Vessels of ev'ry name and size,
l. 19-23.
In numbers dance before his eyes:
Now to the lines the French troops march,
Their queues so tied, their curls so starch,
p. 13.
Heavens, how the Spaniards stood aghast!
l. 16.
(Of Soldiers they the least, and last)
l. 17, 18.
In flocks they came our men to see,
l. 19, 20
And, by their curiosity,
l. 21, 22.
Prov'd how imperfect was their notion
l. 23.
Of music sweet, and rapid motion—
l. 24.
Our troops the Spaniards wonder rais'd—
So on Columbus Indians gaz'd!—
An English brig of sixteen guns
Was taken by these stupid dons,
p. 14.
And this unusual thing, a prize!
l. 28.
Our hopes uplifted to the skies—
l. 29.
The little fieet that watch'd the bay,
Came in to keep St. James's day;
p 15.
For on a holiday 'tis right.
l. 10.
That Catholics should pray, not fight—
l 11.
But whilst our ships delay'd their cruising,
l. 12.
The English brought the ugly news in
Of Rodney's triumph; from the Rock
Of guns our ears receiv'd the shock;
For Elliot thought, a gallant action
l. 30.
Deserv'd a mark of satisfaction—
Soon after this, four English knaves
l. 31.
Deserted, and inform'd us, slaves
l. 32.
Of hope and fear—that Elliot's troops
p. 16.
Of provender had lost all hopes.—
l. 1, 2, 3.
Which rais'd our spirits, made us gay,
And think all fighting only play.
Then d'Arçon made us move so swift,
p. 21.
His barrels
The same Chevalier d'Arçon, who invented the floating batteries, executed an epaulement (which he planned) within the space of four hours, in the dark part of the night, between the 15th and 16th of August, 1782. It was called by him the Parallel Battery, but more properly by Sir George Elliot, the Sappe Volante, from the rapidity of the execution: It was 1010 toises in length, and ten feet in heighth and breadth, formed of sacks and barrels, brought to the spot and filled with the sand found there: I have seen his own account of the distribution of employment among so great a number of men (viz. 17,000) and which proves, that he had a clear head to calculate the work, so as to prevent confusion.
and his bags to lift,
l. 5, 6.
That in one night, his epaulement
l. 7.
Was form'd so thick, so long, so strong,
p. 21.
That sure, if Elliot and his men
l. 8, 9.
Could ever be alarm'd, 'twas then—
The Duc de Bourbon came to pore
l. 16.
O'er d'Arçon's work, on sea and shore;
His floating batteries complete;
His forty cannon-boats so neat;
His twenty bomb-boats add to these,
Will take the place whene'er we please.
The royal princes, twain of Bourbon,
Of caution scorn'd to clap the curb on;
But yielding to their valour hot,
p. 26. l. last.
Advanc'd almost within gun-shot—
These awful things together bind
Triumph and vict'ry in our mind.
p. 35.
Our soldiers play, and sing and dance:
l. 3, 27.
Oh! happy nation! happy France!
Whose people, light at head and heel,
No pangs for others ever feel.
—All the work's so quickly done,
Hope on ev'ry visage shone:
But all's not gold, alas, that shines;
For Elliot
set
in flames our lines;
To the sea for water went our men;
The English fir'd on these again;
Ah, barb'rous nation! cruel foes!
p. 36.
Who merciless could fire on those,
l. 13, 15.
Whom ye confus'd by many a shot,
By Elliot's order made red hot—
We burn'd our fingers, then we rested.
In sleep our sad affronts digested.
Our balls now fly round Elliot's head;
p. 40.
But he lay silent, as if dead;
l. 11, 12.
In vain we make our bullets dance, or
Sing against the rock—no answer.—
p. 4.
Heav'n seem'd to favour our intent;
l. 26.
The wind to westward firmly bent;
l. 29.
Ships of the line, full forty-eight
Of ours, bespoke poor Elliot's fate—
At anchor firm before his face,
Resolv'd no English ship should place
Or beef, or mutton, in his dish,
(He, food for us
or feed on fish)
Gibraltar mute, by us struck dumb,
Our triumph now was soon to come:—
p. 49.
Alas! (the wheel is ever turning)
l. 5, 6.
Our triumph soon was chang'd to mourning:
The floating batt'ries our reliance
To set the general at defiance,
From them by sea to end the matter,
With showers of balls, his rock we spatter;
He, seeing now what most we want is
To eternise our new flottantes,
Red bullets sends us by the score,
That caus'd such mischief heretofore,
l. 18.
And men of all degrees and nations,
That gaze upon our diff'rent stations,
With monstrous grief, excessive wonder,
See turn'd to smoke our floating thunder.
Some in the camp were free from care,
Nor dream'd they of the dire despair,
p. 54.
The rage, calamity, and crime,
l. 14.
That struck us jointly at that time:
l. 20.
For thirteen English gun-boats came,
To add fresh fuel to the flame.
Amidst this burning, what could save
Hundreds from th' untimely grave?
For through the fiames no Frenchman chose,
In saving friends, to scorch his nose;
His brethren broiling calmly views,
Rather than singe his beard or shoes.
But Elliot and his men of steel,
That act so stout, can pity feel,
p. 55.
And Curtis led the gen'rous crew,
l. 16.
To save the foe, with death in view:
Three hundred French and Spaniards took,
And nurs'd and fed them at the rock,
With anxious care, a care divine;
l. 30.
Such deeds, brave Elliot, such were thine!
More to thy glory far, 'tis said,
p. 60.
Than with hot balls to strike us dead—
l. 22.
Our batt'ries burnt—our spirits fail,
And gloomy thoughts our minds assail.
p. 65.
Historians say that we inherit
l. 3, 5.
From Gauls a most impetuous spirit;
But that it lasts not, as it ought,
And ends before a battle's fought—
Our princes, sick of war's alarm,
Whom Crillon's camp no longer charm,
With Cordova were going away;
But fresh bad news made them delay—
A Spanish brig announc'd that night
Howe and the English fleet in sight—
Now hopes alone our bosom warm,
For bursting clouds bespeak a storm,
Sad councils and reflexions came
About our ships, our hopes, our fame—
The storm came on; it quickly bore
The English off the Spanish shore,
And ours from all their anchors tore:
Some were driven near Elliot's guns,
Who sing'd the whiskers of the dons;
Too sure there's fire in that head;
p. 78.
He sent us scores of bullets red;
l. 22.
In him, 'twas horrid, I declare,
To take la Fortune de la Guerre,
When beat by rain and storms we were.
In the midst of all this sad confusion,
The English squadron made intrusion;
Cordova, spight of wind and weather,
p. 79.
Call'd all his officers together:
l. 30.
They held a council, talk'd of fight—
A frigate at th' approach of night,
An English frigate, skimm'd away,
l. 34.
Like lightning into Rosiere's bay—
Oh heaven and earth! to France and Spain,
What indignation, wonder, pain,
It was to see two more advance,
And English transports to enhance!
The horror of our souls aggriev'd,
For thus Gibraltar was reliev'd;
It was reliev'd, dear France; but know,
Not to brave Elliot, or to Howe,
Is due the glory of this deed,
Which makes our sorrowing hearts oft bleed,
p. 91.
By copper, and by coals alone
l. 4.
Their martial courage was made known;
And if an Elliot's sacred name-
With that of honour be the same—
To wond'ring ages yet to come,
And we were sent like children home—
The coals that made his bullets red
Deserve the wreaths that crown his head—
And copper-bottom'd ships I ween,
That scud along so neat, so clean—
Secure the active British foe,
And not the valour of their Howe—
Dear friends, like me, treat with disdain
Their glory, and forget your pain;
Hate honour from your haughty souls
That's gain'd by copper, and by coals—
And now, ye playful dolphins, quickly bear,
Across the seas, this dismal tale with care;
At Calpe's
Sir George Elliot was then at Gibraltar.
foot, I charge ye, rest a while,
Divert the warrior from his hourly toil—
A British hero scarcely can refuse
This trifling tribute from an English Muse.
Then to the western ocean speed your way,
Nor loiter thoughtless on the Biscayn-bay—
In Britain's channel once arriv'd, remain;
And let my countrymen from you obtain
Your sacred charge—Beneath the oak's deep shade,
My honour'd friends, retir'd from toil, are laid—
While they on French description smiles bestow,
France sows fresh laurels for each English brow.
Mean time with care a myrtle-wreath I weave
To grace but one
Sir George Elliot.
, the bravest of the brave.
You see, dear Sir, I meant to have sent it to Sir George Elliot; I know he has the French pamphlet—but as he may not be so partial to the productions of my muse as you are, I am rather content that you should see it.
Believe me your's most affectionately.
LETTER XVI.
HYERES,
August 24, 1785.
DEAR Sir! I am extremely surprised that invalids, who fly to the south in winter, do not choose Hyeres in preference to Montpellier or Nice; it is true that it is more solitary than either of these places; but I am sure, by the accounts I have had of the last, its lying, gossiping, mischievous stile of the society must be a most horrid thing for nerves shaken by illness. There is an uncommon clearness in the air here; the islands appear to the eye to be not above three miles distant, and I am assured they are seven leagues—Provisions are excellent here, particularly fish; among these, the John-dory and the red Mullet are of an amazing size, and excellent; I thought the Dory was called the Dorade, but it is called the Poisson de St. Pierre; and the Dorade, of which there is plenty, is a very indifferent fish—They spoil the red Mullet by constantly pulling out the livers. The land is too precious here to be spared for building, yet there are houses enough to lodge several families—
There is very seldom any rain at Hyeres, and the rides of the environs are the most beautiful that your imagination can form—particularly one towards the residence of a Mr. Glapiere de St. Tropés—who has near his house a beautiful large valley between the mountains, which he might with little expence turn into a charming park with a river running through it—You most not suppose from the want of rain here, that there is no verdure, or that the orange-gardens look burnt by the sun; the natives of this happy spot are extremely ingenious in turning every little spring that comes from the mountains (and these springs are numerous) over their fields and gardens, so that the constant want of rain here is the very reason why every vegetation never fails of being refreshed perpetually.—
Put all these circumstances together, with another, which I think must weigh with every reasonable person, out of their own country, which is, that provisions are very cheap, and you will agree with me, that Hyeres is a very good place for an invalid to pass a winter in.—
I am setting out for Antibes, having received the information I waited for —
I remain your's most truly, E. C—.
LETTER XVII.
ANTIBES,
Aug. 28, 1785.
MOST part of the road from Hyeres to this place is very mountainous and narrow, so I rode along the greatest part of it—
I find here an ancient work of the Romans; it is an aqueduct which a Colonel d'Aquillon imagined might be restored to its former use of bringing water to the town, at a small expence; he met with much opposition and ingratitude from the very people to whom it could be of use; but I am told he has obtained a pension, and a monument is intended to be erected to his honour—I believe there is no nation but ours that waits for a person's death, to shew some sign of satisfaction—for the benefit derived from their superior talents —
If Vauban's plan had been followed for this port, it would have been one of the finest in the Mediterranean—As it is at present, none but vessels of the lightest burthen can enter—
I have hired a felucca, a long narrow boat with three shoulder-of-mutton-sails, and ten oars, in which I mean to go from hence to Leghorn—I have talked so much lately to you about orange-gardens, that you may fairly suppose, I passed much of my time in them; but indeed I have not, for they are far from being comfortable things to be in, though magnificent to look at, from a little distance; there is one, and not a very large garden, at Hyeres, that brings the proprietor in fifteen hundred pounds sterling a year; I was taken to see it upon my arrival—but the ground is so precious in these gardens, that none is to be spared for walks—so that I was forced to creep among the orange-trees as I could, like any other earthly reptile—
The Spaniards and Algerines having lately made a peace, I am informed I run some risk of being taken by a Barbary corsair, as the Algerines turn their spirit of piracy on all other vessels but Spanish at present—however I cannot say I am the least afraid, since the very fears of my Italian sailors will prevent them from going farther from the shore than what is absolutely necessary for sailing—
Adieu, dear Sir, I remain your's—
LETTER XVIII.
GENOA,
Sept. 1, 1785.
I Got no farther than Monaco last night, where I looked over the old castle which stands perpendicularly upon a rock from the sea.—The prince was absent: he is adding a
Salle de Compagnie
to his chateau, which it wants very much—The building being ancient and irregular; he has taken most of the fine pictures to Paris, as his people told me, and I was shewn a modern cornish in stucco, one of Adam's designs, executing as a great curiosity, though it was none to me, as we have such in most of our parlours in England—There are the remains of some fine painting
eu fresque
in the court—The room the poor Duke of York died in is one of the most melancholy I ever saw; the very bed had a gloomy look; but indeed all the apartments are dark and dismal—The prince has three houses for his own residence, at a small distance from each other, on this coast—Monaco, Moncobron, and Menton—His possessions do not seem very fertile, from whence probably arises an Italian distich my boatmen repeated so often in going up to Monaco, that I could not avoid retaining it; in English it is—Monaco upon a rock, neither sows nor reaps, but lives on others property—They added, that part of his revenue consisted in a tribute which all small vessels pay in going from France to Italy, that is, all but the French, who are exempt from this tax, which, by the bye, I saw no other method of exacting but a miserable little vessel of his I saw in the port, which they told me went after the others, who might refuse to pay it—
There were arms and ammunition for forty thousand men sent in there, by small quantities at a time, for fifteen months past—from France—
Monaco's Prince, from his connection with French families, and his frequenting Versailles, is become, I suppose (though a sovereign prince) only a tool of that court—These private military preparations are conveniently placed for Italy, Monaco being within four-and-twenty hours sail of any Italian port north of Leghorn. Here I found the great use of my new travelling bed—the feet, which are of iron, are placed in tin cups full of water, and a zinzalière, or gauze curtain with no opening to it, that lets down over me, prevented my being devoured by gnats and every other sort of biting, stinging vermin—
I can conceive nothing pleasanter than having a clean comfortable English yatcht, with four or five sensible people to go with into Italy, coasting as I do—The scenery is beautiful—Nice, which I passed by, is a fine object; the sky too is so clear, every thing seems to conspire in making this voyage delightful—but, alas! in a felucca, it is too true, what the late Lord D— said, that you never come out of one, without feeling all alive. As soon as the heat of the sun goes off, with the approach of the evening, these Italian sailors make a horrid noise too; they sing, it is true, not unharmoniously; but for two hours, nay more, the same bymn to the Virgin—now and then interspersed with a lively ballad—so that the still part of the evening, which at sea particularly invites to contemplation or conversation, is ruffled by the gaiety of these poor fellows.—I am at present in a very good inn, the Golden Stag—and every thing I see here is so unlike any thing I ever saw before, that I am at the window gaping like a country-miss, that is in London for the first time in her life—
When I have gaped to some purpose, you shall profit by it —
I now wish you and—a good night—
Your's affectionately—
LETTER XIX.
GENOA,
Sept. 16, 1785.
THIS town is oddly situated—it is so much confined between the sea and high mountains; the churches, convents, and their gardens, take up so much room, that mercantile people can scarcely find habitations; the palaces are extremely fine, but so lofty, and the streets so narrow, that to see the outside of the houses, I think one should lie down in the middle of a street—I never saw any thing more truly magnificent than some of the palaces, the pillars and staircases of which are all marble—You may judge of the solidity of these buildings: some of them are seven and eight hundred years old—I saw one staircase, the altering of which cost twenty thousand pounds. It is well worth any person's while to come here who loves fine pictures—in most of the palaces there are some—a few of the palaces have large collections; and in these printed catalogues of them—I have had the greatest pleasure in looking at some—there are two Vandykes in one of the Brignoli palaces, that I think invaluable. The man is on a grey horse, the lady his wife, is a whole length—there is as much grace and beauty in her face and figure, as his pencil could express—
All the magnificence of the Genoese is confined to their palaces; by their laws, they cannot have gold either on their clothes, carriages, or liveries. The chief amusement of ladies here is walking the streets in the evening, with their sedanchair and several servants behind them, accompanied by one or more gentlemen—it is very much the fashion likewise, for every person who can afford it, to have one or several country-houses—as they call them; but the situations of them, perched about the steep rocks, gives me but little idea of the country. The people in general do not look healthy—All the women wear what is called a mezzaro, viz. about two yards or more of black silk or chintz, wrapped about their heads and shoulders, instead of a cloak, it is extremely graceful, if well put on. Every woman has an opportunity of hiding a defect, or shewing a beauty, as they may conceal one eye, the throat, the forehead, the chin, or in short suffer those they meet to see only what they choose to display. The mezzaro too has a great convenience, which is, that a woman can so hide herself in it, that she may walk all over the town unknown; this mezzaro is particularly advantageous to a person with fine shoulders and eyes. There are but two streets in the town where carriages can go; so that sedan chairs or walking are the principal methods of going from one place to another.—
The females among the lower class disgusted me much by their head-dress—their hair is strained up to a point on the top of their head, and fastened to a pin—judge what a figure an old greyheaded or bald woman must make.—
I cannot help thinking this once flourishing republic, notwithstanding the opulence of some of its noble families, is becoming very fast a dependent on, or a creature of the court of France. Some of their nobles marry into French families—and soon lose their fortune and their patriotic ideas in the extravagance and servility of that court—Corsica is a melancholy proof of this opinion—
Of the two noble Genoese, to whom I had letters, the lady is dead, and the gentleman is not here; so that I have announced myself no where, as I would not be detained here longer than just to see the churches and pictures, and though I should have been pleased to have seen the manner of living of the Genoese nobles, I would not upon any account get into a train of ministers dinners and visits—
I have been much surprised to see a black Virgin and child in one of the churches here: unless it be to tempt Negroes to turn Christians. I cannot conceive why they suffer it to remain—
I have been on board the
Galéres
—and if the variety of very fine pictures have delighted me, the sight of heavy chains, and so many human beings enduring slavery for years, has shocked me beyond description; yet they do not look unhappy; and I think servitude a more rational punishment for some crimes than death; but slavery to an English mind, I suppose, must be very horrible by what I feel—
Yesterday two Algerine slaves came to my apartment to sell slippers; the oldest of the two was one of the handsomest brown men, with the best countenance I ever saw; he has been a slave five-and-twenty years, and is suffered to go about without the usual attendant, which is a man with a stout stick in his hand, who follows the slaves who walk about the town chained together, always in pairs—
When I thought upon the fate of this old man; guilty of no crime; a prisoner of war; his looks so noble and so honest; I wept, and wished I might have had interest enough with the Doge and Senate of Genoa to have sent him home to Algiers—
These sort of pictures in real life, are of a dark hue: I must therefore again turn to those I have seen in the palaces; I confess I should not dislike to pass three winter months here to examine them at leisure, and copy a few. There is a bust of Vitellius in one of the palaces, for which I am assured the Duke of Marlborough offered to give its weight in gold. The sum must necessarily have been very large, for the bust is so massy that it probably weighs above half any other marble statue: But it does much honour to the duke's taste, as the work is perfect; and much likewise to the possessor, to prize so highly what deserves so well to be esteemed. I have been offered any price I choose to ask for a chestnut Suffolk-horse here; the stable it is in is crowded every day, and it grieves some of the Genoese very much that I will not part with him; but I think a good woman's horse is so difficult to be had, that I never can understand how any person can part with one—
Adieu, my dear Sir—Believe me—
LETTER XX.
PISA-BATHS,
Sept. 17, 1785.
I Set out again in a felucca, intending to land at Leghorn, but contrary winds or calms became so tiresome to me, that I landed at an Italian port called Via regia, had my coach taken out, and set out by land for this place. I have passed through a forest of oaks, belonging to the Grand Duke.
Some of these oaks are the largest and finest looking timber-trees I ever saw; I am assured here the wood is not hard and good, like our English oak; if so, I suppose it is affected by the climate—
I could not help reflecting in one of the finest palaces at Genoa on the want of unity and order, the two principles on which good taste is founded, that is ever discovered in the dress and ornaments of all kinds which foreigners have—
I had passed through an immense suite of rooms, each more magnificent than the other; when coming into the bed-chamber of the mistress of the house, her dress which she had pulled off the night before, even her bracelets and rings lay upon a table, and I can with truth assert, no village-girl could have adorned herself with more mean, ordinary, paltry finery than was exhibited. The heir to this noble house, a child of about two years old, that had taken a fancy to my looks, and accompanied me through the apartments, was dressed likewise in a coarse coloured linen—
These circumstances were such contrasts to the house, that it brought to my mind a hundred examples of the like in France, where often, to get at the most elegant
Salle de Compagnie,
you are obliged to pass through a dirty antichamber, where you are forced to hold up your petticoats, that you may not sweep in to the inner rooms a load of filth. In the streets you meet a magnificent carriage, attended by servants in costly liveries, drawn by a pair of dog-horses, the harness of which a hackney-coachman would not use with us; and frequently at Paris the finest hotels have their architecture disgraced by the black funnel of a temporary chimney, running out at a window or through a cornice—
These incongruities cannot be imagined, nor believed, but by those that have seen them. With us cleanliness constitutes our first elegance; and fitness of things is next considered; and I believe it is the combination of these two circumstances which enchants foreigners of sense and parts so much in England—
The Grand Duke and Duchess are here, so that the apartments usually let out to company are taken up by them and their suite—
I have hired a comfortable house here by the week; these baths, first built by the Roman Emperors, are kept in excellent repair; and well they may, for the bathing is excessively dear—
There is a public room at the palace, where the company assemble about nine in the evening; the heat in the day is excessive; all the Italians lie down and sleep after dinner, and get up to dress about six, walk afterwards, and meet in the great room. I met the Grand Duchess last night, with another lady; I had not the least idea who she was, being followed by a single footman in grey; she looked at me with the greatest attention, and curtsied very civilly; I curtsied and stared at her, from her extreme likeness to my cousin of witty memory, the late lady T—
I was pestered to death with questions about my harp at night. I find a harp with pedals is a very rare thing in Italy, and an English person meets with homage little short of adoration. The very shopkeepers and peasants look in my face and say—
Cara—Cara Inglese—
These baths are very good for palsies, paralytic disorders, gout, rheumatism, and scrophulous complaints, Pisa and Lucca are near; Pisa, I find, the Grand Duke prefers to Florence. I should think an invalid might pass a comfortable winter here—
Hoping that you may never come here as one, I finish this letter—
Yours affectionately—
LETTER XXI.
PISA-BATHS,
Sept. 15, 1785.
I Have rode over to Pisa, where I have been much entertained; the cathedral, the baptistery, and the Campo Santo are well worthy a voyage from England—
The leaning tower, which you may probably have seen, or at least read and heard many accounts of, is a proof, among many others, that in all ages fancy is too often mistaken for taste—It has the appearance of patchwork, from the variety of orders of architecture displayed in the pillars, which stand in rows one above the other, from the base to the top—As to the learned in building pretending to say the tower was built leaning, only to shew the excellence of the workmanship, they certainly delude themselves, or desire to impose upon credulous persons—There are many proofs of the ground having sunk; one infallible, according to my judgment; and that is, the first row of pillars being above half buried in the earth—This tower stands by itself—some paces from it I entered the cathedral through brass doors brought from Jerusalem, representing, in relievo, the history of Christ—but I would prefer the possession of one pannel of the folding doors on the opposite side of the cathedral to the whole of these; for the modern relievo, executed by John of Bologna, is full of grace and nature; while the ancient seems chiseled out by an awkward carpenter—There is a beautiful urn placed on a pillar on the outside of the church, which was shewn formerly as the cup which measured the tribute paid to Caesar—but that mistake is now rectified, and the true ancient use restored to it—it contained the ashes of some illustrious personage—A fine sarcophagus is likewise placed at the door of the cathedral, as a monument to the Comtesse Matilda—who was sovereign of this country—and is said piously to have added much to the magnificence of these buildings—but the croisades have afforded their most curious relics—
I refer you to books for a precise and minute account of all that is to be seen in this vast and magnificent cathedral; I have only time to give you a few observations—
The chief altar is composed mostly of lapis lazuli and all that is rare and costly—Some of the pictures are fine, but the cathedral is too dark to permit them to be seen to advantage—At the lower end is a handsome sarcophagus to the memory of the Emperor Henry VII. who was poisoned by a priest at the holy table with a consccrated wafer—
I quitted the Cathedral to go into the Baptistery, a building standing like the tower at a small distance from the cathedral; it is shaped like a handsome bell—the first and second row of pillars on the outside of this, one above the other, are in a good stile; but the man dying without leaving a drawing, or plan of his intentions towards the finishing, the upper part is finished in the gothic stile, and ill done—
There are granite pillars at the entrance, very fine indeed—
The front is very remarkable, it is immensely large, of white marble, beautiful Mosaic sculpture in different pannels, which surround the outside—and the design of every one differs from the others, so that there are not two alike—
The sculpture too of the pulpit is very fine; it represents a groupe of personages—I was told they were all portraits—many of the faces are ridiculous caricaturas—but some barbarous travellers have plucked off several of the heads; a thing easily done by a strong hand, as they are not so large as my fist, when doubled; if you have never seen that, you may guess at the size from what I say—
The Campo Santo is earth brought from Jerusalem, which had the singular property of destroying the dead bodies put into it, four-and-twenty hours after they had lain there. It was the burying-place of the noble Pisans, when Pisa was a flourishing republic; at present no use is made of it; it is an oblong square built round with a cloister; the length is three hundred and fifty feet, in the center is deposed the holy earth, round which reign Gothic arches forming doors and windows, these arches are so light and simple, that they seem to hold together by magic power; and if any thing could reconcile me to the Gothic, these arches would: against the wall on the opposite side from the cloister, there are the remains of a painting
en fresque
upon the plaster, which is very fine.—This plaster or stucco is broken off in several places, and discovers that the outlines of the painting were done upon the wall, besore the stucco was laid on; this appears perfectly incomprehensible, as the stucco is thick, and can never have been transparent—but I am affured that the red lines underneath, which appear to me to be common chalk pencil, were done with a composition which pierced through the stucco when wet, in a faint line, the only way of accounting for this singular circumstance—I confess the drawing on the wall is done with so much more freedom and boldness than the painting expresses, that I wished all the stucco fallen off, that I might see all the spirit of the design at once.—As I walked back through the town, I was shewn an ugly strange-shaped tower, where Ugolino and his innocent family were starved to death—As I looked at it, I thought, that if every man in these days, who did not exert his utmost abilities to save his country, was starved to death, there might be formed a large regiment of good cooks wanting employment—
The grass grows in every street in the town; a melancholy proof of the sad reverse this city exhibits to that picture it once gave the admiring world—
There are many remarkable mouments placed in the cloisters of the Campo Santo. The King of Prussia has erected one in memory of Algarotti—I cannot possibly give you a list of them—I only mean to be your finger post, just to point out to you what is worth seeing, if chance or choice should lead you this way—
I was shewn several curious statues, and pillars in the streets; till night only, as usual, sent me home—
Adieu, dear Sir, Believe me most affectionately—
LETTER XXII.
PISA-BATHS,
Sept. 20, 1785.
SINCE I wrote last, I have been to see Lucca—a virgin republic, for it has never lost its liberty. The motto over the gates, or wherever it can be placed, is
Libertas.
The territories belonging to it are only forty-six miles long from St. Pellegrins to the Pisan mountains, and nineteen from Via regia to Porquetto, the half of which town belongs to the Tuscan dominion—
Lucca is extremely well fortified; crouds of people in the street, and a look of opulence among the
bourgeoisie
prove the good effect of their motto. The oil is remarkably good here. I was shewn the Cathedral, which has nothing very remarkable in it but a circular chapel, the shape of which is pleasing, and it has four statues of the Apostles, good. I was told this chapel, dedicated to the Virgin, was transported in one night, entire, from another church at some distance. The figure of the Virgin I could not see, it was covered up; she wears constantly golden slippers, and there is a skull of one of the senators of Lucca, who was hung for stealing one of them, though he declared that she flung it at him, as he was praying at her feet for more wealth—
I met in the inn —, whom I certainly should not have recollected again, his countenance is so altered: I believe the Muses should not marry, and he certainly is one —
There is something romantic and
pittoresque
in the manner of training the vines here. In the low grounds they twine round the trees which surround the little enclosures, and hang in festoons from one tree to another. The oxen too are of a particular kind, very large, and of no other colour but a light grey; in a small field I have seen these yoked to a plough, preparing one corner of it for corn, while the rest was filled with melons, olive, and fig-trees: I am told the sun is powerful enough to bring the fruits of the earth to perfection through the branches of the trees; if so, they are extremely careless in making their wine; there is little or none to be bought good.—
I do not know what people mean by saying Italy is a beautiful country; a want of fine trees and turf makes it in general very ugly. If travellers would content themselves with saying, that in Italy, a person who is passionately fond of the fine arts might find constant amusement, I believe the praise would be just; but when led by their enthusiasm for them, they say, Italy is the finest country in the world, they prepare many people, as easy in their faith as I am, to be as much disappointed as I have been—
A lady on a side-saddle is an object of great wonder here; the peasants who pass me on the right hand, when I am on horseback, the women, particularly, say,
Poverina—Jesu Maria—Povera—una gambia—
They actually fancy I have one leg only; their stare of concern always makes me laugh; and then they add
cara
to their lamentations. In a day or two I shall set out for Florence, from whence I shall write to you. I confess I long to see the Venus de Medicis, and the Niobe family. I do not envy the Grand Duke his sovereignty; but his collection of perfections, I confess, I should like to share with him—
Adieu—your's affectionately—
LETTER XXIII.
FLORENCE,
Sept. 28, 1785.
I Hope you do not expect a very rational letter from me, as I have been three days successively to see the statues and pictures, and am so much delighted with them, that I am at a loss how to give you an account of my feelings, otherwise than by telling you, that while I am in the Tribune, the vulgar idle tale of real life never once comes into my mind, and I feel quite happy; and if till now I have been sorry often, when I have felt conscious of having nice feelings, or what is commonly called taste, at this moment I am extremely glad of it; I think and dream of nothing but the statues, from the time I leave them till I see them again; so till a few days repetition of the same sights has familiarized my head to them, I shall content myself with telling you two little adventures I have had; which may prove to you I have neither lost my eye-sight nor my pleasantry upon occasions which fret and anger others—
I set out from the Pisa baths on the 23d in the afternoon; I sent on my coach and some of my servants two posts, and went on horseback myself: when I got about half way, I passed by a gentleman in an English phaeton, whose curiosity I suppose was awakened by an English horse and side-saddle. From an uncommon slow trot he flew after me full gallop; I was warned of this frightful operation by my servant, and had just time to turn my horse into a gateway; he could not stop his horses immediately, but being determined to see me, as soon as he could, he pulled up, and went as slow as it was possible: I thought this so impertinent, that I determined on my part, that he should not see me; so I desired the person who accompanied me to follow me; and I passed by the left side of the phaeton as fast as my horse could go, with my hat and head so low, that the foolish man could not see me. My horse is a most excellent and fleet one, and I kept him on till my pursuer gave up the chase; and I then, when out of his sight, turned into a farm-yard, and hid myself, till I saw the phaeton pass again; so I positively got to my carriage without being seen by this curious gentleman—
The man at the post-house, upon my asking for something to drink, brought me a bottle of white wine, which he told me he had made himself, and which he would have given to no one but me; it was the very best white I ever tasted since I drank
vin d'Arbois,
with which Henry
quatre
used to drink to his fair Gabrielle; but I mixed it with water,
parcequ'il faut que les Dames mettent un peu d'eau dans leur vin—
The man was quite offended at my offering to pay for it—
So I thanked him with one of my best smiles, and got into my coach, where I had not been above two hours before I was fast asleep, and waked only to see the walls of Florence, which do not seem calculated to defend it from any enemies, but those which smuggling might create to the Tuscan sovereign's purse—
I went to Meggit's inn, and got into bed about four o'clock in the morning. I have the same apartment my mother and Lady Louisa H— occupied—when there.
The next day, the first thing I did, was to go and see the Venus de Medicis: I was shewn a youthful figure opposite as an Apollo; and after I had examined it some time, I asked why it was called an Apollo. Does not Eccelenza see, says the guide, his attribute the lyre? I do, returned I, but that is modern to the statue; I made my observation; the man laughed. You are perfectly right, said he, and I do not know any other reason for its being an Apollo, than because probably that God was thought a proper companion for the Venus. But how did you know those pieces were resstored? said he; I told him from some observations I had made upon other fine works of that sort—
However this statue is very pleasing; but I do not think it has the commanding look of the God of day. I looked at the face with delight; for about the nose and upper lip it put me in mind of my dear son William, who, probably, is now nearly as tall—
It is lucky for my friends that I have that son and some others, for in the humour I am in, I could almost be tempted to remain a prisoner for life, upon condition my
cacbot
was the Tribune; and I would ask for no other company than the heavenly inanimate figures in it, their silence is so much more eloquent than language, their forms so harmonious. I think you begin not to understand me, and as I am not at all certain, if your ear and your eye agree together, as mine do, I will not attempt to explain what may be felt, but not described; so I beg you would recollect I did not promise this letter should be perfectly rational; and I believe I am in my sober senses, when I have courage to end my rhapsody—
I remain your's affectionately—
P. S.
Apropos, on looking over my letter, I find that I have forgot to tell you, the only object I took notice of, from my coach going to Florence, was the moon; it put me in mind of what Mr. de Caraccioli says;
que la lune de Naples valait bien le soleil d' Angleterre;
however our English sun has but one fault notwithstanding the Marquis's witty remark; and that is the same that an English mind has—peeping through a cloud too often. The Venus suited the ideas I had formed of her; but the Niobe family surpassed them; there is a horse belonging to that, which is not placed in the room with them, and which certainly was held by the bridle by one of the sons. Every thing else seems to be in perfect order—
LETTER XXIV.
FLORENCE,
October 12, 1785,
THIS city is very clean and chearful; the streets are paved with large flat pieces of rock, unlike any other pavement I have seen, and much smoother; fine statues and relievos in marble stand in the squares and angles of streets, without having any thing to protect them but the respect the very lowest people have for them—Sir Horace Mann, Lord Cowper, the Prince Corsini, the Lucca minister Comte Santini, and the Comte d'Albany, give great dinners here to all foreigners of distinction; but the Florentine noblesse never invite any one to dine or sup at their houses—When they give an entertainment, it is an assembly, where every creature that can call itself a gentleman or gentlewoman, can easily go—I was at one the other night given on account of a wedding, and though it was but a few paces from our English minister's house, all his carriages, horses, and servants, paraded with flambeaux to the house—I went in one of his coaches with him—The mistress of the house, and bride, stood at the door to receive every body, and curtsey to them as they passed—The number of rooms opened and illuminated upon such an occasion is incredible—I was told in this house there were eleven rooms which were not seen, because they were not finished—I could not help observing that all the handsome Florentines are very like the English, an effect perhaps of the great partiality the Italian ladies have for my country people. What I mean is, that as they have constantly so many English people here, their looking at them constantly may very naturally occasion the likeness—
The Italian ladies are very good-humored, which is more than I can say for their neighbours the French, and they have likewise more natural civility to strangers; for they do not stare at them, and whisper to one another, so as to leave no doubt to the
Anglaise
that her dress is criticised; but they speak to her, and if they remark any thing new to them, they do not tell her,
ce n'est pas a-la-mode
—but they suppose it is the fashion of the country she is come from—
The sovereign might make Florence a paradise; but he keeps no court—There is nothing about his manner of living that betrays either the gaiety or magnificence that naturally belong to royalty—Any person whose rank suits presentation might be presented to the Grand Duke or Duchess, but I shall certainly not be so; for sovereigns, like the sun, should chear with their rays the people who look up to them; and when they choose to hide those rays in a corner, strangers must be very foolish to go and seek them out, disturb their privacy, and gain neither pleasure nor amusement by it. Florence swarms with English—The operas here are very indifferent—
In the palaces here, there are generally several indifferent pictures mixed with a few good ones—There are two Apostles out of four, painted by Carlo Dolci, in the Palazzo Riccardi, which I think invaluable; there is a Muse by the same in the Palazzo Corsini—
The Grand Duke has just purchased from the Dini family a picture done by Guercino da Cento, and placed it in the Tribune; it is an Endymion sleeping the sweetness and beauty of the countenance are enchanting; but Guercino was so taken up with the mortal, that he has represented the Goddess in one corner of the sky, like the paring of of a nail, however this new purchase is well worthy a place in the Tribune; It cost the Grand Duke not quite an hundred guineas—
I have been obliged again to assure the French, at the French minister's table the other day, that Sir George Elliot was not born of French parents—
Sterne's adventure about Yorick, I have now good reason to believe was a fact; for I was asked too by a Frenchman if Sir Joshua Reynolds did not build St. Paul's. I think Frenchmen should never quit Paris; for they do not choose to be acquainted with the chronology or genealogies of any other nation but their own. The only thing which seems to delight the French minister here is, that the bridge over the Arno, which is just before his windows, puts him in mind of the Pont-neuf at Paris; the only observation I have ever heard him make upon the beauties of this town—
Judge of my surprise the other morning. Meggit came running in haste to my apartments, to assure me, that Lord B— would be here in two or three days, he was at Venice he said, and produced a letter to prove his assertion; but as I thought I was more likely to have intelligence than he was, and as the name was not spelt right, I contented myself with telling him to reserve, as long as he could, an apartment adjoining to mine, then empty, and promised him I should endeavour to make him lodge there; though my brother wrote me word, he should have
une maison montée
if he should pass the winter in Italy; but I think it will be less trouble for him and me to be here, if Florence is the place he fixes in—
There is a charming ride here about a mile from the town, in a wood of the Grand Duke's, called the Cashins, (where the ladies walk or go in phaetons, called here
Bir
hes
)—but its chief-beauty, the most enormous firs I ever beheld, are now felling; — There is also a dairy, where cream, milk, and butter are sold, at a royal price indeed. There is an excellent invention in it to keep the milk sweet in this hot climate, the pans are placed in a trough or frame, full constantly of fresh water, which runs in at one end and out at the other.—Talking of inventions too; I wonder why in all great cities they do not copy one from the clock in the Piazza
di gran Duca
here, the figures shewing the hour are transparencies, with a light behind them; so that in the darkest night, the sober citizen can see what hour of the night it is—
Lucca Giordano's painting
en fresque
here I admire; though he was called
fa presto
because he ended in three weeks what most painters would have been two years about; but the genius that could produce such effect by drawing, in so short a time, has that freedom and grace, which the precision attendant on study seldom can give—
Miss Davies is here, and I am very sorry she does not sing at the opera; for her voice and manner please me more than any thing I have heard here—
Your's affectionately—
P. S.
The Titian Venus, and the child by Titian in the Strozzi palace, are both much impaired by time; very soon the copies will be invaluable, because necessarily all the beauties of the originals must vanish—
LETTER XXV.
BOLOGNA,
Nov. 15, 1785
I Received about a week since a letter from Lord B—, informing me that he could not pass this winter in Italy; so I immediately determined my course; and it is North. Now I am on the wing, I will see courts and people that few women have seen, as I may never have an opportunity of travelling again; and I will make the best use of my time; few as the months are I can allow myself to run about in, I will employ them, I hope, to my satisfaction and your amusement—
I stopped my coach to look at the flame which issues constantly from the ground about four miles from Fillegara: Mr. Dutens mentions it in his Itinerary. From Florence to Fillegara the road winds round one brown mountain to another; but to-day the landscape improved much on my approaching Loianc. Some spots were not unworthy the pencil of Salvator Rosa.—There is a beautiful descent of a mile and a half to Pianoro; I there got upon my horse and rode to this place; and I can never believe it is ten miles from Pianoro here, which I am assured it is. I lodge at the Locando Reale, a large inn, the mistress of which assured me the Princess Czartoriska was in Bologna; but it proves to be the Princess Lubomirska, her sister-in-law, whom I do not know; I have only time to tell you, if you should ever pass through this city, that you must ask to see the Palazzo Zampieri, the church of St. Giovanni in monte, and a few others. This is a clean looking town, but I do not comprehend the dialect; I had accustomed myself to the Tuscan manner of substituting the
H
for the
C;
but here, I do not conceive what letters they put in the place of those which they ought to pronounce —
I can tell you no more at present. I mean to get to Venice as soon as possible; from thence to Vienna, and I afterwards intend to proceed to Warsaw and Petersburgh. I take the advantage of the winter, in hopes I may go on a sledge the greatest part of my road, for I hate the jumbling of a coach, though mine is as easy as possible. Pray do not make yourself unhappy concerning the delicacy of my constitution, and the dread of pulmonary affections, for I assure you I have neither had a pain in my breast, nor spit blood, since I quitted the environs of Paris, which makes me suppose the air of that part of France did not agree with me; and I hope the frequent change of air I am taking will strengthen my constitution, so that I shall never have any returns of those ugly complaints; it is now four months since I was last troubled with them. Adieu, dear Sir; believe that the greater the distance is between me and the objects of my affection, the more I am anxious to hear from them, so write often to your affectionate sister—
LETTER XXVI.
VENICE,
NOV. 18, 1785.
I Stopped for a moment at Cento, to see the picture which is called Guercino's
chef d'oeuvre;
he was born there, and is buried in the Cathedral. From thence I proceeded to Ferrara, my road to which I advise none to go by night; the country all about is so low and flat, that the road, to be passable, is raised upon a causeway, with nothing to prevent your horses from rolling down on one side or the other; it is extremely narrow likewise. Ariosto, who was born and died at Ferrara, did not gallop his Pegasus, or invoke his Muse in the clay, and among the dismal poplars to be seen in the small fields thereabouts; I went about three miles an hour, I slept at Ferrara, and among twenty things served up to my table at supper, I could eat nothing but celery. In Italy cinnamon is an ingredient they put into every dish, which I have a mortal aversion to, woodcocks stewed in sugar, and chickens roasted till they are as hard and as dry as wood—
voila la cuisine—
I embarked with my coach in a very good boat at a place called Francolino, and was rowed down the Po; I had a fine clear sky, and did not feel that I was in the month of November: From the Po I came into a canal, and from thence into the Brenta, a pretty but narrow river; except the Sorgue, it was the only clear stream I had looked into since I had left my native Thames; I heard much of the beautiful villas on the borders of the Brenta; but I saw none that gave me the idea of elegance or beauty on the outside—
A mile before I arrived at Fusino, a village, where I was obliged to leave my coach and saddle-horses, I passed a lock which separates the salt water from the fresh, and there quitted the land, going five miles across the sea, intermixed with flat sands, to get into the great canal at Venice. I had just read the Abbé Coyer, who says,
Rome est batie par les hommes; mais Venise par les Dieux,
and I had formed some idea of it from the pictures I had seen, and expected to see a gay clean looking town, with quays on each side of the canals; but was extremely disappointed; the houses are in the water, and look dirty and uncomfortable on the outside; the fine palaces have most of them above half their windows shut up by dirty shutters not painted.
The innumerable quantity of gondolas too, that look like swimming coffins, added to the dismal scene; and, I confess, Venice on my arrival struck me rather with horror than with pleasure; but now that I am accustomed to a gondola, have seen the inside of the
Casini,
and have trusted to my own eyes about several things, I cannot say I dislike Venice in the least. The whole scene is unlike any thing I could have imagined: I walk all the morning, and that is the best way of seeing the town and people. There are narrow passages that you arrive at from one to another by bridges which cross the small canals; the famed Rialto is built across the large canal, the arch of which is very noble and light; but there are three distinct passages over it, formed by rows of shops, the tops of which are so heavy that they disfigure this fine bridge very much; you may walk quite from one end of Venice to the other. The extraordinary figures I saw in the Piazza San Marco would tempt one to believe, it is a
bal masqué en plein air.
We are not now in the time of the Carnaval; but I meet as many men in black dominos and masks as without them; these are the noble Venetians, who, constantly watched by the state-spies, dare not go about unmasked; for if an ambassador's servant, or a minister, or consul of any other nation, was seen speaking to a noble Venetian, he might be imprisoned: The laws are so excessively strict upon this subject, that the
Corps diplomatique
are confined extremely in their society, and I am amazed any gentleman can accept of an embassy to a place where the natives must avoid them, as if they were infected with the plague.—Strangers pass their time well here; for nothing can be more sociable, civil, and magnificent, than the ministers are to one another, and strangers presented to them—
The Casini are very small houses hired by one person, or a set of people, to meet in of an evening, where cards, conversation, tea, coffee, lemonade, &c. and a well selected society conspire to give pleasure: These Casini are fitted up with an elegance of which you can form no idea; I have dined in one, which has so fine a view from it, that from the neatness and taste of the inside, and of the magnificence of the objects on the without, I could almost have fancied a little fairy's palace. Venice seems to me to be a new world, retired and different from any other I have seen; the Venetian ladies are some of them very handsome, and a few of them are most remarkably determined in their resolutions. It is not an uncommon thing here for a lady, married in the morning, to declare to her parents before night that she has taken an aversion to her husband, who, upon such an occasion, is forced with the parents to apply to the great master of the church (the Pope) who is always good enough to admit of the reasons given him, as sufficient to grant a divorce; the lady, once out of her convent, bears the name of her own family in the world, and the gentleman looks out for another wife—
Nothing is more frequent here than to see a Venetian lady quit her palace, for months together, to live in a casino; of which the husband perhaps does not even know the situation; I could divert you extremely with some Venetian anecdotes, but I have no leisure to make this letter much longer; for between my Venetian acquaintance and the ambassadors I have scarcely time to breathe. The Comte Justiniani was delighted to see me again; he has promised to accompany me to the Arsenal, which is extremely large, and where the man, who shewed it to me, was pleased to say, the State was building frigates of a hundred guns each, and twenty such lies. The ancient families of Venice are the most pure noblesse in Italy, and that idea, together with their natural spirit and extraordinary situation, will produce many brave and gallant soldiers among them, whenever a good cause calls them into the field—
Adieu, dear Sir, I have three gondolas waiting at my door for me, so I quit my pen.—
LETTER XXVII.
VENICE,
Nov. 24. 1785.
I Have been to see the Doge's palace, and the church in the Piazza San Marco, both Gothic, and what is very shocking to the eye, the fine bronze horses brought from Constantinople are perched over the door of the church. Books will inform you more minutely than I can of the pictures to be seen in Venice. The council chamber is a very fine room; but all the paintings in it are dirty; I went likewise into the court of justice, because every body was running to hear l'Avocato Stephano; and I thought from the grimaces and gesticulations Italians make use of in common conversation, some entertainment might be expected from one, upon an occasion, where art would naturally produce action. Nor was I deceived; nothing can be more comic than what I saw—his pleading was scolding—and his two thumbs which he had stuck upright, and moved very quickly from and near his breast, was perhaps the most ridiculous action that ever was imagined, nor can I conceive how any persons, much less the judges, could keep their countenances.
It is impossible for you to imagine any thing more entertaining than the Piazza San Marco: people of every nation, and in dresses I never saw, and indeed never can see but at Venice, are lounging in the shops and coffee-houses; and it is a great amusement to me as I walk there every morning. But I never stay long, for they read English in my looks; and their love for any thing of that nation is so great, that they will come from the other end of the Piazza to look at an English woman—
There are two fine lions at the door of the Arsenal, in marble, brought from the entrance of the Piraean port: it is a pity I cannot make them speak, they might tell me many things I want to know about Athens—
The house I lodge in is miserably cold, it is upon the grand canal—and as the glaziers here seldom put putty to the panes of glass, the winds come in. This damp sea-air agrees perfectly well with me — Provisions are very good here; every lady seems determined to be amused and chearful, and I think I could pass a very merry winter here; there are several theatres, and I have been to an opera—very good. The Russian minister's wife is Madame de —'s daughter, a very young, and very amiable modest woman. The Minister's wife from Vienna is likewise extremely sensible and polite, and her husband the best man in the world; and I must not forget, for the honour of our country, Madame de —, who from her charming disposition and talents I absolutely love so much, that it will be a grief to me to part with her. The Russian Minister's wife often talks to me of Stowe in raptures, though she was quite a child when she passed some days there—
Mr. Emo's floating batteries are much spoken of here; I understand they were five hours and a half before the forts of Golleta; so I have desired a receipt to make them, and I have it as exactly
to be
copied as any receipt to make a good pye; I shall give it to G. B—, who being a professor in the art of war, may present to our enemies a dish of the same sort of his making, whenever occasion requires he should treat them according to their deserts—
I must tell you a most ridiculous thing that has happened to two English travellers that are here now, and advise every gentleman who cannot speak German, not to travel in Germany without a companion, or servant that knows the language. These gentlemen not having either, were in great haste to arrive at Venice from Vienna; they left a large town they had slept at over night, one morning, and, after travelling post for two days, found themselves drove into the very town they had quitted, eight-and-forty hours before If they hate the motion of a carriage as I do; I can easily guess how angry they must have been—
I am advised to take a new road to Vienna as the best. I shall write from thence, I hope soon; as I do not mean to proceed in a retrograde motion—so with all kind wishes to your fire-side—
I remain—yours affectionately.
LETTER XXVIII.
VIENNA,
Dec. 14, 1785.
I Came, as I told you I was advised, by a new road; but I should imagine from the difficulties I met with it was the worst. It is true, some of them were owing to rivers, which, swelled by the late rains, are become torrents which have carried whole villages and many miles of the road before them—
I set out from Venice on the 30th of last month, going by water to Mestre, where my coach and horses met me. I meant that night to have slept at Mr. —, at Cornegliano; but the weather was so bad that I was obliged to stay at a village called Trevisa, where there is an excellent and clean inn. The next day, I endeavoured to cross the river, but the boatmen would not venture over, though I had my coach embarked, and would have gone myself, knowing I was expected by Mr. —, so I was obliged to return to the good inn—where I was surprised to see, what I thought a fine large chicken served up to my table, which upon cutting, I found to have brown flesh; I asked what it was, and was answered—
una Colombina
—it was a pigeon. I begged to see one alive, or at least with the feathers on, for it must have been a most extraordinary sight; but the people seemed more astonished at my admiration of this bird than I was at the size of it; for it is the common pigeon there—
The next day, the rain and wind being somewhat abated, I got to Cornegliano, and you may imagine the real pleasure I was received with by a countryman, who had not seen me for many years, and that in my own house in the country. I never was more delighted in my life than by the music I heard there; his eldest daughter, a child about seven years old, plays on the harpsichord with a taste and feeling at which few people, more advanced in age and music, ever arrive. Her sister too, an infant of five years of age, played and sung her part afterwards wonderfully for her years—
In the evening many of the Venetian noblesse came to partake of the concert, and see the Donna Inglese; among Mr. —'s country neighbours there were several who were as fat, fair, and heavy as many of our English Country 'Squires, and, like them, had never stirred from their family mansion; and I fancy the English lady and her horses, will be the subject of their fire-side conversation for some time—
The next day I passed the Taillamanta, a river which had torn and washed away the road for nine miles before I came to it; so I travelled in a bed of gravel, every now and then jumping into and out of a little ditch formed by the different torrents. The river was frightful to pass. I got to San Daniello, from which place, this new road is called the San Daniello road; from thence to Pontiebba, the road is good; but winds round rocks according to the turns of a river, which was sometimes on the right, sometimes on the left, in a most beautiful manner. It is so narrow, that I think it the most dangerous I ever went, nothing between the precipice and the carriage to prevent an accident. It would be well worth any person's while, who is as fond of the beauties of nature as I am, to ride along this road. The views are romantic and majestic beyond description—
Trevisa, which is the place I next slept at, I arrived at with much difficulty; my coach drawn with ten horses and four oxen; and you can form to yourself no idea of the obstinacy, and provoking phlegm of a German postillion or postmaster. At one place, tired of the snail-like pace I went, I hired a traineau of a peasant, and went on before my carriage. It seems there is an order at every frontier town in Germany, not to suffer strangers who travel without posthorses, to leave the town without staying in it two hours; this the German post-master did not choose to tell me, nor did he refuse me another traineau and horses, but sat with two other fat Germans playing at cards, without deigning to give me any other answer than—
Patienza,
to any thing I could say to him. When I recollect the scene of these three fat men playing at cards, their figures, and all I said in Italian to persuade the man and his
patienza
I could die with laughing; however, in about an hour, an officer came in, who looking at me some time, said,
Parles vous Francais?—Mon Dieu, oui Monsieur,
says I; and I found, the post-master's deafness proceeded from his not being able to talk Italian very well, French not at all; so he took me for an impatient boy, and sent me to Coventry. When the gentleman called me
Miladi,
these three fat Germans deigned to look at me; for I must tell you that in this country, the respect paid to our sex is such, that it is enough for a woman to speak, she is obeyed immediately; and I had a traineau, and six horses for my coach ready in an instant. One night I slept at Klagenfurt, a large town, where one of the Emperor's unmarried sisters lives. I am arrived here at last, through a very beautiful country; but must observe, that whoever wrote L. M—'s Letters (for she never wrote a line of them) misrepresents things most terribly; I do really believe, in most things they wished to impose upon the credulity of their readers, and laugh at them. The stoves of this country, which she praises so much, are the most horrid invention you can conceive. The country people in Germany seem to fear the cold very much; the casements of their windows are double; and there being no chimney in the rooms, there is no vent for fumes of any sort, so that the breath of the inhabitants of them rests in drops of steam on all the tables, &c. and the stink and suffocating heat that assails the traveller's senses when he enters any room, particularly where people are, cannot be conceived. I do not believe the German women, of the lower order, are very gentle tempers; for several of them flew into the most violent passions, when I opened a door or window, and shut them again immediately. My only resource upon these occasions was to go out into the yard—
As to the stoves being ornamental; I think they are frightful from the composition of them, the ground work of which must be iron to resist the fire within; the glazing, painting, and varnish soon moulder off; and I leave you to judge, from this inevitable circumstance, together with another, which is the size of them, how it is possible they can represent either China jars or any other thing that may be elegant or pretty, as a stove fills up one corner of the room—
In this town, several of the first houses have fine comfortable chimnies, and stoves are, where they should be—in the antichamber. The difference of the chearfulness which a good fire gives to a room, to that which reigns in one where there is only a stove, is very visible. I think things must be very much altered since that lady or gentleman wrote about Vienna. The German ladies are handsome, accomplished, and civil to a degree you have no idea of; several of them, besides possessing many other languages, read, write, and speak English well; and I was surprised to find my connections, and other circumstances flattering to my pride, better known here than they are by half my acquaintances in London—
Most of the Germans are naturally musicians, and I am sure a young Englishman, with good manners, may every evening here pass his hours in a circle of handsome and accomplished women of the first rank. I have seen no place yet I should so much wish my son to come to as Vienna. Sir Robert Keith assures me he has presented above four hundred noblemen and gentlemen, young countrymen of mine, and has never had reason to complain of them, while we hear and see constantly the follies of the
Anglais
at Paris, where they go to ruin themselves, equally with the
Duchesse
or the
fille d'opera,
and only to be laughed at —
The ladies are tall and fair—more handsome than pretty. There is a great supper at Prince Galitzin's every Sunday night; and at Prince Par's every Monday; the first is the Russian minister, who does great honour to his court, by his sense and politeness here. The presentation at court is very different from our's; but I have not time to say more at present, than that I remain
Your's affectionately—
P. S.
I cannot help adding, that the questions asked travellers by the guards at the frontier towns are most ridiculous—are you married or not? Do you travel for your pleasure or upon business? Your name and quality? It put me in mind of a story told me by the Russian Minister at Venice, of a traveller, who being asked his name, answered Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo—pray, Sir, says the guard, how do you write that? That, Sir, replied the traveller, is your business, I have told you my name; it is impossible, I think, to answer gravely to questions so perfectly absurd.
LETTER XXIX.
VIENNA,
Dec. 15, 1785.
I Went with Madame Granieri, the Sardinian Minister's wife, to court. Nothing is more striking, I think, than the variety of the officers dresses in the Emperor's anti-chamber. The Hungarian and Polish I think beautiful, and I now am strengthened in the opinion I always had, though probably I have never told it, even to you, that every nation ought to preserve the fashion of their country, and that there is no necessity for mankind to ape one another in dress—
The Emperor gives a private audience for ladies that are presented to him. There was only myself and the lady who accompanied me that went into his room together; we met a Princess Esterhazi coming out. The Emperor was close to the door; and after bowing very civilly, he made us sit upon a sofa, and stood the whole time himself; I staid three quarters of an hour; there is no occasion to fear staying too long; for when he cannot spare any more for the audience, or for any other reason chooses to end it, he very civilly says, he will detain you no longer; you then get up, and go to the door, which he opens himself, and thus ends the presentation, I think much more agreeably than to answer any questions a Sovereign chooses to make before a hundred people that are within hearing in the circle of a drawing-room, who generally repeat what they hear, according to the folly or malice they possess; and I should think it totally impossible for a monarch to converse with any satisfaction surrounded by so many ears, which have often no brains belonging to them. The Emperor is like the Queen of France, and the only thing that
genéd
me at was his not being seated. He converses politely and agreeably—
The first minister here, Prince Kaunitz—is a very extraordinary personage; he is reckoned an able minister and a good patriot; I see in him all that sincerity
and frankness which are the constant attendants on a mind truly great—and I believe the we fare of the people at large is his delight; for he asked me what I thought of Vienna; I told him that I had not time to make many observations, but that there was an air of plenty and comfort among the lower sort of people very striking;
meme les vendeuses de pommes out l'air aise, mon Prince;
on my saying this, there was a smile upon his countenance, which I am sure came from his heart; and he condescendingly told me several particulars relative to the markets and provisions, one of which I cannot help thinking very necessary in all large cities, which is, that there is an inspector for the garden-stuff—another for meat—and so on, for all provisions exposed to sale; and if they are not found perfectly good they are fiung away. And now we are upon the subject of provisions, I must say, that I never saw such a profusion of things, and those so excellent in their kind, as are served up at the tables here. Green peas, artichokes, and asparagus, I eat every day. The crawfish are as large as the Chichester lobsters; and the pheasants from Bohemia have a flavour you can form no idea of. Yet I do not think the people are
gourmands;
but they pique themselves on having the greatest abundance and the best sort of eatables of every kind. The forests and rivers of this country do not in a small degree contribute to the possibility of these things; for with us, our cooks cannot produce wild boar and venison,
gelinottes,
and
coqs de bruyeres;
or crawfish as big as lobsters—
There is one thing here that shocks me and that is, that every lower class of women paint white; and even girls of ten years old going of errands in the street are painted. What their reason for so doing is I cannot guess; for the Germans are generally fair. I dine very often with Prince Kaunitz; and as I am naturally as sincere as he is, our conversations do not grow languid. There is nothing that ever did really flatter me so much, as when people of his age and experience forget for half an hour, the distance which time and knowledge must naturally put between us; and as I have often been rallied by —, upon my taste for old beaus, I think I am justified in his eyes, when I place him at the head of them, and say I am proud they should lose their time with me; while, I confess, I hate the conversation of boys.
There are great assemblies here as in London; and I repeat it, there are women here with whom I could pass my life. They have not the cold silent reserve of English women, nor the impertinent
interêt
for me, of the French ladies—
The public works (such as sweeping the streets, &c. &c.) are done by malefactors, who, chained two and two, perform their task attended by a guard—
The Emperor has given up a park called the Prater, to the public, where the
bourgeoise
and
noblesse
ride, drive, and walk; and have little cottages, where refreshments are sold. It has many fine trees in it, and the Danube is one of its fences; it is very like an English park—
I have been to see the pictures in the house that was formerly Prince Eugene's, now the Emperor's, and many things of which I have neither time nor inclination to give you a description — and there are so many Englishmen here, that, when I am at Sir Robert Keith's, I am half tempted to fancy myself in England—
Adieu for the present—Your's affectionately—
P S.
You cannot buy a drug at the apothecaries here, without an order from a physician. A very prudent caution against the madness of those who choose to finish their existence with a dose of laudanum, or their neighbours with one of arsenic—
LETTER XXX.
WARSAW,
January 7, 1786.
I Got away as fast as I possibly could from Vienna; for if I had staid a week longer, I am convinced I should have staid the whole winter. The country between Vienna and Cracow is very fine; chiefly open, here and there the plain beautifully varied with hills of gentle ascent, and small woods; the sportsman and the painter would be pleased with it, as it affords a variety of landscapes and game, equally favourable to both. The firs and deciduous trees do not seem to flourish in the same spot; I frequently saw a wood of the one to my right, and of the other to my left; I observed, that cattle of all sorts are suffered to eat the green corn during the hard weather—
The herdsman with his cows, and the shepherd with his sheep, gave living beauties to the fine features of nature, whose graces I have studied with much satisfaction to myself, when very young, pointed out by Mr. Brown, who certainly never learnt their value in the gardens of my ancestors—
I slept the first night at Nicolsbourg, a small town, six posts, or sixty miles from the capital; the next at Brun, a neat fortified town, commanded by a fort, and steep hill west of the city, that is watered by a branch of the river Thaja, which stream, a few miles lower, mixes with the river Mash, at a short distance west of Presburgh, and by uniting afterwards with the Danube, adds considerably to the rapidity of that river.
Most of the villages are situated under the shelter of hills; the houses are chiefly built of logs of the fir-trees, laid horizontally upon one another, the interstices filled up with moss or clay. The road from Brun to Olmutz is bordered with large old cherry-trees. After quitting Olmutz, I passed a large convent on the plain to the left; this and the
Chartreuse reformée
to the right, make two fine objects for travellers.
Adieu—
LETTER XXXI.
WARSAW,
1786
THE entrance into the town of Cracow exhibits a melancholy proof that confusion ever ends in ruin. The system of government in Poland is of all others the surest source of confusion that ever yet was imagined by mankind; an elected King from the noble families, most of which think they have a right to royalty, and several really are entitled to it —
I think, Sir, had I been born a Polish nobleman, rather than have seen my extensive country divided between ambitious neighbours, I would have called my countrymen together, proposed to have relinquished (for us and for our heirs for ever) that unfortunate privilege; have invited some spirited prince from Germa
in whom hereditary courage and all the virtues belonging to a good soldier were blended, and made him and his descendants the lawful Sovereigns of this kingdom—
Dirty suburbs filled with Jews; and the Emperor's eagle, are the only objects that precede the gates of Cracow; these gates are pierced by many a ball, and probably, if each bore the name of his sender, the gateway might be divided into as many pieces for those who have claims to it, as Poland herself is divided into parties; I had letters for several Polish ladies at Cracow, but I staid only to rest myself, and get a traineau made; for I was told I might go thus, but a couple of miles from the town I was obliged to take my coach off the sledge; and here I must observe, Sir, that the Prince Galitzin at Vienna, was very much mistaken, when he told me, he should advise me to have just such a coach as mine made if I were not already mistress of such a one—
I hung more than once upon fir-trees; the track of the road being too narrow for my wide carriage; and when travellers come into Germany, I think they ought to part with their French and English carriages, as the carriages of our northern countries are liable to inconveniencies and accidents—
I staid two hours one night, so fastened with the hind-wheel upon a fir-tree, that six men could not stir it, and peasants were called to cut down the tree, before I could proceed—
I shall refer you to Mr. Coxe's book for the accommodations I met with on the road, and confine my descriptions to agreeable circumstances—
When I arrived at Warsaw, I found my apartments had been warmed and ready two days before my arrival; the Comte de Stackelberg having bespoke them, by the desire of Prince Galitzin, and the Russian Minister C— de S— waited on me. The King received us in his study; I was accompanied by the Grand Marechal's wife, who is one of the King's nieces—You, Sir, do not speak better French and English than that amiable Sovereign; he told me he had been in England thirty years past, and asked me if Mr. W— was still living? not only living I replied, Sir; but in good spirits; for I have a charming letter in my pocket from him—He said, if there was nothing imprudent in his request, he would ask to see it. He imagined Mr. W's stile must be uncommon; I gave him the letter, he put it into his pocket after reading it, and told me, as his sister, the Princess of Cracovia did not understand English, he should translate it into French for her; and if I would dine with him two days after, he would read me his translation, which indeed surprized me; he must be a very elegant writer in every language he chooses to profess; I wish I had dared to have asked him for a copy. Well, Sir, he is the second person I have seen, whom I wished were not sovereigns, for it is impossible that the many disagreeable persons and circumstances, that surround them, should not deprive them of the society of people who, sacrificing only to the Muses, are better company than those who only sacrifice to ambition, when they give their time to sovereigns. We were only fourteen people at the King's dinner, and we conversed as chearfully and as rationally as if we had not been at court—
The King, in his face, is very like the Duke of Marlborough, and there is an elegance in his language, with a softness in the tone of his voice, that pleases the ear to the highest degree. My old acquaintance, the princess C—, will be the occasion of my shortening my stay here; for it is many years since I saw her, and as she does not come here on account — I shall give her the meeting in the country, and afterwards set out for Petersburgh. I told the King I should see her, as he spoke to me of her: I hate party affairs—and —
I make visits in a new stile here, in the Comte de Stackelberg's coach and six, and a couple of equerries at the two coach windows on horseback. The Polish ladies seem to have much taste, magnificence, spirit and gaiety; they are polite and lively, excessively accomplished, partial to the English. There is a Princess de Radzivil, who, if I were a man, I should certainly be devoted to—I could be very happy here, Sir, if my heart could forget maternal duties, or those of friendship —
I have seen several dwarfs here, who with equerries stand in drawing-rooms of the great houses, and hear all the conversation that passes, an uncomfortable custom I think; and which in any other country would be dangerous; but here servants and dependants are the absolute property of the master—and their fidelity in general is equal to their subjection; to the credit of the Polish nobles, I believe there are few servants that, having proved for eight or ten years their attachment, are not dismissed with a pension for life. I found the French maid, the Princess C— had from me, in this situation; nine years service had obtained a hundred pounds a year, and a farm of sixty acres of land for the rest of her life; she seems the happiest creature in the world. The King has a manner of saying things obliging or flattering, peculiar to himself; he tells me he thinks men, animals, trees, every thing in short, that takes its birth or is produced by England, is more perfect than the produce of other countries; the climate, the soil probably, he says, may occasion this; his partiality to the English, together with your's, Sir, would make me prejudiced in favour of my own country, if I could love it better than I do; but the word comfort which is understood there only, has long stamped the value of it in my mind—
I am going to see the Princess to-morrow, and am sorry to quit this place so soon; not that there is any thing in this flat country that would tempt me to see the beauties of it in the spring, but the King's acquaintance, with that of some of the ladies, and monsieur de Stackelberg's conversation, I am sorry to quit—
Adieu, Sir.
LETTER XXXII.
PETERSBURGH,
Feb. 8, 1786.
THE road between Warsaw and this place is one insipid flat, except just in and about the town of Nerva, where I took a sledge and flew hither. When I wrote last, dear Sir, I think I was upon the point of going to see the Princess C—, I passed two days with her at a country house of the Princess Lubomirska's, her sister-in-law; I was most sincerely glad to see her, and we parted with regret. I received a very civil message from the King, and M. de Stackelberg sent me six bottles of bishop, which I can assure you was very serviceable to me; I did not stop at Warsaw on my return from the P—, and the messenger caught me just one post on this side of Warsaw; I can conceive nothing so
enuyant
as travelling in such a country as this, one flat plain; the view terminated by a forest, which you drive through, only to arrive at the same scene you have quitted, the frost was not hard enough to make the road good, till I came to Nerva. I am something like a country Miss, gaping at the window all day here, every creature that goes about the streets, seem as if they were in a violent hurry, they drize full gallop, traineaus with one horse ply at the corners of the streets as do your hackney-coaches and chairs. Mr. S— informed me, it belonged to my dignity to have six horses to my coach, in order to pay my visits; and I beg you will imagine my surprise, when I found I had a coachman on the box, with three postillions, one to each pair of horses; and these sitting on the right hand, I go thus, full gallop, running races with every other
attelage
that falls in my way; the streets are luckily wide, and custom makes the danger less than one should imagine—
I am interrupted, and therefore wish you a good night—
LETTER XXXIII.
PETERSBURGH,
Friday Feb. 18, 1786.
I Was to have been presented to the Empress next Sunday, but she graciously sent me word to come to the Hermitage on Thursday, where she keeps her court in the evening every week; and has alternately a French play or an Italian opera—Marchesini and Madame Todi are the first singers. It is but justice to say, that nothing can be more magnificent than the appearance the Empress makes when she comes into the drawing-room; she has a lively and good-humoured look, and her politeness to me was very great; but I could plainly see that some one had told her I was not an English woman, for she asked me if I was not of a Scotch family. I cannot conceive why this building which she has added to the palace is called the Hermitage; it is a long suite of rooms, full of fine pictures. You are not ignorant, dear Sir, of the many collections the Empress has purchased; among the rest Lord Orford's; all these fine works want at present, a person to arrange them according to their shades and size, and I doubt not but the Empress will find one—
Petersburgh is a chearful and fine looking town; the streets are extremely wide and long, the houses stucco'd to imitate white stone; none above three stories high, which certainly adds to the lively and airy appearance of them; I think, Sir, if a young woman may permit herself to judge of things otherwise than
en detail
—that not only the town, but the manner of living is upon too large a a scale; the nobles seem to vie with one another in extravagancies of every sort, particularly in foreign luxuries and fashion. The fashion of the day is most ridiculous and improper for this climate; French gauzes and flowers were not intended for Russian beauties, and they are sold at a price here which must ruin the buyers.
There are buildings erected for the reception of Arts and Sciences of every kind; for artists or amateurs, though but the surplus of Italy, France, and England, would find handsome encouragement and houseroom from the Empress, whose respect for talents, and generosity to those who possess them, have induced some, and would many more, to fix in the present capital of this vast empire; but, alas! Sir, eight months of winter, and the horrid cold I feel, must congeal the warmest imagination; poets and painters require verdant lawns; and the flowers of fancy must fade and die, where spring is not to be found—
The Empress and the Princess d'Ashkow are the only ladies who wear the Russian dress; it is I think a very handsome one; and I am more surprised every day, that nations do not each preserve their own fashions, and not copy one country that is at present only the ape of every other—From Cherson, the new town on the Turkish frontiers, which is one thousand six hundred miles from hence, are brought many provisions; from Archangel likewise this town is provided, and from Astracan on the Caspian Sea, near two thousand miles, all the dainties, such as grapes, pease, beans, artichokes, are brought. It is natural to suppose, that the necessaries of life are dear, from these circumstances; but some of them are extremely cheap, and I believe Russia is one of the cheapest countries in the world to live in; if French wines and fashions, and English comforts can be dispensed with. To these last I never felt so much attachment as at this moment—
Dans le Ligne Anglais,
a quarter of this town, where the English merchants live, I find English grates, English coals, and English hospitality, to make me welcome, and the fire-side chearful; I have never yet been fortunate enough to make any acquaintance in the world of commerce; but if all English merchants and their families are as well informed and civil as those I find here; I should be very glad to be admitted into the city of London as a visitor, to enjoy a little rational conversation, which at the court-end is seldom to be found. How should it be otherwise? A little Latin and Greek in the schools of Westminister and Eton, and a great deal of vulgar rioting, make our young men a strange mixture of pedantism and vice, which can only produce impudence and folly. Thus tutored, at sixteen they are turned upon the hands of some unhappy man, who is to present them at foreign courts, with no other improvement or alteration in the boys heads, than that of their hair being powdered and tied behind—
The careful citizen, conscious that fair dealing and knowledge only can promote the well-being of his family, brings up his son to business, and that only, as you know well, makes the idle moments of life happy. Peter the First thought commerce an essential pillar to his empire, and the English trader was encouraged; our little island is a proof of the consequence which trade alone can give any country; and the new acquired possessions of the largest empires may only become additional trouble to their masters, unless the advantages of trade give them new life—
The French Ambassador, and the Comte Sergé de Romanzow (named to Berlin) are men of wit. Mr. Ellis is with Mr. Fitzherbert; and conversation does not languish or grow insipid in their company. We are in the last part of the carnival and balls; those given by the Ambassadors are very superb. Mr. de Segur, and the Duc de Serra Capriola, the Neapolitan Minister, have each given one in a very magnificent style—
I was presented to the Grand Duchess the same night that I waited upon the Empress; she has since been brought to bed. There are some young Russian ladies very pretty and much accomplished; many of them sigh after a different climate from their own, and — told me he had no idea of happiness in the world like that of returning to England as a private man, and purchasing a farm; he speaks very good English. Indeed, Sir, the elegance which is produced by the cleanliness and order seen with us, is found no where out of England; here the houses are decorated with the most sumptuous furniture from every country; but you come into a drawing-room, where the floor is of the finest inlaid woods, through a staircase made of the coarsest wood in the rudest manner, and stinking dirt—The postillions wear sheep-skins; and at a ball, when a nobleman has proposed his hand to a fair lady, he often kisses her before the whole company—
à propos
to this custom—I must tell you an anecdote of —
Thus you perceive he was nearly in the same predicament as the Chevalier dans la Fée Urgele, and might have said,
pour un baiser faut-il perdre la vie?
Adieu, Sir—I will give you some account in my next of what I have seen at the Museum—
You may have heard much of Prince Potemkin; I see him every where, but he is reserved and converses very little with ladies. I was invited by him to dine in an immense palace he is building in the suburbs; the only room finished is too particular not to be described; it is three hundred feet in length, and on the side opposite the windows there are two rows of stone pillars, whose height and breadth are proportioned to the immense size of the room, which is an oblong square; in the centre of which on the side where the windows are, it is formed into a semi-circle or what we call a bow—which bow forms another large space independent of, though in the room; this space was laid out by his English gardener into a shrubbery, with borders of flowers, hyacinths, and narcissuses—myrtles, orange-trees, &c. &c. were in plenty. We were seven or eight ladies, and as many men—immense stoves concealed by the pillars, were heated in order to make such a hall in such a climate supportable—but I came home quite ill with cold. It was there I heard that extraordinary music performed by men and boys, each blowing a straight horn adapted to their size—sixty-five of these musicians produce a very harmonious melody, something like an immense organ. The music, the room, the cold, all was gigantic I sat by Prince Potemkin at dinner; but except asking me to eat and drink, I cannot say I heard the sound of his voice; so am unable to tell you what species of
esprit
has raised him to the fortunes and dignities he possesses, or what occasions Mr. S— and others to call him a sensible man—
I have seen likewise the cabinet of medals and the Museum here
A complete set of harness made of white leather, stitched with coloured silks, for six dogs, with a sledge for one person, brought from Kamskatka, was the lightest, neatest, and most curious piece of workmanship I ever saw.
; the last when finished, will be a very beautiful suite of rooms. Peter the Great likewise sitting in a chair, with a coat of his amiable Catharine's embroidery. I cannot help thinking, and often here, that notwithstanding he transferred his capital to this place, and that the Empress, Prince Potemkin, and others, may build palaces of the finest orders of architecture, to contain the produce of learning and commerce, that a time will come when the heads of an empire, which extends from the South to the North, will prefer basking in the rays of the sun, which chear the mind and the body together—to eternal frost—and these stately buildings will be turned into storehouses—
Justice obliges me to say, the Empress does all she can to invite politeness, science, and comsorts from other countries, to cheer these regions of ice—but, until she can alter the climate, I believe it is a fruitless trial. I am informed the spring, or rather the time of the year we call spring, is more melancholy than winter here, so I shall hasten my departure; but a conversation I had with the Swedish Minister, a few days past, will make me give up entirely the thoughts of returning into Germany through Sweden and Denmark. I shall in my next have the honour of repeating it to you; I remain with the highest respect and regard,
Your most affectionate sister, E. C—.
I promised to give you an account of the conversation with the Minister, here it is—
L'on ma dit, que Miladi voulait me faire l'honneur de prendre des renseignemens sur le voyage qu'elle compte faire.
Oui, Monsieur, on prétend qu'il y a beaucoup de risque à passer ces mers de glaces, et je voudrais sçavoir comment cela se fait, parceque, de quel coté que je tourne mes pas, je veux faire le plus grande partie de mon voyage en traineau, detestant le cahotage d'une voiture ordinaire, et aimant beaucoup le traineau—
Miladi, sait elle que, pour aller d'ici chez nous, on attele un troisiéme cheval devant les deux autres; mais à une distance très confidérable dans les endroits suspects—
Qu appelléz vous endroits suspects?—
Où il serait dangereux que la glace se rompit—et c'est avec des cordes très-longues qu'on attele ce cheval, qu'on appelle l enfant perdu—parce que, si la glace vient à se casser, vite on coupe les cordes; le cheval disparait pour jamais, et les voyageurs retournent sur leurs pas—
Comme je n'ai jamais commencé un voyage pour retourner sur mes pas, et qu'il me semble que je cours risque d'être enfant perdu moi-même, si j'entreprens ce voyage, je remettrai ma visite à votre pays pour une autre occasion, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur;
and so we talked of other things—
I shall now prepare every thing to visit the Crimea or rather the Tauride; I have been told it is a very beautiful country; and I confess I am not sorry this
enfant perdu
gives me a good excuse for turning my steps towards Constantinople—
There are ladies here whom I shall be sorry to quit; who in youth are possessed of many talents, and with whom I could form an agreeable society; Italian music, the pedal harp, and our English poets are perfectly understood by them; I think often I can trace Grecian features among the females of this country, and the subtle wit of the Greek in the men: that pliability of genius which causes them to speak so many different languages well, and adopt all the inventions and arts of other countries that are good—
I am speaking without any partiality, dear Sir; but I do not see here the prejudices of the English, the conceit of the French, nor the stiff German pride, which national foibles make often good people of each nation extremely disagreeable. I am assured the Russians are deceitful—it may be so; but as I do not desire to have intimacies, I am much better pleased to find new acquaintances pleasant and civil than morose or pert—
Mine at present is a geographical intercourse with the world; and I like to find the road I travel smooth. Wit and talents will always be objects of importance to me; I have found them here, and shall be sorry to quit them. Prince Repnin and his nephew Prince Kourakin, whom I often saw in England, are both here, and I look upon them as old acquaintances, as it is thirteen years since that period. The latter is grown fat.
I forgot to tell you. Sir, that the Grand Duchess was brought to bed five days after my arrival; so I have only seen her the night I was presented to her, which was the same on which I was presented to the Empress; her affability is great to strangers; for Mr. S— had not announced me to her; but seeing me move from one seat to another at the opera, by the Empress's desire, and probably being informed who I was, she sent for me to come to her after the spectacle—which I did. A most ridiculous thing happened to me; for though I had no less than three carriages as I thought waiting for me, I was above an hour getting at one, owing to the great distance of the Grand Duchess's apartments from the Hermitage, where the theatre is—and Mr. S—'s telling me he waited for me at the Hermitage. I went three times through the whole palace, and while I was at one door, two of the carriages were at the other. Prince Kourakin, who had offered to conduct me back to the Hermitage from the Grand Duchess, and who was engaged to sup with the Grand Duke, was not a little embarrassed; for the doors, opened to let in company, were shut; and I had no other resource but to sit in the guard-room of the Duchess, till Prince Kourakin's servant should find one of the carriages belonging either to me or my party. The Prince went in to sup, but the Grand Duchess hearing this circumstance sent me a very fine pelisse, which I told the Prince I really did not want; but he informed me I must put it on, so I did; and in a few minutes I had a carriage; but the most ridiculous circumstance was, that the Saxon Minister's wife, whom I had come to court with, thought I was gone home in my own carriage—the company in that, thought I was gone home with her, and gave me up, after having paraded on the outside of the palace from door to door, as I had on the inside. My servants at home I thought I had been invited to sup at the palace—
The Grand Duchess is fair and tall; the Duchess of Wirtemberg, who is the Duchess of Brunswick's daughter, is pretty, and very like our royal family—she was very civil to me—I have not seen the Grand Duchess's children—I am told they are fine and healthy—
Adieu, Sir, for the present. I remain your's, with great respect and truth—
P. S.
I am not a little surprised to hear people say: I shall inherit so many hundred peasants, or such a one lost a village—it is the number of men, and not of acres, that make a fortune great here; so that a plague or any distemper that would prove mortal to the peasants, would be death to the nobles pockets likewise—
I have taken leave of the Empress, and you may judge if I do not leave Petersburgh with a good impression of her politeness; she told me before the opera, that she knew my intention; but as we defer disagreeable things as long as possible, you shall not take leave till after the spectacle; these words she said with the most gracious smile; and asked me if I was satisfied with the amusements and civilities I met with. I told her I must be both stupid and ungrateful, not to regret infinitely, that I could not stay any longer, to shew how sensible I was of the hospitality and magnificence with which I was treated. The Vicechancellor, Comte d'Ofterman, is obliged to have a table for sixty foreigners every Wednesday; and a widow Princess de Galitzin, a supper once a week—at Mons. d'Osterman's too, a ball every Sunday night. The Empress is at the expence of these dinners and suppers; and I confess, I think it an excellent and royal idea, to be certain of having houses open for the entertainment of foreign ministers and strangers of distinction; for you know, my dear Sir, that private houses are seldom open to strangers now in most countries, for various reasons. Here I am told there are many Princes who keep a public day, as we do in England, for the convenience of our country neighbours, and expect people whom they leave a card with, to dine with them upon such a day; but, if I was to stay here ten years, I should never be prevailed upon to go to those houses to dine without invitation; nor can I believe it possible the masters of them can expect a foreigner to grace their table, without being desired even by word of mouth. I am assured I shall affront — and — but as I meet them every where, I cannot think they should be so totally ignorant of the manners of other countries, to expect me to dine at their house without asking me. There is a custom here which I think very abominable; noblemen, who are engaged to marry young ladies, make no ceremony, but embrace them in the midst of a large company at a ball—
I have mentioned to a few people my intention of seeing the Crimea; and I am told that the air is unwholesome, the waters poisonous, and that I shall certainly die if I go there; but as in the great world a new acquired country, like a new beauty, finds detractors, I am not in the least alarmed; for a person, not a Russian, who has been there on speculation, has given me so charming a description of it, that I should not be sorry to purchase a Tartarian estate.
Adieu, my much honoured and beloved brother—I remain your's—
LETTER XXXIV.
MOSCOW,
Feb. 29, 1786.
I Left my coach at Petersburgh, and hired for myself and my small suite, the carriages of the country, called Kibitkas; they are exactly like cradles, the head having windows to the front which let down; I can sit or lie down, and feel in one like a great child, very comfortably defended from the cold by pillows and blankets. These carriages are upon sledges, and where the road is good, this conveyance is comfortable and not fatiguing; but from the incredible quantity of sledges that go constantly upon the track of snow, it is worn in tracks like a road; and from the shaking and violent thumps the carriage receives, I am convinced the hardest head might be broken. I was overturned twice; the postillions I fancy are used to such accidents; for they get quietly off their horse, set the carriage up again, and never ask if the traveller is hurt. Their method of driving is singular: they sit behind three horses that are harnessed abreast—a shrill whistling noise, or a savage kind of shriek is the signal for the horses to set off, which they do full gallop; and when their pace slackens, the driver waves his right-hand, shrieks or whistles, and the horses obey. I am told the whip is unmercifully used in the stables; I observed a postillion never strikes a horse in driving; which caused my astonishment at their being so tractable to the raising of a hand only. I would never advise a traveller to set out from Petersburgh as I have, just at the end of the carnival; he might with some reason suppose it is a religious duty for the Russian peasant to be drunk; in most villages I saw a sledge loaded with young men and women in such a manner, that four horses would have been more proper to draw it than one, which wretched beast was obliged to fly with this noisy company up and down the village, which is generally composed of houses in straight rows on each side of the public road. The girls are dressed in their holiday-clothes, and some are beautiful, and do not look less so from various coloured handkerchiefs tied over their forehead, in a becoming and
pittoresque
manner. There is one particular piece of roguery practised after this diversion upon travellers, which ought to be put an end to: the horse employed upon these festive occasions is generally upon the point of death; and the first post-horse that is wanted, that horse is harnessed to a kibitka in his place, because a traveller is obliged to pay the value of any horse that dies in his service. I had one that died thus, though I remonstrated upon his being put to the collar, seeing that he was dying—but unless I could have armed six servants with good cudgels, my arguments were as fruitless as those employed at the next post, to prove how unreasonable it was, that I should pay a great deal of money for a dead horse, that was dying when he was put to the carriage—
The Russian peasant is a fine, stout, straight, well-looking man; some of the women, as I said before, are uncommonly pretty; but the general whiteness of their teeth is something that cannot be conceived; it frequently happened that all the men of the village were in a circle round my carriages—and rows of the most beautiful oriental pearl cannot be more regular and white than their teeth. It is a matter of great astonishment to me, how the infants outlive the treatment they receive, till they are able to crawl into the air; there is a kind of space or
entresol
over every stove, in which the husband, wife, and children lie the greatest part of the day, and where they sleep at night—the heat appeared to me so great that I have no conception how they bear it; but they were as much surprised at me for seeking a door or window in every house I was obliged to go into, as I could possibly be at their living in a manner without air. The children look all pale and sickly, till they are five or six years old. The houses and dresses of the peasants are by no means uncomfortable; the first is generally composed of wood, the latter of sheep-skins; but trees laid horizontally one upon another makes a very strong wall, and the climate requires a warm skin for clothing. It might appear to English minds, that a people who are in a manner the property of their lord, suffer many of the afflictions that attend slavery; but the very circumstance of their persons being the property insures them the indulgence of their master for the preservation of their lives; and that master stands between them and the power of a despotic government or a brutal soldiery. Beside, my dear Sir, the invaluable advantage which these peasants have, as in paying annually a very small sum each, and cultivating as many acres of land as he thinks fit, his fortune depends entirely upon his own industry; each man only pays about the value of half-a-guinea a year. If his lord would raise this tax too high, or make their vassals suffer; misery and desertion would ruin his fortune, not theirs; it is true, that a lord is obliged to give one man as a recruit yearly out of such a number; but it is one out of three or four hundred; so that notwithstanding this great empire is said not to be populated in proportion to the extent of it; when you reflect what a number of troops the Empress has, and these kept up by this method; the Russian people must be more numerous than strangers may imagine, in travelling through this country. It is very amusing to me to reflect, without prejudices of any kind, upon the ridiculous ideas of liberty and property that our English common people have; for —
And now, my most honoured and dear brother, that I have given you so pretty a picture of English liberty—I shall wish you a good night, and remain
Your's affectionately—E C—.
LETTER XXXV.
MOSCOW,
March 3, 1786.
I Believe I have not told you, that I am possessed of all the instructions to proceed upon this new journey in a very pleasant manner. The commanders at Krement-chouck and at Cherson are informed of my intention to proceed to Perekop, where I shall enter into that peninsula called the Tauride, which, from the climate and situation, I look upon to be a delicious country; and an acquisition to Russia which she should never relinquish. I must take off your attention, for some time from your own people and my journey, and, in as few words as possible, shew by remote and past ages, that the Tauride must naturally become a treasure to posterity. Long before Homer, the first inhabitants of it that can be traced were the Cimmerians; a numerous and warlike people, descendants of the Thracians; in their incursions into Asia Minor, they were robbed by the Scythians of their possessions, but preserved the Crimea longer than the rest of them; the Scythians drove them from the flat country 656 years before Christ; but they remained concealed in the mountains, calling themselves Taourians—and from thence the peninsula took the name of Taourica—Taourinia—or Tauris. The Greeks began to establish themselves in the sixth century before Christ. The Milesians built a town called Panticapoeum or Bosporus, now called Kierche; and Theodosia, which at present is mostly called Kaffa. The Empress has ordered this town to be restored to the original Greek name Theodosia; it is at present a town of no inconsiderable commerce. Before I proceed to follow the variations which the changes, and I may say mixtures of nations that have governed this country, and have produced the present annexion of it to Russia, I must observe that, according to my usual mode of tracing extraordinary appearances to their primitive causes—I yet think I am perfectly right in perceiving a lineal descent in many Russians from the Greeks. The darkness in which we are lost, when we turn back to nations conquered by savage unlettered people, puts a stop to all certainty as to genealogy; but when the Greeks by terror and oppression were driven from Theodosia, and other towns on the sea—coast—is it not very natural to suppose that they wandered, or were driven farther up into the country, and that by degrees their descendants peopled a country, which nothing but necessity forced them to inhabit? Many marks of superior genius have pierced through all the difficulties that ignorance and the climate have occasioned, and shewn themselves in the Russian peasant, nor should I wonder to find, if their genius was traced, it descended from a Thales or an Alcibiades. Let us return to history—480 years before the birth of Christ, the people from Mitylene sounded a monarchy in the Crimea, which was governed forty-two years afterwards by Spartacus. This King and his successors, we are told, favoured the Greeks, particularly the Athenians, and drove away the Scythians in a great measure; but they were entirely exterminated by the Sarmatians. At this period, the Taourians from the mountains molested the new monarchy, till Mithridrates, King of Pontus, about 112 years before the birth of Christ subdued them, and made himself master of the whole peninsula. About the birth of Christ, the Alains made the Kings, possessors of Bosphorus, his tributaries, and drove away the Taourians. These new masters held their power about a century and a half. In the second century the Goths succeeded to the Alains, and it was under their dominion that Christianity was first introduced into the Crimea. During the lives of Diocletian and Constantine the Great, bishopricks were created. But the Goths were obliged to submit to the Huns, and like all other possessors of the Crimea, when driven from the plains, they, in their turn, took refuge in the mountains, where they had their own sovereigns, who were Christians; at that time there remained some of the Alains in the mountains likewise, and a few were dispersed over the plains. About the fourth century, what was called the kingdom of Bosphorus ceased to exist as a kingdom; the Hungarians entered the Crimea in 464, they having, with the Bulgarians, all the country between the Don and the Dneister.
The Goths and Alains went to Taman, where they settled habitations. The descendants of the Hungarians took the name of Aoultziagrians, and led a wandering life in the Crimea, but were obliged to submit to the Khatyares, who made likewise the Goths in the mountains, and the Grecian towns on the coast, their tributaries. About the eighth century the Goths attempted a revolt, but were subdued, yet were governed among themselves by their own Kings. In the year 840, the Emperor Theophilus erected a government at Cherson, to which he subjected all the other towns of the Crimea and Kouban, for though these countries were tributary to the Khatyares, they acknowledged the sovereignty of the Byzantian court. Notwithstanding this, from the time the Khatyares had first conquered the Crimea, that peninsula had taken the name of Khat, or Gatyaria, except the mountainous part, which was called Gothia, from the Goths, and Tsikia, from the remaining Alains—Jews were then numerous in the Crimea—
The Petchenegues or Kanglis, in 882, drove the Hungarians from the Crimea; but beyond the Isthmus of Or, remained two detached branches of Bulgarians and Hungarians, known in the annals of Russia by the name of Berendec, or Black Bulgarians; from this period the Khatyares preserved no power but in Asia, where it was likewise annihilated in 1015; yet even then the Crimea preserved the name of Khatyaria—
About the eleventh century, the Petchenegues were obliged to give up that peninsula and most of their possessions to the Komanes, otherwise called Butyes or Polouzes, who likewise subdued the Goths and Greeks that were left in it. At this period of time the town of Sougdaia, now called Soudak, became so considerable from the commerce and trade carried on there, that all the land possessed by the Greeks in the Crimea was called after it Soudak—
Till the year 1204 they acknowledged the sovereignty of the Byzantian empire; but then they made themselves independent, or submitted to the power of different princes, so that when the Ottomans conquered that country, there existed two principalities, one called Theodor, now Inkerman; and the other Gothia, now called Mangoute. In 1237, the Polouzes were subdued in the Crimea by the Mongouls or Tartars, who were governed in clans by their princes, by the titles of Ouloug Beigh, in the plains, till Menguelci-Ghierai converted the Crimea into a kind of state. The Goths and Greeks paid a tribute to the Mongouls, as they had before to the Polouzes. In the first part of the Tartarian reign, a number of Tcher, Kafes or Circassians, established themselves in the Crimea in 1333; that part called Kierche was governed by a Prince of that nation; and, as the Tartars carried on a great trade in the town of Krim, the peninsula took the name of Krim, by which only it is known to the Orientals at this hour. While the Latins were masters of Constantinople, they carried on a considerable trade at Krim, Tamane, and Tana; the most considerable traders were the Venetians. But when the Genoese, by a treaty with the Emperor Michael Paleologus, had obtained an exemption of all duties in the Grecian states, and a free navigation in the Black Sea, they began to monopolife all the trade of the Crimea; bloody wars ensued, in which they were almost constantly victorious. They rebuilt, with the consent of the Mongoul Khan, the town of Kaffa; made it the chief repository or capital of their commerce, and at last of such consequence, that Kaffa, for a time, was the name by which the peninsula was called. By degrees they conquered Soudak, and Cembals, now called Balouklava; it is true, they paid a tribute to the Mongouls, while these preserved their power; but when their own intestine divisions had weakened it, the Genoese shook off their yoke, and the Mongoulian or Tartarian Princes were elected or deposed as the Genoese thought fit. It was at this period that the trade from India to the Crimea was divided into two branches by the Amou, the Caspian Sea, and Astrakan—one ended at Tana; the other proceeded by Bagdad and Tauris to Trapesond and Savastopolis. Tana belonged to the Genoese and Venetians, under the supremacy of the Mongouls; the Genoese had their consuls at Traposond and Savastopolis.
In 1575 the Genoese lost their power in the Crimea, by the Turks having conquered Kaffa, Soudak, and Balouklava, and Tana upon the Don. These new conquerors put an end to the principalities of the Goths and of Theodori, established garrisons in all the principal towns upon the coast, and by that measure checked the power of the Khans of the Crimea; these however, till the year 1584, were rather the allies than the subjects of the Porte, till it attained the power of naming them, or confirming their nomination, when they ventured to be chosen without having previously obtained the sanction of the Ottoman council—
The Turkish cabinet began by establishing at Kaffa a Sandjak, and then a Behjlerbeghjilik, which governed all the domains belonging to the Porte either in the Crimea, on the borders of the Don, or upon the sea of Asoph, and left a very strong garrison in that town to intimidate the Khans. But from the wretched policy of the Turks, they at the same time shut up the entrance of the Black Sea to other European nations, so that trade and commerce were almost ruined in the Crimea, and the exports, from that time to this, were confined to the productions of the country and slaves—
The great market for the Circassians, of which we have heard so much and know so little, was at Kaffa; where they came and sold their children to Greeks, Genoese, Jews, or Armenians, who sold them in their turn at Constantinople, but that was before the Turks had extended their power over the Crimea—
When the sovereignty of the peninsula passed to Mengheli-Gherai, there were but few Tartarian inhabitants; but the wars he was engaged in against them, on the borders of the Volga, gave him an opportunity to bring back into the Crimea with him many thousand Nogais, which he obliged to fix there, in this method of peopling the country, he was followed by his successors, who furnished the Kouban, and the country between the Don and the Dneister with their prisoners—
The Crimea was for a long time a formidable power to the Russians and Poles, till these nations became improved in military science. Until the peace of Karlowitz, both these nations were obliged to pay the Khan to the amount of 100,000 rixdollars, to insure their countries from the incursions of the Tartars; Russia has gained ground by degrees, and by arms and policy is become master of the peninsula; the last Khan has a pension from the Empress, and is retired to live as a private gentleman; long before he resigned his sovereignty; the Turkish cabinet on one side; the crafty policy of the Russians on the other, left him no peace; even some hordes of Tartars insulted his tottering power. Thus, my dear Sir, I have summed up as well as I am able, a sketch of the past and present revolutions that happened in the country I am proceeding to, in which there are at present about thirty thousand of the Empress's troops, including five thousand Cossacks in her pay; which I am very curious to see. The Khan's palaces, noble Tartar houses, and others are prepared for her reception, in which I am assured I shall be received and treated perfectly well. Notwithstanding all that has been said to deter me from continuing my tour, I shall certainly go on, and if I am not poisoned by the waters in Tartary, or drowned in my passage by the Black Sea to Constantinople, I shall, I hope, afford you some amusement in the geographical descriptions I shall give you, and variety of military figures: who though not versed in tactics like your Prussian troops, may always entertain any person, who, like you, are a good soldier by inheritance, example, and practice; I am going to dine at my banker's, who insists on shewing me his very fine hot-houses, and having the honour of giving me a good dinner.
I remain unalterably Your affectionate sister, E. C—
LETTER XXXVI.
CHERSON,
March 12, 1786.
I Was obliged to put my kibitkas on wheels at a vile little town called Soumi, before I arrived at Pultawa. Notwithstanding there might have been many things worth stopping to look at in the immense town of Moscow, I was so impatient to meet the spring, that I would not send my name to any person whose civilities would have obliged me to stay. I cannot say that Moscow gives me any other idea than of a large village, or many villages joined, as the houses stand at such a distance, and it is such a terrible way to go to visit things or people, that I should have made as many long journeys in a week, as there are days in one, had I staid. What is particularly gaudy and ugly at Moscow are the steeples, square lumps of different coloured bricks and gilt spires or ovals; they make a very Gothic appearance, but it is thought a public beauty there; a widow lady was just dead, who having outlived all the people that she loved, she left an immense sum of money to gild with the purest gold, the top of one of the steeples—
At Pultawa I was shewn the ground on which the armies moved, a memorable check to the wild spirit of Charles the Twelfth. A private person, one Paul Budenkof, has, at his own expence, erected a monument in remembrance of that event; it is a plate of brass, on which is represented the battle in a good engraving, the plate is fixed into a pillar. At Soumi I conversed with a brother of Prince Kourakin's and a Mr. Lanskoy, both officers quartered there; and to whom I was indebted for a lodging: they obliged a Jew to give me up a new little house he was upon the point of inhabiting. The thaw had come on so quickly that I was obliged to stay two days while my carriages were taken off the sledges—
Mr. Lanskoy has a little of the beauty and sweetness of countenance of his cousin who died; the favourite of the Empress; and who, if his pictures and the medal do not flatter him, was perfectly beautiful. Both Prince Kourakin and Lanskoy are very impatient to quit such dismal quarters, and seem to desire some event in which they may display a military ardour, very natural to soldiers, and increased in them by having no polished people to converse with; as I found, upon my asking what society they had, their account of the country nobles thereabout was truly laughable—
There is no gentleman's house at Pultawa; I slept at my banker's, and walked all about the skirts of the town—
At Chrementchouk, the general who commands has a very pretty well-bred wife, who did the honours of her house and the place perfectly well. Prince Potemkin has a large house just out of the town, which I went to see; at the Governor's I assisted at a dinner where there was such a number of people, and so much company after dinner, that I was heartily tired; there I began to find the manner in which I was recommended by the prince; the greatest attentions and respect were paid me. An English woman, married to a Russian who was there, came to my lodging, and looking earnestly at me, said, are you an English lady? I smiled and said, quite so: she flung her arms round my neck, and almost smothered me with kisses; forgive me, said she, I too was born in England, and have never had the happiness of seeing a country-woman since I left it; I am married, have children here, and probably shall never see England again. I was intreated to stay by all the ladies at least some days; but I cannot defer too long letting — know what is become of me; I concealed from — and — my intended journey, and only wrote word from Petersburgh, that I was going to make a little tour to a warmer part of that country; and I mean not to let either of them know where I am till I get safe to Constantinople.
I am going to see the Dock-Yard here and the fortifications, which are to be new done by a Colonel Korsakof, a very civil spirited young man here, who seems to have the welfare of this place and the honour of his nation very much at heart. I shall give you an account of what I have seen tomorrow.
I remain with respect, Your affectionate sister, E. C—
A TURKISH BURIAL GROUND.
LETTER XXXVII.
CHERSON,
March 9, 1786.
THIS place is situated upon the Dneiper, called by the ancients, the Boristhenes; which falls into the Black Sea; the only inconvenience of the Docks here is that the ships, when built, are obliged to be taken with camels into that part of the channel deep enough to receive them. The town is not at present very large, though there are many new houses and a church built after pretty models; good architecture of white stone. There are no trees near this place; Korsakof is trying to make large plantations; the town is intirely furnished with fuel by reeds, of which there is an inexhaustible forest in the shallows of the Boristhenes, just facing Cherson; Rails, and even temporary houses are made of them. These reeds are strong and tall, and are a harbour for birds of various kind, particularly aquatics; of which there are such a number, and of such beautiful kinds, that I can conceive nothing so entertaining as shooting parties in boats here; Korsakof, and a Captain Mordwinof, who both have been educated in England, will, I have no doubt, make a distinguished figure in the military annals of Russia; Mordwinof is a sea-officer, and superintends the ship-building here; there are some very pretty frigates on the stocks. Repninskai is the governor's name, and he has a young wife, who is very civil; my loding is a large house built for a Greek Archbishop; but, being empty, was appropriated to my use: I have remonstrated here, but in vain, against having centinels, and the guard turning out as I pass through the gates. I hate all kind of ceremony and honours, particularly such as I am not accustomed to, but I am told here I must content myself with not refusing the orders that are given; the Emperor's Consul has a wife who wears a Greek dress here; I think it by no means becoming—Cherson may in time become a very beautiful town, and furnish the borders of the Boristhenes with examples of commerce; that inestimable and only real source of greatness to an empire; I am not soldier enough to know what fault there was in the fortifications, so that they are intirely to be done anew—but by the active and studious spirit of Korsakof, I have no doubt that they will be executed in a masterly manner—
I can conceive nothing so pleasant to a young soldier, as to be employed in places where his talents must create the defence and stability of newly acquired possessions; I leave this place in two days, dear Sir; and will do myself the honour of writing from the first town where I can sit down again for a few days—
I have nothing but maps and plans of various sorts in my head at present, having looked over all such as my curiosity could induce me to ask for. The fortifications and plantations are executed here by malefactors, whose chains and fierce looks struck horror into my heart, as I walked over them, particularly when I was informed there are between three and four thousand. Yet I must confess, I think this method of treating criminals much more rational than that of shutting them up; and rendering them useless members of the society by which they must be maintained—
Mordwinof informs me, the frigate which is to convey me to Constantinople is prepared, and is to wait my pleasure at one of the seaports in the Crimea, and that the Comte de Wynowitch, who commands at Sevastopole has directions to accommodate me in the best manner; Mordwinof and Korsakof both are much more like Englishmen than any foreigners I ever met with, except one, whom you are assured is the person upon earth I honour and esteem the most; and to whom I subscribe myself with all respect,
His most affectionate sister, E. C—
LETTER XXXVIII.
KARASBAYER,
April 3, 1786.
I Went in a barge for about two hours down the Boristhenes, and landed on the shore opposite to that on which Cherson stands. A carriage and horses belonging to a Major who commands a post about two hours drive from the place where I landed were waiting, and these conveyed me to his house, where I found a great dinner prepared, and he gave me some excellent fresh-butter made of Buffalo's milk; this poor man has just lost a wife he loved, and who was the only delight he could possess in a most disagreeable spot, marshy, low, and where he can have no other amusement but the troops. From thence I crossed the plains of Perekop, on which nothing but a large coarse grass grows, which is burnt at certain periods of the year. All this country, like that between Cherson and Chrementchruh, is called Steps, I should call it desert; except where the post-horses are found, not a tree not a habitation is to be seen. But one thing which delighted me much, for several miles after I had quitted Cherson, was the immense flocks of birds; bustards, which I took at a certain distance for herds of calves, and millions of a small bird about the size of a pigeon, cinnamon colour and white; droves of a kind of wild small goose, cinnamon colour, brown, and white. As I went farther on, these multitudes decreased, not choosing I suppose to go too far from their shelter, the reeds—
Perekop is situated upon an eminence; the ditch of it seems rather calculated for the lodgment of an enemy than a defence. The governor did every thing he could to detain me a few hours; but, as there was nothing to see, I went on. Just without the fortress of Perekop I was obliged to send one of my servants to a Tartar village to get a pass; the servant whom I sent, whose ridiculous fears through the whole journey have not a little amused me, came back as pale as death. He told me the chiefs were sitting in a circle smoaking, that they were very ill black-looking people; I looked at the pass, it was in Turkish or Tartarian characters. I saw there two camels drawing a cart; this village gave me no great opinion of Tartarian cleanliness, a more dirty miserable looking place I never saw. The land at Perekop is but six miles across from the sea of Asoph, or rather an arm of it called the Suash, to the Black Sea. The Crimea might with great ease be made an island; after leaving Perekop, the country is exactly like what we call downs in England, and the turf is like the finest green velvet. The horses flew along; and though there was not a horse in the stables of the post-houses, I did not wait long to have them harnessed; the Cossacks have the furnishing of the horses, and versts or mile-stones are put up; the horses were all grasing on the plain at some distance, but the instant they see their Cossack come out with a little corn the whole herd surrounds him, and he takes those he pleases. The posts were sometimes in a deserted Tartarian village, and sometimes the only habitation for the stable-keeper was a hut made under ground, a common habitation in this country, where the sun is extremely hot, and there is no shade of any sort. To the left of Perekop I saw several lakes about the third post; it was a most beautiful sight. About sun-set I arrived at a Tartarian village, of houses or rather huts straggling in a circle without fence of any kind. At different spots upon the downs, large herds of horses, cows, and sheep were approaching, with a slow pace, the village; making at once a simple and majestic landscape, full of that peace and plenty which possessions in the primitive state of the world might have enjoyed—
I stopped there and made tea; that I might go on, as far as I could that night. You must not suppose, my dear Sir, though I have left my coach and harp at Petersburgh, that I have not all my little necessaries even in a kibitka—a tin-kettle in a basket holds my tea equipage, and I have my English side-saddle tied behind my carriage. What I have chiefly lived upon is new milk, in which I melt a little chocolate. At every place I have stopped at I asked to taste the water from curiosity, I have always found it perfectly good —
I can easily suppose people jealous of Prince Potemkin's merit; his having the government of the Tauride, or commanding the troops in it, may have caused the invention of a thousand ill-natured lies about this new country, in order to lessen the share of praise which is his due, in the attainment or preservation of it; but I see nothing at present which can justify the idea of the country's being unwholesome. To-morrow I shall have the honour of giving you an account of my arrival and reception here, and what sort of a place it is.
I remain—yours affectionately. E. C—
LETTER XXXIX.
KARASBAYER,
April 4. 1786.
ABOUT half an hour after ten last night I ordered my servants not to have the horses put to, as I intended to sleep, for the only thing in which I am a bad traveller is, that I cannot go to sleep while the carriage is in motion. I had not an idea of getting out of it, as our Post was a vile Tartar village; in a few minutes the servants called me, and said, the General's nephew and son were arrived to meet me, and very sorry to find I had quitted Perekop, as they had orders to escort me from thence. I opened my carriage and saw two very pretty looking young men; I told them I should certainly not think of detaining them; and we set off, nor did I suspect that there were any persons with me but them: at — o'clock I let down the forepart of my carriage to see the sun rise; when, to my great surprise, I saw a guard of between twenty and thirty Cossacks, with an officer, who was close to the fore-wheel of the carriage; upon seeing me he smiled and pulled off his cap—his companions gave a most violent shriek, and horses, carriages, and all increased their pace, so that the horses in the carriage behind mine took fright, ran away, and running against my carriage very nearly overturned it; and when I asked what occasioned this event, I found my Cossack escort, seeing my carriage shut, thought I was dead; as a Cossack has no idea that a person in health can travel in a carriage that is not open, and the shout I had heard, the smile I had seen, was the surprise they had felt, that the young English princess, as they called me, was alive; as they believed it was only my corpse that was conveying to Karasbazar to be buried. They always ride with long pikes, holding the points upwards; the Tartars ride with pikes, but they hold the ends of theirs to the ground. About six I passed the Tartar town of Karasbazar, lying to the left—and arrived at the General's house, a very good one, newly built for the reception of the Empress; the General Kokotchki, his brother the governor, and almost all the general officers were up and dressed; upon the steps of the house I found myself in my night-cap, a most tired and forlorn figure, in the midst of well-powdered men, and as many stars and ribbons around me as if I had been at a birth-day at St. James's. I retired, but rose again at one, dressed and dined, and looked about me; this house is situated near the river Karasou or Blackwater, which bathes the lawn before the house, and runs in many windings towards the town; it is narrow, rapid, and very clear; this is a most rural and lovely spot, very well calculated to give the Empress a good opinion of her new kingdom, for so it may be called. I had a Cossack chief presented to me, a soldier-like fine whitehaired figure, he wore a ribband and order the Empress had given him set round with brillants. The general told me he was sorry he was not thirty years younger, as the Empress had not a braver officer in her service. In the evening, in an amazing large hall, several different bands of music played; and I heard the national songs of the Russian peasants, which are so singular that I cannot forbear endeavouring to give you some idea of them. One man stands in the midst of three or four, who make a circle round him; seven or eight more make a second round those; a third is composed of a greater number; the man in the middle of this groupe begins, and when he has sung one verse, the first circle accompany him, and then the second, till they become so animated, and the noise so great, that it was with difficulty the officers could stop them. What is very singular they sing in parts, and though the music is not much varied nor the tune fine, yet as some take thirds and fifths as their ear direct, in perfect harmony, it is by no means unpleasing. If you ask one of them why he does not sing the same note as the man before him, he does not know what you mean. The subjects of these ballads are, hunting, war, or counterfeiting the gradations between soberness into intoxication, and very diverting. As these singers were only young Russian peasants, they began with great timidity, but by little and little ended in a kind of wild jollity, which made us all laugh very heartily. The Governor's residence is not here, but at a place called Atchmechet; he is only come here to meet and conduct me through the Crimea; he is a grave sensible mild man. I am told he has conciliated the Tartars to their change of sovereign very much by his gentleness and firmness. To their honour, I find none would stay who could not bear the idea of taking the oaths of allegiance, but are gone towards Mount Caucasus. They have repented since, but it was too late. All the country here is downs except the borders of vallies, where rice is cultivated, and what the Tartars call gardens, which I call orchards. I cannot tell you, Sir, with what respect and attention I am treated here, and how good-naturedly all the questions I ask are answered—
There is an Albanian Chief here, though his post is at Bilaklava, a sea-port; he is distinguished by the Empress likewise for his bravery; his dress differs much from the Cossack; it is something like the ancient Romans—he is an elderly man too. In a day or two I shall give you an account of the source of the Karasou, and take my leave of this place for Batcheferai, the principal town and formerly the chief residence of the Khans.
Adieu—E. C—
LETTER XL.
April, 1786.
YESTERDAY I went to see the source of the river, it lies in the recess of a rock, which is placed between many others that line the steep sides of a valley; a Major Ribas, a very lively handsome officer of the Chasseurs, has drawn it for me. I rode a white horse of the general's, a very quiet creature, but awakward, not being used to a side-saddle—
I never saw a scene so lively as this visit; there were near forty people on horseback; the variety of dresses and colours upon the green carpet was gay and picturesque. We continued going up hill to the source, till we perceived the rocks, but the sides of them were so steep that we were obliged to dismount and scramble down as we could; this spring does not present itself like the Vaucluse, majestic and terrible, but pretty and romantic; and might be copied in a park where huge fragments of stone could be had. As we returned, I got off and walked beside the soldiers houses, and went into some; they are placed in a line on the declivity of the down, as they descend to the General's house; all things were very neat and orderly. The old Cossack chief had looked with the greatest astonishment at my riding, and when I jumped down from my horse on returning home, he kissed the edge of my petticoat, and said something in his language which I did not comprehend, but the general told me he had paid me the highest compliment imaginable, viz. I was worthy of being a Cossack—
In the evening I went in a carriage with the governor and general to Karasbazar; and on the road saw a mock battle between the Cossacks. As I was not apprised beforehand, I confess the beginning of it astonished me very much. I saw the Cossack guard on each side the carriage spring from their stirrups, with their feet on the saddle and gallop away thus with a loud shriek. The General smiled at my astonished looks; and told me the Cossack Chief had ordered an entertainment for me, and desired me to get out and stand on the rising part of the down, facing that where a troop of Cossacks was posted, which I saw advancing with a slow pace; a detached Cossack of the adverse party approached the troop, and turning round sought his scattered companions, who were in search like him of the little army; they approached, but not in a squadron, some on the left, some on the right, some before, some behind the troop—a shriek—a pistol fired, were the signals of battle—the troop was obliged to divide in order to face an enemy that attacked it on all sides. The greatest scene of hurry and agility ensued; one had seized his enemy, pulled him off his horse, and was upon the point of stripping him
A Cossack, if he can avoid it, never kills his enemy before he has stripped him, because the spoils are his property, and he fears the blood should spoil the dress—
, when one of the prisoner's party came up, laid him to the ground, remounted his companion, and rode off with the horse of the first victor. Some flung themselves off their horses to tear their foe to the ground; alternately they pursued or were pursuing, their pikes, their pistols, their hangers all were made use of; and when the parties were completely engaged together, it was difficult to see all the adroit manoeuvres that passed—
I was much entertained and pleased; and desired the Cossack Chief might have my best thanks. I arrived at the town, and was led to the Kadis' house, where his wife received me, and no male creature was suffered to come into the room, except the interpreter and a young Russian nobleman only twelve years of age. This woman had a kind of turban on, with some indifferent diamonds and pearls upon it. Her nails were dyed scarlet, her face painted white and red, the veins blue; she appeared to me to be a little shrivelled woman of near sixty, but I was told she was not above fifty. She had a kind of robe and vest on, and her girdle was a handkerchief embroidered with gold and a variety of colours. She made me a sign to sit down; and my gloves seeming to excite much uneasiness in her I took them off; upon which she drew near, smiled, took one of my hands between her's, and winked and nodded as a sign of approbation; but she felt my arm up beyond the elbow, half way up my shoulder, winking and nodding. I began to wonder where this extraordinary examination would end, which it did there. Coffee was brought, and after that rose-leaves made into sweetmeats, both of which the interpreter obliged me to taste. The sweetmeats are introduced last, and among the Orientals they are a signal that the visit must end. Our conversation by the interpreter was not very entertaining. She asked if I had a child, and told me what I have been told so often before, though I confess not by women
Tartarian and Turkish women, deriving the only pleasures of society from women, have none of that envy which prevails in European female breasts—and among the Tartarian and Turkish women, the extravagant encomiums which fall from the lips of a man desperately in love with a pretty woman, are to be heard and are in frequent use.
, that would be unnecessary to repeat it. A Tartar house is a very slight building of one story only; no chair, table, or piece of furniture in wood to be seen; large cushions are ranged round the room, on which we sat or reclined; but what is extremely convenient, I observed more than double the space of the room behind the wainscot, which drew back in most places, so that in a small room, where it appears there is nothing but the cushions, every necessary is to be found. As the visit was at an end, I curtsied and she bowed. In the court-yard there was a dancer, a woman accompanied in her gestures by a boy, but it was impossible to see them either with pleasure or propriety; she never lifted her feet off the ground but once in four minutes, and then only one foot at a time, and every part of her person danced except her feet. I went to a Mosque, where several pious Mussulmen were going round in a circle in the midst of the building, groaning and slinging their heads almost to the ground and then up again, a constant motion which with the moving round one way soon puts them into a kind of torture, under which they fall to the ground; and then are dragged into recesses in the Mosque, made on purpose to receive these boly men, who sacrifice so many hours, and their persons to idle pain, in order to prove their devotion to Mahomet. They frequently pronounced Allah—
In one of the recesses I saw a man lying, that I was told had been there without eating or drinking forty hours; which abstinence is another pious act, and if their courage is excessive, and Allah can inspire them with strength enough, they endeavour in getting out of the dark and damp hole where they lay for many hours, to join in the circle, and begin to move, but in this attempt they generally fall senseless to the ground, and are carried home to recover their strength. This kind of mummery inspires the people with a great reverence and esteem for those who practise it. I returned home as much disgusted with this nonsense as I was displeased with the dirt of the town. The Mosque was shabby on the outside and gloomy within, notwithstanding many lamps in it. The Minaret, which we should call a steeple, and all the other Minarets I saw in the town, are uncommonly light, being very high and narrow. A man stands at the top and calls to prayers, instead of tolling bells as we do, at particular hours, and makes a noise to the full as agreeable—
The chief traffic of this town is the leather which we call Morocco, of various colours, yellow, red, green, and blue; it is to be had very cheap, and is like sattin. The innumerable sheep with which these plains are covered furnish much leather, which is a cheap commodity, as well as the most beautiful and costly pelisses. The sheep are all spotted. The lamb-skins are beautiful, and they kill the ewes to have the lamb-skins before the birth; these have small spots, and are smooth like the lightest and finest sattins. As many of these little animals must be skinned to make the lining of one coat, it is no wonder this is one of the most sumptuous presents the Empress can make to an ambassador. I wish I was rich enough to send you a pelisse made of these skins—
I remain dear Sir, Your most affectionate sister, E. C—
LETTER XLI.
BATCHESERAI,
April 8, 1786.
IN my way hither I dined at the Cossack Chief's post, and my entertainment was truly Cossack. A long table for thirty people; at one end a half-grown pig roasted whole; at the other a half-grown sheep, whole likewise; in the middle of the table an immense tureen of curdled milk; there were several side-dishes made for me and the Russians, as well as the cook could imagine to our taste. The old warrior would fain have made me taste above thirty sorts of wine from his country, the borders of the Don; but I contented myself with three or four, and some were very good. After dinner from the windows, I saw a fine mock battle between the Cossacks; and I saw three Calmoucks, the ugliest fiercest looking men imaginable, with their eyes set in their head, inclining down to their nose, and uncommonly square jawbones. These Calmoucks are so dexterous with bows and arrows that one killed a goose at a hundred paces, and the other broke an egg at fifty. The young Cossack officers tried their skill with them, but they were perfectly novices in comparison to them; they sung and danced, but their steps and their tones were equally insipid, void of grace and harmony.
When a Cossack is sick he drinks sour milk for a few days, and that is the only remedy the Cossacks have for fevers—
At night I lodged at a house that had belonged to a noble Tartar, where there is a Russian post, with about twelve hundred of the finest men I ever saw, and uncommonly tall. A Tartarian house has always another building at a little distance from it for the convenience of travellers or strangers, whom the noble Tartar always treats with the greatest hospitality; here the General parted from us. I proceeded in the Governor's carriage with him thus far, the rest of our company went to see Kaffa or Theodosia. I go to meet them to-morrow, at a place called Mangouss. We had only two Cossacks with us, as the General, to please the Tartars, never is escorted by a military party. Batchescrai is situated in so steep a valley, that some of the hanging pieces of rock seem ready to fall and crush the houses. About a mile from the town on the left, I saw a troop of well-dressed Tartars, there were above a hundred on horseback; the Kaima-Kan
That word means the Khan's first minister—a person called him cream of Tartar—which I fearing he should be told of, turned into the cream of the Tartars—which he said was no wonder; as he was so—
was at the head of this company, who were come out to meet and escort us, but I who did not know this, asked the Governor if there was a Russian post here; which there is above the town, of a thousand men. There are five thousand Tartar inhabitants here; I do not believe there was a man left in his house, the streets being lined with Tartarian men on each side; their countenances were very singular, most of them kept their eyes fixed on the ground, as we passed; but some just looked up, and, as if they were afraid of seeing a woman's face uncovered, hastily cast their eyes downward again; some diverted at the novelty, looked and laughed very much—There is a great trade here of blades for swords, hangers, and knives—I am assured many made here are not to be distinguished from those of Damascus—
The Khan's palace is an irregular building, the greatest part of it is one floor raised upon pillars of wood painted and gilt in a fanciful and lively manner, the arch, or last door-way, has fine proportions, a large inscription in gilt letters is the chief ornament—I am told it was perfectly in ruins, but the governor has had it repaired, new gilt, and painted for the Empress's reception. Court within court, and garden within garden, make a variety of apartments where the Khan walked from his own residence to the Harem
Harem means that apartment where the women reside; which is always a separate building from that which the master inhabits—and sisters, mothers, wives, or mistresses all inhabit the Harem—
, which is spacious and higher than the other buildings. What I thought pretty enough was that several of the square places under his apartment were paved with marble, and have in the center fountains which play constantly. My room is a square of more than forty feet, having two rows of windows one above the other on three sides, and it was with difficulty I found a place to have my bed put up in—
I never saw such a variety of colours—different coloured gold and silver mixed together. The Kaima-Kan, and two other principal Tartars, supped with us, and I find nothing can exceed the ignorance and simplicity of these people. The Kaima-Kan is the Khan's first minister; he is totally ignorant of the geography of his own country; and says that England and Petersburgh are the same thing; I am to dine with his sister to-morrow; she is married to a rich Tartar, who has given a certain yearly sum to possess, solely, the profits of the soap mines. For among the excellent productions of this peninsula, there is a mine of earth exactly like soap, and reckoned very good for the skin; the Turkish women consume a great quantity of it at Constantinople; and I am told this Tartar makes an immense income from it. I saw from the windows a kind of dome which raised my curiosity, and I am told it is a monument built to the memory of a Christian wife, which the Khan loved so tenderly that he was inconsolable for her loss; and that he had placed it there, that he might have the satisfaction of looking at the building which contained her remains
Many buildings such as baths, summer-houses, &c. are in ruins near Batcheserai. I went into one bath, it was circular, having white marble on the inside, with niches for the bathers to sit in, which we have no idea of. Cold bathing is unknown in Turkey and Tartary—
—This Tartar Khan must have had a soul worthy of being loved by a Christian wife I think—
Adieu for the present, dear Sir, E. C—
P. S.
Wild asparagus grows in great plenty all over the peninsula, and a wild kind of horse-radish of an enormous size, and the strongest and best flavoured I ever tasted, the root is as long and as big as the stoutest leg you ever saw—
LETTER XLII.
SEVASTOPOLE,
April 12, 1786.
THE last time I wrote I was at Batcheserai, since which I have been at another Russian post, at the place where the ancient town of Krim stood, of which there is not a vestige left. A General Schlikt commands a fine regiment of Russian cavalry there, and lodges in an outer building belonging to a good house prepared for the Empress. This general fought very valiantly in the Polish Confederacy against the Russians, and his bravery induced the Empress to take him into her service. He shewed me among his horses a fine chestnut or rather gold-coloured Arabian, so beautiful an animal I never before saw. I must not forget to tell you that I went, as I told you I should, to dine with the Kaima-Kan's sister, whose harem, with her husband's house, is situated in a very romantic manner at the foot of some very extraordinary rocks, from which issue many clear springs, that supply the houses and her bath with perpetual fresh water; there is a strange appearance on the summit of those rocks, places where immense cables have certainly passed and been tied. The Tartarians insist upon it that the sea once lay at the foot of them; and ships were fastened to them. We dined in the husband's apartment, a very dirty shabby place for so rich a gentleman—Tartarian cookery consists in much grease and honey; after dinner, the Kaima-Kan walked across a yard, and I was bid to follow. I did so into another court, where four women and some young girls met us, and last of all his sister. Her dress was magnificent, particularly her girdle, in the front of which were two circles like bracelet lockets; the centers of them contained two fine emeralds. She offered me a large goblet which held two quarts of sherbet, an indifferent kind of lemonade; after that coffee, and last of all sweetmeats. We conversed very well by signs, she was neither old nor ugly, but how is it possible to judge of a countenance hid under bad painting, and eyebrows which join into one straight line drawn across the nose? My gloves gave her the same uneasy appearance I had seen in the other Tartarian woman, so I pulled them off, but she was not so curious as the other, and it seemed to be a high entertainment to her brother to see us converse by signs. I wore a
chemise
with two rows of very fi
e lace at the bosom, which I thought would surprise her, but lace, and every magnificence which is not gold, silver, pearls, or diamonds, I am told passes unnoticed—Linen is not much in use; their shifts, and the shirts of the men, are generally made of very thin silk, or silk mixed with cotton, which is seldom changed; but the very srequent use of baths makes this custom less loathsome than it would otherwise be, When she had quitted the harem, her brother staid behind a little, and afterwards came up to me, kissed the bottom of my gown, and presented me a very beautiful handkerchief of his sister's embroidery, which the governor told me I must accept; I desired the Kaima-Kan to thank her, and tell her I would keep it for her sake; it is of muslin, the borders embroidered with different coloured silks and gold, and what I cannot comprehend, both sides are the same—
I have been at Soudak, where the foundations yet remain of a very large town, which was rebuilt by the Genoese, on the descent of steep rocks. When you get to the summit of these you look down to the sea, and there are the remains of a chapel, where a granite pillar is so placed that the first shake it receives it must fall perpendicularly into it This town must have been inaccessible to a fleet, and from the position of the fortifications and out-posts, of which there are remains, must have been extremely well defended from the inhabitants of the interior part of the country—
To the left of the town there is a fine harbour; it is upon this southern part of the peninsula that vines are cultivated, and grow wild in great abundance; at present only a few private people there have vineyards of their own. There is little good wine made, and the Empress has indeed a Frenchman, who seems to care only about the strength of the wine being sufficient to make brandy, which he distils in great quantities. He is settled at Soudak at present, and probably will make a great fortune, but not teach the culture of vines to the Russians. From Soudak I went to Atchmetchet, the residence of the governor; it is prettily situated on a rising ground, not far from the valley which borders the river Salguir; and the soil on the borders of this river is exactly like the black mould of our kitchen gardens, and extremely fertile. The governor's house is comfortable, and the barracks with the other buildings erected by the Russians make a good appearance; I saw some people coursing with Tartarian greyhounds, which are remarkably tall, and reckoned very good. The governor shewed me likewise a pretty collection of stuffed birds, and other preservations; with stones, minerals, the produce of the Crimea; but the fine turf, the excellent soil, the orchards, the climate, are sufficient inducements to be partial to this country. One very particular thing I took notice of was a small pink flower, that spread like net-work over the turf—and, asking what it was, found they were peachtrees, which when very young, being nipped by the sheep, grow into little bushes—I was really sorry to quit the governor; grave, steady, and cold in his manner, there was a dignity in it which made his extreme attention and respect for me the more acceptable, nor can I say that he forgot any thing that could make me take a true impression of the country, or a favourable one of the Russian officers, who have given me several maps, and every information I dould desire—I wish it may ever be in my power to shew him in my country any marks of the sense! I have of his goodness—I have promised to take a barrel of wine belonging to Mr. de Bullakos, the Russian Minister at the Porte—and a root of horse-radish from him—
I find a thirty-six gun frigate, under the disguise of a merchant-ship, had been fitted out for me, and had been ready above a fortnight; the governor accompanied me to this place, which the description of would be too long for this letter, so I shall take my leave of you for the present, only observing that I have a whole house to myself, where the architecture and furniture are English; it belonged to an Admiral Mackenzie, who is just dead—I crossed an arm of the sea in the Comte de Wynowitch's barge to arrive here—and upon landing, at the bottom of a flight of several steps, I was surprised by two or three voices, who said. we are your countrymen, my Lady—and in fact, there are several of my countrymen as captains or lieutenants in this navy. The Admiral's house is just above this landing-place, and makes a fine appearance—
Adieu, dear Sir, I remain your affectionate E. C—
LETTER LXIII.
DEAR SIR,
I Should be very glad you could see this place—From the singularity of the coast, the harbour is unlike any other I ever saw; it is a long creek that is formed by the Black Sea between two ridges of land, so high that The Glory of Catherine, one of the largest ships in the Russian navy, which is at anchor here, cannot be seen, as the shore is above the pendant—The water is so deep that this ship touches the land—All the fleets in Europe would be safe from storms or enemies in these creeks or harbours, for there are many. Batteries at the entrance of them, on one side, would be sufficient effectually to destroy any ships that would venture in, and placed towards the sea must even prevent the entrance of a fleet. The Comte de Wynowitch commands here, and has a little farm at Inkerman, which must have once been a very considerable and extraordinary town; at present the only remains of it are rooms hewn out of the rock. Here is a large chapel, the pillars and altars of which are extremely curious; the stone is whitish, and not unlike marble. I climbed up a stair-case, and crept into and out of very extraordinary spaces large and commodious; I entered at the bottom of these singular habitations, and like a chimney-sweeper came out at the top; and though it cost me not a little trouble in turning and climbing up so high, I had no idea I had mounted so much, till on looking about me I turned quite giddy, in seeing the Bay of Inkerman and all the Black Sea, at least two hundred and fifty feet beneath the place where I stood. Though I have not been absolutely all over this peninsula. I think I am perfectly acquainted with it; and though it is a new acquaintance to me, I sincerely wish it to be peopled by the industrious, who may restore to it that commerce and opulence, which the natural productions of it demand from the hand of man. Can any rational being, dear Sir, see nature, without the least assistance from art, in all her grace and beauty, stretching out her liberal hand to industry, and not wish to do her justice? Yes, I confess, I wish to see a colony of honest English families here; establishing manufactures, such as England produces, and returning the produce of this country to ours; establishing a fair and free trade from hence, and teaching industry and honesty to the insidious but oppressed Greeks, in their islands—waking the indolent Turk from his gilded slumbers, and carrying fair Liberty in her swelling sails as she passes through the Archipelago and the Mediterranean, to our dangerous (happily for us our dangerous) coast—This is no visionary or poetical figure—it is the honest wish of one who considers all mankind as one family, and, looking upon them as such, wishes them to be united for the common good; excluding from nations all selfish and monopolizing views—I am in possession of several maps of this country, drawn and coloured very well, which I shall have the honour of shewing you when I see you. I take my leave at present, and remain
Your most obliged and affectionate E. C—
LETTER XLIV.
WE set out the day before yesterday to see a most beautiful valley called Baydar, but when we had gone a considerable way across the mountains in carriages, the Comte de Wynowitch told me that we were five-and-twenty miles from the place we were going to, and that we must take the Cossack horses, of which we had five with us, and ride them. As I was not apprised of this, I had not brought my side-saddle with me. I told him it was impossible for me to ride astride, and the Cossack saddles I could not sit upon, so we returned back to Sevastopole. We set out again yesterday for the valley of Baydar, and at the same place where we had left the carriages the day before, I had my side-saddle put upon the tallest of the Cossack horses, and after going about twelve miles among the most beautiful mountains imaginable, a small valley appeared a little to the right of us infinitely pretty. We crossed that and went through a thick wood, which led to the valley of Baydar; a most enchanting and magnificent spot, intended by nature for some industrious and happy nation to enjoy in peace. A few Tartar villages lessen the wildness of the scene, but, in such a place, the meadow part should be covered with herds, and the mountainous with sheep. When we were come into this valley we found the mountains to the left less high, and less rocky than those to the right, which run in a line with those to Soudak, and form the coast. When we were in the valley we could not have imagined that we were so near the sea; as the rocks which are above it are covered with wood of every sort, wild vine, pomegranate, and many sweet shrubs; I rode up to an elevation, which is, for as much as I can guess, the centre of the valley, and sat there with my companions contemplating the beautiful scene. The valley is above twenty miles long, wide enough to form it into a graceful oval—two or three small rivers run through it, and there are fine clear springs in every village. The Albanian Colonel, who had been presented to me at Karasbasar, met us with his son; and I shall never forget their appearance. When they heard us coming they got off their horses. I saw the son first, a tall lad about thirteen years old, in a kind of Roman warrior's dress, with rows of gold like armour all down the fore part of the vest—He had a helmet on—As I was not apprised of this, I had no idea what the vision was that presented itself, till I saw the father. They were both leading their horses, and came to me to insist on my dining at Balaklava, on my way home, which I did; and if I had not been obliged to quit this country in a ship, I should certainly have bribed my Cossack to have sold his horse to me; the animal was so excellent a galloper that I was obliged several times to stop till the rest of the company came up—
The Cossacks, Sir, are extremely proud of their horses, as they say since your immortal uncle the King of Prussia first rode one, he never has, in time of war, made use of any other than a horse from the borders of the Don. I do not know who was most pleased, the Cossack that lent me his horse, or I who rode him. We turned to the left to go to the Colonel's house, and winding round some beautiful rocks, the descent of which was gentle, we saw before us the harbour of Balaklava. The Albanian Chief had ranged his regiment in one straight line, at the foot of the rocks to the left facing the sea, on the edge of which his house stood. I can conceive nothing so singular to a regular corps as the sight of an Albanian troop; they had firelocks of every country; each man is at liberty to dress and arm himself as he pleases. Oriental and Italian poniards, with the oddest pistols in the world were stuck in their girdles; some had hats, others caps, and helmets upon their heads. Gregorio Chapone, the colonel, desired I might be told they were alert, spirited, and brave; his post indeed was of infinite consequence, and he was placed there on that account; opinions were unanimous concerning his military reputation. The Albanians wear short jackets, with two, three, or four rows of fillagree buttons, an ornament they like much, and I thought them pretty. The Colonel's wife and several other women received me at the door, and we conversed by interpreters. There were several Turkish boats in the harbour, but there was a line on the shore marked with fires which they were not permitted to pass. The Turks came to sell oranges, and every precaution is taken to prevent their communicating the plague; so that although they may come on shore, they are obliged to heap their oranges within the space allotted to them, and bargain at a distance. We were above thirty people at table, and I returned with my company to Sevastopole in carriages. I called just now the Turkish vessels boats, but I am told they are ships; a most dangerous sort of conveyance for men or merchandise in my opinion, long, narrow, and top-heavy. The frigate prepared for me seems a good ship; the three sea-officers who go with me, have never been at Constantinople; we go as merchants, for by a treaty between the Forte and Russia, trading vessels may come from the Black Sea into the Canal of Constantinople, but not men of war. We have a Greek pilot on board, who is to steer us safe, please Heaven. I am told we are not to be much more than two days in our passage; but I have told my company I expect to be seven. Why I have chosen the number seven I cannot guess; but I can give no other reason to you than that I have long resolved in my mind to expect a triple dose of any bitter draught I am obliged to swallow; and I assure you, Sir, in this method of calculating events, I shall not be so often disappointed as I have been in life, when the natural chearfulness of my mind made me always
foresee prosperous gales.
I shall write to you next from the Canal, whence I hope to afford you some entertainment. There and every where else, Sir, I am with all gratitude, respect, and esteem,
Your most affectionate, and ever attached sister, E. C—
P. S.
You may think me very odd in saying a voyage is a bitter draught to me; you will be much more surprised when I tell you I hate travelling; but you know why I travel —
And as I do, I am determined to see that place where the capital of the world ought to be placed; when I am sick at sea I shall think of that; and that according to a vulgar English saying, the longest way about is the nearest way home—
LETTER XLV.
PALAIS DE FRANCE, PERA,
April 20, 1786.
I Am safely arrived, dear Sir, and hasten to inform you how I made my voyage. I set out the 13th at five in the morning; Mr. de Wynowitch took me out of the harbour in a small frigate, and after seeing me safe in my cabbin took leave. I gave him many thanks for the attentions he had paid me, and wished him an opportunity of signalizing his courage at sea, which seemed to be the thing he had most at heart. He gave me a royal salute, and as his guns fired, we set sail with a fair wind; we had not been two days at sea before we were becalmed; and we lay three days and three nights, wishing for wind, which came on at last very fresh with rain. It was a side-wind, the rain prevented us from seeing the Turkish shore sometimes, and sometimes we could see it very distinctly; but we ran thus four-and-twenty hours to the left, without seeing the objects that precede the entrance of the Canal. On the seventh day, the Greek pilot, the only person on board who had ever been at Constantinople, was dead drunk and incapable of speaking, much less of steering the ship. The officers were greatly alarmed, and there was a long consultation between them and the rest of the company. I luckily had a small map of the Black Sea, and the entrance of the Canal, which alone was our guide. As to me I had dressed myself in a riding habit, and had a small box in one hand, an umbrella in the other, and had told the captain I was determined to get into the boat and land on the Turkish shore, rather than lose sight of the Canal, or sail into it without being quite sure that we were right. There is a large rock on the European shore, which is so far distant from it that, unless a map or pilot directs the mariner, he must infallibly take it for the entrance of the Bosphorus, and several hundreds of Turkish boats are wrecked upon it yearly.
The gentlemen and officers stood all the morning upon deck, watching the shore; we had ran then above ninety leagues to the left, always seeing land, which was owing to the currents which had taken our ship during the three days calm, so much more to the right. As to me I stood between decks, till the Captain told me to come and look at a village, church, or something. It was a Turkish Minaret, and a few moments afterward we saw that rock I dreaded so much, upon which there are about a thousand Turkish vessels that perish constantly every year, as the Turks forget as they leave it to the left in coming out, they must leave it to the right in going in. Perhaps they are like an Irish acquaintance of mine, who going up a very steep hill in a carriage to pay a visit, could never be made to understand that he was to go down the hill in returning; the only argument he made use of was, that as the road was the same, he must necessarily go up the hill, having done so, in going over that same road—
To return to my voyage, Sir: you may judge how infinitely comfortable I felt, in being at anchor about six in the evening; escaped from all the dangers I had been threatened with upon the Black Sea; and the ugly circumstance that attended us when we were about to take our leave of it. I had so many birds, among which was a most beautiful milk-white small heron, that had taken refuge in the ship, that my cabbin looked like a bird-shop. We supped on board very comfortably, and I took some hours rest; and the next morning we put ourselves in the long-boat, and were rowed to Mr. de Bukalow's house at Bouyukdere, but he was at Pera, so we were rowed by a Turkish boat down to Pera. The Bosphorus takes a sudden turn at Bouyukdere—I refer you to Mr. Gibbon, Sir, for his account of the singular situation of Constantinople, my pen will repeat feebly what he has described in language majestic as the subject deserves. But I am certain no landscape can amuse or please in comparison with the varied view, which the borders of this famed Straight compose. Rocks, verdure, ancient castles, built on the summit of the hills by the Genoese—modern Kiosks
Kiosk means a summer-house with blinds all round.
, Minarets, and large platane-trees, rising promiscuous in the vallies—large meadows—multitudes of people, and boats swarming on the shore and on the water; and what was particular, nothing to be seen like a formal French garden. The Turks have so great a respect for natural beauties, that if they must build a house where a tree stands, they leave a large hole for the tree to pass through and increase in size, they think the branches of it the prettiest ornament for the top of the house; in truth, Sir, contrast a chimney to a beautiful foliage, and judge if they are right or wrong. The coast is so safe that a large fleet of Turkish vessels is to be seen in every creek, masts of which are intermingled with the trees, and a graceful confusion and variety make this living picture the most poignant scene I ever beheld.
Judge of Mr. de Bukalow's surprise, when he had opened his letters and read my name, he had scarcely time to offer me his services, when Mr. de Choiseul's people came and claimed me from their master, who had been prepared for three weeks before my arrival, by Mr. de Segur at Petersburgh; and, I confess, from the character I had heard of him, I was not at all sorry that he claimed my society as his
droit
—And now I have heard him speak, I am extremely glad that I am to profit by his conversation and company, both of which are as much to be desired as talents and politeness can make them. Adieu for to-day. I am sun-burnt, tired, but likewise pleased beyond measure—yes, Sir, pleased to be here, and to call myself by the honoured name of
Your affectionate sister, E. C—
LETTER XLVI.
April 25, 1786.
I Have a double satisfaction in being
au Palais de France;
Mr. de Choiseul has been sick these six months and never been out, but his spirits are better, and upon my account he has opened his house, and goes out a little, which cannot fail to do him good. He has some artists with him, whose pencils he has employed to collect all the finest drawings, coloured, of the finest ruins that exist either in Europe or Asia, where an artist could venture. Monsieur Casas, one of them, has been plundered by Arabs several times; but his beautiful and accurate drawings will gain him immortal honour. The Comte de Choiseul's collection is, perhaps, the only thing in the world of the kind, and he means, when he returns to Paris, to have all the ruins and temples executed in plaster of Paris, or some materials which will copy the marble, in some models; to be placed in a gallery upon tables—
The ambassador assures me the most ancient and finest amphitheatre in the world is at Pola in Istria, three days fail South-East of Venice; it stands near the port, and in good preservation. The Temple of Augustus and Triumphal Arch, both of the Corinthian order, belonging to the same town, are fine monuments of antiquity—Mr. Casas has taken drawings of them. At night when we have no visitors, and all the ambassador's business is done, he comes into my room, followed by Mr. Casas and a few more people, with large
portefeuilles
full of these most beautiful drawings, and we pass three or four hours looking over them, and conversing upon topics which are my savourites. It is a singular instance of good taste in a Frenchman, to have given himself up ten years ago to the finding and collecting all that is really best worthy of record, as to the ancient architecture. Mr. de Choiseul's
Voyage Pittoresque de la Grece,
and when he was but two-and-twenty, taking the most perilous journeys to find out new antiquities, if I may so call them, must endear him to all lovers of the fine arts—but now that his judgment is formed, and that he sits down to collect all his materials together, I doubt not the work he is about to publish, which is an addition to the first, will be the most perfect thing of the kind existing. You will wonder that I do not begin this letter by giving you a magnificent account of the view from my windows; but my eyes and ears both are so much better pleased within than without doors, that I must first give you an account of what passes there. Mr. de Choiseul, beside being a very fine scholar, is a very lively and polite man; and has none of that kind of most odious attention which young Frenchmen display, thinking it necessary to say fine things to, or admire ladies upon the slightest acquaintance; he has the dignity of the
Vieille cour,
with the ease of modern manners; and, if I was the Empress of Russia, he could not treat me with more respect, no
if I was his sister with more regard. His house is like a very fine French Hotel at Paris, built with good stone and wood, rare materials here, where every house is in the construction like a stage, and composed of as slight materials From some of the windows I look across that harbour called the Golden Horn by the ancients, and from others can see the sea of Marmora, the islands therein, and part of the Seraglio—from mine I saw yesterday the Sultan sitting on a silver sofa, while his boats, and many of the people who were to accompany him, were lining the banks of the garden. A magnificent sight, as they are of a light shape, gilt, and painted very beautifully. We had a large telescope, and saw the Ottoman solendour very distinctly. The Sultan dyes his beard black, to give himself a young look—and he is known at a considerable distance by that, which contrasts singularly with his face, that is extremely livid and pale. The kiosk, which contained him and his silver sofa, was not very large, and like a hundred others to be seen on the Canal. It is strange, Sir, how words gain in other countries a signification different from the meaning they possess in their own. Serail, or Seraglio, is generally understood as the habitation, or rather the confinement of women; here it is the Sultan's residence; it cannot be called his palace, for the kiosks, gardens, courts, walls, stables, are so mixed, that it is many houses in many gardens.
The streets both of Pera and Constantinople are so narrow that few of them admit of a carriage—the windows of every story project over those under them, so that at the upper people may shake hands sometimes across the street. No Turk of any consequence makes a visit, if it is only four doors from his own, but on horseback; and, on my arrival here, I saw one who landed in a boat, and had a fine grey horse led by four men, that went a long way round, which he mounted gravely, to get off in a few moments.
As to women, as many, if not more than men, are to be seen in the streets—but they look like walking mummies. A large loose robe of dark green cloth covers them from the neck to the ground, over that a large piece of muslin, which wraps the shoulders and the arms, another which goes over the head and eyes; judge, Sir, if all these coverings do not confound all shape or air so much, that men or women, princesses and slaves, may be concealed under them. I think I never saw a country where women may enjoy so much liberty, and free from all reproach, as in Turkey. A Turkish husband that sees a pair of slippers at the door of his harem must not enter; his respect for the sex prevents him from intruding when a stranger is there upon a visit; how easy then is it for men to visit and pass for women! If I was to walk about the streets here I would certainly wear the same dress, for the Turkish women call others names, when they meet them with their faces uncovered. When I go out I have the Ambassador's sedan-chair, which is like mine in London, only gilt and varnished like a French coach, and six Turks carry it; as they fancy it impossible that two or four men can carry one; two Janissaries walk before with high fur caps on. The Ambassadors here have all Janissaries as guards allowed them by the Porte. Thank Heaven I have but a little way to go in this pomp, and fearing every moment the Turks should fling me down they are so awkward; for the platform, where people land and embark from and to Pera is not far from this house—
There the Ambassador's boat waits for us, and we row out: boats here are to be hired as hackney-coaches are in London, and all very beautifully carved, most of them with some gilding; the shape of these boats is light and beautiful, and the Turks row very well, which is a thing quite incompatible with the idleness visible in all ranks of people. I saw a Turk the other day lying on cushions, striking slowly an iron which he was shaping into an horseshoe, his pipe in his mouth all the time—nay, among the higher order of Turks, there is an invention which saves them the trouble of holding the pipe, two small wheels are fixed on each side the bowl of the pipe, and thus the smoaker has only to puff away, or let the pipe rest upon his under lip, while he moves his head as he pleases. Perhaps, Sir, it is lucky for Europe that the Turks are idle and ignorant; the immense power this empire might have, were it peopled by the industrious and ambitious, would make it the mistress of the world. At present it only serves as a dead wall to intercept the commerce and battles which other powers might create one another—
The quiet stupid Turk will sit a whole day by the side of the Canal, looking at flying kites or children's boats—and I saw one who was enjoying the shade of an immense platane-tree—his eyes fixed on a kind of bottle, diverted by the noise and motion of it, while the stream kept it in constant motion. How the business of the nation goes on at all I cannot guess, for the cabinet is composed generally of ignorant mercenaries; the Visir was a water-carrier to Hassan Bey, the Capitan Pacha, or highadmiral. Hassan himself was only a servant at Algiers. Places are obtained at the Porte by intrigue; each placeman, each Sultaness has her creatures, and plots for placing them; and Versailles has not more intricate intrigue than the Porte. A rebellious bashaw raises troops and lives in open defiance of the sovereign who invested him with his authority. There is one at this moment, at the head of forty thousand men in Albany, who might with the greatest ease make himself king of a large country—his name is Masmoud, not above thirty years of age—and he succeeded his father in the government, which he now holds in defiance of the Porte. Is it to be wondered at if the Turk is a predestinarian in most things, since it is neither birth or abilities that can give him place or power—nor is there generally any visible just reason why heads are struck off. There is a recent example here, proving that the confidence of the Sultan is not the surest way to escape a sudden and unexpected death. One Petraki, a Greek, a kind of banker to the court, by his frequent access to Achmet, raised the jealousy of the ministry, who, upon various pretences, one day in council, desired Petraki's head might fall—
The Sultan, whose private reasons for keeping it on, were infinitely better than those Petraki's enemies had alledged, was extremely averse to such a thing; but the Capitan Pacha and his friends were bold enough to declare, they would not stir out of the council till Achmet had signed the order; which he did, with the tears streaming down his cheeks. Upon such occasions, there is a person whose place it is to go to the house of the unfortunate dead man, and examine the papers of any person who in his life-time had dealings with the cabinet—
The man found some, which he sealed up with four large seals, and desired they might be delivered into the Sultan's own hands; very much alarmed at having seen them; for Petraki was the private agent of the Sultan, who received the money, which Petraki seemed only to receive for places which his interest procured; and Petraki's accounts were so regularly kept, that the money he delivered, with the dates and the places, were registered—
The vile low intrigues of the ministers here are not to be imagined. The Sultan has the highest opinion of the sense and courage of the Capitan Pacha; when he quits Constantinople the Sovereign thinks his capital in danger. But I find all ranks of people agree in his having introduced a better police for the town than hitherto existed. At a fire some Janissaries not doing their duty properly, he had four of them flung into it.
Pour encourager les autres,
as Voltaire has observed upon another occasion. He is always accompanied by a lion, who follows him like a dog; the other day he suffered him to accompany him to the Divau, but the ministers were so terrified that some jumped out of the windows, one was near breaking his neck in flying down stairs, and the High Admiral and his lion were left to settle the councils of the day together—
I think it a lucky thing for the Ambassadors that the Turks neither pay nor receive visits.—Could any thing be so terrible as the society of the most ignorant and uninformed men upon earth?
You know, I suppose, that they were always persuaded it was impossible for a Russian fleet to come to Constantinople by any other sea than the Black Sea; and though the French endeavoured to prove to them by maps, the passage of their enemies to the Archipelago; till the Turkish fleet was engaged with the Russian in the Bay of Tchesme, no Turk would believe the possibility of the thing—
I am told here that a Mr. Bouverie, who desired to see Constantinople, came and looked at it from the frigate he was in—but never landed—I really do not think he was to blame. Constantinople, and the entrance of the Bosphorus by the sea of Marmora, is the most majestic, magnificent, graceful, and lively scene the most luxuriant imagination can desire to behold.
It was no wonder Constantine chose it for the seat of empire. Nature has composed of earth and water such a landscape, that taste, unassisted by ambitious reflections, would naturally desire to give the picture living graces; but I who am apt to suppose whatever is in possibility to exist, often place along the shore, Petersburgh, Paris, London, Moscow, Amsterdam, and all the great towns I have seen, separate from each other, and there is full room enough. Here I will end my suppositions, and think it better that man has done so little where nature has done so much—
et que tout est comme il doit etre;
who ought with more justice to think so; I who have you for my friend and brother. But lest you should not be of the same opinion as to the length of this letter, I will now take my leave, and assure you I remain at all times and places,
Your affectionate E. C—
LETTER XLVII.
THE harbour called the Golden Horn, which separates Pera and Constantinople, has a singularity I wish much to have explained to me. All the filth and rubbish of both towns are constantly flung into it; custom-houses, barracks, store-houses, the dock-yard, all these are placed on the borders of it; whole dunghills are swept into it; no measures for keeping it clean are taken, no quays are formed by men; yet by the strength or variety of currents, or some other natural cause, this port is always clean, and deep enough to admit of the entrance of the largest merchantmen; which, like as in all the other harbours in the canal, may be hooked on, close to the shore—This harbour grows narrower as it meets the fresh water, and ends at last in a small rivulet; but where it is just wide enough to have the appearance of a small river, the French some time past have dammed the fresh water up, making of it square pieces of water, to imitate those of Marly. Here kiosks and trees have been placed in great regularity, and it is here that on a Friday Turks in groupes are to be seen dining, taking coffee, or smoaking upon carpets, spread under the shade of the immense and lofty platane. I can give you no other idea of the size of some of these beautiful trees, but by telling you it corresponds to the gigantic landscape of which they make the finest ornament; yes, my dear Sir, the largest oaks you can have seen would look, set down by these, as little broomsticks. Women in groupes likewise, apart from the men, meet here; but when they come to these places, of which there are a great number near Constantinople, they hire what they imagine to be coaches, called
arabats
—A vile machine like a covered cart, with rows of benches in the inside There are no springs to them; and one day in a valley called
l' Echelle du grand Seigneur,
I got into one, but chose rather to get out and walk six miles, than be jolted unmercifully. All the Ambassadors since my arrival here have given balls and dinners. Madame d'Herbert, the Imperial Minister's wife, is lively, and I see her often. The Dutch Ambassador's wife is a very good woman; and I am very comfortable, thinking people extremely good to me to answer the million of questions I ask. There is but one person here to whom I never apply about any thing; for I observe a shifted smile upon every person's countenance when he opens his lips; his long residence here has given the other —
So if his details to the — cabinet are as true as those in society—the business of the nation will go on admirably —
By the by, Sir, I forgot to tell you I found Sir Richard Worsley here, who has travelled much, with a person to take views for him. He shewed me a coloured drawing of the castle of Otranto; which, said he, I intend to present to Mr. W—; and pray, Sir, says I, are you an acquaintance of his?
No;
upon which I hesitated not to ask him for it; that I as a friend of W—'s may have the pleasure of giving it to him. He intreated me to accept of some Egyptian pebbles, as knife handles—and I obtained for him a permission to go in the frigate, that brought me hither, to the Crimea—
I am told there is an English merchant here extremely offended at my loding
au Palais de France,
and says, if Sir R. Ainstie's house was not good enough for me, he had a new house, which he would have emptied, and let me have had it all to myself—It is an affront to the
nation,
he says—
A peeress of England to lodge at the French Ambassador's!
—The English merchants are very good to me; I believe they guess the respect and esteem I have for them—
Mr. de Bukalow sent me a few days past one of Merlin's finest piano-fortes, to remain here as long as I stay; and Mr. de Choiseul found out a pedal-harp somewhere, and had it set in my room—I believe people think it so singular a thing for a lady to come here without being obliged, as a minister's wife, that they endeavour to keep me as long as they can; Mr. d'Herbert told me —
I repeat this to you, Sir, that you may know at least that —
Think me not quite unworthy of your esteem and friendship—and you will find I prize both, beyond those of every other person; being
Your affectionate E. C—
LETTER XLVIII.
DEAR SIR,
IT would seem that every thing in nature which has remarkable advantages, has likewise some misfortunes attending it that counterbalance the good, so as to reduce the portion of happiness to a level for mankind. This beautiful enchanting country, the climate, the objects, the situation of it, make it an earthly Paradise; but the plague—but earthquakes—what terrifying subjects, to make the thinking part fly it for ever. If things and persons may be compared, it is not a beautiful woman, who is handsomer than most of her sex, with accomplishments equal to her beauty; but whom the world, her very inmates envy those advantages—and might not the base passions that surround her frighten her greatest admirers from trusting to her bewitching charms—
I was led to this comparison by talking about the Grecian Islands, which I mean to visit—they are all I am told volcanos; some of them have disappeared; and those who have furnished Greece with their men of greatest genius, only like them, are to be found in books; and by an adventure which happened to us yesterday, as we embarked at Tophana. There are small platforms of wood fixed on to the edge of the water, where people leave or take boats. As we arrived a boat full of Turks landed with a corpse, seemingly in great haste, and as they passed, touched Mons de Choiseul and me. He started, and I asked him what was the matter—He told me he was sure it was a man dead of the plague; and in truth it was so. Judge how disagreeable to one who had not been out for six months—
I have been to see the Mosque of St. Sophia, with two others. The dome of St. Sophia is extremely large, and well worth seeing, but some of the finest pillars are set topsy-turvy, or have capitals of Turkish architecture. In these holy temples neither the beautiful statues belonging to Pagan times, nor the costly ornaments of modern Rome, are to be seen: some shabby lamps, hung irregularly, are the only expence the Mahometans permit themselves, as a proof of their respect for the Deity or his Prophet. I went and sat some time up stairs, to look down into the body of the temple—I saw several Turks and women kneeling, and seemingly praying with great devotion. Mosques are constantly open; and I could not help reflecting that their mode of worship is extremely convenient for the carrying on a plot of any sort. A figure, wrapped up like a mummy, can easily kneel down by another without being suspected, and mutter in a whisper any sort of thing; the longer the conversation lasts the more edified a silent observer may be. No particular hour for divine service, or person to officiate, is appointed. It is true, that at certain hours of the day men are seen on the minarets or steeples, bawling and hallooing to all good Mussulmen, that it is the hour appointed for prayer; but they follow their own convenience or devout humour, and say their prayers not only when but where they choose—for I have seen several Turks, in the most public and noisy places about Constantinople, kneeling and praying, without being the least deranged or disturbed by the variety of objects or noises that surrounded or passed by them. In order to procure me a sight of the Mosques, the Ambassador was obliged to apply for a permission; the Porte graciously gave one; in which I had leave to see seventy-five. The burial places for the dead are very numerous, and in a manner surround Constantinople and Pera, forming very shady romantic walks, as the trees and grave-stones are huddled together in a confused manner; both presenting great variety to those who ramble among them. Each grave-stone is crowned with a turban, the form of which shews the employment or quality of the corpse when living—I shall send you a drawing that will give you some idea of them—
I can give you no just idea of the beauty of the trees; which, particularly in these burial places, are never touched, therefore spread and grow in the most luxuriant and graceful disorder. There are no bounds set, or fences to restrain or design the form of these burial places, some extend a mile or two; and, if it was not for one disagreeable reflexion, would be as pleasant to a foreigner as to a Turk; but when we consider that it is pestiferated earth we tread on; that every new made grave may contain a body rotting with the plague, and the slight manner in which it is covered with earth, from the hurry with which it is thrown in, we cannot with reason stay therein. Turks are predestinarians, and therefore imagine it is fate, and not the care which is taken in Christian houses that prevents them from dying of this horrid disorder; therefore walk unconcerned, under the dangerous shade of the trees that hang over their deceased neighbours—
Constantinople is almost surrounded by a very high wall, turreted and flanked by large square towers, built by the Greek Emperors—the style of architecture exactly like that of Warwick and Berkeley Castle; but many of the square towers, which serve as gateways, are mouldering away under the negligence of the Turks; most of whom believe in an ancient prophecy, which announces that the time is near when the Empress of Russia is to make her public and triumphal entry through one of these towers, as Empress of Greece, into Constantinople. Many have made up their minds, and taken their measures to transport themselves across the Bosphorus into Asia; nay, some go so far as to point to the very identical gateway through which she is to proceed. To some nations it would be very agreeable that the Turkish empire was to be driven from a situation, which seems by nature formed as an universal passage for trading nations, which the inactivity of the Turks has too long obstructed. And it is to be wished by all those who bear any respect to the best monuments of sculpture, that Athens, and all it yet contains, might not by Mahometan ignorance be entirely destroyed: at present, ruins, that would adorn a virtuoso's cabinet, are daily burnt into lime by the Turks; and pieces of exquisite workmanship stuck into a wall or fountain. There remains but a very little of that pillar that once probably was a fine ornament to the Atmeidan, or market for horses.
I have seen likewise the Sultan go in ceremony to prayers—from the gate of the Seraglio to the door of the Mosque—it was but a few paces. He was preceded by a double row of Janissaries, to the amount of about an hundred and fifty, with other attendants; he was mounted on a grey horse led by two persons, and followed by his son, a sickly looking child, sitting on a milk-white horse; over his head was held a green umbrella, the ribs of which were set with diamonds. You must know diamonds are the things which the Turks are most fond of. While the Porte delays erecting batteries upon the most important posts, under the pretence of wanting money to pay for the pieces and work necessary for the defence of the empire, the jewellers cannot find diamonds enough to supply the demands of the Harem, for which they are paid ready money. It is the quantity, and not the quality of this stone, which they prize: scarcely any other than rose diamonds are to be seen here—
I have been with a large party to see the Captain Pacha's wife, but as this letter will not contain an account of this curious visit, I must defer my account of it to the next. Believe me, Sir, with the truest esteem and affection,
Your faithful friend and sister, E. C—
LETTER XLIX.
PALAIS DE FRANCE, PERA,
May 7, 1786.
DEAR SIR,
MONSIEUR de Choiseul proposed to the Ambassadors wives and me to go and see the Capitan Pacha's country seat; accordingly we set out with several carriages, and about a league from Constantinople, towards Romelia, we arrived there: The house and plantations about it are new and irregular. The Ambassadors and the rest of the male party were suffered to walk in the garden; but the Minister's wives and myself were shewn into a separate building from the house, where the ground floor was made to contain a great quantity of water, and looked like a large clean cistern. We then were led up stairs, and upon the landing-place, which was circular, the doors of several rooms were open. In some there was nothing to be seen, in others two or three women sitting close together; in one, a pretty young woman, with a great quantity of jewels on her turban, was sitting almost in the lap of a frightful negro woman; we were told she was the Capitan Pacha's sister-in-law; she looked at us with much surprise; and at last, with great fear, threw herself into the arms of the Black woman, as if to hide herself. We were called away into a larger room than any we had seen, where the Capitan Pacha's wife, a middleaged woman, dressed with great magnificence, received us with much politeness; many women were with her, and she had by her a little girl, dressed as magnificently as herself, her adopted child. She made an excuse for not receiving us at the door, as she was dining with her husband when we arrived. Coffee, sherbet, and sweetmeats were offered, and we hastened to take our leave, as our cavaliers were cooling their heels in the garden.
You can conceive nothing so neat and clean to all appearance as the interior of this Harem; the floors and passages are covered with matting of a close and strong kind; the colour of the straw or reeds with which they are made is a pale straw. The rooms had no other furniture than the cushions, which lined the whole room, and those, with the curtains, were of white linen. As the Turks never come into the room, either men or women, with the slippers they walk abroad with there is not a speck of sand or dirt within doors. I am
femmelette
enough to have taken particular notice of the dress, which, if female envy did not spoil every thing in the world of women, would be graceful. It consists of a petticoat and vest, over which is worn a robe with short sleeves; the one belonging to the lady of the house was of sattin, embroidered richly with the finest colours, gold and diamonds—A girdle under that, with two circles of jewels in front, and from this girdle hangs an embroidered handkerchief—A turban with a profusion of diamonds and pearls, seemed to weigh this lady's head down; but what spoiled the whole was a piece of ermine, that probably was originally only a cape, but each woman increasing the size of it, in order to be more magnificent than her neighbour, they now have it like a great square plaister that comes down to the hips; and these simple ignorant beings do not see that it disfigures the
tout ensemble
of a beautiful dress. The hair is separated in many small braids hanging down the back, or tied up to the point of the turban on the outside. I have no doubt but that nature intended some of these women to be very handsome, but white and red ill applied, their eye-brows hid under one or two black lines—teeth black by smoaking, and an universal stoop in the shoulders, made them appear rather disgusting than handsome. The last defect is caused by the posture they sit in, which is that of a taylor, from their infancy—
The black powder with which they line their eyelids gives their eyes likewise a harsh expression. Their questions are as simple as their dress is studied—Are you married? Have you children? Have you no disorder? Do you like Constantinople? The Turkish women pass most of their time in the bath or upon their dress; strange pastimes! The first spoils their persons, the last disfigures them. The frequent use of hot-baths destroys the solids, and these women at nineteen look older than I am at this moment. They endeavour to repair by art the mischief their constant soaking does to their charms; but till some one, more wise than the rest, finds out the cause of the premature decay of that invaluable gift, beauty, and sets an example to the rising generation of a different mode of life, they will always fade as fast as the roses they are so justly fond of—
Our gentlemen were very curious to hear an account of the Harem, and when we were driving out of the court-yard, a messenger from the Harem came running after us, to desire the carriages might be driven round the court two or three times, for the amusement of the Capitan Pacha's wife and the Harem, that were looking through the blinds; this ridiculous message was not complied with, as you may imagine; and we got home, laughing at our adventures.
You must not suppose that carriages may proceed in the streets of Pera, or Constantinople, as fast as in those of London or Paris. A race of dogs, belonging to no one in particular but to every Turk indifferently, swarm in the streets; and so accustomed are they to have the Turks on horseback turn out of the middle of the street, where they lie basking in the sun, that our servants were obliged to stop the carriages and lift the dogs out of the way, several times, before we reached the
Palais de France.
Nothing is more horrible than the species of this animal here, all of the same race, an ugly currish breed; nothing more absurd than the general protection afforded them; on every dunghill you may see a hundred fighting and scrambling for the filth they can scratch out of it; for the ill-understood charity, publickly given them, is by no means sufficient to feed them, and many hundreds die with hunger. No man has a dog belonging to him, but all dogs are suffered to lie and breed about the streets. Turtle-doves are likewise an object of respect with the Turks, and they are seen disputing the crumbs with the hungry curs in the streets—
Adieu, my dear brother, my best wishes and respects attend you—
Your's affectionately, E. C—
LETTER L.
MY DEAR SIR,
I Have seen a very horrible sight, though not a new one to those who inhabit Constantinople or Pera. Yesterday I went upon the Canal to see the departure of the Capitan Pacha, commanding the Turkish fleet, which set sail for Egypt; and at night a most dreadful fire broke out in Constantinople, probably kindled by the partizans of the commander, in order to persuade the Sultan that in the absence of this favourite, he is not in the same security as when he is at present—
You may be surprised at this supposition, but nothing is more frequent than tricks of this kind: I went up with the Ambassador and many more persons into the Observatory, and staid till three in the morning, to make my remarks. The houses are like tinder, and burn as fast as matches from their slight construction and the material which is wood. The scene of horror and confusion was great, and though the fire began at the edge of the water, and the Janissaries were very diligent, above seventy houses were burnt presently—
The Sultan, when he wants to make the common people believe he has no fears, goes out incognito, in a hired boat with only two or three attendants. I had seen him come out thus of a back-door of his garden, just after the fleet had sailed; the fire at night was calculated to renew his fears, if he had lost them. But here it is known when he sallies forth without guards and ceremony: it is like children that sing in the dark, to make their nurses believe they are not afraid—
Upon new buildings or children, the Turks imagine the looks of Christians bring ill luck—and so to attract what they call the
evil fight,
upon arches or houses they suspend a ball, or some fantastic thing to fix the attention of those who pass, in order that the eyes may not be fixed too long on the building. As to children, particularly the Sultan's, the guards hide them when Christian men or women would look at them—
All this is very childish indeed; but there are a thousand superstitious ideas the Turks have relative to the Franks, which is the name by which they distinguish every one who wears an European dress. Among others, they imagine them to have an intuitive knowledge in physic—and ask Christians oftener to give them a cure for disorders than any other question.
The red leather pocket-books, embroidered with gold so neatly, and which you may have seen, are to be had cheap here; half-a-guinea or fifteen shillings is the highest price for them: I shall send you one or two, and beg you will keep my letters to you in them. I know, dear Sir, the magnificent outside of them will not please you half so well as the simple scrawl within—
Among many absurdities the Turks are guilty of, there is one for which I see no reason. The Sultans formerly built different palaces on the borders of the Canal, which are now forsaken. There is one on the Asiatic side in the midst of a fine garden, falling to ruin very fast: In it there are yet costly looking-glasses and furniture, these are not removed but suffered to fall and perish as it may please the winds and ruin to direct. As no one is to touch or remove any thing, the Porte and public are equally losers; the garden, large enough to make a beautiful park, is quite wild; and as no one goes into it, one of the finest spots on that coast, just facing the Seraglio, is lost to every one. I find this is the case with every royal residence, which, when abandoned by the caprice of the sovereign, is not demolished or unfurnished, but left in the same manner—
If there are many simple and absurd customs and opinions among the Turks, there exists likewise much generosity and magnificence in their conduct when in an opulent situation. No minister of the Porte has an interview with a foreign ambassador, or stranger of any rank, without making presents; which these return according to their opulence, or inclination to be noble. Mr. de Choiseul will not avail himself of this opportunity of becoming rich, for I am told he never receives any thing without giving in return a present of double the value; and I am sure more from the noble disposition of his own mind, than for the honour of his King and country—though both in him would weigh greatly towards this conduct. It is not so with — and —
You see nothing is more easy here than for a Minister to
make money
of
interviews,
and turn political conversations into
solid gold—
The Turks in their conduct towards our sex are an example to all other nations. A Turk has his head cut off—his papers are examined—every thing in his house seized—but the wife is provided for; her jewels are left her—
The Harem is sacred even to that rapacious power which has seized the master's life, only because he was rich. It may be said, that in Turkey likewise, women are perfectly safe from an idle, curious, impertinent public, and what is called the
world
can never disturb the ease and quiet of a Turkish wife. Her talents, her beauty, her happiness, or misery, are equally concealed from malicious observers. Of misery, unless a Turkish woman is beyond conception unreasonable, I cannot imagine that her portion can be great; for the wife whose wretched husband earns subsistence by carrying water, or burthens, sits at home bedecked with jewels, or goes out as her fancy directs, and the fruits of his labour are appropriated to her use. In great houses, the wives of the Turks, who compose the train of a Turkish husband, are destined to be subservient to the state of the first wife, and she treats them as she pleases in her Harem. According to what I hear, a Turkish husband does not care for his wife, as the object of his passion, except for a very short space of time; but as wife she enjoys all the luxury of his fortune; and I repeat it, Sir, I think no women have so much liberty, safe from apprehension, as the Turkish—and I think them, in their manner of living, capable of being the happiest creatures breathing.
I have been to see two Greek brides in Constantinople: Their custom is to receive every body who has any curiosity to see their wedding clothes. These were very magnificent, and the women pretty; and looked prettier from a singular contrast in the turn of their features. One had a true Greek face, her head small, her nose straight, large blue eyes, with dark or rather black eyelids and hair, and her eyebrows straight; her neck long and round, her person rather inclining to lean than fat; a soft and sad countenance. The other was fattish; had black lively eyes, with a chearful laughing countenance, her blood seemed to ebb and flow with more vivacity than her sister's-in-law. Her mouth, rather large, shewed a fine set of teeth, while the one with a smaller mouth and prettier teeth, seemed as unwilling to shew them, or light up her fine features with smiles, as the black-eyed bride was ready to laugh upon every or no occasion. They had both very little red on, and the pallid skin of the delicate Greek was perfectly suited to the form of the one—the other blushed often. They might have served for good models of the Tragic and Comic Muse. I would Sir Joshua had been at my elbow, his compositions are fine enough to satisfy a youthful poet's imagination, but here his pencil might not have disdained to copy two such charming originals. It is a very rare thing in this country to find fair or auburn hair. I am told if a slave can be bought with such—many more purses are given for them than for any other. A large sum of money here is reckoned by purses. Adieu for the present, dear Sir— may you receive have the satisfaction in reading my letters, that I feel in devoting my solitary moments to you—and believe me for ever,
Your attached and faithful sister, E. C—
LETTER LI.
PALAIS DE FRANCE, PERA,
May 6, 1786.
YOU must not suppose, my dear Sir, that I am so delighted with the scene before me, that I mean not to avail myself of being so near the Grecian Islands. I had consulted Mr. de Choiseul upon the best method of hiring a vessel, but the difficulties were so great that, with his usual goodness and politeness, he has sound a method of obliterating them all by lending me a little frigate called the Tarleton, of fourteen guns, commanded by a very pleasant civil little man, and his friend, Mr. de Truguet; this little frigate is English built, and was taken in America. Mons de Choiseul, whose health requires the hot-baths of Bursa, is to accompany us to the port of Moudagna, and when he is landed safely, I shall sail for the places which he, as the best director I can have, will order: I shall take two of his artists with me, and in all things be guided by him. You see, Sir, my happy star is then to permit me to see places in an agreeable manner, with less difficulty, and more comfort than generally falls to the lot of one person. Some old
wise
observer says, a
single
misfortune never comes alone: I may say so of pleasant circumstances—
I should imagine the different stile of life here to that in Europe must influence Mr. de Choiseul's spirits, and of course his health. I cannot call this a social place, the Ambassadors are totally confined for conversation or society to themselves, and you know very well, it is not being incorporated into the
corps diplomatique
that gives a person the qualities necessary to make them good company. The different interests of their different courts must inevitably make them disagree in public matters, and that disagreement may produce reserve in private life. I shall give you a sketch of all the Ministers at present here —
And now, Sir, we will turn to the Greeks, which are as numerous as the Turks here. The remains or rather renovation of Greek beauty is often to be seen among them, but their patriotic spirit seems all centered in this age, in a violent attachment to the borders of the Canal. It is always among them that a prince is named by the Porte to reign in Moldavia and Wallachia; they stay generally three years, and retire with great fortunes, which they lay out in houses and gardens in the neighbourhood of Constantinople, where they are pretty sure they shall not be suffered to die in peace, but are generally beheaded; repeated examples do not deter them from staying, and leading a life of continual fear. They conceal as much as possible their riches, but the Seraglio has good spies, and these wretched Greeks are absolutely, through a just fear, prisoners in their own houses. It seems possible that the sight of the Bosphorus makes up to them for the loss of every other pleasure. A strange infatuation, when there is another empire whose religion is theirs, where they would meet with protection, and into which they might retire with their fortunes—
I saw the other day the public departure of a new named Prince for Wallachia. The procession was very fine, his own court and guards, with many escorts from the Porte, preceded and followed him two by two, a great number of horses, Janissaries, and cooks—the horses coverings were of cloth of gold or rich embroideries; two white horses tails on sticks, and a kind of cap like a helmet, the emblem of his dignity, were carried before him. He was an elderly man, and knowing the Ambassador, he looked up at the windows where we were sitting, and nodded. This
cortége
lasted a long time, and was really as fine a procession as ever I saw. This Prince calls himself Nicolai Morezzind, he is originally of the Island of Naxia—and he has taken a name that is not his own, because it is a better one with the Porte—
The lyre of the ancients is often to be seen in the hands of the Greeks; but I suppose in ancient days, as in these, whatever harmony possessed their souls, it affected only their eyes. From the lyre, or from any miserable fiddle or guittar they touch they only draw the most abominable discordant sounds, that accompany a kind of bawling, which they fancy is singing. Indeed music is a thing of which Turks and Greeks have not the least idea—
I am sure you wish me prosperous gales, and I will write from the first place I can find any conveyance for a letter to reach you—
Adieu, my dear Sir, With all respect and affection, I remain yours sincerely E. C—
LETTER LII.
PERA,
May 11, 1786.
Twelve at Night.
I Intended not to have written before I reached the Trojan coast at least, but as some account of the Sultan will not be uninteresting, I shall tell you what I have heard. He is extremely fearful,
timid,
and ignorant, totally unable to quell the interested little intrigues of his ministers, and direct the interior policy of his cabinet or empire. His excessive ignorance makes it impossible for him to imagine it necessary he should be acquainted with any thing out of Constantinople. He has an implicit faith in Hassan, the admiral or Capitan Pacha—that man's personal bravery being a kind of refuge for the Sultan's fears. The body of Janissaries sometimes make a revolt—several governors of provinces or Pachas have revolted at one time—fires are so frequent in Constantinople—and at present the Russian cabinet is so
exigeant,
that the moment is not far off when the Turks must be trampled upon, or break out with an honest indignation. There is a large party now murmuring loudly against the patience of the Porte; amidst this confusion is it to be wondered at that a man who has never been out of the Seraglio, of course less resolute than half the women in it, should tremble on his throne?
Selim, his nephew, who is to succeed him, is about six-and-twenty, and I am told has an understanding that breaks through the effeminate education he has received. Among other proofs of his being of a resolute disposition, as soon as he knew the horrid custom of strangling every infant which is born in the Seraglio, not the child of the reigning Sultan, he declared he would never be the cause of a human creature's death; and has constantly avoided any opportunities of becoming a father.
To night all the people who have been presented to me came to wish me a safe and pleasant voyage — come in, looking as like the Cousin Hogresten, as possible, and assured me the Islands of Naxos and Smyrna were ravaged by the plague at this moment; and that the rocks and storms in the Archipelago were the most dangerous in the world; that he wished me a safe return, but my intended voyage was very perilous. A stifled smile upon some people's faces, and the settled reputation he has for invention, made me perfectly easy, and if his intention was to render me otherwise, it has failed thoroughly; nor could we refrain from laughing when this Hogresten took his leave—
The Venetian Ambassador here is a very sensible man, but he dislikes his post; his passion is Rome; where he might sollow his taste for the fine arts. He is very conversible, and I dare say feels, as Mons. de Choiseul must, like the Prince in the Arabian Nights, who landed in a country where all the inhabitants were turned into stone; for indeed a nation with which one does not associate, is a nation of statues to strangers who are forced to remain in it, except that the people walk, ride, and go in boats—
Mr. de Choiseul has some excellent musicians, and we have had concerts; there are ladies that sing, but according to my usual shyness about music, I shall let no one here know I can — for — and so remaining—I wish you a good night—
E. C—
LETTER LIII.
ATHENS,
May 20, 1786.
I Set out on the 12th, at half past six in the evening, on board the Tarleton, which contained Mr. de Choiseul and great part of his household, myself, my fellow-traveller, and the officers; how this little frigate contained us all I do not know, but so it was, and all our servants. It was the finest weather in the world, and we passed those islands, called the Princes, to the left, which are seven miles and a half from Constantinople; from those to Cape Bourbouron, which is the promontory of land that forms part of the port of Moudagna, it is four-and-twenty miles and a half; from Cape Bourbouron to the port of Moudagna, thirteen. As we had but little wind, we did not make these four-and-forty miles and a half in less than seventeen hours; and after having landed our sick but amiable Ambassador, we set sail again, and when fairly out at sea, we had a most violent storm, and with difficulty saved ourselves from the Island of Marmora, a most tremendous naked rock, which seems only placed in the midst of that sea to receive a wreck from a thunder-storm. I was heartily sick and tired, for the shaking of so small a vessel shocks my slight person most horridly. When we were just over against the Trojan shore, I would fain have landed, but as there is nothing to see on the surface of the ground, and we had not time to stay, and dig for the ashes of the heroes' buried there, we contented ourselves with supposing what we might have found; we deplored Leander's fate as we passed the Straits, and found there the Capitan-Pacha and his fleet: our little frigate saluted him, he returned our salutation. We passed the western points of the Islands of Mittelina and Ipsera, leaving to the left the Island of Scio; to the right that of Miconia, and the little one of Dragonissa, and landed at the Island of Naxia or Naxos. I saw but little remains of the temple dedicated to Bacchus, which stands on the point of a rock, which probably was part of the island when the temple was built; at present one must scramble in a boat to reach that point where it stands; a fine proportion gives room to suppose it might have been very majestic. I was shewn the fountain beside which it is said the forsaken Ariadne wept her lover's flight, and where Bacchus found her; it is of white marble, too much destroyed by time to admit of description, and contains a spring of clear water.
The town of Naxos is a poor place; we waited near four hours to see a Naxiote maiden dressed in her holiday clothes, which are neither decent nor pretty: A short shift reaching to her knees served as a petticoat; her vest was fantastic beyond conception, pearls, feathers, beads, sowed on, in various forms; and two wings like those of a butterfly, stuck between her shoulders, added to the strange appearance. Her head and neck were adorned with gold, chains, pearls, stones, ribbands; in my life I never saw so bizarre a figure. We took our leave of her, making many excuses for the trouble we had given her, and sailed for the small island of Antiparos, which is to the right of Paros, where I could plainly discover the mouths of several quarries of that famous marble, of which, had I possessed a fairy's wand, I would have conveyed large blocks to England, and laid them at the feet of my friend Mrs. Damer, whose talent for sculpture makes her as distinguished in that art as in every other which she has chosen to profess—though her modesty has concealed many from the world—
Mr. de Choiseul's artists were to take astronomical and geometrical observations of the famous grotto, and I had promised to descend into it with them. An ass led by two Greeks was waiting on the shore for me, as the heat was excessive, and my companions were afraid I should be too much fatigued if I had walked. Indeed it was a league distant from the shore, and we ascended constantly; turning suddenly to the left, we descended a little, and a scene truly romantic offered itself; a vaulted semicircle formed by craggy rocks, some bearing the appearance of pillars, which seemed to support the pendant roof, and caverns which afforded a refreshing shade to different flocks of goats which the Greek shepherds had driven in, and were resting by, was an object worthy the pencil of my companions—
Here we rested, and a small hole on the ground was pointed to me as the entrance of the grotto. I was obliged to crawl in, a strong cord was fastened to the outside, and several sailors and Greeks preceded us with flambeaux; it required a good deal of courage and dexterity to proceed, sometimes I sat, and slid down small points of rock, which were the only support for hands or seet; in two places the descent was perpendicular; there rope ladders were fastened, and in one or two places, through holes on the left, we could look down perpendicularly into the grotto, where I arrived safely, refusing constantly to be assisted, for I thought myself in greater safety in trusting to my own hands and feet than to the assistance of others, who had enough to do in preventing themselves from slipping—
Tournefort says the grotto is three hundred fathoms perpendicular from the entrance; it is three hundred feet only; but as there are several windings in the passage, in times when mathematical calculations were in less perfection than at present, the mistake was an easy one. The feeble description my pen may trace of this famous grotto I must defer at present; I yet remember with pleasure its gloomy freshness, and the sweet spring of soft water we found in one corner of it, that made us relish our cold collation with much pleasure. My patient contemplation of objects, which the silent and cold hand of time only can produce, was very favourable to the artist who was taking a drawing of the interior of the grotto, intended for Mr. de Choiseul's second volume of his publication,
du Voyage Pittoresque de la Grece,
where I am to be seated at the foot of what they call
le
Grand Autel.
Would, my dear and honoured friend, you had been sitting by my side, for! fear no pen or pencil can do justice to the immensity of objects I saw, nor the beauty of them. When I recollect the coolness of my seat, I feel the more fatigued with the almost insupportable heat of this place, so I quit my pen—
Adieu, dear brother, with what pleasure I write to you I give you leave to guess.
Your's faithfully, E. C—
LETTER LIV.
ATHENS,
May 21, 1786.
THE water, which distils drop by drop constantly from the top of the grotto, hardens, and by degrees the first drop acquires a consistency like a brittle and thin shell; the the next extends round the first, so that upon breaking off and examining the pendent point, at the end of which there was constantly a drop of clear water, it resembles many glass quills that are made to go within each other; the last forming a more considerable circle than that hardened to precede it. These are of a beautiful colour like alabaster. The altars and pillars which rise from the ground upwards, some of them being taller than the tallest men, are of a different colour to those which descend, a greyish brown, and seemingly more hard than the hardest stone; but evidently caused by the dropping of the water likewise; and it must be a curious speculation for naturalists to explain why the same matter, in the same atmosphere, should, in their congelation, produce such different petrifactions; the cause seems perfectly natural to me; for the first is suspended, and as it were congeals in the air, while the other rests upon the rock, and settles gradually into stone, like sand in the bowels of the earth.
When the Russian fleet was here, some of the officers broke off some glorious pillars, which by a slow process, and probably by the distillations going in the same perpendicular line downwards for ages, had reached from the top to the bottom of the
grande salle
—I saw them in a very imperfect state at Petersburgh, and in the grotto the tops and bottoms of them; for the material being so brittle they could not be broken off in their length. If the Empress could know how little satisfaction the curious must receive by seeing them in an imperfect and mutilated state in her Museum— and what beautiful things they must have been in the grotto—she would grieve with me, that ever a desire of obliging could induce her officers to commit what I think a sacrilege against antiquity. Nothing can be more beautiful than the shapes the chrystalisations have taken in some parts of the ceiling, if I may so call it, of this place—Wherever by any accident the congealing drop has been removed from its direction, it takes another course—As there are millions constantly oozing out and congealing, some of which are removed accidentally, the petrifactions represent the folds of drapery curtains, hanging festoons, &c. As to the altars, as the French call them, which mount spirally towards the cieling, their ends have been deranged likewise, and wherever the congelation has ceased at the point, it is like a cauliflower head; and most of them look like pyramids composed of cauliflowers, supposing them to be brown; the contrast of this form, as well as the colour of the superior part, is a great addition to the beauty of the place. After the drawings were taken, the measures ascertained, and the artists had perfectly finished what Mons. de Choiseul had commanded them to do, we searched in every corner of the grotto, and found another chamber lower than that we were in, with several recesses unsuspected by us; names were engraven on the most conspicuous parts of the
grande salle,
and we left ours engraved in the rock, and burnt into a board, for any bold adventurer to read after us—and reascended, but with much more difficulty than we had entered, for one of the rope-ladders was so contrived that I could not reach from one step while my foot was on the other; how I scrambled up at last I cannot very well tell—but I was not sorry to see the light of the sun again—I was now much surprised to find myself surrounded by Greek peasant women, one pointing to her head, another to her stomach, a third to her arm, all bewailing their ill state of health, and touching my clothes with devotion—I found at last, that hearing a woman had descended, they took her to be a supernatural being, and was perfectly convinced I could cure all disorders; nor could I
tirer myself d'affaire,
otherwise than by distributing some thieves vinegar which I had in my pocket—
One of the most singular scenes I ever saw, was the descending of about five-and-twenty people after I was at the bottom of the grotto, most of them with torches; as there was but one rope to hold by, when we were obliged to have recourse to it, I insisted that only five people should go down with me—and the rest set out when we were safely landed, lest the rope should break. As the passage to the
grande salle
is winding, and as there are many gaps in it, we caught and lost sight of these people alternately and of the torches—The brilliancy of the petrifactions, the jagged shapes of the rocks, through which we saw the men, the darkness of part of the grotto, and the illuminations which reflected light in new places every moment, displayed the strangest and most beautiful scencry that can be imagined. Doubtless, my dear Sir, there are many observations, easy to make, which my ignorance prevents me from attaining to, but you will be amply satisfied, when Mr. de Choiseul's account of this grotto shall appear—
He has promised me two copies of his works; and there his pencil will give you a better idea of this remarkable curiosity than my pen possibly can. And now I confess to you, that had it not been that my pride rose superior to my fears, I never should have gone down. Mr. de C—, when we were laying out the plan of my Grecian tour, said,
Jamais femme n'a descendue dans la grotte d' Antiparos, peu d'hommes veulent y descendre; mais vous, Miladi vous, il faut absolument que vous y entriez.
When I had got about two or three yards into the narrow entrance of the cavern, the smoke of the torches, which could only find issue there, almost took my breath away, and I was forced to set myself down, or rather lie upon the rock—as I fell almost suffocated—and I was upon the point of going out again: but I should have been ashamed to have seen the spirited Ambassador, who had ran so many risques in searching after the truths of antiquity, if I had returned without seeing the
Grotte d' Antiparos,
and I took courage and descended—
We supped very agreeably on board the Tarleton, and looked over the pieces we had brought out of the Grotto; but they were so brittle, they almost mouldered away at the touch; I put some into a box with cotton. As we sailed for this place we passed the islands of Siphanto, Milos, Argentiera, St. George of Arbora—and arrived happily in the Piraean port, in which remain the two pedestals of the lions which are now at the door of the Arsenal at Venice—
There is nothing left in these islands worth the stopping to look at, and they all appear like naked rocks from the sea, of a volcanic nature—several have disappeared, and others have been so shaken by earthquakes that they are uninhabited—I made a little drawing of one, which will give you a perfect idea of them all—
From the Piraean port to Athens the ground rises gradually—and the only fine things which are seen are, to the left near the sea, a large grove or wood of olive trees; and just below the town, standing unincumbered with other objects, the superb, the beautiful temple of Theseus; the architecture simple and grand; proportioned with majesty and grace; it has stood to this day an eternal monument of the good taste of the ancients. But I now finish this letter, for upon paper as upon land, there is no such thing as tearing me away from this charming building; so I shall defer some account of it with other things to another sheet—
Adicu, dear brother, Your's affectionately, E. C—
LETTER LV.
THE Temple of Minerva, in the citadel of Athens, was used by the Turks as a magazine for powder, which blowing up has flung down such a quantity of beautiful sculpture that I should be very happy to have permission to pick up the broken pieces on the ground—but, alas, Sir, I cannot even have a little finger or a toe, for the Ambassador who had been a whole year negociating for permission to convey to Constantinople a fragment he had pitched upon, and thought himself sure of, will be sadly disappointed. The sailors were prepared with cranes, and every thing necessary to convey this beautiful relick on board the Tarleton; when after the governor of the citadel, a Turk, had received us with great politeness, he took Mr. de Truguet aside, and told him, unless he chose to endanger his life, he must give up the thoughts of touching any thing—That there was an intrigue in the Seraglio to displace him, and that if any thing was removed, that plea would be sufficient for his enemies to get his head struck off—Chagrined and disappointed as Mr. de Truguet was, he could not with any humanity press the performance of the promise; and we returned to the Consul's, very much concerned at the excessive injustice and ignorance of the Turks, who have really not the smallest idea of the value of the treasures they possess, and destroy them wantonly on every occasion; for, from one of the pillars of the temple of Theseus, they have sliced a piece of marble, to burn into lime for the construction of a Turkish fountain; and such is the fate of many a
chef d'oeuvre
of the best Grecian sculptors—
The citadel is in an extremely elevated situation, and if
wisdom
was the virtue the Athenians prized most, the temple could not be better placed, for the Goddess to direct and overlook their actions—The Governor's daughters received me, and the Consul's wife, and a relation of theirs was brought in who was a melancholy prey to some inward disease, that was wasting a fine form and features to decay. I was applied to, and pressed to give a receipt to cure her; and, when our visit was ended, the Governor and his sons were as importunate as the women had been; so I advised cream of tartar whey, being sure it could not hurt her. I am sure you laugh if you think there is any thing in my countenance that may lead people to take me for a physician—but the fact is, that the Turks ask every stranger for preseriptions—I will give you no account of our interview with the Turkish women—dress, manners, reception is the same every where, the clothes and jewels more or less magnificent according to the quality of the husband—
In many authors you will find an account of the Temple of Minerva; of a sweet little temple called the Lanthorn of Diogenes, which is in good preservation; and of the Temple of the Winds likewise, the interior of which is not at all damaged, but the outside is half sunken in the ruins of Athens, which has often been ruined, and many things bearing the stamp of the artist, are, like the artist, buried in the earth—From my bed-chamber window I look down upon the ruins of a beautiful gateway, the half of whose pillars are only to be seen, on the superior part much damaged, and, three large storks nests, with the old and young—their filth and habitation finishing the melancholy shade, which the rust of time and the abominable ignorance of the Turks have cast over them—
The few remaining pillars of the Temple of Jupiter Olympus, or rather supposed to be that which contained the statues of all the Gods, give one a very good idea of the incredible size of that temple. A hermit, not thinking the earth mortifying enough, had perched himself upon the top of one of these pillars, and never descended for above twenty years; he is long since dead, but his habitation was quite large enough for one man. Nothing can exceed the magnitude of these enormous columns; all fluted of the Corinthian order. I think there were two very natural reasons why our astonishment at these stupendous works should cease—The first is, in ancient days, slaves or helotes were by hundreds or thousands to be fed, the masters of them, it is reasonable to suppose, would keep them employed; the second is, the climate and soil were unfit for gardens, marble of the purest and whitest kind was not only found at Paros, but close to Athens—May we not imagine that this was dug out and worked up, under the direction of the Athenian architects and sculptors, by these slaves; the ornamental part, and perhaps only the finishing strokes of that, was only done by the hand of a master, in either sculpture or architecture. We produce effects for the pencil by the trees we plant in our parks or gardens; the Athenians could neither form landscape or shade by these—but they brought to perfection an art which gave them seats and walks, secured from the scorching rays of the sun, by their marble edifices, which were both useful and ornamental—A little orange-garden, not twenty feet square, is shown at Athens, as a more delicious thing in these days than a new temple, a pillar consecrated, or a prize gained in the Olympic games. We make a lawn, or plant a clump—they raised an edifice. The variety of these, and the number of pillars, destined only to commemorate the most trifling events, prove that it was the natural produce of the soil; and the impossibility of their ingenuity being employed in any thing but that which caused architecture and sculpture to be brought to that exquisite perfection in which we find it to this hour—
A book written by Guilletere, which you probably have, gives a very good account of the port; but the lion and many things he saw do not exist at present—and the Ilyssus, that river on whose banks so many philosophers and heroes have walked in times of peace, when the one encouraged, and the other protected, the arts and sciences, is now no more—it has been drained to water the gardens of Athens by many cuts, which with the bed of the river are scarcely now to be traced—
It was Pericles that built the Temple of Minerva; in the Citadel, on the principal entrance, the basso-relievos are executed in the most masterly manner; there is a female figure holding the reins to drive two fiery steeds, which seem to snort and prance in marble—
As to the basso-relievos of the Temple of Theseus, the few that remain are mutilated, and represent the combats between Theseus and the Amazons—Part of the Theatre remains—and every object that I saw made me grieve most truly that I could not restore things to their primitive state of perfection—As to the many recesses and arches over one another, that seem to belong to the Theatre, it is impossible to ascertain the use that was made of them; nor do I think it a search worthy of our times. But it would be worthy the Emperor's situation to take advantage of the desire the Porte has to oblige him, in order to collect the fragments of the sculpture of the Temple of Minerva, to preserve them as examples to this or rising generations, and as models for the ingenious workman to study from—I am called away to see the Baths—
Your's affectionately, E. C—
LETTER LVI.
THE Baths here are very well contrived to stew the rheumatism out of a person's constitution—but how the women can support the heat of them is perfectly inconceivable—The Consul's wife, Madame Gaspari, and I went into a room which precedes the Bath, which room is the place where the women dress and undress, sitting like tailors upon boards—there were above fifty; some having their hair washed, others dyed, or plaited; some were at the last part of their toilet, putting with a fine gold pin the black dye into their eyelids; in short, I saw here Turkish and Greek nature, through every degree of concealment, in her primitive state—for the women sitting in the inner room were absolutely so many Eves—and as they came out their flesh looked boiled—These Baths are the great amusement of the women, they stay generally five hours in them; that is in the water and at their toilet together—but I think I never saw so many fat women at once together, nor fat ones so fat as these. There is much art and coquetry in the arrangement of their dress—the shift particularly, which closes by hooks behind between the shoulders; after it is fastened round the waist, there is a species of stay or corset, that I had no idea of, but which to whom melted down as these were, was perfectly necessary. We had very pressing solicitations to undress and bathe, but such a disgusting sight as this would have put me in an ill humour with my sex in a bath for ages. Few of these women had fair skins or fine forms—hardly any—and Madame Gaspari tells me, that the encomiums and flattery a fine young woman would meet with in these baths, would be astonishing—I stood some time in the door-way between the dressing-room and the Bath, which last was circular, with niches in it for the bathers to sit in; it was a very fine room with a stone dome—and the light came through small windows at the top—
In the evening, the Athenian girls were invited to perform before me the ancient dance called Ariadne's dance. A more stupid performance as a dance I never saw; but I can conceive that the pantomime of it represents the despair of Ariadne, when she saw herself forsaken. A woman, that is to say she who is the most esteemed dancer, gets up, and with a handkerchief in one hand, waves it about in a languid manner; with the other she holds the hand of a second, who leads a third, and so on; they move in a string, ten, twelve, six, eight, the number is indifferent, and this female line moves in a circle, or according to the direction it shall please the girl with the handkerchief to give; her eyes are fixed on the ground, and her step is a sort of swim or sink; the music is as dull and uniform as her steps, which like her eyes, never lose the ground—
A sweet little Greek, a girl of five years old, the adopted child of Madame Rogne, the French Consul's sister, joined in this dance, and then came and sat in my lap, and went to sleep in my arms; she was something like my Keppel, and her little caresses gave me more pleasure than all the languid figures of the dancers before my eyes. To-morrow I set out again upon these seas, where at this hour Turkish ignorance presents different scenes to those that existed, when the Athenians gave encouragement to heroes and sages—
These Seas, where Science in her spring appear'd,
In which the infancy of arts was rear'd;
When Poetry was in the bloom of youth,
And fiction beautified each vulgar truth:
Here Ariadne wept; and there was seen
How Theseus conquer'd th' Amazonian Queen;
Here Phryne's charms in Parian marble shone,
There Gods and Goddesses could be undone;
Here Aristotle liv'd, whose genius sway'd
Th' Athenian youth; who listen'd and obey'd
Those precepts, with unerring wisdom fraught,
With which he charm'd the pupils that he taught;
To men he prov'd that eloquence was fame,
And the Lyceum lives but in his name;
Here Fate's stern mandates were by Homer given,
To Deities of his imagin'd Heaven,
From isle to isle the Muses point his way,
And all the Heathen Gods his lyre obey.
Apropos to Homer; every island claims the honour of receiving his last breath, and none will give up the idea of having possessed living or dying so remarkable a person.
If his ghost will appear to me and settle this matter clearly, I will then inform you better; at present I must finish this letter with assuring you that the only thing of which I am positively certain is, that I am with much truth and regard,
Your affectionate sister, E. C—
LETTER LVII.
SMYRNA,
May 27, 1786.
THIS place seems much more alive than any I have been at yet; a great number of commercial people, and many good houses, with a constant variety of vessels arriving and departing, make the lazy Turk pass unnoticed. The French Consul has a young wife, very lively and civil. There is lying at anchor here the Minerva, a beautiful French ship of seventy-five guns, commanded by the Chevalier de Lygondes, a Knight of Malta, an elderly and polite man, who happens to be a near relation of Lord Huntingdon, and we were not a little pleased to talk of him, and claim a relationship with a person which any one might be honoured to call friend or parent. He had five-and-twenty young French officers with him, when I saw him first—and a most ridiculous circumstance happened. I was sitting by Mr. de Lygondes and talking to him; the other Frenchmen were laughing with the Consul's wife, when a little man came into the room and addressed himself to me, but so low that I could not distinguish what he said, and took him to be some interpreter (of which I believe I had seen a dozen in the morning) who complimented me upon my arrival; but he seeing that I mistook the purport of his speech, raised his voice, and in good English said, My lady, hearing that you were here, I would not depart without offering you any services in my power; I answered I was much obliged to him; he made his bow, and went out again; upon which the giddy part of the company laughed very much, none of them knowing either the person or the language. I sent after him, and found out that it was the worthy Mr. Howard, who has sacrificed so much of his time to the most humane purpose; I begged he might be informed I returned to Constantinople and from thence to Vienna, and if I could be of the least use to him in his return, I begged he would command me; but he sent me word his route lay to Venice, meaning to visit all the lazarettos and prisons on the coasts.
There are no remains of antiquity here, but a spring called Homer's Fountain; a broken pillar on the ground, by a clear rill, seems to indicate that a temple may have been dedicated to this source, which probably bore the name of a Deity—
I spare you an account of my voyage hither from Athens, a violent squall of wind forced us to lie two days in the Port Gabrio, where I amused myself with going on shore, and up to a convent of Greek Monks. The Isle of Andros and this port, is well marked in the Grecian annals, by the extraordinary summons Alcibiades gave the inhabitants, and the very ingenious excuse they made, in order to obviate complying with his demands.
The only pretty shrub to be found on the islands is the rose-laurel, which is now covered with the flower, but the Greeks imagine it diffuses a noxious vapour, and avoid touching or going near it. I found out one thing which may be of use to soldiers or sailors. We had endeavoured in vain to get fruit or garden-stuff; a prodigious quantity of large thistles was the only thing that presented itself: I desired the largest heads might be picked, and had them boiled, which, without being partial, I can assure you, were infinitely better than artichokes; but they must be dressed immediately, for if they are kept till the next day they become so hard that twelve hours boiling will not make them tender.
The Chevalier de Lygondes gave me a very fine dinner on board the Minerva. I shall set out again the day after to-morrow to take up Mr. de Choiseul at Bursa; and hope I shall meet with no more storms, for I am sick and tired when violently tossed about—
The little Tarleton is an excellent sailer with a fair wind, but like all delicate l
ttle frames, is too much shaken when she meets with rough treatment —
I remain, my dear brother, Your affectionate E. C—
LETTER LVIII.
TERRAPIA,
June 7, 1786.
I Arrived at Bursa just three weeks after I left the port of Moudagna, and found the Ambassador rather better than I left him. The situation of Bursa is very beautiful, in a valley between two hills, and is now a very considerable town. The waters are boiling hot; almost every house has a circular bath under it, that adds to the heat of the climate, I found it intolerable, and Mons. de Choiseul set out a day or two sooner than he intended, because the inconveniencies of the house were too great; he laughed very much at my saying
Bon dieu, nous sommes tous ici au Bain.
To my great surprise, I found there — who intends to travel by land into Egypt—he set out at twelve o'clock at night—a few hours after my arrival —
I had a very pleasant passage from Smyrna to Moudagna. Just as the Tarleton arrived at the entrance of the Straits the wind dropped entirely, and we found ourselves in the midst of a large fleet, composed of vessels of every size and nation, that waited for a south wind to pass the Dardanels—luckily we did not lie a considerable time at anchor, a southerly breeze sprung up, and our swift Tarleton left all the other sails,
lost soon to our sight,
far behind us; nothing could be more pretty and lively than the scene; and I told Mr. de Choiseul no frigate in the English or French service could be a better messenger than this, which I shall ever be obliged to him for having sent with me. You may think it somewhat strange that the Mount Olympus, which rises above the town of Bursa, is constantly covered with snow, but so it is. This is not the famed Olympus of the Heathen Gods, but named after it, probably by a colony, which settled there, originally from the other Olympus. It is very common to find several places called by one name in all this part of the world, and to this hour you know, my dear Sir, the names of France, Scotland, and England, are given by settlers in newly acquired countries—
We did not stop at Pera, but came to the Ambassador's house upon the Canal in his boat, leaving the Tarleton at anchor where she is constantly placed. This is the only cool house I believe in the environs of Constantinople. The sea beats against the foundation constantly, and from my windows I see the entrance of the Canal by the Black Sea, in which, between ten and eleven, a north wind constantly rises, blowing pretty fresh till the evening. And it is a very strange thing to aver, but just over against the house, vessels are sailing, some with a south and others with a north wind; a circumstance only to be accounted for by the shores, which form a kind of horizontal funnel, drawing in a large body of air from the Black Sea, which loses its force after it has gone a certain length, and ceases intirely just opposite this house. It is quite diverting to see the Turkish fishing boats sailing very fast, and endeavouring to weather this spot when the wind is southerly, but in vain; they are obliged to lower their canvass and tug at the oar, or anchor in some valley, till the wind or their strength permit them to proceed—
If any thing could excuse the infatuation of the Greeks to remain here at the risque of their lives, this situation would plead for them; but still their manner of life must be a torment even in Paradise itself; there is one who, fearing the Porte should think him opulent, yet too proud to appear in public without his attendants, rides round his court-yard every morning with twenty horsemen at his heels—
Another sent me word he begged I would not walk in his garden, for as I generally was accompanied by some of the foreign ministers, the Porte might imagine he was carrying on some treason against the empire, if strangers were seen within his enclosures. This message was told me by a person who added that, all the time I was in his kitchen garden with my company, this wretched Greek had retired into the most remote closet in his house, fearing our curiosity should prompt us to look at the building—
This Greek Prince had hired a French gardener, and we seeing an European garden close to the Ambassador's, it induced us to walk into it, as the door was open. When the Turks or Greeks have one, they walk into it, and eat their sallads there. Fruit and vegetables are luxuries unknown in general to them—
Adieu for this time, my much loved and honoured brother,
I remain your's, E. C—
LETTER LIX.
DEAR SIR,
I Have been to see the forest of Belgrade, where the oaks are extremely venerable, and, from a superstitious idea, not one of them is ever felled, so that the greatest part of them are spoiling. The Dutch Ambassador has a house there, and the English Minister, both of whom I have promised to dine with. At the latter end of the summer these country-houses are deserted, for there is a lake in the forest that produces such unwholesome exhalations that, if people stay in the neighbourhood of it, they generally have dreadful fevers. There is a kiosk of the Sultan's at the end of the lake, which would be pretty enough with a little alteration—
We are now at the beginning of what is called the Ramazan—the fast of the Turks, which they observe with great strictness; from sun-rise to sun-set no Turk tastes any thing, not even a drop of water; but at night all the shops for eatables, and the places where coffee is sold, are illuminated with many little lamps; and it is a pretty sight to go in a boat at sunset along the Canal. Terrapia, Buyekdere, and all the places where several people live, look like so many Vauxhalls; and if the boat draws near enough to the shore, one is apt to imagine all the world is supping together, the smell of fried fish, and mutton, and other Turkish eatables is so strong. The Ambassador's first oar is an old venerable Turk with a long white beard, who has rowed
au Palais de France
forty years, and it is with great difficulty Mr. de Choiseul's strictest orders can keep him from his duty—though it is horrible to think that if he were permitted to attend the boat, he would row several hours in the day, in the heat of the sun, without taking a drop of water to refresh himself; for whether a Turk be obliged to the hardest labour, or whether he do nothing, the law of the Ramazan is equally observed by him—This fast lasts six weeks—
With respect to coffee, which you may imagine is good in Turkey, I assure you, prepared by the Turks, it is the nastiest potion ever invented—They make it weak and muddy, and drink it without sugar. As to the Moka coffee, not enough of that comes into Constantinople to supply the Seraglio, and all the rest is furnished by France from her West-Indian possessions, no inconsiderable branch of commerce as you may easily believe, when I tell you that every fifty yards upon a public road, under the shade of a tree or a tent, coffee is sold, and at most of these places the Turkish traveller or visitor stops and takes a cup—it is true these cups are not much bigger than egg cups—but four-and-twenty in a day to each person travelling, visiting, or staying at home, must consume an immense quantity—
Mr. de Bukalow has given me a very fine ball at his house at Buyekdere—and I assure you his garden is large enough to be a small park. There I saw a tree the leaves of which are of the same shape and quality with the sensitive plant—they shrink and close when touched. Mr. d'Herbert has a pretty house and garden at Buyekdere likewise—
Have you never heard at Paris of one Isaac Bey, a Turk, that was much there? Mr. de Choiseul brought him to me the other morning; he entered my room followed by this Isaac, a lively, and rather well-looking man, who, after being seated a few minutes, prostrated himself at my feet, kissed the hem of my garment, and laid a fine embroidered muslin handkerchief there for my acceptance. He has been at Petersburgh, and in London, which he dislikes of all places in the world, because the common people would not let him walk along the streets without calling him,
French dog of a Turk.
He says he will never go there again; but
Paris Paradis—
Paradis Paris—
there he will return; you may imagine, Sir, he was enchanted by the Syrens of the Opera, upon and off the stage. He diverted me very much. He staid and dined, and conversed very freely, as well as he was able—
Adieu for the present, dear Sir, Believe me truly, E. C—
LETTER LX.
TERRAPIA,
June 25, 1786.
I Shall certainly not return by the way of Semlin and Belgrade, for I am informed that four hundred robbers infest that country, and what escort could I have which would secure me from so many ruffians? I have consulted maps, and the best informed travellers here, and am assured I can go through Bulgaria, Wallachia, and Transylvania to Vienna with great ease and dispatch, with a firman or order from the Porte. This subject was in agitation two days ago, in presence of the same tall gloomy figure that promised me the plague in Greece, who gravely told me I should run much greater risques in taking this new route, for that I should find heads stuck up on poles at every mile, those countries being much more infested with robbers and murderers than the other. I would not for the world have given him the mortification to see that I did not believe a word he said, and I hope he thinks I was extremely terrified. —
Nothing is more diverting than to see the Greeks in pleasure-boats here, stopping to hear the Ambassador's musicians play, which they do every evening. I must first tell you that they are Germans, sent to Mr. de Choiseul from Vienna, and the best performers I have heard, playing always the finest Italian or German music. The Greeks, in their parties upon the water, have generally a lyre, a fiddle, and a guittar or two in the boats. With these instruments they make a horrid noise, each performer playing in a different key, and if they sing, all in discordant tones; the sound of the clarinets stops them before the windows, but after listening a little time, they shake their heads, and with one accord begin their abominable noises again, and row away from sounds which they think much inferior to those they produce. The servants often ask them if their master's music is not fine, but they are all of opinion it is very disagreeable. This puzzles all my ideas concerning harmony; because nature has fixed the rules of it so well that any person, possessing a good ear for music, will compose in all the perfection of harmony without knowing the rules of composition, or even a note of music. Why then do not these Greeks find out they make nothing but discordant sounds when they sing or play?—I confess it seems to me a very strange thing.
I wish the Turkish salute was in fashion instead of the ridiculous bow and curtesey we have which indicates nothing, and is seldom executed gracefully. A Turk puts his right-hand upon his heart, and bends forward a little—and I assure you if this kind of salutation is accompanied with a smile or a respectful look, it conveys to me more
greeting
than all our
bonjours
and
how d'ye do's,
which would be often excused with pleasure by me from half my acquaintance.
I am not sorry to think the time is not far off when I shall draw nearer to Franconia; where I hope to see you; where I shall tell you many particulars which I do not choose to trust to the post. But I confess I shall be very sorry to leave Mr. de Choiseul without being certain when I can have an opportunity of shewing him the least return for the civilities and kindnesses he has bestowed upon me. He is a very extraordinary and superior man as to his talents—and his amiability is not contrasted by that conceit which we have too often seen in all Frenchmen that are not almost superannuated—
I only wish he was honoured by your acquaintance, as you would like him for his good qualities, as much as you will esteem him without knowing him for his brotherly and respectful care of me. Can I give you a greater proof that I believe in the sincerity of your friendship to me, than by wishing you to be a friend to one that has behaved like one to me—I remain always the same—
Your's affectionately, E. C—
LETTER LXI.
MR. de Choiseul and the Imperial Minister assured me very seriously that they would not let me set out without being accompanied by a Visir's Tchouadar, that is to say, a kind of upper servant, or rather creature of the Visir. They applied for one, but as these are never employed to accompany travellers, and have only upon occasion been sent with the French officers of artillery, when there was a battery or fort to be erected—the
Sublime Porte
was exceedingly surprised at this request—and was five days in looking over papers to find any example of a Tchouadar being sent to escort a traveller; none being found, my two friends were told that in the annals of the empire the thing was unprecedented; but they answered they cared little for that, but requested that I might have a Tchouadar. The Visir was so much surprised at this that, when he had named one, he sent him to Terrapia to judge if
I was worth
all the trouble given him upon my account—
You think, my dear Sir, that it was my birth, or consequence of any sort that was to be enquired into—not at all—he was to look at me and see if I was pretty. I was sent for by Mr. de Choiseul into the drawing-room yesterday before dinner; and when I came in, I saw a yellow looking Turk sitting on the sofa. Mr. de Choiseul told me that was the Tchouadar named to accompany me. I curtsied to him, and, after he had looked at me as much as he pleased, he took his leave. Mr. d'Herbert has since told me laughing, he made so favourable a report of me, that the Visir said according to accounts he could not do enough for me. I have hired two Greek boats with Greek sailors, that are to row when the wind is contrary, and I am to land at a Turkish town called Varna, which is upon the shore of the Black Sea called Romelia. I am there to take horses and go across Bulgaria to a town called Silistria, where I shall find all the accommodations I want from the Prince of Wallachia, whose territories reach that town.
It is said Varna was the place where Ovid was sent into banishment; it might be so; but the chief of his exile was passed in Moldavia; the borders of a lake where he often walked, have become famous; the gentleness of his manners, and the sweet tone of his voice have been recorded from father to son, down to the present inhabitants of that part of Moldavia—
I have bought a German carriage, and the Ambassador's
Tapissier
has very cleverly fitted up a little bed in it for me. Mr. de Choiseul and his friends are very obliging in imagining every thing that can conduce to the safety or convenience of my journey. I have a beautiful coloured map of Constantinople and the Canal, executed in a masterly manner by his steward and engineer, one Khauffer. Mr de Choiseul has given me likewise a bottle of Essence of Roses— and a Mr. de Brintanneau has presented me with a beautiful Turkish fan, painted and made at Constantinople for me. I hope soon, Sir, to give you a good account of myself; you may depend upon it I shall write wherever I can find an opportunity of sending a letter to you—
I have an interpreter with me, and am to have a guard of Janissaries upon the road wherever it will be thought necessary—Adieu, for the last time, from this beautiful and sublime situation, which must make all landscapes appear trifling to me for the future.
Adieu, dear Sir, till an occasion offers for me to repeat my sincere esteem and grateful affection for you—
E. C—
LETTER LXII.
VARNA,
July 8, 1786.
DEAR SIR,
I Take the opportunity of my Greek sailors return to write to my good friends at Constantinople and to you. On Monday last, which was the third of July, I set out about six o'clock in the evening in Mr. de Choiseul's boat, accompanied by him and Mr. le Hocq, a very amiable and sensible man, who is
Secretaire d'Ambassade,
and the good little Truguet. I took leave of them at the mouth of the Canal, and stepped into the largest of the two Greek boats I had hired. The wind, blowing constantly north, makes the navigation of the Romelian coast extremely tedious. The idleness and fears of my Greek sailors increased the inconvenience, for instead of turning the point of Kara-buron they lay-to all night, and on the fourth I made but thirty Turkish leagues. Kara-buron is a rock standing over the bay of that name, where the Turks are now erecting a fort. Nothing can be more safe or pleasant than coasting in this manner. The shores of Romelia abound with many delicious bays and fine harbours, where, upon the appearance of danger from the Black Sea, vessels may run in and lie at anchor. The Bay of Agatopoly of Miolick of Vasilico I rested in likewise; and the last day I came seventy-five miles in six hours, but not without having many quarrels with my Greek sailors, who would have delayed me more than they really did, if I had permitted them—I am convinced a traveller might easily reach Varna from Constantinople in two days; particularly if he has not the honour of being accompanied by a Tchouadar, who seems to promise me much more delay and inconvenience than his presence can make repay. As the Greeks and Turks know his consequence, it is his wants that are attended to, and not mine. I positively was extremely diverted at my first occasion of finding this out—The day after we had left Constantinople, we were at anchor in a little bay to breakfast, when upon asking my valet de chambre where the boiling water was to make my chocolate, he could not find it, and began to make a great riot for the loss of his kettle; when the interpreter pointed to a flat rock where my Tchouadar was sitting on a carpet smoaking his pipe and drinking his coffee, very quietly, made with the water my servants had prepared for me—You must not suppose he ever asks if I want any thing. If any travellers were to meet us, they would certainly take him for some
Grand Seigneur,
and that I am of his suite, by the care taken of him, and the perfect indifference all, but my two companions and my servants, show for my ease and convenience. As to me, I now and then have asked him some questions about the places I saw, to which I get the most laconic answers; however, I thought it right to point to two most excellent little English pistols I wear at my girdle, and assure him they would be well employed against any offence I met with. And when the interpreter had done I could not help calling him a stupid disagreeable Turk, in English, which he took for a compliment, and bowed his head a little—When I arrived here, he took me to a shabby Greek house, where a landing-place on the top of a stair-case was the only lodging he said he could find for six people—but I told him I should send to the governor, upon which I was taken to another house, where a long gallery looking towards the harbour, with rooms adjoining to it, composed a very good apartment. Here I found my Tchouadar had established his carpet, his pipe, his coffee, and his travelling bags and pistols. I thanked him in good English, as I should, for his civility; and then ordered the interpreter to tell him he might lodge upon the stair-case he had destined for me. The Governor sent to know if I chose to have a guard of Janissaries for the house, but I thought myself quite secure, being shut in by two court-yards—However, in the evening, I was not a little surprised to hear a great noise; the old Greek, who lodged me, my interpreter, and servants, came running with great horror in their looks, saying, that the Turks had broke the gates of the court open, and were looking for me—I was, at that moment, sitting with Mademoiselle by me, on a trunk just facing the door; I had scarcely time to understand what was said to me, when I saw above fifty Turkish heads at the door, with eager eyes looking about for something—
Que veulent ils done?
said Mademoiselle—
car n'est pas nous
—I believe I told you she had a most beautiful little milk-white rough dog—It was this animal that some Turk had seen carrying along the streets, which had awakened the curiosity of the Turks; and two or three parties, as I found afterwards, had endeavoured to come into the house to see him. This last, bolder than the rest, had forced the doors open. The little dog, as great a coward in his nature as my servants (and that is saying all I can to prove his
poltronnerie)
upon the first noise had taken refuge under the skirts of Mademoiselle's petticoats—But one of them, taking her by the arm, made her get up, the dog appeared; when the Turks, with a savage shout of joy, all pointed to him; and I had no doubt but he was the object they had in view—However, when I thought they had stared enough at him, I grew out of patience, and made a sign for the Turks to leave the door, which they did immediately; and I think a Turkish rabble very civil, as not one of the party passed the threshold of the door.—
People imagine this coast to be inhabited by savage Turks, who live by rapine and plunder, uncontrolled by the Porte; but it is no such thing; Greeks and Armenians, very inoffensive, live in habitations thinly scattered—Wine and corn are cultivated, but in no great abundance. There is a place called Shiumla, eghteen leagues west of Varna, remarkable for the retreat which eighty thousand Turks made in the last war, when twelve thousand Russians, under Romanzof, crossed the Danube to attack them—
My Greek sailors lived upon nothing but dried fish during the voyage, and it is very excellent provision, and better than any preserved fish I ever tasted; I had often seen great poles stuck up in the Canal, with strings tied across, under these the fishermen catch the fish, which they clean and stick up on these strings to dry by the heat of the sun. Nothing can look more dry and unlike food than these fish; but I assure you they are extremely good, having much more flavour than any salted fish I ever eat.—
I shall set out to-morrow morning at three o'clock—I hire arabats for my servants and baggage—The Governor is to furnish me with Janissaries and horses; and I hope my good star will lead me safely through these countries, where I confess, I feel like the Comte de —'s servant, who intreated his master to let him kill only one or two Turks, at the last post on leaving the Ottoman empire—By the by, Sir, that servant lived with you; and when I saw him, you had given him so English a
tournure,
that I insisted on his being an Englishman; but he told me he was your subject. You must not suppose that I mean to
murder
any one, but I think of all the two-legged animals I have seen I should regret killing a Turk the least. Most women would be frightened with the journey I am taking; but I must get out of this country of Mahomet's now I am in it, and so I shall proceed chearfully and merrily—If my Tchouadar could but know the pretty things I say to him in English; and how I mean to watch him, he would not have given such a picture of me to his master.
Adieu, E. C—
LETTER LXIII.
SILISTRIA,
July 15, 1786.
I Am arrived here very safely and merrily notwithstanding my intriguing Tchouadar, who probably had his orders to frighten me, that I might complain of the Governor of Varna. Figure to yourself, dear Sir, how much surprised I was at six o'clock the day before yesterday in the evening, in the wildest country imaginable, after travelling all day well escorted by Janissaries, to see them ride away when the approach of evening made me think them most necessary—I asked my Tchouadar what was the meaning of their sudden departure? He shrugged up his shoulders, and said he supposed it was the Governor's orders. However, I rested near a hedge, where a caravan of merchants halted likewise, that evening, without seeing any thing that could alarm me. When I left Varna in the morning, my lazy Tchouadar had a whole arabat to himself, where he would not suffer my servants to put the smallest parcel—I ordered the interpreter to tell him, if I had known his intention I should have hired saddle-horses for myself and servants, and guarded his arabat. Yesterday, in the middle of a plain where the coachmen had halted, which they do every ten minutes, I heard a most violent quarrel between them, and my interpreter upon asking what it was occasioned the dispute, I found one coachman chose to return with three horses to Varna. My vile Tchouadar sat upon his carpet smoaking his pipe, without attempting to use his authority, and when I asked him to interfere, he muttered out a few
Ish Allas
Ish Alla
is an expression by which Turks constantly avoid giving a direct answer to a plain question—it amounts to
it may be so
—or,
please God
—
, and he supposed the Governor of Varna had given such orders to the coachmen—Upon which I saw very plainly my journey was to be a pretext for finding fault with this Governor. I determined immediately upon putting a stop to such a base manoeuvre; I told my Turk that I perceived his intention, but that if he did not immediately order the coachman to put the horses to and go as far as Silistria, I should write an account of the whole trick to the Imperial Minister and the French Ambassador, and have
him,
not the Governor of Varna, punished for the delays of my journey. The very instant he understood I was not to be imposed upon, he spoke to the drivers, the horses were put to, and we proceeded.
Bulgaria is but little cultivated, and where I saw a Turk at work in the fields, he was armed with a gun, pistols, and hangers, sometimes a Janissary or two guarded the peasant at his work. Such a sight, and a wood I passed through, so little worn by travellers, that the trees and bushes tore off the door of my carriage, were circumstances that might have made any fine lady tremble; but you know, Sir, that my spirits and courage increase with difficulties, and my female companion is by much the best traveller I ever saw. She expressed no fears if she had any, and the strange manner in which we travelled, with our manner of resting at night, made us laugh instead of alarming us. Every ten minutes, as I told you, our horses were taken from the carriage, and with the coachmen rested under trees, if they were at hand. The heat was beyond any I ever felt. At night we halted with the caravans, and then my servants picked up sticks to make the fire for my supper, and after I had stretched my legs a little, I drew my carriage close, and had a very comfortable bed; my companions and servants lay on the ground with their heads under the body of my carriage, and in the morning before day-break, we set off again. But when day-light permitted us to look at one another, it was impossible not to laugh, the dew was so excessive that we all looked as if we had been drawn through a river. When we arrived near this town, I ordered my Tchouadar to get out, and go into the town to find me a lodging—and here I saw that if his presence had been of any use to me, his courage would not have served me greatly, for instead of getting upon the horse prepared for him, he gravely turned about and seated himself in the arabat again. I asked why he did so; he answered he might be robbed and murdered before he reached the town; which we were so near to that a whole string of arabats and caravans were halting there for the night. At last we reached the gateway, and then my troublesome Turk condescended to go and look me out a lodging—a tolerable good one. Here I had a new contest with him; he intended to escort me from hence to Buccorest, but I was determined to send him from this place back to Constantinople. I enquired for the Prince of Wallachia's agent this morning, he came, but I found I could get no intelligence from him before my Turk—so I ordered him into another room, and there found he had received orders from the Prince to furnish me with boats, horses, or any kind of thing I should ask for. My abominable Tchouadar had constantly denied that any such orders were given, in order to persuade me I could not proceed in my journey without him. However I was heartily glad I had guessed the truth, and so returning with my interpreter to him, I gave him the twenty guineas I had promised him, for the
favour
of his agreeable company, and told him to wait till I had written to the Ministers at Constantinople, which I did, and now write to you, dear Sir. This town stands in a valley; upon a hill which we descended to come here, there is a fine view of the Danube with islands. Silistria is beautifully situated upon this river—and I am going six miles down in a boat to Karalash, the frontier town of Wallachia—and from Buccorest I shall again have the honour of assuring you I am in all places,
Your most affectionate sister, And obliged friend, E. C—
P. S.
The Firman I received from the Porte to the Governors or Cadis of the Turkish towns, runs in this stile—
"O you, glory of your equals, torch of justice—you light the mines of virtue and science—True believers, judges, governors of towns or villages, this is to inform you," &c. &c.
LETTER LXIV.
BUCCOREST.
WHEN I landed in Wallachia I found horses, provisions, and guards, provided for me, and I rather flew than drove along. From Karalash, for a considerable way, the route lay on the borders of the Danube, where cattle of all sorts were feeding upon the finest sorts of clover, intermixed with various flowers. There is no road made, and I saw no carriage track, but a fine soil without stones or ruts, made the journey very pleasant. As I came near to Buccorest I quitted the meadows, and saw a most beautiful country, where small woods of fine timber and Turkish corn, standing above six feet high, formed a rich and varied picture. Several boyards came to meet me, and my Arnauts, or guards, were extremely alert and clever; though their usual mode of supplying my carriages with horses often gave me great displeasure; for it frequently happened, that a peasant mounted on a good-looking horse, with his sack of flour behind him, was dismounted in an instant, a tired horse left him, and his fresh horse harnessed to my carriage. I wanted at least to have some money given the man, and an explanation of the affair, but it seems the Prince of Wallachia had ordered that I should have no trouble or delay—and not be suffered to pay for any thing, so that the little money I gave away was privately, and not without much management could I contrive it. Just as I was about to enter Buccorest, I found a party of Janissaries with a tent pitched about a mile from the town, who quarrelled with all my attendants, and made the postillions drive back to enter the town another way as I was told, that road having been shut by order of the Prince. My surprise increased, when I found myself drove under a large gateway belonging to a Greek convent, the inner court of which was very fine and spacious surrounded by cloisters with Gothic arches—My carriage was presently surrounded by people of various nations, talking all languages to me—At last I addressed myself to one in a French dress; pray, Sir, said I, where am I? A German servant of mine spoke to him in German, and I found I was driven in there to perform quarantine, for five days at least. The superior of the convent, by this time had come up to the door of the carriage: fancying by my looks, I suppose, that I had not the plague, he desired me to make use of his rooms till I had chosen my lodging for the night. The old venerable man sat by me and Mademoiselle while we dined; and I had then sent down to the town to inform the Prince of my situation—But I asked my respectable host where I should lodge if I staid—He pointed to a small miserable room across the court, with only bare walls, and the windows of it were all broken. This room was to contain all my suite with me; for every company I found that arrived, was kept apart from the rest. Close to the door of this room I saw a wretched creature alone, with death in his countenance. And pray, says I, what is that miserable figure?—A man suspected to have the plague, who was put away as far from the others as possible, with a little clean straw to lie upon. I confess I was heartily glad when the Imperial agent came from the town, to inform me the Prince was very sorry for the mistake—that it never was his intention I should be sent to the convent. I thanked my old father for his civilities, and hastened to the town, where I had been but a few moments, before a gold coach, made I believe in the year one, came to the door, with a set of brown-bay stone-horses, that seemed to spurn the earth. There was a Turkish groom that held the bridle of each horse. A kind of chamberlain, with a gold robe on, and a long white stick in his hand, and the Prince's private secretary came to fetch me. The whole town, I believe, by this time was got round the equipage, and we proceeded very slowly to the first court of the palace, in which I went through a double row of guards, some of them Janissaries, and the others Arnauts and Albanians. In the second court was another double row of guards, and these extended up a large flight of steps that conducted us to the great audience-chamber, in the corner of which, a space was divided off with cushions, upon which sat the Prince, dressed and attended
à la Turque;
over his head were ranged the horses tails, the great helmet and feather, the magnificent sabre, and other arms which I had seen parade before him in the streets of Constantinople. He asked me by the interpreter, how Mons. de Choiseul did—and if I would not make some stay in Wallachia. Coffee and sweetmeats were served, and when I rose to take my leave, one of his chamberlains told me in a whisper to sit down again, when my ears were assailed by the most diabolical noise I ever heard; upon which with a very grave loud voice the secretary said,
c'est pour vous Madame—c'est la musique du Prince;
and the Prince desired me to look out into the court—There I saw trumpets of all kinds, brass plates striking together, and drums of all sizes, some of which, not larger than breakfast-cups, were ranged on the ground, and the strikers of them squatted on the ground to beat them. Each musician was endeavouring to drown the noise of his neighbour, by making a louder if possible; and I do not know that my nerves ever were so tried before; for my companion, who saw the difficulty I had to refrain from laughing, was saying, for God's sake do not laugh—
Mr. de Choiseul's excellent German musicians came into my head too at that moment, and the contrast of his music to the noise I heard, added to the absurdity of the thing, so that I suffered extremely; however this scene did not last long, I was called to have an audience of the Princess—
But here I must leave you for the present. Before I set out I will finish my account of this reception.
Adieu, E. C—
LETTER LXV.
THE Princess was sitting
à la Turque,
with three of her daughters by her, they were about nine, ten, and eleven years old. The Princess might be about thirty, a very handsome face, something like the Duchess of Gordon, only her features and countenance had more softness, and her skin and hair were fairer. Her person was rather fat, and she was above six months advanced in her eighth pregnancy. She took my hand and seated me by her—The Prince, to shew me an extraordinary degree of respect, had suffered Mr. V— to come into the Harem, and he sat down by him. There were near twenty women in the room, one of whom, instead of a turban, had a high cap of sable put behind her hair, that was combed up straight over a kind of roll—This head-dress was far from being ugly or unbecoming—The Princess told me it was a lady of Wallachia, and that the cap was the dress of the country. After the Princess had asked me all the simple questions generally asked by the Eastern females—she asked me if I was dressed in the French fashion; and told me she should be happy to know any thing she could do to detain me in Wallachia a whole year—The Prince seemed to desire it as much as she did—But I assured them I should not stay four-and-twenty hours in Buccorest. They then desired me to sup with them, which I consented to, but desired I might return to my lodgings to write to Constantinople, as I had promised immediately upon my arrival to this place. I was conducted back to my coach, and through the courts with the same ceremony as I came. And being seated, the secretary told me he was ordered to shew me a fine English garden belonging to an old boyard, which we went to. A country curate's kitchen-garden in England and that were the same—But the master of it was a venerable figure with a beard as white as snow, dressed in a long muslin robe, supported by his servants, as he walked with difficulty. He presently ordered all the fruit in his garden to be presented to me; and when I was going out of the garden, I met the very lady, with her fur cap, I had seen in the palace. She shewed such transports of joy upon finding me at her father's house, that it was with difficulty I could get from her; she had taken me in her arms, and almost smothered me with kisses—
The respectable father's name is Bano Dedescolo, and one of the principal noblemen in Wallachia; however I got to my lodgings at last, and scarcely had finished a letter to Mr. de Choiseul, when two of the Prince's people with the secretary came in, followed by many more of his household. The secretary desired me to go and look over a gallery that surrounded the back court of the house, I did so; and I saw a beautiful Arabian horse, in the midst of a great mob; two Turks held his bridle. The secretary told me the Prince hearing that I was fond of horses desired me to accept that, which a Pacha of three Tails had given him a few days before; and he hoped I should accept of it with the regard with which it was presented. I gave him as civil an answer as I could imagine, and very handsome presents in money to the grooms that brought him, and to the whole set of stable people. The supper was served in a more European manner than I should have imagined; a table upon legs, and chairs to sit on were things I did not expect. The Prince sat at the end of the table, his wife on one side, and I on the other. Mr. V— was likewise invited, and sat at my left. Several women sat down to supper with us. The Princess had nine females behind her chair to wait upon her; several silver things, evidently the produce of England, were set upon the table, such as salt-sellers, cruets, &c. &c. but there were four candlesticks that seemed to be made of alabaster, set with flowers composed of small rubies and emeralds, that were very beautiful. Detestable Turkish music was played during the whole supper, but relieved now and then by Bohemians, whose tunes were quite delightful, and might have made the heaviest clod of earth desire to dance. The Prince saw the impression this music made upon me, and desired they might play oftener than the Turks. It seems these Bohemians are born slaves, the property of the reigning Prince of Wallachia, while his power lasts. There are, as he told me, five thousand of them left, formerly there were five-and-twenty thousand. After the supper was over we sat some time in the large room the Princess first received me in, but the Prince and Mr. V— sat on one side, and the Princess, myself, and the other women on the other. The Princess, I believe, thought I gave myself the liberties of a traveller, when I told her the ladies with us learned to dance and write—with some other things which she doubted of, likewise —
Her husband smoaked his pipe, and I was sorry she did not too, for I saw that it was her civility to a stranger that prevented her—The Prince asked me if I knew the Emperor and Prince Kaunitz? and upon my answering in the affirmative, he asked me—
"Should I see them?"—"Probably"—"Why then (said he) do you tell the Prince I am devoted to his commands—and tell the Emperor, I hope now we are so near one another, we shall be good friends."
—The odness of these messages was very near making me laugh; but I gravely assured him I should deliver them faithfully, if I had an opportunity—About half past eleven I rose to take my leave, and received from the Princess some very beautiful embroidered handkerchiefs, and was obliged again to excuse myself from staying only a twelvemonth with her, which she said would be a great amusement to her, as my presence was full of graces. I retired with all the attendants I had before, only with the addition of I believe a hundred flambeaux, and all the Turkish and Bohemian music playing by the side of the large gold coach. The horrid disorder and comical procession got the better of all my gravity; and though the secretary was there, I laughed all the way to the French Consul's house, where I now write, the civil man and wife insisting upon giving me a bed. Mr. V—'s ideas of good-breeding were so discompesed, by my laughing, that he assured the secretary the
perfection
of my ear for music was such, that the least discord in it made me laugh; and he repeated this in all the ways he could turn it. I said,
oh! out, c'est bien vrai;
but between whiles I said in English, what would you have me do, I feel like Punch parading through the streets, with all these trumpets and this mob about me. However, the secretary and Mr. V— at last caught the infection, and we arrived laughing all three at the house, where the Consul's wife had prepared me a comfortable bed, and I got rid of my music by giving them a handful of money.
It is so hot that I cannot sleep, and I am writing to you, dear Sir. This is no inconsiderable town, the situation of it is very beautiful; indeed in this country it would be difficult to find an ugly scite; Wallachia pays to the Porte a tribute of four hundred purses
A purse is 100 sequins.
yearly, exclusive of grain, wool, and many thousand sheep; shepherds pay an annual tribute besides, of eighty thousand skins of the cattle, with butter, cheese, and tallow—
If the grain fails from Egypt, this country is obliged to supply the deficiency at Constantinople. Still I affirm that upon earth, Sir, all things superior in their nature, either animate or inanimate, are taxed cruelly. This beautiful country, the soil and climate of which makes every produce luxuriant, is by the hand of fate under a power which extorts unmercifully from the natives, through the necessities of the Porte, if not by the rapine of the Princes, and presses plenty from her source, driving often the wretched Wallaques to fly into the mountains, where, at least for a time, they avoid the cruelties they find from a tyrannical government, which punishes them for the deficiencies the extortions of that very government have occasioned.
I set out early to-morrow, and shall write from Hermanstadt, the first imperial town I shall reach. I have a very clever addition to my suite here, a kind of trader and interpreter, who speaks the Wallachian language perfectly, and is going to Hermanstadt—
Adieu, dear Sir, E. C—
LETTER LXVI.
HERMANSTADT,
July, 18, 1786.
THE first post from Buccorest is a place called Floresty, situated eight leagues west of Buccorest. I passed two small rivers, that unite and increase the current of the river Argis, which river runs many leagues along the bottom of the Wallachian and Transylvanian mountains. I was overtaken by the most terrible storm of thunder and rain that I think I ever saw, and instead of reaching a boyard's house prepared for me, the first night, I was obliged to halt, and wait patiently till the elements chose to abate their fury. I was less incommoded than my fellow-travellers, whose carriages were quite open; and the wind, rain, thunder, and lightning delayed us the greatest part of the night. When we could proceed we went on, and rested under the hospitable roof of a boyard, whose house was beautifully situated on the river Argis, at the foot of the mountains. Here ended the flat part of the country, which extends from the Danube, and we began gradually to ascend. I rested at another boyard's house, and saw, to the right as I passed, a large Greek monastery, situated on the declivity of a mountain, surrounded by some well cultivated lands; I shall not attempt to describe the majestic beauties of the mountains; timber and shrubs of all kinds gave them a variety of greens, when we got to the bottom we followed the course of the river, which ran with rapidity, and its serpentine meanders were as graceful and sublime as the mountains that poured forth the stream. Here and there, indeed, the sides of the mountains were perpendicular, and accidents, or tempests, had thrown down huge trees that lay across the river, and damming up the water made it fall in cascades. Nothing more wild or romantic can be conceived, than many places of this sort by which I passed; but such scenery could scarcely compensate for the dreadful road. You may conceive, my dear Sir, what a slow progress I made in the mountains, about twenty peasants on foot held up my carriage, the wheels of which were lifted over stones as big as the carriage; the night before last, just upon a little plain, when my guides thought they might venture to let the carriage go, I was overturned, and as it was for the first time in my life, upon the ground, I was so much astonished, though not hurt, that I never thought of getting out, till Mademoiselle D— repeatedly crying out,
Je suis morte,
raised me out of my stupid surprise; she had received a blow in the middle of her stomach, but it was only an outward bruise, and in two hours she felt no inconvenience. This road between Transylvania and Wallachia is torn up and destroyed; it was an article in the last peace concluded between the Emperor and the Porte, I suppose to make the conveyance of heavy artillery impossible. However convenient this may be to either power, the inconvenience to travellers must be dreadful. One of the carriages that followed mine was broken into a thousand pieces, and my new interpreter with one servant came upon horses, having put the baggage upon others, just in time to see my carriage set up again; as to theirs it remains in fragments in the place where it broke to pieces. If any German of your acquaintance, for business or curiosity, comes into these countries, let him make his journey on horseback; I assure you, Sir, these beautiful mountains are well worth seeing; from the foot to the crown of them they bear the richest foliage. And in Wallachia, where the wood has been cut, and agriculture has been employed, the finest turf, the finest crops of grain, prove the soil to be what it is, when you can see it freshly flung up; a rich black mould. This country may be called indeed a jewel ill set, what would it be under the hands of taste and industry—
The timber at present is but little employed, the trouble of conveying it away from the mountains being excessive; the river is too shallow, and too much obstructed to admit of rafts. I slept the night before last, after my overturn, at a place where there were only two miserable huts; one had a kitchen just big enough to hold one mattress, which Mademoiselle and I divided. The morning waked me, and I saw my Arabian grasing close to my window, upon a little green plain; the two Arnauts that conducted him were fast asleep under his feet; he was tethered by a rope, and seemed to be much accustomed to have attendants waiting upon him. A few hours brought me to a custom-house of the Emperor's, that is upon the frontiers, still at the edge of the river that I had followed, and at the bottom of those enchanting mountains, destined certainly for other purposes than harbouring oppressed subjects or fugitive murderers. I cannot tell you, Sir, how glad I was to see the eagle upon a post, and feel myself under the Imperial protection, though I never travelled so well attended, and so courteously treated as in Wallachia. The ill-administered government of the Porte can never secure travellers perfectly from the outrages of rebellious provinces—
From the custom-house I reached a fortress, where an old grey-headed major received me with the greatest respect and attention, and I walked up above eighty steep stone steps to come to his apartments. There he gave me a supper, and had some clean comfortable beds prepared for me and all my suite—This old gentleman told me he had commanded there three-and-twenty years, and I was the first lady he had seen or heard of passing that frontier—If some of my friends could have seen the outside of this fortress, and been told I was there, without knowing why—they would have thought me shut up for life —
Five leagues more brought me to this place, where I am lodged at a Baron de Buccow's, son of the late Governor's, but who lives now in partnership with a Swiss family, who are worthy good people; and who seem to me to be as glad to have me rest three days, as I am to feel myself among Christian like people—
There is a camp of cavalry here, and the Emperor arrived the day before I did to review the regiments—He sent me a message the instant he knew I was come, to know if I was lodged well, and to ask how I did, and if I was not accommodated properly, he should give orders that I might find a
ments to my liking—I sent him back word I could not be better situated, and he is to do me the honour of calling upon me to-morrow morning. He has only General Brown with him, and he lodges like a private gentleman, at an inn in the town One of the wheels of my carriage broke, and they were all in so bad a condition. that I am obliged to stay here four days, to have a new set. I shall write the day after to-morrow, when I quit my hospitable hosts.
I remain, dear Sir, your's ever, E. C—
LETTER LXVII.
HERMANSTADT,
July 28, 1786.
DEAR SIR,
I Have been extremely well entertained here by the Governor, who is a sensible old man, and the only governor remaining in the Imperial service, as I am told, that was so named by the late Empress—He is a Protestant—He has a well arranged cabinet of specimens from all the mines of Transylvania; the gold is very fine, the gold mines are rich, I am told they pay annually two hundred and fifty thousand ducats to the Emperor; this is a tax upon the proprietors of the mines, which is about the rate of a third of the solid weight of ore extracted—viz. three florins out of nine—a much more sensible plan than making all the gold or silver mines in a country the property of the sovereign, if once discovered; the natural consequence of which law is, that the possessors of the land which contain those precious mines, take great care they should never be found —
He is very fond of pictures, and has a collection among which a Charles the First and his wife are extremely fine—and a St. Jerome, by Guido, with a lion, is invaluable—indeed he said he had been offered four thousand pounds for the last—A noble Hungarian, a Comte de Vitzay, and his wife, who was an Esterhazy, with some more nobility, dined with me at the Governor's, and the Comte de Vitzay has taken the charge of my Arabian to Vienna. I believe I told you in my last that the Emperor had sent me word he should wait upon me, which he did. He came on foot, attended only by General Brown, and sat two hours and a half looking over the maps and presents I have received; the maps seemed to please him very much; and when I delivered to him the Prince of Wallachia's message he laughed, as I was a very faithful ambassador. Yesterday morning I was at the review, but the day was wet, stormy, and uncomfortable. The Emperor quitted Hermanstadt after the review was over. He sent General Brown to tell me, he had been so good to order him to write to the Comte de Soro, that commanded at Temeswar, and to the Comte de Colloredo, at Peterwaradin, that post-horses might be ready for me, if I chose to go round by Peterwaradin to see the Croat troops; which I suppose you know form a kind of militia, that, guarding the frontiers in time of peace, cultivate the land; and in time of war are the troops most to be depended upon. The Emperor had given me an account of these troops, and seemed to wish I should go round to see them; but I confess I long much to reach Vienna, having letters I am sure which interest me very much, waiting for me —
I shall write when I reach Vienna—and remain with great respect and affection,
Your's, E. C—
LETTER LXVIII.
VIENNA,
August 30, 1786
I Am arrived very safely and pleasantly here, and was only delayed upon the road by the Comte de Soro, who insisted upon my dining with him. I think Hungary a noble country, and only wants navigations made across from the Adriatic to the Danube, to be one of the richest and best peopled countries upon earth. Turkish idleness, which probably ever will remain the same, gives a fine opportunity for the inhabitants of Hungary to become the richest and happiest people in the world—If fate had made me mistress of that particular spot, I should form a strict alliance with the Porte, asking nothing but a free trade upon the Black sea—Can you conceive, Sir, any thing so comfortable as to have an immense wall or barrier, such Turkish supineness creates, between my kingdom and an ambitious neighbour?—How I would encourage Asiatic splendour, superstition, and laziness, and never do any thing that could weaken such a barrier—Ambition, which often leads men into many wrong paths in politics, may suggest to the Imperial courts that the Turks should be confined to their Asiatic shore, and all European Turkey should belong to the Christians—but I am not of that opinion; and after the sea, I would not wish to surround my country with any other defence than that which Mahometan idleness could form—The Turks are faithful to their treaties, and do not seek war under false pretences—Their revolted pachas give them too much trouble, constantly, not to make them desire eternal peace with their foreign neighbours—A gentleman with a foolish troublesome wife to make his fireside uncomfortable, does not go out of his house to seek new discontents—Such is the situation of the Porte—The perpetual disquietude of the empire makes the thinking Turk find a comfort in the dull moments of rest he finds upon his carpet, spread under the lofty plantane—and we must not wonder to see so many of them seemingly to enjoy moments, which to us would be death-like stupidity. But as I am not the sovereign of any country, I will not take up more of your time with my reflections, but tell you that I found Prince Kaunitz here very glad to see me; he saluted me with a—
Ah, vous voila ma noble Dame
—I have a great satisfaction here in seeing the young Countess of C— and her sister, whom I was acquainted with before; but Lady G— I never had an opportunity of seeing since her new connection with me—She is gentle, modest, and amiable, and I find both her and her sister please very much here—I shall stay only till I receive letters from — and —, and then set out for Anspach, where I shall have the honour and most sincere pleasure of paying my respects to you, and assuring you in person how much I am, dear brother,
Your affectionate sister, And devoted friend, E. C—
FINIS.