having seen the sultan’s great city, mosques, ambers, sponges, perfumeries and beads, i am now passing the custom house, on my way back to greece.
in the front part of this vessel the cabin is all one, and whoever gets any kind of a berth is lucky, as the passengers are numerous. the beds or berths are one over the other, like our lake boats’ second class cabin. one berth is a little higher than the other, they are three stories, and one person has to climb over another to get in bed, and even then you are too close together. the second class passengers find their own bedding, and sleep upon deck, and we have some very rich greecian families aboard, with their bedding and food, who sleep on deck. yesterday we passed by smyrna, and stopped and took aboard three beautiful albanian girls. when you see a pile of old rubbish lying about on these dardanelle boats, there is always some owner lying under it.
these albanian girls were dressed very different from the turkish girls, and the pretty ones are not veiled. they had on a very pretty costume, but over it they wore a very large and coarse cloak, composed of either camel’s hair, or wool of some ugly animal. they have a bonnet attached to it, that they can either throw back, or wear on their heads, and this cloak drags the ground. on board of our vessel was two young gentlemen from new york, trying to attract the attention of these albanian girls, though they had their beaux with them. these young gents are very rich, their wholesale oil establishment, in new york, is said to do a business of millions of dollars per annum, and their names were bridgers. they were seen to follow these beauties wherever they promenaded the deck, still they received no encouragement. sometimes these girls would hide themselves in their winding sheet, and throw the bonnet part over their heads, and fall down upon the deck as singular and as natural as an apple from a tree, and then they would appear as a pile of rubbish of old sacks. at last the gay messrs. bridgers lost them, and they hunted in all directions, but could not find these fairies. they got tired hunting, and seated themselves to talk on some old piles of blankets and quilts, but before he got seated. i mean only one, he was thrown flat on his face by one of these pretty girls. in choosing a comfortable seat, he picked the covered head of the prettiest girl. he felt very bad about the mistake he had made, and i felt ashamed for him, but worst of all, he could make no amends, as she spoke nothing but greek. he said “i wish i could apologize,” but he could’nt. she did not seem to like it at all.
the first night out we had a good deal of contention about berths. we had more passengers than the law of this company allows; they are not allowed to take one passenger more than they can accommodate.
among the passengers on board was the first dancer of constantinople. those who had spoken for berths went to bed soon for fear disputes would arise about the right of them. i made sure of mine by sitting by it and watching it. after all the berthers had taken possession of their respective places, i discovered many persons taking berths on the sofas around the cabin; there were some curtains hanging about to make screens, to dress and undress behind, and the lights always burned dimly. these sofas were on a level with the lower berths, consequently, whoever took a sofa berth, was almost sleeping with the occupant of the lower berth.
there was some choice about them, inasmuch as some were wider than others. i could see through my thin curtain that some one had picked out x 31, my own doorway. i lay like a rock to find out who it was, until i saw that everybody was in a resting attitude, after which i quietly drew back my curtain, to see what my neighbor was like. i knew it was some respectable person from the sweet smell of roses and other eastern scents which i inhaled. i could dimly see a madonna figure of considerable size, and the figure was nearly touching me. i did not get scared but lay as quiet as possible. i saw plainly that sleep had sent in a regret for that night, the lamp flickered up and went down, leaving a dark twilight perceptible around the cabin, and i put my hand slowly out to see what my neighbor felt like, and i felt the veritable prima donna of constantinople, “qu est ce que vous voulez,“ said she, ”rien,” said i, and shut my eyes and went to sleep in a hurry, and slept as sound as any man could, by the side of a live prima donna.
