CHAPTER V--INFIDEL SMYRNA



Smyrna, or Giaour Izmir, "Infidel Smyrna," as the Mussulmans call
it, is the main point of commercial contact betwixt Europe and
Asia. You are there surrounded by the people, and the confused
customs of many and various nations; you see the fussy European
adopting the East, and calming his restlessness with the long
Turkish "pipe of tranquillity"; you see Jews offering services, and
receiving blows; {8} on one side you have a fellow whose dress and
beard would give you a good idea of the true Oriental, if it were
not for the gobe-mouche expression of countenance with which he is
swallowing an article in the National; and there, just by, is a
genuine Osmanlee, smoking away with all the majesty of a sultan,
but before you have time to admire sufficiently his tranquil
dignity, and his soft Asiatic repose, the poor old fellow is
ruthlessly "run down" by an English midshipman, who has set sail on
a Smyrna hack. Such are the incongruities of the "infidel city" at
ordinary times; but when I was there, our friend Carrigaholt had
imported himself and his oddities as an accession to the other and
inferior wonders of Smyrna.

I was sitting alone in my room one day at Constantinople, when I
heard Methley approaching my door with shouts of laughter and
welcome, and presently I recognised that peculiar cry by which our
friend Carrigaholt expresses his emotions; he soon explained to us
the final causes by which the fates had worked out their wonderful