Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1867 edition. Excerpt: ...attention, and he started in pursuit, bawling lustily for them to stop. In Constantinople there is a little more strictness in examining baggage, because the customs are mortgaged to Europeans; the officer comes aboard and has the trunk opened; but as tMlid is raised, a backsheesh should be dexterously slipped under, so as to be the first object visible on looking in. This manoeuvre at once results in the surprising discovery that the baggage contains nothing contraband, and the officer returns to his own caique with a polite salaam. As before observed, so exquisitely characteristic was this little episode, that it rather tended to keep up the enchantment that had woven itself around my senses. Many new residences have been built, chiefly around the " Point," but still, when I sallied out after breakfast for a stroll down Frank Street, the Marino, and the bazaars, the alterations I found here and there were scarcely perceptible enough to disturb the waking dream which continued to haunt me during the remainder of my stay, and made Smyrna still appear what memory had pictured it, one of the most charming and unique residences in the Levant, and in the world. Who has not eaten the figs and the raisins of Smyrna, the " Ornament of Asia," the " Crown of Ionia? " Situated at the head of a broad, beautiful bay, environed with perennial gardens, girt with a diadem of lovely villages, fragrant with the odorous airs that lade the serene Egean skies, dowered with the wealth of historic associations, still dispensing fruits to the world with a liberal hand, watched by the old Roman citadel, the grim battlements of the Knights of St. John still reflected in the waters of her port, Smyrna, the city of the Moslem, the Greek, and the Frank, is a living...
