d chattels, affording the most comfortable roosting
for the fleas, and with children who brought in ever-fresh collections
to the stock, that among the many undelectable nights we passed, none
equalled in horrors that one of official introduction and high classical
association. And such is pretty generally the hap of him who ventures to
pass the night in one of those habitations where sweeping and washing
remain exotics, and where the [Greek: autochthones] acquire impenetrable
skins. Now, all this sort of thing you avoid in a boat, besides
converting the mere locomotion from a frequent punishment into a
delight: always supposing, be it remembered, that you have not to beat
your way home up the Sinus Saronicus against a tempest. But the old
story of the rose and the thorn comes in here too. By land you are
exposed to the miseries of your nightly quarterings: by sea you may
rejoice your heart with the beauties with which Nature rejoices to
adorn, many of which she reserves for, the coast, and plunge each
morning into the brine with an unsmarting skin; and if you be a genuine
lover of the picturesque, you will be no less eager to seek it among the
fantasies of human society than among the rocks and crags of a
landscape.

So thought I and my two friends as we sat smoking the chibouque of
reflection, at that best of Smyrna's cafes, on the French quay. We were
unanimous on the conclusion that Smyrna had no earthly right to the
title of a Turkish city, except the accident of its happening to be in
Turkey. You may go half over the place and meet not a single Turk,
except those wonderful fellows, the porters, whose Herculean powers have
been so often noticed; or perhaps friend Hassan, the chief of the
police, making a progress, with some couple of grim attendants. In fact,
in the motley of its society, if any one colour prevail, it is that of
France: for among all decent people her language is spoken, and in all
reunions of pretension, her colonists are the more numerous body. The
Greeks, to be sure, are in great plenty, but they occupy chiefly the
lower grades. And as it so happens that the Sisters of Charity have here
an establishment, and maintain, with much ability and diligence, a
female school, the only one in the place--and that the Lazarists are
equally sedulous in their province, it seems not unlikely that Smyrna
will become entirely French in spirit, so far as the upper classes are
concerned. At present the mixture onl