This farandole, which was quite a kilometre long, went round and round
the bazaars all day, up and down and in and out, stopping all the
traffic, as if a real caravan was passing' through. At first the "true
believers" were puzzled, but when they realized they were being laughed
at they grew furious, and rushed off to get "Quat'Gibets," who held his
fat sides and roared with laughter when they told him what was amiss.
Our midshipmen gave him a regular ovation. We were avenged on camels and
camel men alike. The neighbourhood of Smyrna was delightful, and
brigandage quite unknown. Civilization had not yet taught that
refinement of the art, as practised nowadays, whereby people are carried
off and called upon to get themselves ransomed, on pain of having their
noses or ears, or finally their heads, cut off. It was quite safe to go
anywhere, to canter far along the road to Magnesia, or to stop and take
coffee beside some cool spring in the shadow of the huge plane-trees,
and watch the whole East pass by--caravans from Diarbekir, half-wild
Turcoman tribes, bashi-bazouks from the four corners of Asia, all of
them worthy subjects for an artist's pencil, and I never stopped drawing
them. Coming back to the town, which had been cooled by the sea-breeze,
the "Imbat," we used to spend our evenings in the Levantine or Armenian
society of the place, amongst grandfathers who were still faithful to
their old costume, wrapped in kaftans, and charming young ladies, with
Tacticos on their heads, and their beautiful figures, which no stays had
ever tortured, draped in half-oriental costumes. Native music, soft and
plaintive, sounded, as we would watch Mademoiselles Peiser, Athanaso,
Fonton, Tricon, &c., dance the Romaika. Nothing exists, nowadays, of
what was so seductive then. The Orient has kept its sunshine and its
colouring, but that horrible cosmopolitanism has invaded everything.
Everywhere there are stays! and stays steal charm away!