Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/71

 11 8. XII. JULY 24, 1915J NOTES AND QUERIES.

number of what were known as " Levantine families." Wealthy merchants of all Euro- pean nationalities, who had settled in the town for the purposes of their trade in past times, found it inconvenient to leave, and as time went on the connexions springing up between these foreigners and the cosmo- politan society of the place led to many families with English names being distin guished amongst these " Smyrna Levan tines."

A reference in one of Sir W. Scott's novels ' St. Ronan's Well,' which was written about 1830, suggests the idea that at the beginning of the nineteenth century Smyrna was looked upon as a rather gay sort of place :

"Ah, Tyrrel," Fays Mr. Touchwood, one of the principal characters in the novel, "the merry nights we have had at Smyrna ! Gad, 1 think the gammon and the good wine taste all the better in a land where folks hold them to be sinful indul- gence. Gad, I believe many a good Moslem is ol the same opinion that same prohibition of theii Prophet's gives a flavour to the ham, and a relish to the Cyprus. Do you remember old Cogia Hassein, with his green turban ? I once played him a^'rick, and put a pint of brandy into his sherbet. K^ad, the old fellow took care never to discover the cheat until he had got to the bottom of the flagon, and then he strokes his long white beard and says, 'Ullah Kerim' that is, 'Heaven be merciful.' Ullah Kerim, says the hypocritical old rogue, as if he had done the finest thing in the world ! "

Sir Walter, a little further on, refers to the project of cutting the Suez Canal as an idea presented to the Pasha, by whom he pre- sumably means Mohammed* Ali. He speaks of a bank by the local name of Ragion.

GEO. JEFFERY, F.S.A. Cyprus.

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY TRAVEL

IN EUROPE. (See ante, p. 42.)

FROM the Low Countries the traveller frequently made his way to Germany. It was, perhaps, more general to travel in the opposite direction to proceed to France and Italy from England, and then to cross the Alps into Switzerland, taking Germany and the Low Countries on the way home. a But the other route was frequently followed. Udward Browne passed that way in 1668. After visiting Rotterdam, Leyden, Utrecht, and Antwerp, he reached Brussels, where he

a Howell, ' Instructions for Forreine Travel,' sec. xiii., Preface to B. Lassels's ' Voyage of Italy,'

found the people in high spirits over the- departure of Castel Rodrigo, the Spanish Governor of the Low Countries. Their patron saint, St. Michael, as they said, had overcome and cast out the Devil, a a pro- 1 to-day. From Brussels he made his way to Cologne, and thence up the Rhine. Cologne was a useful centre for the traveller. The inns were good, many of the hosts speaking: Latin and their servants French, 1 ' and coaches went once a week to Paris and other places.
 * ceeding one would much like to see repeated

From Cologne there was a service of boats drawn up stream " with great might and maine " d to convey the traveller to Coblenz and Mainz. Sir John Reresby, travelling in the opposite direction, found "the journey very expeditious and agreeable; 6 but any one who has laboured up stream on the Rhine will appreciate Edward Browne's feelings when he describes the joiirney as tedious, and it was also considerably more expen- sive. f After a day or two Edward Browne hired a coach to Coblenz, whence he came by water again to R-adesheim, where he had an opportunity of adding to his father's "closet of rarities" at Norwich. He was shown a boy whose hair was thick and woolly like a negro's, but of a fine white colour, " which being somewhat an odd sight," he writes, " I took away some of the hair with me."

The traveller on the Rhine must have been considerably worried by the continual stopping of the boat at the numerous toll- houses. At the beginning of the seventeenth century there were eleven customs towns between Mainz and Cologne. 11 The taxes belonged to different princes, spiritual and temporal, and as they were frequently farmed, they were collected with the utmost rigour.. Travellers at the time, too, were expected to take their turn with the oars. Rowing, as Coryat remarks, is a fine enough exercise, but it did not a little distaste his humour to find himself obliged to row as well as pay for his passage. 1 At times rafts were strung together for the conveyance of passengers

'Works ' (1835), i. 156.
 * Ed. Browne, Letter, Sir Thos. Browne's

b Ed. Browne's 'Travels' (1687), 115. c Letter, Ed. Browne, i. 84. d Coryat's ' Crudities ' (1905), ii. 361. e Reresby, ' Travels ' (1904), 108. f Coryat, ii. 361.


 * ' Travels ' (1687), 118.

h Coryat, 'Crudities' (1905), ii. 295. Ed- Browne in 1668 noted ten customs towns- 'Travels,' 1685, 117).

1 Coryat, ii. 299.