Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/332

282 present in the East. This hospital at Smyrna is intended for the exclusive benefit of British seamen from ships of war and the merchant navy. It is supported by dues levied on every British ship which arrives in the port at Smyrna. The revenue was formerly administered by the Levant Company, and was by them transferred to the Government. The hospital has remained in statu quo ever since the breaking up of the Levant Company. It is placed in a miserable, dilapidated old house, the ground-floor of which is periodically flooded in bad weather. The rooms on the upper floor are pictures of squalid misery, the plastering decayed and full of holes, the walls dirty,—"with no modern contrivances of any kind. We found three sailors imprisoned in this Black-hole; they were jolly good- humoured fellows, said the bugs were "as big as black currants," and that the bedsteads, though constantly washed with hot water, were so old and saturated with verin that their crevices contained "the essence of bugs." In the holes and corners were worm-eaten old chests, which still bore the name of the Levant Company.

Opposite the British hospital is the Dutch hospital,—a perfect model of neatness and propriety, with a garden kept in order and planted with trees, and that air of comfort both inside and out which contributes so much to the cure of an invalid. I next visited the Greek hospital, which is on a large scale and in excellent order; lastly, the Austrian,— small, but well organized. The French I had not time to see; but I was assured it was admirable.