The Ship Dwellers Part 16

We landed, found our train, and went joggling away through the spring landscape, following the old highway that from time immemorial has led from Ephesus to Smyrna--the highway which long ago St. Paul travelled, and St. John, too, no doubt, and the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalen. For all these journeyed between Ephesus and Smyrna in their time, and the ancient road would be crowded with countless camel trains and laden donkeys then; also with the wheeled vehicles of that period--cars and chariots and cages of wild animals for the games--and there would be elephants, too, gaudily caparisoned, carrying some rich potentate of the East and his retinue--a governor, perhaps, or a king. It was a mighty thoroughfare in those older days and may be still, though it is no longer crowded, and we did not notice any kings.

We did notice some Reprobates--the ones we have always with us. They sat just across the aisle, engaged in their usual edifying discussion as to the ident.i.ty of the historic sites we were supposed to be pa.s.sing.

Finally they got into a particularly illuminating dispute as to the period of St. Paul's life and ministrations. It began by the Apostle (our Apostle) casually remarking that St. Paul had lived about twenty-one hundred years ago.

It was a mild remark--innocent enough in its trifling inaccuracy of two or three centuries--but it disturbed the Colonel, who has fallen into the guide-book habit, and is set up with the knowledge thereof.

"Look here," he said, "if I knew as little as you do about such things I'd restrain the desire to give out information before company."

The Apostle was undisturbed by this sarcasm. He folded his hands across his comfortable forward elevation and smiled in his angel way.

"Oh, you think so," he said placidly. "Well, you think like a camel's hump. You never heard of St. Paul till you started on this trip. I used to study about him at Sunday-school when a mere child."

"Yes, you did! as a child! Why, you old lobscouse" (lobscouse is an article on the _Kurfurst_ bill of fare) "you never saw the inside of a Sunday-school. You heard somebody last night say something about twenty-one hundred years ago, and with your genius for getting facts mixed you saddled that date on St. Paul."

The Colonel turned for corroboration to the Horse-Doctor, who regarded critically the outlines of the Apostle, which for convenience required an entire seat; then, speaking thoughtfully:

"It isn't worth while to notice the remarks of a person who looks like that. Why, he's all malformed. He'll probably explode before we reach Ephesus."

I felt sorry for the Apostle, and was going over to sit with him, only there wasn't room, and just then somebody noticed a camel train--the first we have seen--huge creatures heavily loaded and plodding along on the old highway. This made a diversion. Then there was another camel train, and another. Then came a string of donkeys--all laden with the wares of the East going to Smyrna. The lagging Oriental day was awake; the old road was still alive, after all.

Like the first "Innocents," we had brought a carload or so of donkeys--four-legged donkeys--from Smyrna, and I think they were the same ones, from their looks. They were aged and patchy, and they filled the bill in other ways. They wrung our hearts with their sad, patient faces and their decrepitude, and they exasperated us with their indifference to our desires.

I suppose excursion parties look pretty much alike, and that the _Quaker City_ pilgrims forty-two years ago looked a good deal like ours as we strung away down the valley toward the ancient city. I hope they did not look any worse than ours. To see long-legged men and stout ladies perched on the backs of those tiny a.s.ses, in rickety saddles that feel as if they would slip (and do slip if one is not careful), may be diverting enough, but it is not pretty. If the donkey stays in the middle of the narrow, worn pathway, it is very well; but if he goes to experimenting and wandering off over the rocks, then look out. You can't steer him with the single remnant of rope on his halter (he has no bridle), and he pitches a good deal when he gets off his course. Being a tall person, I was closed up like a gra.s.shopper, and felt fearfully top-heavy. Laura, age fourteen, kept behind me--commenting on my appearance and praying for my overthrow.

It was a good way to the ruins--the main ruins--though in reality there were ruins everywhere: old mosques, gray with age and half-buried in the soil--a thousand years old, but young compared with the more ancient city; crumbling Roman aqueducts leading away to the mountains--old even before the mosques were built, but still new when Ephesus was already h.o.a.ry with antiquity; broken columns sticking everywhere out of the weeds and gra.s.s--scarred, crumbling, and moss-grown, though still not of that first, far, unrecorded period.

But by-and-by we came to mighty walls of stone--huge abutments rising from the marshy plain--and these were really old. The Phoenicians may have laid them in some far-off time, but tradition goes still farther back and declares they were laid by giants--the one-eyed kind, the Cyclops--when all this marsh was sea. These huge abutments were piers in that ancient day. A blue harbor washed them, and the merchant s.h.i.+ps of mighty Ephesus lay alongside and loaded for every port.

That was a long time ago. n.o.body can say when these stone piers were built, but Diana and Apollo were both born in Ephesus, and there was probably a city here even then. What we know is that by the beginning of the Christian era Ephesus was a metropolis with a temple so amazing, a theatre so vast and a library so beautiful that we stand amid the desolation to-day, helplessly trying to reconstruct the proportions of a community which could require these things; could build them and then vanish utterly, leaving not a living trace behind.

For n.o.body to-day lives in Ephesus--not a soul. A wandering shepherd may build his camp-fire here, or an Arab who is tilling a bit of ground; but his home will be in Ayasaluk, several miles away, not here. Once the greatest port of trade in western Asia, Ephesus is voiceless and vacant now, except when a party like ours comes to disturb its solitude and trample among its forlorn glories.

There is no lack of knowledge concerning certain of the structures here--the more recent ones, we may call them, though they were built two thousand years ago. There are descriptions everywhere, and some of them are as cleanly cut to-day as they were when the tool left them. This library was built in honor of Augustus Caesar and Livia, and it must have been a veritable marble vision. Here in its corners the old students sat and pored over books and precious doc.u.ments that filled these crumbling recesses and the long-vanished shelves. St. Paul doubtless came here to study during the three years of his residence, and before him St. John, for he wrote his gospel in Ephesus, and would be likely to seek out the place of books. And Mary would walk with him to the door sometimes, I think, and Mary of Magdala, for these three pa.s.sed their final days in Ephesus, and would be drawn close together by their sacred bond.

The great theatre where St. Paul battled with the wild beasts stands just across the way. It seated twenty-five thousand, and its stone benches stretch upward to the sky. The steep marble flight that carries you from tier to tier is there to-day exactly as when troops of fair ladies and handsome beaux climbed up and still up to find their places from which to look down on the play or the gladiatorial combat or the ma.s.sacre of the Christians in the arena below.

These old theatres were built in a semicircle dug out of the mountain-side, so that the seats were solid against the ground and rose one above the other with the slope of the hill, which gave everybody a good view. There were no columns to interfere with one's vision, for there was no roof to be supported, except, perhaps, over the stage, but the top seats were so remote from the arena and the proscenium that the players must have seemed miniatures. Yet even above these there was still mountain-side, and little boys who could not get money for an entrance fee or carry water to the animals for a ticket sat up in that far perch, no doubt, and looked down and shouted at the show.

Laura and I, who, as usual, had dropped behind the party, climbed far up among the seats and tried to imagine we had come to the afternoon performance--had come early, not to miss any of it. But it was difficult, even when we shut our eyes. Weeds and gra.s.s grew everywhere in the crevices; dandelions bloomed and briers tangled where sat the beaux and belles of twenty centuries ago. Just here at our feet the mobs of Demetrius the silversmith gathered, crying, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" because the religion of St. Paul was spoiling their trade for miniature temples. Down there in the arena Paul did battle with the beasts, very likely as punishment. This is the spot--these are the very benches--but we cannot see the picture: we cannot wake the tread of the vanished years.

Behind the arena are the columns that support the stage, and back of these are the dressing-rooms, their marble walls as solid and perfect to-day as when the ancient players dallied and gossiped there. At one end is a dark, cave-like place where we thought the wild beasts might have been kept. I stood at the entrance and Laura made my picture, but she complained that I did not look fierce enough for her purpose.

On another slope of the hill a smaller theatre, the Odeon, has recently been uncovered. A gem of beauty it was, and much of its wonder is still preserved. Here the singers of a forgotten time gave forth their melody to a group of music-lovers, gathered in this close circle of seats that not a note or shading might be lost.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALL THE PLAINS AND SLOPES OF THE OLD CITY WITH ITS WHITE FRAGMENTS AND POOR RUINED HARBOR LAY AT OUR FEET

NOTE.--In this picture the theatre where St. Paul fought is in the foreground; the library just beyond, the market-place to the right. Bits of water show where the harbor once lay.]

We pa.s.sed around this dainty playhouse, across a little wheat-field that some peasant has planted against its very walls, on up the hill, scrambling along steep declivities over its brow, and, behold! we came out high above the great theatre on the other side, and all the plain and slopes of the old city, with its white fragments and its poor ruined harbor, lay at our feet. Earthquakes shook the city down and filled up the splendid harbor. If the harbor had been spared the city would have been rebuilt. Instead, the harbor is a marsh, the city a memory.

From where we stood we could survey the sweep of the vanished city. We could look across into the library and the market-place and follow a marble road--its white blocks worn smooth by a million treading feet--where it stretched away toward the sea. And once more we tried to conjure the vision of the past--to close our eyes and reproduce the vanished day. And once more we failed. We could glimpse a picture, we could construct a city, but it was never quite that city--never quite in that place. Our harbor with its white sails and thronging wharves was never quite that harbor--our crowded streets were never quite those streets. Here were just ruins--always ruins--they could never have been anything but ruins. Perhaps our imaginations were not in good working order.

We descended again into the great theatre, for it fascinated us, nearly breaking our necks where vines and briers tangled, pausing every other minute to rest and consider and dream. Pawing over a heap of rubbish--odd bits of carving, inscriptions, and the like--the place is a treasure-trove of such things--I found a little marble torso of a female figure. Head and arms and the lower part of the body all gone, but what remained was exquisite beyond words--a gem, even though rubbish, in Ephesus.

Now, of course, the reader is an honest person. He would have said, as I did: "No, it does not matter, rubbish or no rubbish, it is not mine.

It belongs to the government-- I cannot steal. Besides, there is Laura, age fourteen: I cannot set her a bad example. Also, there are the police. No, my conscience is perfect; I cannot do it."

I know the reader would have reflected thus, and so did I, as stated.

Then I found I could crowd it into my inside coat-pocket, and that by cramming my handkerchief carefully on top of it, it did not distress me so much, especially when I gave it a little support with my forearm, to make it swing in a natural way. But when I remembered that the _Quaker City_ pilgrims had been searched on leaving Ephesus, my conscience began to hara.s.s me again, though not enough as yet to make me disgorge.

Our party had all trailed back to the hotel when we got to our donkeys, and it was beginning to sprinkle rain. The sky was overcast and a quiet had settled among the ruins. When our donkey-driver gave me a sharp look I began to suffer. I thought he was a spy, and had his eye on that pocket. I recalled now that I had always had a tender conscience; it seemed unwise to torture it in this way.

I began to think of ways to ease it. I thought five francs might do it, so far as our donkey-boy was concerned. But then there was the official search at the other end; that, of course, would be a public matter, and the five francs would be wasted. I was almost persuaded to drop the little torso quietly by the roadside--it discomforted me so.

We rode along rather quietly, and I spoke improvingly to Laura of how St. Paul had travelled over this very road when he was making his good fight, and of several other saints and their works, and how Ephesus had probably been destroyed because of its sinfulness. Near a crumbling arch a flock of sheep grazed, herded by a shepherd who had been there when the apostles came--at least his cape had, and his hat--and everything about him was Biblical and holylike, and so were the gentle rain and the donkeys, and I said how sweet and soothing it all was; after which I began to reflect on what would be proper to do if anything resembling an emergency should conclude our peaceful ride. I decided that, as we had just come from Smyrna, I had bought the bit of heathen marble on the way to the station. That was simple and straightforward, and I felt a good deal strengthened as I practised it over and tried it on Laura as we rode along. The _Kurfursters_ had been with me and would stand by the statement--any _Kurfurster_ would do that whether he flocked with the forward-cabin crowd or the unregenerates of the booze-bazaar. I felt rea.s.sured and whistled a little, and then from the roadside a man rose up and said something sharp to our donkey-driver. It was sudden, and I suppose I did jump a little, but I was ready for him.

"No," I said, "I didn't steal it. I bought it in Smyrna on the way to the train. I can prove it by Laura here, and the other pa.s.sengers. We are incorruptible. Go in peace."

But it was wasted. This creature had business only with our donkey-driver and his tobacco. He didn't understand a word I said.

We rode amid a very garden of fragmentary ruins. Precious blocks of fluted marble, rich with carving and inscriptions, lay everywhere. We were confronted by gems of sculpture and graven history at every turn.

Yet here I was, suffering over a little sc.r.a.p the size of one's fist. No conscience should be as sensitive as that.

Suddenly a regular bundle of firearms--a human a.r.s.enal--stepped out of a shed into the middle of the road and began a harangue. I could feel my hair turning gray.

"You are wholly in error," I said. "I bought it in Smyrna. All the pa.s.sengers saw me. Still, I will give it up if you say so."

But that was wasted, too. He only took the rest of our driver's tobacco and let us pa.s.s. We met a little puny calf next, standing shrunken and forlorn in the drizzle, but not too shrunken and friendless to have a string of blue beads around his neck to avert the evil eye. I was inclined to take them away from him and put them on myself.

We were opposite the Temple of Diana by this time--all that is left of what was once one of the seven wonders of the world. It is only some broken stones sinking into a marsh now, but it was a marvel in its time, and I remembered how one Herostratus, ages ago, had fired it to perpetuate his name--also how the Ephesians had snuffed out Herostratus, and issued a decree that his name should never again be mentioned on pain of severe punishment; which was a mistake, of course, for it advertised Herostratus into the coveted immortality. I wonder what kind of a mistake the Ephesians would make when they found that bit of marble on my person, and what kind of advertising I would get.

We were almost to the little hotel now, and, lo! right at the gates we were confronted by a file of men with muskets. Here it was, then, at last. My moral joints turned to water.

"I didn't do it, gentlemen," I said. "I am without a flaw. It was Laura--you can see for yourself she looks guilty."

But they did not search Laura. They did not even search me. They merely looked us over and talked about us in strange tongues. We reached the shelter of the hotel and the comfort of food in safety. Neither did they inspect us at the station, and as we glided back to Smyrna I impressed upon Laura the value of keeping one's conscience clear, and how one is always rewarded with torsos and things for pursuing a straightforward, simple course through life.

I suppose a man could take away marble from Ephesus to-day by the wagon-load if he had any place to take it to. n.o.body is excavating there--n.o.body seems to care for it, and never was such a mine of relics under the sun. At Ayasaluk, the Arab village, priceless treasures of carving and inscription look out at you from the wall of every peasant's hut and stable--from the tumbling stone fences that divide their fields.

Wonderful columns stick out of every bank and heap of earth. Precious marbles and porphyry mingle with the very macadam of the roads. Rare pieces are sold around the hotel for a few piastres.

Remember, a mighty marble city perished here. Earthquakes shook it down, shattered the walls of its temples, overthrew the statuary, tumbled the inscriptions in the dust. The ages have spread a layer of earth upon the ruin, but only partially covered it. Just beneath the shallow plough of the peasant lie riches uncountable for the nation that shall bring them to the light of day. Historical societies dig a little here and there, and have done n.o.ble work. But their means run low before they can make any real beginning on the mighty task. Ephesus is still a buried city.

The day will come when Ephesus will be restored to her former greatness.

It will take an earthquake to do it, but the spirit of prophecy is upon me and I foresee that earthquake. The future is very long--I am in no hurry--fulfilment may take its time. I merely want to get my prophecy in now and registered, so when the event comes along I shall get proper credit. Some day an earthquake will strike Ephesus again; the bottom will drop out of that swamp and make it a harbor once more; s.h.i.+ps will sail in as in the old days, and Ephesus, like Athens, will renew her glory.

Back to Smyrna--a modern city and beautiful from any high vantage, with its red-tiled roofs, its domes and minarets, its graceful cypress-trees, its picture hillsides, and its cobalt sky. It is clean, too, compared with Constantinople. To be sure, Smyrna has its ruins and its historic interest, with the tomb of Polycarp the martyr, who was Bishop of Smyrna in the second century, and died for his faith at the age of eighty-six.