2 Brewster, In Memoriam: Henry Augustus Purdie. [jan! 



nurse, a strikingly handsome woman. In 1845 he returned with 

 his mother and brother to the Levant, where the family were 

 reunited at Adalia. Here the conditions of life were such that the 

 Purdie children had to spend most of their time in the house and 

 in a large yard and garden connected with it which served them well 

 as a playground; but on Sundays, after listening to a Church of 

 England service and to a Unitarian discourse, they were accustomed 

 to walk out into the country beyond the city walls accompanied 

 by a servant and two or three janizaries to keep off the rabble of 

 hooting native children who followed them and to carry their 

 lunch, which was commonly eaten l)eside an iris-lined brook, or 

 in an olive grove, or beneath some spreading plane tree. Such an 

 excursion might end in an exciting climb down precipitous lime- 

 stone cliffs, over which brooks cascaded into the sea, on reaching 

 which the children would be met by a l)oat sent there to bring them 

 home. Sometimes they were rowed into romantic-looking caves 

 abounding with wild birds, or to pebbly beaches fringed with 

 oleanders, where they bathed. When confined to the house they 

 often amused themselves by cutting pictures from the ' Illustrated 

 London News' and throwing them from an overhanging window 

 into the street, where a crowd of Turkish or Greek boys would soon 

 assemble to scramble over one another for them. Towards even- 

 ing they usually resorted to the kiosk on top of the house whence 

 one might look out over red-tiled roofs and gardens of orange, 

 lemon, fig, vine and mulberry to the blue sea, beyond which rose 

 lofty ranges of mountains bounding the Bay of Pamphilia. 



In the summer of 1846 the family traveled with a caravan to 

 Buldur, a remote Turkish village among the Taurus mountains 

 about a hundred miles from the seacoast. During this journey 

 each of the children occupied a box supplied with bedding and a 

 canopy and slung on the side of a large mule. The^', with their 

 mother and a Greek maid, passed the entire summer at Buldur 

 away from all Iiluropean civilization. They were well treated by 

 the village children, who were more polite and friendly than those 

 at Adalia. In the afternoon they would walk to a large salt lake 

 near at hand, or to some garden or vineyard where they gathered 

 fruit while the attendant servant told them wonderful stories. 



It is to Alfred Purdie, chiefly, that I am indebted for knowledge 

 of these early experiences of the brothers in Asia Minor. Henry 



