358 COFFEE. 



Almost everything is transported on the backs of donkeys and 

 camels, which may be seen lumbering through the streets with 

 huge panniers or pack-saddles swung on each side of them and 

 filled with almost every conceivable kind of merchandise. It is a 

 curious and not uninteresting sight for a stranger to see a long 

 train of camels joined together with a rope leading from the nose 

 of one to the saddle of the other, marching in single file through 

 the narrow streets of Smyrna to the wharves, where one by one 

 they are forced to kneel down and receive their burdens, with 

 which they again start off under way to the desert. It is, indeed, 

 a veritable meeting of the " ships of the desert," with the " white- 

 winged birds of commerce." The chief exports of Smyrna are 

 figs, cotton, and carpets, it being the place of manufacture for the 

 celebrated Turkish carpets, which are, indeed, most beautiful and 

 luxurious, and the carpet bazaars of Smyrna are a most seductive 

 place to visit. In Smyrna the Turkish coffee-houses, which are 

 80 prominent a feature in Constantinople, are also largely patron- 

 ized. All along the water front they are as thick as are drinking- 

 saloons in West street, New York, and they seem to be filled at 

 all hours with a motley crowd composed chiefly of Turks and 

 Greeks, who are busily engaged in sipping their coffee and taking 

 whiffs from the long, flexible stem of the na/rghileh, or Turkish 

 pipe. Here our steamer took on board a thousand recruits for 

 the Turkish army, Bashi-Bazouks, or irregular troops bound 

 for Constantinople. They were mostly between twenty-flve and 

 thirty-five years of age ; stout, athletic fellows, and generally 

 quiet and good-natured ; very different in appearance from what 

 one might imagine the demons in human form who perpe- 

 trated the massacres in Bulgaria. Still it is difficult to say what 

 these fellows might do when their blood was up, fighting under 

 the inspiration of a religion which teaches that the most meri- 

 torious act a son of the Prophet can do is to kill " a dog of a 

 Christian." Most of them were very devout in the observance 

 of their religion ; they were " told off " in sqnads to go forward 

 and pray, and the forecastle deck, the only clear space on board 

 was constantly occupied by half a dozen at a time, kneeling and 

 mumbling their prayers, and making their genuflections or sa- 

 laams toward Mecca. I fancied that in this devotion to their 



