108 
A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 
more in detail from a drawing kindly presented to me in Flor¬ 
ence by my esteemed friend Kellogg, the artist. It will give 
a better idea of Smyrna, perhaps, than pages of description. 
In the course of two hours, during which we were forced 
to restrain our impatience and listen to the most barbarous 
jargon of tongues on board and all around the steamer, it was 
formally announced to us by the Captain that Smyrna was in 
quarantine, and that any body who went ashore would have 
to remain there until the quarantine had expired. We were 
at liberty to go ashore if we pleased, because the steamer 
was not in quarantine, but we were not at liberty to come on 
board again because Smyrna was in quarantine, and the 
steamer required 'pratique for the next port. Smyrna and 
every body in it had been laboring under the influence of 
quarantine for the past five days, and would continue to 
labor under it for three days to come, by which period he 
(the Captain) hoped to be safely at anchor in Constantinople. 
This piece of information enabled me to comprehend cer¬ 
tain proceedings which had occasioned me much anxiety of 
mind for some time previous. I saw now that the dark¬ 
looking men in the boats, with flashy uniforms, who were 
taking little slips of paper from the officers and passengers of 
the steamer, in wire tongs and strange-looking boxes with 
long handles ; and shouting fiercely to all the boatmen who 
dared to approach us—sometimes giving them a thrust with 
the boat-hooks—-were not really convinced that we had the 
plague on board; but that they were simply doing their duty 
in the usual form. It was my first experience in the mys¬ 
teries of quarantine; and I was much interested in all the 
forms and ceremonies. The wrath of the chief officer in the 
boat, when there was any danger of contact; the excessive 
caution of the men with the little tongs; the intense fear 
under which all parties seemed to labor, that the smallest 
scrap of paper, or the slightest touch of human flesh, even in 
its most healthy condition, would carry death and destruction 
somewhere, either into Smyrna or out of it, was a very curi¬ 
ous and striking exhibition of the power of fancy. It was 
enough to fill the soul of any timid man with such dreadful 
