CHAPTER XVII. 
BABEL REVIVED. 
The great variety of languages spoken throughout the 
East, hut especially in Smyrna and Constantinople, is one 
of the first things that excites the astonishment of the stran¬ 
ger. Pera is a perfect Babel for languages. It is not uncom¬ 
mon to hear the same person speak in six different tongues; 
and I am told that there are some who speak as many as 
twelve. Our dragoman (Carlo, whose information, however, 
must be received with a grain of allowance) tells me that 
there are some sixty or seventy different castes in Constanti¬ 
nople and the suburbs. I have myself seen about the wharves 
of Galata, Turks, Persians, Armenians, Georgians, Circassians, 
Arabs, Egyptians, Algerines, Greeks, Italians, French, Ger¬ 
mans, Poles, Austrians, Russians, Cossacks, English, and 
Americans, and I can not remember how many others. It 
is evident that the number of Oriental castes, leaving out the 
Franks of Eastern Europe, who can not properly be classed 
with them, must he very great. No person of any distinction 
in society here is considered ordinarily accomplished who does 
not speak at least four languages in addition to his own. A 
knowledge of the Turkish, Greek, Italian, and French is al¬ 
most indispensable in all business transactions; and there are 
few merchants who do not speak in addition to these, tolera¬ 
bly good English. The business men of Pera and Galata 
display this extraordinary talent in the highest degree—the 
Greeks, perhaps, more than any. Of the relative facility 
with which the various languages of Southern Europe and 
the East are acquired, say by an American or Englishman, 
I am inclined, from all I could ascertain, to put them down 
