Читать книгу The Story Teller of the Desert—"Backsheesh!" or, Life and Adventures in the Orient - Thomas Wallace Knox - Страница 93

We went forward as if impelled by the boot of His Brimstonic Majesty, and as the narrow drosky bounded from side to side the two passengers had hard work to hold on.

We were soon at the Governor’s, and entered a room filled with a crowd of all sorts of people, some dirty, some dirtier, and some dirtiest, and a few looking clean and respectable. The Consul gave his name and rank to a soldier who disappeared through a narrow doorway and soon returned to escort us into the gubernatorial presence.

The governor was a well-proportioned man of fifty-five or sixty years, with white hair, a clean-shaven face, and regular, pleasing features. He was in civilian dress, and his manners were easy and unaffected like those of the higher class of Russians generally. In his presence one might easily forget the official in the kind and courteous gentleman. If he had an iron hand, it was most skillfully covered with velvet. Napoleon said, “Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tartar.” That may be so, but it is unnecessary to indulge in scratching when the Russian is as amiable as we generally find him. It is like removing the paint from a beautiful picture to get at the rough canvas.

The case was stated to His Excellency, and we obtained a note requesting the police to attend to the matter and put the passports in order, if there was no objection. “I shall be at the steamer,” said the Governor, “as my sister is to be one of the passengers, and should there be any trouble, please tell me.” We bowed ourselves out and were off.

The Turkish consulate was close at hand, and so we halted there and obtained the visa to enter the Ottoman Empire, not necessary, but a good thing to have. It might be compared to some of the quack medicines of the present day—warranted not to harm the patient even if they do not benefit him.

At the police-bureau the chief was absent, but his second in command happened to be in. He spoke French fluently, and when I had told him that it was no fault of mine, but the carelessness or downright dishonesty of the hotel-clerk that had brought us into trouble, he said he would see what could be done. The office was technically “closed,” but the Consul had influence enough to gain admission, and I had faith that blarney and “backsheesh,” especially the latter, would do the rest.

We were referred to a subordinate, a seedy and decayed party who looked as if he had a large family and proportionately small pay. I thought here was a case of putting something where it would do the most good, and intimated as much to the Consul.

“Yes, that will be right,” replied Smith; “do as you please, but I must not know about it.”

While the subordinate was intimating that office hours were over and he could do nothing, I handed him the three passports and with them as many roubles.

As his fingers closed on them he smiled sweetly, and no doubt thought of his family and the comforts this honestly earned money would procure for them.

He opened one of the passports, and with an exclamation that amounted to “Really I did not understand how it was,” sat down at his desk.

In a quarter of an hour the passports were all en regle; I was happy, Smith was happy, and the subordinate was happy. We went to the hotel, where the Consul took a parting glass of wine with us, received our thanks and we his blessing. Then we paid our bill and went to the steamer.

I am unable to say whether the clerk of the hotel was grossly careless or dishonest. Had we gone on board with our passports as he returned them to us, we should have been liable to detention until the next steamer, three days later. In that case the hotel might have profited by our enforced delay, and I have a strong suspicion that the fellow had an eye to business and deliberately deceived us. I expressed my opinion of the whole affair, and we did not part friends.

The steamer sailed exactly thirty-five seconds after her advertised time, an example of promptness worthy of imitation. She was an English-built ship, belonging to the Russian Company of Navigation and Commerce, and rejoiced in the name of Elborus. Officers and crew were Russian, with the possible exception of the chief engineer.

We had a motley crowd of passengers in the cabin. We were three Americans, and there was a fourth—a native of the land of the free—a woman whose talkative power was sufficient to bore a tunnel through Mount Washington, and whose mission was literature and matrimony. She was en route to Constantinople to marry a Turk, but I afterwards learned that she changed her mind and married a Greek. Then there were two or three Englishmen travelling for pleasure, several Swiss, German, and French merchants and commercial travellers, all of them chatty and most of them agreeable, and there were half a dozen Russians, mostly of the gentler sex.

We had not been many hours at sea before a majority of the passengers were on speaking terms, and even endeavoring to make the time pass pleasantly. There was no distinction of age or sex in conversation; everybody was polite, and nobody took offence at being addressed without the formality of an introduction. Nowhere in the world will you find travellers more civil to each other than on the steamers which plough the waters of the Orient.

Among the Russian passengers were three ladies (mother and daughters) from St. Petersburgh, sister and nieces of the Governor of Odessa. The younger of the daughters was a Lady of Honor at the court of the Empress, and the family evidently belonged to the haute noblesse of Russia.

If anybody fancies that the high society of Russia is at all “stuck up,” like some of our American aristocrats, he would have been enlightened very materially had he made the voyage with that party. There was no forwardness or pertness on the part of the young ladies, neither was there any frigid reserve or mauvaise honte. They conversed easily and with perfect selfpossession, and when one of the passengers produced a variety of mechanical puzzles for the amusement of the party, they readily joined in the sport. If they were brought up at boarding and finishing schools I must admit that the Russian educational establishments are more successful in their work than the majority of their American and English rivals.

The deck was crowded with third-class passengers, the majority of them being Russian pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. Two priests were with them, and they held frequent service, in which all the members of their flock joined. One of these services, which I happened to witness, was peculiarly impressive.

The after saloon was on a level with the main deck, and consequently its roof, which formed our promenade, looked down upon the humbler part of the ship. The first morning out, I rose with the dawn and went above. The sea was calm and smooth almost to glassiness; there was not a breath of wind nor the least feather of cloud or fog. Most of the stars had been paled by the light of the coming day; only a few were twinkling here and there as if struggling to maintain their existence as long as it were possible. They slowly faded and disappeared as the gleam of gold on the eastern horizon spread outward and upward, and betokened the approach of the sun. By-and-by a rim of fire appeared, and each moment grew larger till at last the full circle of light and heat was revealed above the sea. It was sunrise on the water, duller and tamer perhaps than in the midst of high waves, fierce winds, and fleecy clouds, but still a sunrise of great beauty.

A few minutes after I went on deck the pilgrims assembled for service. The priests read the prayers in full, sonorous tones, and the people bowed or knelt in unison, in accordance with the formula of the Græco-Russian Church. With their faces towards the east, they seemed to be saluting the rising sun, and it would have needed little play of imagination to picture them as pagan fire-worshippers instead of devout followers of Christ. The sun slowly rose while the service was in progress, and when the prayers were concluded his entire disk was above the horizon. A scene of worship more impressive than this it has rarely been my fortune to witness.