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CHAPTER XXXVIII.
We returned to Constantinople, and after a day or two spent in exhausting
marches about the city and voyages up the Golden Horn in caiques, we
steamed away again. We passed through the Sea of Marmora and the
Dardanelles, and steered for a new land--a new one to us, at least--Asia.
We had as yet only acquired a bowing acquaintance with it, through
pleasure excursions to Scutari and the regions round about.
We passed between Lemnos and Mytilene, and saw them as we had seen
Elba
and the Balearic Isles--mere bulky shapes, with the softening mists of
distance upon them--whales in a fog, as it were. Then we held our course
southward, and began to "read up" celebrated Smyrna.
At all hours of the day and night the sailors in the forecastle amused
themselves and aggravated us by burlesquing our visit to royalty. The
opening paragraph of our Address to the Emperor was framed as follows:
"We are a handful of private citizens of America, traveling simply
for recreation--and unostentatiously, as becomes our unofficial
state--and, therefore, we have no excuse to tender for presenting
ourselves before your Majesty, save the desire of offering our
grateful acknowledgments to the lord of a realm, which, through good
and through evil report, has been the steadfast friend of the land
we love so well."
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