people; wherever you look, your eye rests upon a wild masquerade of

extravagant costumes; the workshops are all open to the streets, and the

workmen visible; all manner of sounds assail the ear, and over them all

rings out the muezzin's cry from some tall minaret, calling the faithful

vagabonds to prayer; and superior to the call to prayer, the noises in

the streets, the interest of the costumes--superior to every thing, and

claiming the bulk of attention first, last, and all the time--is a

combination of Mohammedan stenches, to which the smell of even a

Chinese

quarter would be as pleasant as the roasting odors of the fatted calf to

the nostrils of the returning Prodigal. Such is Oriental luxury--such is

Oriental splendor! We read about it all our days, but we comprehend it

not until we see it. Smyrna is a very old city. Its name occurs several

times in the Bible, one or two of the disciples of Christ visited it, and

here was located one of the original seven apocalyptic churches spoken of

in Revelations. These churches were symbolized in the Scriptures as

candlesticks, and on certain conditions there was a sort of implied

promise that Smyrna should be endowed with a "crown of life." She was to

"be faithful unto death"--those were the terms. She has not kept up her

faith straight along, but the pilgrims that wander hither consider that

she has come near enough to it to save her, and so they point to the fact

that Smyrna to-day wears her crown of life, and is a great city, with a

great commerce and full of energy, while the cities wherein were located

the other six churches, and to which no crown of life was promised, have

vanished from the earth. So Smyrna really still possesses her crown of

life, in a business point of view. Her career, for eighteen centuries,

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The Innocents Abroad