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9 October 1879 — Scio | |
Thursday. 9th October [1879]. We reached Scio at 8 A.M. & found the weather changed. It began to blow & to rain & it was no longer very hot. There were the usual official visits. The Govr was our old friend Sadyk Pasha. He was delighted to see us & we landed with him & went to his villa outside the town– He took me & Alice up to the harem & introduced us to his wife & said we were to stay that night with them & Mme Sadyk was very nice & kind altho she could not communicate very well with us. She is of a good family of Smyrna & very liberal minded and enlightened. We spent the morng with the Pasha and as it rained so we could not go out I offered to play backgammon with him & we had several games together. Then we breakfasted with him abt 12 & afterwards we made a little promenade but could not see much for the bad weather. Alice & I dined in the harem & had an excellent dinner with exactly the same menu as the gentlemen had in the salaamlik. Jerry was allowed into the harem. Henry was also put to sleep in the harem wh was a wonderful thing. We had 2 snug rooms with large French beds in them & I amused myself by examining a beautiful packet of night things wh were prepared for us & laid on the bed. The whole was in a cover of silk beautifully embroidered & contained a silk jacket lined with fur, a camisole &c. The whole bed with lace on sheets &c was very smart but unfortunately before morng I was tormented by a bug! A great many ladies Christian & Moslem dined in the harem with us & it was very amusing to witness their dismay when the master of the house came up to the harem—some fled—some hid under chairs &c. We chaffed them & offered them our fans to hide behind. The most particular of them was a very ugly ill dressed woman who said her husband was dreadfully jealous & would not have her show herself. Abt 9 o’cl the Pasha sent word to the Moslem ladies to disappear & then the gentlemen came upstairs & spent the rest of the evening with us. Then they all went down except Henry & Sadyk P. Hill & Alice had beds made up for them on the floor & Hill’s wrath was very much raised by one of the slaves offering to make up a bed on the floor at the foot of Hill’s bed for Jerry. He was finally sent down to the salaamlik for the night. | |
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