Then the scales fell from the eyes of the Seven, and
one said, Alas, that we drank of the curious liquors.
They have made us weary, and in dreamless sleep these
two long centuries have we lain. Our homes are
desolate, our friends are dead. Behold, the jig
is up—let us die. And that same day
went they forth and laid them down and died.
And in that self-same day, likewise, the Seven-up
did cease in Ephesus, for that the Seven that were
up were down again, and departed and dead withal.
And the names that be upon their tombs, even unto
this time, are Johannes Smithianus, Trumps, Gift,
High, and Low, Jack, and The Game. And with
the sleepers lie also the bottles wherein were once
the curious liquors: and upon them is writ, in
ancient letters, such words as these—Dames
of heathen gods of olden time, perchance: Rumpunch,
Jinsling, Egnog.
Such is the story of the Seven Sleepers, (with slight
variations,) and I know it is true, because I have
seen the cave myself.
Really, so firm a faith had the ancients this legend,
that as late as eight or nine hundred years ago, learned
travelers held it in superstitious fear. Two
of them record that they ventured into it, but ran
quickly out again, not daring to tarry lest they should
fall asleep and outlive their great grand-children
a century or so. Even at this day the ignorant
denizens of the neighboring country prefer not to sleep
in it.
When I last made a memorandum, we were at Ephesus.
We are in Syria, now, encamped in the mountains of
Lebanon. The interregnum has been long, both
as to time and distance. We brought not a relic
from Ephesus! After gathering up fragments of
sculptured marbles and breaking ornaments from the
interior work of the Mosques; and after bringing them
at a cost of infinite trouble and fatigue, five miles
on muleback to the railway depot, a government officer
compelled all who had such things to disgorge!
He had an order from Constantinople to look out for
our party, and see that we carried nothing off.
It was a wise, a just, and a well-deserved rebuke,
but it created a sensation. I never resist a
temptation to plunder a stranger’s premises without
feeling insufferably vain about it. This time
I felt proud beyond expression. I was serene
in the midst of the scoldings that were heaped upon
the Ottoman government for its affront offered to
a pleasuring party of entirely respectable gentlemen
and ladies I said, “We that have free souls,
it touches us not.” The shoe not only
pinched our party, but it pinched hard; a principal
sufferer discovered that the imperial order was inclosed
in an envelop bearing the seal of the British Embassy
at Constantinople, and therefore must have been inspired
by the representative of the Queen. This was
bad—very bad. Coming solely from
the Ottomans, it might have signified only Ottoman
hatred of Christians, and a vulgar ignorance as to
