The harbour is very spacious, but has rather the appearance of a wharf, with room for whole fleets to anchor.  Many ships were lying here, and there was evidently plenty of business going on.

The “Franks’ town,” which can be distinctly viewed from the steamer, extends along the harbour, and has a decidedly European air.

Herr von Cramer had been previously apprised of my arrival, and was obliging enough to come on board to fetch me.  We at once rode to Halizar, the summer residence of many of the citizens, where I was introduced to my host’s family.

Halizar is distant about five English miles from Smyrna.  The road thither is beautiful beyond description, so that one has no time to think about the distance.  Immediately outside the town we pass a large open place near a river, where the camels rest, and where they are loaded and unloaded; I saw a whole herd of these animals.  Their Arab or Bedouin drivers were reclining on mats, resting after their labours, while others were still fully employed about their camels.  It was a truly Arabian picture, and moreover so new to me, that I involuntarily stopped my long-eared Bucephalus to contemplate it at my leisure.

Not far from this resting-place is the chief place of rendezvous and pastime of the citizens.  It consists of a coffee-booth and a few rows of trees, surrounded by numerous gardens, all rich in beautiful fruit-trees.  Charming beyond all the rest, the flower of the pomegranate-tree shines with the deepest crimson among the green leaves.  Wild oleanders bloomed every where by the roadside.  We wandered through beautiful shrubberies of cypress-trees and olives, and never yet had I beheld so rich a luxuriance of vegetation.  This valley, with its one side flanked by wild and rugged rocks, in remarkable contrast to the fruitful landscape around, has a peculiar effect when viewed from the hill across which we ride.  I was also much amazed by the numerous little troops of from six to ten, or even twenty camels, which sometimes came towards us with their grave majestic pace, and were sometimes overtaken by our fleet donkeys.  Surrounded on all sides by objects at once novel and interesting, it will not be wondered at that I found the time passing far too rapidly.

The heat is said not to be more oppressive at Smyrna during the summer than at Constantinople.  Spring, however, commences here earlier, and the autumn is longer.  This fact, I thought, accounted for the lovely vegetation, which was here so much more forward than at Constantinople.

Herr von Cramer’s country-house stands in the midst of a smiling garden; it is spacious and built of stone.  The large and lofty apartments are flagged with marble or tiles.  In the garden I found the first date-palm, a beautiful tree with a tall slender stem, from the extremity of which depend leaves five or six feet in length, forming a magnificent crown.  In these regions and also in Syria, whither my journey afterwards led me, the date-palm does not attain so great a height as in Egypt, nor does it bear any fruit, but only stands as a noble ornament beside the pomegranate and orange trees.  My attention was also attracted to numerous kinds of splendid acacias; some of these grew to an immense size, as high as the walnut-trees of my own country.