February 1854

During the slow voyage on the Jampoodle, every morning, Damitry came to my cabin and taught me Batronian till my head was spinning. When my head reached the speed of a spinning-top I would begin to juggle some spoons, and he would hasten away in fright.

After ten lessons, I have mastered ten phrases, which Damitry assures me will cover all conceivable situations on the Isle. These are:

1. You are eating liquorice again.
2. To eat mice is not proper or nice.
3. I am innocent: my aunt has no pen to speak of.
4. Will you please to go away? That is all I have to say.
5. Life on the whole is far from gay.
6. Never would I insult your flying monks.
7. We think so then, and we thought so still.
8. May the early pumpkins blow.
9. I've as many legs as you: far and few, far and few.
10. Some day you may fall in a hole.

What I still must learn, Damitry says, is in which situations each phrase should be used, and that most of them are surprisingly versatile.

Constantinople is smellier than ever, though a little less diseasy than Alexandria. I have taken a room in a comfortable hotel in Pera, overlooking the Golden Horn. Damitry demanded that I should install him in the same hotel, but fortunately the management would not hear of it. So I have left him to his own devices. I am paying him a piastre per day, which I can barely afford. Perhaps I shall be able to sell some of my Egyptian paintings here.

I have written to Husey Hunt, telling him of my change of plans. I shall be unable to attend his birthday party at Hastings next month, but have told him that I still expect to meet him in Zermatt, in the first week in August.

The British ambassador to Turkey, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, is a cold fish, in both manner and appearance. When I called on him to renew our acquaintance, he had quite forgotten me. He told me that he expects Britain soon to declare war on Russia, with consequent fighting around the mouth of the Danube - and perhaps even the Crimea. There is already a large British military encampment at Scutari, sent here (so they say) to worry the Russians. He warned me against visiting the Isle of Batrony. "Nobody has ever returned from there," he averred. I could not be bothered telling him that my phrase-master’s presence here in Constantinople gives the lie to that statement.

A messenger called at my hotel, with an unexpected visiting card. A Lady named Jillian Jones, of whom I have never heard, requested the pleasure of my company.

Intrigued, I agreed, imagining (for some wild reason) a Mussulwoman with a ring and a bell in her nose.

The next day, the messenger returned, and escorted me to a palatial villa in the hills above Scutari. An extremely charming young Englishwoman greeted me. I admired her mischievous face, her dark wavy her, and her creamy skin.

She explained the situation. She had heard, through the ambassador, that a well-regarded English painter was staying here. Her husband, General Handel Jones, has been suddenly transferred to the Baltic, in expectation of a war with Russia. In the past, he always insisted that she accompany him, but this time he was anxious that she not do so. When she asked why, he gave many reasons: a different one each time.

Lady Jones confided all this to me in a low voice, interrupted by occasional peals of laughter.

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked, puzzled.

She bent her delightful head toward me and whispered "Because I suspect he has taken a mistress to the Baltic." Again she laughed. Any other woman, I expected, would have burst into tears at that moment.

"I want you to paint my portrait," she added. "I should like that portrait to be appealing enough to make him abandon his mistress."

I told her that I was a landscape painter, and that my skill at portraiture left much to be desired. Find a skilled portraitist, I advised.

Vehemently she stamped her foot, narrowly missing mine. Then she laughed again. "I have been searching for a month, Mr Lear. Constantinople has no painter I can trust. You have given drawing lessons to Queen Victoria, Lord Stratford tells me."

"Years ago," I admitted.

"Good enough for the Queen - good enough for me," she said. "Now, let us get down to business. What are your fees?"

I ventured a figure.

"Nonsense!" she said. "That will never impress my husband. No, it must be ten times as much. The cost must pain his pocket, as that is where his feelings are strongest. It must damage his ability to support a mistress."

When she explained how she wanted her portrait to look, it became clear to me why she had not called in a local hack to paint the usual head-and-shoulders view.

"I want the portrait to display a good deal of skin, but of course in a tasteful style. My face is nothing special, I believe, but my skin is my best feature."

"Your face is very pleasant," I declared.

"But you have not seen my skin yet," she laughed. "Your portrait must make him desire me," she explained, gesturing as if to disrobe. "Do you understand me, Mr Lear? Are you a man? Do you have a wife?"

"Well..." I admitted.

"If I were your wife, how would you like to remember me?" she asked. "What should I wear? Should I stand, sit, or lie?"

She laughed again, throwing her head back. She was deliberately inflaming me, I suspected.

She decided on a portrait en deshabille, sitting up in bed, clad in a loose night-gown, her hair let down. Would a man find that appealing? she asked.

Hoarsely, I agreed. I could hardly speak. My tongue seemed to be filling my entire mouth.

"You are so kind, Mr Lear," she said as I left, touching my arm briefly. "Au revoir."

I could not sleep last night, for thinking of her. This morning, at my Batronian lesson, I made foolish mistakes, and Damitry was very disappointed.

The Batronian language is written in syllables. As each syllable has its own letter, there are 255 letters in the Batronian alphabet. Some syllables are easy to say, such as ba-tro-ni. Being a debased form of Old Limbonic, thus not unlike Greek, Batronian is not a difficult language to speak (so Damitry assures me) - except for the syllables that have no equivalent in English. For example:

- the wheezy yawn
- the prolonged snort
- the drainhole-like glug
- the subtle difference between the squeak and the squeal
- the dog-like howl
- the insectical chirp
- the purring rrrrrr
- the shqipdelunio (as unsayable as it is unpronounceable)

There are 19 of these odd syllables. Damitry assures me I have mastered the drainhole-like glug, but the whistling sneeze quite escapes me. As for the shqipdelunio (an extended form of anacrusis) my first attempt severely tangled my tongue.

Hours after this morning’s lesson, my tongue was still aching. So it was with much relief that I made my way to the Jones house, paint-box under my arm.

"Come to me every afternoon," Lady Jones had said. "That is when I feel most playful, and the portrait must reflect that. I want him to hang it in his bedroom, and perspire." And again she had laughed that maddening laugh of hers.

So today she led me into her bedroom, where the portrait was to be painted. A maid had laid down paper on the floor, and a chair and easel were waiting for me.

"Why in the bedroom?" I asked. "Will your husband not recognize the furniture?"

"Of course."

"And may he not wonder ‘Who was this painter in her bedroom?’"

She laughed again. "A little jealousy will do him no harm at all," she assured me.

I was most alarmed. She proposed to use me to inflame her husband’s jealousy - and he a general. What if he challenged me to a duel? I expressed these fears to her, and she laughed yet again.

"But you are going off to Limbo, Mr Lear. My husband travels only where the War Office sends him. In the absence of war, he never stirs from our home at Cold Harbour. Fear not: I shall ensure that the two of you never meet. Now, please turn around and gaze steadfastly out the window, while I change into my night-gown."

For five long minutes, I stared out toward the Bosphorus over Scutari, studying the British military camp, while listening intently to soft rustles, tiny creaks, and occasional giggles.

"Mr Lear!" she said, at length. "Are you awake?"

"Yes."

"You were so still, I thought you had gone to sleep on your feet." She laughed. "You may turn now, and take up your brush."

She was reclining on her bed, in a filmy gown. "Do you find this posture alluring?" she asked.

I swallowed hastily, almost unable to speak.

"No? Perhaps if I undo the girdle a little more," she said, fumbling at her waist. "Mr Lear, please study this landscape, and offer me your opinion."

"Most picturesque," I stuttered.

"Perhaps I should remove it altogether," she mused.

"No, no, no!"

"Do you think me unattractive, then?"

"Of course not, on the contrary, not at all," I babbled. "But I have not studied the nude. And I should be quite unable to control myself."

"I should control you, with the greatest of ease," she remarked. "But my husband would jealously hide a portrait of me bare. Or else he would show it to his army friends and they would gloat. No, he must keep my portrait in his bedroom, and regard me longingly each night. He will silently compare me to the mistress, but she will dare not remove it. Now, I shall loosen this a little more, and seek your professional opinion..."

Politely, I looked away.

"I’m asking you a question!" she snapped, stroking her creamy bosom. "Do you think a woman from Dorking would have skin as smooth as this?"

"Dorking!" I chuckled.

"Lately, at the dinner table, my husband was wont to utter strange sentences. Such as ‘Around Dorking there are many fine estates, I hear.’ Also ‘At Dorking the hens are splendid; as white as milk.’ From this, I deduce that his mistress comes from a family of poultry-farmers near Dorking. I believe, too, that she possesses a very large bonnet." At this point Jingly collapsed with laughter.

To distract her, I took several India-rubbers and juggled them in the air for a few seconds. She was most impressed, and expressed a desire to learn juggling herself. "Not from me, I’m afraid," I said, collecting the erasers from the floor. "As you can see, I have not mastered the art entirely."

Most afternoons in the past month, I have visited Lady Jones. We spend as much time talking as painting and posing. I have become dangerously in love with her. When at the end of each session she steps from her couch and stretches her limbs, as gracefully as a cat, it takes all my moral strength to refrain from embracing her.

I find I can best keep my passions in check by regarding her as a large bird, whose plumage I am faithfully rendering. She was much amused when I told her this.

After lying still for an hour or two, she becomes restless. She has induced me to pursue her around the room, her nightgown flying out behind her. She has lain in wait for me behind the furniture, and jumped out at me, in wilful torment, shouting "Yonghy Bonghy Bo!"

Of all women I have met, she has the finest command of nonsense. Her husband never likes to play such games, she says; he is too old and stiff.

After a month of afternoons, I can make excuses no longer. I admitted to her that the portrait was complete. It is the best oil-painting I have yet done - though of course I am merely a water-colourist. I was relieved that the portrait makes her seem almost as attractive as she really is. Jingly (as she now permits me to address her) professed herself delighted with it. She also admired my two pencil sketches, and insisted on keeping one. I insisted equally on keeping the other.

"Why do you want it, Hoddy Doddy?" she asked. (She calls me that sometimes; I am unsure what it signifies.)

"For sentimental reasons," I said. "You know I’m more than half in love with you - and if your husband challenges me to a duel, it should be for good cause."

Jingly laughed that bell-like laugh of hers, and actually kissed me on the cheek. I felt as if I had been blessed by an Archbishop. All last night I walked around in a daze. Though I have vowed never to marry, perhaps if General Jones should die in battle.... No. No! I must not think about this.

She gave me a bank draft of 100 guineas. I was both horrified and delighted. "Far, far too much," I expostulated, on opening the envelope and peeping inside. "A goodly amount," she admitted. "But my husband’s keenest feelings are in his wallet."

At a bank, I exchanged the draft for a small bag of gold coins, as Batronian currency is one of the few things not available in this wicked city.

12 March 1854

At last I have found a sea-captain who will transport me to Limbo. The fellow, a swarthy Bulgar named Kit Mut Gar, was more than a little unwilling, but when I greased his palm till it gleamed gold bezants, he grudgingly agreed to set me ashore on the Isle of Batrony, at the port of Kitoozh. As I speak no Bulgarian and he no English, we conversed in broken Greek. This was our exchange - as I understood it:

Captain: "The winds around Batrony are terrible, and many ships are wrecked. And the people all hate foreigners. They will eat you."

Self: "A Batronian friend tells me that most Batronians are very hospitable."

Captain (laughing): "Batronian friend, indeed! Everybody knows it is impossible to leave the island. So why do you want to visit Batrony?"

Self: "I hope to learn something of life - and perhaps even of death. And by the way, my Batronian friend will be travelling with me."

Kit Mut Gar’s ship, the Kamsamah, is an alarmingly narrow zebeck, whose waterline looks as if it has been chewed by crocodiles. It is loading a cargo of assorted nips, bound for Stavropol, in the Russian Caucasus. The hold is being filled with that deplorable vegetable, as well as turnips, rejunips, catnips, pinchnips, and tinsnips.

I am not sure I altogether trust Kit Mut Gar, but I approached at least forty ships and agencies, and he is the only one who even considered my request. The others - superstitious Mussulmen and craven Greeks - seem afraid of even setting foot on an isle renowned for its dead. "The dead are less trouble than the living," I argued - but to no avail, till today.

The Kamsamah normally takes on cargo at Sinope, but since that port was destroyed a few months ago by the Russian navy, Kit Mut Gar has been forced to change his plans. Kitoozh is not far off his course. We sail on Wednesday, in order to arrive at the equinox, when the notorious winds are at their mildest.

Damitry has been telling me how rich and wonderful is the Island of Batrony. It has the most marvellous trees, the strangest animals, the oddest rocks, he says, enumerating all the things that I could paint. I take all this with a grain of salt; it sounds too fantastic to be true. Damitry also warned me that the bandits can be annoying (describing them as if they are flies) and that I should purchase a gun.

"I am no shooter," I confessed. "If bandits are a problem, I shall swat them."

But we were speaking Greek, and "swat" in Greek has a somewhat different meaning. Damitry took me seriously.

"With your bare hands?" he asked.

"Of course not! With a suitable instrument."

"What instrument could that be?"

"I do not know the Greek for it," I said, not wishing to discuss the matter further.

My only knowledge of the Island, apart from Damitry, comes from the Chronicle of Guillaume de Cavuchonne, a crusader who went there by mistake in the early thirteenth century, and narrowly escaped with his life. In the chronicle of his travels, he devotes several pages to Limbo. I found an edition of this chronicle, reprinted in Geneva in 1778, in the Embassy’s library. Laboriously, I translated these pages into English.

Guillaume’s ship, en route from Constantinople to Marseilles, took the wrong turning from the Bosphorus, and, with strong following winds, struck the Isle of Batrony a week or so later - with some force. The ship was destroyed, but the enterprising Guillaume, while sinking, noticed a long-necked animal wading in the vicinity. (Surely not a giraffe?) By clinging to its neck, he was carried to safety, alighting in a tree which his mount paused to nibble on regaining the shore.

Other adventures follow, including a detailed account of Guillaume’s visit to the Bay of Death, on which the city of Limbo is situated. (It turns out that Limbo is only one small part of the island.) Unfortunately, Guillaume’s chronicle is silent on some important points – such as how he left the island. His adventures resume in the Crimea.

It is difficult to know how much to believe this chronicle, which veers between the plausible and the ridiculous. I was interested to find a table of the Batronian alphabet, with its 255 syllables. I showed this table to Damitry, who, though illiterate, recognized some symbols. For practice, I shall start to write this journal in Batronian characters, though still in English. A friend criticized my Albanian book for not being fully honest, and I have taken that advice to heart. If I write in Batronian syllables and the English language, perhaps nobody else in the world shall understand this diary, and I can write just as I wish – later editing it, to be a published book.