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grandchildren.
    Edmund wrote a book entitled Days off with Rod and Gun ; given that he spent nine months of the year pottering about on the Helen May , the days off must have occurred with considerable frequency. ‘It was between 1908 and 1914 that Smyrna saw its happiest and most prosperous days,’ he wrote, ‘and during these few years of prosperity, yachting around Smyrna was at its best.’ The yachtsmen would set off on Fridays and arrange an anchorage somewhere off the Turkish coast in order ‘to shoot ashore, or to go fishing, or else simply to pass the time pleasantly in each other’s company’. A photograph published in Edmund’s book depicts them happily at leisure, decked in white flannels and boaters, and sniffing the stiff sea breeze.
    Edmund and his friends often sailed to Long Island, which was situated in the middle of the bay. He so enjoyed these outings that in 1913 he conceived of a plan to buy land on the island and build himself a summer house. ‘This, however, I found to be a difficult thing to do,’ he wrote. ‘In that small, isolated community, land was held as a family possession and rarely, if ever, sold. Selling land to an outsider was quite unprecedented.’
    But like so many of the Levantines, Edmund was not really an outsider. He spoke fluent Greek and had excellent contacts in the Greek community. After friendly negotiations, he acquired the land and constructed a cliff-top house with spectacular views across the bay. Henceforth, Long Island became a regular meeting point for all the Levantine yachtsmen of Smyrna.
    Edmund’s fortune brought many benefits to the village: he wired electricity to the fishermen’s cottages and gave money to the community. In return, the villagers brought him gifts of fruit and vegetables. In the dark years that were to follow, they would have even greater reason to be grateful. Edmund’s patrician sense of duty would help save the lives of many inhabitants on Long Island.
    Boating was just one of many social activities enjoyed by the Levantines. The Whittalls, Girauds and their neighbours also enjoyed spectacular balls and parties in the early years of the twentieth century. In the spring of 1907, for example, Herbert Octavius’s favourite club, the ‘Sporting’, hosted a gala-extravaganza with all-night dancing, music and theatrical interludes. It raised an enormous sum of money for the city’s Israelite Orphanage and guaranteed the continued welfare of many homeless boys and girls. The charity gala’s organising committee was typically Levantine in its composition: it comprised three Turks, one Greek, one Jew and one Armenian, along with representatives of all the European nationals of Smyrna.
    Charitable evenings such as this were by no means unusual; Herbert Octavius was forever receiving letters of appreciation for his charitable work. And he, like all his business associates, poured his fortune into hospitals, nursing homes and orphanages.
    Edwardian visitors to Smyrna remained puzzled by these Levantine dynasties, whose origins were as hybrid as the hyacinths that Edward Whittall cultivated in his glasshouses. One British vice-consul described them as ‘more exuberantly patriotic than we allow ourselves to appear at home’. Yet they rarely visited their mother countries and, although the Whittalls chose resolutely English names for their sons, one side of their family was in fact Venetian in origin, descendants of the great Cortazzi dynasty. Other families in Smyrna were more open about their mixed origins. Many families had sons and daughters whose names – Polycarp, Hortense and Francesci – betrayed their convoluted bloodlines.
    With their fluency in five or six languages and their extraordinary wealth to boot, the lives of these dynasties seemed untouched by the cares of the world. But unbeknown to Herbert Octavius or any of his neighbours in Bournabat, the Levantines were rapidly entering the twilight of their charmed existence. It