Charles Thomas Newton

“ The principal monuments of Athens have been so frequently delineated and described, that a traveller, on first arriving, recognizes on every side long-familiar forms, and his first impressions lose perhaps something of their vividness in proportion to this previous familiarity. But nothing that I had ever read or seen at all prepared me for the beauty of the Athenian landscape; nor can any one, without visiting Athens, understand how exquisitely the ancient edifices are designed in relation to this landscape, and how much the subtle charm of their proportions is enhanced by this combination. ”

“ The attempt in modern Europe to transplant architecture from its natural soil, and to imitate it mechanically by line and rule, must necessarily fail, inasmuch as we cannot transplant with the architecture the climate and scenery which first inspired the genius of Greek architects, nor the peculiar habits of thought which blended the fortress and the sanctuary into one, and made the same spot the centre and rallying-point of religions and patriotic feelings. ”

“ Turning from the scenery of Mytilene to its present inhabitants, I experienced a painful shock. Nothing can be less in harmony than Nature and man in this favoured island. A faint tradition of European civilization is preserved in the few Smyrniote families who have settled here for the sake of consular appointments or trade, and whose half-dozen houses form the Frank quarter; but even in this society the interest in subjects such as we talk of in Europe is but small. ”

“ When our eye glances from the precipitous weather-stained sides of this rocky base to the marble columns standing in relief against the sky above, there is a sudden transition from the picturesque confusion of nature to the symmetry of art, from irregular to geometrical forms, from rugged surfaces to surfaces wrought to a polish like that of ivory, and jointed with the precision of the finest inlaid-work. ”

“ The whole population of several villages were gathered together in the open air, their mules picketed outside; each family provided with its own cooking apparatus. They were all dressed in the picturesque costume which is still to be met with in those islands of the Archipelago where the tasteless printed calicoes of Manchester have not yet superseded the native products of the spinning-wheel and the loom. ”

“ While we were at the Dardanelles, I observed a curious trait of Greek manners. The agent of the Calverts had lost 40,000 piasters by a robbery in his house. The robbery was traced home to the people of this village, and after some days the priest of the place declared in church that he had a charm which would infallibly discover the thief. This charm is the leg-bone of a wolf, which, if boiled in milk with a ploughshare, and then burnt, has the extraordinary property of rendering the thief lame: the moment the bone is put in the fire, one of the legs of the thief is forthwith paralyzed. ”

“ After having been jostled by the throng of mules and market-people in the long, crooked, miry streets of Mytilene, it is pleasant to walk in a place where for miles you meet nothing but a stray donkey, where no sound is heard but the echo of your own footsteps on a pavement of pebbles, the most beautifully clean that I ever trod on. ”

“ At length I have succeeded in getting away from Calymnos, where I was detained so long that I got utterly weary of such a monotonous life. You cannot imagine any isolation more complete than that of an European compelled to sojourn in such an island in winter time. It is something like living at the bottom of a well and seeing the same bit of sky every day. The winter has been an unusually severe one. The house I lived in, though once the residence of a Greek archbishop, was a wretched squalid barrack with no glass in the windows. ”

“ Half the quarter-deck is turned into a hypæthral harem, railed off for the accommodation of the ladies of some great pasha going down to Rhodes or Syria to grind his subjects, or up to Constantinople to bribe his way into advancement or out of a scrape. This chancel is guarded by a row of black eunuchs. The Turkish ladies not having often the chance of being so gazed upon, make the most of the opportunity, and contrive to let the breeze get under the corner of their veils from time to time, recovering the truant folds with a feigned confusion; "et se cupit ante videri." ”

“ If there is no wealth, there is, on the other hand, no pauperism. After riding all through the length and breadth of the island, I cannot call to mind that I was ever solicited to give alms, except by lepers.
Of course, wherever there are peasant proprietors, land has a constant tendency to accumulate in fewer hands, as want induces the peasant to mortgage his patrimony; and in Rhodes, as elsewhere in the Levant, small capitalists are not wanting, who, from purely philanthropical motives, as one of them gravely assured me the other day, lend money at high rates of interest. ”

“ The feeling that one is alone in a Greek community, who look upon us as heretics, is more depressing even than absolute solitude. The sympathy with which certain people in England regard the Eastern Christians is by no means reciprocated by the Greeks, who, if led on by Russia, would be capable of a crusade against Western Europe. So far as I have observed, wherever Roman Catholics are found isolated in Greek communities, they are more or less exposed to insults and annoyances, as non- conformists to the religious discipline of the place. ”

“ Ishmael Pasha, whom I have already described to you in my Rhodian letters, is rather a remarkable man. If he could only speak French, he might be ambassador at London or Paris, or hold even a higher position in his own country. He is a very smart little man, dressed like a petit maître, with very shiny boots, trousers studiously strapped down, his beard and hair trimmed with the most scrupulous care. He is in every way a trimmer. ”

“ The great mass of the people does not seem very uneasy at the occupation. Some mortification, doubtless, is felt, though the Greeks are rather vain than proud; but as the inhabitants of Athens have let all the houses in the Phasus for barracks at an unheard-of rent, and are every day engaged in selling beef and bread for a large body of troops, the presence of foreign bayonets is not perhaps quite so disagreeable as might have been supposed.
The Greek minister the other day gave a grand banquet to the English, French, and Greek officers in the Acropolis. ”

“ It must be remembered that Athenian art and literature were essentially forensic, addressed to the whole body of male citizens, gathered together in the temple, the theatre, the Agora, the tribunals, or the Palæstra; while our art and literature, though addressed, in the first instance, to the public at large, finds its way into the homes and hearts of men in a way imknown in ancient life, and so appeals rather to the feelings of the individual as the member of a household, than to those which belong to him as a citizen. ”

“ Ishmael Pasha has no numismatic knowledge, but has a very clear idea of the value of ancient coins as articles of commerce. He keeps his collection in great sacks, which are brought in by a dozen attendants. He rolls them out on the table in great heaps, jingles them in his hands as if they were so many piastres, and then begins cross-examining the Frank numismatist as to their genuineness and value; their historical interest being utterly overlooked. ”

“ From Mandamatha we went to Molivo, the site of the ancient Methymna. Here I presented my credentials from the Governor to an aga, who could not read,—a retired Janissary. He sat turning the letter different ways in despair. I could talk no Turkish, and had no dragoman with me; luckily I had a letter for the Greek schoolmaster of the town, a pleasant, well-educated person, who gave us a very hospitable welcome. The Greek schoolmasters are always the most intelligent persons in the villages: their education at Syra or Athens gives them some glimmering of European ideas. ”

“ Now that I have had the opportunity of comparing Mytilene with other islands in the Turkish Archipelago, I am struck with the fact that its superior wealth and intelligence have contributed so little to the moral improvement of the population.
The difference in the state of society here and at Rhodes may be thus accounted for. The Rhodiote is for the most part a peasant proprietor; his chief employment is to cultivate his own land, consuming the greater part of the produce in his own family. ”

“ However, I found a very intelligent Greek monk acting as schoolmaster, who had collected a number of fragments of inscriptions in his house. He was a fair scholar, and had studied at Athens. I was astonished to find such a man in so wild a place; a monk thus enlightened by education is a rare phenomenon in this part of the Levant. He took me to see the Acropolis of Ereso, of which the situation is most striking. It crowns the summit of a rock rising straight out of the sea. ”

“ So again, if the Acropolis were dismantled of all with which art has invested it, and despoiled of its crown of temples, it would remain a naked barren rock, unredeemed by human sympathies, just as it must have appeared to the first settlers who pitched their tents in the plain of Attica. ”

“ Nothing breaks the monotony of the horizon but the vast tumuli which appear at intervals against the sky, marking the grave of some Homeric hero. In travelling through this country, we saw but few human beings. Instead of the paved roads of Mytilene thronged with fat and greasy citizens riding home on their mules, and with all manner of traffic between the populous villages, the roads in the plain of Troy have long strings of camels on their way to some far country, and an occasional horseman armed to the teeth. ”

“ The priests in the Rhodian villages are generally mere clowns, tilling their land like the rest, and knowing just enough Greek to read the services of their church. They have, however, considerable influence, not as spiritual advisers and searchers of hearts in the confessionals, but as the ministers of a ritual which alone can counteract the superstitious terrors with which the sunny and joyous mind of the Rhodian peasant is from time to time over-shadowed. ”

“ In order to succeed in this sort of traffic, it is necessary to address people in their own language and in their own way, smoke out of their very dirty pipe if they offer it, drink their coffee, and employ every art to ingratiate oneself with them. Then, by degrees, comes out the very information you are in search of. After you have sat for about an hour, and have in vain demanded coins (mongoures, as they call them) , some fellow comes up and produces a battered Byzantine coin; then comes another. If you buy, the mere sight of a piastre brings a whole crowd round you. ”

“ Three large Turkish steam frigates passed down a few days ago for troops from Beirout. This portends mischief: I hope it is not the forerunner of a revolution in Constantinople. As I write, the thunder of Zeus Atabyrios is rolling over my head; it is just 400 years since the last of the Palæologi fell, nobly fighting for the remnant of an empire in the breach at Constantinople; we have had a comet with a long tail all the summer, and my superstitious mind is picturing to itself a great massacre of the Christians, or some such catastrophe, at Constantinople. ”

“ There is a fine group of rock tombs on the mountain behind the village. One has an arched roof, and has a Gothic look; the front is cut into panels. A Roman and a Lycian inscription are cut over the portal, but they have no connection the one with the other. From this point the view is magnificent: across the bay rises the rock of Castel Rosso; on the right, surrounded by lofty mountains covered with dark green shrubs, lies Port Vathy; on the low hills below are tin; rock tombs, the theatre, and picturesque groups of sarcophagi ”

“ From this high ground is an extensive view over the western part of the island, with Cape Baba, the ancient Lectum Promontorium, in the distance on one side, and Tenedos on the other. The air here was deliciously bracing; in the valleys were strange antiquated villages, full of Turks, who gazed upon us with wondering eyes, as if they had never before seen a European traveller. At the distance of two hours and twenty minutes from Ereso is the village of Kythera, where I was told that at the distance of half an hour among the hills was a place called Tiranda, where inscriptions were to be found. ”

“ On the opposite side of the quarter-deck are the European and American travellers, with beards in various stages of development. On the other side of the funnel is an unclean mass of deck passengers,—generally a company or two of Turkish troops,—all eating garlic and bread with unanimous breath. Dotted about are grim fanatical-looking Turks, with green turbans and shaved heads, and beards of a severe cut, men of the ancient régime, who would delight to pound a Christian in a mortar and make him into ink to write verses of the Koran with, if they could. ”

“ In the middle of our journey, we came to a strange outlandish village called Mesotopo, or Half-way House. Here we halted for the night, and found a large party seated round a blazing hearth, over an excellent supper of fried fish. It was the first time I ever saw Greek women admitted to the banquet with the men, or saw a man have the civility to hand anything to a woman. It happened that we were here the guests of people less sophisticated than the bourgeois class in the Mytilene villages generally are. ”