Transcriber's notes:
Punctuation and hyphenation have been normalised. Variable, archaic or unusual spelling has been retained. A list of the few corrections made can found at the end of the book. In the text, corrections are indicated with red dotted underlining; hover the mouse over the underlined text to see a Transcriber's Note.
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL
IN
GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA,
AND
POLAND.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
"INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN EGYPT, ARABIA PETRÆA, AND THE HOLY LAND."
WITH A MAP AND ENGRAVINGS.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
SEVENTH EDITION.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.
329 & 331 PEARL STREET,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1853.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1838, by
Harper & Brothers,
in the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York.
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
The fourth edition of this work was published during the author's absence from the city. His publishers, in a preface in his behalf, returned his acknowledgments to the public, and he can but respond to the acknowledgments there made. He has made some alterations in the page relating to the American phil-Hellenists; and for the rest, he concludes as in the preface to his first edition.
The author has been induced by his publishers to put forth his "Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland." In point of time they precede his tour in Egypt, Arabia Petræa, and the Holy Land. The countries which form the subject of the following pages perhaps do not, in themselves, possess the same interest with those in his first work; but the author has reason to believe that part of his route, particularly from the Black Sea to the Baltic, through the interior of Russia, and from St. Petersburgh through the interior of Poland to Warsaw and Cracow, is comparatively new to most of his countrymen. As in his first work, his object has been to present a picture of the every-day scenes which occur to the traveller in the countries referred to, rather than any detailed description of the countries themselves.
New York, November, 1838.
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME
Page
A Hurricane.—An Adventure.—Missilonghi.—Siege of Missilonghi.—Byron.—Marco Bozzaris.—Visit to the Widow, Daughters, and Brother of Bozzaris.—Halleck's "Marco Bozzaris."
13
Choice of a Servant.—A Turnout.—An Evening Chat.—Scenery of the Road.—Lepanto.—A projected Visit.—Change of Purpose.—Padras.—Vostitza.—Variety and Magnificence of Scenery.
28
Quarrel with the Landlord.—Ægina.—Sicyon.—Corinth.—A distinguished Reception.—Desolation of Corinth.—The Acropolis.—View from the Acropolis.—Lechæum and Cenchreæ.—Kaka Scala.—Arrival at Athens.
46
American Missionary School.—Visit to the School.—Mr. Hill and the Male Department.—Mrs. Hill and the Female Department.—Maid of Athens.—Letter from Mr. Hill.—Revival of Athena.—Citizens of the World.
61
Ruins of Athens.—Hill of Mars.—Temple of the Winds.—Lantern of Demosthenes.—Arch of Adrian.—Temple of Jupiter Olympus.—Temple of Theseus.—The Acropolis.—The Parthenon.—Pentelican Mountain.—Mount Hymettus.—The Piræus.—Greek Fleas.—Napoli.
73
Argos.—Parting and Farewell.—Tomb of Agamemnon.—Mycenæ.—Gate of the Lions.—A Misfortune.—Meeting in the Mountains.—A Landlord's Troubles.—A Midnight Quarrel.—One good Turn deserves another.—Gratitude of a Greek Family.—Megara.—The Soldiers' Revel.
99
A Dreary Funeral.—Marathon.—Mount Pentelicus.—A Mystery.—Woes of a Lover.—Reveries of Glory.—Scio's Rocky Isle.—A blood-stained Page of History.—A Greek Prelate.—Desolation.—The Exile's Return.
118
A Noble Grecian Lady.—Beauty of Scio.—An Original.—Foggi.—A Turkish Coffee-house.—Mussulman at Prayers.—Easter Sunday.—A Greek Priest.—A Tartar Guide.—Turkish Ladies.—Camel Scenes.—Sight of a Harem.—Disappointed Hopes.—A rare Concert.—Arrival at Smyrna.
149
First Sight of Smyrna.—Unveiled Women.—Ruins of Ephesus.—Ruin, all Ruin.—Temple of Diana.—Encounter with a Wolf.—Love at first Sight.—Gatherings on the Road.
173
Position of Smyrna.—Consular Privileges.—The Case of the Lover.—End of the Love Affair.—The Missionary's Wife.—The Casino.—Only a Greek Row.—Rambles in Smyrna.—The Armenians.—Domestic Enjoyments.
188
An American Original.—Moral Changes in Turkey.—Wonders of Steam Navigation.—The March of Mind.—Classic Localities.—Sestos and Abydos.—Seeds of Pestilence.
203
Mr. Churchill.—Commodore Porter.—Castle of the Seven Towers.—The Sultan's Naval Architect.—Launch of the Great Ship.—Sultan Mahmoud.—Jubilate.—A National Grievance.—Visit to a Mosque.—The Burial-grounds.
218
Visit to the Slave-market.—Horrors of Slavery.—Departure from Stamboul.—The stormy Euxine.—Odessa.—The Lazaretto.—Russian Civility.—Returning Good for Evil.
236
The Guardiano.—One too many.—An Excess of Kindness.—The last Day of Quarantine.—Mr. Baguet.—Rise of Odessa.—City-making.—Count Woronzow.—A Gentleman Farmer.—An American Russian.
258
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL
IN
GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND.
CHAPTER I.
A Hurricane.—An Adventure.—Missilonghi.—Siege of Missilonghi.—Byron.—Marco Bozzaris.—Visit to the Widow, Daughters, and Brother of Bozzaris.
On the evening of the —— February, 1835, by a bright starlight, after a short ramble among the Ionian Islands, I sailed from Zante in a beautiful cutter of about forty tons for Padras. My companions were Doctor W., an old and valued friend from New-York, who was going to Greece merely to visit the Episcopal missionary school at Athens, and a young Scotchman, who had travelled with me through Italy, and was going farther, like myself, he knew not exactly why. There was hardly a breath of air when we left the harbour, but a breath was enough to fill our little sail. The wind, though of the gentlest, was fair; and as we crawled from under the lee of the island, in a short time it became a fine sailing breeze. We sat on the deck till a late hour, and turned in with every prospect of being at Padras in the morning. Before daylight, however, the wind chopped about, and set in dead ahead, and when I went on deck in the morning it was blowing a hurricane. We had passed the point of Padras; the wind was driving down the Gulf of Corinth as if old Æolus had determined on thwarting our purpose; and our little cutter, dancing like a gull upon the angry waters, was driven into the harbour of Missilonghi.
The town was full in sight, but at such a distance, and the waves were running so high, that we could not reach it with our small boat. A long flat extends several miles into the sea, making the harbour completely inaccessible except to small Greek caiques built expressly for such navigation. We remained on board all day; and the next morning, the gale still continuing, made signals to a fishing boat to come off and take us ashore. In a short time she came alongside; we bade farewell to our captain—an Italian and a noble fellow, cradled, and, as he said, born to die on the Adriatic—and in a few minutes struck the soil of fallen but immortal Greece.
Our manner of striking it, however, was not such as to call forth any of the warm emotions struggling in the breast of the scholar, for we were literally stuck in the mud. We were yet four or five miles from the shore, and the water was so low that the fishing-boat, with the additional weight of four men and luggage, could not swim clear. Our boatmen were two long, sinewy Greeks, with the red tarbouch, embroidered jacket, sash, and large trousers, and with their long poles set us through the water with prodigious force; but, as soon as the boat struck, they jumped out, and, putting their brawny shoulders under her sides, heaved her through into better water, and then resumed their poles. In this way they propelled her two or three miles, working alternately with their poles and shoulders, until they got her into a channel, when they hoisted the sail, laid directly for the harbour, and drove upon the beach with canvass all flying.
During the late Greek revolution, Missilonghi was the great debarking-place of European adventurers; and, probably, among all the desperadoes who ever landed there, none were more destitute and in better condition to "go ahead" than I; for I had all that I was worth on my back. At one of the Ionian Islands I had lost my carpet-bag, containing my notebook and every article of wearing apparel except the suit in which I stood. Every condition, however, has its advantages; mine put me above porters and custom-house officers; and while my companions were busy with these plagues of travellers, I paced with great satisfaction the shore of Greece, though I am obliged to confess that this satisfaction was for reasons utterly disconnected with any recollections of her ancient glories. Business before pleasure: one of our first inquiries was for a breakfast. Perhaps, if we had seen a monument, or solitary column, or ruin of any kind, it would have inspired us to better things; but there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that could recall an image of the past. Besides, we did not expect to land at Missilonghi, and were not bound to be inspired at a place into which we were thrown by accident; and, more than all, a drizzling rain was penetrating to our very bones; we were wet and cold, and what can men do in the way of sentiment when their teeth are chattering?
The town stands upon a flat, marshy plain, which extends several miles along the shore. The whole was a mass of new-made ruins—of houses demolished and black with smoke—the tokens of savage and desolating war. In front, and running directly along the shore, was a long street of miserable one-story shantees, run up since the destruction of the old town, and so near the shore that sometimes it is washed by the sea, and at the time of our landing it was wet and muddy from the rain. It was a cheerless place, and reminded me of Communipaw in bad weather. It had no connexion with the ancient glory of Greece, no name or place on her historic page, and no hotel where we could get a breakfast; but one of the officers of the customs conducted us to a shantee filled with Bavarian soldiers drinking. There was a sort of second story, accessible only by a ladder; and one end of this was partitioned off with boards, but had neither bench, table, nor any other article of housekeeping. We had been on and almost in the water since daylight, exposed to a keen wind and drizzling rain, and now, at eleven o'clock, could probably have eaten several chickens apiece; but nothing came amiss, and, as we could not get chickens, we took eggs, which, for lack of any vessel to boil them in, were roasted. We placed a huge loaf of bread on the middle of the floor, and seated ourselves around it, spreading out so as to keep the eggs from rolling away, and each hewing off bread for himself. Fortunately, the Greeks have learned from their quondam Turkish masters the art of making coffee, and a cup of this Eastern cordial kept our dry bread from choking us.
When we came out again the aspect of matters was more cheerful; the long street was swarming with Greeks, many of them armed with pistols and yataghan, but miserably poor in appearance, and in such numbers that not half of them could find the shelter of a roof at night. We were accosted by one dressed in a hat and frockcoat, and who, in occasional visits to Corfu and Trieste, had picked up some Italian and French, and a suit of European clothes, and was rather looked up to by his untravelled countrymen. As a man of the world, who had received civilities abroad, he seemed to consider it incumbent upon him to reciprocate at home, and, with the tacit consent of all around, he undertook to do the honours of Missilonghi.
If, as a Greek, he had any national pride about him, he was imposing upon himself a severe task; for all that he could do was to conduct us among ruins, and, as he went along, tell us the story of the bloody siege which had reduced the place to its present woful state. For more than a year, under unparalleled hardships, its brave garrison resisted the combined strength of the Turkish and Egyptian armies, and, when all hope was gone, resolved to cut their way through the enemy or die in the attempt. Many of the aged and sick, the wounded and the women, refused to join in the sortie, and preferred to shut themselves up in an old mill, with the desperate purpose of resisting until they should bring around them a large crowd of Turks, when they would blow all up together. An old invalid soldier seated himself in a mine under the Bastion Bozzaris (the ruins of which we saw), the mine being charged with thirty kegs of gunpowder; the last sacrament was administered by the bishop and priests to the whole population and, at a signal, the besieged made their desperate sortie. One body dashed through the Turkish ranks, and, with many women and children, gained the mountains; but the rest were driven back. Many of the women ran to the sea and plunged in with their children; husbands stabbed their wives with their own hands to save them from the Turks, and the old soldier under the bastion set fire to the train, and the remnant of the heroic garrison buried themselves under the ruins of Missilonghi.
Among them were thirteen foreigners, of whom only one escaped. One of the most distinguished was Meyer, a young Swiss, who entered as a volunteer at the beginning of the revolution, became attached to a beautiful Missilonghiote girl, married her, and, when the final sortie was made, his wife being sick, he remained with her, and was blown up with the others. A letter written a few days before his death, and brought away by one who escaped in the sortie, records the condition of the garrison.
"A wound which I have received in my shoulder, while I am in daily expectation of one which will be my passport to eternity, has prevented me till now from bidding you a last adieu. We are reduced to feed upon the most disgusting animals. We are suffering horribly with hunger and thirst. Sickness adds much to the calamities which overwhelm us. Seventeen hundred and forty of our brothers are dead; more than a hundred thousand bombs and balls thrown by the enemy have destroyed our bastions and our homes. We have been terribly distressed by the cold, for we have suffered great want of food. Notwithstanding so many privations, it is a great and noble spectacle to behold the ardour and devotedness of the garrison. A few days more, and these brave men will be angelic spirits, who will accuse before God the indifference of Christendom. In the name of all our brave men, among whom are Notho Bozzaris, *** I announce to you the resolution sworn to before Heaven, to defend, foot by foot, the land of Missilonghi, and to bury ourselves, without listening to any capitulation, under the ruins of this city. We are drawing near our final hour. History will render us justice. I am proud to think that the blood of a Swiss, of a child of William Tell, is about to mingle with that of the heroes of Greece."
But Missilonghi is a subject of still greater interest than this, for the reader will remember it as the place where Byron died. Almost the first questions I asked were about the poet, and it added to the dreary interest which the place inspired, to listen to the manner in which the Greeks spoke of him. It might be thought that here, on the spot where he breathed his last, malignity would have held her accursed tongue; but it was not so. He had committed the fault, unpardonable in the eyes of political opponents, of attaching himself to one of the great parties that then divided Greece; and though he had given her all that man could give, in his own dying words, "his time, his means, his health, and, lastly, his life," the Greeks spoke of him with all the rancour and bitterness of party spirit. Even death had not won oblivion for his political offences; and I heard those who saw him die in her cause affirm that Byron was no friend to Greece.
His body, the reader will remember, was transported to England and interred in the family sepulchre. The church where it lay in state is a heap of ruins, and there is no stone or monument recording his death, but, wishing to see some memorial connected with his residence here, we followed our guide to the house in which he died. It was a large square building of stone, one of the walls still standing, black with smoke, the rest a confused and shapeless mass of ruins. After his death it was converted into a hospital and magazine; and, when the Turks entered the city, they set fire to the powder; the sick and dying were blown into the air, and we saw the ruins lying as they fell after the explosion. It was a melancholy spectacle, but it seemed to have a sort of moral fitness with the life and fortunes of the poet. It was as if the same wild destiny, the same wreck of hopes and fortunes that attended him through life, were hovering over his grave. Living and dead, his actions and his character have been the subject of obloquy and reproach, perhaps justly; but it would have softened the heart of his bitterest enemy to see the place in which he died.
It was in this house that, on his last birthday, he came from his bedroom and produced to his friends the last notes of his dying muse, breathing a spirit of sad foreboding and melancholy recollections; of devotion to the noble cause in which he had embarked, and a prophetic consciousness of his approaching end.
"My days are in the yellow leaf,
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone.
"If thou regret'st thy youth, why live?
The land of honourable death
Is here: up to the field, and give
Away thy breath!
"Seek out—less often sought than found—
A soldier's grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest."
Moving on beyond the range of ruined houses, though still within the line of crumbling walls, we came to a spot perhaps as interesting as any that Greece in her best days could show. It was the tomb of Marco Bozzaris! No monumental marble emblazoned his deeds and fame; a few round stones piled over his head, which, but for our guide, we should have passed without noticing, were all that marked his grave. I would not disturb a proper reverence for the past; time covers with its dim and twilight glories both distant scenes and the men who acted in them, but, to my mind, Miltiades was not more of a hero at Marathon or Leonidas at Thermopylæ than Marco Bozzaris at Missilonghi. When they went out against the hosts of Persia, Athens and Sparta were great and free, and they had the prospect of glory and the praise of men, to the Greeks always dearer than life. But when the Suliote chief drew his sword, his country lay bleeding at the feet of a giant, and all Europe condemned the Greek revolution as foolhardy and desperate. For two months, with but a few hundred men, protected only by a ditch and slight parapet of earth, he defended the town where his body now rests against the whole Egyptian army. In stormy weather, living upon bad and unwholesome bread, with no covering but his cloak, he passed his days and nights in constant vigil; in every assault his sword cut down the foremost assailant, and his voice, rising above the din of battle, struck terror into the hearts of the enemy. In the struggle which ended with his life, with two thousand men he proposed to attack the whole army of Mustapha Pacha, and called upon all who were willing to die for their country to stand forward. The whole band advanced to a man. Unwilling to sacrifice so many brave men in a death-struggle, he chose three hundred, the sacred number of the Spartan band, his tried and trusty Suliotes. At midnight he placed himself at their head, directing that not a shot should be fired till he sounded his bugle; and his last command was, "If you lose sight of me, seek me in the pacha's tent." In the moment of victory he ordered the pacha to be seized, and received a ball in the loins; his voice still rose above the din of battle, cheering his men until he was struck by another ball in the head, and borne dead from the field of his glory.
Not far from the grave of Bozzaris was a pyramid of sculls, of men who had fallen in the last attack upon the city, piled up near the blackened and battered wall which they had died in defending. In my after wanderings I learned to look more carelessly upon these things; and, perhaps, noticing everywhere the light estimation put upon human life in the East, learned to think more lightly of it myself; but, then, it was melancholy to see bleaching in the sun, under the eyes of their countrymen, the unburied bones of men who, but a little while ago, stood with swords in their hands, and animated by the noble resolution to free their country or die in the attempt. Our guide told us that they had all been collected in that place with a view to sepulture; and that King Otho, as soon as he became of age and took the government in his own hands, intended to erect a monument over them. In the mean time, they are at the mercy of every passing traveller; and the only remark that our guide made was a comment upon the force and unerring precision of the blow of the Turkish sabre, almost every scull being laid open on the side nearly down to the ear.
But the most interesting part of our day at Missilonghi was to come. Returning from a ramble round the walls, we noticed a large square house, which, our guide told us, was the residence of Constantine, the brother of Marco Bozzaris. We were all interested in this intelligence, and our interest was in no small degree increased when he added that the widow and two of the children of the Suliote chief were living with his brother. The house was surrounded by a high stone wall, a large gate stood most invitingly wide open, and we turned toward it in the hope of catching a glimpse of the inhabitants; but, before we reached the gate, our interest had increased to such a point that, after consulting with our guide, we requested him to say that, if it would not be considered an intrusion, three travellers, two of them Americans, would feel honoured in being permitted to pay their respects to the widow and children of Marco Bozzaris.
We were invited in, and shown into a large room on the right, where three Greeks were sitting cross-legged on a divan, smoking the long Turkish chibouk. Soon after the brother entered, a man about fifty, of middling height, spare built, and wearing a Bavarian uniform, as holding a colonel's commission in the service of King Otho. In the dress of the dashing Suliote he would have better looked the brother of Marco Bozzaris, and I might then more easily have recognised the daring warrior who, on the field of battle, in a moment of extremity, was deemed, by universal acclamation, worthy of succeeding the fallen hero. Now the straight military frockcoat, buttoned tight across the breast, the stock, tight pantaloons, boots, and straps, seemed to repress the free energies of the mountain warrior; and I could not but think how awkward it must be for one who had spent all his life in a dress which hardly touched him, at fifty to put on a stock, and straps to his boots. Our guide introduced us, with an apology for our intrusion. The colonel received us with great kindness, thanked us for the honour done his brother's widow, and, requesting us to be seated, ordered coffee and pipes.
And here, on the very first day of our arrival in Greece, and from a source which made us proud, we had the first evidence of what afterward met me at every step, the warm feeling existing in Greece toward America; for almost the first thing that the brother of Marco Bozzaris said was to express his gratitude as a Greek for the services rendered his country by our own; and, after referring to the provisions sent out for his famishing countrymen, his eyes sparkled and his cheek flushed as he told us that, when the Greek revolutionary flag first sailed into the port of Napoli di Romania, among hundreds of vessels of all nations, an American captain was the first to recognise and salute it.
In a few moments the widow of Marco Bozzaris entered. I have often been disappointed in my preconceived notions of personal appearance, but it was not so with the lady who now stood before me; she looked the widow of a hero; as one worthy of her Grecian mothers, who gave their hair for bowstrings, their girdle for a sword-belt, and, while their heartstrings were cracking, sent their young lovers from their arms to fight and perish for their country. Perhaps it was she that led Marco Bozzaris into the path of immortality; that roused him from the wild guerilla warfare in which he had passed his early life, and fired him with the high and holy ambition of freeing his country. Of one thing I am certain, no man could look in her face without finding his wavering purposes fixed, without treading more firmly in the path of high and honourable enterprise. She was under forty, tall and stately in person and habited in deep black, fit emblem of her widowed condition, with a white handkerchief laid flat over her head, giving the Madonna cast to her dark eyes and marble complexion. We all rose as she entered the room; and though living secluded, and seldom seeing the face of a stranger, she received our compliments and returned them with far less embarrassment than we both felt and exhibited.
But our embarrassment, at least I speak for myself, was induced by an unexpected circumstance. Much as I was interested in her appearance, I was not insensible to the fact that she was accompanied by two young and beautiful girls, who were introduced to us as her daughters. This somewhat bewildered me. While waiting for their appearance, and talking with Constantine Bozzaris, I had in some way conceived the idea that the daughters were mere children, and had fully made up my mind to take them both on my knee and kiss them; but the appearance of the stately mother recalled me to the grave of Bozzaris; and the daughters would probably have thought that I was taking liberties upon so short an acquaintance if I had followed up my benevolent purpose in regard to them; so that, with the long pipe in my hand, which, at that time, I did not know how to manage well, I cannot flatter myself that I exhibited any of the benefit of Continental travel.
The elder was about sixteen, and even in the opinion of my friend Doctor W., a cool judge in these matters, a beautiful girl, possessing in its fullest extent all the elements of Grecian beauty: a dark, clear complexion, dark hair, set off by a little red cap embroidered with gold thread, and a long blue tassel hanging down behind, and large black eyes, expressing a melancholy quiet, but which might be excited to shoot forth glances of fire more terrible than her father's sword. Happily, too, for us, she talked French, having learned it from a French marquis who had served in Greece and been domesticated with them; but young and modest, and unused to the company of strangers, she felt the embarrassment common to young ladies when attempting to speak a foreign language. And we could not talk to her on common themes. Our lips were sealed, of course, upon the subject which had brought us to her house. We could not sound for her the praises of her gallant father. At parting, however, I told them that the name of Marco Bozzaris was as familiar in America as that of a hero of our own revolution, and that it had been hallowed by the inspiration of an American poet; and I added that, if it would not be unacceptable, on my return to my native country I would send the tribute referred to, as an evidence of the feeling existing in America toward the memory of Marco Bozzaris. My offer was gratefully accepted; and afterward, while in the act of mounting my horse to leave Missilonghi, our guide, who had remained behind, came to me with a message from the widow and daughters reminding me of my promise.
I do not see that there is any objection to my mentioning that I wrote to a friend, requesting him to procure Halleck's "Marco Bozzaris," and send it to my banker at Paris. My friend, thinking to enhance its value, applied to Mr. Halleck for a copy in his own handwriting. Mr. Halleck, with his characteristic modesty, evaded the application; and on my return home I told him the story of my visit, and reiterated the same request. He evaded me as he had done my friend, but promised me a copy of the new edition of his poems, which he afterward gave me, and which, I hope, is now in the hands of the widow and daughters of the Grecian hero.
I make no apology for introducing in a book the widow and daughters of Marco Bozzaris. True, I was received by them in private, without any expectation, either on their part or mine, that all the particulars of the interview would be noted and laid before the eyes of all who choose to read. I hope it will not be considered invading the sanctity of private life; but, at all events, I make no apology; the widow and children of Marco Bozzaris are the property of the world.
CHAPTER II.
Choice of a Servant.—A Turnout.—An Evening Chat.—Scenery of the Road.—Lepanto.—A projected Visit.—Change of Purpose.—Padras.—Vostitza.—Variety and Magnificence of Scenery.
Barren as our prospect was on landing, our first day in Greece had already been full of interest. Supposing that we should not find anything to engage us long, before setting out on our ramble we had directed our servant to procure horses, and when we returned we found all ready for our departure.
One word with regard to this same servant. We had taken him at Corfu, much against my inclination. We had a choice between two, one a full-blooded Greek in fustinellas, who in five minutes established himself in my good graces, so that nothing but the democratic principle of submitting to the will of the majority could make me give him up. He held at that time a very good office in the police at Corfu, but the eagerness which he showed to get out of regular business and go roving warmed me to him irresistibly. He seemed to be distracted between two opposing feelings; one the strong bent of his natural vagabond disposition to be rambling, and the other a sort of tugging at his heartstrings by wife and children, to keep him in a place where he had a regular assured living, instead of trusting to the precarious business of guiding travellers. He had a boldness and confidence that won me; and when he drew on the sand with his yataghan a map of Greece, and told us the route he would take us, zigzag across the Gulf of Corinth to Delphi and the top of Parnassus, I wondered that my companions could resist him.
Our alternative was an Italian from somewhere on the coast of the Adriatic, whom I looked upon with an unfavourable eye, because he came between me and my Greek; and on the morning of our departure I was earnestly hoping that he had overslept himself, or got into some scrape and been picked up by the guard; but, most provokingly, he came in time, and with more baggage than all of us had together. Indeed, he had so much of his own, that, in obedience to Nature's first law, he could not attend to ours, and in putting ashore some British soldiers at Cephalonia he contrived to let my carpet-bag go with their luggage. This did not increase my amiable feeling toward him, and, perhaps, assisted in making me look upon him throughout with a jaundiced eye; in fact, before we had done with him, I regarded him as a slouch, a knave, and a fool, and had the questionable satisfaction of finding that my companions, though they sustained him as long as they could, had formed very much the same opinion.
It was to him, then, that, on our return from our visit to the widow and daughters of Marco Bozzaris, we were indebted for a turnout that seemed to astonish even the people of Missilonghi. The horses were miserable little animals, hidden under enormous saddles made of great clumps of wood over an old carpet or towcloth, and covering the whole back from the shoulders to the tail; the luggage was perched on the tops of these saddles, and with desperate exertions and the help of the citizens of Missilonghi we were perched on the top of the luggage. The little animals had a knowing look as they peered from under the superincumbent mass, and, supported on either side by the by-standers till we got a little steady in our seats, we put forth from Missilonghi. The only gentleman of our party was our servant, who followed on a European saddle which he had brought for his own use, smoking his pipe with great complacency, perfectly satisfied with our appearance and with himself.
It was four o'clock when we crossed the broken walls of Missilonghi. For three hours our road lay over a plain extending to the sea. I have no doubt, if my Greek had been there, he would have given an interest to the road by referring to scenes and incidents connected with the siege of Missilonghi; but Demetrius—as he now chose to call himself—knew nothing of Greece, ancient or modern; he had no sympathy of feeling with the Greeks; had never travelled on this side of the Gulf of Corinth before; and so he lagged behind and smoked his pipe.
It was nearly dark when we reached the miserable little village of Bokara. We had barely light enough to look around for the best khan in which to pass the night. Any of the wretched tenants would have been glad to receive us for the little remuneration we might leave with them in the morning. The khans were all alike, one room, mud floor and walls, and we selected one where the chickens had already gone to roost, and prepared to measure off the dirt floor according to our dimensions. Before we were arranged a Greek of a better class, followed by half a dozen villagers, came over, and, with many regrets for the wretched state of the country, invited us to his house. Though dressed in the Greek costume, it was evident that he had acquired his manners in a school beyond the bounds of his miserable little village, in which his house now rose like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, higher than everything else, but rather rickety. In a few minutes we heard the death notes of some chickens, and at about nine o'clock sat down to a not unwelcome meal. Several Greeks dropped in during the evening, and one, a particular friend of our host's, supped with us. Both talked French, and had that perfect ease of manner and savoir faire which I always remarked with admiration in all Greeks who had travelled. They talked much of their travels; of time spent in Italy and Germany, and particularly of a long residence at Bucharest. They talked, too, of Greece; of her long and bitter servitude, her revolution, and her independence; and from their enthusiasm I could not but think that they had fought and bled in her cause. I certainly was not lying in wait to entrap them, but I afterward gathered from their conversation that they had taken occasion to be on their travels at the time when the bravest of their countrymen were pouring out their blood like water to emancipate their native land. A few years before I might have felt indignation and contempt for men who had left their country in her hour of utmost need, and returned to enjoy the privileges purchased with other men's blood; but I had already learned to take the world as I found it, and listened quietly while our host told us that, confiding in the permanency of the government secured by the three great powers, England, France, and Russia, he had returned to Greece, and taken a lease of a large tract of land for fifty years, paying a thousand drachms, a drachm being one sixth of a dollar, and one tenth of the annual fruits, at the end of which time one half of the land under cultivation was to belong to his heirs in fee.
As our host could not conveniently accommodate us all, M. and Demetrius returned to the khan at which we had first stopped and where, to judge from the early hour at which they came over to us the next morning, they had not spent the night as well as we did. At daylight we took our coffee, and again perched our luggage on the backs of the horses, and ourselves on top of the luggage. Our host wished us to remain with him, and promised the next day to accompany us to Padras; but this was not a sufficient inducement; and taking leave of him, probably for ever, we started for Lepanto.
We rode about an hour on the plain; the mountains towered on our left, and the rich soil was broken into rough sandy gullies running down to the sea. Our guides had some apprehensions that we should not be able to cross the torrents that were running down from the mountain; and when we came to the first, and had to walk up along the bank, looking out for a place to ford, we fully participated in their apprehensions. Bridges were a species of architecture entirely unknown in that part of modern Greece; indeed, no bridges could have stood against the mountain torrents. There would have been some excitement in encountering these rapid streams if we had been well mounted; but, from the manner in which we were hitched on our horses, we did not feel any great confidence in our seats. Still nothing could be wilder or more picturesque than our process in crossing them, except that it might have added somewhat to the effect to see one of us floating down stream, clinging to the tail of his horse. But we got over or through them all. A range of mountains then formed on our right, cutting us off from the sea, and we entered a valley lying between the two parallel ranges. At first the road, which was exceedingly difficult for a man or a sure-footed horse, lay along a beautiful stream, and the whole of the valley extending to the Gulf of Lepanto is one of the loveliest regions of country I ever saw. The ground was rich and verdant, and, even at that early season of the year, blooming with wild flowers of every hue, but wholly uncultivated, the olive-trees having all been cut down by the Turks, and without a single habitation on the whole route. My Scotch companion, who had a good eye for the picturesque and beautiful in natural scenery, was in raptures with this valley. I have since travelled in Switzerland, not, however, in all the districts frequented by tourists; but in what I saw, beautiful as it is, I do not know a place where the wildness of mountain scenery is so delightfully contrasted with the softness of a rich valley.
At the end of the valley, directly opposite Padras, and on the borders of the gulf, is a wild road called Scala Cativa, running along the sides of a rocky, mountainous precipice overlooking the sea. It is a wild and almost fearful road; in some places I thought it like the perpendicular sides of the Palisades; and when the wind blows in a particular direction it is impossible to make headway against it. Our host told us that we should find difficulty that day; and there was just rudeness enough to make us look well to our movements. Directly at our feet was the Gulf of Corinth; opposite a range of mountains; and in the distance the island of Zante. On the other side of the valley is an extraordinary mountain, very high, and wanting a large piece in the middle, as if cut out with a chisel, leaving two straight parallel sides, and called by the unpoetical name of the armchair. In the wildest pan of the Scala, where a very slight struggle would have precipitated us several hundred feet into the sea, an enormous shepherd's dog came bounding and barking toward us; and we were much relieved when his master, who was hanging with his flock of goats on an almost inaccessible height, called him away. At the foot of the mountain we entered a rich plain, where the shepherds were pasturing their flocks down to the shore of the sea, and in about two hours arrived at Lepanto.
After diligent search by Demetrius (the name by which we had taken him, whose true name, however, we found to be Jerolamon), and by all the idlers whom the arrival of strangers attracted, we procured a room near the farthest wall; it was reached by ascending a flight of steps outside, and boasted a floor, walls, and an apology for a roof. We piled up our baggage in one corner, or, rather, my companions did theirs, and went prowling about in search of something to eat. Our servant had not fully apprized us of the extreme poverty of the country, the entire absence of all accommodations for travellers, and the absolute necessity of carrying with us everything requisite for comfort. He was a man of few words, and probably thought that, as between servant and master, example was better than precept, and that the abundant provision he had made for himself might serve as a lesson for us; but, in our case, the objection to this mode of teaching was, that it came too late to be profitable. At the foot of the hill fronting the sea was an open place, in one side of which was a little cafteria, where all the good-for-nothing loungers of Lepanto were assembled. We bought a loaf of bread and some eggs, and, with a cup of Turkish coffee, made our evening meal.
We had an hour before dark, and strolled along the shore. Though in a ruinous condition, Lepanto is in itself interesting, as giving an exact idea of an ancient Greek city, being situated in a commanding position on the side of a mountain running down to the sea, with its citadel on the top, and enclosed by walls and turrets. The port is shut within the walls, which run into the sea, and are erected on the foundations of the ancient Naupactus. At a distance was the promontory of Actium, where Cleopatra, with her fifty ships, abandoned Antony, and left to Augustus the empire of the world; and directly before us, its surface dotted with a few straggling Greek caiques, was the scene of a battle which has rung throughout the world, the great battle of the Cross against the Crescent, where the allied forces of Spain, Venice, and the pope, amounting to nearly three hundred sail, under the command of Don John of Austria, humbled for ever the naval pride of the Turks. One hundred and thirty Turkish galleys were taken and fifty-five sunk; thirty thousand Turks were killed, ten thousand taken prisoners, fifteen thousand Christian slaves delivered; and Pope Pius VI., with holy fervour, exclaimed, "There was a man sent from God, and his name was John." Cervantes lost his left hand in this battle; and it is to wounds he received here that he makes a touching allusion when reproached by a rival: "What I cannot help feeling deeply is, that I am stigmatized with being old and maimed, as though it belonged to me to stay the course of time; or as though my wounds had been received in some tavern broil, instead of the most lofty occasion which past ages have yet seen, or which shall ever be seen by those to come. The scars which the soldier wears on his person, instead of badges of infamy, are stars to guide the daring in the path of glory. As for mine, though they may not shine in the eyes of the envious, they are at least esteemed by those who know where they were received; and, even was it not yet too late to choose, I would rather remain as I am, maimed and mutilated, than be now whole of my wounds, without having taken part in so glorious an achievement."
I shall, perhaps, be reproached for mingling with the immortal names of Don John of Austria and Cervantes those of George Wilson, of Providence, Rhode Island, and James Williams, a black of Baltimore, cook on board Lord Cochrane's flagship in the great battle between the Greek and Turkish fleets. George Wilson was a gunner on board one of the Greek ships, and conducted himself with so much gallantry, that Lord Cochrane, at a dinner in commemoration of the event, publicly drank his health. In the same battle James Williams, who had lost a finger in the United States service under Decatur at Algiers, and had conducted himself with great coolness and intrepidity in several engagements, when no Greek could be found to take the helm, volunteered his services, and was struck down by a splinter, which broke his legs and arms. The historian will probably never mention these gallant fellows in his quarto volumes; but I hope the American traveller, as he stands at sunset by the shore of the Gulf of Lepanto, and recalls to mind the great achievements of Don John and Cervantes, will not forget George Wilson and James Williams.
At evening we returned to our room, built a fire in the middle, and, with as much dignity as we could muster, sitting on the floor, received a number of Greek visiters. When they left us we wrapped ourselves in our cloaks and lay down to sleep. Sleep, however, is not always won when wooed. Sometimes it takes the perverse humour of the wild Irish boy: "The more you call me, the more I won't come." Our room had no chimney; and though, as I lay all night looking up at the roof, there appeared to be apertures enough to let out the smoke, it seemed to have a loving feeling toward us in our lowly position, and clung to us so closely that we were obliged to let the fire go out, and lie shivering till morning.
Every schoolboy knows how hard it is to write poetry, but few know the physical difficulties of climbing the poetical mountain itself. We had made arrangements to sleep the next night at Castri, by the side of the sacred oracle of Delphi, a mile up Parnassus. Our servant wanted to cross over and go up on the other side of the gulf, and entertained us with several stories of robberies committed on this road, to which we paid no attention. The Greeks who visited us in the evening related, with much detail, a story of a celebrated captain of brigands having lately returned to his haunt on Parnassus, and attacked nine Greek merchants, of whom he killed three; the recital of which interesting incident we ascribed to Demetrius, and disregarded.
Early in the morning we mounted our horses and started for Parnassus. At the gate of the town we were informed that it was necessary, before leaving, to have a passport from the eparchos, and I returned to procure it. The eparchos was a man about forty-five, tall and stout, with a clear olive complexion and a sharp black eye, dressed in a rich Greek costume, and, fortunately, able to speak French. He was sitting cross-legged on a divan, smoking a pipe, and looking out upon the sea; and when I told him my business, he laid down his pipe, repeated the story of the robbery and murder that we had heard the night before, and added that we must abandon the idea of travelling that road. He said, farther, that the country was in a distracted state; that poverty was driving men to desperation; and that, though they had driven out the Turks, the Greeks were not masters of their own country. Hearing that I was an American, and as if in want of a bosom in which to unburden himself, and as one assured of sympathy, he told me the whole story of their long and bloody struggle for independence, and the causes that now made the friends of Greece tremble for her future destiny. I knew that the seat of the muses bore a rather suspicious character, and, in fact, that the rocks and caves about Parnassus were celebrated as the abodes of robbers, but I was unwilling to be driven from our purpose of ascending it. I went to the military commandant, a Bavarian officer, and told him what I had just heard from the eparchos. He said frankly that he did not know much of the state of the country, as he had but lately arrived in it; but, with the true Bavarian spirit, advised me, as a general rule, not to believe anything a Greek should tell me. I returned to the gate, and made my double report to my companions. Dr. W. returned with me to the eparchos, where the latter repeated, with great earnestness, all he had told me; and when I persisted in combating his objections, shrugged his shoulders in a manner that seemed to say, "your blood be on your own heads;" that he had done his duty, and washed his hands of the consequences. As we were going out he called me back, and, recurring to our previous conversation, said that he had spoken to me as an American more freely than he would have done to a stranger, and begged that, as I was going to Athens, I would not repeat his words where they could do him injury. I would not mention the circumstance now, but that the political clouds which then hung over the horizon of Greece have passed away; King Otho has taken his seat on the throne, and my friend has probably long since been driven or retired from public life. I was at that time a stranger to the internal politics of Greece, but I afterward found that the eparchos was one of a then powerful body of Greeks opposed to the Bavarian influence, and interested in representing the state of the country as more unsettled than it really was. I took leave of him, however, as one who had intended me a kindness, and, returning to the gate, found our companion sitting on his horse, waiting the result of our farther inquiries. Both he and my fellow envoy were comparatively indifferent upon the subject, while I was rather bent on drinking from the Castalian fount, and sleeping on the top of Parnassus. Besides, I was in a beautiful condition to be robbed. I had nothing but what I had on my back, and I felt sure that a Greek mountain robber would scorn my stiff coat and pantaloons and black hat. My companions, however were not so well situated, particularly M., who had drawn money at Corfu, and had no idea of trusting it to the tender mercies of a Greek bandit. In the teeth of the advice we had received, it would, perhaps, have been foolhardy to proceed; and, to my great subsequent regret, for the first and the last time in my ramblings, I was turned aside from my path by fear of perils on the road. Perhaps, after all, I had a lucky escape; for, if the Greek tradition be true, whoever sleeps on the mountain becomes an inspired poet or a madman, either of which, for a professional man, is a catastrophe to be avoided.
Our change of plan suited Demetrius exactly; he had never travelled on this side of the Gulf of Corinth; and, besides that, he considered it a great triumph that his stories of robbers were confirmed by others, showing his superior knowledge of the state of the country; he was glad to get on a road which he had travelled before, and on which he had a chance of meeting some of his old travelling acquaintance. In half an hour he had us on board a caique. We put out from the harbour of Lepanto with a strong and favourable wind; our little boat danced lightly over the waters of the Gulf of Corinth; and in three hours, passing between the frowning castles of Romelia and Morea, under the shadow of the walls of which were buried the bodies of the Christians who fell in the great naval battle, we arrived at Padras.
The first thing we recognised was the beautiful little cutter which we had left at Missilonghi, riding gracefully at anchor in the harbour, and the first man we spoke to on landing was our old friend the captain. We exchanged a cordial greeting, and he conducted us to Mr. Robertson, the British vice-consul, who, at the moment of our entering, was in the act of directing a letter to me at Athens. The subject was my interesting carpet-bag. There being no American consul at Padras, I had taken the liberty of writing to Mr. Robertson, requesting him, if my estate should find its way into his hands, to forward it to me at Athens, and the letter was to assure me of his attention to my wishes. It may be considered treason against classical taste, but it consoled me somewhat for the loss of Parnassus to find a stranger taking so warm an interest in my fugitive habiliments.
There was something, too, in the appearance of Padras, that addressed itself to other feelings than those connected with the indulgence of a classical humour. Our bones were still aching with the last night's rest, or, rather, the want of it, at Lepanto; and when we found ourselves in a neat little locanda, and a complaisant Greek asked us what we would have for dinner, and showed us our beds for the night, we almost agreed that climbing Parnassus and such things were fit only for boys just out of college.
Padras is beautifully situated at the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth, and the windows of our locanda commanded a fine view of the bold mountains on the opposite side of the gulf, and the parallel range forming the valley which leads to Missilonghi. It stands on the site of the ancient Patræ, enumerated by Herodotus among the twelve cities of Achaia. During the intervals of peace in the Peloponnesian war, Alcibiades, about four hundred and fifty years before Christ, persuaded its inhabitants to build long walls down to the sea. Philip of Macedon frequently landed there in his expeditions to Peloponnesus. Augustus Cæsar, after the battle of Actium, made it a Roman colony, and sent thither a large body of his veteran soldiers; and, in the time of Cicero, Roman merchants were settled there just as French and Italians are now. The modern town has grown up since the revolution, or rather since the accession of Otho, and bears no marks of the desolation at Missilonghi and Lepanto. It contains a long street of shops well supplied with European goods; the English steamers from Corfu to Malta touch here; and, besides the little Greek caiques trading in the Gulf of Corinth, vessels from all parts of the Adriatic are constantly in the harbour.
Among others, there was an Austrian man-of-war from Trieste, on her way to Alexandria. By a singular fortune, the commandant had been in one of the Austrian vessels that carried to New-York the unfortunate Poles; the only Austrian man-of-war which had ever been to the United States. A day or two after their arrival at New-York I had taken a boat at the Battery and gone on board this vessel, and had met the officers at some parties given to them at which he had been present; and though we had no actual acquaintance with each other, these circumstances were enough to form an immediate link between us, particularly as he was enthusiastic in his praises of the hospitality of our citizens and the beauty of our women. Lest, however, any of the latter should be vainglorious at hearing that their praises were sounded so far from home, I consider it my duty to say that the commandant was almost blind, very slovenly, always smoking a pipe, and generally a little tipsy.
Early in the morning we started for Athens. Our turnout was rather better than at Missilonghi, but not much. The day, however, was fine; the cold wind which, for several days, had been blowing down the Gulf of Corinth, had ceased, and the air was warm, and balmy, and invigorating. We had already found that Greece had something to attract the stranger besides the recollections of her ancient glories, and often forgot that the ground we were travelling was consecrated by historians and poets, in admiration of its own wild and picturesque beauty. Our road for about three hours lay across a plain, and then close along the gulf, sometimes winding by the foot of a wild precipitous mountain, and then again over a plain, with the mountains rising at some distance on our right. Sometimes we rose and crossed their rugged summits, and again descended to the seashore. On our left we had constantly the gulf, bordered on the opposite side by a range of mountains sometimes receding and then rising almost out of the water, while high above the rest rose the towering summits of Parnassus covered with snow.
It was after dark when we arrived at Vostitza, beautifully situated on the banks of the Gulf of Corinth. This is the representative of the ancient Ægium, one of the most celebrated cities in Greece, mentioned by Homer as having supplied vessels for the Trojan war, and in the second century containing sixteen sacred edifices, a theatre, a portico, and an agora. For many ages it was the seat of the Achaian Congress. Probably the worthy delegates who met here to deliberate upon the affairs of Greece had better accommodations than we obtained, or they would be likely, I should imagine, to hold but short sessions.
We stopped at a vile locanda, the only one in the place, where we found a crowd of men in a small room, gathered around a dirty table, eating, one of whom sprang up and claimed me as an old acquaintance. He had on a Greek capote and a large foraging cap slouched over his eyes, so that I had some difficulty in recognising him as an Italian who, at Padras, had tried to persuade me to go by water up to the head of the gulf. He had started that morning, about the same time we did, with a crowd of passengers, half of whom were already by the ears. Fortunately, they were obliged to return to their boats, and left all the house to us; which, however, contained little besides a strapping Greek, who called himself its proprietor.
Before daylight we were again in the saddle. During the whole day's ride the scenery was magnificent. Sometimes we were hemmed in as if for ever enclosed in an amphitheatre of wild and gigantic rocks; then from some lofty summit we looked out upon lesser mountains, broken, and torn, and thrown into every wild and picturesque form, as if by an earthquake; and after riding among deep dells and craggy steeps, yawning ravines and cloud-capped precipices, we descended to a quiet valley and the seashore.
At about four o'clock we came down, for the last time, to the shore, and before us, at some distance, espied a single khan, standing almost on the edge of the water. It was a beautiful resting-place for a traveller; the afternoon was mild, and we walked on the shore till the sun set. The khan was sixty or seventy feet long, and contained an upper room running the whole length of the building. This room was our bedchamber. We built a fire at one end, made tea, and roasted some eggs, the smoke ascending and curling around the rafters, and finally passing out of the openings in the roof; we stretched ourselves in our cloaks and, with the murmur of the waves in our ears, looked through the apertures in the roof upon the stars, and fell asleep.
About the middle of the night the door opened with a rude noise, and a tall Greek, almost filling the doorway, stood on the threshold. After pausing a moment he walked in, followed by half a dozen gigantic companions, their tall figures, full dresses, and the shining of their pistols and yataghans wearing a very ugly look to a man just roused from slumber. But they were merely Greek pedlers or travelling merchants, and, without any more noise, kindled the fire anew, drew their capotes around them, stretched themselves upon the floor, and were soon asleep.
CHAPTER III.
Quarrel with the Landlord.—Ægina.—Sicyon.—Corinth.—A distinguished Reception.—Desolation of Corinth.—The Acropolis.—View from the Acropolis.—Lechæum and Cenchreæ.—Kaka Scala.—Arrival at Athens.
In the morning Demetrius had a roaring quarrel with the keeper of the locanda, in which he tried to keep back part of the money we gave him to pay for us. He did this, however, on principle, for we had given twice as much as our lodging was worth, and no man ought to have more. His character was at stake in preventing any one from cheating us too much; and, in order to do this, he stopped our funds in transitu.
We started early, and for some time our road lay along the shore. It was not necessary, surrounded by such magnificent scenery, to draw upon historical recollections for the sake of giving interest to the road; still it did not diminish that interest to know that, many centuries ago, great cities stood here, whose sites are now desolate or occupied as the miserable gathering-places of a starving population. Directly opposite Parnassus, and at the foot of a hill crowned with the ruins of an acropolis, in perfect desolation now, stood the ancient Ægira; once numbering a population of ten thousand inhabitants, and in the second century containing three hiera, a temple, and another sacred edifice. Farther on, and toward the head of the Gulf of Corinth, the miserable village of Basilico stands on the site of the ancient Sicyon, boasting as high an antiquity as any city in Greece, and long celebrated as the first of her schools of painting. In five hours we came in sight of the Acropolis of Corinth, and, shortly after, of Corinth itself.
The reader need not fear my plunging him deeply into antiquities. Greece has been explored, and examined, and written upon, till the subject is almost threadbare; and I do not flatter myself that I discovered in it anything new. Still no man from such a distant country as mine can find himself crossing the plain of Corinth, and ascending to the ancient city, without a strange and indescribable feeling. We have no old monuments, no classical associations; and our history hardly goes beyond the memory of that venerable personage, "the oldest inhabitant." Corinth is so old that its early records are blended with the history of the heathen gods. The Corinthians say that it was called after the son of Jupiter, and its early sovereigns were heroes of the Grecian mythology. It was the friend of Sparta and the rival of Athens; the first city to build war-galleys and send forth colonies, which became great empires. It was the assembling-place of their delegates, who elected Philip, and afterward Alexander the Great, to conduct the war against the Persians. In painting, sculpture, and architecture surpassing all the achievements of Greece, or which the genius of man has ever since accomplished. Conquered by the then barbarous Romans, her walls were razed to the ground, her men put to the sword, her women and children sold into captivity, and the historian who records her fall writes that he saw the finest pictures thrown wantonly on the ground, and Roman soldiers playing on them at draughts and dice. For many years deserted, Corinth was again peopled; rose rapidly from its ruins; and, when St. Paul abode there "a year and six months"—to the Christian the most interesting period in her history—she was again a populous city, and the Corinthians a luxurious people.
Its situation in the early ages of the world could not fail to make it a great commercial emporium. In the inexperienced navigation of early times it was considered difficult and dangerous to go around the point of the Peloponnesus, and there was a proverb, "Before the mariner doubles Cape Malea, he should forget all he holds dearest in the world." Standing on the isthmus commanding the Adriatic and Ægean Seas; receiving in one hand the riches of Asia and in the other those of Europe; distributing them to every quarter of the then known world, wealth followed commerce, and then came luxury and extravagance to such an extent that it became a proverb, "It is not for every man to go to Corinth."
As travellers having regard to supper and lodging, we should have been glad to see some vestige of its ancient luxury; but times are changed; the ruined city stands where stood Corinth of old, but it has fallen once more; the sailor no longer hugs the well-known coasts, but launches fearlessly into the trackless ocean, and Corinth can never again be what she has been.
Our servant had talked so much of the hotel at Corinth, that perhaps the idea of bed and lodging was rather too prominent in our reveries as we approached the fallen city. He rode on before to announce our coming, and, working our way up the hill through narrow streets, stared at by all the men, followed by a large representation from the juvenile portion of the modern Corinthians, and barked at by the dogs, we turned into a large enclosure, something like a barnyard, on which opened a ruined balcony forming the entrance to the hotel. Demetrius was standing before it with our host, as unpromising a looking scoundrel as ever took a traveller in. He had been a notorious captain of brigands, and when his lawless band was broken up and half of its number hanged, he could not overcome his disposition to prey upon travellers, but got a couple of mattresses and bedsteads, and set up a hotel at Corinth. Demetrius had made a bargain for us at a price that made him hang his head when he told it, and we were so indignant at the extortion that we at first refused to dismount. Our host stood aloof, being used to such scenes, and perfectly sure that, after storming a little, we should be glad to take the only beds between Padras and Athens. In the end, however, we got the better both of him and Demetrius; for, as he had fixed separate prices for dinner, beds, and breakfast, we went to a little Greek coffee-house, and raised half Corinth to get us something to eat, and paid him only for our lodging.
We had a fine afternoon before us, and our first movement was to the ruins of a temple, the only monument of antiquity in Corinth. The city has been so often sacked and plundered, that not a column of the Corinthian order exists in the place from which it derives its name. Seven columns of the old temple are still standing, fluted and of the Doric order, though wanting in height the usual proportion to the diameter; built probably before that order had attained its perfection, and long before the Corinthian order was invented; though when it was built, by whom, or to what god it was consecrated, antiquaries cannot agree in deciding. Contrasted with these solitary columns of an unknown antiquity are ruins of yesterday. Houses fallen, burned, and black with smoke, as if the wretched inmates had fled before the blaze of their dwellings; and high above the ruined city, now as in the days when the Persian and Roman invaded it, still towers the Acropolis, a sharp and naked rock, rising abruptly a thousand feet from the earth, inaccessible and impregnable under the science of ancient war; and in all times of invasion and public distress, from her earliest history down to the bloody days of the late revolution, the refuge of the inhabitants.
Corinth.
It was late in the afternoon when we set out for the Acropolis. About a mile from the city we came to the foot of the hill, and ascended by a steep and difficult path, with many turnings and windings, to the first gate. Having been in the saddle since early in the morning, we stopped several times to rest, and each time lingered and looked out with admiration upon the wild and beautiful scenery around us; and we thought of the frequently recurring times when hostile armies had drawn up before the city at our feet, and the inhabitants, in terror and confusion, had hurried up this path and taken refuge within the gate before us.
Inside the gate were the ruins of a city, and here, too, we saw the tokens of ruthless war; the fire-brand was hardly yet extinguished, and the houses were in ruins. Within a few years it has been the stronghold and refuge of infidels and Christians, taken and retaken, destroyed, rebuilt, and destroyed again, and the ruins of Turkish mosques and Christian churches are mingled together in undistinguishable confusion. This enclosure is abundantly supplied with water, issuing from the rock, and is capable of containing several thousand people. The fountain of Pyrene, which supplies the Acropolis, called the most salubrious in Greece, is celebrated as that at which Pegasus was drinking when taken by Bellerophon. Ascending among ruined and deserted habitations, we came to a second gate flanked by towers. A wall about two miles in circumference encloses the whole summit of the rock, including two principal points which still rise above the rest. One is crowned with a tower and the other with a mosque, now in ruins; probably erected where once stood a heathen temple. Some have mistaken it for a Christian church, but all agree that it is a place built and consecrated to divine use, and that, for unknown ages men have gone up to this cloud-capped point to worship their Creator. It was a sublime idea to erect on this lofty pinnacle an altar to the Almighty. Above us were only the unclouded heavens; the sun was setting with that brilliancy which attends his departing glory nowhere but in the East; and the sky was glowing with a lurid red, as of some great conflagration. The scene around and below was wondrously beautiful. Mountains and rivers, seas and islands, rocks, forests, and plains, thrown together in perfect wantonness, and yet in the most perfect harmony, and every feature in the expanded landscape consecrated by the richest associations. On one side the Saronic Gulf, with its little islands, and Ægina and Salamis, stretching off to "Sunium's marble height," with the ruins of its temple looking out mournfully upon the sea; on the other, the Gulf of Corinth or Lepanto, bounded by the dark and dreary mountains of Cytheron, where Acteon, gazing at the goddess, was changed into a stag, and hunted to death by his own hounds; and where Bacchus, with his train of satyrs and frantic bacchantes, celebrated his orgies. Beyond were Helicon, sacred to Apollo and the Muses, and Parnassus, covered with snow. Behind us towered a range of mountains stretching away to Argos and the ancient Sparta, and in front was the dim outline of the temple of the Acropolis at Athens. The shades of evening gathered thick around us while we remained on the top of the Acropolis, and it was dark long before we reached our locanda.
The next morning we breakfasted at the coffee-house, and left Corinth wonderfully pleased at having outwitted Demetrius and our brigand host, who gazed after us with a surly scowl as we rode away, and probably longed for the good old days when, at the head of his hanged companions, he could have stopped us at the first mountain-pass and levied contributions at his own rate. I probably condemn myself when I say that we left this ancient city with such a trifle uppermost in our thoughts, but so it was; we bought a loaf of bread as we passed through the market-place, and descended to the plain of Corinth. We had still the same horses which we rode from Padras; they were miserable animals, and I did not mount mine the whole day. Indeed, this is the true way to travel in Greece; the country is mountainous, and the road or narrow horse-path so rough and precipitous that the traveller is often obliged to dismount and walk. The exercise of clambering up the mountains and the purity of the air brace every nerve in the body, and not a single feature of the scenery escapes the eye.
But, as yet, there are other things beside scenery; on each side of the road and within site of each other are the ruins of the ancient cities of Lechæum and Cenchreæ, the ports of Corinth on the Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs; the former once connected with it by two long walls, and the road to the latter once lined with temples and sepulchres, the ruins of which may still be seen. The isthmus connecting the Peloponnesus with the continent is about six miles wide, and Corinth owed her commercial greatness to the profits of her merchants in transporting merchandise across it. Entire vessels were sometimes carried from one sea and launched into the other. The project of a canal across suggested itself both to the Greeks and Romans, and there yet exist traces of a ditch commenced for that purpose.
On the death of Leonidas, and in apprehension of a Persian invasion, the Peloponnesians built a wall across the isthmus from Lechæum to Cenchreæ. This wall was at one time fortified with a hundred and fifty towers; it was often destroyed and as often rebuilt; and in one place, about three miles from Corinth, vestiges of it may still be seen. Here were celebrated those Isthmian games so familiar to every tyro in Grecian literature and history; toward Mount Oneus stands on an eminence an ancient mound, supposed to be the tomb of Melicertes, their founder, and near it is at this day a grove of the sacred pine, with garlands of the leaves of which the victors were crowned.
In about three hours from Corinth we crossed the isthmus, and came to the village of Kalamaki on the shore of the Saronic Gulf, containing a few miserable buildings, fit only for the miserable people who occupied them. Directly on the shore was a large coffee-house enclosed by mud walls, and having branches of trees for a roof; and in front was a little flotilla of Greek caiques.
Next to the Greek's love for his native mountains is his passion for the waters that roll at their feet; and many of the proprietors of the rakish little boats in the harbour talked to us of the superior advantage of the sea over a mountainous road, and tried to make us abandon our horses and go by water to Athens; but we clung to the land, and have reason to congratulate ourselves upon having done so, for our road was one of the most beautiful it was ever my fortune to travel over. For some distance I walked along the shore, on the edge of a plain running from the foot of Mount Geranion. The plain was intersected by mountain torrents, the channel-beds of which were at that time dry. We passed the little village of Caridi, supposed to be the Sidus of antiquity, while a ruined church and a few old blocks of marble mark the site of ancient Crommyon, celebrated as the haunt of a wild boar destroyed by Theseus.
At the other end of the plain we came to the foot of Mount Geranion, stretching out boldly to the edge of the gulf, and followed the road along its southern side close to and sometimes overhanging the sea. From time immemorial this has been called the Kaka Scala, or bad way. It is narrow, steep, and rugged, and wild to sublimity. Sometimes we were completely hemmed in by impending mountains, and then rose upon a lofty eminence commanding an almost boundless view. On the summit of the range the road runs directly along the mountain's brink, overhanging the sea, and so narrow that two horsemen can scarcely pass abreast; where a stumble would plunge the traveller several hundred yards into the waters beneath. Indeed, the horse of one of my companions stumbled and fell, and put him in such peril that both dismounted and accompanied me on foot. In the olden time this wild and rugged road was famous as the haunt of the robber Sciron, who plundered the luckless travellers, and then threw them from this precipice. The fabulous account is, that Theseus, three thousand years before, on his first visit to Athens, encountered the famous robber, and tossed him from the same precipice whence he had thrown so many better men. According to Ovid, the earth and the sea refused to receive the bones of Sciron, which continued for some time suspended in the open air, until they were changed into large rocks, whose points still appear at the foot of the precipice; and to this day, say the sailors, knock the bottoms out of the Greek vessels. In later days this road was so infested by corsairs and pirates, that even the Turks feared to travel on it; at one place, that looks as though it might be intended as a jumping-off point into another world, Ino, with her son Melicertes in her arms (so say the Greek poets), threw herself into the sea to escape the fury of her husband; and we know that in later days St. Paul travelled on this road to preach the gospel to the Corinthians.
But, independently of all associations, and in spite of its difficulties and dangers, if a man were by accident placed on the lofty height without knowing where he was, he would be struck with the view which it commands, as one of the most beautiful that mortal eyes ever beheld. It was my fortune to pass over it a second time on foot, and I often seated myself on some wild point, and waited the coming up of my muleteers, looking out upon the sea, calm and glistening as if plated with silver, and studded with islands in continuous clusters stretching away into the Ægean.
During the greater part of the passage of the Kaka Scala my companions walked with me; and, as we always kept in advance, when we seated ourselves on some rude rock overhanging the sea to wait for our beasts and attendants, few things could be more picturesque than their approach.
On the summit of the pass we fell into the ancient paved way that leads from Attica into the Peloponnesus, and walked over the same pavement which the Greeks travelled, perhaps, three thousand years ago. A ruined wall and gate mark the ancient boundary; and near this an early traveller observed a large block of white marble projecting over the precipice, and almost ready to fall into the sea, which bore an inscription, now illegible. Here it is supposed stood the Stèle erected by Theseus, bearing on one side the inscription, "Here is Peloponnesus, not Ionia;" and on the other the equally pithy notification, "Here is not Peloponnesus, but Ionia." It would be a pretty place of residence for a man in misfortune; for, besides the extraordinary beauty of the scenery, by a single step he might avoid the service of civil process, and set the sheriff of Attica or the Peloponnesus at defiance. Descending, we saw before us a beautiful plain, extending from the foot of the mountain to the sea, and afar off, on an eminence commanding the plain, was the little town of Megara.
It is unfortunate for the reader that every ruined village on the road stands on the site of an ancient city. The ruined town before us was the birthplace of Euclid, and the representative of that Megara which is distinguished in history more than two thousand years ago; which sent forth its armies in the Persian and Peloponnesian wars; alternately the ally and enemy of Corinth and Athens; containing numerous temples, and the largest public houses in Greece; and though exposed, with her other cities, to the violence of a fierce democracy, as is recorded by the historian, "the Megareans retained their independence and lived in peace." As a high compliment, the people offered to Alexander the Great the freedom of their city. When we approached it its appearance was a speaking comment upon human pride.
It had been demolished and burned by Greeks and Turks, and now presented little more than a mass of blackened ruins. A few apartments had been cleared out and patched up, and occasionally I saw a solitary figure stalking amid the desolation.
I had not mounted my horse all day; had kicked out a pair of Greek shoes on my walk, and was almost barefoot when I entered the city. A little below the town was a large building enclosed by a high wall, with a Bavarian soldier lounging at the gate. We entered, and found a good coffee-room below, and a comfortable bed chamber above, where we found good quilts and mattresses, and slept like princes.
Early in the morning we set out for Athens, our road for some time lying along the sea. About half way to the Piræus, a ruined village, with a starving population, stands on the site of the ancient Eleusis, famed throughout all Greece for the celebration of the mysterious rites of Ceres. The magnificent temple of the goddess has disappeared, and the colossal statue made by the immortal Phidias now adorns the vestibule of the University at Cambridge. We lingered a little while in the village, and soon after entered the Via Sacra, by which, centuries ago, the priests and people moved in solemn religious processions from Athens to the great temple of Ceres. At first we passed underneath the cliff along the shore, then rose by a steep ascent among the mountains, barren and stony, and wearing an aspect of desolation equal to that of the Roman Campagna; then we passed through a long defile, upon the side of which, deeply cut in the rock, are seen the marks of chariot-wheels; perhaps of those used in the sacred processions. We passed the ruined monastery of Daphne, in a beautifully picturesque situation, and in a few minutes saw the rich plain of Attica; and our muleteers and Demetrius, with a burst of enthusiasm, perhaps because the journey was ended, clapped their hands and cried out, "Atinæ! Atinæ!"
The reader, perhaps, trembles at the name of Athens, but let him take courage. I promise to let him off easily. A single remark, however, before reaching it. The plain of Attica lies between two parallel ranges of mountains, and extends from the sea many miles back into the interior. On the border of the sea stands the Piræus, now, as in former times, the harbour of the city, and toward the east, on a little eminence, Athens itself, like the other cities in Greece, presenting a miserable appearance, the effects of protracted and relentless wars. But high above the ruins of the modern city towers the Acropolis, holding up to the skies the ruined temples of other days, and proclaiming what Athens was. We wound around the temple of Theseus, the most beautiful and perfect specimen of architecture that time has spared; and in striking contrast with this monument of the magnificence of past days, here, in the entrance to the city, our horses were struggling and sinking up to their saddle-girths in the mud.
We did in Athens what we should have done in Boston or Philadelphia; rode up to the best hotel, and, not being able to obtain accommodations there, rode to another; where, being again refused admittance, we were obliged to distribute ourselves into three parcels. Dr. Willet went to Mr. Hill's (of whom more anon). M. found entrance at a new hotel in the suburbs, and I betook myself to the Hotel de France. The garçon was rather bothered when I threw him a pair of old boots which I had hanging at my saddle-bow, and told him to take care of my baggage; he asked me when the rest would come up; and hardly knew what to make of me when I told him that was all I travelled with.
I was still standing in the court of the hotel, almost barefoot, and thinking of the prosperous condition of the owner of a dozen shirts, and other things conforming, when Mr. Hill came over and introduced himself; and telling me that his house was the house of every American, asked me to waive ceremony and bring my luggage over at once. This was again hitting my sore point; everybody seemed to take a special interest in my luggage, and I was obliged to tell my story more than once. I declined Mr. Hill's kind invitation, but called upon him early the next day, dined with him, and, during the whole of my stay in Athens, was in the habit, to a great extent, of making his house my home; and this, I believe, is the case with all the Americans who go there; besides which, some borrow his money, and others his clothes.
CHAPTER IV.
American Missionary School.—Visit to the School.—Mr. Hill and the Male Department.—Mrs. Hill and the Female Department.—Maid of Athens.—Letter from Mr. Hill.—Revival of Athens.—Citizens of the World.
The first thing we did in Athens was to visit the American missionary school. Among the extraordinary changes of an ever-changing world, it is not the least that the young America is at this moment paying back the debt which the world owes to the mother of science, and the citizen of a country which the wisest of the Greeks never dreamed of, is teaching the descendants of Plato and Aristotle the elements of their own tongue. I did not expect among the ruins of Athens to find anything that would particularly touch my national feelings, but it was a subject of deep and interesting reflection that, in the city which surpassed all the world in learning, where Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle taught, and Cicero went to study, the only door of instruction was that opened by the hands of American citizens, and an American missionary was the only schoolmaster; and I am ashamed to say that I was not aware of the existence of such an institution until advised of it by my friend Dr. W.
In eighteen hundred and thirty the Rev. Messrs. Hill and Robinson, with their families, sailed from this city (New-York) as the agents of the Episcopal missionary society, to found schools in Greece. They first established themselves in the Island of Tenos; but, finding that it was not the right field for their labours, employed themselves in acquiring a knowledge of the language, and of the character and habits of the modern Greeks. Their attention was directed to Athens, and in the spring of eighteen hundred and thirty-one they made a visit to that city, and were so confirmed in their impressions, that they purchased a lot of ground on which to erect edifices for a permanent establishment, and, in the mean time, rented a house for the immediate commencement of a school. They returned to Tenos for their families and effects, and again arrived at Athens about the end of June following. From the deep interest taken in their struggle for liberty, and the timely help furnished them in their hour of need, the Greeks were warmly prepossessed in favour of our countrymen; and the conduct of the missionaries themselves was so judicious, that they were received with the greatest respect and the warmest welcome by the public authorities and the whole population of Athens. Their furniture, printing-presses, and other effects were admitted free of duties; and it is but justice to them to say that, since that time, they have moved with such discretion among an excitable and suspicious people, that, while they have advanced in the great objects of their mission, they have grown in the esteem and good-will of the best and most influential inhabitants of Greece; and so great was Mr. Hill's confidence in their affections, that, though there was at that time a great political agitation, and it was apprehended that Athens might again become the scene of violence and bloodshed, he told me he had no fears, and felt perfectly sure that, in any outbreaking of popular fury, himself and family, and the property of the mission, would be respected.[1]
In the middle of the summer of their arrival at Athens, Mrs. Hill opened a school for girls in the magazine or cellar of the house in which they resided; the first day she had twenty pupils, and in two months one hundred and sixty-seven. Of the first ninety-six, not more than six could read at all, and that very imperfectly; and not more than ten or twelve knew a letter. At the time of our visit the school numbered nearly five hundred; and when we entered the large room, and the scholars all rose in a body to greet us as Americans, I felt a deep sense of regret that, personally, I had no hand in such a work, and almost envied the feelings of my companion, one of its patrons and founders. Besides teaching them gratitude to those from whose country they derived the privileges they enjoyed, Mr. Hill had wisely endeavoured to impress upon their minds a respect for the constituted authorities, particularly important in that agitated and unsettled community; and on one end of the wall, directly fronting the seats of the scholars, was printed, in large Greek characters, the text of Scripture, "Fear God, honour the king."
It was all important for the missionaries not to offend the strong prejudices of the Greeks by any attempt to withdraw the children from the religion of their fathers; and the school purports to be, and is intended for, the diffusion of elementary education only; but it is opened in the morning with prayer, concluding with the Lord's Prayer as read in our churches, which is repeated by the whole school aloud; and on Sundays, besides the prayers, the creed, and sometimes the Ten Commandments, are recited, and a chapter from the Gospels is read aloud by one of the scholars, the missionaries deeming this more expedient than to conduct the exercises themselves. The lesson for the day is always the portion appointed for the gospel of the day in their own church; and they close by singing a hymn. The room is thrown open to the public, and is frequently resorted to by the parents of the children and strangers; some coming, perhaps, says Mr. Hill, to "hear what these babblers will say," and "other some" from a suspicion that "we are setters forth of strange gods."
The boys' school is divided into three departments, the lowest under charge of a Greek qualified on the Lancasterian system. They were of all ages, from three to eighteen; and, as Mr. Hill told me, most of them had been half-clad, dirty, ragged little urchins, who, before they were put to their A, B, C, or, rather, their Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, had to be thoroughly washed, rubbed, scrubbed, doctored, and dressed, and, but for the school, would now, perhaps, be prowling vagabonds in the streets of Athens, or training for robbery in the mountains. They were a body of fine-looking boys, possessing, as Mr. Hill told me, in an extraordinary degree, all that liveliness of imagination, that curiosity and eagerness after knowledge, which distinguished the Greeks of old, retaining, under centuries of dreadful oppression, the recollection of the greatness of their fathers, and, what was particularly interesting, many of them bearing the great names so familiar in Grecian history; I shook hands with a little Miltiades, Leonidas, Aristides, &c., in features and apparent intelligence worthy descendants of the immortal men whose names they bear. And there was one who startled me, he was the son of the Maid of Athens! To me the Maid of Athens was almost an imaginary being, something fanciful, a creation of the brain, and not a corporeal substance, to have a little urchin of a boy. But so it was. The Maid of Athens is married. She had a right to marry, no doubt; and it is said that there is poetry in married life, and, doubtless, she is a much more interesting person now than the Maid of Athens at thirty-six could be; but the Maid of Athens is married to a Scotchman! the Maid of Athens is now Mrs. Black! wife of George Black. Comment is unnecessary.
But the principal and most interesting part of this missionary school was the female department, under the direction of Mrs. Hill, the first, and, except at Syra, the only school for females in all Greece, and particularly interesting to me from the fact that it owed its existence to the active benevolence of my own country-women. At the close of the Greek revolution, female education was a thing entirely unknown in Greece, and the women of all classes were in a most deplorable state of ignorance. When the strong feeling that ran through our country in favour of this struggling people had subsided, and Greece was freed from the yoke of the Mussulman, an association of ladies in the little town of Troy, perhaps instigated somewhat by an inherent love of power and extended rule, and knowing the influence of their sex in a cultivated state of society, formed the project of establishing at Athens a school exclusively for the education of females; and, humble and unpretending as was its commencement, it is becoming a more powerful instrument in the civilization and moral and religious improvement of Greece, than all that European diplomacy has ever done for her. The girls were distributed in different classes, according to their age and advancement; they had clean faces and hands, a rare thing with Greek children, and were neatly dressed, many of them wearing frocks made by ladies at home (probably at some of our sewing societies); and some of them had attained such an age, and had such fine, dark, rolling eyes as to make even a northern temperament feel the powerful influence they would soon exercise over the rising, excitable generation of Greeks and almost make him bless the hands that were directing that influence aright.
Mr. and Mrs. Hill accompanied us through the whole establishment, and, being Americans, we were everywhere looked upon and received by the girls as patrons and fathers of the school, both which characters I waived in favour of my friend; the one because he was really entitled to it, and the other because some of the girls were so well grown that I did not care to be regarded as standing in that venerable relationship. The didaskalissas, or teachers, were of this description, and they spoke English. Occasionally Mr. Hill called a little girl up to us, and told us her history, generally a melancholy one, as, being reduced to the extremity of want by the revolution; or an orphan, whose parents had been murdered by the Turks; and I had a conversation with a little Penelope, who, however, did not look as if she would play the faithful wife of Ulysses, and, if I am a judge of physiognomy, would never endure widowhood twenty years for any man.
Before we went away the whole school rose at once, and gave us a glorious finale with a Greek hymn. In a short time these girls will grow up into women and return to their several families; others will succeed them, and again go out, and every year hundreds will distribute themselves in the cities and among the fastnesses of the mountains, to exercise over their fathers, and brothers, and lovers, the influence of the education acquired here; instructed in all the arts of woman in civilized domestic life, firmly grounded in the principles of morality, and of religion purified from the follies, absurdities, and abominations of the Greek faith. I have seen much of the missionary labours in the East, but I do not know an institution which promises so surely the happiest results. If the women are educated, the men cannot remain ignorant; if the women are enlightened in religion, the men cannot remain debased and degraded Christians.
The ex-secretary Rigos was greatly affected at the appearance of this female school; and, after surveying it attentively for some moments, pointed to the Parthenon on the summit of the Acropolis, and said to Mrs. Hill, with deep emotion, "Lady, you are erecting in Athens a monument more enduring and more noble than yonder temple;" and the king was so deeply impressed with its value, that, a short time before my arrival, he proposed to Mr. Hill to take into his house girls from different districts and educate them as teachers, with the view of sending them back to their districts, there to organize new schools, and carry out the great work of female education. Mr. Hill acceded to the proposal, and the American missionary school now stands as the nucleus of a large and growing system of education in Greece; and, very opportunely for my purpose, within a few days I have received a letter from Mr. Hill, in which, in relation to the school, he says, "Our missionary establishment is much increased since you saw it; our labours are greatly increased, and I think I may say we have now reached the summit of what we had proposed to ourselves. We do not think it possible that it can be extended farther without much larger means and more personal aid. We do not wish or intend to ask for either. We have now nearly forty persons residing with us, of whom thirty-five are Greeks, all of whom are brought within the influence of the gospel; the greater part of them are young girls from different parts of Greece, and even from Egypt and Turkey (Greeks, however), whom we are preparing to become instructresses of youth hereafter in their various districts. We have five hundred, besides, under daily instruction in the different schools under our care, and we employ under us in the schools twelve native teachers, who have themselves been instructed by us. We have provided for three of our dear pupils (all of whom were living with us when you were here), who are honourably and usefully settled in life. One is married to a person every way suited to her, and both husband and wife are in our missionary service. One has charge of the government female school at the Piræus, and supports her father and mother and a large family by her salary; and the third has gone with our missionaries to Crete, to take charge of the female schools there. We have removed into our new house" (of which the foundation was just laid at the time of my visit), "and, large as it is, it is not half large enough. We are trying to raise ways and means to enlarge it considerably, that we may take more boarders under our own roof, which we look up to as the most important means of making sure of our labour; for every one who comes to reside with us is taken away from the corrupt example exhibited at home, and brought within a wholesome influence. Lady Byron has just sent us one hundred pounds toward enlarging our house with this view, and we have commenced the erection of three additional dormitories with the money."
Athens is again the capital of a kingdom. Enthusiasts see in her present condition the promise of a restoration to her ancient greatness; but reason and observation assure us that the world is too much changed for her ever to be what she has been. In one respect, her condition resembles that of her best days; for, as her fame then attracted strangers from every quarter of the world to study in her schools, so now the capital of King Otho has become a great gathering-place of wandering spirits from many near and distant regions. For ages difficult and dangerous of access, the ancient capital of the arts lay shrouded in darkness, and almost cut off from the civilized world. At long intervals, a few solitary travellers only found their way to it; but, since the revolution, it has again become a place of frequent resort and intercourse. It is true that the ancient halls of learning are still solitary and deserted, but strangers from every nation now turn hither; the scholar to roam over her classic soil, the artist to study her ancient monuments, and the adventurer to carve his way to fortune.
The first day I dined at the hotel I had an opportunity of seeing the variety of material congregated in the reviving city. We had a long table, capable of accommodating about twenty persons. The manner of living was à la carte, each guest dining when he pleased; but, by tacit consent, at about six o'clock all assembled at the table. We presented a curious medley. No two were from the same country. Our discourse was in English, French, Italian, German, Greek, Russian, Polish, and I know not what else, as if we were the very people stricken with confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel. Dinner over, all fell into French, and the conversation became general. Every man present was, in the fullest sense of the term, a citizen of the world. It had been the fortune of each, whether good or bad, to break the little circle in which so many are born, revolve, and die; and the habitual mingling with people of various nations had broken down all narrow prejudices, and given to every one freedom of mind and force of character. All had seen much, had much to communicate, and felt that they had much yet to learn. By some accident, moreover, all seemed to have become particularly interested in the East. They travelled over the whole range of Eastern politics, and, to a certain extent, considered themselves identified with Eastern interests. Most of the company were or had been soldiers, and several wore uniforms and stars, or decorations of some description. They spoke of the different campaigns in Greece in which some of them had served; of the science of war; of Marlborough, Eugene, and more modern captains; and I remember that they startled my feelings of classical reverence by talking of Leonidas at Thermopylæ and Miltiades at Marathon in the same tone as of Napoleon at Leipsic and Wellington at Waterloo. One of them constructed on the table, with the knives and forks and spoons, a map of Marathon, and with a sheathed yataghan pointed out the position of the Greeks and Persians, and showed where Miltiades, as a general, was wrong. They were not blinded by the dust of antiquity. They had been knocked about till all enthusiasm and all reverence for the past were shaken out of them, and they had learned to give things their right names. A French engineer showed us the skeleton of a map of Greece, which was then preparing under the direction of the French Geographical Society, exhibiting an excess of mountains and deficiency of plain which surprised even those who had travelled over every part of the kingdom. One had just come from Constantinople, where he had seen the sultan going to mosque; another had escaped from an attack of the plague in Egypt; a third gave the dimensions of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbeck; and a fourth had been at Babylon, and seen the ruins of the Tower of Babel. In short, every man had seen something which the others had not seen, and all their knowledge was thrown into a common stock. I found myself at once among a new class of men; and I turned from him who sneered at Miltiades to him who had seen the sultan, or to him who had been at Bagdad, and listened with interest, somewhat qualified by consciousness of my own inferiority. I was lying in wait, however, and took advantage of an opportunity to throw in something about America; and, at the sound, all turned to me with an eagerness of curiosity that I had not anticipated.
In Europe, and even in England, I had often found extreme ignorance of my own country; but here I was astonished to find, among men so familiar with all parts of the Old World, such total lack of information about the New. A gentleman opposite me, wearing the uniform of the King of Bavaria, asked me if I had ever been in America. I told him that I was born, and, as they say in Kentucky, raised there. He begged my pardon, but doubtfully suggested, "You are not black?" and I was obliged to explain to him that in our section of America the Indian had almost entirely disappeared, and that his place was occupied by the descendants of the Gaul and the Briton. I was forthwith received into the fraternity, for my home was farther away than any of them had ever been; my friend opposite considered me a bijou, asked me innumerable questions, and seemed to be constantly watching for the breaking out of the cannibal spirit, as if expecting to see me bite my neighbour. At first I had felt myself rather a small affair but, before separating, l'Americain, or le sauvage, or finally, le cannibal found himself something of a lion.