LETTER XXI.
Visit from King Otho and Miaulis—Visit an English and Russian frigate—Beauty of the Greek Men—Lake Lerna—The Hermionicus Sinus—Hydra—Ægina.
Napoli di Romania.—Went ashore with one of the officers, to look for the fountain of Canathus. Its waters had the property (vide Pausanias) of renewing the infant purity of the women who bathed in them. Juno used it once a year. We found but one natural spring in all Napoli. It stands in a narrow street, filled with tailors, and is adorned with a marble font bearing a Turkish inscription. Two girls were drawing water in skins. We drank a little of it, but found nothing peculiar in the taste. Its virtues are confined probably to the other sex.
The king visited the ship. As his barge left the pier, the vessels of war in the harbour manned their yards and fired the royal salute. He was accompanied by young Bozzaris and the prince, his uncle, and dressed in the same uniform in which he received us at our presentation. As he stepped on the deck, and was received by Commodore Patterson, I thought I had never seen a more elegant and well-proportioned man. The frigate was in her usual admirable order, and the king expressed his surprise and gratification at every turn. His questions were put with uncommon judgment for a landsman. We had heard, indeed, on board the English frigate which brought him from Trieste, that he lost no opportunity of learning the duties and management of the ship, keeping watch with the midshipmen, and running from one deck to the other at all hours. After going thoroughly through all the ship, the commodore presented him to his family. He seemed very much pleased with the ease and frankness with which he was received, and seating himself with our fair country-women in the after-cabin, prolonged his visit to a very unceremonious length, conversing with the most unreserved gaiety. The yards were manned again, the salutes fired once more, and the king of Greece tossed his oars for a moment under the stern, and pulled ashore.
Had the pleasure and honour of showing Miaulis through the ship. The old man came on board very modestly, without even announcing himself, and as he addressed one of the officers in Italian, I was struck with his noble appearance, and offered my services as interpreter. He was dressed in the Hydriote costume, the full blue trousers gathered at the knee, a short open jacket, worked with black braid, and a red skull-cap. His lieutenant dressed in the same costume, a tall, superb-looking Greek, was his only attendant. He was quite at home on board, comparing the “United States” continually to the “Hellas,” the American built frigate which he commanded. Every one on board was struck with the noble simplicity and dignity of his address. I have seldom seen a man who impressed me more. He requested me to express his pleasure at his visit, and his friendly feelings to the commodore, and invited us to his country-house, which he pointed out from the deck, just without the city. Every officer in the ship uncovered as he passed. The gratification at seeing him was universal. He looks worthy to be one of the “three” that Byron demanded, in his impassioned verse,
“To make a new Thermopylæ.”
Returned visits of ceremony with the commodore, to the English and Russian vessels of war. The British frigate “Madagascar” is about the size of the “United States,” but not in nearly so fine a condition. The superior cleanliness and neatness of arrangement on board our own ship are indisputable. The cabin of Captain Lyon (who is said to be one of the best officers in the English service) was furnished in almost oriental luxury, and what I should esteem more, crowded with the choicest books. He informed us that of his twenty-four midshipmen, nine were sons of noblemen, and possessed the best family influence on both father’s and mother’s side, and several of the remainder had high claims for preferment. There is small chance there, one would think, for commoners.
Captain Lyon spoke in the highest terms of his late passenger, King Otho, both as to disposition and talent. Somewhere in the Ægæan, one of his Bavarian servants fell overboard, and the boatswain jumped after him, and sustained him till the boat was lowered to his relief. On his reaching the deck, the king drew a valuable repeater from his pocket, and presented it to him in the presence of the crew. He certainly has caught the “trick of royalty” in its perfection.
The guard presented, the boatswain “piped us over the side,” and we pulled alongside the Russian. The file of marines drawn up in honour of the commodore on her quarter deck, looked like so many standing bears. Features and limbs so brutally coarse I never saw. The officers, however, were very gentlemanly, and the vessel was in beautiful condition. In inquiring after the health of the ladies on board our ship, the captain and his lieutenant rose from their seats and made a low bow—a degree of chivalrous courtesy very uncommon, I fancy, since the days of Sir Piercie Shafton. I left his imperial majesty’s ship with an improved impression of him.
They are a gallant looking people the Greeks. Byron says of them, all “are beautiful, very much resembling the busts of Alcibiades.” We walked beyond the walls of the city this evening, on the plain of Argos. The whole population were out in their Sunday costumes, and no theatrical ballet was ever more showy than the scene. They are a very affectionate people, and walk usually hand in hand, or sit upon the rocks at the road-side, with their arms over each other’s shoulders; and their picturesque attitudes and lofty gait, combined with the flowing beauty of their dress, give them all the appearance of heroes on the stage. I saw literally no handsome women, but the men were magnificent, almost without exception. Among others, a young man passed us with whose personal beauty the whole party were struck. As he went by he laid his hand on his breast and bowed to the ladies, raising his red cap, with its flowing blue tassel, at the same time with perfect grace. It was a young man to whom I had been introduced the day previous, a brother of Mavromichalis, the assassin of Capo d’Istrias. He is about seventeen, tall and straight as an arrow, and has the eye of a falcon. His family is one of the first in Greece; and his brother, who was a fellow of superb beauty, is said to have died in the true heroic style, believing that he had rid his country of a tyrant.
The view of Napoli and the Palamidi from the plain, with its back ground of the Spartan mountains, and the blue line of the Argolic gulf between, is very fine. The home of the Nemean lion, the lofty hill rising above Argos, was enveloped in a black cloud as the sun set on our walk, the short twilight of Greece thickened upon us, and the white, swaying juktanillas of the Greeks striding past, had the effect of spirits gliding by in the dark.
The king, with his guard of lancers on a hard trot, passed us near the gate, followed close by the Misses Armansperg, mounted on fine Hungarian horses. His majesty rides beautifully, and the effect of the short high-borne flag on the tips of the lances, and the tall Polish caps with their cord and tassels, is highly picturesque.
Made an excursion with the commodore across the gulf, to Lake Lerna, the home of the hydra. We saw nothing save the half dozen small marshy lakes, whose overflow devastated the country, until they were dammed by Hercules, who is thus poetically said to have killed a many-headed monster. We visited, near by, “the mills,” which were the scene of one of the most famous battles of the late struggle. The mill is supplied by a lovely stream, issuing from beneath a rock, and running a short course of twenty or thirty rods to the sea. It is difficult to believe that human blood has ever stained its pure waters.
Left Napoli with the daylight breeze, and are now entering the Hermionicus Sinus. A more barren land never rose upon the eye. The ancients considered this part of Greece so near to hell, that they omitted to put the usual obolon into the hands of those who died here, to pay their passage across the Styx.
Off the town of Hydra. This is the birthplace of Miaulis, and its neighbour island, Spesia, that of the sailor heroine, Bobolina. It is a heap of square stone houses set on the side of a hill, without the slightest reference to order. I see with the glass, an old Greek smoking on his balcony, with his feet over the railing, and half a dozen bare-legged women getting a boat into the water on the beach. The whole island has a desolate and sterile aspect. Across the strait, directly opposite the town, lies a lovely green valley, with olive groves and pastures between, and hundreds of gray cattle feeding in all the peace of Arcadia. I have seen such pictures so seldom of late, that it is like a medicine to my sight. “The sea and the sky,” after a while, “lie like a load on the weary eye.”
In passing two small islands just now, we caught a glimpse between them of the “John Adams,” sloop-of-war, under full sail in the opposite direction. Five minutes sooner or later we should have missed her. She has been cruising in the Archipelago a month or two, waiting the commodore’s arrival, and has on board despatches and letters, which makes the meeting a very exciting one to the officers. There is a general stir of expectation on board, in which my only share is that of sympathy. She brings her news from Smyrna, to which port, though my course has been errant enough, you will scarce have thought of directing a letter for me.
Anchored off the Island of Ægina, a mile from the town. The rocks which King Æacus (since Judge Æacus of the infernal regions) raised in the harbour to keep off the pirates, prevent our nearer approach. A beautiful garden of oranges and figs close to our anchorage, promises to reconcile us to our position. The little bay is completely shut in by mountainous islands, and the sun pours down upon us, unabated by the “wooing Ægæan wind.”