CHAPTER X
According to Gamba’s journal, on the day following the seizure to which we have referred, Byron followed up his former efforts to inculcate the principles and practice of humanity into both the nations engaged in the war. There were twenty-four Turks, including women and children, who had suffered all the rigours of captivity at Missolonghi since the beginning of the revolution. Byron caused them to be released, and sent at his own cost to Prevesa. The following letter, which he addressed to the English Consul at that port, deserves a place in this record:
‘Sir,
‘Coming to Greece, one of my principal objects was to alleviate as much as possible the miseries incident to a warfare so cruel as the present. When the dictates of humanity are in question, I know no difference between Turks and Greeks. It is enough that those who want assistance are men, in order to claim the pity and protection of the meanest pretender to humane feelings. I have found here twenty-four Turks, including women and children, who have long pined in distress, far from the means of support and the consolations of their home. The Government has consigned them to me: I transmit them to Prevesa, whither they desire to be sent. I hope you will not object to take care that they may be restored to a place of safety, and that the Governor of your town may accept of my present. The best recompense I can hope for would be to find that I had inspired the Ottoman commanders with the same sentiments towards those unhappy Greeks who may hereafter fall into their hands.
‘I beg you to believe me, etc.,
‘Noel Byron.’
The details of this incident have hitherto passed almost unnoticed. The whole story is full of pathos, and affords a view of Byron’s real character.
In June, 1821, when Missolonghi and Anatolico proclaimed themselves parts of independent Greece, all Turkish residents were arrested. The males were cruelly put to death, and their wives and families were handed over to the Greek householders as slaves. The miseries these defenceless people endured while Death stared them daily in the face are indescribable. Millingen says:
‘One day, as I entered the dispensary, I found the wife of one of the Turkish inhabitants of Missolonghi who had fled to Patras. The poor woman came to implore my pity, and begged me to allow her to take shelter under my roof from the brutality and cruelty of the Greeks. They had murdered all her relations, and two of her boys; and the marks remained on the angle of the wall against which, a few weeks previously, they had dashed the brains of the youngest, only five years of age. A little girl, nine years old, remained to be the only companion of her misery. Like a timid lamb, she stood by her mother, naked and shivering, drawing closer and closer to her side. Her little hands were folded like a suppliant’s, and her large, beautiful eyes—so accustomed to see acts of horror and cruelty—looked at me now and then, hardly daring to implore pity. “Take us,” said the mother; “we will serve you and be your slaves; or you will be responsible before God for whatever may happen to us.”
‘I could not see so eloquent a picture of distress unmoved, and from that day I treated them as relatives. Some weeks after, I happened to mention before Lord Byron some circumstances relative to these individuals, and spoke with so much admiration of the noble fortitude displayed by the mother in the midst of her calamities; of the courage with which maternal love inspired her on several occasions; of the dignified manner in which she replied to the insults of her persecutors, that he expressed a wish to see the mother and child. On doing so, he became so struck by Hatajè’s beauty, the naïveté of her answers, and the spiritedness of her observations on the murderers of her brethren, that he decided on adopting her. “Banish fear for ever from your mind,” said he to the mother; “your child shall henceforth be mine. I have a daughter in England. To her I will send the child. They are both of the same age; and as she is alone, she will, no doubt, like a companion who may, at times, talk to her of her father. Do not shudder at the idea of changing your religion, for I insist on your professing none other but the Musulman.”
‘She seized his hand, kissed it with energy, and raising her eyes to heaven, eyes now filled with tears, she repeated the familiar words: “Allah is great!” Byron ordered costly dresses to be made for them, and sent to Hatajè a necklace of sequins. He desired me to send them twice a week to his house. He would then take the little child on his knees, and caress her with all the fondness of a father.
‘From the moment I received the mother and child into my house, the other unfortunate Turkish women, who had miraculously escaped the general slaughter, seeing how different were the feelings and treatment of the English towards their nation and sex from those of the Greeks, began to feel more hopeful of their lot in life. They daily called at my lodgings, and by means of my servant, a Suliote who spoke Turkish fluently, narrated their misfortunes, and the numberless horrors of which they had been spectators. One woman said: “Our fears are not yet over; we are kept as victims for future sacrifices, hourly expecting our doom. An unpleasant piece of news, a drunken party, a fit of ill-humour or of caprice, may decide our fate. We are then hunted down the streets like wild beasts, till some one of us, or of our children, is immolated to their insatiable cruelty. Our only hope centres in you. One word of yours to Lord Byron can save many lives. Can you refuse to speak for us. Let Lord Byron send us to any part of Turkey. We are women and children; can the Greeks fear us?”
‘I hastened to give Lord Byron a faithful picture of the position of these wretched people. Knowing and relieving the distressed were, with him, simultaneous actions. A few days later notice was given to every Turkish woman to prepare for departure. All, a few excepted, embarked and were conveyed at Byron’s expense to Prevesa. They amounted to twenty-two. A few days previously four Turkish prisoners had been sent by him to Patras. Repeated examples of humanity like these were for the Greeks more useful and appropriate lessons than the finest compositions which all the printing-presses could have spread amongst them.’
Hatajè! and what became of little Hatajè? On February 23 Byron wrote to his sister:
‘I have been obtaining the release of about nine-and-twenty Turkish prisoners—men, women, and children—and have sent them home to their friends; but one, a pretty little girl of nine years of age named Hato or Hatagèe, has expressed a strong wish to remain with me, or under my care, and I have nearly determined to adopt her. If I thought that Lady B. would let her come to England as a companion to Ada (they are about the same age), and we could easily provide for her; if not, I can send her to Italy for education. She is very lively and quick, and with great black Oriental eyes and Asiatic features. All her brothers were killed in the Revolution; her mother wishes to return to her husband, but says that she would rather entrust the child to me, in the present state of the country. Her extreme youth and sex have hitherto saved her life, but there is no saying what might occur in the course of the war (and of such a war), and I shall probably commit her to the charge of some English lady in the islands for the present. The child herself has the same wish, and seems to have a decided character for her age. You can mention this matter if you think it worth while. I merely wish her to be respectably educated and treated, and, if my years and all things be considered, I presume it would be difficult to conceive me to have any other views.’
Meanwhile, Byron, wishing to remove the child from Missolonghi, seems to have proposed to Dr. Kennedy at Cephalonia that Mrs. Kennedy should take temporary charge of her. Writing to Kennedy on March 4, 1824, Byron says:
‘Your future convert Hato, or Hatagèe, appears to me lively, intelligent, and promising; she possesses an interesting countenance. With regard to her disposition I can say little, but Millingen speaks well of both mother and daughter, and he is to be relied on. As far as I know, I have only seen the child a few times with her mother, and what I have seen is favourable, or I should not take so much interest in her behalf. If she turns out well, my idea would be to send her to my daughter in England (if not to respectable persons in Italy), and so to provide for her as to enable her to live with reputation either singly or in marriage, if she arrive at maturity. I will make proper arrangements about her expenses through Messrs. Barff and Hancock, and the rest I leave to your discretion, and to Mrs. K.’s, with a great sense of obligation for your kindness in undertaking her temporary superintendence.’
This arrangement fell through, and was never carried out. The child remained at Missolonghi with her mother until Byron’s death. Then, by the irony of fate, they departed in the Florida—the vessel that bore the dead body of their protector to the inhospitable lazaretto at Zante. With wonderful prophetic instinct, Byron, long before his voyage to Greece, gave to the world the vision of another Hatajè, rescued from death on the field of battle:
‘The Moslem orphan went with her protector,
For she was homeless, houseless, helpless; all
Her friends, like the sad family of Hector,
Had perished in the field or by the wall:
Her very place of birth was but a spectre
Of what it had been: there the Muezzin’s call
To prayer was heard no more—and Juan wept,
And made a vow to shield her, which he kept.’
Blaquière, who was at Zante when the Florida was placed in quarantine, says:
‘The child, whom I have frequently seen in the lazaretto, is extremely interesting, and about eight years of age. She came over with Byron’s body, under her mother’s care. They had not been here many days, before an application came from Usouff Pacha, to give them up. It being customary, whenever claims of this kind are made, to consult the parties themselves, both the mother and her child were questioned as to their wishes on the subject. The latter, with tears in her eyes, said that, had his lordship lived, she would always have considered him as a father; but as he was no more, she preferred going back to her own country. The mother having expressed the same wish, they were sent to Patras.’
According to Millingen, when Hatajè and her mother arrived at Patras, the child’s father received them in a transport of joy. ‘I thought you slaves,’ said the father in embracing them, ‘and, lo! you return to me decked like brides.’
And that is all that we know—all, we suppose, that can be known—of little Hatajè! She may still be alive, the last survivor of those who had spoken to Byron! If, in her ninety-third year, she still recalls the events of 1824, she will hold up the torch with modest pride, while the present writer commemorates one, out of many, of the noble actions performed by the poet Byron.
‘This special honour was conferred, because
He had behaved with courage and humanity—
Which last men like, when they have time to pause
From their ferocities produced by vanity.
His little captive gained him some applause
For saving her amidst the wild insanity
Of carnage—and I think he was more glad in her
Safety, than his new order of St. Vladimir.’
Don Juan, Canto VIII., CXL.