CHAPTER XV—ROUND ABOUT ATHENS.—THE COUNTRY OF THE BRIGANDS.
Mars’ Hill, the place where St. Paul Preached on the Unknown God—The Prison of Socrates—The Country of the Brigands—Escorted by Greek Soldiers—Captures by the Brigands—How they treat Captives—Extorting Ransoms—Buying Coins and Relics—Swindling Travellers—Among the Ruins—Strange Contrasts—“Chaffing” the Guide—Position of the Persian and Grecian Hosts—Xerxes’ Throne—“The King Sate on the Rocky Brow”—Making the Ascent by Proxy—“I no go ze Mountain”—The Battle of Marathon—A Survivor of the Battle—How the Victory was Won.
WE visited all the places of historic interest in Athens, including the hill where St Paul is said to have preached his sermon on the unknown God.
The place is admirably adapted for the delivery of an oration, and it is no wonder that it was a favorite one with the Athenians on the occasion of any public demonstration. Indications of its ancient uses are still visible. There is a stairway of sixteen steps hewn in the solid rock leading to a platform where there are three rectangular seats placed in a half circle, and looking toward the South.
On each side to the East and West, there is an elevated block of stone; these blocks are supposed to be the seats of accuser and accused, according to the description of Pausanias and others. The courts of justice were held here, with powers that varied from time to time, according to the decrees of the ruler.
It was here that Demosthenes was condemned to death, and not far away is the place where Socrates is said to have died.
To reach the prison of Socrates we passed through a ploughed field to the perpendicular side of a hill, where a cavity was hewn in the solid rock. There was nothing of interest in the prison; nothing but four stone walls and a low roof, with a floor that would have been more presentable had it been swept and washed. The historians say that the authenticity of the prison is extremely doubtful and rests on very slight foundation.
We made an excursion to Eleusis, a pleasant ride of little more than two hours, when we informed our hotel-keeper of our intentions, Boniface shrugged his shoulders, smiled, shook his head, and uttered the magic word “brigands.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You must get an escort,” he replied; “an escort of soldiers to protect you, and you must send your application to the chief of police as soon as possible.”
“But suppose we don’t want an escort, and are willing to take the risk ourselves?”
“That would not be permitted,” was his prompt response.
“The government was censured so much in the Takos affair that it will not allow anybody to go without an escort. They are determined to be on the safe side, and if you venture out without an escort, you will be liable to imprisonment for violating the regulations.”
He went on to explain that the escort would cost us nothing; that it would consist of regular soldiers, mounted and armed with carbines and pistols, and that we would be kept all the time, under the strictest surveillance. We would not have a large guard—from six to ten soldiers, commanded by a sergeant, and quite possibly we could get a sous-officier who could speak French. The latter would not be absolutely necessary, as we would be obliged to employ a guide or dragoman, who would speak, or would claim to speak, all the modern languages, in addition to that of the country.
We sent our application to the police headquarters, stating where we wished to go, and how long we expected to be absent, and were informed that the escort would meet us at a little village a couple of miles outside of Athens.
In order not to attract too much attention and cause needless comment, they always arrange that the escort shall be taken up in this way. Consequently, our expectation that we should ride through the streets in grand style was ruthlessly disappointed. We left our hotel in a very modest way, and attracted neither attention nor admiration as we rode along we found our escort waiting for us and solacing themselves with Greek wine at a wretched brasserie in the edge of the village. The guide suggested that we should try the wine, and take a few bottles of it along for the general benefit of the party. We acceded to his proposal, and it very naturally happened that, in paying the bill, the score made by the escort was included. We did not demur, as we wanted to be on good terms with our guards, and as the wine of the country was very cheap and very bad, we gave orders that the escort should be kept filled up to the chin, and a little higher if possible.
During the whole time they were with us, the guard kept a careful watch over their charges; they divided up into advance, rear, and center, the advance keeping about two hundred yards ahead of the main body, and the rear about half of that distance behind us. There were seven soldiers and a sergeant, so that when the advance and rear of two men each were in their proper places, there were only four to form the centre. No elaborate military evolutions were attempted, if I except a little “cavorting” on the part of the sergeant’s horse, which resulted twice in unseating that hero, and throwing him headlong into the sand to the detriment of his uniform and temper.
We had expected to find a picturesque looking guard in Greek dress, and flourishing long lances, such as we see in pictures of the Phalanx and other celebrated bodies of troops. We found them a very common lot of soldiers in a uniform that looked very Frenchy, and I learned afterward that the outfit of the Greek army was furnished by French contractors, and made chiefly in Paris.
The French uniform seems to have invaded the Orient very generally, and half the armies of the countries bordering the Eastern part of the Mediterranean are now uniformed, with some modifications, after the model of la grande nation.
Shall I describe a sanguinary battle, in which prodigies of valor were displayed by our party, and a hundred brigands were compelled to bite the dust?
A great deal of dust was bitten, but we couldn’t help it; the dry earth was stirred up by our horses’ hoofs, and for much of the time we rode in dense clouds that occasionally threatened to smother us. Our lungs were filled, and we ground in our teeth more of the classic soil of the land of Homer and Demosthenes than we found to our liking.
It may be a humiliation to say so, but I confess that the most of us were not very poetical on that occasion, and voted Greece a bore.
Candor compels me to say that we had no encounter with the brigands, but returned to Athens with no greater sufferings than the fatigue and general mussiness consequent upon most journeys of that length. Two or three times we saw some suspicious-looking vagabonds, and at sight of them our sergeant shook his head ominously, but they evinced no disposition to disturb us. We could have made a very fair fight, if attacked, as our guards were well armed, and there was a fair supply of revolvers in our own hands. We had inserted fresh charges before leaving the hotel, and were determined not to surrender without making some resistance at any rate. Capture at the hands of Greek brigands is no joke, and would have disarranged our plans very seriously.
The main object of brigandage is a financial one; the robbers are in want of money (many of us are in the same fix), and the best way for them to turn an honest penny is to steal it. When they capture travellers, they help themselves to watches, money, and jewels, and anything else that may be of value. But the end is not yet; they take the captives into the mountains, and hold them for something more, and they are careful to squeeze out as much as possible. If the victim is a wealthy nobleman or some other purse-proud aristocrat, they think it will be worth about £10,000 to release him, but if he is some ordinary mortal with no influential friends in Athens, a hundred or two hundred pounds will be sufficient. The foreign residents and travellers; who happen to be in a Greek or Italian city when ransom is demanded for some unhappy wretch, are frequently compelled to raise money to meet the demand.
There is a great deal of complaint at this, and much of it is well founded.
“Why should I,” said a gentleman to me in Naples, “be compelled to pay something every little while to get one of my countrymen out of the hands of the brigands? I wouldn’t venture where the scoundrels could catch me, and I wouldn’t allow any of my friends to do so if I could prevent it. But along comes some reckless fellow I never saw, goes into danger, and is captured. Then I am appealed to on the ground of humanity and all that sort of thing, and asked to help release him. It is his own fault if he is captured. If he had staid away, as I do, he would have been safe, and not compelled to appeal to strangers. If a man meets with an accident, I am willing to help him, but I think it hard to be asked to contribute for a man who has deliberately and with eyes open walked into trouble.”
The brigands generally treat their prisoners well and civilly. Sometimes they parole them not to attempt to escape, and allow them to do what they please; and at others they put them in charge of watchful guards, who have orders to shoot them if they try to get away. If pursued, and too much encumbered by their prisoners, they kill them, on the principle that dead men tell no tales, and it is in cases of pursuit that most of the persons in the hands of the brigands have lost their lives. In several instances prisoners have been kept three or four months by the brigands, and while negotiations were pending they have been allowed to see their friends, and even to visit neighboring cities to make personal appeals for raising the ransom demanded; and these instances have only been where parties of two or more were captured. Only one was allowed to go away at a time, the rest being held as hostages.
Sometimes when the ransom is not forthcoming in a reasonable time, the brigands cut off the ear of a victim and send it to his friends with the intimation that the other ear will come soon, unless matters are hurried up. This generally has the desired effect.
Brigandage has been largely reduced in Italy and Greece, but it still exists in some localities. The Governments of those countries have made earnest efforts to render rural travelling safe, but they have base populations to deal with, and it will doubtless be a long time before the business will be entirely stopped.
Our route to Eleusis, was over the ancient sacred way traversed by the Theorie or procession which used to go from Athens to Eleusis for the celebration of the mysteries. Soon after leaving Athens we enter a forest of olive trees; it was once very extensive but has suffered greatly in the recent wars of which the country around Athens has been in great part the theatre. The road is very good, and as it has been traversed for thousands of years and is under the supervision of goverment, there is no reason why it should be otherwise.
The chapel of St. George and the monastery of Daphni are passed on the route, but there is nothing particularly interesting about them, if we except some very old and badly preserved mosaics. All the time of the Crusades the Daphni was a monastery of Benedictines, and had some celebrity. It was one of the earliest Christian centres in this part of Greece.
Occasionally the modern road leaves the ancient one, but the traces of the latter are distinctly visible where it was hewn out of the rock. During the Turkish occupation there was another road established by the Moslems, but it was so badly made that it was not considered worth following by the modern engineers.
Near the shores of the Bay of Eleusis the road leads past a couple of salt lakes which are mentioned in ancient histories. They are fed by springs and drained by small brooks flowing into the bay; modern and prosaic mills are on these brooks. Our guide explained that these lakes were anciently dedicated, one to Ceres, and the other to Proserpine; we endeavored to ascertain if the mills appertained to those parties, and told him to go and ask if Mr. Ceres was at home. Rather than explain to us who and what Ceres was, he stopped the carriage and pretended to ascertain from a native the information we desired.
After a short conversation in the language of the country, he gravely informed us that Ceres had gone to Athens, and would not return till next week.
How that guide pitied our ignorance.
Eleusis is to-day a miserable village, whose inhabitants look as if they ought to be grateful to anybody who would drown them in the adjoining bay. They crowded around us to beg for money and to sell relics of the place; I bought several coins of the time of Hadrian, paying about a cent apiece for the lot. Somewhat to my surprise they were pronounced genuine by a coin-sharp to whom I showed them in Athens. I remarked by the way that you can buy any quantity of antique coins in Athens and no end of statuettes and other articles of terra-cotta. To obtain the genuine you must exercise considerable caution and be careful about trading with doubtful personages.
There are several shops that have a good reputation and are said to take great pains to have none but genuine coins. Sometimes they have large stocks on hand and some of these coins will be very rare; persons interested in making collections for public and private museums arrive there from time to time and almost exhaust the supplies of the dealers. Consequently you can never tell whether you are likely to find a large, medium, or small stock of antique coins on hand in the shops at Athens.
Eleusis was anciently one of the most celebrated cities of Greece, and its foundation dates in the ages of mythology. It was famous for the temple of Ceres and Proserpine, and for the mysteries which were celebrated there in honor of these two goddesses and considered the most sacred of all Greece during the time that paganism flourished.
It was one of the original twelve states of Attica, and was several times at war with Athens. In the last of these wars the Athenians were victorious and Eleusis became a province of Athens with the condition that its religion was to be respected and the worship of Ceres and Proserpine continued as before. Once a year the grand procession went to Athens by the sacred way to celebrate the Eleusinian mysteries, which were maintained for many years.
The Persians destroyed the temple and the city but they were afterwards reconstructed only to be destroyed again.
We wandered among the ruins where the immense and carefully hewn blocks of marble contrasted strangely with the rude huts of the present dwellers on the spot. The destruction was so complete that one sees little more than the outline of one of the temples enclosing a space covered with masses of hewn stone tumbled together in the most complete confusion.
The ruins have been only partially excavated, and there was no work in progress at the time of my visit. Judging by the remains that were visible the temples must have been among the finest of ancient Greece.
From the hill that formed the Acropolis of Eleusis, we looked over the bay, and saw the locality where was fought the famous battle of Salamis, between the Greeks and Persians. The site of the silver throne of Xerxes was pointed out, but we were somewhat dubious about it as we could not see the throne though looking repeatedly and intently. The guide could not tell where it could be found and seemed rather disgusted when we requested him to ask the natives if they had seen anything of it lying around loose.
He persisted that the battle was fought more than two thousand years ago; we listened to his explanation and shook our heads as if we were not convinced.
I told him that we had had battles in our own country not near so long ago and that the people who were killed there were all dead.
He could not understand what that had to do with the matter and neither could I.
The positions of the armies and fleets during the battle are described with sufficient precision by the historians, though there has been much discussion concerning the movements which gave the victory to the Greeks, and destroyed the Persian fleet. The locality of the throne of Xerxes is also in dispute, one authority, placing it in the hollow between two low hills, while another has it on the summit of a hill overlooking the bay. The latter theory is more likely to be the correct one. Byron says of the affair:
“The King sate on the rocky brow,
Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis,
And ships, by thousands lay below
And men in nations, all were his.
He counted them at break of day,
And when the sun set, where were they?”
The day after this excursion we made a journey to Mount Pentelicus, whence came the most of the marble used in the erection of the Parthenon, and other temples of Athens.
Part of the way the road is excellent and on another part it is not so good. There is a Greek convent at the foot of the mountain and when we reached it we were told that the carriages could go no further.
Then we had an animated discussion with the guide. None of us wished to undertake the ascent, which requires about two hours on foot, and so we decided to let the guide do it for us, and when we stated our plan his eyes opened so wide that they appeared really to drop out.
“I not goes up mitout you gentlemens,” he said as soon as he had sufficiently recovered himself to be able to speak.
“You won’t, eh; well, what have we engaged you for.”
“For five francs ze day, five francs par jour.”
“Very well, then, we are to pay you five francs a day to be our guide and you are to guide us where we want to go.”
“Yees! yees, zat is so.”
“If we wanted to go up that mountain you would go with us.”
“Certainly, genteelmens, certainly zat is to guide you up ze mountain.”
“Well, now let’s have no more nonsense about it. Pentelicus would be nowhere by the side of Pike’s Peak or Mount Shasta. And you say, gentlemen come here and climb this potato-hill. We don’t intend to climb it ourselves, and we came here to do it by proxy. We have hired you for that purpose, so now go ahead.” "But I have been up ze mountain many times. Why I go now all alone without ze genteelmens.”
“That is our affair. We pay you five francs a day for that kind of work, you are to do anything for us that we find disagreeable.”
The guide was puzzled, and after a thorough examination of our faces to ascertain if we were really lunatics, he started off.
He went about twenty yards and then returned, declaring that he would not ascend the mountain unless we furnished him with a saddle horse.
“Once for all,” said the Judge, “will you go or not? If you don’t we shall be obliged to murder you, and then report your misconduct to the police.”
“Veree well,” sulkily replied the descendant of Sophocles, “I no go ze mountain, and I no be guide for you again. Tomorrow you have one other guide.”
We took him at his word and that night paid him off and discharged him. He had been a nuisance from the first, bothering us with all sorts of importunities, and we were glad to be rid of him in such a way that he could have no real or fancied claim upon us. During the rest of our stay in Athens he did not condescend to speak to us; he had formerly been all obsequiousness, but now he considered us quite unfit to associate with him. I am afraid our reputations suffered somewhat in his hands. He described us to some gentlemen who were in Athens the week after we left, as the greatest fools he had ever seen.
Mount Pentelicus is about thirty-six hundred feet above the level of the sea, and the view from its summit is said to be quite extensive.
Looking toward the southwest one sees the plain of Attica with its smaller mountains, and with Athens and the Acropolis occupying a prominent place on the plain.
Beyond them are the Piraeus, Salamis, and Egina, and further away the coast and mountains of the Morea, form a background to the picture. Toward the southeast are Mount Hymettus, all the promontory of Attica to Cape Sunium and beyond this cape, the jagged summits of the Cyclades are visible. On the northeast the hills fall away in undulations till they sink into the plain of Marathon, where was fought the battle that resulted in the defeat and partial destruction of the Persian army. The numerous bays of this part of the coast are distinctly visible, and the combinations of sea, mountain, and plain make a picture of unusual beauty.
In a clear day nearly all the great islands of the Greek Archipelago can be made out, and sometimes the coast of Asia is visible away to the east. Altogether the view from Mount Pentelicus is one of the finest in Greece, as it includes nearly the whole of Athens, and awakens many historical associations.
The battle of Marathon was fought in the year 450 B. C., between the Persians and Greeks. The former had landed forty thousand men, but owing to bad generalship, only half that number were engaged.
The Persian army was drawn up in the Plain of Marathon, with its center directly in front of the Greek position.
Military critics who have studied the history of the battle on the memorable ground, say that the Persians were lamentably deficient in strategy, as their line was too much extended, and its right was pushed out between a swamp and the mountain chain. This arrangement secured them against a flank movement on the right, but it left no line of retreat for the right wing in case the centre was pierced.
The Greeks were about eighteen thousand strong, according to the best authorities. They debouched from the mountains in two columns, one attacking the Persian right, and the other its left, and in both movements they were successful. Then they attacked the Persian centre, which they defeated and put to flight; the vanquished were pursued into the sea and into the swamps, and it is said that more of them perished in this way than by the arms of the conquerors.
Did you ever see a survivor of the battle of Marathon? I have, and instead of being twenty-four hundred years old, as you might expect, he was not fifty.
We had in our late civil war a cavalry general who was reputed to be a good soldier, and, at the same time, a tremendous “blower.” He could tell wonderful stories of his and others’ prowess; and the deeds of daring that he narrated were of themost remarkable character. Mention any battle in his hearing, especially when he had partaken of the beverage that cheers while it inebriates, and he would be sure to tell you that he had led the cavalry on the right, the left, or the centre, just as it might occur to his mind.
One day, somebody mentioned a battle in Virginia, and our general immediately described how he broke the centre that day, with four regiments of cavalry.
Then another person spoke of a battle that occurred the same day in Arkansas or Louisiana, and the general told us how he led three regiments and a battalion of cavalry, against the right wing and broke it without trouble, capturing two batteries and half a dozen wagon loads of ammunition.
The attempt was now made to floor him, but it was unsuccessful.
“That was a splendid move of General Miltiades at Marathon,” said one of the party, with a most solemn face; “he attacked in two columns an army larger than his own.”
“Ah, yes,” our brave general responded, “that was one of the toughest places I was ever in. I led the cavalry against the left, two full brigades with two batteries and howitzers. They cut us up with grape and canister, but we broke them and took all their guns. The general complimented me personally in presence of his whole staff. I had three horses shot under me and two bullet holes in my coat.”
Up to that moment I had never hoped to see a survivor of Marathon, but you cannot always tell what will happen.
CHAPTER XVI—THE GLORY OF ATHENS.—ITS SIGHTS, SCENES, RUINS, AND RELICS.
The Opera at Athens—Handsome Greeks?—The King and Queen—A Lovely Trio—Losing a Heart—Byron’s “Maid of Athens”—How She Looked—Her House and History—The Acropolis by Moonlight—Waking the Guard—A Sham Permit—“Backsheesh”—The Parthenon by Night—Greek Gypsies—Among the Curiosity Shops—Dr. Schliemann and his Trojan Discoveries—The Gold and Silver Vases of King Priam—Where They Were Found—Relics of the Sack of Troy—Curious Workmanship—Some Account of the Excavations—We Leave Athens—A Queer Steamer—“Pay or Go to Prison”—End of Our Steamship Adventure.
THE Opera was in fashion at Athens, at the time of our visit, and all went there on the second evening of our stay in the city. The theatre is rather small and the company not first-class, but on the whole the house and the performance were quite as good as one could expect for a city of the population of the Greek capital. Both chorus and orchestra were small, and not very well trained, and the scenery was evidently made to do duty in a great many ways.
In my eyes the chief attractions were the people in the audience, and I did not pay very close attention to the performance. Here and there you could see the national costume, but the great majority of those present were attired a la Paris, or rather in the French costumes of fashions a year or two old. The national costume is worn only by the pallicares, who claim to be the descendants of the original Greeks, and they show a great deal of pride of descent. Here is a description of the dress of a pallicare of Athens.
A muslin shirt with a broad collar, but without a cravat; stockings of goodly length and gaiters buttoned up to the knee, not unlike the shooting gaiters of England and America. Then comes a full skirt, generally of some white material, gathered in plaits at the waist, and reaching to the knee or just below it; then a small vest without sleeves, and another richly embroidered and with open sleeves.
There are garters of colored silk, and a belt of the same material, but the latter is generally concealed by a broad belt of leather, which sustains a tobacco pouch, a handkerchief, a purse, and, according to the old custom, a pair of pistols, though the latter are usually left at home. On the head is worn a red cap, something after the Turkish pattern, but larger at the top, and having a blue tassel. The women of the same class wear a long skirt of silk, or some cheaper material, according to their financial ability, with a velvet jacket open in front; and for a headdress they wear a red cap like that of the men, but with a larger top. It bends over to the ear, and appears as if it were ready to fall off. Sometimes they omit the cap, and wear a large braid of hair twisted around the head. It is not the natural growth, but of the kind known in America as “store hair;” it belongs to the wearer either by inheritance or purchase.
I looked among the audience for pretty faces, but saw only a few. One box contained three women who would be called handsome in any part of the world, but they turned out to be Albanians, and not of the true Greek race. The other pretty ones were few and far between, and on the whole I was fully prepared to endorse the assertion of Edmond About, that the Greek men are much handsomer than the women.
In the afternoon promenades, when the band played in the public square, I had no better luck in my search for beauty than in the opera house. The prettiest women are oftener seen in the rural districts and in the islands than at Athens, and the peninsula of the Morea is said to contain the best specimens of feminine beauty.
The king and queen were in their box; they are regular attendants upon the opera, and the king is said to pay a portion of the subsidy out of his private purse.
They are a young and not ill-looking couple, and were dressed in ordinary evening costume, as if out for a dinner or a party. He is tall and thin, and she has a tendency to stoutness, and both are blondes, the king being Danish (son of the King of Denmark), and the queen being Russian (daughter of the Grand Duke Constantine, and niece of the Emperor Alexander II). They present a marked contrast in physiognomy to the darkskinned and black-haired Greeks, and the most unobservant stranger would never take them for natives of the country.
The succession to the throne appears to be well secured, as the royal pair have three children, and are yet very far from old age.
And while on this subject, let me say that in Egypt, a few months later, I saw three sisters that were the perfection of beauty, the admiration of the foreign men in Cairo, and the envy of all foreign women. They were daughters of a Greek merchant living at Alexandria, and were the belles of the foreign population of that city. I could have lost my heart to any one of the trio, but no favorable opportunity offered, and consequently I left the Orient heart whole.
Now, for a little information about the population and government. Those who do not wish it, may go on till they find something more interesting. The population of the kingdom, including the Ionian and other islands, is less than a million and a half, according to the last census. The government is a constitutional and hereditary monarchy, and the constitution guarantees to the citizens equality before the law, personal and religious liberty, freedom of the press, public instruction, and the abolition of confiscation and the penalty of death for political offenders. For purposes of government, the country is divided into thirteen departments, fifty-nine districts, and three hundred and fifty-two communes. The prefets of the departments, and sous-prefets of districts, are nominated by the king, subject to approval by the chamber of deputies. The communal chiefs and councils are elected by the people over whom they are to preside.
The system of justice is based on the Code Napoleon, and the code of commerce is likewise on the French plan.
Criminal matters are subject to trial by jury, and the same is the case with certain civil affairs. In general, the courts appear to be well organized, but the judges are so badly paid that some of them cannot support their families and be respectable without taking an occasional bribe.
The religion of Greece is of the kind known as the Greek Church, and almost identical with that of Russia. In Syra and other islands of the Archipelago, there are many Catholics.
There is only one completed railway in all Greece, and it has the enormous length of four miles.
Carriage roads are not numerous, and most of them are bad; consequently it is hardly necessary to say that the interior of the country is not much developed.
Agriculture is in a primitive stage, and the soil, which does not lack fertility, has very little opportunity to show what it can do. Commerce is more prosperous than agriculture, and most of the wealth of Greece is engaged in it. Most of the commerce of the Levant is in the hands of Greeks, and there are many merchants of that nationality established in other countries. Most of them have an affectionate remembrance for their native land, and frequently make heavy donations in its behalf.
Of course the country must have an army and navy. The former includes about fifteen thousand soldiers of all arms and an enormous number of officers; there are seventy generals in the army, and a proportionate number of other grades.
The navy has an equally large staff of officers; it has about thirty-five ships, mounting one hundred and ninety guns.
The finances are in that deplorable condition described by Mr. Micawber, when he alluded to the practice of allowing expenditures to exceed the income. The annual revenue of Greece is about a million of francs less than the expenses. A minister of finance of ability would be a great blessing to the country.
I could give a few more solid chunks of wisdom, but I forbear out of pity for the reader.
My head is an ant-hill of figures, but I shall proceed to seal up the outlets, and keep the units and tens in their place.
I can tell you the number of square miles in Greece, the height of her mountains, and depth of her rivers, the age of the youngest child in the country, and what the king had for dinner one day; I could even give the number of hairs on the back of a sea turtle, and the price of a bottle of wine, for which you pay ten francs, but I forbear. One afternoon, while we were wandering about Athens and its suburbs, our guide pointed to a low house of most unpretending appearance, and enjoined us to “look at ze house.”
We looked, and asked if there was anything remarkable about it.
“That is ze house of ze ‘Maid of Athens’ of ze Lord Byron.”
Of course we took a second look at the house, and as we did so, we saw at one of the windows the face of an old, very old woman.
“Ah, zere is ze Maid of Athens herself. She look out and see us. You will go in ze house?”
We held a short consultation and decided that we, a party of strangers without introductions in any form, had no right to thrust ourselves into her house and presence.
The “Doubter” was the only one who thought it would be the proper thing to rap at the door and say we wanted to see the lady. We walked on, and he followed us protesting that he wanted to see her, but we paid no heed to his words. While walking sidewise with his eyes fixed upon the house he slipped and fell into a large pool of mud, and the incident changed the currents of his thoughts so that he said no more about the woman whom Byron has made famous throughout the English reading world.
The Maid of Athens of the well known poem,—“Zoe mou sas agapo”—was twice married, and, at the time of my visit to Athens, was far advanced in her second widowhood. I was told that her second husband was an Englishman, a Mr. Black, and that she was left at his death with very slender means of support. A subscription was raised for her in England so that the last years of her life were passed in tolerable comfort. I heard in London, just previous to my return to America, that she died in the summer of 1874, and that the little house where she lived is now occupied by her sister.
Whether the Maid of Athens was ever as beautiful as Byron represented her, I am unable to say. When I saw her it was more than fifty years after the penning of the poem, and fifty years, you know, will make great changes in the features and forms of the best of us. The face I saw at the window was old, withered, and wrinkled; it was not an unpleasant face, but age and sorrow had obliterated all the beauty which may have shone there half a century ago.
The moon reached the full while we were in Athens, and we embraced the opportunity to see the Acropolis by moonlight.
In theory it is necessary to have a permit from the authorities to go there at night, but a friend hinted to us that nothing of the kind was necessary. We followed his directions and this was the result.
It was nine o’clock and later when we went there and rapped at the gate. We rapped loudly, waited awhile and then rapped again.
The whole establishment of guards was evidently sound asleep, as all our rapping brought no response.
Then we rattled the gate, threw stones on the roof of the hut, shouted and made a noise generally.
No response.
Then more rattling and rapping,—more stone throwing and shouting and with the same result as before.
Finally I put my face to the bars of the gate and at the very tip-top and summit of my voice shouted the magic word,
“BACKSHEESH!!”
Instantly there was a sound of feet and voices in the hut, and half a minute later a guard came to the gate and said something in Greek which I did not understand. Then I passed him a franc which his fingers closed upon, and I showed him another with an intimation that he would receive it after we had seen the Acropolis. That guard wasn’t an idiot; money he understood, but it was also necessary that we should have a written permit, and he so insinuated.
I gave him the first piece of paper I could find in my pocket—I think it was my wine bill on the steamer from Constantinople; he looked at it by the moonlight, nodded, said “bono,” and opened the gate without further delay.
It is impossible to describe the Acropolis by moonlight, just as impossible as it is to forget it. I never attempt what I know I cannot do and therefore I leave the picture to the reader’s imagination. And I would say to anybody who is going to Athens, be sure and time your visit so as to be there near the full moon, and on no account fail to spend an hour or two of a clear night in the Parthenon and among the temples that surround it. I think the grandeur and majesty of the place are better felt at that time than in the broad light of day. The softening effects of the rays of the moon are nowhere more perfectly shown than in the ruins of the Parthenon. I have seen the Coliseum at Rome, and the temple of Karnak in Egypt by moonlight, and must give the palm of merit to the Acropolis. These are built of grey or yellowish stone which absorbs some of the rays and gives a certain somberness to the picture. But the Parthenon is of white marble, so that the moonbeams light up the entire scene with a warmth and distinctness that almost rival the effect of the morning sun.
One day just outside of Athens we saw a small caravan of Greek gypsies. They were not a large party, some twenty persons in all, of both sexes, and the usual variety of ages. They were dressed in a costume that seemed a compromise between the Greek and Turkish, and some of their garments were in rags. The men had a proud, haughty air, as if the country belonged to them and they carried nothing but their rifles and other weapons. The women were not so fortunate, as all of them had burdens; the foremost person in the caravan was a woman who bore on: her back a cask that might hold eight or ten gallons, and, by the way she bent forward I judged that the cask was pretty well filled. She was leading a string of ponies and each pony had a good supply of baggage on his back; behind this group there was another woman leading another lot of beasts of burden.
Some of the women and two of the men were mounted on horses; the women seemed to be stowed with other baggage because they were too weak to walk, but the men were riding for the sake of personal comfort and not from necessity. A dozen sheep were in the rear of the ponies, and were kept from straying by some of the men and by two or three wolfish looking dogs. Some of the pack horses had coops of chickens among their loads, and on one of the packs a couple of hens were standing erect and appearing to enjoy their afternoon ride. Altogether the cavalcade was quite picturesque and I regretted that I had no time! to make a sketch of it.
We devoted an afternoon to the old curiosity shops of Athens, of which there is a goodly number. Vases, coins, statuettes and all sorts of antiquities—many of them modern—were shown to us and we made a few purchases. Some of the jewelry was exquisite and showed that the gold workers of ancient times were quite as skillful as their modern brethren.
Dr. Schliemann, who has made himself famous by excavations on the site of ancient Troy, was then in Athens, and through the influence of a friend I obtained an opportunity to examine his very interesting collection. He had a great number of vases and other specimens of pottery which he obtained at Troy from excavations at depths varying from twenty to a hundred and fifty feet. A few of the vases bear inscriptions, but thus far no one has been able to decipher them, and the forms of most of the articles discovered, show that they belong to a very remote period.
There is a difference of opinion among the savans concerning the antiquity of the articles discovered by Dr. Schliemann, and as I know a great deal less about the subject than they do I do not propose to take sides.
The enterprising explorer was full of courtesy and left his desk to accompany me for an hour or more through his collection. He reserved the greatest curiosities till the last.
After showing me many vases, cinerary urns, weapons, and implements of stone and copper, sculptures on granite, and other things which were stored in a shed adjoining his house, he led me to his study to inspect a collection of photographs which he made at Troy. While I was looking at these he unlocked a cabinet and brought out a number of gold dishes, vases, necklaces, and rings, and placed them on the table.
“Here,” said the Doctor, his eye kindling with delight as he spoke, “here is the treasure from the palace of King Priam. In my excavations, I came upon the foundations of the palace, and one morning my wife and I, while my workmen were at breakfast, managed to hit upon the locality of the treasure chest. You observe that some of these things appear to have been subjected to great heat, &c., and partially melted. This was done, I presume, at the burning of the palace, after its capture by the Greeks, and these articles had escaped discovery at the time the place was sacked. The heavy masses of debris that fell upon them served as their protection, and they lay undiscovered through the thousands of years that have passed since the siege of Troy.
“Some of the scientists dispute my claim that these things belonged to Priam, but for myself I have no doubt of it. I think you can be entirely confident that you are examining and handling dishes that have been touched by that celebrated king.”
I need not say that I was greatly interested in the collection, and that I lingered over it as long as politeness would allow me to do so.
One of the most interesting things I saw was a necklace and head-dress of pure gold—the workmanship was exquisite, and there were upwards of five hundred separate pieces in the two articles. The style of the head-dress and necklace was like that we see on pictures of Assyrian kings, and the ornaments were, doubtless, the property of some high personage. The pieces had been carefully put together by the doctor, and he showed me photographs of them, taken before his laborious task began and after it was finished.
I should add that the excavations at Troy were made by Dr. Schliemann, at his own expense and under his personal supervision. He had many difficulties to contend with, including the opposition of the Turkish government and the thievish propensities of his workmen. They robbed him at all opportunities, and it was recently ascertained that by far the larger part of the gold vases and other valuables from the ruins of the palace were concealed by the workmen, and their discovery was quite unknown to him. The Doctor was accompanied by his wife, who assisted him in every way in her power; but it was impossible for them to be everywhere at once, and to supervise excavations going on in half a dozen places simultaneously.
When we were ready for departure we packed our baggage and drove to the Piraeus, where we had a choice of two steamers to Syra. One was the Stamboul, our old acquaintance, on which we had passed a very rough night; the other was a Greek steamer, and we determined to inspect her.
A very brief inspection of her cabin was enough for us. The captain looked as if he hadn’t washed himself since he was born, and the steward appeared never to have been guilty of such an act.
The rooms had very little bedding, and the little that they possessed was so dirty that it had evidently been used for the door-matting of a well-patronized bar room in muddy weather, and had afterwards served as the flooring of a pig-pen. The steward spoke nothing but Greek, and he had no assistant; as near as we could make out, he was steward, head-waiter, chambermaid, assistant-waiter, cabin boy, cook, and forecastle attendant—anything you might happen to want. We were not long in deciding how we should travel. The Stamboul was not all that fancy paints a passenger ship, but she was infinitely preferable to the Mavrocoupolo, or whatever her outlandish name was.
This Greek steamer had the monopoly of the passenger trade between Syra and the Piraeus, and the other lines were not allowed to sell tickets for that route. When we came to Greece, we bought tickets from Constantinople to the Piraeus, and had no trouble; we now wanted to buy one to Syra by the Austrian Lloyd line, where we were to change to a ship of the Messageries Maritimes (French). But we couldn’t do anything of the kind, and the only way we could get around it was to buy third-class tickets to Chio (the first port beyond Syra), and then pay to the steward on board the Stamboul the difference between first and third-class prices.
Was there ever a law so carefully drawn that somebody could not devise a plan to get around it?
The company bit us pretty badly—the fleas helped them a little—as we found that we had to pay very dearly for our connivance at violation of the Greek law. This was the way of it.
We bought third-class tickets to Chio and went on board, where we paid the steward the difference between first and third-class. In first-class fare, where tickets are bought at the agencies, meals and rooms are included. But after paying full rates, we were told that we had only secured the privileges of the cabin, and must pay extra for meals and berths.
We called for the captain, and protested that it was a swindle. He shrugged his shoulders, showed us the regulations, and said we must pay. If we didn’t he must put us in prison at Syra.
We thought the prison might be something like the cabin of the Greek steamer, and we paid the bill with the rapidity of a well-trained flash of lightning. But we didn’t change our opinion on the subject, and to this hour we think that the directors of the Austrian Lloyds are———
I pause, as there may be an international law of libel.
