We did all we could to inspire him with a little courage, both natural and Dutch. First we appealed to him as a man to show a good face, and for the second we gave him a good and ample dinner, and, relying on our guard and on ourselves, set out.
But before starting we begged our Albanian friend to come, if he could, next day to Scardamula, bringing Captain Basili with him, and the dispute should be referred to Captain Murgino for arbitration.
The path to Scardamula—for there was nothing in the shape of a road—was now so difficult that we had to get off; and, even so, it was to me perfectly wonderful how the mules ever got along. There was nothing but rock, and that all fissured and jagged limestone, but they climbed over it like goats.
The situation of Scardamula is infinitely striking. At the gate of his castle Captain Murgino waited to receive us—a fat, handsome old man.
At the first our rather strange appearance seemed to put him a little out of countenance, and he received us awkwardly although kindly; but after a time he appeared to regain confidence and became very cordial. 'Eat a good supper, Ingles archi mas' ('my little Englishman'), he said to me, and gave me the example. He talked freely on the political state of Maina. He owned and regretted that the Greeks had no leader, and said he trusted that would not long be wanting, and that shortly the great object of his desires would be realised; but what that object was he would not explain. It might be an invasion of the Morea by the English, seconded by a native insurrection which he would take a leading part in—or what not; but he was careful to give me no hint.[29] His son was absent at a council of the [Greek] chiefs at Marathonisi.
The next morning we walked about his lands, which were indescribably picturesque. His castle stands on a rock in the bed of a river, about a quarter of a mile from the bank. It consists of a courtyard and a church surrounded by various towers. There is a stone bench at his door, where he sits surrounded by his vassals and his relations, who all stand unless invited to sit. The village people bring him presents, tribute as it were, of fruits, fowls, &c. On a lofty rock close by is a watch-tower, where watch is kept night and day. The whole gave us a picture of feudal life new and hardly credible to a nineteenth-century Englishman.
Behind the tower the mountains rise precipitously, and culminate in the Pentedactylon—a prodigious mountain of the Taygetus range.
Murgino made us an estimate of his dependents. He has about 1,000 men, over whom he has absolute authority to call them out or to punish them as he thinks fit. A few days before we came he had had an obstreperous subject, who refused to obey orders, executed. Moreover, he showed a well in which he said he put those from whom he desired to extort money. When times are hard and the olives fail he makes war upon his neighbours, and either robs or blackmails them. The old man assured me that one winter they brought back from 1,000 to 1,500 piastres, from 50l. to 80l., a day.
Such was our host and his surroundings.
As I told you, our object was to examine some remains we had heard rumours of, especially of a Doric temple said to exist in the southern part of Maina, and, by all we could hear, in a tolerable state of preservation; but when we saw the tremendous preparations made by our good captain we found the enterprise beyond all our calculations or means. He declared he could not ensure our safety without his own attendance with a guard of forty men at the least. At this we thought it best, however regrettable, to retire before the expenses we should incur should embarrass us in our return to Athens. So we only stayed two days with Murgino, and then returned to Kalamata.