ATHENS—THE EXCAVATION OF MARBLES AT BASSÆ—BRONSTEDT'S MISHAP—FATE OF THE CORINTHIAN CAPITAL OF BASSÆ—SEVERE ILLNESS—STACKELBERG'S MISHAP—TRIP TO ALBANIA WITH HUGHES AND PARKER—THEBES—LIVADIA—THE FIVE EMISSARIES—STATE OF THE COUNTRY—MERCHANTS OF LIVADIA—DELPHI—SALONA—GALAXIDI—PATRAS—PREVISA—NICOPOLIS—ARTA—THE PLAGUE—JANINA.
The fate of the Ægina Marbles being now practically settled, Foster, who was engaged to make a marriage very displeasing to his family, with a Levantine, left for Smyrna, while Haller, Linckh, and Cockerell went to Athens. The latter had not been in Greece since November 1811. In the interval the expedition to dig up the sculptures he had discovered at Bassæ had been there and had successfully accomplished their purpose, the party consisting of Haller, Foster, Linckh, Stackelberg, Gropius, Bronstedt, and an English traveller, Mr. Leigh.[42] They had provided themselves with powers from Constantinople sufficient to overcome the resistance of the local authorities, and after many difficulties had succeeded in bringing away the sculptures with one exception, to which I will presently refer.
The excavations were carried out in June, July, and August, while my father was absent at Malta and in Sicily. Nevertheless, as he had discovered their existence it was understood that he was to be a participator in any sculptures that should be disinterred.
The party of excavators established themselves there for nearly three months, building huts of boughs all round the temple, making almost a city, which they christened Francopolis. They had frequently from fifty to eighty men at work at a time, a band of Arcadian music to entertain them, and in the evening after work, while the lamb was roasting on a wooden spit, they danced. However, if Cockerell lost the pleasure, he escaped the fever from which they all suffered desperately—and no wonder, after living such a life in such a climate.
It was during this expedition that a misfortune befell Bronstedt which, although it had an element of absurdity in it, was very serious to the victim. While the work at Bassæ was proceeding he left his companions to take a trip into Maina. Before starting he wrote for himself a letter of introduction to Captain Murzinos purporting to be from my father, and would have presented it; but, as ill-luck would have it, on the 20th of August, on the road between Sparta and Kalamata, he fell into the hands of a band of eight robbers. Understanding them to be Mainiotes, and supposing all Mainiotes to be friends, he tried to save his property by saying that he had a letter with him to Captain Murzinos; but the robbers replied: "Oh, have you? If we had Murzinos here we would play him twice the pranks we are playing you," and spared nothing. They decamped with his money, his watch, his rings, a collection of antique coins, all that he had in their eyes worth taking, to the tune, as he considered, of 800l. (11,000 piastres fortes d'Espagne), leaving him disconsolate in the dark to collect his scattered manuscripts, which they had rejected with the contemptuous words: Καρτἁσια εἱναι. Δεν τἁ στοχἁσομεν [Greek: Kartasia einai. Den ta stochasomen] ("Papers! we don't look at them.") In the darkness and confusion after the departure of the robbers he managed to lose some of these as well. The poor traveller returned quite forlorn to Phigaleia. After this, Linckh writes in his delicious French: "Bronstedt parcourt la Morée en longue et à travers pour cherger ses hardes pertus par les voleurs. Le drôle de corps a beaucoup d'espérance, parce que le consul Paul lui a recommendé fortement au nouveau Pascha dans une letter qui a etté enveloppée en vilours rouge." Such a letter, bound in red velvet, was esteemed particularly urgent, but he obtained no redress whatever, nor ever saw again any of "ses hardes," except the ring which had been given him by his fiancée, Koes' sister. This was recovered for him by Stackelberg on a journey which he took through Maina, when he saw it exposed for sale in the house of one of the captains or chieftains of the country, together with the watch, purse, and several other articles which had been Bronstedt's; but the prices asked were too exorbitant for him to ransom any but this, which he knew the late owner had highly prized.
The piece of sculpture I have just mentioned, which the explorers of Phigaleia failed to bring away, was the capital of the single Corinthian column of the interior of the temple. It will be remembered by those who have read my father's work on the subject, that all the columns of the interior were of the Ionic order with one exception, which was Corinthian, and which stood in the centre of one end of the cella. The capital of this Corinthian column was of the very finest workmanship; and although the volutes had been broken off, much of it was still well preserved, and the party of excavators took it with them to the coast for embarcation with the rest. There are figures of it by Stackelberg in his book, and by Foster in a drawing in the Phigaleian Room of the British Museum. Veli Pasha, the Governor of the Morea, had sanctioned the explorations on the understanding that he should have half profits; but when he had seen the sculptures he was so disappointed that they were not gold or silver, and so little understood them, that he took the warriors under shields for tortoises, allowing that as such they were rather well done. It chanced that at this moment news reached him that he had been superseded in his command, and not thinking much of them, and eager to get what he could, he accepted 400l. as his share of the spoil and sanctioned the exportation of the marbles. The local archons, however, put every impediment they could in the way by fomenting a strike among the porters which caused delays, and by giving information to the incoming pasha, who sent down troops to stop the embarcation. Everything had been loaded except the capital in question, which was more ponderous than the rest, and was still standing half in and half out of the water when the troops came up. The boat had to put off without it, and the travellers had the mortification of seeing it hacked to pieces by the Turks in their fury at having been foiled. The volute of one of the Ionic columns presented by my father to the British Museum is the only fragment of any of the interior capitals of the temple remaining. He brought it away with him on his, the first, visit.
To return to where I left my father before this digression. As I said, after the sale of the Ægina Marbles, Haller and he came to Athens, where, finding the summer very hot in the town, they went to live at Padischa or Sadischa, not far outside the town, and set earnestly to work upon the drawings for the book on Ægina and Phigaleia. All went on quietly till on the 22nd of August Cockerell was attacked by a malignant bilious fever, which brought him to death's door: at least, either the illness or the remedies did. The doctor, Abraham, the first in Athens, thought it must be yellow fever, gave him up, and fearing infection for himself, refused to attend him after the first few days. It was even whispered that it might be the plague, for the enormous swelling of the glands was not unlike it. But Haller would listen to no counsels of despair, and refused to leave his friend. The kind Madame Masson, too, the aunt of the Misses Makri, came out from Athens, and the two nursed him with ceaseless devotion. Haller never left his bedside, night or day, for the first month. The vice-consul, hearing that the sufferer was as good as dead, came to take away his keys and put seals upon his property, and was only prevented by Haller by main force. The same faithful friend compelled the doctor to do his duty. The first having deserted his patient, a second was called in and kept attentive by threats and persuasion. The methods of medicine were inconceivably barbarous. Bleeding was the great remedy in fever, and calomel the alternative. When the patient had been brought by this treatment so low that his heart was thought to have stopped, live pigeons were cut in half and the reeking portions applied to his breast to restore the vital heat. Medicine failing, spells were believed in. Madame Masson, though described as one of the first personages in Athens, could neither read nor write, and was grossly ignorant. She had a great faith in spells; and Haller, fearing that in the feeble condition of the patient she might commit some folly, kept a strict watch upon her. One day, however, in his absence, when my father was suffering agonies from his glands, she took the opportunity to tie round his neck a charm of particular potency. It was a little bag containing some resin, some pitch, a lock of hair, and two papers, each inscribed with the figure of a pyramid and other symbols drawn with a pen. They even got so far as to speak of his burial, and it was settled that it should be in the Theseum, where one Tweddle, an Englishman, and other foreigners had been interred, and where Haller himself was laid not many years after.
The churches were kept lighted night and day for his benefit, and his nurse attributed his final recovery entirely to the intercession of Panagia Castriotissa, or "Our Lady of the Acropolis." At length, after long hovering between life and death, his robust constitution carried him through, and towards the end of September the doctor advised his being removed to Athens. He was carried thither in a litter and set down at Madame Masson's, where he was henceforth to live. Before this episode was fairly concluded or my father had progressed far in convalescence, a new cause of agitation arose. Notice was received that Baron Stackelberg was in the hands of pirates.