Europeanism, that bubbles up in the tailor shops of Regent Street, and pours its thin coating of dull color on the heels of the ever advancing British musket, has not yet washed over the island of Crete. The Akoond of Swat has donned a sack-coated suit of blue serge and a straw hat; the cousins of native princes go down to the government offices with brown linen on their backs and Buddha in their hearts; Fuzzy-Wuzzy is cutting his hair—his Samson locks—and buying cork helmets. And the missionary is picking his way through the corpses left in the trail of the machine gun, bringing Christ and calico to the survivors. They are putting pantaloons on the bronze statues of the desert, and are sending the piquant apples of the Tree of Knowledge wrapped up in bundles of mother hubbards, to the naked maidens of the South Sea Isles.
But Crete, beautiful Crete, is the one corner of the globe which the dull, tame wave of European fashion has not yet touched and commonized. The esplanade of Canea to-day, fronting the harbor, is the most picturesque, fantastic, kaleidoscopic spot on earth. Here commingle, swarm, interweave, huddle, scatter, pass and repass, costumes from the Greek islands, from the provinces of Asia Minor, from the oases and nomad tents of Africa, from Persia and the farthest East. The traveler's first view of Canea, from the rowboat that takes him ashore, is a half moon of white houses, splashed with red, terra cotta, yellow and striped awnings, and beneath, a squirming, ever-changing mass of bright turbans and sashes, fluttering black and yellow robes, naked limbs and chests—and donkeys; moth-eaten donkeys laden with sacks, goatskins of honey and cheese, huge panniers of green vegetables. There on the right, in letters that can be read a mile away, is the name of a café dedicated "Au Concert Européen." This is a bait for the foreigners attached to the half-dozen steel hulks floating out yonder in the sea, pointing ever shoreward their great guns that seem to whisper:
"Be good. Don't kill each other, or we'll kill you all."
All Europeans are supposed to speak French. Several of the cafés announce their business in more than one tongue: Greek, Turkish, English, Italian. Under the awning of one sits a group of elderly Mohammedans, smoking their bubbling narghiles and reading the tiny local sheet; these are stout gentlemen in fezzes, pillars of Islam, faithful husbands of harems. They have kindly faces and are really good-hearted men whom no provocation, save that of religion, could induce to cut your throat. You sit down and a bare-legged waiter, whose fez and braid-trimmed jacket are sadly faded, "zigzags" among the chairs, like a fly through raindrops, and stands at your side, the very incarnation of silent and respectful inquiry. You are tired and you say:
"Some cognac and brown soda." The waiter looks distressed, puzzled.
"Cognac," you repeat, "cognac and cold water, then."
He casts his eye over the group of pillars, and one of them, the fattest and most benevolent appearing, carefully wipes the mouthpiece of his narghile and hands the tube to his nearest neighbor. The latter accepts the trust with a grave bow; it is his duty now to give the pipe an occasional pull, that it may not go out during his friend's absence.
The proprietor of the café, for it is he, approaches you. He bends low, with a sign as though pressing his hand upon the earth, then, straightening, he touches his heart, his lips, his forehead. It is a most graceful and courteous salutation; it is the greeting of the very heart of the East—the salaam.
"We have no cognac nor any intoxicating liquor," he explains in tolerable French. "This is a Mohammedan café. You can get spirituous drinks yonder at the Greek café."
"Ah, but we have no desire to change. We are thirsty. Surely he has something to quench thirst?"