As usual, Dr. Covel’s narrative is full of archæology, and as he only stopped one day at Nicæa, it is marvellous how much he saw and put down.
“If I had had any instrument in the world to have taken a plain angle withall, I should have plotted down everything exactly. Now I have done it by guesse and loose calculation, and let that suffice.”
On his return journey he visited the islands of Prinkipo and Chalcis. He was on this latter on Feb. 25, and visited the celebrated monastery there.
“This monastery about 5 or 6 yeares since, was unfortunately burnt down, and Panagiotes[445] (the late Vizier’s Dragoman), who lyes buryed here, rebuilt it at his own cost.”
“Our first ambassador, Sir Edw. Barton, lyes buried without the outward gate, to the right hand. His armes are rudely done, but I take them to be three stagges heads above. It was cut by a Turk, and thence came all the mistakes in the writing, and at the bottome are three Cypress trees, which are commonly put on the Turks’ tombs.”[446]
On April 2nd, 1677, Dr. Covel left Constantinople for good, and his return journey to England forms another MS. volume. He thus begins it:
“This day, in the year 1638, I was born at two o’clock in the morning, being Monday, and it pleased me to see so many things meet this day, whereby I might reckon it my second birth. Just at two o’clock Antonio called us to go to the Alloy. This day I left Stamboul, which, for many reasons, I may well liken to the prison of my mother’s belly.”
Dr. Covel and Sir John Finch, the ambassador, started together on the Alloy, and the new Grand Vizier, Kara Mustapha,[447] came to see them off, and brought them “large quantities of presents, and grand accompaniment.”
The homeward diary is very much scamped and badly written, but there are interesting passages in it. He gives us a good description of Cyzicus and the temple of Nemesis therein, and his account of Mt. Athos is also valuable, though prolix. The ship Alloy then came to the island of Lemnos, “where we lay weather fast.” Dr. Covel here gives us an interesting account of what he saw in connection with the terra Sigillata of Lemnos, the sacred earth with supposed curative properties, a superstition which has survived since the days of Galen, and still exists, so I will give Dr. Covel’s description in full.
“On the side hills, on the contrary side of the valley, directly over against the middle point betwixt this hill and Παναγιά κοτζινὰτζ, is the place where they dig the terra sigillata. At the foot of a hard rock of grey hard freestone enclining to marble is a little clear spring of most excellent water, which, falling down a little lower, looseth its water in a kind of milky bogge; on the East side of this spring, within a foot or my hand’s breadth of it, they every year take out the earth on the 6th of August, about three houres after the sun. Several papas, as well as others, would fain have persuaded me that, at the time of our Saviour’s transfiguration, this place was sanctifyed to have his virtuous earth, and that it is never to be found soft and unctuous, but always perfect rock, unlesse only that day, which they keep holy in remembrance of the Metamorphosis, and at that time when the priest hath said his liturgy; but I believe they take it onely that day, and set the greater price upon it by its Scarcenesse. Either it was the Venetian, or perhaps Turkish policy[448] for the Grand Signor to engrosse it all to himselfe, unless some little, which the Greekes steal; and they prefer no poor Greek to take any for his own occasions, for they count it an infallible cure of all agues taken in the beginning of the fit with water, and drank so two or three times. Their women drink it to hasten childbirth, and to stop the fluxes that are extraordinary; and they count it an excellent counter-poyson, and have got a story that no vessel made of it will hold poison, but immediately splinter in a thousand pieces. I have seen several finganes (Turkish cups) made of it in Stamboul; we had a good store of it presented to us by Agathone and others, all incomparably good. We had some such as it is naturally dig’d out and not wash’d. (There is no such chappel nigh as Bel talked of, called Sobiranon, to be found, unless he took Παναγιά κοτζινὰτζ for it.) Thus they take it out: before day they begin and digge a well about 1½ yards wide, and a little above a man’s height deep; and then the earth is taken out soft and loomy, some of it like butter, which the Greeks say, and the Turks believe, is turned out of rocky stone into soft clay by virtues of their mass. When they have taken out some 20 or 30 kintals for the Greeks’ use, they fill it up again, and so leave it stop’t without any guard in the world....