CHAPTER I.
A Hurricane.—An Adventure.—Missilonghi.—Siege of Missilonghi.—Byron.—Marco Bozzaris.—Visit to the Widow, Daughters, and Brother of Bozzaris.
On the evening of the —— February, 1835, by a bright starlight, after a short ramble among the Ionian Islands, I sailed from Zante in a beautiful cutter of about forty tons for Padras. My companions were Doctor W., an old and valued friend from New-York, who was going to Greece merely to visit the Episcopal missionary school at Athens, and a young Scotchman, who had travelled with me through Italy, and was going farther, like myself, he knew not exactly why. There was hardly a breath of air when we left the harbour, but a breath was enough to fill our little sail. The wind, though of the gentlest, was fair; and as we crawled from under the lee of the island, in a short time it became a fine sailing breeze. We sat on the deck till a late hour, and turned in with every prospect of being at Padras in the morning. Before daylight, however, the wind chopped about, and set in dead ahead, and when I went on deck in the morning it was blowing a hurricane. We had passed the point of Padras; the wind was driving down the Gulf of Corinth as if old Æolus had determined on thwarting our purpose; and our little cutter, dancing like a gull upon the angry waters, was driven into the harbour of Missilonghi.
The town was full in sight, but at such a distance, and the waves were running so high, that we could not reach it with our small boat. A long flat extends several miles into the sea, making the harbour completely inaccessible except to small Greek caiques built expressly for such navigation. We remained on board all day; and the next morning, the gale still continuing, made signals to a fishing boat to come off and take us ashore. In a short time she came alongside; we bade farewell to our captain—an Italian and a noble fellow, cradled, and, as he said, born to die on the Adriatic—and in a few minutes struck the soil of fallen but immortal Greece.
Our manner of striking it, however, was not such as to call forth any of the warm emotions struggling in the breast of the scholar, for we were literally stuck in the mud. We were yet four or five miles from the shore, and the water was so low that the fishing-boat, with the additional weight of four men and luggage, could not swim clear. Our boatmen were two long, sinewy Greeks, with the red tarbouch, embroidered jacket, sash, and large trousers, and with their long poles set us through the water with prodigious force; but, as soon as the boat struck, they jumped out, and, putting their brawny shoulders under her sides, heaved her through into better water, and then resumed their poles. In this way they propelled her two or three miles, working alternately with their poles and shoulders, until they got her into a channel, when they hoisted the sail, laid directly for the harbour, and drove upon the beach with canvass all flying.
During the late Greek revolution, Missilonghi was the great debarking-place of European adventurers; and, probably, among all the desperadoes who ever landed there, none were more destitute and in better condition to "go ahead" than I; for I had all that I was worth on my back. At one of the Ionian Islands I had lost my carpet-bag, containing my notebook and every article of wearing apparel except the suit in which I stood. Every condition, however, has its advantages; mine put me above porters and custom-house officers; and while my companions were busy with these plagues of travellers, I paced with great satisfaction the shore of Greece, though I am obliged to confess that this satisfaction was for reasons utterly disconnected with any recollections of her ancient glories. Business before pleasure: one of our first inquiries was for a breakfast. Perhaps, if we had seen a monument, or solitary column, or ruin of any kind, it would have inspired us to better things; but there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that could recall an image of the past. Besides, we did not expect to land at Missilonghi, and were not bound to be inspired at a place into which we were thrown by accident; and, more than all, a drizzling rain was penetrating to our very bones; we were wet and cold, and what can men do in the way of sentiment when their teeth are chattering?
The town stands upon a flat, marshy plain, which extends several miles along the shore. The whole was a mass of new-made ruins—of houses demolished and black with smoke—the tokens of savage and desolating war. In front, and running directly along the shore, was a long street of miserable one-story shantees, run up since the destruction of the old town, and so near the shore that sometimes it is washed by the sea, and at the time of our landing it was wet and muddy from the rain. It was a cheerless place, and reminded me of Communipaw in bad weather. It had no connexion with the ancient glory of Greece, no name or place on her historic page, and no hotel where we could get a breakfast; but one of the officers of the customs conducted us to a shantee filled with Bavarian soldiers drinking. There was a sort of second story, accessible only by a ladder; and one end of this was partitioned off with boards, but had neither bench, table, nor any other article of housekeeping. We had been on and almost in the water since daylight, exposed to a keen wind and drizzling rain, and now, at eleven o'clock, could probably have eaten several chickens apiece; but nothing came amiss, and, as we could not get chickens, we took eggs, which, for lack of any vessel to boil them in, were roasted. We placed a huge loaf of bread on the middle of the floor, and seated ourselves around it, spreading out so as to keep the eggs from rolling away, and each hewing off bread for himself. Fortunately, the Greeks have learned from their quondam Turkish masters the art of making coffee, and a cup of this Eastern cordial kept our dry bread from choking us.
When we came out again the aspect of matters was more cheerful; the long street was swarming with Greeks, many of them armed with pistols and yataghan, but miserably poor in appearance, and in such numbers that not half of them could find the shelter of a roof at night. We were accosted by one dressed in a hat and frockcoat, and who, in occasional visits to Corfu and Trieste, had picked up some Italian and French, and a suit of European clothes, and was rather looked up to by his untravelled countrymen. As a man of the world, who had received civilities abroad, he seemed to consider it incumbent upon him to reciprocate at home, and, with the tacit consent of all around, he undertook to do the honours of Missilonghi.
If, as a Greek, he had any national pride about him, he was imposing upon himself a severe task; for all that he could do was to conduct us among ruins, and, as he went along, tell us the story of the bloody siege which had reduced the place to its present woful state. For more than a year, under unparalleled hardships, its brave garrison resisted the combined strength of the Turkish and Egyptian armies, and, when all hope was gone, resolved to cut their way through the enemy or die in the attempt. Many of the aged and sick, the wounded and the women, refused to join in the sortie, and preferred to shut themselves up in an old mill, with the desperate purpose of resisting until they should bring around them a large crowd of Turks, when they would blow all up together. An old invalid soldier seated himself in a mine under the Bastion Bozzaris (the ruins of which we saw), the mine being charged with thirty kegs of gunpowder; the last sacrament was administered by the bishop and priests to the whole population and, at a signal, the besieged made their desperate sortie. One body dashed through the Turkish ranks, and, with many women and children, gained the mountains; but the rest were driven back. Many of the women ran to the sea and plunged in with their children; husbands stabbed their wives with their own hands to save them from the Turks, and the old soldier under the bastion set fire to the train, and the remnant of the heroic garrison buried themselves under the ruins of Missilonghi.