While we were waiting on the shore, we had leisure to survey what was around us. The country immediately adjoining the port seemed bare and without verdure. Some remains of the quays, which once bordered the Piræus, lay scattered at the water’s edge, and a few ill-constructed boats, made fast by rush hawsers, showed how low the navy of Athens had declined. There were some Turkish women sitting on the bank, covered in every part excepting their eyes, who immediately walked away when we attempted to approach them. We were ignorant of the customs of the country, and Mr. B. made signs to them to stop, which excited greatly the anger of some Turks who were standing near us.
The horses arrived in about two hours. As we quitted the Piræus, the aspect of the country became more pleasing. Gentle slopes and hills, rising and sinking with a pleasing wavy line, gave a tranquillity and repose to the scenery which few can understand who have not felt it in those countries.
While musing on the goodly prospect around me, on temples and demi-gods, on the Parthenon and Socrates, the cool Ilyssus and the shades of Academus, my reflections were interrupted by the loud smack of a whip, applied by Aly the Tartar to the back of a poor Greek, accompanied by a louder oath, which at once dissipated my vision, and brought me back to the reality of things around me.
CHAPTER III.
Athens—Residence there—Accommodations—Researches of Lord Sligo—Embarkation for Constantinople—Sunium—Temple of Minerva—Zea—The Hellespont—Greek Sailors in a gale of wind—Erakli—Constantinople.
It was evening before we entered Athens. Preparations had been made for our coming, and a house was cleared of its tenants expressly for Lady Hester. Mr. B. and myself were lodged in a house which Lord Sligo had occupied some time previous to our reaching Greece. It had been tenanted by other English travellers, and the owners, who let it, were so far acquainted with Englishmen’s wants, as to have procured some chairs and a table, furniture then seldom found in a room in Turkey.
I employed the first day in making my apartment tidy. I found my bed-room to be a whitewashed chamber, having an unglazed window, with a shutter, which excluded light and let in the wind. There were large crevices in the floor, through which the dust and rubbish were swept, not by a long-handled broom, for I never saw one throughout Turkey, but by a hand-broom. Upon these materials my servant had to go to work to make me a chamber. A mat was spread upon the floor, as being the coolest covering to the gaping chinks; my camp-bed was laid on boards, supported by two trestles; a piece of white linen formed a curtain to the window, and, my musquito net being suspended upon cross pieces of twine, I found myself almost as comfortable as if I had been lying upon an English fourpost bedstead. Lord Sligo and Mr. B., who seemed to despise luxuries in proportion as they had the means of enjoying them, made their beds on the floor, and all the servants slept in the open air. But, in this climate, to sleep under the cope of heaven is no cause of complaint; for, during the voyage from Patras to Corinth, all of us, as said above, excepting Lady Hester, lay on deck. It was now six months since I had seen a drop of rain, and, I might almost say a cloud; indeed, the serenity and dryness of the weather had been such, that prayers (we were told) had been offered up at Athens by the Christians for rain, accompanied by the novel expedient of penning a flock of sheep in the porch of the church, whose plaintive bleatings, it was supposed, would give greater effect to the petitions of the people, and move the pity of Heaven.
The house occupied by Lady Hester was spacious and handsome, having a courtyard, a bath, and other requisites for comfort and quiet. None of the windows of the house had casements, and, to ensure greater warmth, it was necessary to nail up some of them with old carpets, mats, &c. Her ladyship was a great contriver of comfort, and I have often known her transform a naked room, with holes in the walls, floors, and doors, into a snug apartment. The janissary sat at her gate, on a raised wooden couch, something like a kitchen table with a railed back to it, which is generally to be seen at the doorways of most great persons in European Turkey, and upon which the master of the house will often place himself, to smoke his pipe, and to breathe the morning and evening air. The janissary acted as porter and guard.
I observed one morning that Aly, this janissary, had his feet swathed in old rags: on inquiring what was the matter, he pretended that they were covered on account of the cold; but I learned in the course of the day that he had been bastinadoed on the soles at the governor’s, for riotous behaviour at a tavern.
It was many days before we were settled, and very many more before we had surveyed the numerous beauties of architecture and statuary which are yet left in this celebrated city. Our time passed most delightfully. The mornings were spent in examining the remains of ancient edifices, in rides, and in excursions into the environs; the evenings in the society of a few clever artists, who, enamoured of the spot, seemed wedded to it for the rest of their days. Of these, M. Lusieri and M. Fauvel are very generally known by their drawings. Fauvel was living in a small house on the site of the ancient agora. There were likewise many English and some other foreigners at this time at Athens. Among the English I may name Lord Plymouth, Messieurs Gordon, Hunt, and Haygarth. Two British merchants, Mr. John Galt,[12] and Mr. Struthers, passed through the place on their way to Constantinople. Of foreigners, there were gentlemen who have since distinguished themselves in their respective careers.