Vagabonds of the sea

by Maurice Larrouy

For several days the Waldeck-Rousseau has displayed the flag along the Levantine coasts. It has proved the vigilance of our country and her attention to the great cataclysms which are preparing in the East. It has encouraged the neutrals and informed the Turk that his turn will soon come. The cruiser has anchored nowhere. Her elegant outline passed far from islands or coasts, and the people who observed the smoke from her six stacks, could prophesy the future from the sight.

One morning we crossed the bay which is bordered by three nations, Turkey at Gallipoli; Bulgaria at Dedeagatch; Greece at Kavalla—respectively hostile, doubtful, friendly.

Gallipoli: a rugged mountainous peninsula, looking like Corsica. Behind its heights winds the passage of the Dardanelles, the path to Constantinople. For the moment this approach is forbidden us, and our guns quiver in vain. France and England wait their hour; the punishment of the Osmanlis will come later.

Dedeagatch: a seaport which Bulgaria conquered in the recent war. It is a badly situated harbor on an unfavorable coast; it seems to be surrounded by a desert; we can see immense freshly plastered barracks. A prize of war, it is filled with armament; as a maritime station it receives naval contraband for the Balkans. How many ships have we not halted who gave this port among their stopping-places? Our suspicions were rife; we saw that through this port the Turks were kept supplied. But Bulgaria remained neutral, the ships’ papers had all the proper endorsements, and we had to let them pass.

Kavalla, Thesos and Samothrace: Greek harbor and islands. At the first the dissatisfied Bulgarians cast envious looks; they are inconsolable at having lost it at the same time as Saloniki. It is one of the bones of contention in an East which will never end its disputes. The name of this city will be famous before the war is ended. It was in the bosom of Samothrace that connoisseurs of sculpture found the statue which is the pride of the Louvre. In Paris at the head of a staircase, the perfection of her draped figure, with its graceful stride, delights the crowds who come to see her. She symbolizes Victory. For having placed her in the temple of her masterpieces, France deserves to add a jewel to the crown of this same Victory. She will not fail to do so. Our wistful thoughts pass to the violet rocks where the Victory slept under the earth, waiting so many centuries until she should awake in a French museum.

All these visions fade. Others succeed them, and each one brings a new dream. On a heavenly evening, one of the last fine evenings of the closing year, the cruiser passed Mount Athos, that jewel of the Christian faith. Her slopes are like a splendid robe sown with gems. The huts of hermits and solitaires cling to the sharp edges that the vultures and the eagles love. The pious men, who pass their lives preparing for eternal bliss, spend here their austere days, made fragrant with prayer.

Lower down, the convents form a ragged girdle; soft colors, blue, rose and faded green, give a religious tint to the walls; men, clothed in black—to represent the mourning for earthly passions—pray there for the sins of the world; they live on another planet, and the clamors of the world die at the foot of their sanctuary.

Before these priests and seminarists our smoking cruiser passes like a comet which comes from the unknown and goes into the infinite. The priests of Mount Athos salute us; they send up rockets, pale in the twilight; they set off firecrackers and Bengal lights, and perhaps their united voices send us an affectionate welcome. But the maritime comet passes; the noises reach it faintly, as the voices of men must reach the celestial altitudes.

Around a little cape appear huge convents, with sparkling gold domes. They are beautiful and desolate. The faith of the Eastern peoples has raised these kremlins in the name of Christ, and the setting sun wraps them in a fire more radiant than the kremlin of Moscow. Splendid color bathes the mountain and its cluster of religious buildings. As if to view the picture better, the Waldeck-Rousseau draws away; it moves between the sun, hung in a glory of rose-color, and Mount Athos, shimmering under the caress of the light. With its cliffs shining and its ravines filled with colors, it seems alive, and changes like a poignant harmony of violins. Into the summit, the frosts of December have driven a nail of snow, which catches the changing smiles of the sun and reflects them, soft and tender, into space. In a few moments the violet color takes possession of the sky; then it fades imperceptibly, and the Waldeck-Rousseau, for this night of the voyage, sails on in a religious atmosphere.

That man is to be pitied who is not moved by the enchantment of Nature, or who does not know the great lessons of history. He is ignorant of those pleasures that never fade. For fifteen days the Ionian Sea has been surrendering to me its secret of our inheritance from the Greeks. Mount Athos and this fair evening reveal to me another heritage, that bequeathed by Jesus Christ.