Napoli di Romania.—Anchored in the harbour of Napoli after dark. An English frigate lies a little in, a French and Russian brig-of-war astern, and two Greek steamboats, King Otho’s yacht, and a quantity of caïques, fill the inner port. The fort stands a hundred feet over our heads on a bold promontory, and the rocky Palamidi soars a hundred feet still higher, on a crag that thrusts its head sharply into the clouds, as if it would lift the little fortress out of eyesight. The town lies at the base of the mountain, an irregular looking heap of new houses; and here, at present, resides the boy-king of Greece, Otho the first. His predecessors were Agamemnon and Perseus, who, some three thousand years ago (more or less, I am not certain of my chronology), reigned at Argos and Mycenæ, within sight of his present capital.
Went ashore with the commodore, to call on Tricoupi and Mavrocordato, the king’s cabinet councillors. We found the former in a new stone house, slenderly furnished, and badly painted, but with an entry full of servants, in handsome Greek costumes. He received the commodore with the greatest friendliness. He had dined on board the “Constitution” six years before, when his prospects were less promising than now. He is a short, stout man, of dark complexion, and very bright black eyes, and looks very honest and very vulgar. He speaks English perfectly. He shrugged his shoulders when the commodore alluded to having left him fighting for a republic, and said anything was better than anarchy. He spoke in the highest terms of my friend, Dr. Howe (who was at Napoli with the American provisions, when Grivas held the Palamidi). Greece, he said, had never a better friend. Madame Tricoupi (the sister of Prince Mavrocordato) came in presently with two very pretty children. She spoke French fluently, and seemed an accomplished woman. Her family had long furnished the Prince Hospodars of Wallachia, and though not a beautiful woman, she has every mark of the gentle blood of the east. Colonel Gordon, the famous Philhellene, entered, while we were there. He was an intimate friend of Lord Byron’s, and has expended the best part of a large fortune in the Greek cause. He is a plain man, of perhaps fifty, with red hair and freckled face, and features and accent very Scotch. I liked his manners. He had lately written a book upon Greece, which is well spoken of in some review that has fallen in my way.
Went thence to Prince Mavrocordato’s. He occupies the third story of a very indifferent house, furnished with the mere necessaries of life. A shabby sofa, a table, two chairs, and a broken tumbler, holding ink and two pens, is the inventory of his drawing-room. He received us with elegance and courtesy, and presented us to his wife, a pretty and lively little Constantinopolitan, who chattered French like a magpie. She gave the uncertainty of their residence until the seat of government was decided on, as the apology for their lodgings, and seemed immediately to forget that she was not in a palace. Mavrocordato is a strikingly handsome man, with long, curling, black hair, and most luxuriant moustaches. His mouth is bland, and his teeth uncommonly beautiful; but without being able to say where it lies, there is an expression of guile in his face, that shut my heart to him. He is getting fat, and there is a shade of red in the clear olive of his cheek, which is very uncommon in this country. The commodore remarked that he was very thin when he was here six years before. The settlement of affairs in Greece has probably relieved him from a great deal of care.
Presented, with the commodore, to King Otho. Tricoupi officiated as chamberlain, dressed in a court suit of light blue, wrought with silver. The royal residence is a comfortable house, built by Capo d’Istria, in the principal street of Napoli. The king’s aide, a son of Marco Bozzaris, a very fine, resolute-looking young man of eighteen, received us in the antechamber, and in a few minutes the door of the inner room was thrown open. His majesty stood at the foot of the throne (a gorgeous red velvet arm-chair, raised on a platform, and covered with a splendid canopy of velvet), and with a low bow to each of us as we entered, he addressed his conversation immediately, and without embarrassment, to the commodore. I had leisure to observe him closely for a few minutes. He appears about eighteen. He was dressed in an exceedingly well cut, swallow-tailed coat, of very light blue, with a red standing collar, wrought with silver. The same work upon a red ground, was set between the buttons of the waist, and upon the edges of the skirts. White pantaloons, and the ordinary straight court-sword completed his dress. He is rather tall, and his figure is extremely light and elegant. A very flat nose, and high cheekbones, are the most marked features of his face; his hair is straight, and of a light brown, and with no claim to beauty; the expression of his countenance is manly, open, and prepossessing. He spoke French fluently, though with a German accent, and went through the usual topics of a royal presentation (very much the same all over the world) with grace and ease. In the few remarks which he addressed to me, he said that he promised himself great pleasure in the search for antiquities in Greece. He bowed us out after an audience of about ten minutes, no doubt extremely happy to exchange his court-coat and our company for a riding-frock and saddle. His horse and a guard of twelve lancers were in waiting at the door.
The king usually passes his evenings with the Misses Armanspergs, the daughters of the president of the regency. They accompanied him from Munich, and are the only ladies in his realm with whom he is acquainted. They keep a carriage, which is a kind of wonder at Napoli; ride on horseback in the English style, very much to the amusement of the Greeks; and give soirées once of twice a week, which are particularly dull. One of the three is a beautiful girl, and if policy does not interfere, is likely to be Queen of Greece. The Count Armansperg is a small, shrewd-looking man, with a thin German countenance, and agreeable manners. He is, of course, the real king of Greece.
The most agreeable man I found in Napoli, was the king’s uncle, the prince of Saxe, at present in command of his army. He is a tall and uncommonly handsome soldier, of perhaps thirty-six years, and, with all the air of a man of high birth, has the open and frank manners of the camp. He has been twice on board the ship, and seemed to consider his acquaintance with the commodore’s family as a respite from exile. The Bavarian officers in his suite spoke nothing but the native German, and looked like mere beef-eaters. The prince returns in two years, and when the king is of age, his Bavarian troops leave him, and he commits himself to the country.
Hired the only two public vehicles in Napoli, and set off with the commodore’s family, on an excursion to the ancient cities in the neighbourhood. We left the gate built by the Venetians, and still adorned with a bas-relief of a winged lion, at nine o’clock of a clear Grecian summer’s day. Auguries were against us. Pyrrhus did the same thing with his elephants and his army, one morning about two thousand years ago, and was killed before noon; and our driver stopped his horses a half mile out of the gate, and told us very gravely that the evil eye was upon him. He had dreamed that he had found a dollar the night before—a certain sign by the laws of witchcraft in Greece, that he should lose one. He concluded by adding another dollar to the price of each carriage.
We passed the house of old Miaulis, the Greek admiral, a pretty cottage a mile from the city, and immediately after came the ruins of the ancient Terynthus, the city of Hercules, The walls, built of the largest hewn stones in the world, still stand, and will till time ends. It would puzzle modern mechanics to carry them away. We drove along the same road upon which Autolycus taught the young hero to drive a chariot, and passing ruins and fragments of columns strewn over the whole length of the plain of Argos, stopped under a spreading aspen tree, the only shade within reach of the eye. A dirty khan stood a few yards off, and our horses were to remain here while we ascended the hills to Mycenæ.