Had the pleasure and honour of showing Miaulis through the ship. The old man came on board very modestly, without even announcing himself, and as he addressed one of the officers in Italian, I was struck with his noble appearance, and offered my services as interpreter. He was dressed in the Hydriote costume, the full blue trousers gathered at the knee, a short open jacket, worked with black braid, and a red skull-cap. His lieutenant dressed in the same costume, a tall, superb-looking Greek, was his only attendant. He was quite at home on board, comparing the “United States” continually to the “Hellas,” the American built frigate which he commanded. Every one on board was struck with the noble simplicity and dignity of his address. I have seldom seen a man who impressed me more. He requested me to express his pleasure at his visit, and his friendly feelings to the commodore, and invited us to his country-house, which he pointed out from the deck, just without the city. Every officer in the ship uncovered as he passed. The gratification at seeing him was universal. He looks worthy to be one of the “three” that Byron demanded, in his impassioned verse,
“To make a new Thermopylæ.”
Returned visits of ceremony with the commodore, to the English and Russian vessels of war. The British frigate “Madagascar” is about the size of the “United States,” but not in nearly so fine a condition. The superior cleanliness and neatness of arrangement on board our own ship are indisputable. The cabin of Captain Lyon (who is said to be one of the best officers in the English service) was furnished in almost oriental luxury, and what I should esteem more, crowded with the choicest books. He informed us that of his twenty-four midshipmen, nine were sons of noblemen, and possessed the best family influence on both father’s and mother’s side, and several of the remainder had high claims for preferment. There is small chance there, one would think, for commoners.
Captain Lyon spoke in the highest terms of his late passenger, King Otho, both as to disposition and talent. Somewhere in the Ægæan, one of his Bavarian servants fell overboard, and the boatswain jumped after him, and sustained him till the boat was lowered to his relief. On his reaching the deck, the king drew a valuable repeater from his pocket, and presented it to him in the presence of the crew. He certainly has caught the “trick of royalty” in its perfection.
The guard presented, the boatswain “piped us over the side,” and we pulled alongside the Russian. The file of marines drawn up in honour of the commodore on her quarter deck, looked like so many standing bears. Features and limbs so brutally coarse I never saw. The officers, however, were very gentlemanly, and the vessel was in beautiful condition. In inquiring after the health of the ladies on board our ship, the captain and his lieutenant rose from their seats and made a low bow—a degree of chivalrous courtesy very uncommon, I fancy, since the days of Sir Piercie Shafton. I left his imperial majesty’s ship with an improved impression of him.
They are a gallant looking people the Greeks. Byron says of them, all “are beautiful, very much resembling the busts of Alcibiades.” We walked beyond the walls of the city this evening, on the plain of Argos. The whole population were out in their Sunday costumes, and no theatrical ballet was ever more showy than the scene. They are a very affectionate people, and walk usually hand in hand, or sit upon the rocks at the road-side, with their arms over each other’s shoulders; and their picturesque attitudes and lofty gait, combined with the flowing beauty of their dress, give them all the appearance of heroes on the stage. I saw literally no handsome women, but the men were magnificent, almost without exception. Among others, a young man passed us with whose personal beauty the whole party were struck. As he went by he laid his hand on his breast and bowed to the ladies, raising his red cap, with its flowing blue tassel, at the same time with perfect grace. It was a young man to whom I had been introduced the day previous, a brother of Mavromichalis, the assassin of Capo d’Istrias. He is about seventeen, tall and straight as an arrow, and has the eye of a falcon. His family is one of the first in Greece; and his brother, who was a fellow of superb beauty, is said to have died in the true heroic style, believing that he had rid his country of a tyrant.
The view of Napoli and the Palamidi from the plain, with its back ground of the Spartan mountains, and the blue line of the Argolic gulf between, is very fine. The home of the Nemean lion, the lofty hill rising above Argos, was enveloped in a black cloud as the sun set on our walk, the short twilight of Greece thickened upon us, and the white, swaying juktanillas of the Greeks striding past, had the effect of spirits gliding by in the dark.
The king, with his guard of lancers on a hard trot, passed us near the gate, followed close by the Misses Armansperg, mounted on fine Hungarian horses. His majesty rides beautifully, and the effect of the short high-borne flag on the tips of the lances, and the tall Polish caps with their cord and tassels, is highly picturesque.