CHAPTER XVI. COS AND CNIDOS
From the little harbor where we had found shelter for our landing to visit Branchidæ it proved but a few hours’ steaming to Cos, which was scheduled as our next stopping place. Like Samos, Cos lies close to the Asia Minor shore. The chief city, which bears the same name as the island, unchanged from ancient times, proved to be a formidable looking place by reason of its great walls and moles, recalling the Cretan cities much more forcibly than the Samos town had done; for the yellowish-white fortresses which flank the narrow inner harbor of Cos resemble both in color and architecture the outworks that were thrown up to protect the ports of Candia and Canea. Later in the day it was borne in upon us that these walls were by no means uncommon in the vicinity, and that they bore witness to the visits of the Crusaders; for the great walls and castle at Halicarnassus not far away were very similar to the forts of Cos, and with the best of reasons, since they were the work of the same hands,—of the so-called “Knights of Rhodes,” who once settled in these regions and built strongholds that for those times were impregnable enough. Our next day or two brought us often in contact with the relics of these stout old knights, who were variously known as of Rhodes, or of St. John, and, last of all, of Malta. As far as Cos was concerned, the knightly fortress was chiefly remarkable from the water, as we steamed past the frowning battlements of buff and dropped anchor in the open roadstead before the city; for, as is generally the case with these old towns, there is at Cos no actual harborage for a steamer of modern draught, whatever might have been the case anciently when ships were small.
The morning sun revealed the city itself spreading out behind the fortress, in a great splash of dazzling white amidst the green of the island verdure, its domes and minarets interspersed with the tops of waving trees. Behind the city, the land rose gradually to the base of a long range of green hills stretching off to the southward and into the interior of the island. It was easily the most fertile and agreeable land we had yet encountered in our Ægean pilgrimage, and so lovely that we almost forgot that it was Turkish and that we had been warned not to separate far from one another on going ashore for fear of complications and loss of the road. However it was Turkish, this time, pure and unadulterated, and the examination of our papers and passports was no idle formality, but was performed with owl-like solemnity by a local dignitary black-mustachioed and red-fezzed. While this was proceeding the members of our party stood huddled behind a wicket gate barring egress from the landing stage and speculated on the probability of being haled to the dungeons, which might easily be imagined as damp and gloomy behind the neighboring yellow walls of stone.
The Sultan’s representative being fully satisfied that we might safely be permitted to enter the island, the gate was thrown back, and in a quaking body we departed through a stone arcade in which our feet echoed and reëchoed valiantly, past rows of natives sipping coffee and smoking the nargileh in the shade, and thence through a stone archway into a spacious public square, paved with cobble-stones and dominated by the most gigantic and venerable plane tree imaginable. Its enormous trunk stood full in the centre of the square, rising from a sort of stone dais, in the sides of which were dripping stone fountains, deeply incrusted with the green mildew of age. Overhead, even to the uttermost parts of the square, the branches spread a curtain of fresh green leaves. They were marvelous branches—great, gnarled, twisted limbs, that were as large in themselves as the trunk of a very respectable tree, and shored up with a forest of poles. Actual measurement of the circumference of the trunk itself revealed it to be something over forty feet in girth, and it was not difficult to believe the legend that this impressive tree really did date back to the time of Hippocrates, the great physician of Cos, who was born in the island long before the dawn of the Christian era. In any event, the great plane of Cos is called to this day the “tree of Hippocrates,” whether it has any real connection with that eminent father of medicine or not.
TREE OF HIPPOCRATES. COS
We left the shady square by a narrow and roughly paved street, little wider than an alley and lined with whitewashed houses, closely set. It wound aimlessly along through the thickly settled portion of the city, and at last opened out into the country-side, where the houses grew fewer and other splendid trees became more numerous, generally shading wayside fountains, beside which crouched veiled native women gossiping over their water-jars. A pair of baggy-trousered soldiers went with us on the road, partly as overseers, no doubt, but chiefly as guides and protectors—the latter office proving quite needless save for the occasional expert kicking of a barking cur from some wayside hovel. They proved to be a friendly pair, although of course conversation with them was impossible, and a lively exchange of cigarettes and tobacco was kept up as we walked briskly along out of the city and into the open country that lay toward the hills. Their chief curiosity was a kind of inextinguishable match, which proved exceedingly useful for smokers bothered by the lively morning breeze. They were flat matches, seemingly made of rude brown paper such as butchers at home used to employ for wrapping up raw meat. The edges were serrated, and when once the match was lighted it burned without apparent flame and with but little smoke until the entire fabric was consumed.
The object of this walk, which proved to be of something like three or four miles into the suburbs of Cos, was to view the remnants of the famous health temple, sacred, of course, to Asklepios. We found it situated on an elevation looking down across a smiling plain to the sea, with the white walls and roofs of Cos a trifle to one side. It was not a prospect to be forgotten. It was a bright day, but with sufficient haze in the air to give to the other islands visible across the intervening water an amethystine quality, and to make the distant summits in Asia Minor faint and ethereal. The nearer green of the fields, the purple of the sea, and the delicate hues of the islands and far-away peaks, held us for a long time before turning to the curious ruin of the temple, which, as usual, was less a temple than a hospital.