Vacation days in Greece

by Rufus B. Richardson

One afternoon, after conversing awhile with the successor of Ali, the present Vali or Governor-General of Epirus, if it can be called conversing to take a cup of coffee with a man, and see him smoke a cigarette, giving you meanwhile a few of his thoughts through an interpreter, we went over to the island, and saw the room in a monastery where Ali was slain. The floor was well perforated with bullet-holes.

Ali had unwittingly paved the way for Greek independence. He had shown that the power of the Sultan might be resisted for a while at least. Some of the leaders of the Greeks, who made his camp their school of war, felt that the evoking of a grand national sentiment would make them able to resist to the end. When Ali fell in 1822, Greece was already in arms.

Joannina, in the days of Ali, had, if we may believe reports, a population of 50,000. It has now not more than half that number. The Greeks are about three-quarters of the whole population, the other quarter being divided between Turks and Jews, with considerable preponderance in favor of the former, who still hold all the offices, and show by their bearing that they are the ruling class. One evening we visited the castle, which occupies a peninsula jutting out into the lake, made an island by a moat across the neck. It was positively scandalous the way those soldiers went in rags. Even the noncommissioned officers, with their torn chevrons, seemed in harmony with the walls and barracks, now tumbling to decay. But these awkward, ragged fellows seemed to have signs of strength about them, and might give a good report of themselves in battle. We lingered long over one big gun, which bore marks of service at Shipka Pass. We were reminded then that it would not do to leave out the Turk entirely in the settlement of the Eastern question.

To the west of Joannina the population is largely Albanian. This class of Albanians makes you feel that there may be some truth in the words of an English traveller, who, in classifying the Albanians, speaks of one class as “Albanians who never change their clothes.” The chronology of some of these garments of more than a hundred heterogeneous pieces would be an interesting study. Rags are generally picturesque, and these Albanians contribute somewhat to the picturesqueness of Joannina’s streets. They wear for the most part a white fez, darkened by age and dirt, which distinguishes them from the people of the city, who wear, almost to a man, the red fez. On one or two occasions when Mr. Hill started to take a photograph in the streets, before he could set up his camera, a perfect sea of red heads was formed in front of it, and the very zeal to be photographed frustrated the attempt. It was almost like evoking a mob.

But in Joannina, of all places in the world, one must not forget the past, the great Hellenic past. This region was once called Hellopia and the inhabitants Selloi, a variation for Helloi, and from here the name appears to have been transmitted to the whole of Hellas. It is quite a testimonial to the persistency of the old Hellenic spirit that travellers all notice how pure is the Greek spoken in Joannina.

Three hours’ ride across a range of hills to the south lies Dodona, at the foot of Mount Tomarus, which at the time of our visit (in May) was heavily capped with snow. This oldest oracle and sanctuary of Greece, famous before Delphi was born, has a situation only a little less imposing than Delphi. Until about twenty-five years ago one was still in doubt in just what part of this region to look for the old famous sanctuary. But at that time Carapanos, a wealthy Greek, settled that question with the spade.

Procuring from the library, by the kindness of the professor of French in the Lyceum, the two beautiful volumes in which Carapanos has given the results of his work, I took them with me to the spot where he found Dodona, and followed in his footsteps. This library, by the way, contains a good many valuable books, new and old, but they are huddled together in very close quarters, as the librarian sadly admitted, employing the English phrase “pell-mell.” But worse than the disorder was the dampness. Carapanos’s book of plates was mildewed and fallen apart. Rich Greeks probably think their benefactions more safely bestowed in Athens. Otherwise somebody would have given a new library building to Joannina.

The walls that Carapanos discovered all have a singularly late appearance, and there is a striking lack of pottery in the ground; but the inscriptions and dedicatory offerings leave no doubt that this is Dodona. The temples and the finely built theatre, one of the largest in Greece, doubtless supplied the place of older and ruder buildings of the time when all Hellas came to hear the voice of Father Zeus in the rustling oak-leaves.

At the southeastern end of the lake of Joannina is a hill called Kastritza, crowned by fortifications indicating the existence of just such a city as one would look for to match this great plain and lake. Here are walls about three miles in circuit, and, in a considerable part of their extent, twenty feet high and twelve feet thick, of the finest polygonal work. And yet, so little is known of the history of Epirus, that even the name of this city cannot be ascertained with certainty. Leake thought it was Dodona itself, placing the sanctuary, however, at a little distance, on the spot now occupied by Joannina. Kastritza might still be regarded as a possible candidate for Dodona, inasmuch as sanctuaries in Greece were often at quite a remove from the nearest town, as in the case of Epidauros and Oropos. But the fact that very little is known of any city called Dodona, as well as the fact on the other side that the sanctuary excavated by Carapanos has a small acropolis connected with it, makes it extremely improbable that this great city, Kastritza, was Dodona.

The picturesqueness of the city of Joannina is matched by its grand setting. Its lake is over a thousand feet above the sea, and streams from the amphitheatre of the snow-covered mountains keep flowing into it without finding any visible outlet. The color upon the mountains and the lake at sunrise and sunset is often wonderful. Mount Mitzikeli, which rises abruptly from the lake on its side opposite the city, is a breeder of thunder-storms. (It must be remembered that this was the abode of Jupiter Tonans in antiquity.) Sometimes at mid-day, when the sun is shining to the east and west of Joannina, a storm-cloud will come down over this mountain from the higher ones of the Pindus range back of it and make straight for the city. What a place for a painter! Leake tells of the difficulty he had in persuading the Italian painter, Lusieri, to stay beyond a day or two here because he thought he detected symptoms of malaria; but, adds Leake: