From 10 o'clock till 3.30 P.M. the ship ran along the diameter of the semicircle between the two Capes which mark the southern extremities of Greece. Cape Malea, or St. Angelo, is just such another bluff, mountainous, and desolate headland as Cape Matapan, and is not so civilized-looking, for there are no villages visible near it. However, in a hole on its south-east face resides a Greek hermit, who must have enormous opportunities for improving his mind, if Zimmerman be at all trustworthy. He is not quite lost to the calls of nature, and has a great tenderness for ships' biscuit. He generally hoists a little flag when a vessel passes near, and is often gratified by a supply of hard-bake. Had we wished to administer to his luxuries we could not have done so, for the wind off this angle rushed at us with fury, and the instant we rounded it we saw the sea broken into crests of foam making right at our bows. The old mariners were not without warranty when they advised "him who doubled Cape Malea to forget his home." We had got right into the Etesian wind—one of those violent Levanters which the learned among us said ought to be the Euroclydon which drove St. Paul to Malta. Sheltered as we were to eastward by clusters of little islands, the sea got up and rolled in confused wedges towards the ship. She behaved nobly, but with her small auxiliary steam power she could scarcely hold her own. We were driven away to leeward, and did not make much headway. The gusts came down furiously between all kinds of classical islands, which we could not make out, for our Maltese pilot got frightened, and revealed the important secret that he did not know one of them from the other. The men bore up well against their Euroclydon, and emulated the conduct of the ship. Night came upon us, labouring in black jolting seas, dashing them into white spray, and running away into dangerous unknown parts. It passed songless, dark, and uncomfortable: much was the suffering in the hermetically sealed cells in which our officers "reposed" and grumbled at fortune.
At daylight next morning, Falconero was north, and Milo south. The clouds were black and low, the sea white and high, and the junction between them on the far horizon of a broken and promiscuous character. The good steamer had run thirty miles to leeward of her course, making not the smallest progress. Grey islets with foam flying over them lay around indistinctly seen through the driving vapour from the Ægean. To mistrust of the pilot fear of accident was added, so the helm was put up, and we wore ship at 6.30 A.M. in a heavy sea-way. A screw-steamer was seen on our port quarter plunging through the heavy sea, and we made her out to be the Cape of Good Hope. She followed our example. The gale increased till 8 A.M.; the sailors considered it deserved to be called "stormy, with heavy squalls." The heavy sea on our starboard quarter, as we approached Malea, caused the ship to roll heavily; the men could only hold on by tight grip, and they and their officers were well drenched by great lumbering water louts, who tossed themselves in over the bulwarks. At 3.30 P.M., the ship cast anchor in Vatika Bay, in twenty fathoms. A French steamer and brig lay close in the shore. We cheered them vigorously, but the men could not hear us. Some time afterwards the Cape of Good Hope and a French screw-steamer also ran in and anchored near us. This little flotilla alarmed the inhabitants, for the few who were fishing in boats fled to shore, and we saw a great effervescence at a distant village. No doubt the apparition in the bay of a force flying the tricolor and the union-jack frightened the people. They could be seen running to and fro along the shore like ants when their nest is stirred.
At dusk our bands played, and the mountains of the Morea, for the first time since they rose from the sea, echoed the strains of "God save the Queen." Our vocalists assembled, and sang glees or vigorous choruses, and the night passed pleasantly in smooth water on an even keel. The people lighted bonfires upon the hills, but the lights soon died out. At six o'clock on Tuesday morning the Golden Fleece left Vatika Bay, and passed Poulo Bello at 10.45 A.M. The Greek coast trending away to the left, showed in rugged masses of mountains capped by snowy peaks, and occasionally the towns—clusters of white specks on the dark purple of the hills—were visible; and before evening, the ship having run safely through all the terrors of the Ægean and its islands, bore away for the entrance to the Dardanelles. At 2 A.M. on Wednesday morning, however, it began to blow furiously again, the wind springing up as if "Æolus had just opened and put on fresh hands at the bellows," to use the nautical simile. The breeze, however, went down in a few hours, with the same rapidity with which it rose. Smooth seas greeted the ship as she steamed by Mitylene. On the left lay the entrance to the Gulf of Athens—Eubœa was on our left hand—Tenedos was before us—on our right rose the snowy heights of Mount Ida—and the Troad (atrociously and unforgivably like the "Bog of Allen!") lay stretching its brown folds, dotted with rare tumuli, from the sea to the mountain side for leagues away. Athos (said to be ninety miles distant) stood between us and the setting sun—a pyramid of purple cloud bathed in golden light; and the Leander frigate showed her number and went right away in the very waters that lay between Sestos and Abydos, past the shadow of the giant mountain, stretching away on our port beam. As the vessel entered the portals of the Dardanelles, and rushed swiftly up between its dark banks, the sentinels on the forts and along the ridges challenged loudly—shouting to each other to be on the alert—the band of the Rifles all the while playing the latest fashionable polkas, or making the rocks acquainted with "Rule Britannia," and "God save the Queen."
At 9.30 P.M., our ship passed the Castles of the Dardanelles. She was not stopped nor fired at, but the sentinels screeched horribly and showed lights, and seemed to execute a convulsive pas of fright or valour on the rocks. The only reply was the calm sounding of second post on the bugles—the first time that the blast of English light infantry trumpets broke the silence of those antique shores.[5]
GALLIPOLI.
After midnight we arrived at Gallipoli, and anchored. No one took the slightest notice of us, nor was any communication made with shore. When the Golden Fleece arrived there was no pilot to show her where to anchor, and it was nearly an hour ere she ran out her cable in nineteen fathoms water. No one came off, for it was after midnight, and there was something depressing in this silent reception of the first British army that ever landed on the shores of these straits.
When morning came we only felt sorry that nature had made Gallipoli, a desirable place for us to land at. The tricolor was floating right and left, and the blue coats of the French were well marked on shore, the long lines of bullock-carts stealing along the strand towards their camp making it evident that they were taking care of themselves.
Take some hundreds of dilapidated farms, outhouses, a lot of rickety tenements of Holywell-street, Wych-street, and the Borough—catch up, wherever you can, any of the seedy, cracked, shutterless structures of planks and tiles to be seen in our cathedral towns—carry off odd sheds and stalls from Billingsgate, add to them a selection of the huts along the Thames between London-bridge and Greenwich—bring them, then, all together to the European side of the Straits of the Dardanelles, and having pitched on a bare round hill sloping away to the water's edge, on the most exposed portion of the coast, with scarcely tree or shrub, tumble them "higgledy piggledy" on its declivity, in such wise that the lines of the streets may follow on a large scale the lines of a bookworm through some old tome—let the roadways be very narrow, of irregular breadth, varying according to the bulgings and projections of the houses, and paved with large round slippery stones, painful and hazardous to walk upon—here and there borrow a dirty gutter from a back street in Boulogne—let the houses lean across to each other so that the tiles meet, or a plank thrown across forms a sort of "passage" or arcade—steal some of the popular monuments of London, the shafts of national testimonials, a half dozen of Irish Round Towers—surround these with a light gallery about twelve feet from the top, put on a large extinguisher-shaped roof, paint them white, and having thus made them into minarets, clap them down into the maze of buildings—then let fall big stones all over the place—plant little windmills with odd-looking sails on the crests of the hill over the town—transport the ruins of a feudal fortress from Northern Italy, and put it into the centre of the town, with a flanking tower at the water's edge—erect a few wooden cribs by the waterside to serve as café, custom-house, and government stores—and, when you have done this, you have to all appearance imitated the process by which Gallipoli was created. The receipt, if tried, will be found to answer beyond belief.
To fill up the scene, however, you must catch a number of the biggest breeched, longest bearded, dirtiest, and stateliest old Turks to be had at any price in the Ottoman empire; provide them with pipes, keep them smoking all day on wooden stages or platforms about two feet from the ground, everywhere by the water's edge or up the main streets, in the shops of the bazaar which is one of the "passages" or arcades already described; see that they have no slippers on, nothing but stout woollen hose, their foot gear being left on the ground, shawl turbans (one or two being green, for the real descendant of the Prophet), flowing fur-lined coats, and bright-hued sashes, in which are to be stuck silver-sheathed yataghans and ornamented Damascus pistols; don't let them move more than their eyes, or express any emotion at the sight of anything except an English lady; then gather a noisy crowd of fez-capped Greeks in baggy blue breeches, smart jackets, sashes, and rich vests—of soberly-dressed Armenians—of keen-looking Jews, with flashing eyes—of Chasseurs de Vincennes, Zouaves, British riflemen, vivandières, Sappers and Miners, Nubian slaves, Camel-drivers, Commissaries and Sailors, and direct them in streams round the little islets on which the smoking Turks are harboured, and you will populate the place.