Syra is not a large island, its greatest length being little over fourteen miles and its width in the broadest part about six. Homer mentions and describes it as the country of Eumæus, the faithful servant of Ulysses, and the character of the island corresponds to-day with the account given by the “blind old man of Scio’s rocky isle.”
The city which bears the name of the island is the most important commercial point in all Greece. Its population is said to be not far from thirty thousand; they are emphatically a commercial people, and when not employed in legitimate trade with outsiders, they speculate with each other. While loitering on the quay I saw a man sell a fish to another, the latter sold it to a third and the trade went on till the fish had changed hands four or five times. Whether the price was increased by each transaction I am unable to say, but am inclined to think it was not likely to be reduced.
Later in the day I saw a smaller fish—it may have been the old one worn down by manipulation—passing about with a good deal i of activity. If he could have taken a commission each time he, changed hands he could have amassed a handsome fortune and set up for a “big fish” before the end of the season.
As I had come from Constantinople where the streets are in a condition of wretchedness, as regards pavement and dirt, the streets of Syra seemed to me wonderfully clean. There are immense quarries of marble just back of the town, and marble is one of the articles of export. Marble is cheaper in Syra than n granite or brick. The houses are built of marble, the streets paved with it, and the quay and the wall that bound it are made of marble. You see marble everywhere, and after a time you begin to wish they would throw in some other stone by way of variety.
The streets are paved with broad blocks and in many places these blocks are so smooth that one is in danger of slipping unless he treads carefully. The gutters are in the middle of the streets instead of at the sides, and every few yards there is a grated hole where the water runs into the sewers. I could not see the necessity of having these holes so numerous until I learned by actual experience how the rain fell. It came down suddenly, as if the clerk of the weather had called all hands and put them to work upsetting a row of buckets right over Syra.
It didn’t rain, it poured and more than poured; the heaviest shower I ever saw in New York was the mildest premonitory sprinkle, compared to the rain at Syra. The sewer-holes had all they could attend to, and it was then that you perceived the wisdom of putting the gutters in the middle of the streets, and also the wisdom of having no cellar doors on a level with the sidewalk. Under the present arrangement there might be, (and quite likely such is the case,) a foot or so of water in the street, without doing damage to anybody, except to the unlucky pedestrian.
There is a public square in Syra paved with marble and set out with rows of trees and beggars. The latter are less stationary than the trees, and not half as pretty; I did not see any fruit growing upon either.
Viewed from the water, Syra has the appearance of half an amphitheatre, as the steepness of the hill causes the houses to rise in irregular terraces; there is a depression in the hill-side, so that the general effect reminds you of the tier of boxes in an opera house when you look at them from the stage.
This is the new town of modern Syra.
To reach ancient Syra, you have a great deal of climbing to do, as it is a long way up the hill-side, directly above the new town.