We had expected to find a picturesque looking guard in Greek dress, and flourishing long lances, such as we see in pictures of the Phalanx and other celebrated bodies of troops. We found them a very common lot of soldiers in a uniform that looked very Frenchy, and I learned afterward that the outfit of the Greek army was furnished by French contractors, and made chiefly in Paris.
The French uniform seems to have invaded the Orient very generally, and half the armies of the countries bordering the Eastern part of the Mediterranean are now uniformed, with some modifications, after the model of la grande nation.
Shall I describe a sanguinary battle, in which prodigies of valor were displayed by our party, and a hundred brigands were compelled to bite the dust?
A great deal of dust was bitten, but we couldn’t help it; the dry earth was stirred up by our horses’ hoofs, and for much of the time we rode in dense clouds that occasionally threatened to smother us. Our lungs were filled, and we ground in our teeth more of the classic soil of the land of Homer and Demosthenes than we found to our liking.
It may be a humiliation to say so, but I confess that the most of us were not very poetical on that occasion, and voted Greece a bore.
Candor compels me to say that we had no encounter with the brigands, but returned to Athens with no greater sufferings than the fatigue and general mussiness consequent upon most journeys of that length. Two or three times we saw some suspicious-looking vagabonds, and at sight of them our sergeant shook his head ominously, but they evinced no disposition to disturb us. We could have made a very fair fight, if attacked, as our guards were well armed, and there was a fair supply of revolvers in our own hands. We had inserted fresh charges before leaving the hotel, and were determined not to surrender without making some resistance at any rate. Capture at the hands of Greek brigands is no joke, and would have disarranged our plans very seriously.
The main object of brigandage is a financial one; the robbers are in want of money (many of us are in the same fix), and the best way for them to turn an honest penny is to steal it. When they capture travellers, they help themselves to watches, money, and jewels, and anything else that may be of value. But the end is not yet; they take the captives into the mountains, and hold them for something more, and they are careful to squeeze out as much as possible. If the victim is a wealthy nobleman or some other purse-proud aristocrat, they think it will be worth about £10,000 to release him, but if he is some ordinary mortal with no influential friends in Athens, a hundred or two hundred pounds will be sufficient. The foreign residents and travellers; who happen to be in a Greek or Italian city when ransom is demanded for some unhappy wretch, are frequently compelled to raise money to meet the demand.
There is a great deal of complaint at this, and much of it is well founded.
“Why should I,” said a gentleman to me in Naples, “be compelled to pay something every little while to get one of my countrymen out of the hands of the brigands? I wouldn’t venture where the scoundrels could catch me, and I wouldn’t allow any of my friends to do so if I could prevent it. But along comes some reckless fellow I never saw, goes into danger, and is captured. Then I am appealed to on the ground of humanity and all that sort of thing, and asked to help release him. It is his own fault if he is captured. If he had staid away, as I do, he would have been safe, and not compelled to appeal to strangers. If a man meets with an accident, I am willing to help him, but I think it hard to be asked to contribute for a man who has deliberately and with eyes open walked into trouble.”