CORINTH, GREECE
We did not touch at Patmos. There is nothing to invite a steamer to turn aside from its course to visit it, except it were to gratify the curiosity of travellers. It has no commerce of any kind. Indeed, its few inhabitants have at certain seasons of the year to cross to other islands to procure the means of subsistence. So barren is it that it was chosen by the Roman emperors as a place of banishment, on which prisoners could be confined as to a rock in the ocean. Yet this poor little island has gathered about it a mighty tradition, for it was the place of exile of the last of the Apostles. “I, John, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the Word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Here he wrote the Book of Revelation, and here was erected in the twelfth century a monastery bearing his name. We thought we could just discern the outline of the island and the convent rising above it on the western horizon.
The next morning at daylight we were off Scio, that island of sad and bloody memories. Sixty years ago it was the scene of an event which made the ears of the civilized world to tingle. When the Greek Revolution broke out in 1822 it is said that the people here were reluctant to take part in it, but were stirred up by emissaries from Samos; and, perhaps because Scio had been one of the most prosperous of the Greek islands, it was to be the special mark of Turkish vengeance. A fleet anchored off the town, and without a warning of its terrible fate, soldiers were let loose upon the inhabitants. No age or sex was spared. Not only were men cut down in their homes, but their wives and children with them. Twenty-two thousand were put to the sword, and forty-seven thousand were sold into slavery. But this massacre was not to go unavenged. The Greeks had no ships of war, but they converted old hulks into fire-ships, in which they sailed with the utmost daring into the centre of the Turkish fleet, and setting them on fire, escaped in their boats. The flag-ship was burnt, and the admiral and crew perished in the flames,—a terrible retribution for the massacre of Scio. Since Greek independence was secured, it has partly recovered; but several years since the town was nearly destroyed by an earthquake, so that it seems as if the island were doomed to destruction.
But all over this wreck and ruin shines the brightness of a name that will ever give to it a place in history. It is the reputed birthplace of Homer, and as such cannot be passed by without notice by the traveller.
[From Scio, Dr. Field sailed for Asia Minor, and spent some time among its historic cities. On his return he passed the island of Lesbos, which has long been famous as the home of Sappho and others of the lyric poets of Greece.]
As the afternoon drew on, we were approaching a large island,—the ancient Lesbos, now Mitylene,—and as we were on its eastern side, and the sun was sinking in the west, we were coming under its shadow, and this softer light enabled us to see it better than we could have done in the glare of noonday. The tops of the mountains stood out with wonderful clearness against the sky, while the outline of the coast winding in and out with its headlands and its bays, and the soft green valleys rising from the shore and running upward to the slopes of the hills, gave it an infinite variety and beauty. Clinging to the hill-sides were pretty villages, with groves of oak cultivated for the acorns they yield, which are used for tanning purposes and exported to Europe, while the pine-forests on the mountains furnish timber and pitch.
The valleys are very fertile, and if they are not “covered over with corn,” they have large plantations of fig and other fruit-trees; while the olive-orchards, if they do not pour out “rivers of oil,” yet yield it in such abundance as makes it the chief industry of the island, and furnishes a source of wealth to the thrifty inhabitants. All these varieties of vegetation were now in their perfect bloom, as it was the middle of May, when in the East the earth rejoices in the freshness of spring-time. As we sailed along these shores in the twilight, I wondered if a fairer Arcadia ever rose out of the waters of this troubled world.
The island of Lesbos has an important place in Greek history, even at its most remote period. As early as the siege of Troy it had a large population, and continued to flourish for centuries.