Memoirs of Life and Literature

by W. H. Mallock

A Winter in Cyprus—Florence—Siena—Italian Castles—Cannes—Some Foreign Royalties—Visit During the Following Spring to Princess Batthyany in Hungary

By the time of which I am now speaking Richard Mallock was Member for the Torquay division of Devonshire, and I often still helped him at political and other meetings in his constituency. Lauriston Hall, Torquay, which had been for a time my home, was let. I stayed on such occasions at Cockington, or somewhere else in the neighborhood. One house at which I often stayed was Sandford Orleigh, near Newton, belonging to Sir Samuel Baker, the traveler and Egyptian administrator, with whom I had for years been intimate. In his cabinets, or on his walls, Sir Samuel had treasures and trophies from half the savage or out-of-the-way countries of the world. One day in his study he took from a shelf a few pieces of marble—green, streaked with white, and said to me: "Those are bits of the precious verd antique. I picked them up among the mountains of Cyprus, where similar blocks were lying about me everywhere. Anyone who would bring this marble down to the sea might make a fortune in no time."

As Sir Samuel talked, the whimsical idea occurred to me of going myself to inspect the particular spot he mentioned, and seeing whether any enterprise of such a kind would be practicable. This idea, like Beckett's idea of his system, was for me at first no more than a plaything, but the very name of Cyprus had always excited my imagination, and the thought of the island having thus by chance been revived in me, I began to feel that a visit to it would be a very charming adventure, and that Sir Samuel's story of the marble, even if it should prove to be a myth, would at least be a plausible excuse for embarking on so long a journey. Moreover, it provided Sir Samuel with an excuse for writing to Sir Henry Bulwer, then governor of the island, and asking him to do what he could in the way of securing accommodation for me during my projected stay. Sir Henry's reply was to the effect that if I would so time my movements as to reach Cyprus in January, the Chief Secretary, Colonel Warren, would receive me as a guest for a month or so, and that during the rest of my stay he would himself entertain me at Government House. Posts to and from Cyprus were at that time extremely slow, and it was not till nearly Christmas that these arrangements were complete. Meanwhile, by Sir Samuel's advice, the specimens of the marble were submitted to a London expert. As I was now bent on going, his verdict, though not very favorable, did nothing whatever to discourage me. What mainly occupied my mind were thoughts of an island which was unknown to ordinary tourists, the history of which united the sway of Byzantine emperors with that of crusading kings, of Venetian doges and subsequently of Moslem dynasties, where the mountains were crowned with castles almost lost in clouds; where the walls of the marine fortress in which Othello lodged cast the white reflection of the Lion of St. Mark's on the waters, and where half the inhabitants prayed with their faces turned to Mecca and half with their eyes cast down before jeweled and gilded icons—an island, moreover, where I could watch and explore these hybrid scenes and pageants without any appreciable sacrifice of the comforts and the ease of London.

In this agreeable frame of mind, I left one evening the lamps of Charing Cross Station behind me bound via Brindisi for Alexandria, from which port an Austrian Lloyd steamer would ultimately bring me to Cyprus, after a voyage, incredibly slow, of very nearly a week. On my way out I encountered several acquaintances—Sir Augustus and Lady Paget, who were going back to Vienna, and were just visible in the gloom of the Dover boat; Arthur Paget, bound for Africa; and also several others, among whom were Edward Milner and John St. Aubyn, subsequently Lord St. Levan. The goal of these last was Damascus. We three slept at Alexandria on the boat which had brought us from Brindisi, and were next day rowed across the enormous harbor to a black craft, the Diana, which had just arrived from Trieste, and which by way of Port Said and Jaffa brought us in four days to Beyrout. There, after a day of sightseeing, we had tea with the English consul, whose house was very like a mosque. Milner and St. Aubyn were to sleep that night at a hotel and start for Damascus next morning by diligence. I returned to the ship alone, and I found myself twelve hours later looking at Cyprus from the open roadstead of Larnaca.

I remained in the island for something like three months, as the guest of Sir Henry, Colonel Warren, and other British officials. A year or so afterward I recorded my experiences in a short book called In an Enchanted Island. It will here be enough to summarize the various impressions and experiences which are there described in detail.

My impression on landing was one of half-forlorn disappointment. The winter that year in Europe was the coldest within living memory. Even the air of Cyprus had something in it not far from frost, and the treeless hills seemed blighted by the clouded and inhospitable sky. But a day like this proved to be a rare exception. Cyprus, as I knew it in the winter, was for the most part a land of what Englishmen mean by a late spring or an early summer when they dream of it. The evenings were chilly, but the days were warm and shining. They were sometimes, though not often, too warm for refreshment. The greens of the trees glittered, the mountains were scarred with purple, and the midday shadows of arcades were sharp as chiseled jet. My first host, Colonel Warren, had his home in Nicosia, a town in the middle of the island, and twenty miles from the sea. Nicosia lies in a great inland plain, and, as seen from the hilly road which slopes slowly down to it from the south, it resembles the pictures of Damascus with which all the world is familiar. Nicosia, however, has one feature which is in Damascus wanting. Among a forest of minarets is a great cathedral, used as a mosque since the days of the Turkish conquest, but built in the Middle Ages by Christian kings of the house of Guy de Lusignan. The town is a maze of lanes, to which ancient houses turn unwindowed walls, broken only by doors whose high, pointed arches often bear above them the relics of crusading heraldry, and give access to cloistered courts, the splash of secret fountains, and rockwork gay with violets. In a house thus secluded, and entered by such a door, lived Colonel Warren, my host, and under his roof, the morning after my arrival, I first definitely felt that I had left the West behind me, when I found that a noise by which I had been just awakened, and which sounded like the cawing of a rook, was that of the muezzin borne from a neighboring minaret and requesting me to adore Allah.

Colonel Warren was an ardent antiquarian, nor was he altogether insensible to the fascination of business ventures. He was not only eager to tell me whatever he knew of the architectural curiosities of the island, ancient and medieval, but he also offered me every assistance in my quest of the precise spot where, according to Sir Samuel, the green marble was to be found. He at once put me into communication with the owners of mules and carriages, with guides and with other persons whose aid would be necessary for me in reaching and exploring the mountains in whose fastnesses the treasure was concealed. He also introduced me to a charming professor from Edinburgh, who, in some official capacity, was excavating Phœnician tombs, and who, by way of taking a holiday, was willing to be my companion. Accordingly one morning we set out in a carriage which brought us to the foot of the mountains where the rough road, made by the English, ended, and where mules awaited us, on whose very disagreeable backs the rest of our expedition was to be accomplished. Sir Samuel Baker's maps and descriptions provided us with outstanding landmarks, which were more or less unmistakable. The spot which we were seeking lay high up in the clefts of a curious mountain known as "The Five Fingers," and was marked by a ruined church, a cave, and a lonely cypress tree. Our first attempt to find this spot was a failure. Our second attempt was successful. There could be no mistake about it—the lonely cypress was there, the cave and the church also. There, too, after a long search, we discovered fragments of stone—duplicates of Sir Samuel's specimens. But these were fragments only. Nothing could be found that was larger than a large pebble. The potential quarries of which Sir Samuel had spoken were children of his own imagination, and the only good they did us was to illustrate how easily practical men may deceive themselves—even when, like Sir Samuel, they are usually keen observers. We did indeed bring a few specimens back with us, but to the marble quarry as a practical project I had already said "Good-by." Let all disappointed prospectors learn philosophy from me. I said it without regret. I was on the whole relieved—for now I was free to devote myself to those pleasures of imagination which the life and the scenes around me had already begun to stimulate.

Before long each page of my life in Cyprus was like a page from an illuminated missal. I climbed to the mountain castle of St. Hilarion, once occupied by Richard the First. Through the traceries of its windows and from its towers I looked at the snowy summits of Cilicia across sixty miles of sea. I explored its stables, hewn out of the solid rock—stables not for horses, but camels. I examined its cisterns, hanging on the brinks of precipices. While on this expedition, I stayed with one of the judges in a lodge on the mountain side, and spent a night with him looking out on a garden of spices, and comparing the Septuagint version of the Song of Solomon with the English. On another occasion I came in a seaward valley to a beautiful monastery, whose refectory still was perfect, though there was no life in its silence but the life of oleanders peering in at the windows and half hiding from view the foam from which Venus sprang. Often in the early morning, on one expedition or another, I saw groups of peasants moving across dewy plains, their coats as bright as Joseph's, who, with their ass or camel, suggested the Flight into Egypt. When I journeyed for any distance by road my equipage was some old landau, drawn by five horses, and accompanied by three servants, one of these being my own, who spoke very fair English, and who had been born on the slopes of Lebanon. It was in this manner that, when I was staying with Sir Henry, I went from Nicosia to Famaugusta, a distance of fifty miles, which it took ten hours to accomplish. This was how Englishmen traveled in the days of William and Mary. Among the remains of Famaugusta I wandered for several days, its huge walls being still very nearly perfect, though they now inclose little but the huts of some Turkish shepherds, about fifty deserted churches, bright inside with frescoes, and a cathedral so profusely carved that it looks like a hill of flowers.

Within the limits of a day's expedition from Famaugusta were the remains—I was taken to visit them—not entirely ruinous, of the country residence of one of the crusading nobles. I found my way into monasteries still peopled by devotees, and saw in the eyes of many of them monastic faith still shining. In strange churches I studied, behind gilded screens and icons, magnificent copies of the Gospels, and read aloud to a sacristan this passage and that, asking him to read them also, so that I might adjust my pronunciation to his. On one occasion, from a height near Government House, I watched, if I may so express myself, a celebrated icon in action—a jeweled portrait of the Madonna, said to have been painted by St. Luke. On the plain below was the broad bed of a river, dry from continued drought. Unanswered prayers for rain had for some time been frequent and at last this miraculous relic had been brought forth from its hiding place, as a charm which was bound to effect what ordinary prayers could not, and was being carried along the banks of the river by a black procession of monks, who were followed—so it seemed to me—by half the population of the neighborhood. As these companies drew nearer, I gradually distinguished outbursts of distant shouting. I had arrived at the psychological moment. Far off, along watercourses lately dry, a streak of light was advancing like the coils of a silver snake. This was the river, which was actually coming down in flood. Presently, with a rattle of pebbles, it was pouring by below me. In less than an hour the portent died away, but left the memory of a new miracle behind it.

The only thoroughly modern thing in Cyprus at the time of my own visit was Government House, which is not in Nicosia, but outside it. It is built wholly of wood, and was sent out from England—a mere series of rooms surrounding a court, which was then marked out for a tennis ground. There was only one steam engine in the island, and (needless to say) no railway. These appliances not being there, nobody missed them. I myself thought the absence of railways pleasant rather than otherwise, and steam as an aid to industry was the last thing—so it seemed—that the native population wished for. The Duke of Sutherland, it appeared, had not very long ago thought of buying an estate in the southern part of the island and applying all the methods of science to the cultivation of early potatoes. He would, however, in order to insure success, have had to buy from the neighboring peasants certain way leaves and water rights, and for these they banded together to ask such preposterous prices that the duke, as they half hoped he would do, abandoned an enterprise by which they, then the poorest of the poor, would have been the first persons to benefit.