The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II

by William James Stillman

Accompanied by Mr. H.M. Paget, the artist, I went to Corfu and hired the Kestrel, my old friend of the Cretan days, and I decided to follow the track of Ulysses in his return to Ithaca from Troy. Beginning at Santa Maura we examined every point in the Ionian Islands to which any illusion is made in the "Odyssey" as far as Cerigo and Cerigotto, meeting a storm off the former island which might well have ended our trip. A well-found Greek brig foundered only a short distance from us in the gale, and we drifted all day and till early in the morning of the day following, when we managed to make the port of Cerigo, during which time we could neither eat a meal nor even get a cup of coffee. Paget made a capital sailor, and, though the old Maltese captain of former days was dead, his two sons, lads then, were dexterous sailors in the rough-and-ready, rule-of-thumb manner of the Levantine boatman, knowing nothing of navigation and little more of geography than Ulysses himself. We had no charts, and only a very primitive compass, but we all had the antique love of adventure and indifference to danger. Leaving Cerigotto, an island out of the line of traditional or historic interest, but, curious for its fine and extensive Pelasgic remains, we laid our course for Crete, starting with the breeze that at nightfall generally blows towards the land, which was visible from where we took our departure, and counted on being at Canea with the morning.

But the Aegean is a tricky sea, and furnishes many surprises, as St. Paul knew, and, when not more than ten miles from the shelter of the Cretan coast, it came on to blow from the southwest with such violence that we were unable to beat up to the shelter of the Cretan highlands, and under a mere rag of canvas had to run before the wind, wherever it might drive us. I was the only one on board who knew anything of the Archipelago, and I had to decide the course, which it was possible to vary only a point or two either way, for the yacht would only run free, or, under favorable weather, with a beam wind. I had to guess our course, which from my knowledge of the islands I saw could only be directly to Milo, about forty miles away. If we hit the harbor, well and good, for it gives excellent shelter in all weather, but if we missed it we had two chances—to find an opening between the islands and reefs, or to hit a lee shore and go on it, for there was no hope of clawing off. I set the course, left the boys in charge, and went to bed. The boat was jumping through the sea with a shock at each wave she struck, as if she had leaped out of the water, and it seemed as if she must be showing her keel with each jump. I awoke in the night and, getting out of my berth to take a look outside, put my feet in the water which had risen to cover the cabin floor. All hands at the pumps kept it down, but it was clear that the old craft, nearly twenty years older than when I first saw her, was no longer seaworthy, and we had no hope of the weather lifting, for these southwesterly gales generally blow at least a day. I went back to bed again, for there was nothing to be done but wait on fortune, and be glad that we should make Milo by daylight.

My previsions justified themselves, for in the course of the afternoon we made the entrance to the harbor, and ran in before such a sea as I never saw in those waters before. The waves broke against the great pillar of rock that stands in the entrance of the harbor, sending the spray to its very summit, and as we ran to the anchorage off the little port the whole population poured down to see the arrival, wondering what sent the tiny craft out in such weather. The old pilot said that it had been the worst gale of forty years, which I could well believe. The weather having abated, we ran over to Crete, where I found the island laboring with reforms, a constitution, and a Christian governor, in the person of my old friend Photiades Pasha. We were invited to dine at the Konak, and of the company was Edhem Pasha, a charming, intelligent, and thoroughly civilized Turk, by far the most liberal and progressive of his race I had met, with the single exception of A'ali Pasha. We played at "Admiration" that evening, a game which puts a series of questions as to the qualities one admires. In reply to the question "What kind of courage do you admire?" the pasha, turning to me, replied, "I admire the courage of that gentleman in going to sea in so small a boat in such weather," and he admitted laughingly that his courage was not at that level.

I found in the place of my old friend Dickson, consul for England and colleague of the Cretan days, since dead, Humphrey Sandwith, a noble and faithful representative of the dignity and humanity of his nation, and for many years subsequently my intimate friend, who has disappeared while I write from the lessening list of living friends, but who will ever keep his place in my regards as a noble, just, and humane representative of his race, as of his government. In the years of the subsequent Cretan difficulties, Sandwith was always the good and wise friend of the islanders. It is good to remember such a representation of the power and dignity of England in lands where his colleagues have not always honored England or humanity, and I shall always think of Sandwith with greater respect for his nation.

The results of the "Century" expedition were nothing in respect of excavation, and the records of the tracing of the route of the Great Ithacan were written out in the Dolomites in the course of the summer. We found that excavation was a matter beyond achievement with the limited funds at my disposal, but Photiades was munificent in promises of support if I wished to return for serious undertaking in that direction. In the following winter I was accordingly requested to take charge, for the American Archaeological Institute, of an expedition for research and if possible for excavation. Trusting to the benevolent promises of the pasha, I accepted the mission. He renewed his assurances of aid, and showed me the greatest cordiality and benevolence, invited me to dinner and to spend the evening, and treated me generally with a friendliness which astonished the old Turkish element, who considered me the devil of the island. (In fact, my appearance was considered the omen of trouble, and the Mussulmans said when they saw me, "Are we going to have another war?") It was easy to see, however, that the elements of trouble in the island had not been eliminated by the appointment of a Christian governor or the concessions which had been made to the Christian majority. So long as the power of rendering ineffective any reforms, or blocking the way to progress of the higher civilization of the island, remained at Constantinople, the Turkish minority in the island would retain their faculty of making the concessions to the majority fallacious.

Photiades Pasha, an amiable and very intelligent man, recognized the dominant fact of his position to be the necessity of keeping the favor of the Mussulman oligarchy at the capital, and he could not offend the Mussulmans of the island by even a maintenance of equal justice between the two religions. He was therefore obliged to satisfy the leaders of the Christian agitators by the concession of minor advantages in the local conflicts, oftener of Christian against Christian than of the same against the Turk, and finally he was obliged to resort to the inciting of feud and jealousy between the clans, villages, and provinces in the island, to keep them from uniting against him. He found it convenient to employ me as a tub to the whale, and, having first excited the insular jealousy against archaeological intrusion by foreigners, and inducing his clique of subordinate intriguers to oppose my operations, though the Christian population in general were in favor of permitting me to excavate wherever I liked, he made them the concession of refusing me the permission I sought. Therefore, while he promised me all things and urged me to go at once to select my locality, he wrote to the Porte advising the refusal of the firman, which had been applied for directly by the Institute, through the minister at Constantinople.

My assistant, Mr. Haynes, who had been sent by the Institute to take his first lessons in archaeology and photography, having arrived, we went to Candia to select our site. We decided on attacking a ruin on the acropolis of Gnossus, already partially exposed by the searches of local diggers for antiques. It had a curiously labyrinthine appearance, and on the stones I found and described the first discovered of the characters whose nature has since been made the subject of the researches of Mr. Evans. I made an agreement with the Turkish proprietor of the land, and prepared to set to work when the firman should arrive. After more than one letter from Photiades, assuring me in unqualified terms that I might confidently count on the reception of the firman, I received a communication from the minister at Constantinople, that on the advice of Photiades Pasha the firman was refused. I had selected as the alternative locality the cave known as the burial-place of Zeus, on the summit of Mount Yuctas, not far from Gnossus, in the excavation of which I am convinced that archaeology will one day receive great light on early Cretan myth. The importance of the locality in the prehistoric research in which Crete is one of the most important sections of our field of study, will, I am convinced, one day justify my anxiety to attack it; and the subsequent discoveries, so important, made by Halbherr in the companion cave on Mount Ida, where Zeus was believed to have been hidden and nursed, confirm my conviction of the value of the evidence still hidden on Yuctas.

Debarred from carrying out the purpose of my expedition, I contented myself with making such a survey of that part of the island as should serve the Institute for another attempt when the artificial obstacles should be removed; and I was on the point of visiting Gortyna when troubles broke out, initiated by the murder of two Mussulmans at Gortyna, revenged by the murder of Christians at Candia, and there was nothing to be done but to get back to civilization. From the Mussulmans of the island I had less hostility to endure than from the more influential of the Christian Cretans, with whom the dominant passion of life seemed to be that of intrigue, and with whose mendacity and unscrupulousness I could not contend.

I had a curious instance of the honesty of the Mussulman in a dealer in bricabrac, embroideries, and stuffs with whom I used to deal at Candia. Arapi Mehmet, as he was called, i.e. Mahommed the Arabian, was a man in whom no religious fanaticism disturbed his relations with his fellow-men; no English agnostic could be more liberal, and we often had dealings in which his honesty was evident. On one of the last visits I made to his shop I looked at two embroidered cushion covers which I wanted to purchase, but the price he put on them made it out of the question, and as he refused to take less I gave up the bargaining, and he called for the coffee. While we were drinking it and conversing of other matters, I said to him, "Arapi, why do you ask such absurd prices? You know that the cushions are not worth so much." "Oh," he replied, "you are rich and can afford it." "What makes you think I am rich?" I asked. "You travel about and see the world, and take your pleasure," he said. "But I am not rich," I said; "I am a workingman; I do not travel for pleasure, but to earn my living. I am a scribe, and am paid for what I write, and what I earn is all I have to live on. I have no property." "Is that true?" he asked me, earnestly, looking me in the eyes. "That is quite true; I have nothing but what I earn," I replied; "I make the living of my family in this way. If I do not write we have no bread." The cushions had meanwhile been sent back to his house, as he kept all his fine goods there; and, without another word to me, he shouted to his shop boy to go and get them, and, when brought, he threw them to me, saying, "Take them and give me what you like."

I always found that the Mussulman merchants were more trustworthy in their dealings with me than the Christians, and, though there was, as a matter of course, at first an amount of bargaining and beating down the prices, which was expected, they never attempted to deceive me in the quality of the goods, and they often called my attention to articles of artistic or archaeological value, which were cheap, and when they came to know me well they gave me, at the outset, the lowest price they could take, while it never happened with a Christian shopman in Crete that I was treated with frankness or moderation. The next time I went back to Candia, Arapi was dead.