Unable to provoke a direct collision with the committee, the Pasha had recourse to another expedient: he called in the entire Mussulman population of the island to the walled cities. Totally unprepared for this unnecessary step, the unfortunate Mohammedans broke up their establishments of all kinds, and repaired to the fortresses in a state of the greatest irritation at the sacrifice they had made and the privations they had had to endure.
One complained that he had left his harvest uncut, and another had left his after it had been garnered; one told how he had been obliged, at a ruinous sacrifice, to dissolve partnership with a Christian neighbor with whom he had been engaged in silk-growing, the chief industry of the island, the Christian having no money to pay him for his share; and another had thrown all his silk-worms to the fowls. The consuls, on becoming aware of this movement, protested to the Pasha against a step so likely to produce collisions between the two religions; on which the Pasha sent counter-orders to his co-religionists to remain at home. The bearers of these orders met the Mussulmans on the roads, and succeeded in halting several bodies of them, while others, without provisions or protection from the weather, insisted on entering the cities. This confusion and vacillation increased the suffering and irritation of the people, and finally brought about the effect desired by the Pasha—a feeling of hostility against the Christians. A large body of these refugees encamped before the gates of Canéa, and menaced the Pasha with insurrection if they were not permitted to enter. The Pasha yielded, threw open the gates, and again sent secret messengers to invite the fugitives en route to come into the city.
Candia, Canéa, and Retimo were speedily filled to overflowing by an exasperated mob of fanatics, whose menaces against the Christian population were neither measured nor secret. The Christians remembered past insurrections, and most of them had been witnesses of the scenes of 1858, when the armed Mussulmans had dragged the body of a Christian they had killed through the streets of Canéa, and before the consulates, firing their pistols at the doors of the most obnoxious, and were only prevented from wholesale massacre by European men-of-war in the port. The entry of the Mohammedans was the signal for a panic with the Christians, and a frantic exodus commenced. The Lloyd steamers were overcrowded every trip; several Greek steamers came over, and caïques, and sailing-boats even, were freighted full, and sailed for Milos, Cerigotto, and other islands. In Candia, unrestrained by the presence of European representatives, the Mussulmans entered the houses of the Christians by force, and obliged the latter to make room for them; the same took place in Retimo; while in Selinos the whole Christian population took to the mountains. Meanwhile, the Pasha had informed his government that insurrection was imminent, and demanded reinforcements of troops. These, beginning to arrive, exhilarated the Mussulman population, who now began to prepare for hostilities, and their priests began openly to preach a crusade against Christianity. A Dervish, who arrived with a battalion in which he served as chaplain, landed with a green banner, spread his carpet on the marina in front of the custom-house, and, after his prayer, began to preach the holy war and the extermination of Christianity, declaring that "the cross must no longer stand, but be put in the dust." The rabble of porters and boatmen, mainly Arabs, Syrians, and other foreign Mussulmans, and intensely fanatical, were roused to the highest enthusiasm, and shouted "Amin! amin!" to his exhortations, when he continued his itineracy of the city. Information of the fact being brought to me, I took a witness of the Dervish's conduct, and remonstrated at once with the general-in-chief, Osman Pasha, who ordered the Dervish on board a frigate and sent him to Candia, where was no European to report his proceedings.
The emigration of Christians to Greece continued until about 12,000 souls left the island, and at all points of contact mutual irritation of Christian and Mohammedan increased. The hostility of the Mussulmans to the consuls who opposed the Pasha became especially virulent, and we were openly and continually threatened with being the first victims of the new crusade.
By this time it became evident to all in the island that the Pasha was laboring to provoke a collision, and that M. Derché was doing his best to assist him, but neither side seemed inclined to take the first step in open hostilities—the committee because they did not desire them, and the Pasha because he desired to avoid the responsibility of them. The first blood shed was of Christian by Christian, and furnishes so good an illustration of Cretan manners that it seems worth detailing. During the exchange of words which had taken place between the Pasha and the Assembly, a messenger of the former, a Cretan Christian, was insulted by one of the committee's people, spit on, and bitterly reproached for his unpatriotic subserviency. His son shortly after assassinated the insulter. Both were Sphakiotes, a race with whom blood-vengeance is a religious obligation. It was supposed that the assassination was instigated by the Pasha as the means of bringing on hostilities; and, when the relatives of the murdered man went to execute justice on the murderer, they found the house fortified, and after a short skirmish, during which a child of the murderer was killed by a ball fired through the door, the attacking party retired to wait a more convenient opportunity, and the Pasha sent a battalion of troops to the locality to protect the murderer's house, making no pretence whatever of bringing him to judgment. The move very nearly succeeded in bringing on hostilities, a captain of one of the adjoining villages, with his men, going at once to drive out the intruding Turks. The committee sent a body of picked men to disarm the villagers, in which they succeeded by stratagem, and so averted a collision.
Amongst the troops which arrived were 8,000 Egyptians, and with them the general-in-chief of the Egyptian army, Schahin Pasha, an accomplished diplomat and administrator of the Eastern type, munificent in gifts and promises, and magnificent in ceremonies and negotiations. He came in pursuance of a grand plan, concocted at Constantinople between the Marquis de Moustier, the Turkish and Egyptian governments, which was to coax or hire the Cretan chiefs into appealing to the Viceroy for protection, when, on the application of the plébiscite, the island was to be transferred to Egypt, on the payment by the Viceroy to the Sultan of a certain consideration, said to be £400,000 down, and £80,000 per annum tribute. De Moustier was to have received £100,000 as payment for his services in managing the affair, and in due course of time, it was whispered, the Bay of Suda, having been duly fortified by the Egyptians and made a naval station, was to have been transferred tale quale to France. Schahin, on arriving, placed himself in relations with the French consul, and under his advice concocted the plan of operations. It was a fatal mistake, and led to the ruin of the whole intrigue. Derché could comprehend but two kinds of men—those who are bought and those who buy them. He himself was of the former class; Schahin was a prince in the latter. Derché's opinion of the Cretans was that any could be bought or frightened into their project, and Schahin, accepting Derché's estimate, bid munificently for the votes of the Cretan chiefs, made presents to the churches, startling professions of liberality towards the Christians, and comported himself in the most approved style of Eastern potentates towards the consuls and all other influential personages.
Having prepared, as he supposed, a favorable reputation with the Cretan committee-men, he set out for the Apokorona, the rocky region which contains the passes to Sphakia, where the committee had moved its headquarters. There he commenced direct operations by distributing large sums of money amongst the influential Cretans, who, nothing loath, accepted the money, making no promises. At this juncture, the Governor-General, getting wind of Schahin's plans, insisted on attending him during his interviews with the committee, and joined him in the Apokorona. He had a plan of his own, with which that of Schahin militated, and for which he had been for several years preparing. This was, having prepared and precipitated the insurrection, and crushed it, as he confidently anticipated doing between bribery and force, to draw up a petition for signature by the Cretans, praying that the island might be made a principality, with Ismael as prince. He therefore did all in his power to prevent an understanding between Schahin and the committee. Many days passed thus in intrigues and counter-intrigues, until Ismael was struck down by a dangerous fever, and was brought back to Canéa scarcely alive, leaving the field open to Schahin, who thereupon made a rendezvous with the committee, but, with Egyptian faith, arranged a battalion of troops so as to catch them as they came to keep it. The wily mountaineers detected the trap, and broke off all communications, so that Schahin was obliged to return to Canéa, having gained nothing, and cursing the Cretans as a hard-headed, impracticable set of villains. He left, however, 4,000 troops at Vrysis, an important strategical point in the Apokorona, menacing the approaches to Sphakia and the headquarters of the committee, and holding the most direct communication between the eastern and western parts of the island.
Having learned the worthlessness of M. Derché as a means of influencing the Cretans, he had begun to enquire amongst the islanders whose influence would best be employed to serve his purposes, and was referred to the Russian consul and myself; I presume primarily to myself, from the fact that all the new proposals and negotiations were directed at me, and, after many idle compliments and some magnificent entertainments, his Excellency condescended to open his plans with apparent frankness to me, and proposed to me in so many words to pay me any sum I should name if I could bring to bear the influence necessary to secure the success of the Egyptian scheme. I took his propositions into consideration, and immediately communicated them to our minister at Constantinople, by whom they were, I believe, laid before Lord Lyons, who, I presume, quashed the matter, as it never was heard of more in the island.
Meanwhile, the agitation in the island, and the hostility between the Mussulman and Christian population, were rapidly increasing. One of the principal Cretan Mohammedans, notorious for his activity and cruelty in the war of 1821-30, and who served the troops at Vrysis as guide and interpreter, was killed under the following circumstances: Having entered a café in one of the Christian villages near Vrysis, he was boastingly narrating his former feats, amongst which was the murder of a white Christian family of eleven persons, whom he found at supper in their own house unarmed, and, after having been welcomed by them, he closed the doors, and killed the whole on the spot. He continued boasting of what he would do in the coming war in the same vein, and on leaving the café was waylaid by a relative of the murdered family, and shot dead.
This was the first Mussulman blood, and the body was carried with great pomp to Canéa, and lay in state outside the gates, the remonstrances of the consuls preventing it from being carried through the city according to the intention of the relatives. The family of the new victim being large and influential, it gathered in numbers outside the gate, blocking it up temporarily, while the women of the connection went en masse to the palace of the Pasha to demand vengeance on the murderers. The Mussulman population became intensely exasperated, and proposed retaliating on the Christians in general, beginning with the consuls. The whole consular body united in pressure on the Pasha to induce him to repress the agitation, and succeeded so far that no immediate outbreak occurred. The body was buried without worse demonstrations than insults and menaces to all Christians, whoever and wherever, and the crowd dispersed by order of the Pasha.