So, when my avant-courrier announced to the awkward squad of Anatolian infantry, ragged, sullen, that the "Consolos Bey" demanded the road, a savage frown of unwelcome gleamed through the disciplinary respect; while the shouting, chattering groups of Christian peasants ambling along on the mules and donkeys, with their little loads of fowls or oil for the market at Canéa, were generally arrested by the summons of the guard, and drew up respectfully at the roadside, the most respectful dismounting until I had passed.
The road for ten or twelve miles runs westward over a level plain, the ancient bed of the Iardanos, by whose banks we know, from Homer, that the Cydonians dwelt. The fact that the Iardanos (now called Platanos, from the immense plane-trees growing on its banks) now empties into the sea ten miles from Canéa, has puzzled geographers to reconcile Cydonia with Canéa; but, on arriving at the point where the river debouches into and cuts across the plain, it will be seen that the new channel to the sea has been cut through the hills by the action of the river, and that the ancient course was evidently eastward through the still marshy plain into the bay of Suda, passing close to the position of Canéa.
The roads in Crete are marked with historical associations of all ages, as the Appian Way with recollections of the great dead. The town that we pass, near the mouth of the Platanos, was the ancient Pergamos, whither Lycurgus, to evade the possibility of his laws being revoked, banished himself, where he died, and was buried. The town which we enter as we cross the Platanos at the ford is Alikianu, the scene of that atrocious and perfidious massacre of which I have told the story. It is a town of half ruinedd villas—some, of the Venetian days—buried in orange-trees, and so surrounded with olive groves that but little of it can be seen from the river. The road we must follow only skirts it, following the river, until it rises on a ridge of mountains, zigzag and undulating, up to Lakus. The Lakiotes are accounted among the bravest of the Cretans; and though military science, flank movements, and artillery made their town untenable in the late insurrection, it is still a formidable position. The village itself lies along under the summit ridge of the chain of hills which form a buttress to the Asprovouna, stretching north, with steep approaches from every side. It used to be a prosperous village, one of the largest in the island, but now its straggling houses were in ruins, two or three only having the roofs replaced, others having only a canopy of boughs laid over one end of the space enclosed by the blackened walls, enough to keep the dews off while the inhabitants slept, for rain never falls here through the summer months. All bespoke utter exhaustion and extreme poverty. The jaded, listless look of the people, the demoralization of war and exile, most of them having been of the refugees in Greece, the ravage and misery of all surroundings, made a picture which never has passed from my memory.
In the first capture by Mustapha Pasha, Lakus was taken by surprise and a flank movement of the Turkish irregulars, the Lakiotes having only time to secure their most valuable and portable goods and bury the church-bell, retiring up the mountain slopes beyond, firing a few shots of defiance as they went. When A'ali Pasha arrived in Crete, he ordered the reconstruction of the church of Lakus, demolished by the Turks at the capture of the village, and the primates were ordered to find the bell. Declining to know its whereabouts, they were thrown into prison, to lie until they did, a few days of which treatment produced the desired effect, and the bell was hung over the reconstructed church. That afternoon notes of compulsory joy sounded from the belfry, and the insurgents from the ridge of Zourba opposite came down to the brink of the ravine to ask who had betrayed the bell. Their submitted townsmen replied by an avowal of the modus operandi of getting at the required knowledge; and the "patriots" replied, "Ring away. We will come and ring it to-night." And agreeably to promise, a band of insurgents came across the ravine at midnight, carried off the bell, and, hanging it on a tree near Zourba, rang the night out. The Turkish guard, which occupied the block-house in the village, scarcely thought it worth while to risk the defence of the bell, if indeed they knew of its danger.
At Lakus I had made my plans to breakfast and pass the noon-heat, but I had reckoned without my hosts, for, on "pitching my tent" and sending out my cavass to find a lamb to roast, I found evidence of the inroads of civilization—I could not get one for less than three pounds sterling—about fifteen times the usual price, and a sure attempt at swindle based on my supposed necessities. Fortunately my escort had amply provided themselves, and we had bread and cheese, caviar and coffee, to stay our appetites until we should reach Omalos, where were a garrison and an army butcher. So I ate my modicum of what they gave me, smoked my cigarette, and tried to doze, while the chattering villagers, holding themselves aloof in reminiscent dread of the Moslem, mingled their hum with that of the bees from the hives near us. My "tent" was an ancient mulberry-tree above, and a Persian carpet beneath; and, though I tried to sleep away the time, I did nothing but listen to the story my cavass, Hadji Houssein, was telling his companions of the adventure we had had the year before in the valley below, and which, lest he have not given the true version, I will tell as it happened.
In the bottom of the valley at our feet lies the village of Meskla, built along the banks of the Platanos, where it is a pure, cold, rushing mountain brook, of which, in any other part of the world, the eddies would have been alive with trout, but in which now there are only, as in all other Cretan rivers, eels. A party of official personages in Canéa, including her Britannic Majesty's consul, myself, the American ditto, with the captain and officers of the English and French gunboats on the station, and an English colonel in the Turkish army, had made a picnic party to Meskla, in August of the last year of the war. The Turkish troops held Lakus and Omalos and the western bank of the Platanos down to the plain; but the insurgents still remained in possession of all the northern spurs of the Asprovouna, from Lakus east for twenty miles, including Zourba; and, while we drank toasts and ate our roast-lamb under the plane-trees by the river, a perpetual peppering of rifles was going on from the hill-tops on each side of the valley above. Was it fighting, or was it fun? I began to climb one of the nearest spurs on the Turkish side of the ravine to see, and, not to be suspected of both sides, took my way to the picket of Turkish irregulars, which, sheltered by a group of trees on the summit, was firing across the valley in a desultory way. As I showed myself in one of the windings of the path to the patriots at Zourba, I saw the smoke-puff of a rifle on the edge of a ravine, and the ball glanced along the rocks within three feet, spattering the lead over me in a most convincing way. I naturally made a flank movement, which shortly degenerated into the retrograde of a satisfied curiosity.
The incident had a side interest to the whole party, for it showed us that the road we proposed to take might be dangerous, the more as we had a Turkish officer and his two attendants in uniform in our company. We had purposed following the river up still higher, and then crossing the ridge to Theriso.
Consulting one of the submitted Meskliotes, who waited his chance for the débris of the picnic, we were informed that it would be very far from safe to follow our proposed route, which was exposed in its whole line to the chance of shots from the main mountain ridge; but he offered to guide us by a road running along the side of the ridge furthest from the insurgents, and where he could warn any outposts of them that we were coming. This road was a fair sample of those which existed in Crete before the war, a mere bridle-path scratched in the slope of a huge landslide, which rose above us two or three hundred feet, and descended three or four times that distance into the bed of the Platanos. Part of it was too dizzy and dangerous to ride, and we led our beasts hesitating and hobbling along. We were soon amongst the outposts of the insurgents, as we had unmistakable evidence on arriving at Theriso, where we found a detachment of a dozen or more rough, motley-looking fellows, armed with all kinds of guns, and clad in all ways except well. They looked askance at our fez-wearing colonel and his two cavalrymen, but from respect for the consular presences respected their persons. We drank with them at the spring, exchanged identifications, and pursued our way down the celebrated ravine, the scene of two terrible disasters to the Turkish army during different insurrections. Nothing can be more uncomfortable, in a military point of view, than one of these Cretan ravines. Cut in the limestone rock by the glacier torrents of ages, zigzag in their courses, and shut between abrupt ridges, with no road but an unsatisfactory bridle-path, the troop which is incautious enough to enter without crowning the heights on each side as it advances is certain to be hemmed in, and to be severely treated by a comparatively small foe or exterminated by a large one.
We had delayed too long, and, as we entered the most precipitous portion of the ravine, the red sunlight on the eastern cliffs told us that the sun, long shut from direct view, was sinking; and in our haste we missed the way, and fell into a vineyard-path, out of any line of travel. Immediately we heard voices hailing us from the hill-tops, to which we paid no attention, thinking them the cries of shepherd-boys, and continued until we found ourselves in a maze of vineyards, and the path and sun gone at the same instant. Now the hailing began with bullets. The uniforms of our Turkish escort demanded explanation, and as our guides had left us at Theriso we were helpless. To go back and explain was to be a better mark, and to march ahead, anywhere, was our only chance. Unfortunately, Hadji, who carried my hunting rifle, considered it his military duty to return the fire, and in a few moments, other pickets coming in, we had about forty sharpshooters popping away at us in the twilight. Our further passage was shut by an abrupt hillside, along which we must make a movement by the flank toward the road we had lost, and directly across the line of fire. The sound of the bullets suggested getting to cover, and as all path had now disappeared we dismounted and led our beasts at random, no one knowing where we were going or should go, and only aiming to turn the point of the ridge above us, to get out of the fire, which was increasing, and the pinging of Enfield bullets over our heads was a wonderful inducer of celerity. It was a veritable sauve qui peut. I saw men of war ducking and dodging at every flash and whistle in a way that indicated small faith in the doctrine of chances, according to which a thousand shots must be fired for one to hit. We found, at length, where the ridge broke down, a maze of huge rocks, affording shelter, but beyond was a deep declivity, down which in the dark we could see nothing; further on again was the river, along which the road led. We could hear the shouts and occasional shots of a detachment running down the road to intercept us, and another coming along the ridge above us. My mule was dead-beat, and could scarcely put one leg before another, and few others were better off. A short council showed two minds in the party—one to lie still to be taken, with the chance of a shot first; the other to push on for the road before the insurgents reached it. The only danger of any moment was to Colonel Borthwick and his Turks, who would be prizes of war, and to me the chance of a fever from lying out all night. The majority, nine, voted with me to go on, and, abandoning mules and horses, we plunged, without measuring our steps, down the slope, falling, slipping, tripping over rocks, in bogs, through overtopping swamp-grass, bushes (for the hillside was a bed of springs), pushing to strike the road before the insurgents should head us off, so as to be able to choose our moment for parleying. I knew if I could get there first, saving the chance, that all would be well; if a rash boy of fourteen saw me first, I might be stopped by a bullet before any explanation would avail.
Tired, muddy, reeking with perspiration, bruised on the stones, exhausted with haste and trepidation, we won the race, and halted behind a little roadside chapel to gather the state of things. Above, we heard voices of a colloquy, and knew that the remainder of the party were in safe custody, and our road was quiet. A short walk brought us to the outpost of the Turkish army, a village garrisoned by a couple of companies of regulars and a few Albanians. The commandant, a major, was outranked by Borthwick, who ordered him at once to send out a detachment to rescue Consul Dickson and his companions. The poor major protested and remonstrated, but in vain. "It was dangerous," he said; but the colonel insisted, he ordered out a detachment, and then called for pipes and coffee, after which, under a heavy escort, we started for Canéa. Borthwick obtained a battalion of the regulars in garrison, and started next morning at early dawn to rescue our friends; but no persuasion could induce the Turkish commander to enter the ravines. He posted his troops along the overlooking ridge and waited in ambush. I have it on Borthwick's word that, while the troops were lying concealed, under orders to keep the most profound silence, a hare started up at the end of the line, and the Turkish commander instantly ordered the first company to their feet, and to make ready, and was about to give the order to fire when a hound of the battalion anticipated the volley by catching the poor beast and despatching him on the spot.