However, they have now a blockhouse at the Xyloscala, another at Samaria in sight and signalling of it, and a third at St. Roumeli, so that, for the future, there need be no doubt as to who holds the Heart of Crete.
The night's discomforts had been too great to allow me to spend another in Omalos, so, after a slight detour to look at the immense wild pear-trees which grow on the plains, we rode directly back to Canéa, accompanied by the Pasha. Meeting the priest of Lakus by the way, I gave the village a vicarious berating for having in such an ungrateful manner refused hospitality to a man who had been their advocate and friend so long, and whom they had obliged to go back to their enemies and his for a dinner. He seemed much ashamed, and the day after I received a profound apology from the primates pleading ignorance of my personality.
I improved the acquaintance with the Pasha (Mehmet Ali, "the Prussian," so-called from his race, though he was brought up from boyhood as a Mussulman), whom I found more intelligent and liberal than any Turkish official I had met with, except A'ali and Server Effendi, to introduce the condition of the chiefs of the insurrection remaining in exile, many of them old and worn out, afflicted with the nostalgia which mountain people know so well, and ready to submit unreservedly to the government. A nominal amnesty had been granted, relieving all from any political prosecution, but not from the civil suits for damages, etc., which might be brought against the chiefs who had taken sheep or cattle or destroyed any property. Two or three of the chiefs who had returned had already been thrown into prison on suits of this kind, and as the complainants were always adherents of the government through the war, and all the minor officials were of that class whose loyalty had been beyond question from the beginning, a civil suit had pretty much the same color as a political persecution. This state of things effectually prevented the return of any of the prominent personages of the insurrection, who, living in exile, were reasons of the strongest against the restoration of tranquillity, and made a convenient appliance for agitation and renewed strife on any disturbance of the political atmosphere of Europe.
My only interest was the restoration of the island to such peace as was possible, and this Mehmet Ali comprehended, and, throwing aside all hostility, he entered into the discussion of the positions, and on a subsequent interview begged me to go to Constantinople and place the matter before A'ali Pasha, to whom he gave me a letter of introduction.
I accordingly went to Constantinople, and was received in the kindest and most considerate manner by the Grand Vizier, to whom I stated at length my ideas of the difficulties of the pacification, and at his request made a memoir of all the facts and motives involved, with a description of the class of men to whom was entrusted the carrying out of the measures by which the Porte had hoped to conciliate the Cretans, embittered political and religious adversaries, full of wrath at the losses and indignities they had suffered, and more anxious to avenge their own wrongs than to secure the true interest of the Porte. He begged me to wait until he could send to Crete and obtain a report on my memoir, and, as he found on its receipt that my assertion was just, he promised to correct the abuses of administration, and proposed to me to go to Crete to superintend the carrying out of the measures which seemed necessary to restore the confidence of the late insurgents, pledging himself to accord complete immunity to any individuals whom I should designate as possessing my confidence, and offering me a stipend more than sufficient for all my needs in the service. I knew that so long as he was Grand Vizier I could depend on the fulfilment of these promises, but, in the event of any change of administration, the understanding between us would fail as between his successor and myself. I demanded, therefore, a comprehensive measure securing all the insurgents from civil suits on account of acts of war committed during the insurrection, as a condition of my acceptance of the official position thus created for me. This the Grand Vizier declared the government could not grant without assuming all the personal liabilities thus discharged, which he was not willing to recommend, and so, after several interviews and thorough discussion, I was obliged to decline the offer made me, much to my regret, for the islanders had ever a place in my regard, which, with the interest of common suffering and loss, the years of advocacy of rights kept back and redress denied, and perhaps the personal attachment I had found for me and mine in so many of them, disposed me to make any effort in my making to secure their good. But to engage my faith and influence with them on such uncertain grounds as the continuance in power of a Grand Vizier, or the maintenance of harmony between myself and the local administration, was too great a risk for a prudent man, unwilling to engage others in a position from which he might not have the power to extricate them.
It was with such a pain as the waiting of my own sentence of exile would have given me that I went to meet the old captains on my return to Athens, and told them that there was no hope of their repatriation through my efforts at least. I never shall forget the silent despair in the face of old Costa Belondaki, tall and straight under his seventy-odd years, white-haired, and meagre, but alert as a man of forty, as he turned from me when he got his sentence. As with his elder compatriots, the mountain nostalgia fevered him and the idle exile broke his spirit, but I could give him no hope that in his day European civilization or Turkish administration would be wise enough to economize his devotion to his country, and make use of rather than crush the spirit which makes Crete rebellious while its government is criminal.