In the evening I was not sorry to retire early to rest in the low

vaulted room in the strangers' house attached to the monastery of St.

Salvador. I was weary and depressed after the agitating scenes of the

morning, and my lodging was not rendered more cheerful by there being a

number of corpses laid out in their shrouds in the stone court beneath

its window. It is thought by these superstitious people that a shroud

washed in the fountain of Siloam and blessed at the tomb of our Saviour

forms a complete suit of armour for the body of a sinner deceased in

the faith, and that clad in this invulnerable panoply he may defy the

devil and all his angels. For this reason every pilgrim when journeying

has his shroud with him, with all its different parts and bandages

complete; and to many they became useful sooner than they expected. A

holy candle also forms part of a pilgrim's accoutrements. It has some

sovereign virtue, but I do not exactly know what; and they were all

provided with several long thin tapers, and a rosary or two, and sundry

rosaries and ornaments made of pearl oyster-shells--all which are

defences against the powers of darkness. These pearl oyster-shells are,

I imagine, the scallop-shell of romance, for there are no scallops to be

found here. My companion was very anxious to obtain some genuine

scallop-shells, as they form part of his arms; but they, as well as the

palm branches, carried home by all palmers on their return from the Holy

Land, are as rare here as they are in England. This is the more

remarkable, as the medal struck by Vespasian on the subjection of this

country represents a woman in an attitude of mourning seated under a

palm-tree with the legend "Judæa capta;" so there may have been palms in

those days. I was going to say there _must_ have been: but on second

thoughts it does not follow that there should have been palms in Judæa,

because the Romans put them on a medal, any more than that there should

be unicorns in England because we represent them on our coins. However,

all this is a digression: we must return to our dead men. There were

sixteen or seventeen of them, all stiff and stark, lying in the court,

nicely wrapped up in their shrouds, like parcels ready to be sent off to

the other world: but at the end of the row lay one man in a brown dress;

he was one of the lower class--a muleteer, perhaps, a strong, well-made

man; but he was not in a shroud. He had died fighting, and there he lay

with his knees drawn up, his right arm above his head, and in his hand

the jacket of another man, which could not now be released from his

grasp, so tightly had his strong hand been clenched in the

death-struggle. This figure took a strong hold on my imagination; there

was something wild and ghastly in its appearance, different from the

quiet attitude of the other victims of the fight in which I also had

been engaged. It put me in mind of all manner of horrible old stories of

ghosts and goblins with which my memory was well stored; and I went to

bed with my head so occupied by these traditions of gloom and ignorance

that I could not sleep, or if I did for awhile, I woke up again and

still went on thinking of the old woman of Berkeley, and the fire-king,

and the stories in Scott's 'Discovery of Witchcraft,' and the 'Hierarchy

of the Blessed Aungelles,' and Caxton's 'Golden Legende'--all books

wherein I delighted to pore, till I could not help getting out of bed

again to have another look at the ghastly regiment in the court below.

I leant against the heavy stone mullions of the window, which was

barred, but without glass, and gazed I know not how long. There they all

were, still and quiet; some in the full moonlight, and some half

obscured by the shadow of the buildings. In the morning I had walked

with them, living men, such as I was myself, and now how changed they

were! Some of them I had spoken to, as they lived in the same court with

me, and I had taken an interest in their occupations: now I would not

willingly have touched them, and even to look at them was terrible! What

little difference there is in appearance between the same men asleep and

dead! and yet what a fearful difference in fact, not to themselves only,

but to those who still remained alive to look upon them! Whilst I was

musing upon these things the wind suddenly arose, the doors and shutters

of the half-uninhabited monastery slammed and grated upon their hinges;

and as the moon, which had been obscured, again shone clearly on the

court below, I saw the dead muleteer with the jacket which he held

waving in the air, the grimmest figure I ever looked upon. His face was

black from the violence of his death, and he seemed like an evil spirit

waving on his ghastly crew; and as the wind increased, the shrouds of

some of the dead men fluttered in the night air as if they responded to

his call. The clouds, passing rapidly over the moon, east such shadows

on the corpses in their shrouds, that I could almost have fancied they

were alive again. I returned to bed, and thanked God that I was not also

laid out with them in the court below.

In the morning I awoke at a late hour and looked out into the court; the

muleteer and most of the other bodies were removed, and people were

going about their business as if nothing had occurred, excepting that

every now and then I heard the wail of women lamenting for the dead.

Three hundred was the number reported to have been carried out of the

gates to their burial-places that morning; two hundred more were badly

wounded, many of whom probably died, for there were no physicians or

surgeons to attend them, and it was supposed that others were buried in

the courts and gardens of the city by their surviving friends; so that

the precise number of those who perished was not known.

When we reflect in what place and to commemorate what event the great

multitude of Christian pilgrims had thus assembled from all parts of the

world, the fearful visitation which came upon them appears more dreadful

than if it had occurred under other circumstances. They had entered the

sacred walls to celebrate the most joyful event which is recorded in the

Scriptures. By the resurrection of our Saviour was proved not only his

triumph over the grave, but the truth of the religion which He taught;

and the anniversary of that event has been kept in all succeeding ages

as the great festival of the Church. On the morning of this hallowed day

throughout the Christian world the bells rang merrily, the altars were

decked with flowers, and all men gave way to feelings of exultation and

joy; in an hour everything was turned to mourning, lamentation, and woe!

There was a time when Jerusalem was the most prosperous and favoured

city of the world; then "all her ways were pleasantness, and all her

paths were peace;" "plenteousness was in her palaces;" and "Jerusalem

was the joy of the whole earth."

But since the awful crime which was committed there, the Lord has poured

out the vials of his wrath upon the once chosen city; dire and fearful

have been the calamities which have befallen her in terrible succession

for eighteen hundred years. Fury and desolation, hand in hand, have

stalked round the precincts of the guilty spot; and Jerusalem has been

given up to the spoiler and the oppressor.

The day following the occurrences which have been related, I had a long

interview with Ibrahim Pasha, and the conversation turned naturally on

the blasphemous impositions of the Greek and Armenian patriarchs, who,

for the purposes of worldly gain, had deluded their ignorant followers

with the performance of a trick in relighting the candles which had been

extinguished on Good Friday with fire which they affirmed to have been

sent down from heaven in answer to their prayers. The Pasha was quite

aware of the evident absurdity which I brought to his notice, of the

performance of a Christian miracle being put off for some time, and

being kept in waiting for the convenience of a Mahometan prince. It was

debated what punishment was to be awarded to the Greek patriarch for the

misfortunes which had been the consequence of his jugglery, and a number

of the purses which he had received from the unlucky pilgrims passed

into the coffers of the Pasha's treasury. I was sorry that the falsity

of this imposture was not publicly exposed, as it was a good opportunity

of so doing. It seems wonderful that so barefaced a trick should

continue to be practised every year in these enlightened times; but it

has its parallel in the blood of St. Januarius, which is still liquefied

whenever anything is to be gained by the exhibition of that astonishing

act of priestly impertinence. If Ibrahim Pasha had been a Christian,

probably this would have been the last Easter of the lighting of the

holy fire; but from the fact of his religion being opposed to that of

the monks, he could not follow the example of Louis XIV., who having put

a stop to some clumsy imposition which was at that time bringing scandal

on the Church, a paper was found nailed upon the door of the sacred

edifice the day afterwards, on which the words were read--

"De part du roi, défense à Dieu

De faire miracle en ce lieu."

The interference of a Mahometan in such a case as this would only have

been held as another persecution of the Christians; and the miracle of

the holy fire has continued to be exhibited every year with great

applause, and luckily without the unfortunate results which accompanied

it on this occasion.

Ibrahim Pasha, though by no means the equal of Mehemet Ali in talents or

attainments, was an enlightened man for a Turk. Though bold in battle,

he was kind to those who were about him; and the cruelties practised by

his troops in the Greek and Syrian wars are to be ascribed more to the

system of Eastern warfare than to the savage disposition of their

commander.

He was born at Cavalla, in Roumelia, in the year 1789, and died at

Alexandria on the 10th of November, 1848. He was the son, according to

some, of Mehemet Ali, but, according to others, of the wife of the great

Viceroy of Egypt by a former husband. At the age of seventeen he joined

his father's army, and in 1816 he commanded the expedition against the

Wahabees--a sect who maintained that nothing but the Koran was to be

held in any estimation by Mahometans, to the exclusion of all notes,

explanations, and commentaries, which have in many cases usurped the

authority of the text. They called themselves reformers, and, like King

Henry VIII., took possession of the golden water-spouts and other

ornaments of the Kaaba, burned the books and destroyed the colleges of

the Arabian theologians, and carried off everything they could lay hold

of, on religious principles. An eye-witness told me that some of the

followers of Abd el Wahab had found a good-sized looking-glass in a

house at Sanaa, which they were carrying away with great difficulty

through the desert, the porters being guarded by a multitude of

half-naked warriors, who had neglected all other plunder in the

supposition that they had got hold of the diamond of Jemshid, a

pre-Adamite monarch famous in the annals of Arabian history. Some more

of these wild people found several bags of doubloons at Mocha, which

they conceived to be dollars that had been spoiled somehow, and had

turned yellow, for they had never seen any before. A "smart" captain of

an American vessel at Jedda, who was consulted on the occasion, kindly

gave them one real white dollar for four yellow ones--an arrangement

which perfectly satisfied both parties. After three years' campaign,

Ibrahim Pasha retook the holy cities of Mecca and Medina; and in

December, 1819, he made his triumphant entry into Cairo, when he was

invested with the title of Vizir and made Pasha of the Hedjaz by the

Sultan--a dignity more exalted than that of the Pasha of Egypt.

In 1824 he commanded the armies of the Sultan, which were sent to put

down the rebellion of the Greeks: he sailed from Alexandria with a fleet

of 163 vessels, 16,000 infantry, 700 cavalry, and four regiments of

artillery. Numerous captives were made in the Morea, and the

slave-markets were stocked with Greek women and children who had been

captured by the soldiers of the Turkish army. The battle of Navarino, in

1827, ended in the destruction of the Mahometan fleets; and thousands of

slaves, who were forced to fight against their intended deliverers,

being chained to their guns, sunk with the ships which were destroyed by

the cannon of the allied forces of England, France, and Russia.

In 1831 Mehemet Ali undertook to wrest Syria from the Sultan his master.

Ibrahim Pasha commanded his army of about 30,000 men, under the tuition,

however, of a Frenchman, Colonel Sève, who had denied the Christian

faith on Christmas-day, and was afterwards known as Suleiman Pasha. The

Egyptian troops soon became masters of the Holy Land; Gaza, Jaffa,

Jerusalem, and Acre fell before their victorious arms; and on the 22nd

of December, 1832, Ibrahim Pasha, with an army of 30,000 men, defeated

60,000 Turks at Koniah, who had been sent against him by Sultan Mahmoud,

under the command of Reschid Pasha.

Ibrahim had advanced as far as Kutayeh, on his way to Constantinople,

when his march was stopped by the interference of European diplomacy.

The Sultan, having made another effort to recover his dominions in

Syria, sent an army against Ibrahim, which was utterly routed at the

battle of Negib, on the 24th of June, 1839.

This defeat was principally owing to the Seraskier (the Turkish general)

refusing to follow the counsels of Jochmus Pasha, a German officer, who,

in distinguished contrast to the unhappy Suleiman, retained the religion

of his fathers and the esteem of honest men.

His career was again checked by European policy, which, if it had any

right to interfere at all, would have benefited the cause of humanity

more by doing so before Egypt was drained of nearly all its able-bodied

men, and Syria given up to the horrors of a long and cruel war.

The great powers of England, Austria, Russia, and Prussia now combined

to restore the wasted provinces of Syria to the Porte; a fleet menaced

the shores of the Holy Land; Acre was attacked, and taken in four hours

by the accidental explosion of a powder-magazine, which almost destroyed

what remained from former sieges of the habitable portion of the town.

Ibrahim Pasha evacuated Syria, and retired to Egypt, where he amused

himself with agriculture, and planting trees, always his favourite

pursuit: the trees which he had planted near Cairo have already reduced

the temperature in their vicinity several degrees.

In 1846 he went to Europe for the benefit of his health, and extended

his tour to England, where he was much struck with the industry that

pervaded all classes, and its superiority in railways and works of

utility to the other countries of Europe. "Yes," said he to me at

Mivart's Hotel; "in France there is more fantasia; in England there is

more roast beef." I observed that he was surprised at the wealth

displayed at one or two parties in some great houses in London at which

he was present. Whether he had lost his memory in any degree at that

time, I do not know; but on my recalling to him the great danger he had

been in at Jerusalem, of which he entertained a very lively

recollection, he could not remember the name of the Bey who was killed

there, although he was the only person of any rank in his suite, with

the exception of Selim Bey Selicdar, his swordbearer, with whom I

afterwards became acquainted in Egypt.

In consequence of the infirmities of Mehemet Ali, whose great mind had

become unsettled in his old age, Ibrahim was promoted by the present

Sultan to the Vice-royalty of Egypt, on the 1st of September, 1848. His

constitution, which had long been undermined by hardship, excess, and

want of care, gave way at length, and on the 10th of November of the

same year his body was carried to the tomb which his father had prepared

for his family near Cairo, little thinking at the time that he should

live to survive his sons Toussoun, Ismail, and Ibrahim, who have all

descended before him to their last abode.

In personal appearance Ibrahim Pasha was a short, broad-shouldered man,

with a red face, small eyes, and a heavy though cunning expression of

countenance. He was as brave as a lion; his habits and ideas were rough

and coarse; he had but little refinement in his composition; but,

although I have often seen him abused for his cruelty in European

newspapers, I never heard any well-authenticated anecdote of his

cruelty, and do not believe that he was by any means of a savage

disposition, nor that his troops rivalled in any way the horrors

committed in Algeria by the civilized and fraternising French. He was a

bold, determined soldier. He had that reverence and respect for his

father which is so much to be admired in the patriarchal customs of the

East; and it is not every one who has lived for years in the enjoyment

of absolute power uncontrolled by the admonitions of a Christian's

conscience that could get out of the scrape so well, or leave a better

name upon the page of history than that of Ibrahim Pasha.

After the fearful catastrophe in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, the

whole host of pilgrims seem to have become panic struck, and every one

was anxious to escape from the city. There was a report, too, that the

plague had broken out, and we with the rest made instant preparation for

our departure. In consequence of the numbers who had perished, there

was no difficulty in hiring baggage-horses; and we immediately procured

as many as we wanted: tents were loaded on some; beds and packages of

all sorts and sizes were tied on others, with but slight regard to

balance and compactness; and on the afternoon of the 6th of May we

rejoiced to find ourselves once more out of the walls of Jerusalem, and

riding at our leisure along the pleasant fields fresh with the flowers

of spring, a season charming in all countries, but especially delightful

in the sultry climate of the Holy Land.

MONASTERIES OF THE LEVANT.

PART III.

THE MONASTERIES OF METEORA.

[Illustration: VIEW OF THE MONASTERY OF SAINT BARLAAM, AT METEORA].

CHAPTER XVII.

Albania--Ignorance at Corfu concerning that Country--Its reported

abundance of Game and Robbers--The Disturbed State of the

Country--The Albanians--Richness of their Arms--Their free use of

them--Comparative Safety of Foreigners--Tragic Fate of a German

Botanist--Arrival at Gominitza--Ride to Paramathia--A Night's

Bivouac--Reception at Paramathia--Albanian Ladies--Yanina--Albanian

Mode of settling a Quarrel--Expected Attack from Robbers--A

Body-Guard mounted--Audience with the Vizir--His Views of Criminal

Jurisprudence--Retinue of the Vizir--His Troops--Adoption of the

European Exercises--Expedition to Berat--Calmness and

Self-possession of the Turks--Active Preparations for

Warfare--Scene at the Bazaar--Valiant Promises of the Soldiers.

_Corfu, Friday, Oct. 31, 1834._--I found I could get no information

respecting Albania at Corfu, though the high mountains of Epirus seemed

almost to over-hang the island. No one knew anything about it, except

that it was a famous place for snipes! It appeared never to have struck

traveller or tourist that there was anything in Albania except snipes;

whereof one had shot fifteen brace, and another had shot many more, only

he did not bring them home, having lost the dead birds in the bushes.

There were some woodcocks also, it was generally believed, and some

spake of wild boars, but I had not the advantage of meeting with anybody

who could specifically assert that he had shot one: and besides these

there were robbers in multitudes. As to that point every one was agreed.

Of robbers there was no end: and just at this particular time there was

a revolution, or rebellion, or pronunciamiento, or a general election,

or something of that sort, going on in Albania; for all the people who

came over from thence said that the whole country was in a ferment. In

fact there seemed to be a general uproar taking place, during which each

party of the free and independent mountaineers deemed it expedient to

show their steady adherence to their own side of the question by

shooting at any one they saw, from behind a stone or a tree, for fear

that person might accidentally be a partizan of the opposite faction.

[Illustration: TATAR, OR GOVERNMENT MESSENGER]

The Albanians are great dandies about their arms: the scabbard of their

yataghan, and the stocks of their pistols, are almost always of silver,

as well as their three or four little cartridge boxes, which are

frequently gilt, and sometimes set with garnets and coral; an Albanian

is therefore worth shooting, even if he is not of another way of

thinking from the gentleman who shoots him. As I understood, however,

that they did not shoot so much at Franks because they usually have

little about them worth taking, and are not good to eat, I conceived

that I should not run any great risk; and I resolved, therefore,

not to be thwarted in my intention of exploring some of the monasteries

of that country. There is another reason also why Franks are seldom

molested in the East--every Arab or Albanian knows that if a Frank has a

gun in his hand, which he generally has, there are two probabilities,

amounting almost to certainties, with respect to that weapon. One is,

that it is loaded; and the other that, if the trigger is pulled, there

is a considerable chance of its going off. Now these are circumstances

which apply in a much slighter degree to the magazine of small arms

which he carries about his own person. But, beyond all this, when a

Frank is shot there is such a disturbance made about it! Consuls write

letters--pashas are stirred up--guards, kawasses, and tatars gallop like

mad about the country, and fire pistols in the air, and live at free

quarters in the villages; the murderer is sought for everywhere, and he,

or somebody else, is hanged to please the consul; in addition to which

the population are beaten with thick sticks ad libitum. All this is

extremely disagreeable, and therefore we are seldom shot at, the pastime

being too dearly paid for.

The last Frank whom I heard of as having been killed in Albania was a

German, who was studying botany. He rejoiced in a blue coat and brass

buttons, and wandered about alone, picking up herbs and flowers on the

mountains, which he put carefully into a tin box. He continued

unmolested for some time, the universal opinion being that he was a

powerful magician, and that the herbs he was always gathering would

enable him to wither up his enemies by some dreadful charm, and also to

detect every danger which menaced him. Two or three Albanians had

watched him for several days, hiding themselves carefully behind the

rocks whenever the philosopher turned towards them; and at last one of

the gang, commending himself to all his saints, rested his long gun upon

a stone and shot the German through the body. The poor man rolled over,

but the Albanian did not venture from his hiding-place until he had

loaded his gun again, and then, after sundry precautions, he came out,

keeping his eye upon the body, and with his friends behind him, to

defend him in case of need. The botanizer, however, was dead enough, and

the disappointment of the Albanians was extreme, when they found that

his buttons were brass and not gold, for it was the supposed value of

these precious ornaments that had incited them to the deed.

I procured some letters of introduction to different persons, sent my

English servant and most of my effects to England, and hired a youth to

act in the double capacity of servant and interpreter during the

journey. One of my friends at Corfu was good enough to procure me the

use of a great boat, with I do not know how many oars, belonging to

government; and in it I was rowed over the calm bright sea twenty-four

miles to Gominitza, where I arrived in five hours. Here I hired three

horses with pack-saddles, one for my baggage, one for my servant, and

one for myself; and away we went towards Paramathia, which place we were

told was four hours off. Paramathia is said to be built upon the site of

Dodona, although the exact situation of the oracle is not ascertained;

but some of the finest bronzes extant were found there thirty or forty

years ago, part of which went to Russia, and part came into the

possession of Mr. Hawkins, of Bignor, in Sussex, where they are still

preserved.

Our horses were not very good, and our roads were worse; and we

scrambled and stumbled over the rocks, up and down hill, all the

afternoon, without approaching, as it seemed to me, towards any

inhabited place. It was now becoming dark, and the muleteers said we had

six hours more to do; it was then seven o'clock, P.M.; we could see

nothing, and were upon the top of a hill, where there were plenty of

stones and some low bushes, through which we were making our way

vaguely, suiting ourselves as to a path, and turning our faces towards

any point of the compass which we thought most agreeable, for it did not

appear that any of the party knew the way. We now held a council as to

what was best to be done; and as we saw lights in some houses about a

mile off, I desired one of the muleteers to go there and see if we could

get a lodging for the night. "Go to a house?" said the muleteer, "you

don't suppose we could be such fools as to go to a house in Albania,

where we know nobody?" "No!" said I, "why not?" "Because we should be

murdered, of course," said he; "that is if they thought themselves

strong enough to venture to undo their doors and let us in; otherwise

they would pretend there was nobody in the house, or fire at us out of

the window and set the dogs at us; or----" "Oh!" I replied, "that is

quite sufficient; I have no desire to trouble your excellent countrymen,

only I don't precisely see what else we are to do just now on the top of

this hill. How are they off for wolves in this neighbourhood?" "Why,"

quoth my friend, "I hope you understand that if anything happens to my

horses you are bound to reimburse me: as for ourselves, we are armed,

and must take our chance; but I don't think there are many wolves here

yet; they don't come down from the mountains quite so soon: though

certainly it is getting cold already. But we had better sleep here at

all events, and at dawn we shall be able, perhaps, to make out a little

better where we have got to." There being nothing else for it, we tied

the horses' legs together, and I lay down on a travelling carpet by the

side of my servant, under the cover of a bush. Awfully cold it was: the

horses trembled and shook themselves every now and then, and held their

heads down, and I tried all sorts of postures in hopes of making myself

snug, but every change was from bad to worse; I could not get warm any

how, and a remarkable fact was, that the more sharp stones I picked out

from under the carpet the more numerous and sharper were those that

remained: my only comfort was to hear the muleteers rolling about too,

and anathematizing the stones most lustily. However, I went to sleep in

course of time, and was, as it appeared to me, instantaneously awakened

by some one shaking me, and telling me it was four o'clock and time to

start. It was still as dark as ever, except that a few stars were

visible, and we recommenced our journey, stumbling and scrambling about

as we had done before, till we came to a place where the horses stopped

of their own accord. This it seemed was a ledge of rock above a

precipice, about two hundred feet deep, as I judged by the reflection of

the stars in the stream which ran below. The dimness of the light made

the place look more dangerous and difficult than perhaps it really was.

It seems, however, that we were lucky in finding it, for there was no

other way off the hill except by this ledge, which was about twelve feet

broad. We got off our horses and led them down; they had probably often

been there before, for they made no difficulty about it, and in a few

hundred yards, the road becoming better, we mounted again, and after

five hours' travelling arrived at Paramathia. Just before entering the

place we met a party on foot, armed to the teeth, and all carrying

their long guns. One of these gentlemen politely asked me if I had a

spare purse about me, or any money which I could turn over to his

account; but as I looked very dirty and shabby, and as we were close to

the town, he did not press his demand, but only asked by which road I

intended to leave it. I told him I should remain there for the present,

and as we had now reached the houses, he took his departure, to my great

satisfaction.

On inquiring for the person to whom I had a letter of introduction, I

found he was a shopkeeper who sold cloth in the bazaar. We accordingly

went to his shop and found him sitting among his merchandise. When he

had read the letter he was very civil, and shutting up his shop, walked

on before us to show me the way to his house. It was a very good one,

and the best room was immediately given up to me, two old ladies and

three or four young ones being turned out in a most summary manner. One

or two of the girls were very pretty, and they all vied with each other

in their attentions to their guest, looking at me with great curiosity,

and perpetually peeping at me through the curtain which hung over the

door, and running away when they thought they were observed.

The prettiest of these damsels had only been married a short time: who

her husband was, or where he lived, I could not make out, but she amused

me by her anxiety to display her smart new clothes. She went and put on

a new capote, a sort of white frock coat, without sleeves, embroidered

in bright colours down the seams, which showed her figure to advantage;

and then she took it off again, and put on another garment, giving me

ample opportunity of admiring its effect. I expressed my surprise and

admiration in bad Greek, which, however, the fair Albanian appeared to

find no difficulty in understanding. She kindly corrected some of my

sentences, and I have no doubt I should have improved rapidly under her

care, if she had not always run away whenever she heard any one creaking

about on the rickety boards of the ante-room and staircase. The other

ladies, who were settling themselves in a large gaunt room close by,

kept up an interminable clatter, and displayed such unbounded powers of

conversation, that it seemed impossible that any one of them could hear

what all the others said; till at last the master of the house came up

again, and then there was a lull. He told me that I could not hire

horses till the afternoon, and as that would have been too late to

start, I determined to remain where I was till the next morning. I

passed the day in wandering about the place, and considering whether,

upon the whole, the dogs or the men of Paramathia were the most savage:

for the dogs looked like wolves, and the men like arrant cut-throats,

swaggering about, idle and restless, with their long hair, and guns, and

pistols, and yataghans; they have none of the composure of the Turks,

who delight to sit still in a coffee-house and smoke their pipes, or

listen to a story, which saves them the trouble of thinking or speaking.

The Albanians did not scream and chatter as the Arabs do, or as their

ladies were doing in the houses, but they lounged about the bazaars

listlessly, ready to pick a quarrel with any one, and unable to fix

themselves down to any occupation; in short they gave me the idea of

being a very poor and proud, and good-for-nothing set of scamps.

_November 2nd._--The next morning at five o'clock I was on horseback

again, and after riding over stones and rocks, and frequently in the bed

of a stream, for fourteen hours, I arrived in the evening at Yanina. I

was disappointed with the first view of the place. The town is built on

the side of a sloping hill above the lake; and as my route lay over the

top of this hill, I could see but little of the town until I was quite

among the houses, most of which were in a ruinous condition. The lake

itself, with an island in it on which are the ruins of a palace built by

the famous Ali Pasha, is a beautiful object; but the mountains by which

it is bounded on the opposite side are barren, yet not sufficiently

broken to be picturesque. The scene altogether put me in mind of the

Lake of Genesareth as seen from its western shore near Tiberias. There

is a plain to the north and north-west, which is partially cultivated,

but it is inferior in beauty to the plains of Jericho, and there is no

river like the Jordan to light up the scene with its quick and sparkling

waters as it glistens among the trees in its journey towards the lake.

I went to the house of an Italian gentleman who was the principal

physician of Yanina, and who I understood was in the habit of affording

accommodation to travellers in his house. He received me with great

kindness, and gave me an excellent set of rooms, consisting of a bed

room, sitting room, and ante-room, all of them much better than those

which I occupied in the hotel at Corfu: they were clean and nicely

furnished; and altogether the excellence of my quarters in the

dilapidated capital of Albania surprised me most agreeably.

The town appears never to have been repaired since the wars and

revolutions which occurred at the time of Ali Pasha's death. The houses

resemble those of Greece or southern Italy; they are built, some of

stone, and some of wood, with tiled roofs. On the walls of many of them

there were vines growing. The bazaars are poor, yet I saw very rich arms

displayed in some mean little shops, or stalls, as we should call them;

for they are all open, like the booths at a fair. The climate is rainy,

and there is no lack of mud in wet weather, and dust when it is dry. The

whole place had a miserable appearance, nothing seemed to be going on,

and the people have a savage, hang-dog look.

I had a good supper and a good bed, and was awakened the next morning by

hearing the servants loud in talk about the news of the day. The subject

was truly Albanian. A man who had a shop in the bazaar had quarrelled

yesterday with some of his fellow townsmen, and in the night they took

him out of his bed and cut him to pieces with their yataghans on the

hill above the town. Some people coming by early this morning saw

various joints of this unlucky man lying on the ground as they passed.

I occupied myself in looking about the place; and having sent to the

palace of the vizir to request an audience, it was fixed for the next

day. There was not much to see; but I afforded a subject of

uninterrupted discussion to all beholders, as it appeared I was the only

traveller who had been there for some time. I went to bed early because

I had no books to read, and it was a bore trying to talk Greek to my

host's family; but I had not been asleep long before I was awakened by

the intelligence that a party of robbers had concealed themselves in the

ruins round the house, and that we should probably be attacked. Up we

all got, and loaded our guns and pistols: the women kept flying about

everywhere, and, when they ran against each other in the dark, screamed

wofully, as they took everybody for a robber. We had no lights, that we

might not afford good marks for the enemy outside, who, however, kept

quiet, and did not shoot at us, although every now and then we saw a

man or two creeping about among the ruins. My host, who was armed with a

gun of prodigious length, was in a state of great alarm; and, having

sent for assistance, twenty soldiers arrived, who kept guard round the

house, but would not venture among the ruins. These valiant heroes

relieved each other during the night; but, as no robbers made their

appearance, I got tired of watching for them, and went quietly to bed

again.

_November 4th._--At nine o'clock in the morning I paid my respects to

the Vizir, Mahmoud Pasha, a man with a long nose, and who altogether

bore a great resemblance to Pope Benedict XV [XVI in the original (n. of

etext transcriber). I stayed some hours with him, talking over Turkish

matters; and we got into a brisk argument as to whether England was part

of London, or London part of England. He appeared to be a remarkably

good-natured man, and took great interest in the affairs of Egypt, from

which country I had lately arrived, and asked me numberless questions

about Mehemet Ali, comparing his character with that of Ali Pasha, who

had built this palace, which was in a very ruinous state, for nothing

had been expended to keep it in repair. The hall of audience was a

magnificent room, richly decorated with inlaid work of mother-of-pearl

and tortoiseshell: the ceiling was gilt, and the windows of Venetian

plate-glass, but some of them were broken: the floor was loose and

almost dangerous; and two holes in the side walls, which had been made

by a cannon-ball, were stopped up with pieces of deal board roughly

nailed upon the costly inlaid panels. The divan was of red cloth; and a

crowd of men, with their girdles stuck full of arms, stood leaning on

their long guns at the bottom of the room, listening to our

conversation, and laughing loudly whenever a joke was made, but never

coming forward beyond the edge of the carpet.

The Pasha offered to give me an escort, as he said that the country at

that moment was particularly unsafe; but at length it was settled that

he should give me a letter to the commander of the troops at Mezzovo,

who would supply me with soldiers to see me safely to the monasteries of

Meteora. When I arose to take my leave, he sent for more pipes and

coffee, as a signal for me to remain; in short, we became great friends.

Whilst I was with him a pasha of inferior rank came in, and sat on the

divan for half an hour without saying a single word or doing anything

except looking at me unceasingly. After he had taken his departure we

had some sherbet; and at last I got away, leaving the Pasha in great

wonderment at the English government paying large sums of money for the

transportation of criminals, when cutting off their heads would have

been so much more economical and expeditious. Incurring any expense to

keep rogues and vagabonds in prison, or to send them away from our own

country to be the plague of other lands, appeared to him to be an

extraordinary act of folly; and that thieves should be fed and clothed

and lodged, while poor and honest people were left to starve, he

considered to be contrary to common sense and justice. I laughed at the

time at what I thought the curious opinions of the Vizir of Yanina; I

have since come to the conclusion that there was some sense in his

notions of criminal jurisprudence.

In the afternoon, as I was looking out of the window of my lodging, I

saw the Vizir going by with a great number of armed people, and I was

told that in the present disturbed state of the country he never went

out to take a ride without all these attendants. First came a hundred

lancers on horseback, dressed in a kind of European uniform; then two

horsemen, each with a pair of small kettle-drums attached to the front

of his saddle. They kept up an unceasing pattering upon these drums as

they rode along. This is a Tartar or Persian custom; and in some parts

of Tartary the dignity of khan is conferred by strapping these two

little drums on the back of the person whom the king delighteth to

honour; and then the king beats the drums as the new khan walks slowly

round the court. Thus a thing is reckoned a great honour in one part of

the world which in another is accounted a disgrace; for when a soldier

is incorrigible, we drum him out of the regiment, whilst the Tartar khan

is drummed into his dignity. After the drummers came a brilliantly

dressed company of kawasses, with silver pistols and yataghans; then

several trumpeters; and after them the Vizir himself on a fine tall

horse; he was dressed in the new Turkish Frank style, with the usual red

cap on his head; but he had an immense red cloth cloak sumptuously

embroidered with gold, which quite covered him, so that no part of the

great man was visible, except his two eyes, his nose, and one of his

hands, upon which was a splendid diamond ring. Two grooms walked by the

sides of his horse, each with one hand on the back of the saddle. Every

one bowed as the Vizir went by; and I became a distinguished person from

the moment that he gave me a condescending nod. The procession was

closed by a crowd of officers and attendants on horseback in gorgeous

Albanian dresses, with silver bridles and embroidered housings. They

carried what I thought at first were spears, but I soon discovered that

they were long pipes; there was quite a forest of them, of all lengths

and sizes. When the Vizir was gone and the dust subsided, I strolled out

of the town on foot, when I came upon the troops, who were learning the

new European exercise. Seeing a man sitting on a carpet in the middle of

the plain, I went up to him and found that he was the colonel and

commander of this army; so I smoked a pipe with him, and discovered that

he knew about as much of tactics and military manœuvres as I did, only

he did not take so much interest in the subject. We therefore

continued to smoke the pipe of peace on the carpet of reflection, while

the soldiers entangled themselves in all sorts of incomprehensible

doublings and counter-marches, till at last the whole body was so much

puzzled, that they stood still all of a heap, like a cluster of bees.

The captains shouted, and the poor men turned round and round, trod on

each other's heels, kicked each other's shins, and did all they could to

get out of the scrape, but they only got more into confusion. At last a

bright thought struck the colonel, who took his pipe out of his mouth,

and gave orders, in the name of the Prophet, that every man should go

home in the best way he could. This they accomplished like a party of

schoolboys, running and jumping and walking off in small parties towards

the town. The officers wiped the perspiration from their foreheads, and

strolled off too, some to smoke a pipe under a tree, and some to repose

on their divans and swear at the Franks who had invented such

extraordinary evolutions.

[Illustration: TURKISH COMMON SOLDIER.]

In the evening, among the other news of the day, I was told that three

men had been walking together in the afternoon; one of them bought a

melon, and his two companions, who were very thirsty, but had no money,

asked him to give them some of it. He would not do so; and, as they

worried him about it, he ran into an empty house, and, bolting the door,

sat down inside to discuss his purchase in quiet. The other two were

determined not to be jockeyed in that manner, and, finding a hole in the

door, they peeped through, and were enraged at seeing him eating the

melon inside. He jeered them, and said that the melon was excellent;

until at last one of them swore he should not eat it all, and, putting

his pistol through the hole in the door, shot his friend dead; they then

walked away, laughing at their own cleverness in shooting him so neatly

through the hole.

_November 5th._--The next day I went again to the citadel to see the

Vizir, but he could not receive me, as news had arrived that the

insurgents or robbers--they had entitled themselves to either

denomination--had gathered together in force and laid siege to the town

of Berat. There had been a good deal of confusion in Yanina before this,

but now it appeared to have arrived at a climax. The courtyard of the

citadel was full of horses picketed by their head-and-heel ropes, in

long rows; parties of men were, according to their different habits,

talking over the events of the day,--the Albanians chattering and

putting themselves in attitudes; the Arnaouts or Mahometans of Greek

blood boasting of the chivalric feats which they intended to perform;

and the grave Turks sitting quietly on the ground, smoking their eternal

pipes, and taking it all as easily as if they had nothing to do with it.

Both before and since these days I have seen a great deal of the Turks;

and though, for many reasons, I do not respect them as a nation, still

I cannot help admiring their calmness and self-possession in moments of

difficulty and danger. There is something noble and dignified in their

quietness on these occasions: I have very rarely seen a Turk

discomposed; stately and collected, he sits down and bides his time; but

when the moment of action comes, he will rouse himself on a sudden, and

become full of fire, animation, and activity. It is then that you see

the descendant of those conquerors of the East, whose strong will and

fierce courage have given them the command over all the nations of

Islam.

Although I could not obtain an audience with the vizir, one of the

people who were with me managed to send a message to him that I should

be glad of the letter, or firman, which he had promised me, and by which

I might command the services of an escort, if I thought fit to do so.

This man had influence at court; for he had a friend who was chiboukji

to the vizir's secretary, or prime minister--a sly Greek, whose

acquaintance I had made two days before. The pipe-bearer, propitiated by

a trifling bribe, spoke to his master, and he spoke to the vizir, who

promised I should have the letter; and it came accordingly in the

evening, properly signed and sealed, and all in heathen Greek, of which

I could make out a word here and there; but what it was about was

entirely beyond my comprehension.

Whilst waiting the result of these negotiations I had leisure to notice

the warlike movements which were going on around me. I saw a train of

two or three hundred men on horseback issuing out from the citadel, and

riding slowly along the plain in the direction of Berat. They were sent

to raise the siege; and other troops were preparing to follow them. As I

watched these horsemen winding across the plain in a long line, with the

sun glancing upon their arms, they seemed like a great serpent, with its

glittering scales, gliding along to seek for its prey; and in some

respects the simile would hold good, for this detachment would be the

terror of the inhabitants of every district through which it passed.

Rapine, violence, and oppression would mark its course; friend and foe

would alike be plundered; and the villages which had not been burned by

the insurgent klephti would be sacked and ruined by the soldiers of the

government.

As I descended from the citadel I passed numerous parties of armed men,

all full of excitement about the plunder they would get, and the mighty

deeds they would perform; for the danger was a good way off, and they

were all brim-full of valour. In the bazaar all was business and bustle:

everybody was buying arms. Long guns and silver pistols, all ready

loaded, I believe, with fiery-looking flints as big as sandwiches,

wrapped up first in a bit of red cloth, and then in a sort of open work

of lead or tin, were being handed about; and the spirit of commerce was

in full activity. Great was the haggling among the dealers. One man

walked off with a mace; another, expecting to perform as mighty deeds as

Richard Cœur de Lion, bought an old battle-axe, and swung it about to

show how he would cut heads off with it before long. Another champion

had included among his warlike accoutrements a curious, ancient-looking

silver clock, which dangled by his side from a multitude of chains. It

was square in shape, and must have been provided with a strong

constitution inside if it could go while it was banged about at every

step the man took. This worthy, I imagine, intended to kill time, for

his purchase did not seem calculated to cope with any other enemy. He

had, however, two or three pistols and daggers in addition to his clock.

An oldish, hard-featured man was buying a quantity of that abominably

sour, white cheese which is the pride of Albania, and a quantity of

black olives, which he was cramming into a pair of old saddle-bags,

whilst his horse beside him was quietly munching his corn in a sack tied

over his nose. There was a look of calm efficiency about this man, which

contrasted strongly with the swaggering air of the crowd around him. He

was evidently an old hand; and I observed that he had laid in a stock of

ball-cartridges--an article in which but little money was spent by the

buyers of yataghans in silver sheaths and silver cartridge-boxes.

"Hallo! sir Frank," cried one or two of these gay warriors, "come out

with us to Berat: come and see us fight, and you will see something

worth travelling for."

"Ay," said I, "it's all up with the enemy: that's quite certain. They

will be in a pretty scrape, to be sure, when you arrive. I would not be

one of them for a good deal!"

"Sono molto feroce questi palicari," said my guide.

"Oh! yes, they are terrible fellows!" I replied.

"What does the Frank say?" they asked.

"He says you are terrible fellows."

"Ah! I think we are, indeed. But don't be afraid, Frank; don't be

afraid!"

"No," said I, "I won't; and I wish you good luck on your way to Berat

and back again."

This night the people had been so much occupied in purchasing the

implements of death that I heard no accounts of any new murders. In fact

it had been a dull day in that respect; but no doubt they would make up

for it before long.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Start for Meteora--Rencontre with a Wounded Traveller--Barbarity of

the Robbers--Albanian Innkeeper--Effect of the Turkish Language

upon the Greeks--Mezzovo--Interview with the chief Person in the

Village--Mount Pindus--Capture by Robbers--Salutary effects of

Swaggering--Arrival under Escort at the Robbers'

Head-Quarters--Affairs take a favourable turn--An unexpected

Friendship with the Robber Chief--The Khan of Malacash--Beauty of

the Scenery--Activity of our Guards--Loss of Character--Arrival at

Meteora.

_November 6th._--I had engaged a tall, thin, dismal-looking man, well

provided with pistols, knives, and daggers, as an additional servant,

for he was said to know all the passes of the mountains, which I thought

might be a useful accomplishment in case I had to avoid the more public

roads--or paths, rather--for roads there were none. I purchased a stock

of provisions, and hired five horses--three for myself and my men, one

for the muleteer, and the other for the baggage, which was well strapped

on, that the beast might gallop with it, as it was not very heavy. They

were pretty good horses--rough and hardy. Mine looked very hard at me

out of the corner of his eye when I got upon his back in the cold grey

dawn, as if to find out what sort of a person I was. By means of a stout

kourbatch--a sort of whip of rhinoceros hide which they use in Egypt--I

immediately gave him all the information he desired; and off we galloped

round the back part of the town, and, unquestioned by any one, we soon

found ourselves trotting along the plain by the south end of the lake of

Yanina. Here the waters from the lake disappear in an extraordinary

manner in a great cavern, or pit full of rocks and stones, through which

the water runs away into some subterranean channel--a dark and

mysterious river, which the dismal-looking man, my new attendant, said

came out into the light again somewhere in the Gulph of Arta. Before

long we got upon the remains of a fine paved road, like a Roman way,

which had been made by Ali Pasha. It was, however, out of repair, having

in places been swept away by the torrents, and was an impediment rather

than an assistance to travellers. This road led up to the hills; and,

having dismounted from my horse, I began scrambling and puffing up the

steep side of the mountain, stopping every now and then to regain my

breath and to admire the beautiful view of the calm lake and picturesque

town of Yanina.

As I was walking in advance of my company, I saw a man above me leading

a loaded mule. He was coming down the mountain, carefully picking his

way among the stones, and in a loud voice exhorting the mule to be

steady and keep its feet, although the mule was much the more

sure-footed of the two. As they passed me I was struck with the odd

appearance of the mule's burden: it consisted of a bundle of large

stones on one side, which served as a counterpoise to a packing-case on

the other, covered with a cloth, out of which peeped the head of a man,

with his long black hair hanging about a face as pale as marble. The box

in which he travelled not being more than four feet and a half long, I

supposed he must be a dwarf, and was laughing at his peculiar mode of

conveyance. The muleteer, observing from my dress that I was a Frank,

stopped his mule, when he came up to me, and asked me if I was a

physician, begging me to give my assistance to the man in the box, if I

knew anything of surgery, for he had had both his legs cut off by some

robbers on the way from Salonica, and he was now taking him to Yanina,

in hopes of finding some doctor there to heal his wounds. My laughter

was now turned into pity for the poor man, for I knew there was no help

for him at Yanina. I could do nothing for him; and the only hope was, as

his strength had borne him up so far on his journey, that when he got

rest at Yanina the wounds might heal of themselves. After expressing my

commiseration for him, and my hopes of his recovery, we parted company;

and as I stood looking at the mule, staggering and slipping among the

loose stones and rocks in the steep descent, it quite made me wince to

think of the pain the unfortunate traveller must be enduring, with the

raw stumps of his two legs rubbing and bumping against the end of his

short box. I was sorry I had not asked why the robbers had cut off his

legs, because, if it was their usual system, it was certainly more than

I bargained for. I had pretty nearly made up my mind to be robbed, but

had no intention whatever to lose my legs; so I sat down upon a rock,

and began calculating probabilities, until my party came up, and I

mounted my horse, who gave me another look with his cunning eye. We

continued on Ali Pasha's broken road until we reached the summit of the

mountain, where we made a short halt, that our horses might regain their

wind; and then began our descent, stumbling, and sliding, and scrambling

down, until we arrived at the bottom, where there was a miserable khan.

In this royal hotel, which was a mere shed, there was nothing to be

found except mine host, who had it all to himself. At last he made us

some coffee; and while our horses were feeding on our own corn, we sat

under the shade of a walnut-tree by the road-side. Our host, having

nothing which could be eaten or drank except the coffee, did not know

how in the world he could manage to get up a satisfactory bill. I saw

this very plainly in his puzzled and thoughtful looks; but at last a

bright thought struck him, and he charged a good round sum for the shade

of the walnut-tree. Now although I admired his ingenuity, I demurred at

the charge, particularly as the walnut-tree did not belong to him. It

was a wild tree, which everybody threw stones at as he passed by, to

bring down the nuts:--

"Nux ego juncta vise quae sum due crimine vitæ,

Attamen a cunctis saxibus usque petor."--Ovid.

Little did the unoffending walnut-tree think that its shade would be

brought forward as a cause of war; for then arose a fierce contest

between Greek oaths and Albanian maledictions, to which Arabic and

English lent their aid. Though there were no stones thrown, ten times as

many hard words were hurled backwards and forwards as there were walnuts

on the tree, showing a facility of expression and a redundance of

epithets which would have given a lesson to the most practised ladies of

Billingsgate.

When the horses were ready the khangee came up to me in a towering

passion, swearing that I should pay for sitting under the tree.

"Englishman," said he, "get up and pay me what I demand, or you shall

not leave this place, by all that is holy." "Kiupek oglou," said I,

without moving from the ground, "Oh, son of a dog! go and get my horse,

you chattering magpie!" These few words in the language of the conqueror

had a marvellous effect on the khangee. "What does his worship say?" he

inquired of the dismal-faced man. "Why, he says you had better go and

get his excellency's worship's most respectable horse, if you have any

regard for your life: so go! be off! vanish! don't stay there staring at

the illustrious traveller. 'Tis lucky for you he doesn't order us to

cut you up into cabobs; go and get the horse; and perhaps you'll be paid

for your coffee, bad as it was. His excellency is the pasha's, his

highness's, most particular intimate friend; and if his highness knew

what you had been saying, why, where would you be, O man?" The khangee,

who had intended to have had it all his own way, was taken terribly

aback at the sound of the Turkish tongue: he speedily put on my horse's

bridle, gave his nosebag to the muleteer, tightened up his girths,

helped the servants, and was suddenly converted into a humble submissive

drudge. The way in which anything Turkish is respected among the

conquered races in Syria or in Egypt can scarcely be imagined by those

who have not witnessed it.

Leaving the khangee to count his paras and piastres, with which, after

all, he was evidently well satisfied, we rode on down the valley by the

side of a brawling stream, which we crossed no less than thirty-nine

times during our day's journey. Our road lay through a magnificent

series of picturesque and savage gorges, between high rocks. Sometimes

we rode along the bed of the stream, and sometimes upon a ledge so far

above it that it looked like a silver ribbon in the sun. Every now and

then we came to a cataract or rapid, where the stream boiled and foamed

among the rocks, tossing up its spray, and drowning our voices in its

noise. In the course of about eight hours of continual scrambling up

and down all sorts of rocks, we found ourselves at another wretched

shelty dignified with the name of khan. Here, after a tolerable supper,

we all rolled ourselves up in the different corners of a sort of loft,

with our arms under our heads, and slept soundly until the morning.

_November 7th._--This day we continued along the banks of a stream, in

the direction of its source, until it dwindled to a mere rivulet, when

we left it and took to the hills at the base of another mountain. We

rode some way along a rocky path until, turning round a corner to the

left, we found ourselves at the town or village of Mezzovo. As Mahmoud

Pasha had supplied me with a firman and letters to the principal persons

at the several towns on my route, I looked out my Mezzovo letter, with

the intention of asking for an escort of a few soldiers to accompany me

through the passes of Mount Pindus, which were reported to be full of

robbers and cattiva gente of every sort and kind, the great extent of

the underwood of box-trees forming an impenetrable cover for those

minions of the moon.

Most of the population of Mezzovo turned out to see the procession of

the Milordos Inglesis as it entered the precincts of their ancient city,

and defiled into the market-place, in the middle of which was a great

tree, under whose shade sat and smoked a circle of grave and reverend

seignors, the aristocracy of the place; whereupon, holding the pasha's

letter in my hand, I cantered up to them. On seeing me advance towards

them, a broad-shouldered good-natured looking man, gorgeously dressed in

red velvet, embroidered all over with gold, though something tarnished

with the rain and weather, arose and stepped forward to meet me. "Here

is a letter," said I, "from his highness Mahmoud Pasha, vizir of Yanina,

to the chief personage of Mezzovo, whoever he may be, for there is no

name mentioned; so tell me who is the chief person in this city; where

is he to be found, for I desire to speak with him?" "You want the chief

person of Mezzovo?" replied the broad-shouldered man; "well, I think I

am the chief person here, am I not?" he asked of the assembled crowd

which had gathered together by this time. "Certainly, malista, oh yes,

you are the chief person of Mezzovo undoubtedly," they all cried out.

"Very well," said he, "then give me the letter." On my giving it to him,

he opened it in a very unceremonious manner; and, before he had half

read it, burst into a fit of laughing. "What are you laughing at?" said

I: "Is not that the vizir's letter?" "Oh!" said he, "you want guards, do

you, to protect you against the robbers, the klephti?" "Yes, I do; but I

do not see what there is to laugh at in that. I want some men to go with

me to Meteora; if you are the captain or commander here, give me an

escort, as I wish to be off at once: it is early now, and I can cross

the mountains before dark."

After a pause, he said, "Well, I am the captain; and you shall have men

who will protect you wherever you go. You are an Englishman, are you

not?" "Yes," I said, "I am." "Well, I like the English; and you

particularly." "Thank you," said I: and, after some more conversation,

he tore off a slip from the vizir's letter (a very unceremonious

proceeding in Albania), and, writing a few lines on it, he said, "Now

give this paper to the first soldiers you meet at the foot of Mount

Pindus, and all will be right." He then instructed the muleteer which

way to go. I took the paper, which was not folded up; but the

badly-written Romaic was unintelligible to me, so I put it into my

pocket, and away we went, my new friend waving his hand to us as we

passed out of the market-place; and we were soon trotting along through

the open country towards the hills which shoot out from the base of the

great chain of Mount Pindus, a mountain famous for having had Mount Ossa

put on the top of it by some of the giants when they were fighting

against Jupiter. As that respected deity got the better of the giants, I

presume he put Ossa back again; for which I felt very much obliged to

him, as Pindus seemed quite high enough and steep enough without any

addition.

We rode along, getting nearer and nearer to the mountains; and at

length we began to climb a steep rocky path on the side of a lofty hill

covered with box-trees. This path continued for some distance until we

came to a place where there was a ledge so narrow that two horses could

not go abreast. Here, as I was riding quietly along, I heard an

exclamation in front of "Robbers! robbers!" and sure enough, out of one

of the thickets of box-trees, there advanced three or four bright

gun-barrels, which were speedily followed by some gentlemen in dirty

white jackets and fustanellas; who, in a short and abrupt style of

eloquence, commanded us to stand. This of course we were obliged to do;

and as I was getting out my pistol, one of the individuals in white

presented his gun at me, and upon my looking round to see whether my

tall Albanian servant was preparing to support me, I saw him quietly

half-cock his gun and sling it back over his shoulder, at the name time

shaking his head as much as to say, "It is no use resisting; we are

caught; there are too many of them." So I bolted the locks of the four

barrels of my pistol carefully, hoping that the bolts would form an

impediment to my being shot with my own weapon after I had been robbed

of it. The place was so narrow that there were no hopes of running away,

and there we sat on horseback, looking silly enough, I dare say. There

was a good deal of talking and chattering among the robbers, and they

asked the Albanian various questions to which I paid no attention, all

my faculties being engrossed in watching the proceedings of the party

in front, who were examining the effects in the panniers of the baggage

mule. First they pulled out my bag of clothes, and threw it upon the

ground; then out came the sugar and the coffee, and whatever else these

was. Some of the men had hold of the poor muleteer, and a loud argument

was going on between him and his captors. I did not like all this, but

my rage was excited to a violent pitch when I saw one man appropriating

to his own use the half of a certain fat tender cold fowl, whereof I had

eaten the other half with much appetite and satisfaction. "Let that fowl

alone, you scoundrel!" said I in good English; "put it down, will you?

if you don't, I'll----!" The man, surprised at this address in an

unknown tongue, put down the fowl, and looked up with wonder at the

explosion of ire which his actions had called forth. "That is right,"

said I, "my good fellow, it is too good for such a dirty brute as you."

"Let us see," said I to the Albanian, "if there is nothing to be done;

say I am the King of England's uncle, or grandson, or particular friend,

and that if we are hurt or robbed he will send all manner of ships and

armies, and hang everybody, and cut off the heads of all the rest. Talk

big, O man! and don't spare great words; they cost nothing, and let us

see what that will do."

Upon this the Albanian took up his parable and a long parleying ensued,

for the robbers were taken aback with the good English in which I had

addressed them, and stood still with open mouths to hear what it all

meant. In the middle of this row I thought of the paper which had been

given me at Mezzovo. "Here," said I, "here is a letter; read it, see

what it says." They took the paper and turned it round and round, for

they could not read it: first one looked at it and then another; then

they looked at the back, but they could make nothing of it. Nevertheless,

it produced a great effect upon them, for here, as in all other

countries of the East, any writing is looked upon by the uneducated

people as a mystery, and is held in high respect; and at last they said

they would take us to a place where we should find a person capable of

reading it. The thing which most provoked me was that the fellows seemed

not to have the slightest fear of us; they did not even take the trouble

to demand our arms: my much cherished "patent four-barrelled travelling

pistol" they evidently considered too small to be dangerous; and I felt

it as a kind of personal insult that they deputed only two of their

number to convoy us to the residence of the learned person who was to

read the letter. They managed matters, however, in a scientific way: the

bridles of our horses were turned over their heads and tied each to the

horse that went before; one of our captors walked in front and the other

behind; but just when I thought an opportunity had arrived to shake off

this yoke, I perceived that the whole pass was guarded, and wherever the

road was a little wider or turned a corner round a rock or a clump of

trees, there were other long guns peeping out from among the bushes,

with the bearers of which our two conquerors exchanged pass-words. Thus

we marched along, the robber who went first apparently caring nothing

about us, but the one in the rear having his gun cocked and ready to

shoot any one of us who should turn restive. The road, which ascended

rapidly, was rather too dangerous to be agreeable, being a narrow path

cut on the side of a very steep mountain; at one time the track lay

across a steep slope of blue marl, which afforded the most insecure

footing for our horses: all mountain-travellers are aware how much more

dangerous this kind of road is than a firm ledge of rock, however

narrow.

We had now got very high, and the ground was sprinkled with patches of

ice and snow, which rendered the footing insecure; and frequently large

masses of the road, disturbed by our passing over it, gave way beneath

our feet, and set off bounding and crashing among the box trees until it

was broken into powder on the rocks below.

In process of time we got into a cloud which hid everything from us, and

going still higher we got above the cloud into a region of broken crags

and rocks and pine-trees, among which there was a large wooden house or

shed. It seemed all roof, and was made of long spars of trees sloping

towards each other, and was very high, long, and narrow. As we

approached it several men made their appearance armed at all points, and

took our horses from us. At the end of the shed there was a door through

which we were conducted into the interior by our two guards, and placed

all of a row, with our backs against the wall, on the right side of the

entrance. Towards the other end of this sylvan guard-room there was a

large fire on the ground, and a number of men sitting round it drinking

aqua vitæ out of coffee cups, and talking load and laughing. In the

farthest corner I saw a pile of long bright-barrelled guns leaning

against the wall, while on the other side of the fire there were some

boards on the ground with a mat or carpet over them, whereon a worthy

better dressed than the rest was lounging, apart from every one else and

half asleep. To him the paper was given, and he leant forward to read it

by the light of the blazing fire, for though it was bright sunshine out

of doors, the room was quite dark. The captain was evidently a poor

scholar, and he spelt and puzzled over every word. At last a thought

struck him: shading his eyes with his hand from the glare of the fire he

leant forward and peered into the darkness, where we were awaiting his

commands. Not distinguishing us, however, he jumped up upon his feet and

shouted out "Hallo! where are the gentlemen who brought this letter?

What have you done with them?" At the sound of his voice the rest of the

party jumped up also, being then first aware that something out of the

common had taken place. Some of the palicari ran towards us and were

going to seize us, when the captain came forward and in a civil tone

said, "Oh, there you are! Welcome, gentlemen; we are very glad to

receive you. Make yourselves at home; come near the fire and sit down."

I took him at his word and sat down on the boards by the side of the

fire, rubbing my hands and making myself as comfortable as possible

under the circumstances. My two servants and the muleteer seeing what

turn affairs had taken, became of a sudden as loquacious as they had

been silent before, and in a short time we were all the greatest friends

in the world.

"So," said the captain, or whatever he was, "you are acquainted with our

friend at Mezzovo. How did you leave him? I hope he was well?"

"Oh, yes," I said; "we left him in excellent health. What a remarkably

pleasing person he is! and how well he looks in his red velvet dress!"

"Have you known him long?" he asked.

"Why, not _very_ long," replied my Albanian; "but my master has the

greatest respect for him, and so has he for my master."

"He says you are to take some of our men with you wherever you like,"

said our host.

"Yes, I know," said the Albanian; "we settled that at Mezzovo, with my

master's friend, his Excellency Mr. What's-his-name."

"Well, how many will you take?"

"Oh! five or six will do; that will be as many as we want. We are going

to Meteora and then we shall return over the mountains back to Mezzovo,

where I hope we shall have the pleasure of meeting your general again."

Whilst we were talking and drinking coffee by the fire, a prodigious

bustling and chattering was going on among the rest of the party, and

before long five slim, active, dirty-looking young rogues, in white

dresses, with long black hair hanging down their backs, and each with a

long thin gun, announced that they were ready to accompany us whenever

we were ready to start. As we had nothing to keep us in the dark, smoky

hovel, we were soon ready to go; and glad indeed was I to be out again

in the open air among the high trees, without the immediate prospect of

being hanged upon one of them. My party jumped with great alacrity and

glee upon their miserable mules and horses; all our belongings,

including the half of the cold fowl, were _in statu quo_; and off we

set--our new friends accompanied us on foot. And so delighted was our

Caliban of a muleteer at what we all considered a fortunate escape, that

he lifted up his voice and gave vent to his feelings in a song. The

grand gentleman in red velvet to whom I had presented the Pasha's letter

at Mezzovo, was, it seems, himself the captain of the thieves--the very

man against whom the Pasha wished to afford us his protection; and he,

feeling amused probably at the manner in which we had fallen unawares

into his clutches, and being a good-natured fellow (and he certainly

looked such), gave us a note to the officer next in command, ordering

him to protect us as his friends, and to provide us with an escort. When

I say that he of the red velvet was captain of the thieves, it is to be

understood, that although his followers did not excel in honesty, as

they proceeded to plunder us the moment they had entrapped us in the

valley of the box-trees, yet he should more properly be called a

guerilla chief in rebellion for the time being against the authorities

of the Turkish government, and I being a young Englishman, he

good-naturedly gave me his assistance, without which, as I afterwards

found, it would have been impossible for me to have travelled with

safety through any one of the mountain passes of the Pindus. I was told

that this chief, whose name I unfortunately omitted to note down,

commanded a large body of men before the city of Berat, and certainly

all the ragamuffins whom I met on my way to and from the monasteries of

Meteora acknowledged his authority. I heard that soon afterwards he

returned to his allegiance under Mahmoud Pasha, for it appears that the

outbreak, during which I had inadvertently started for a tour in

Albania, did not last long.

Late in the evening we arrived at a small khan something like an

out-building to a farmhouse in England; this was the khan of Malacash:

it was prettily situated on the banks of the river Peneus, and

contained, besides the stable, two rooms, one of which opened upon a

kind of verandah or covered terrace. My two servants and I slept on the

floor in this room, and the four robbers or guards (as in common

civility I ought to term them) in the ante-chamber. I gave them as good

a supper as I could, and we became excellent friends. It was almost dark

when we arrived at this place, but the next morning when the glorious

sun arose I was charmed with the beautiful scenery around us. On both

sides banks of stately trees rose above the margin of a rippling stream,

and the valley grew wider and wider as we rode on, the stream increasing

by the addition of many little rills, and the trees retiring from it,

affording us views of grassy plains and romantic dells, first on one

side and then on the other. The scenery was most lovely, and in the

distance was the towering summit of the great Mount Olympus, famous

nowadays for the Greek monasteries which are built upon its sides, and

near whose base runs the valley of Tempe, of which we are expressly told

in the Latin Grammar that it is a pleasant vale in Thessaly; and if it

is more beautiful than the valley of the Peneus, it must be a very

pleasant vale indeed.

I was struck with the original manner in which our mountain friends

progressed through the country; sometimes they kept with us, but more

usually some of them went on one side of the road and some on the other,

like men beating for game, only that they made no noise; and on the rare

occasions when we met any traveller trudging along the road or ambling

on a long-eared mule, they were always among the bushes or on the tops

of the rocks, and never showed themselves upon the road. But despite all

these vagaries they were always close to us. They were wonderfully

active, for although I trotted or galloped whenever the nature of the

road rendered it practicable, they always kept up with me, and

apparently without exertion or fatigue; and although they were often out

of my sight, I believe I was never out of theirs. Altogether I was glad

that we were such friends, for, from what I saw of them, they and their

associates would have proved very awkward enemies. They were curious

wild animals, as slim and as active as cats: their waists were not much

more than a foot and a half in circumference, and they appeared to be

able to jump over anything; and the thin mocassins of raw hide which

they wore enabled them to run or walk without making the slightest

noise. In fact, they were agreeable, honest rogues enough, and we got on

amazingly well together. I had a way of singing as I rode along for my

own particular edification, and from mere joyousness of heart, for the

beautiful scenery, and the fine fresh air, and the bright stream

delighted me, so I sung away at a great rate; and my horse sometimes put

back one of his ears to listen, which I took as a personal compliment:

but my robbers did not like this singing.

"Why," they said to the Albanian, "does the Frank sing?"

"It is a way he has," was the reply.

"Well," they said, "this is a wild country; there is no use in courting

attention--he had better not sing."

Nevertheless I would not leave off for all that. _Cantabit vacuus coram

latrone viator_; so I went on singing rather louder than before,

particularly as I was convinced that my horse had an ear for music; and

in this way, after travelling for seven hours, we came within sight of

the extraordinary rocks of Meteora.

Just at this time we observed among the trees before us a long string of

travellers who appeared to be convoying a train of baggage horses. On

seeing us they stopped, and closed their files; and as my thieves had

bolted, as usual, into the bushes some time before, my party consisted

only of four persons and five horses. As we approached the other party,

a tall, well-armed man, with a rifle across his arm, rode forwards and

hailed us, asking who we were. We said we were travellers.

"And who were those who left you just now?" said he.

"They are some of our party who have turned off by a short cut to go to

Meteora," replied my Albanian.

"What! a short cut on both sides of the road! how is that? I suspect you

are not simple travellers."

"Well," he replied, "we do not wish to molest you. Go on your way in

peace, and let us pass quietly, for you are by far the larger party."

"Yes," said the man, "but how many have you in the bushes? What are they

about there?"

"I don't know what they are about," said he, "but they will not molest

you [one of them was peeping over a bush at the back of the party all

the while, but they did not see him]; and we, I assure you, are

peaceable travellers like yourselves."

Our new acquaintance did not seem at all satisfied, and he and all his

party drew up along the path as we passed them, with evident misgivings

as to our purpose; and soon afterwards, looking back, we saw them

keeping close together and trotting along as fast as their loaded horses

would go, some of them looking round at us every now and then till we

lost sight of them among the trees.

The proverb says--you shall know a man by his friends, and my character

had evidently suffered from the appearance of the company I kept, for

the merchants held me as little better than a rogue; there was, however,

no time for explanations, and it was with feelings of indignant virtue

that I left the forest, and after crossing the river Peneus at a ford,

my merry men and I continued our journey along the grassy plain of

Meteora.

CHAPTER XIX.

Meteora--The extraordinary Character of its Scenery--Its Caves

formerly the Resort of Ascetics--Barbarous Persecution of the

Hermits--Their extraordinary Religious Observances--Singular

Position of the Monasteries--The Monastery of Barlaam--The

difficulty of reaching it--Ascent by a Windlass and Net, or by

Ladders--Narrow Escape--Hospitable Reception by the Monks--The

Agoumenos, or Abbot--His strict Fast--Description of the

Monastery--The Church--Symbolism in the Greek Church--Respect for

Antiquity--The Library--Determination of the Abbot not to sell any

of the MSS.--The Refectory--Its Decorations--Aërial Descent--The

Monastery of Hagios Stephanos--Its Carved Iconostasis--Beautiful

View from the Monastery--Monastery of Agia Triada--Summary Justice

at Triada--Monastery of Agia Roserea--Its Lady Occupants--Admission

refused.

The scenery of Meteora is of a very singular kind. The end of a range of

rocky hills seems to have been broken off by some earthquake or washed

away by the Deluge, leaving only a series of twenty or thirty tall,

thin, smooth, needle-like rocks, many hundred feet in height; some like

gigantic tusks, some shaped like sugar-loaves, and some like vast

stalagmites. These rocks surround a beautiful grassy plain, on three

sides of which there grow groups of detached trees, like those in an

English park. Some of the rocks shoot up quite clean and perpendicularly

from the smooth green grass; some are in clusters; some stand alone

like obelisks: nothing can be more strange and wonderful than this

romantic region, which is unlike anything I have ever seen either before

or since. In Switzerland, Saxony, the Tyrol, or any other mountainous

region where I have been, there is nothing at all to be compared to

these extraordinary peaks.

At the foot of many of the rocks which surround this beautiful grassy

amphitheatre, there are numerous caves and holes, some of which appear

to be natural, but most of them are artificial; for in the dark and wild

ages of monastic fanaticism whole flocks of hermits roosted in these

pigeon-holes. Some of these caves are so high up the rocks that one

wonders how the poor old gentlemen could ever get up to them; whilst

others are below the surface; and the anchorites who burrowed in them,

like rabbits, frequently afforded excellent sport to parties of roving

Saracens; indeed, hermit-hunting seems to have been a fashionable

amusement previous to the twelfth century. In early Greek frescos, and

in small, stiff pictures with gold backgrounds, we see many frightful

representations of men on horseback in Roman armour, with long spears,

who are torturing and slaying Christian devotees. In these pictures the

monks and hermits are represented in gowns made of a kind of coarse

matting, and they have long beards, and some of them are covered with

hair; these I take it were the ones most to be admired, as in the Greek

church sanctity is always in the inverse ratio of beauty. All Greek

saints are painfully ugly, but the hermits are much uglier, dirtier, and

older than the rest; they must have been very fusty people besides,

eating roots, and living in holes like rats and mice. It is difficult to

understand by what process of reasoning they could have persuaded

themselves that, by living in this useless, inactive way, they were

leading holy lives. They wore out the rocks with their knees in prayer;

the cliffs resounded with their groans; sometimes they banged their

breasts with a big stone, for a change; and some wore chains and iron

girdles round their emaciated forms; but they did nothing whatever to

benefit their kind. Still there is something grand in the strength and

constancy of their faith. They left their homes and riches and the

pleasures of this world, to retire to these dens and caves of the earth,

to be subjected to cold and hunger, pain and death, that they might do

honour to their God, after their own fashion, and trusting that, by

mortifying the body in this world, they should gain happiness for the

soul in the world to come; and therefore peace be with their memory!

On the tops of these rocks in different directions there remain seven

monasteries out of twenty-four which once crowned their airy heights.

How anything except a bird was to arrive at one which we saw in the

distance on a pinnacle of rock was more than we could divine; but the

mystery was soon solved. Winding our way upwards, among a labyrinth of

smaller rocks and cliffs, by a romantic path which, afforded us from

time to time beautiful views of the green vale below us, we at length

found ourselves on an elevated platform of rock, which I may compare to

the flat roof of a church; while the monastery of Barlaam stood

perpendicularly, above us, on the top of a much higher rock, like the

tower of this church. Here we fired off a gun, which was intended to

answer the same purpose as knocking at the door in more civilized

places; and we all strained our necks in looking up at the monastery to

see whether any answer would be made to our call. Presently we were

hailed by some one in the sky, whose voice came down to us like the cry

of a bird; and we saw the face and grey beard of an old monk some

hundred feet above us peering out of a kind of window or door. He asked

us who we were, and what we wanted, and so forth; to which we replied,

that we were travellers, harmless people, who wished to be admitted into

the monastery to stay the night; that we had come all the way from Corfu

to see the wonders of Meteora, and, as it was now getting late, we

appealed to his feelings of hospitality and Christian benevolence.

"Who are those with you?" said he.

"Oh! most respectable people," we answered; "gentlemen of our

acquaintance, who have come with us across the mountains from Mezzovo."

The appearance of our escort did not please the monk, and we feared that

he would not admit us into the monastery; but at length he let down a

thin cord, to which I attached a letter of introduction which I had

brought from Corfu; and after some delay a much larger rope was seen

descending with a hook at the end to which a strong net was attached. On

its reaching the rock on which we stood the net was spread open: my two

servants sat down upon it; and the four corners being attached to the

hook, a signal was made, and they began slowly ascending into the air,

twisting round and round like a leg of mutton hanging to a bottle-jack.

The rope was old and mended, and the height from the ground to the door

above was, we afterwards learned, 37 fathoms, or 222 feet. When they

reached the top I saw two stout monks reach their arms out of the door

and pull in the two servants by main force, as there was no contrivance

like a turning-crane for bringing them nearer to the landing-place. The

whole process appeared so dangerous, that I determined to go up by

climbing a series of ladders which were suspended by large wooden pegs

on the face of the precipice, and which reached the top of the rock in

another direction, round a corner to the right. The lowest ladder was

approached by a pathway leading to a rickety wooden platform which

overhung a deep gorge. From this point the ladders hung perpendicularly

upon the bare rock, and I climbed up three or four of them very soon;

but coming to one, the lower end of which had swung away from the top of

the one below, I had some difficulty in stretching across from the one

to the other; and here unluckily I looked down, and found that I had

turned a sort of angle in the precipice, and that I was not over the

rocky platform where I had left the horses, but that the precipice went

sheer down to so tremendous a depth, that my head turned when I surveyed

the distant valley over which I was hanging in the air like a fly on a

wall. The monks in the monastery saw me hesitate, and called out to me

to take courage and hold on; and, making an effort, I overcame my

dizziness, and clambered up to a small iron door, through which I crept

into a court of the monastery, where I was welcomed by the monks and the

two servants who had been hauled up by the rope. The rest of my party

were not admitted; but they bivouacked at the foot of the rocks in a

sheltered place, and were perfectly contented with the coffee and

provisions which we lowered down to them.

My servants, in high glee at having been hoisted up safe and sound, were

busy in arranging my baggage in the room which had been allotted to us,

and in making it comfortable: one went to get ready some warm water for

a bath, or at any rate for a good splash in the largest tub that could

be found; the other made me a snug corner on the divan, and covered it

with a piece of silk, and spread my carpet before it; he put my books in

a little heap, got ready the things for tea, and hung my arms and cloak,

and everything he could lay his hands on, upon the pegs projecting from

the wall under the shelf which was fixed all round the room. My European

clothes were soon pitched into the most ignominious corner of the divan,

and I speedily arrayed myself in the long, loose robes of Egypt, so much

more comfortable and easy than the tight cases in which we cramp up our

limbs. In short, I forthwith made myself at home, and took a stroll

among the courts and gardens of the monastery while dinner or supper,

whichever it might be called, was getting ready. I soon stumbled upon

the Agoumenos (the lord abbot) of this aërial monastery, and we prowled

about together, peeping into rooms, visiting the church, and poking

about until it began to get dark; and then I asked him to dinner in his

own room; but he could eat no meat, so I ate the more myself, and he

made up for it by other savoury messes, cooked partly by my servants and

partly by the monks. He was an oldish man. He did not dislike sherry,

though he preferred rosoglio, of which I always carried a few bottles

with me in my monastic excursions.

The abbot and I, and another holy father, fraternised, and slapped each

other on the back, and had another glass or two, or rather cup, for

coffee-cups of thin, old porcelain, called fingians, served us for

wine-glasses. Then we had some tea, and they filled up their cups with

sugar, and ate seaman's biscuits, and little cakes from Yanina, and

rahatlokoom, and jelly of dried-grape juice, till it was time to go to

bed; when the two venerable monks gave me their blessing and stumbled

out of the room; and in a marvellously short space of time I was sound

asleep.

_November 9th._--The monastery of Barlaam stands on the summit of an

isolated rock, on a flat or nearly flat space of perhaps an acre and a

half, of which about one-half is occupied by the church and a smaller

chapel, the refectory, the kitchen, the tower of the windlass, where you

are pulled up, and a number of separate buildings containing offices and

the habitations of the monks, of whom there were at this time only

fourteen. These various structures surround one tolerably large,

irregularly-shaped court, the chief part of which is paved; and there

are several other small open spaces. All Greek monasteries are built in

this irregular way, and the confused mass of disjointed edifices is

usually encircled by a high bare wall; but in this monastery there is no

such enclosing wall, as its position effectually prevents the approach

of an enemy. On a portion of the flat space which is not occupied by

buildings they have a small garden, but it is not cultivated, and there

is nothing like a parapet-wall in any direction to prevent your falling

over. The place wears an aspect of poverty and neglect; its best days

have long gone by; for here, as everywhere else, the spirit of

asceticism is on the wane.

[Illustration: diagram of church with four columns]

The church has a porch before the door, νάρθηξ, supported by marble

columns, the interior wall of which on each side of the door is painted

with representations of the Last Judgment, and the tortures of the

condemned, with a liberal allowance of flames and devils. These pictures

of the torments of the wicked are always placed outside the body of the

church, as typical of the unhappy state of those who are out of its

pale: they are never seen within. The interior of this curious old

church, which is dedicated to All Saints, has depicted on its walls on

all sides portraits of a great many holy personages, in the stiff,

conventional, early style. It has four columns within which support the

dome; and the altar or holy table, αγια τραπεζα, is separated from the

nave by a wooden screen, called the iconostasis, on which are paintings

of the Blessed Virgin, the Redeemer, and many saints. These pictures are

kissed by all who enter the church. The iconostasis has three doors in

it; one in the centre, before the holy table, and one on each side. The

centre one is only a half-door, like an old English buttery hatch, the

upper part being screened with a curtain of rich stuff, which, except on

certain occasions, is drawn aside, so as to afford a view of the book

of the Gospels, in a rich binding, lying upon the holy table beyond. A

Greek church has no sacristy; the vestures are usually kept in presses

in this space behind the iconostasis, where none but the priests and the

deacon, or servant who trims the lamps, are allowed to enter, and they

pass in and out by the side doors. The centre door is only used in the

celebration of the holy mass. This part of the church is the sanctuary,

and is called, in Romaic, αγιο, Βημο, or Θημο. It is typical of the holy

of holies of the Temple, and the veil is represented by the curtain

which divides it from the rest of the church. Everything is symbolical

in the Eastern Church; and these symbols have been in use from the very

earliest ages of Christianity. The four columns which support the dome

represent the four Evangelists; and the dome itself is the symbol of

heaven, to which access has been given to mankind by the glad tidings of

the Gospels which they wrote. Part of the mosaic with which the whole

interior of the dome was formerly covered in the cathedral of St. Sofia

at Constantinople, is to be seen in the four angles below the dome,

where the winged figures of the four evangelists still remain. Luckily

for the Greek Church their sacred buildings are not under the authority

of lay churchwardens--grocers in towns, and farmers in villages--who

feel it their duty to whitewash over everything which is old and

venerable, and curious, and to oppose the clergyman in order to show

their independence.

The Greek church, debased as it is by ignorance and superstition, has

still the merit of carefully preserving and restoring all the memorials

of its earlier and purer ages. If the fresco painting of a saint is

rubbed out or damaged in the lapse of time, it is scrupulously

repainted, exactly as it was before, even to the colour of the robe, the

aspect of the countenance, and the minutest accessories of the

composition. It is this systematic respect for everything which is old

and venerable which renders the interior of the ancient Eastern churches

so peculiarly interesting. They are the unchanged monuments of primæval

days. The Christians who suffered under the persecution of Dioclesian

may have knelt before the very altar which we now see, and which was

then exactly the same as we now behold it, without any additions or

subtractions either in its form or use.

To us Protestants one of the most interesting circumstances connected

with these Eastern churches is, that the altar is not called the

_altar_, but the _holy table_, as with us, and that the Communion is

given before it in both kinds. Besides the principal church there is a

smaller one, not far from it, which is painted in the same manner as the

other. I unfortunately neglected to ascertain the dates of the

foundation of these two edifices.

The library contains about a thousand volumes, the far greater part of

which are printed books, mostly Venetian editions of ecclesiastical

works, but there are some fine copies of Aldine Greek classics. I did

not count the number of the manuscripts; they are all books of divinity

and the works of the fathers; there may be between one and two hundred

of them. I found one folio Bulgarian manuscript which I could not read,

and therefore was, of course, particularly anxious to purchase. As I saw

it was not a copy of the Gospels, I thought it might possibly be

historical: but the monks would not sell it. The only other manuscript

of value was a copy of the Gospels, in quarto, containing several

miniatures and illuminations of the eleventh century; but with this also

they refused to part, so it remains for some more fortunate collector.

It was of no use to the monks themselves, who cannot read either

Hellenic or ancient Greek; but they consider the books in their library

as sacred relics, and preserve them with a certain feeling of awe for

their antiquity and incomprehensibility. Our only chance is when some

worldly-minded Agoumenos happens to be at the head of the community, who

may be inclined to exchange some of the unreadable old books for such a

sum of gold or silver as will suffice for the repairs of one of their

buildings, the replenishing of the cellar, or some other equally

important purpose. At the time of my visit the march of intellect had

not penetrated into the heights of the monastery of St. Barlaam, and

the good old-fashioned Agoumenos was not to be overcome by any special

pleading; so I told him at last that I respected his prejudices, and

hoped he would follow the dictates of his conscience equally well in

more important matters. The worthy old gentleman therefore pitched the

two much-coveted books back into the dusty corner whence he had taken

them, and where to a certainty they will repose undisturbed until some

other bookworm traveller visits the monastery; and the sooner he comes

the better, as mice and mildew are actively at work.

In a room near the library some ancient relics are preserved in silver

shrines or boxes, of Byzantine workmanship: they are, however, not of

very great antiquity or interest; the shrines are only of sufficient

size to contain two skulls and a few bones; the style and execution of

the ornaments are also much inferior to many works of the same kind

which are met with in ecclesiastical houses.

The refectory is a separate building, with an apsis at the upper end, in

which stands a marble table where the sacred bread used by the Greek

church is usually placed, and where, I believe, the agoumenos or the

bishop dines on great occasions. The walls of this room are also

painted: not, however, with the representations of celebrated eaters,

but with the likenesses of such thin, famished-looking saints that they

seem most inappropriate as ornaments to a dining-room. The kitchen,

which stands near the refectory, is a circular building of great

antiquity, but the interior being pitch dark when I looked in, and there

coming from the door a dusty cold smell, which did not savour of any

dainty fare, I did not examine it.

The monks and the abbot had now assembled in the room where the capstan

stood. Ten or twelve of them arranged themselves in order at the bars,

the net was spread upon the floor, and, having sat down upon it

cross-legged, the four corners were gathered up over my head, and

attached to the hook at the end of the rope. All being ready, the monks

at the capstan took a few steps round, the effect of which was to lift

me off the floor and to launch me out of the door right into the sky,

with an impetus which kept me swinging backwards and forwards at a

fearful rate; when the oscillation had in some measure ceased the abbot

and another monk, leaning out of the door, steadied me with their hands,

and I was let down slowly and gently to the ground.

When I was disencumbered of the net by my friends the robbers below, I

sat down on a stone, and waited while the rope brought down, first my

servants, and then the baggage. All this being accomplished without

accident, I sent the horses, baggage, and one servant to the great

monastery of Meteora, where I proposed to sleep; and, with the other

servant and the palicari, started on foot for a tour among the other

monasteries.

A delightful walk of an hour and a half brought us to the entrance of

the monastery of Hagios Stephanos, to which we gained access by a wooden

drawbridge. The rock on which this monastery stands is isolated on three

sides, and on the fourth is separated from the mountain by a deep chasm

which, at the point where the drawbridge is placed, is not more than

twelve feet wide. The interior of this building resembles St. Barlaam,

inasmuch as it consists of a confused mass of buildings, surrounding an

irregularly-formed court, of which the principal feature is the church.

The paintings in it are not so numerous as at St Barlaam, but the

iconostasis, or screen before the altar, is most beautifully carved,

something in the style of Grinlin Gibbons: the pictures upon it being

surrounded with frames of light open work, consisting of foliage, birds,

and flowers in alto rilievo, cut out of a light-coloured wood in the

most delicate manner. I was told that the whole of this beautiful work

had been executed in Russia, and put up here during the reign of Ali

Pasha, who had the good policy to protect the Greeks, and by that means

to ensure the co-operation of one half of the population of the country.

In this monastery there were thirteen or fourteen monks and several

women. On my inquiring for the library, one of the monks, after some

demurring, opened a cupboard door; he then unfastened a second door at

the back of it which led into a secret chamber, where the books of the

monastery were kept. They were in number about one hundred and fifty;

but I was disappointed at finding that although thus carefully concealed

there was not a single volume amongst them remarkable for its antiquity

or for any other cause: in fact, they were not worth the trouble of

turning over. The view from this monastery is very fine: at the foot of

the rock is the village of Kalabaki, to the east the citadel of Tricala

stands above a wide level plain watered by the river which we had

followed from its sources in Mount Pindus; beyond this a sea of distant

blue hills extends to the foot of Mount Olympus, whose summit, clothed

in perpetual snow, towers above all the other mountains. The whole of

this region is inhabited by a race of a different origin from the real

Albanians: they speak the Wallachian language, and are said to be

extremely barbarous and ignorant. Observing that the village of Kalabaki

presented a singularly black appearance, I inquired the cause: it had,

they said, been recently burned and sacked by the klephti or robbers

(some of my friends, perhaps), and the remnant of the inhabitants had

taken refuge in the two monasteries of Hagios Nicholas and Agia Mone,

which had been deserted by the monks some time before. The poor people

in these two impregnable fastnesses were, they told me, so suspicious

of strangers and in such a state of alarm, that there was no use in my

visiting them, as to a certainty they would not admit me; and as it

appeared that everything portable had been removed when the caloyeri

(the monks) had departed from their impoverished homes, I gave up the

idea.

I then proceeded along a romantic path to the monastery of Agia Triada,

and on the way my servants entertained me by an account of what the

monks had told them of their admiration of the Pasha of Tricala, whom

they considered as a perfect model of a governor; and that it would be a

blessing for the country if all other pashas were like him, as then all

the roving bands of robbers, who spread terror and desolation through

the land, would be cleared away. There is, it seems, a high tower over

the gate of the town of Tricala, and when the Pasha caught any people

whom he thought worthy of the distinction, he had them taken up to the

top of this tower and thrown from it against the city walls, which his

provident care had furnished with numerous large iron hooks, projecting

about the length of a man's arm, which caught the bodies of the culprits

as they fell, and on which they hung on either side of the town gate,

affording a pleasing and instructive spectacle to the people who came in

to market of a morning.

Agia Triada contains about ten or twelve monks, who pulled me up to the

entrance of their monastery with a rope thirty-two fathoms long. This

monastery, like the others, resembles a small village, of which the

houses stand huddled round the little painted church. Here I found one

hundred books, all very musty and very uninteresting. I saw no

manuscripts whatever, nor was there anything worthy of observation in

the habitation of the impoverished community. Having paid my respects to

the grim effigies of the bearded saints upon the chapel walls, I was let

down again by the rope, and walked on, still through most romantic

scenery, to the monastery of Hagia Roserea.

The rock upon which this monastery stands is about a hundred feet high;

it is perfectly isolated, and quite smooth and perpendicular on all

sides, and so small that there is only room enough for the various

buildings, without leaving any space for a garden. In fact, the

buildings, although far from large, cover the whole summit of the rock.

When we had shouted and made as much noise as we could for some time, an

old woman came out upon a sort of wooden balcony over our heads; another

woman followed her, and they began to talk and scream at us both

together, so that we could not understand what they said. At last, one

of them screaming louder than the other, we found that the monks were

all out, and that these two ladies being the only garrison of the place

declined the honour of our visit, and would not let down the rope

ladder, which was drawn half way up. We used all the arguments we could

think of, and told the old gentlewomen that they were the most beautiful

creatures in the world, but all to no purpose; they were not to be

overcome by our soft speeches, and would not let down the ladder an

inch. Finding there were no hopes of getting in, we told them they were

the ugliest old wretches in the country, and that we would not come near

them if they asked us upon their knees; upon which they screamed and

chattered louder than ever, and we walked off in high indignation.

CHAPTER XX.

The great Monastery of Meteora--The Church--Ugliness of the

Portraits of Greek Saints--Greek Mode of Washing the Hands--A

Monastic Supper--Morning View from the Monastery--The

Library--Beautiful MSS.--Their Purchase--The Kitchen--Discussion

among the Monks as to the Purchase Money for the MSS.--The MSS.

reclaimed--A last Look at their Beauties--Proposed Assault of the

Monastery by the Robber Escort.

As the day was drawing to a close we turned our steps towards the great

monastery of Meteora, where we arrived just before dark. The vast rock

upon which it is built is separated from the end of a projecting line of

mountains by a widish chasm, at the bottom of which we found ourselves,

after scrambling up a path which wound among masses of rock and huge

stones which at some remote period had fallen from above.

Having reached the foot of the precipice under the monastery, we stopped

in the middle of this dark chasm and fired a gun, as we had done at the

monastery of Barlaam. Presently, after a careful reconnoitring from

several long-bearded monks, a rope with a net at the end of it came

slowly down to us, a distance of about twenty-five fathoms; and being

bundled into the net, I was slowly drawn up into the monastery, where I

was lugged in at the window by two of the strongest of the brethren, and

after having been dragged along the floor and unpacked, I was presented

to the admiring gaze of the whole reverend community, who were assembled

round the capstan. This is by far the largest of the convents in this

region; it is also in better order than the others, and is inhabited by

a greater number of caloyers; I omitted to count their number, but there

may have been about twenty: the monastery is, however, calculated to

contain three times that number. The buildings both in their nature and

arrangement are very similar to those of St. Barlaam, excepting that

they are somewhat more extensive, and that there is a faint attempt at

cultivating a garden which surrounded three sides of the monastery. Like

all the other monasteries, it has no parapet wall.