THE
CRETAN INSURRECTION
OF
1866-7-8.
BY WILLIAM J. STILLMAN,
Late U. S. Consul in Crete.
[Illustration; Owl on book]
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1874
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
HENRY HOLT,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
TO THE MEMORY OF
LE GRAND LOCKWOOD,
_OF NEW YORK_,
This Volume
IS DEDICATED, IN RECOGNITION OF THE UNOSTENTATIOUS,
UNPROMISED, AND UNRESERVED LIBERALITY WHICH
RENDERED IT POSSIBLE FOR THE AUTHOR
TO REMAIN IN CRETE DURING THE
INSURRECTION.
PREFACE.
In committing to print the subjoined record of the Cretan revolt of
1866-7-8, I am fulfilling a duty in regard to a series of events
_quæque ipse vidi et quorum pars magna fui_, and which, if not in
themselves of importance, are so as a revelation of the manner in
which political influences work in the East, and perhaps still more
as a curious exemplification of the weight which personal accidents,
private intrigue and pique, and the capacity or incapacity of obscure
officials, may have in determining the affairs of great empires.
In taking the position I did with reference to the insurrection, I was
actuated only by a love of justice, and in no wise by sentimental or
religious prejudices; but I hope it may be permitted me to say that, if
I learned how fatal are the defects of the Greek race, its bitterness
in personal rivalry, want of patriotic subordination, and the
extravagance of its political hostilities, I saw also that it possesses
admirable qualities, which the interests of civilization demand
the development of; high capacity for political organization, for
patriotic effort and self-sacrifice; and endurance and equanimity under
misfortunes, which few races could endure and retain any character or
coherence. Their amiable and refined personal qualities, and their
private and domestic morality, have justified in me a feeling towards
them for which I was utterly unprepared on going to the Levant, and
give me a hope that the manifest lesson of the Cretan revolt may not
be lost in their future, either to them or to the friends of the better
civilization. I feel that the Hellenes are less responsible for the
vices of their body politic than their guardian Powers, who interfere
to misguide, control to pervert, and protect to enfeeble, every good
impulse and quality of the race, while they foster this spirit of
intrigue, themselves enter into the domestic politics of Greece in
order to be able to control her foreign, and each in turn, lest Greece
should some day be an aid to some other of the contestants about the
bed of the sick man, does all it can to prevent her from being able to
help herself. No just and right-thinking man can make responsible for
its sins or misfortunes, a people which is denied the right to shape
its own institutions without a studied reference to the prejudices
of its protectors; to manage its own affairs without the meddling of
foreign ministers, who dictate who shall be its administrators; to
protect even its own constitution against the violence and usurpation
of an irresponsible and incapable head, without the secret but
efficacious intervention of some foreign Power. A witness of every
step of the late diplomatic intervention in Greek foreign affairs,
I saw that in all the _corps diplomatique_ at Athens Greece had not
one friend--every one helped to push her into the abyss; not one word
of real sympathy or friendly counsel did she find from any foreign
representative. The United States, which had, perhaps, more than any
other nation a powerful moral influence, and could have helped her by
wise words and calm and disinterested moral intervention, had chosen to
send as the dispenser of that influence the most incapable, ignorant,
and obsequious diplomat I have ever known in the service of our
Government--a man who was an actual cipher in any political sense, and
who, on arriving in Greece (our first representative there), hastened
to mingle himself with the party intrigues of the country, ranging
himself on the side of the king, against the people, in such a way that
his advent was, to use the words of one of the leading statesmen of
Greece spoken to me at the time, "like a wet blanket" to the hopes of
liberalism in Greece.
The Hellenes must learn that they have no friends, save in the
unprejudiced and charitable individuals who know them well enough to be
able to overlook their foibles and petty vices, in view of the solid
and genuine claims which they have to our liking and the support of
Christendom. As one of those, I await the day when Greece shall have
been mistress of herself long enough to prove whether or not she can
govern herself wisely, before I lend my voice to her blame for her
failures or her offences.
* * * * *
The Publishers feel bound to inform the reader that during the delay
which has attended the publication of this work, several of the
personages mentioned in it, and some whose character or conduct is
severely criticised, have died. This explanation will relieve the
author of the appearance either of bad taste or of vindictiveness;
while to the fact that he was unable to give his personal supervision
to the work in passing through the press are due the errata which may
be discovered, and an occasional want of uniformity in the spelling of
proper names.
NEW YORK, February 1, 1874.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTORY.
PAGE
Crete and the Cretans, 13
CHAPTER I. (APRIL, 1866.)
Ismael Pasha, 38
CHAPTER II. (MAY, 1866.)
Agitation, 42
CHAPTER III. (JULY, AUGUST, 1866.)
Days of Terror, 50
CHAPTER IV. (SEPTEMBER, 1866.)
Preliminaries of War, 61
Ultima Ratio, 65
Mustapha Kiritli Pasha, 67
CHAPTER V. (OCTOBER, 1866.)
Getting to Work, 72
Russian Intervention, 76
CHAPTER VI. (NOVEMBER, 1866.)
Coroneos, 81
The Convent of Arkadi, 83
CHAPTER VII. (DECEMBER, 1866.)
The Recoil of the Gun, 88
Pym and the Assurance, 91
CHAPTER VIII. (DECEMBER, 1866.)
Ignatieff Again, 95
Respite, 99
CHAPTER IX. (JANUARY, FEBRUARY, 1867.)
More Disaster, 101
A Page from the Blue-Book, 107
CHAPTER X. (MARCH-MAY, 1867.)
Change of Administration, 109
Hellenic Blunders, 113
Effect of Hellenic Politics, 115
CHAPTER XI. (JUNE-SEPTEMBER, 1867.)
Hussein Avni, 118
A New Victim, 121
Sphakia again, 123
A New Campaign, 125
Bottled up, 127
CHAPTER XII. (OCTOBER, NOVEMBER, 1867.)
Attack on Lasithe, 128
Sphakian Campaign, 131
Reschid, 135
CHAPTER XIII. (DECEMBER, 1867.)
Russian Plans Ripening, 137
The Last of the Victims, 143
CHAPTER XIV. (1868.)
A'ali Pasha Fails, 148
The End, 152
THE YEAR AFTER THE WAR.
Visit to Omalos, 154
Alikianu, 157
Hadji Houssein's Story, 159
The Plain of Omalos, 165
The Xyloscala, 167
At Constantinople, 175
APPENDIX, 179
THE CRETAN INSURRECTION OF 1866.
INTRODUCTORY.
A student of classical ethnology, curious to restore the antique man,
can do no better, so far as the Greek variety is concerned, than to go
to Crete and study its people. The Cretan of to-day preserves probably
the character of antiquity, and holds to his ancient ways of feeling
and believing, and, within the new conditions, as far as possible of
acting, more nearly than would be believed possible, and affords a
better field of investigation into the nature of the classical man than
any existing records.
The island is one of those paradisiacal isolations which facilitate
civilization in its early stages, and preserve it from the
encroachments of progress in the later. Its low latitude secures it
against cold in winter, and its insular position against extreme heat,
while the range of high mountains running longitudinally through it
gives its climate a salubrity possessed by no section of the world's
surface so near the sun. The standard summer temperature is from 82°
to 86° Fahr., and once only in a residence of nearly four years I
saw it as high as 92°. The minimum was 52°. Wild flowers never are
wanting except in midsummer. The almond blooms in February (I have seen
it in blossom on Christmas), and all the known fruits follow it in
succession, each finding some locality and climate suited to it.
The fertility of the plains, and the inaccessibility of its mountain
fastnesses, made prosperity easy and conquest difficult, while its
remoteness from the shore of either continent made ancient invasion
not easy, and preserved the type of the composite Greek race from the
barbaric innovations of Greece proper, so that we have the Greek race
of B.C. 700 undoubtedly more purely preserved than anywhere else.
Only in prosperity and weight in mundane matters, in comparative
consideration, they have passed to the other end of the scale from that
in which Homer could say of their land: "There is a country, Crete,
in the midst of the black sea, beautiful and fertile, wave-washed
roundabout, with a population infinite in number, and ninety cities.
The races are different, and with different languages--there are
Achæans, there are the huger Eteocretans,[A] the Cydonians, the
crest-waving Dorians, and the divine Pelasgi. Theirs is Gnossus, a
great city, and theirs is King Minos, who talked nine years with great
Jove."
[A] Aboriginal or true Cretans, of whose distinctive characteristic,
great stature, make note in considering the Sphakiotes, who even
to-day are remarkable for their size, and always assert themselves to
be the most ancient Cretans.
This enumeration has evidently no relation to chronological order, and
unfortunately we have no intelligible traditions as to the order of
settlement in Crete. Diodorus Siculus says that "the first inhabitants
of Crete dwelt in the neighborhood of Mount Ida, and were called
the Idæan Dactyls." But Scylax says that, according to early Greek
tradition, Cydonia (in the western end of the island) was known as "the
mother of cities." Its position and character of site indicate rather a
settlement of Pelasgi coming from the west.
Spratt finds in the geological record clear evidence of the Greek
Archipelago having been formerly a fresh-water lake or series of
lakes, and, if this be true, Crete must have been connected with the
main lands of Europe and Asia Minor, in which case the aboriginal
inhabitants would be a land migration, probably from Aryan sources.
That a Phrygian colony known as the Idæan Dactyls brought here
knowledge of certain arts and religious mysteries, and became to the
people with whom they mingled, semi-divine, appears probable. The
subsequent visit of the Tyrian Hercules, who, on his way to get the
cattle of Geryon, called here as the rendezvous of his forces, and, to
recompense the Cretans for their friendship, purged the island of wild
beasts, may indicate a Phœnician colony or passing expedition.
But admitting, as of possibility, that the Eteocretan was a land
emigration, cavern-dwelling, as the abundance of the caves in the
island suggests; a collation of all the traditions makes it probable
that the first important immigration was Pelasgic, and from the Italian
shores, noted in many Greek traditions as the Tyrrhenian Pelasgi
(Etruscans?), whose colonies came down by the Morea and the isles
of Cerigo and Cerigotto by easy journeys to Crete. [The records of
Karnak show that, in the reign of Thotmes III., a great migration of
Cretan Pelasgi came into Egypt, and became the Philistines (Pilisti or
Pilisgi); proving that at this early period the hive was so full that
it had begun to swarm.]
This first immigration became, if my conjecture goes to the mark, the
Cydonian stock--the subsequent one which Homer speaks of as Pelasgic,
being of much later date; the Dorian, which was of the highest
importance in its effect, as finally assimilating or subjecting all
other races, and the Achæan, a scarcely influential influx, coming
within the recognized traditions. The author of the "Isles of Greece"
supposes two aboriginal races in the island, a needless multiplication
of "original Adams," though an Asiatic or Phrygian race coming in at
the east, and a Pelasgic at the west, seem to have been the first
recognizable elements in the population.
The myth of Jupiter and Europa is regarded as concealing the history of
the introduction of the worship of the moon by a Phœnician colony, who,
combining with the population of the eastern end of the island, whose
peculiar deity was Jupiter, produced the race over which Minos came to
rule, from this fabled to be the son of Jupiter and Europa. The journey
of Europa along the river Lethe indicates the course of this colony
to the capital of Minos, Gortyna, which more anciently had borne the
name of Larissa, a Pelasgic name, from which we might conjecture that
it was founded by the colony of Teutamos, who, with a band of Dorians,
Achæans, and Pelasgi, the builders of all the early Greek cities, is
said by the early historians to have arrived in Crete three centuries
before the Trojan war, and to have settled in the eastern part of the
island, and given the early city its Pelasgic name.
The present inhabitants betray differences of character so great as
almost to indicate difference of race. The Sphakiotes are larger
of build, more restless and adventurous, thievish and inconstant,
turbulent and treacherous, than the people of any other section. The
Seliniotes, in the western extremity, are the bravest of the Cretans,
but less turbulent or quarrelsome, not given to stealing, and of
good faith. In the eastern end, especially the region of Gortyna and
Gnossus, the blessings of the rule of Minos seem to rest in pacific
natures. The great Dorian invasion, about 1,000 B.C., gave the island
a dominant caste, uniformity of language and customs, but without
complete fusion of races.
The language of Crete to-day is a Dorian dialect, and preserves many
characteristics noted by the ancient authors. The use of _Kappa_ as
_c_ is used in Italian, either hard or soft (in terminal syllables
generally the latter), the use of _r_ for _l_, especially with the
Sphakiotes, and the presence of many words in modern Cretan which have
disappeared from modern continental Greek, with a comparative rareness
of Turkish words, and entire absence of Albanian and Sclavonic, show
how much less the Cretans have been affected by outside influences than
other parts of the Greek community. I give a few of the words which
retain their ancient form more closely than on the continent:
CRETAN. ROMAIC. ENGLISH.
ἂγομαι, πηγαίνω, I go.
ἀκατεχος, ἀνίδιος, Inexperienced.
ἀναλαμπὴ, φλόγα, Flame.
ἀναλώματα, ---- Emeutes.
ἁνω, ἔσω, (used to oxen), Haw, jee.
ἀποβόλη, (used in tracking animals), Spoor.
ἀποταχυάς, πρίv, Before.
ἀργατινή, ἑσπέρα, Evening.
{I leave (the Cretan in
κάμπτω, ἀναχωρῶ, { the sense of the American
{ "skedaddle").
δροσια, (lit. dew), τίποτε, Nothing.
δῶρον, (a gift), μπαχσίσι, (Turkish).
ἐργῶ (ῥιγῶ), κρυόνω, I am cold.
καlλταλῶ, φθείρω, I destroy.
κτῆμα, κτῆνος, A beast of burden.
{Bare (of mountains generally),
{ this being the appellation
μαλάρα, ---- { of the central
{ mountains of the Sphakian
{ range, _Madara vouna_.
{A peculiar kind of cream
μαλάκα, ---- { cheese--not the _misithra_
{ of Greece.
μὰιαλ, λογομαχία, A wrangling.
νύχι, τουφεκόπετρα, Gun-flint.
παρασύρω, σερνω, I sweep.
παρίξω, ἐξέρχωμαι, I come out.
πόρος, δίοδος, Passage.
πράμα (πράγμα), τίποτε, Nothing.
ταῦτερου, όυριον, To-morrow.
χαλέπα, πετρόλοφος, {A rocky site (generally
{ applied to villages).
There are few Turkish words in use, and those mainly of objects
brought by the Turks: βουδαλά, a lubber; τσιμπούχι, a pipe; τουφέκι,
a gun, etc. A few Italian: καπιτανός, captain; βετέμα (_vendemmia_),
olive crop; βίστατο (guastato); ματινάδα, a song, and some names
of implements, with idioms which cling, as the use of πίυ, the
comparative, instead of τέρος.
There is a trace of genuine Cretan literature, though its chief work,
the "Erotókritos," is by an Italian colonist, Vincenzo Cornaro. They
have, however, many songs and many bards, though to any but Cretan ears
the music is far from agreeable. I knew one of the popular singers,
Karalambo, poet and singer at once, as most of them are (and many are
_improvisatori_ of considerable facility). He was so much in repute
that no wedding or festivity was considered complete anywhere in the
range of a day's ride from Canéa unless Karalambo was there; and at
other times he used to sing in the cafés on the Marina, screaming, to
the strain of a naturally fine tenor, songs which, though to me not
even music, used to melt his audiences into tears. He was a patriot
as well as poet, and when the insurrection of '66 actually broke out,
his songs were so seditious, and excited the Khaniote Christians so
much, that he was driven into the mountains, and, joining a band of his
neighbors, was one day wounded by the accidental discharge of a pistol
one of his comrades was cleaning. The wound was fatal from want of
surgical attendance.
The Cretan music is always of a plaintive character, and monotonous;
in singing, they have a habit of incessant quavering, and this, with
the drawling tone, makes it far from agreeable to an ear accustomed to
cultivated music, but it has a decided character of its own.
There were in Kalepa before the insurrection two _improvisatori_ of
considerable repute, who were accustomed to carry on musical disputes,
one singing a couplet, and the other replying in a similar one.
Sometimes it was a match of compliments, and sometimes the reverse, but
following with tolerable exactitude the metre, a four-lined stanza,
the second and fourth lines rhyming. All the ballads I have seen are
in this form, the music also differing but little to my ear, though
possibly to a Cretan there may be wide differences.
The Cretans possess, in common with all the Greeks, the avidity
for instruction and quickness of intellect which make of this race
the dominant element in the Levant. They are tenaciously devoted
to their religion and to their traditions, which have kept them up
and preserved the national character against such a continuation of
hostile influences as probably no other people ever lived through. The
history of Crete is a series of obstinate rebellions and barbarous
repressions, since the first conquest by the Saracens in A.D. 820,
a conquest which was followed by an almost complete apostasy from
Christianity--sword-conversion, and by persistent attempts on the part
of the Byzantine emperors to reconquer it, until 961, when Nikephoras
Phocas succeeded in driving the Saracens out. They seem to have made no
considerable addition to the Cretan stock, since the population rapidly
returned to Christianity, to which, judging from the known and more
recent past, they had always probably remained devoted at heart. At the
division of the Byzantine empire, Crete passed to Boniface, Duke of
Montserrat, and from him was purchased by the Venetian Republic, 1204,
from which time till its conquest by the Turks, completed in 1669, the
Cretans were under a yoke that would probably have depopulated any
other section of the Old World. The cruelties and misgovernment of
the governors sent from Venice would be incredible if not recorded by
Venetian historians and official records. The Venetians seem to have
regarded the Cretans much in the same light as the English colonists
of America did the Indians, and, when their wretched state came to
the knowledge of the Senate, they sent commissioners to examine into
it, from whose reports I translate some extracts (quoted in Italian
by Pashley), who took them from the original documents in the public
library of Venice. Basadonna, the first of these officers whose reports
remain, says (1566): "The tax-gatherers and others dependent on them
use against these unhappy people, in one way and another, strange
and horrible tyrannies. It would be a matter worthy of your clemency
immediately to abolish so odious and barbarous exactions, since to
maintain them is to abandon these wretched men to most cruel serpents,
who lacerate and devour them entirely, or oblige the few of them who
remain to escape into Turkey, following the footsteps of innumerable
others who, from time to time, have gone away from this cause." Then
from Garzoni (1586): "In all the villages in which I have been, I have
seen the houses of the inhabitants, in the greater part of which there
is not be seen any article for the uses of dress or table; and for
food, they are without bread or corn; they have no wine; their women
are despoiled, their children naked, the men slightly covered, and the
house emptied of everything, without any sign of human habitation. And
this wretched people ('_quella meschinità de' huomini_') is compelled
by established custom to give to the cavaliers two 'angarie' [twelve
days' work] each per annum, and is obliged also by ancient regulation
to work as much more as the cavalier may need for the pay of eight
soldini a day, which amounts to a 'gazetta' [two Venetian soldi, or
about one penny] and a fifteenth, introduced by them two hundred years
ago, and not since increased. They are obliged to keep chickens and
hens according to the number of doors [I do not feel sure of having
properly translated this expression, obscure in the original], their
masters having applied the term of doors to houses, which are built
by the peasants themselves, and have no kind of use of doors, because
the Cavaliers, industrious for their own advantage, make doors as
frequently as possible to increase the number of royalties. The
beasts of labor, called donnegals, are obliged to plough a certain
quantity of land, for which, planted or not, the peasant must pay
the third. The donnegals are also obliged to work two angarie per
annum. Mules and other beasts of transport must make two voyages to
the city for the master. Animals of pasture the tenth, and a thousand
other inventions to absorb all the productions of the land. If the
peasant has a vineyard planted (the ground always belonging to the
Cavaliers) and trained by him, although on land before wild, he must
pay to the master, before marking the division for the royalty (which
by ancient regulation gives one-third to the Cavalier and two to the
peasant), five measures, called _mistaches_, for each vineyard, under
pretext that he has eaten part before the vintage, for the use of the
_pattichier_ [in Crete, even now, an open shallow kind of vat built
in the fields, of flat stones, and cemented, in which the grapes are
trampled], and under other most dishonest inventions. And to increase
still more the royalty, they divide the vineyard into so many parts
that few return more than fifteen _mistaches_, in such a way that with
fraud founded on force they take two-thirds for themselves and give one
to the peasant.
"There are chosen for judges of their country, as I have said,
Castellans--writers who serve as secretaries (_cancellieri_); and
'Captains to look after the robbers,' who all set rapaciously to rob
these poor people, taking what little any of them may have hidden from
the Cavaliers under pretext of disobedience, in which the peasant
abounds, by reason of his desperation, so that he is in every way
wretched. The Castellans cannot by law judge the value of more than two
sequins, although by some regulation they are allowed authority to the
sum of two hundred _perperi_, about fourteen sequins; and because they
have eight per cent. for the charges they make, all causes amount to
two hundred _perperi_, however small it may be, in order to get their
sixteen of charges, with thousand other inventions of extortion to eat
up the substance of the poor. The Captains, whose name indicates their
functions, have their use from robberies, and always find means to
draw their advantage from the same, plundering the good and releasing
the guilty, to the universal ruin.... The men chosen for the galleys
are in continual terror of going, and those who have the means,
with whatever difficulty, from some vineyard, or land, or animals,
throw all away unhesitatingly for a trifling price to pay for their
dispensation, which costs fifteen or twenty sequins--expense which
they cannot support. The poorest, hopeless of their release, fly to
the mountains, and thence, reassured by the Cavaliers, return to their
villages, so much the more enslaved as they are fearful of justice, and
by their example make the other villagers more obedient, attributing
to the Cavaliers the power of saving them from the galleys.... To
which, add the extortions to which they are subjected by a thousand
accidental circumstances, execution of civil debts, visits of rectors
and other officers, to whom they are obliged to give sustenance at
miserable prices.... So that the peasantry, oppressed in this manner,
and harassed in so many ways, annoyed by the reasonings of the Papists,
and made enemies of the Venetian name, ... are so reduced by the
influences I have enumerated, that I believe I can say with truth that,
with the exception of the privileged classes, they desire a change of
government, and though they know they cannot fall into other hands
than those of the Turks, yet, believing they cannot make worse their
condition, incline even to their tyrannical rule."
I extract from the opinion of Fra Paolo Sarpi (1615), a more
Jesuitical, and, it would seem, more palatable advice to the Senate,
since it was, in the end, and to the end followed: "For your Greek
subjects of the island of Candia, and the other islands of the
Levant, ... the surest way is to keep good garrisons to awe them, and not
use them to arms or musters, in hope of being assisted by them in
extremity; for they will always show ill inclination proportionably to
the strength they shall be musters of.... Wine and bastinadoes ought
to be their share, and keep good nature for a better occasion.... If
the gentlemen of these colonies do tyrannize over the villages of
their dominion, the best way is not to seem so see it, that there may
be no kindness between them and their subjects; but, if they offend
in anything else, it will be well to chastise them severely, etc....
And in a word, remember that all the good that can come from them is
already obtained, which was to fix the Venetian dominion, and for the
future there is nothing but mischief to be expected from them."
What a pity that Sarpi had not lived before Dante, that he might have
been niched in the "Inferno":
"Questo é de' rei del fuoco furo."
I have only space to epitomize a passage of the history of Crete, under
the Venetians, to show how utterly infamous, unjust, and _devilish_
was their _régime_. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the
provinces of Selino, Sfakia, and Rhizo seceded, and established an
independent government, which was for some time unmolested by the
Venetian authorities. The governor of the seceded republic finally
presuming to ask in marriage for his son the daughter of a Venetian
noble, the latter, to revenge the insult, plotted with the governor of
Canéa, and, pretending to consent, lured the family of the soi-disant
Greek governor, with a company of nearly 500 of his compatriots, to
the marriage feast. The guests having been intoxicated and gone to
sleep, and the signal given to the authorities at Canéa, the governor
came with 1,700 foot and 150 horse, took the whole prisoners, and in
various ways and different places massacred them, except a few who
were sent to the galleys.
This was followed up, for the better terrifying of the seditious, by
a raid on the village of Foligniaco, near Murnies, and on the edge of
the plain of Canéa, in which they took the whole population prisoners
asleep, burned the village, hanged twelve of the primates, ripped open
three or four pregnant women, wives of the principal people, put to
death and exiled the whole population remaining, except five or six who
escaped. The Provveditore then called on all the Greeks of the lately
revolted district to come in and surrender themselves, but, as they
naturally declined, they were put under a ban which is perhaps the most
horrible sentence ever given by a _civilized_ community. No inhabitant
of the proscribed district could secure his life except on condition of
bringing in the "head of his father, brother, cousin, or nephew."
"At length a priest of the family of the Pateri-Zapa entered the city,
accompanied by his two sons and by two of his brothers, each of the
mournful party carrying in his hand a human head. (Of the five heads,
the first belonged to the son of the priest, the second to one of his
brothers, the third to his son-in-law, and the fourth and fifth to
sons of one of his brothers.) The wretched men placed their bleeding
offerings before the Signor Cavalli and the other representatives of
Venice, and with the bitterest tears stated whose heads they were. The
facts were duly established by witnesses; even the governor who had
been sent to Crete to extirpate the seditious Greeks was moved, and the
law was at length abolished."
This was under the auspices of Christianity. Under the Crescent, things
were at first better, but finally such as to cause wonder how there is
still a Cretan people, considering that even Dante could say:
"Nel mezzo 'l mar siede un paese guasto
Diss' egli allora, che s'appella Creta."
The Venetian rule had reduced the population of the island to about
160,000, the tenth of its probable number under the Byzantine
emperors. The anticipations of Garzoni were to the full realized,
for the Cretan, favoring the Turkish conquest, made it possible, and
avenged himself in the way of the weak. The Turks, in recompense for
the important assistance rendered them by the Cretans, exempted them
from conscription or military tax, but learned no lesson from their
conquered enemies, and, until the cession of the island to Egypt in
1830, Crete was the scene of the most unbridled license of individuals
and fanaticism of sects.
In passing from the Venetian to the Turkish despotism the Cretans had
exchanged bad for worse. The Venetian was oppressive to the last degree
in pecuniary extortions, but the Turk brought in slavery of another
form--the harem and all its horrors to a captive people, even then
celebrated for the beauty of its women. The Turkish rule has never
been, and probably never will be, anything but piracy--the rule of
the strong hand. The great object of government was to wring from the
governed the largest possible amount of plunder; it is so still. No
motive of civilized government has ever yet entered into the head of
the Ottoman. The development of a country's resources, even to increase
its revenues, has never been thought of. A race of nomad conquerors,
holding the land as if it waited the trumpet that should expel it, and
could only reap where its predecessors had planted, but never from its
own sowing, it has extorted, butchered, and enslaved, without leaving
behind it more than its bones to fertilize the soil. The noble public
works which marked the Venetian _régime_ in Crete were allowed to fall
into decay, the walls of the cities show the shot-holes made by the
siege-guns, only filled up when it was necessary to keep the wall from
falling.
Of the early period of Turkish rule in Crete we know little. Pirates
keep no record; and the only insurrection of any note we hear of was
that of 1770, which seems to have been mainly a Sphakiote affair, and
to have resulted, on the whole, favorably for the mountaineers, from
their having been allowed to maintain a virtual independence, as up to
1860 no Turkish garrison was ever permitted in Sphakia. The fortress of
Samaria has not been, in the records of modern history, penetrated by
an enemy in arms.
From 1770 to 1821, the condition of Crete was that of a man on the
rack. The conquests and the advantages of apostasy had induced many
Christians to become Mussulmans; others followed from the bitter
persecutions which began soon after the insurrection of 1770, and
made the life of the Christian in the plains utterly intolerable. The
former class generally became, _ipso facto_, fanatical persecutors of
their late fellow-Christians, and the children or grandchildren of the
converts became oblivious of their ancestors' creed and relations,
and as, under the Koran, they lapsed into a more complete ignorance
than the Christians, they soon became as fanatic as any. The influx
of Turks was never considerable, but the Cretan Mussulmans, becoming
the governing class, disposed of the lives and properties of their
Christian fellow-countrymen entirely at their will. Their agas,
or chiefs, by force of character became captains of bands of these
Janissaries, as they were called, and established a sway beside which
the Venetian was a bed of feathers. The Venetian was inhuman; the
Janissary was devilish. I have known several men who lived in the
island while the Janissary government was in full force, and who
have testified to me of the occurrence of such horrors as no system
of slavery known since the establishment of Christianity can show.
Every rayah (beast or domesticated animal) was utterly at the mercy
of his aga, who could kill, rob, or torture him at will, without
responsibility before any law, or any obligation towards him. If the
aga wanted money, he went to any rayah he suspected of being possessed
of any, and ordered him to hand it over. If he wanted work done, he
ordered the rayah to do it. If he fancied the rayah's wife or daughter,
he went to his house, and ordered the man out of it until his lust was
satisfied, and if any resisted he was killed like a dog. If a Christian
celebrated his nuptials with a girl of great beauty, he received from
the aga a handkerchief with a bullet tied in the corner of it, and if
he did not at once send his bride to the aga he paid the penalty with
his life. The only resource was to fly to the mountains before the aga
had time to send his men to seize him. Most of the beautiful girls and
women were sent to the mountains as a precaution, which is probably one
reason why the women of the higher mountain districts are so much more
beautiful than those of the lowlands.
The Janissaries even ruled the governors sent by the Sultan, and
deposed or assassinated them when they did not please. Needless to
say that the poor islanders had no hope of justice as against their
tyrants. It was forbidden to any Christian except the archbishop
to enter the city gates on horseback, and, the Bishop of Canéa
having transgressed this law, the Janissaries took him prisoner, and
determined to burn him and all his priests. About to carry out this
decision, the Pasha intervened, and to pacify them issued an order that
no Christian man should sleep in the walls of Canéa, and accordingly
the whole adult male population was mustered out every night, leaving
their wives and children in the city. There is hardly room to wonder
that the Cretan is still a liar, rather wonder that he is still a man,
with courage to revolt and die, considering that only one generation
has intervened between him and a slavery more abject than any domestic
servitude the civilized world knows of.
The oppression became more and more brutal and blind, and the Cretans,
crushed and stupefied, thought of nothing but saving life by the most
abject submission. Even when the agitation which led to the Greek
war of independence began, the Cretans were not moved; but in June
of 1821, the Mussulmans massacred a large number of Christians, some
thousands, in the three principal cities. This was followed up by a
demand that all the Christians should give up their arms, a demand
which was followed by the revolt of Sphakia, the mountaineers having
never consented to this degradation. The rising of the district about
Ida followed, and the war was so vigorously carried on that in a month
the open country was almost entirely cleared of Mussulmans.
This stage of the war developed a man whose name has become one of
the historical in Crete, Antoni Melidoni. Collecting a small band of
bold men, he swept from one end of the island to the other, falling
on the negligently guarded posts, and taking them by storm in rapid
succession. His hardihood knew no impossibilities, disparity of
numbers made no difference in his calculations, he measured moral
forces alone, and flung his sword and name into the scale against any
opposing numerical force. Surrounded at night by superior forces, he
led a charge sword in hand on the hostile circle, broke it, and drove
the Pasha's army from the field, not permitting its disordered masses
to re-form until the walls of Candia sheltered them. A detachment
that made a sortie to attack him was destroyed, and another victory
following this, the Pasha of Candia, expressing admiration of his
prowess, begged to be favored with an interview. The Cretan hero,
trusting himself to no temptation, treachery, or delay, replied that
the Pasha would soon be his prisoner, and that then he might look at
him as much as he liked. And the prophet fulfilled the prediction to
the letter.
So far, however, Christian and Turk fought on equal terms. No
discipline entered on either side--the Janissary fought the partisan,
and the superior enthusiasm of liberty turned the scale in favor of
the Christian. They had yet to meet their strongest foes--internal
dissension and disciplined force. The first did its work quickly,
and Melidoni was assassinated by Russos, the Sphakiote chief, in
jealousy of his dominant influence. A Moreote chieftain, Afendallos,
was sent from Greece to replace him, but, incapable and without
control of the Cretans, his command was in every way unfortunate,
and he was superseded by a French Philhellene of ability, Baleste,
who for a moment restored the fortunes of Crete, but, deserted by
the wretched Afendallos in the heat of battle, and the Cretans being
carried away in panic by the example, Baleste was surrounded by the
Turks and killed. At the same time, an Egyptian army coming in to
reinforce the exhausted and demoralized Janissaries, the war became
for the Christians a series of disasters, relieved for a time by the
management of Tombasis, a Hydriote chief, who again cleared the open
country of the Turks, and laid siege to Canéa. The arrival of new
forces from Constantinople obliged him to retire to the highlands, and
an Egyptian fleet arriving debarked a fresh army, which, marching into
the interior, surprised a great number of villages, and in a single
raid put to the sword nearly 20,000 men, women, and children. Tombasis,
watching his opportunity, fell on a small detachment of Egyptians, and
cut them to pieces. The Christians rallied, and, swarming down from the
mountains, assailed the retiring army with such fury that they killed
7,000 men.
A new Egyptian expedition of 10,000 troops with a large squadron
reinforced the Ottoman army, and the commander, Ismail Gibraltar,
so-called from having been the first Turk to sail beyond the Straits
of Gibraltar, an able, adroit, and comparatively humane man, began to
assail the Sphakiotes on their weak side, and induced them by bribery
to withdraw from the hostilities. The other districts, many times
decimated, had not the force to maintain the struggle, and Tombasis,
after making a vain effort to rally the elements of another struggle,
abandoned the island, which submitted almost entirely. Thousands of the
most devoted and patriotic Cretans went to Greece, where they fought
bravely for the common nationality. We see still on the plains of
Athens the tomb of the corps that perished there to a man refusing to
turn their backs to the Turk.
After the battle of Navarino, the insurrection broke out anew; an
expedition from Greece under Kalergis captured Grabusa by stratagem,
Kissamos was taken by siege; soon the Cretan Mussulmans (the regular
Egyptian forces being engaged in the Morea) were shut up again in the
three fortresses of Canéa, Retimo, and Candia, and would soon, in all
probability, either have abandoned the island or have perished in it,
had not the three allied powers decided that Crete should be united
to the government of Mehemet Ali, and notified their decree to the
Christian population. (Pashley, "Historical Introduction to Travels in
Crete.")
The establishment of the Egyptian _régime_ was at first productive of
great relief to the Christian population, as Mehemet Ali had shrewdness
enough to comprehend that their oppression would be the disfavor of
the Christian powers, now for the first time clearly recognized to be
mistresses of the fortunes of the Ottoman Empire, and to perceive that
for material prosperity the Christian element was far more available
than the Mussulman, corrupted and degraded by long unchecked and
unmeasured abuse of power, and dependence on servitude of others, the
most hopeless of all slavery. Order was re-established, and political
organization, which Crete had never known, was introduced, exiles began
to return, and all promised a better _régime_ than any Cretan could
have hoped for under foreign rule.
The Pasha, in his designs of obtaining complete independence, saw also
that he must some day count the Turkish population of Crete as his
enemies; all these causes combined gave the Christians an advantage
over the Mussulman element. After a time, however, the pirate's
instincts took the predominance, and Mehemet Ali, well assured of his
possession, began to measure the capacity of the island for extortion
of taxes. The promises made at the time of pacification were unheeded,
imposts succeeded each other, until the population, alarmed, had
recourse to their immemorial expedient of an assembly, and, several
thousand strong, Christian and Mussulman alike, they met at Murnies,
unarmed and accompanied by their families. This habit of so assembling
has from ancient times played an important part in the history of
Crete, and was known as Syncretism. To this day, every crisis and every
important measure referring to the general welfare is discussed in a
full assembly of deputies of the whole population.
The assembly of Murnies was peaceful; _no one_ brought his arms,
no violence of any kind was perpetrated on any interest or person.
The assembly petitioned the _protecting powers_ for redress and
the fulfilment of the promises made at their submission, but the
indifference of the _soi-disant_ Christian powers to everything that
implied the rights of the subject had already descended on the Greeks,
so lately emancipated by the "untoward event;" and the French and
English residents at Alexandria, more charmed by Egyptian music than
the claims of justice, heard what was agreeable to the Viceroy, and the
English agent even advised him to make an example of insubordination
which should save him any future trouble. So encouraged, the arbiter of
life or death to this brave people sent orders to execute a number of
persons, both Christian and Mussulman. The Governor, Mustapha Pasha,
now known as Mustapha Kiritli (Cretan), a hard and barbarous Albanian,
bred in the brutalities of the long wars with the Christians, readily
complied, and seized a number of persons at Canéa indifferently. At
the same time, the same orders were sent to other provinces, and a
general and simultaneous execution took place. Many of the victims had
no connection with the assembly, nor does the number or quality seem
to have been fixed. The Albanian butcher caught the spirit of his
master's order, and hanged at random. Pashley says that thirty-three
were hanged, but perhaps he had a desire to diminish the enormity of
the deed for which he declares the English agent at Alexandria to have
been largely responsible. Residents at Canéa at that time have assured
me that over eighty were hanged at Murnies, and the then Austrian
consul at Canéa has repeatedly declared to me that there were several
hundred victims, and that he himself had seen the bodies hanging on the
trees of Murnies, until the whole air round was infected by them. This
was in 1833, and until 1840 the Butcher held the island tranquil under
the rod of his menace.
In 1840, insurrectionary movements took place, which were attributed
to English influence, and said to be encouraged by the English admiral
at Suda. I have heard from residents at Canéa[B] (non-Cretan) that the
admiral facilitated the introduction of muskets and ammunition, and
advised the chiefs to ask for an English protection. This proposition
was favored at the assembly of that occasion, but the Turkish
authorities secured its rejection by persuading secretly the chiefs
that their choice would be between annexation to Greece and English
protection, and as, of course, they preferred the former, the project
was unanimously rejected, having secured which, and the consequent
English indifference, Mustapha, by an energetic blow, suppressed the
movement.
[B] One of whom was a dragoman of the English consulate at the time.
In 1858, a similar crisis was made use of by the French government,
whose agent openly took the part of the insurgents, bullied the
authorities, and encouraged the Cretans to look for French support.
The assembly was held at Nerokouro, and petitioned the Sultan for
relief from the most weighty grievances of the population. It was at
once determined to suppress the movement, like the former, by force,
but disturbances breaking out in the Christian provinces of Turkey, and
the attitude of France causing distrust, the Porte finally yielded,
made the concessions demanded, and the assembly broke up. This outbreak
was remarkable for one incident which may have had much to do with the
solution arrived at. The government had determined to obtain from its
adherents an address in opposition to that of the assembly, and it was
considered needful to have the signature of the Bishop of Canéa.
This prelate, one of the most worthy and pious bishops Crete has had
in modern times, refused to sign, and compulsion was applied, the
Bishop being shut up in a room with the council, and a pen put into his
hand and applied to the paper by force. But he resisted all pressure,
declaring that, if they killed him, he would not sign what he knew to
be a falsehood. This contest of will lasted hours, when the physique of
the Bishop gave way, and he fainted, not having yielded. He was carried
to his house in great excitement, which rapidly spread and increased,
until he died in the course of the day. The Cretans regarded him as a
martyr, and his death fired them with still greater enthusiasm.
Never was moment more favorable for insurrection; and that the Cretans
contented themselves with such moderate demands as the relief of some
of the newest and most oppressive taxes, and yielded _on the promise
only_ of redress, dispersing quietly to their homes, shows that they
were not, as they were represented by unfriendly writers, disposed to
factiousness and insurrection.
The promises made in 1858 were never fulfilled--if there is honor
amongst thieves, there is none amongst Turks; and when, at the death
of Abdul Medjid, his successor, Abdul Aziz, was reminded of the
promises made to the Cretans, he replied that he was not bound by the
engagements of his predecessors, and Cretan reforms lapsed into the
abyss of good (and bad) intentions. From that time the island was moved
by discontent. The next governor, Ismail, a clever, cunning Greek
renegade, charlatan in everything but intrigue, of the worst possible
faith and honesty, avaricious, mendacious, and cruel, but plausible and
persuasive, succeeded in delaying agitation by promises and bribes,
by dividing the chiefs one against the other, till 1864, when another
assembly was held, and another petition drawn up and delivered to
the governor to be forwarded to Constantinople, when the assembly
dispersed. Ismail immediately convoked an assemblage of his adherents,
and had a counter-petition forwarded, assuring the Porte of the perfect
content of the Cretans with their governor and their state. The true
petition was never heard of again, but the bearers of the false one
received the Medjidieh, and Ismail the thanks of the Sultan, with
presents which he valued much more.
The ensuing winter was one of great distress, and the spring passed
without renewal of the disturbances or petitions, but in the autumn of
that year, after my arrival in the island, I heard that there would be
an assembly the following spring, 1866. The discontent was very great.
New taxes on straw, on the sale of wine, on all beasts of burden,
oppressive collection of the tithes, together with short crops for two
years in succession, had produced very great distress, and the Governor
added to these grievances his own extortions, with the most shameful
venality in the distribution of justice, and disregard of such laws
of procedure and punishment as existed. The councils were absolute
mockeries, and the councillors his most servile tools. The summer
of my arrival, I was told by the surgeon of the civil hospital of a
death that had just occurred under his care, in prison, of an old man,
arrested for an offence which his son had committed, and because the
son could not be found.
Men accused of offences by Ismael's partisans were thrown into prison,
and kept indefinite periods without trial until some friend went to
bribe his accuser. Ismael never went out into the island for fear of
assassination, so well did he know the hatred borne him. This was the
state of the island when I arrived in 1865.
CHAPTER I.
There was an annual fair at Omalo in the month of April, and I had
intended to make this the occasion of a journey through Sphakia. The
Pasha was very earnest in counselling me not to go, and magnifying
difficulties for the passage; but this only made me more disposed to
go, if only to cross his humor, as he had been exceedingly annoying
to me, and we carried on a polite war, defensive on my side, but on
his, part of a systematic course of bullying the consuls in order to
diminish their influence with the people. His tactics were to encourage
infractions of the consular prerogatives, imprison their employees or
protégés, make questions at the custom-house, etc. He had, immediately
after my arrival, got up a question with me, a patrol of zapties
(Albanian police) having entered the consulate to seize and carry off
one of the sons of the vice-consul, who resided in the consulate.
I demanded an apology, which he refused. We then exchanged sharp notes,
first in French, and then on his part in Turkish, to which I replied in
English--a mutual checkmate. Meeting him at a whist party just after,
he complained that I had written in English, and he had been obliged to
hunt Canéa for three days in order to find some person in confidence
who could translate it for him, to which I replied that after four
days' search for a person whom I could admit into the secrets of the
consulate, I had been finally obliged to have recourse to the public
interpreter. He thereupon promised to write in French, and in this
language the diplomatic broil went on. The beginning of the row had
been an exchange of words between the patrol and the offending protégé.
Whose the fault of the first word was an open question, but one with
which mine had nothing to do, as no provocation justified infringement
of the consular privilege of exterritoriality. The zapties were put
on trial. I had four witnesses, who deposed that they saw them in the
house. The four zapties swore that they had not entered the doors, and
the Pasha declined to render judgment against them, saying that, as
there were four witnesses for and an equal number against, the truth
could not be ascertained. I demanded that the testimony should be taken
down for transmission to Constantinople, whither I intended to appeal.
By this time the affair occupied the whole attention of the population
of Canéa, a large majority being on my side, and the declaration of
my intention to refer the affair to Constantinople annoyed the Pasha
very much, as he saw that he would be compelled to make excuses.
He, ingeniously, in taking the testimony of my witnesses, omitted
administering the oath, while he administered it to his own. When,
therefore, the certified copy of the proceedings was delivered me, I
called in the parish priest, and took the evidence anew under oath,
affixed it to the record, and sent it all on. This was having a trump
too many for him, as he had intended to invalidate the evidence of my
witnesses on the ground that they had refused to take the oath.
Judgment was delivered in Constantinople, ordering the apology to be
made for violation of domicile, and the minister on my part engaged
my protégé to make a declaration that he had not had any intention of
insulting the authorities. But, with this positive order communicated
to both of us, he denied for several weeks that he had had any orders
on the subject; but as I stuck to the affair like a leech, having
nothing else to absorb my energies, he finally admitted judgment,
and ordered the mulazim to ask my pardon, but cunningly managed to
have the amends made in his own audience-room to escape _éclat_. I
said nothing, but waited until he made me a visit, and without any
warning introduced my culprit; and before he knew what was passing,
the Roland was delivered for his Oliver. He did not attempt to
conceal his annoyance, nor I my satisfaction, for he had notified me
that he expected our apology _chez lui_. This was not the end of the
Lilliputian diplomatics, for on my next visit to him the Pasha insisted
on presenting me with an intaglio, which, he said, he had bought of
a peasant some days before. He knew that I was an amateur of gems,
and he was a collector, and had several very fine ones. The intaglio
was exquisite, but the genuineness doubtful, and, when he insisted on
forcing it on me in spite of my repeated refusals, I accepted it, with
the intention of sending it to the government if genuine, so as not to
be under obligations to him. Reaching home, I drew a file across it,
and found it to be a paste copy worth a dime. I immediately wrote him
a note, enclosing the file, and telling him that, as he was a buyer of
gems, and might not know how well they were counterfeited, I begged to
enclose him an instrument I had found very useful.
After this skirmish, the general result of which, enormously magnified
in popular report, was a mortifying defeat to the Pasha, merely from
the obstinacy with which he had fought the question, we got into a
chronic state of pique, and my resolution to go to Omalo and Sphakia
put him into a great irritation. He had no right to oppose my going,
but tried to make trouble, and began to talk about intrigues, etc.
However, the news coming down from the mountains that the fair was
to be turned into an Assembly stopped me, for a Cretan imbroglio
is something into which no wise man will allow himself to be drawn
voluntarily. On the 12th of April, the Assembly began to gather at
Omalo, whence it moved to Boutzounaria, then to Nerokouro, nearer to
Canéa, where it remained until the gathering was nearly complete, when
it moved back to Boutzounaria.