Gun-room--Mountains of Morea--Minister of the Interior--Quarantine--
Deck companions--Holystone--Mr. Dawkins--Russian policy--Captain
Lyons--Hospitality--Bay of Napoli--Bustle of the streets--Public
walks--Count Armansperg--Modern Greeks--Their advantages--Democracy--
Aristocracy--The Senate--The Laws--The Sovereign--Judicial office.
We lingered about Hydra all the morning (2d November), and it being
Sunday the men all assembled on deck in their best clothes at ten
o’clock, when the officers read to them, in different groups, the Act
of Parliament which directs that divine service shall be performed
on-board his Majesty’s ships of war. I confess I think that this part
of the ceremony is particularly objectionable. To summon a ship’s
company to prayers by virtue of an Act of Parliament, is, of all
things, the most absurd, considering that a duty of that kind ought
to be performed from motives of a nature altogether superior to the
authority of mere temporal legislation. The men then proceeded to the
lower deck, where forms were arranged, and a temporary pulpit covered
with a signal flag was erected for the chaplain, who read the service
and a very good sermon in an unaffected and impressive manner. I
observed with great pleasure that almost all the men and all the boys
had books, and that they attended to the solemn duties of the hour in a
very collected and becoming manner.
♦ GUN-ROOM ♦
The captain generally dines in the gun-room with the officers on a
Sunday. This, however, is by no means considered as a matter of course.
It is always the result of a regular invitation formally given and
as formally accepted. The officers were so good as to send me also
a similar invitation, of which I was most happy to avail myself. In
our walks upon deck I had already become acquainted with most of
the gentlemen on-board, and it gave me great pleasure to meet them
assembled together at their own table, where they appeared to be so
many brothers. There was less of style about their saloon than one
is accustomed to at the captain’s; but the large tureen of excellent
pea-soup, the noble sirloin of beef, the crowd of fowls and bacon, and
stews, and vegetables of all kinds, and pies and puddings, with which
their board was spread, recalled the best days of English hospitality,
when the silver tankard foaming with nut-brown ale circulated from
hand to hand, and the ruddy glow of health on every cheek predicted a
considerable diminution in the weight of the plentiful dishes before
they were permitted to take their departure.
♦ MOUNTAINS OF THE MOREA ♦
My friend, Captain Price, who has himself a taste for the beauties of
nature, summoned me early on the following morning (3d November) to
witness the effect of the rising sun on the mountains of the Morea. The
higher peaks were capped with snow, and as the orb rose in the heavens,
new peaks similarly diademed appeared to be called into existence every
moment, until they appeared a congress of kings. From time to time as
we were wafted tardily up the gulf, a different combination of mountain
scenery opened on our view, looking like the work of enchantment, as we
scarcely felt the vessel moving along the shore of these classic and
delightful regions.
♦ MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR ♦
The Palamede of Napoli, as the acropolis or fortified capital of that
ancient city is called, was already in sight, the Greek flag bearing
the cross waving over its towers; but we did not reach our anchorage
before it until three o’clock in the afternoon, when the _Portland_
announced her arrival by a royal salute, conducted with that rapidity
and order which characterize all the operations of our ships of war. It
was very fairly returned from the Palamede.
As we had some quarantine to go through, the duration of which we had
not yet been able to ascertain, Captain Price dispatched a note to Mr.
Waller, the secretary of the British legation, to make some inquiries
on the subject. We were aware that Mr. Dawkins, our minister, had taken
a little trip in the _Madagascar_ with Captain Lyons to Candia, whence
he was expected back every moment. Mr. Waller’s reply was, that the
“Minister of the Interior” had gone a little way into the country, and
would return in an hour or two, when the period of our imprisonment
would be settled. The title of “Minister of the Interior” for Greece--a
country which had so long been the victim of misrule and oppression in
every form--sounded oddly, but by no means disagreeably in my ears.
How intelligence connected with such a title would have thrilled the
soul of Lord Byron! Our messenger brought back a file of Galignani’s
newspapers, down to the 10th of October, which afforded an agreeable
occupation to us all for the whole evening.
♦ QUARANTINE ♦
The _Madagascar_, which had been for some time within our telescopic
view, came in at nightfall. I was extremely anxious to get ashore,
to touch the soil of that territory so sacred in my estimation, and
to behold her newly-recovered freedom in one of its earliest phases.
Having letters for Mr. Dawkins, I sent them with Captain Price’s
dispatches as soon as the _Madagascar_ was anchored, adding a note by
way of petition for an early deliverance from quarantine.
♦ DECK COMPANIONS ♦
Upon reflection, however, I wondered at myself for feeling any
inclination at all to quit the pleasant quarters I enjoyed in the
_Portland_. I can never look back at the days and nights which I spent
on-board that vessel without classing them among the happiest of my
life. Should Captain Price, Lieutenant Burridge, my good friends
Cooper, the Purser, and Captain M’Adam, of the marines, the companions
of many of my walks on the deck, happen to see this work, I beg they
will remember me when next they meet in the gun-room, and that they
will assure my other friends also, “the members of the junior branches
of the service,” that if ever occasion should arise for her services,
in a more active scene than the Piræus, I shall look with confidence
and peculiar interest for the dispatches which shall announce that the
_Portland_ has “done her duty.” By Jupiter! I should not like to be
roaming about in a Russian ship of war, if any danger existed of her
coming into hostile contact with those hosts of mine. I never saw them
in their element until that day, when, in voices that had nearly burst
the tympana of my auricular organs, their guns bade old Palamede “good
morning!” But had they been blowing up the veteran!--
♦ HOLYSTONE ♦
By the way, talking of tympana, I should be glad to learn from Basil
Hall, Glascock, or Marryatt, who was the inventor of _holystone_?
Wrapped one fine morning in such dreams as may be supposed to haunt
the mind slumbering within sight of Argos, Mycenæ, and Tiryntha,
I was suddenly awoke by a succession of sounds, which were to me
utterly incomprehensible. They were above, around, below. I made no
doubt at first that we were in for an earthquake, or rather for all
the earthquakes that ever yet took place concentrated in one series
of explosions. But this idea was dissipated by the regularity of the
moving power, whatever that might have been, for on it went, like the
lever of some infernal engine, scraping, rubbing, scrubbing, thumping
with a noise of thunder, without the intermixture of one human sound,
to prevent me from believing that the whole of this interruption to
my repose was brought about by some preter-natural agency I had read
of the region where unexpiated crime is punished by “weeping and
gnashing of teeth;” but until _Holystone_ morning, I never could fix
in my thoughts any thing like an idea of those sounds of anguish and
unalterable despair.
♦ MR. DAWKINS ♦
Forsooth! that the captain may be able to see his face reflected from
the deck as in a mirror, on stated days the men assemble at the dawn,
each with a huge brick in his hand, and kneeling down--whence they
call the duty _holy_!--on they go over the whole surface with their
inquisitorial torturer, until they expel from the very souls of the
unfortunate planks the slightest stain of transgression. When the work
is over, and the polished timbers shine out with a sort of bridal
smile, the captain struts forth like a bridegroom, and walks up and
down his empire, perfectly convinced that he is the happiest of human
creatures! The operation cannot, one should think, be pleasant to any
man of common sense--and yet I do believe, if it were altered by any
chemical substitution for a process not quite so horrible, the reform
would lead to a general mutiny in his Majesty’s navy! _Holystone_ and I
shall never be friends--nevertheless, I bow to it as a most venerable
institution!
♦ RUSSIAN POLICY ♦
Mr. Dawkins came alongside the _Portland_ in a boat from the
_Madagascar_, which was also in quarantine, the plague having been then
rife at Alexandria, which communicated with Candia, almost unrestricted
by any sanatory regulations. That beautiful and fertile island is in
the possession of Mehemet Ali, to whom it is rather an incumbrance
than an advantage, for the expenditure which it costs him is more than
double its revenue. Mr. Dawkins appeared to have been delighted with
his visit to it, and talked of its lemon and orange groves in terms
that made me desirous of following his example, if time and opportunity
had allowed me. But my present purpose was to get ashore as speedily
as possible; and when the minister told me that he expected to see
Price and myself, as well as his friend Lyons at his house to dinner,
I assured him, very sincerely, that I accepted his invitation with the
greatest satisfaction. I was much pleased with Mr. Dawkins. My notions
of a man’s character are pretty generally formed on a first interview,
and I have seldom occasion to correct them. In this instance I saw a
remarkably strong and clear mind, united with a most excellent heart,
and every hour of my further acquaintance with both confirmed my
earliest impressions in their favour.
And so it happened, that in the evening (4th November) we really did
receive from the “Minister of the Interior,” permission to terminate
our quarantine, which we had feared would be extended to eleven days.
I stepped upon the soil of Greece with feelings which arose from the
double reflection, that I touched a territory at once classic and
free--classic from its own genius, and free by the genius of England!
Those who claim for Russia any share in that important result, must
be but very imperfectly acquainted with the policy which it was her
great aim to establish in that quarter. It is very well-known, that
the real object of the late and the present emperor was, to establish
principalities in Attica and the Morea, upon the system adopted in
Moldavia and Wallachia. It was our business to resist and defeat
that design, and we have succeeded--and that success is very much to
be imputed to the exertions of Mr. Dawkins, who has represented his
Majesty in Greece during the whole of the discussions, which ended in
the election of a Bavarian prince as the sovereign of the new kingdom.
♦ CAPTAIN LYONS ♦
♦ HOSPITALITY ♦
When I met Captain Lyons, I could scarcely convince myself that it was
for the first time. There are some faces to be encountered in this
world of ours which never seem new; they approach at once without
ceremony, all beaming with honesty of purpose, and thorough kindliness
of disposition, which open an instant way for them to our hearts, as
if they had been already its best known and most familiar guests. I
think the very first words he spoke to me were these--“Well, as you
have come to Napoli in the _Portland_, assuredly you will come home
with us in the _Madagascar_.” What could I say in the way of thanks
to such a salutation as this? “But Mr. Quin shall do no such thing,”
said Mr. Dawkins, “for you are going away to-morrow or the next day,
and if he does not stay here as long as he can, and see what we have
been doing here for the last eight or ten years, his character will be
lost as a Philhelline.” Imagine these sort of things going on amidst
iced champagne, old port, and sweet lemons, and fragrant oranges from
Candia, after a dinner cooked and served in the best English style, and
zested by the true Yorkshire hospitality!
As Bruno’s hotel was full, Mr. Dawkins assigned to me the apartments
of his private secretary, Mr. Griffith, who was engaged at Athens in
superintending the progress of the building which had been purchased
for the future residence of the British legation. Thus every where I
lighted on a home. However, the next day finding a vacancy at Bruno’s,
I removed to his not uncomfortable establishment; as, however well
disposed our ministers abroad may be to show every mark of attention
and even of kindness to our countrymen, it is by no means fair to
trespass upon their domestic arrangements beyond the strict necessity
of any case that may arise.
♦ BAY OF NAPOLI ♦
Before making myself familiar with the streets of Napoli, my first
steps were directed towards the mountain on which the Palamede is
erected. Though exceedingly rough and rocky, there was not a handful
of earth any where to be seen that did not produce some kind of
vegetation, and all of it perfumed with that wild thymy fragrance,
which I afterwards found to be characteristic of all the rocky hills
I visited in Greece. I looked down upon Napoli, which lay like a
map beneath me, and beheld with a lively feeling of gratification
the bustling crowds running here and there through its squares and
market-places. The _Portland_ and _Madagascar_ were anchored at some
distance from the shore; near the latter were two French ships of war,
under the command of Commodore Laland, and almost within the port,
two Russian frigates of sixteen guns each--the _Ajax_ and _Achilles_,
stationed there for the purpose, it was said, of carrying on the
correspondence. Several merchant vessels and abundance of small craft
gave the bay an appearance of animation. Argos, and its famous plain
in the west, and the mountains which extend in a semicircle from
its Acropolis by Mycenæ and Tiryntha, round the head of the gulph,
were reposing in the golden light of the morning sun. A goatherd was
wandering about the mountains with his shaggy company and one or two
donkies, who neglected no blade of verdure they could detect among
rocks, which to most other animals would have been inaccessible.
♦ BUSTLE OF THE STREETS ♦
Accustomed to the laziness of the Turkish towns which I had so lately
left, I was rejoiced to observe the variety of groups I met every where
in Napoli, and the industry that appeared to reign in almost every
habitation. French, English, Bavarians, Greeks from all the provinces
in their beautiful and gay costume, moving about with that air of
freedom to which we are habituated at home, served, in my estimation,
as the best commentary that could be written upon their revolution.
Except at Pera, and in one of the bazaars at Constantinople, I had
not seen a single book-shop since I left Vienna, and nothing like a
news-room since I quitted France. Here I beheld both the one and the
other; I think there were six or eight in all, and they appeared to be
well frequented.
♦ PUBLIC WALKS ♦
In the afternoon the public walks near the town displayed a still
greater variety of costume, as the ladies made their appearance, some
as pedestrians, some riding, others in carriages, attended by military
officers in their handsome uniform; by several English gentlemen,
some of whom were like myself, travellers; some, as General Church,
distinguished Philhellenes; by noisy Greeks, who with their freedom
seemed to have completely recovered their ancient propensity to
talk; by the ministers and other members of the different legations;
and by mercantile gentlemen, who appear not to have yet established
their legitimate grade in the social intercourse of the country. The
“junior branches of the service” intermingled also in this interesting
scene, “on the look-out;” while idling soldiers, tars, nurses, and
children, contributed to swell the ranks moving up and down with great
regularity. Among the distinguished of the scene were the Countess
Armansperg and her daughters, and the lady of the Russian envoy.
As a first external view of the changes which had already come over
Greece, these exhibitions were by no means unsatisfactory. I was told,
however, that beneath all this pleasant-looking surface, much rankling
and jealousy, and ambition and disappointment prevailed; that cabal
was working in its dangerous sinuosities, and rivalry, or rather
envy, was planning perpetually fresh disturbances; that is to say,
in Greece there are men and women, as well as in England or France,
who are desirous of profiting by circumstances to advance themselves
and their families in the world. So much the better. It is upon such
constant personal warfare, whether latent or avowed, that nations must
always depend for their progress in civilization. I was glad to hear
that there was so much of it already in Greece; and although one might
silently wish to see the contest carried on with more generosity and
charity on all sides, nevertheless we must take men as we find them,
and look forward to a more perfect stage of society, when that which we
now justly stigmatize as envy, may become emulation; when cabal shall
be impotent against public opinion; and disappointment in the different
walks of life shall only be the portion of those who, from want of
conduct or of talents, are unfit to gain the distinctions to which they
aspire.
♦ COUNT ARMANSPERG ♦
There were evening assemblies once a week at Count Armansperg’s, one
of which I attended. The rooms were crowded. The Count is a man of
tried ability, of simple engaging manners, much attached by sentiment
to Greece, and to every thing Greek, possessing a mind stored with
various information, and remarkably well fitted to be the Mentor of the
young monarch, who has lately taken into his own hands the reins of
sovereignty. It has been wisely arranged that the termination of the
regency was to be attended with no substantial change in the position
of the Count. He is now arch-chancellor of the kingdom, an office which
will enable him more effectually even than that he lately held as the
head of the regency, to carry into execution his plans for the gradual
regeneration of a country and a people, capable of being raised to a
most important rank among the civilized communities of Europe.
♦ MODERN GREEKS ♦
It is a kind of fashion amongst our circles at home to decry the Greeks
as a set of knaves, idlers, banditti, swaggerers, and peculators, of
whom no good can ever be augured. Is perfection, then, to be expected
at once from a nation just risen from a long night of oppression, with
all the marks of the manacle upon its limbs, with all the defensive
stratagems of the slave still lurking in its mind? Have we no knaves,
no idlers, no swaggerers, no peculators, in England? Are none such to
be found in France? I know nothing more unjust, in every sense of the
word, than the vituperative language which I have heard every where
uttered against the Greeks since my return home. The truth is, that
they are neither more or less perfect, as to moral character, than any
other people. My experience has taught me this truth, that under every
phasis of civilization, whether the brightest or the darkest, the sum
of human happiness or virtue, of misery and vice, is much the same,
and that it generally bears about the same proportion to the number of
families comprised in each community.
♦ THEIR ADVANTAGES ♦
The Greeks require time for repairing the ruins of their ancient
institutions, and for engrafting upon those institutions, with the
requisite skill, which can alone ensure success, such improvements
as the new interests of society may demand. They come to the task
of reform with incalculable advantages, which will enable them to
accelerate their march towards a stable government, and an assured,
compact, social condition. They have the press, the newspaper, the
rail-road, the steam-boat; they soon will have a powerful tide of
public opinion, representing not the passions, but the good sense of
a decided majority of their intelligent men; they have derived from
their illustrious ancestors minds capable of any thing within even the
highest range of the human faculties; they possess powerful muscular
frames, inured to labour; they are prone to agricultural and commercial
pursuits; they are easily rendered excellent soldiers and the best
sailors in the Mediterranean; they cultivate a land where, although
barren mountains abound, the plains compensate for that sterility by
their double harvests, when properly irrigated; and as their great
object will be to _restore_, having little to _invent_ in the way of
government, laws, manners, arts of navigation and war, industrious
occupations, whether connected with the soil or manufactures, the
convenience or amusement, the wants or embellishments of social
existence--they will unquestionably have fewer difficulties to contend
against than any other people on the earth, struggling at the present
moment to emerge from barbarity to freedom.
♦ DEMOCRACY ♦
Many persons have lamented that instead of a monarchy, a republic had
not been established in Greece. I am not one of those persons. The
purely democratic forms of government, attempted to be established in
the new states of South America, have already cost those countries
oceans of blood, and mines of gold; and at this hour they appear to be
farther removed from the stages of peace and prosperity, than they were
even when oppressed by the domination of Spain.
I have taken none of my notions of the United States from the works of
English or other foreign tourists. I have conversed with Americans;
I constantly read their reviews and magazines, and, above all, their
newspapers, which reflect their manners, ideas, and every day practices,
as in a glass; and I find, on the whole, that a President may, during
his hour upon the stage, play many more of the tricks of a tyrant, than
a monarch of England would dare even to meditate; that a senate may be
as obstinate and as wrong as a house of lords, without their dignity;
that a congress may be in every possible attribute, requisite for
legislators and statesmen, infinitely below comparison with a reformed
house of commons; and that a whole mass of sovereign citizens may be
actuated by feelings of the most rancorous jealousy, which enter into
and disturb all the relations of life, while the loyal subjects of a
king, possessed of a free constitution, which they know how to guard,
may also have their political quarrels; but that the stability of the
succession to the crown, of property, and of the natural gradations
of rank, and the perfect capability which the lowest individual on
the scale enjoys of ascending to the highest, if borne thither by
his merits, and by the approbation of his country, offer to society
pledges of public and domestic happiness, and of steady, progressive
improvement, as yet unrivalled by any other nation.
♦ ARISTOCRACY ♦
It is certain that the earliest, and, for a long period, the only,
form of government, which prevailed in the various cities or states of
Greece, was that of monarchy, controlled by councils of the elders,
and of the great body of the people. Wisdom, or the acquisition of
years spent in temperate, virtuous, and thoughtful habits, and the
same qualifications which entitled a citizen to become a senator,
gained for him also an unbought veneration, which naturally diffused
itself over all the members of his family. Thus, an aristocracy, in
the literal sense, was one of the very first products of society; and
though it rarely happens that the wisdom of the sire descends in all
its plenitude to the son, still, in the natural order of things, such a
transmission is presumed, and the rank and merits of the ancestor shed
a lustre upon his posterity, which is guaranteed by their uncontested
inheritance of his name and possessions. It is not probable, therefore,
that the creation of a class of nobility was the work of any lawgiver,
for it existed as soon as communities found themselves provided with a
regular system of government.
♦ THE SENATE ♦
In process of time, the council thus became an assembly of men, young
and old, whose only right to the exercise of senatorial functions arose
from descent. To establish that right, the preservation of pedigrees
was necessary; it soon grew into a subject of pride, and formed a
decided mark of distinction, which, while it repelled the familiarity
of the multitude, attracted their respect. They were naturally as
deeply interested in the maintenance of public liberty, as the people
themselves; indeed more so, for they had rank and property to lose.
♦ THE LAWS ♦
From the comparative paucity of their numbers, they were easily
convened; the same circumstance gave consistency to their
deliberations; and hence we find that in almost all the states,
the council of nobles formed an integral branch not only of the
legislative, but also of the executive departments of government. The
prince scarcely did any act of importance without their sanction. It
was his duty to offer his own opinions in council, to hear those of
its members, and to adopt that advice alone which appeared to him most
conducive to the general welfare. Indeed so intimate was the connection
between the senate and the chief magistrate, that they may be said to
have conducted the ordinary affairs of government in conjunction. They
judged of the necessity of sending ambassadors to other states, and
even nominated them. They received also the ambassadors from foreign
powers. They had authority to confer grants of land, and to bestow
other rewards, on those individuals whose public services deserved
well of the country. They were the depositories of those principles
of natural equity, and of those customs peculiar to each state, which
added to a few maxims, handed down from sage to sage, formed the only
code of laws with which they were as yet conversant.
♦ THE SOVEREIGN ♦
The necessity of resorting so frequently to the senate for advice, and
of depending on its members for the ordinary administration of public
affairs, created of itself a limit to the authority of the prince,
beyond which, if he had the disposition, he had not as yet the means
to force it. They were the dispensers of justice between man and man.
The prince more than insinuated that he derived his sceptre from
Jove, though he acknowledged at the same time that he was to frame
his counsels according to the laws. His race was moreover looked upon
as sacred; and this species of sanctity with which he was surrounded
rendered his person inviolable.
♦ THE JUDICIAL CHARACTER ♦
But it may be doubted whether the princely character was so profoundly
venerated by the people in any state of Greece, as the judicial office,
when its functions were executed with impartiality, wisdom, and
eloquence. Poetry, in the opinion of the people, was the gift of Apollo
and the Muses, but the eloquence of the judge was breathed into him by
Jove himself. The chief of the Muses attended on his steps, and poured
a gentle dew upon his tongue; words were honeyed that dropped from his
lips; he spoke firmly, but at the same time with a graceful modesty;
he soothed the unfortunate, defended the oppressed, discerning in his
righteousness the ways of justice; while he spoke, strife disappeared,
all his hearers gazed upon him with delighted wonder; he shone in the
great assembly, and when he moved abroad, in his majesty, the people
honoured him as a god. This was a character to be found in the senate
alone. The weight which their judicial functions thus gave them in the
state, rendered them a body formidable to the prince: he could scarcely
oppose their will without bringing on himself the hostility of the
people.