Argos.--Tomb of Agamemnon.--Mycenae.--Gate of the Lions.--A
Misfortune.--A Midnight Quarrel.--Gratitude of a Greek
Family.--Megara.
IN the morning, finding a difficulty in procuring horses, some of the
loungers about the hotel told us there was a carriage in Napoli, and we
ordered it to be brought out, and soon after saw moving majestically
down the principal street a bella carozza, imported by its enterprising
proprietor from the Strada Toledo at Naples. It was painted a bright
flaring yellow, and had a big breeched Albanian for coachman. While
preparing to embark, a Greek came up with two horses, and we discharged
the bella carozza. My companion hired the horses for Padras, and I threw
my cloak on one of them and followed on foot.
The plain of Argos is one of the most beautiful I ever saw. On every
side except toward the sea it is bounded by mountains, and the contrast
between these mountains, the plain, and the sea is strikingly beautiful.
The sun was beating upon it with intense heat; the labourers were almost
naked, or in several places lying asleep on the ground, while the tops
of the mountains were covered with snow. I walked across the whole
plain, being only six miles, to Argos. This ancient city is long since
in ruins; her thirty temples, her costly sepulchres, her gymnasium, and
her numerous and magnificent monuments and statues have disappeared,
and the only traces of her former greatness are some remains of her
Cyclopean walls, and a ruined theatre cut in the rock and of magnificent
proportions. Modern Argos is nothing more than a straggling village. Mr.
Riggs, an American missionary, was stationed there, but was at that time
at Athens with an invalid wife. I was still on foot, and wandered up and
down the principal street looking for a horse. Every Greek in Argos soon
knew my business, and all kinds of four-legged animals were brought to
me at exorbitant prices. When I was poring over the Iliad I little
thought that I should ever visit Argos; still less that I should create
a sensation in the ancient city of the Danai; but man little knows for
what he is reserved.
Argos has been so often visited that Homer is out of date. Every middy
from a Mediterranean cruiser has danced on the steps of her desolate
theatre, and, instead of busying myself with her ancient glories, I
roused half the population in hiring a horse. In fact, in this ancient
city I soon became the centre of a regular horsemarket. Every rascally
jockey swore that his horse was the best, and, according to the
descendants of the respectable sons of Atreus, blindness, lameness,
spavin, and staggers were a recommendation. A Bavarian officer, whom I
had met in the bazars, came to my assistance, and stood by me while I
made my bargain. I had more regard to the guide than the horse; and
picking out one who had been particularly noisy, hired him to conduct me
to Corinth and Athens. He was a lad of about twenty, with a bright
sparkling eye, who, laughing roguishly at his unsuccessful competitors,
wanted to pitch me at once on the horse and be off. I joined my
companions, and in a few minutes we left Argos.
The plain of Argos has been immortalized by poetic genius as the great
gathering-place of the kings and armies that assembled for the siege of
Troy. To the scholar and poet few plains in the world are more
interesting. It carries him back to the heroic ages, to the history of
times bordering on the fabulous, when fact and fiction are so
beautifully blended that we would not separate them if we could. I had
but a little while longer to remain with my friends, for we were
approaching the point where our roads separated, and about eleven
o'clock we halted and exchanged our farewell greetings. We parted in the
middle of the plain, they to return to Padras and Europe, and I for the
tomb of Agamemnon, and back to Athens, and I hardly know where besides.
Dr. W. I did not meet again until my return home. About a year afterward
I arrived in Antwerp in the evening from Rotterdam. The city was filled
with strangers, and I was denied admission at a third hotel, when a
young man brushed by me in the doorway, and I recognised Maxwell. I
hailed him, but in cap and cloak, and with a large red shawl around my
neck, he did not know me. I unrolled and discovered myself, and it is
needless to say that I did not leave the hotel that night. It was his
very last day of two years' travel on the Continent; he had taken his
passage in the steamer for London, and one day later I should have
missed him altogether. I can give but a faint idea of the pleasure of
this meeting. He gave me the first information of the whereabout of Dr.
W.; we talked nearly all night, and about noon the next day I again bade
him farewell on board the steamer.
I have for some time neglected our servant. When we separated, the
question was who should _not_ keep him. We were all heartily tired of
him, and I would not have had him with me on any account. Still, at the
moment of parting in that wild and distant region, never expecting to
see him again, I felt some slight leaning toward him. Touching the
matter of shirts, it will not be surprising to a man of the world that,
at the moment of parting, I had one of M.'s on my back; and, in justice
to him, I must say it was a very good one, and lasted a long time. A
friend once wrote to me on a like occasion not to wear his out of its
turn, but M. laid no such restriction upon me. But this trifling gain
did not indemnify me for the loss of my friends. I had broken the only
link that connected me with home, and was setting out alone for I knew
not where. I felt at once the great loss I had sustained, for my young
muleteer could speak only his own language, and, as Queen Elizabeth said
to Sir Walter Raleigh of her Hebrew, we had "forgotten our" Greek.
But on that classical soil I ought not to have been lonely. I should
have conjured up the ghosts of the departed Atridae, and held converse on
their own ground with Homer's heroes. Nevertheless, I was not in the
mood; and, entirely forgetting the glories of the past, I started my
horse into a gallop. My companion followed on a full run, close at my
heels, belabouring my horse with a stick, which when he broke, he pelted
him with stones; indeed, this mode of scampering over the ground seemed
to hit his humour, for he shouted, hurraed, and whipped, and sometimes
laying hold of the tail of the beast, was dragged along several paces
with little effort of his own. I soon tired of this, and made signs to
him to stop; but it was his turn now, and I was obliged to lean back
till I reached him with my cane before I could make him let go his hold,
and then he commenced shouting and pelting again with stones.
In this way we approached the village of Krabata, about a mile below
the ruins of Mycenae, and the most miserable place I had seen in Greece.
With the fertile plain of Argos uncultivated before them, the
inhabitants exhibited a melancholy picture of the most abject poverty.
As I rode through, crowds beset me with outstretched arms imploring
charity; and a miserable old woman, darting out of a wretched hovel,
laid her gaunt and bony hand upon my leg, and attempted to stop me. I
shrunk from her grasp, and, under the effect of a sudden impulse, threw
myself off on the other side, and left my horse in her hands.
Hurrying through the village, a group of boys ran before me, crying out
"Agamemnon," "Agamemnon." I followed, and they conducted me to the tomb
of "the king of kings," a gigantic structure, still in good
preservation, of a conical form, covered with turf; the stone over the
door is twenty-seven feet long and seventeen wide, larger than any hewn
stone in the world except Pompey's Pillar. I entered, my young guides
going before with torches, and walked within and around this ancient
sepulchre. A worthy Dutchman, Herman Van Creutzer, has broached a theory
that the Trojan war is a mere allegory, and that no such person as
Agamemnon ever existed. Shame upon the cold-blooded heretic. I have my
own sins to answer for in that way, for I have laid my destroying hand
upon many cherished illusions; but I would not, if I could, destroy the
mystery that overhangs the heroic ages. The royal sepulchre was forsaken
and empty; the shepherd drives within it his flock for shelter; the
traveller sits under its shade to his noonday meal; and, at the moment,
a goat was dozing quietly in one corner. He started as I entered, and
seemed to regard me as an intruder; and when I flared before him the
light of my torch, he rose up to butt me. I turned away and left him in
quiet possession. The boys were waiting outside, and crying "Mycenae,"
"Mycenae," led me away. All was solitude, and I saw no marks of a city
until I reached the relics of her Cyclopean walls. I never felt a
greater degree of reverence than when I approached the lonely ruins of
Mycenae. At Argos I spent most of my time in the horsemarket, and I had
galloped over the great plain as carelessly as if it had been the road
to Harlem; but all the associations connected with this most interesting
ground here pressed upon me at once. Its extraordinary antiquity, its
gigantic remains, and its utter and long-continued desolation, came home
to my heart. I moved on to the Gate of the Lions, and stood before it a
long time without entering. A broad street led to it between two immense
parallel walls; and this street may, perhaps, have been a market-place.
Over the gate are two lions rampant, like the supporters of a modern
coat-of-arms, rudely carved, and supposed to be the oldest sculptured
stone in Greece. Under this very gate Agamemnon led out his forces for
the siege of Troy; three thousand years ago he saw them filing before
him, glittering in brass, in all the pomp and panoply of war; and I held
in my hand a book which told me that this city was so old that, more
than seventeen hundred years ago, travellers came as I did to visit its
ruins; and that Pausanias had found the Gate of the Lions in the same
state in which I beheld it now. A great part is buried by the rubbish of
the fallen city. I crawled under, and found myself within the walls, and
then mounted to the height on which the city stood. It was covered with
a thick soil and a rich carpet of grass. My boys left me, and I was
alone. I walked all over it, following the line of the walls. I paused
at the great blocks of stone, the remnants of Cyclopic masonry, the work
of wandering giants. The heavens were unclouded, and the sun was beaming
upon it with genial warmth. Nothing could exceed the quiet beauty of the
scene. I became entangled in the long grass, and picked up wild flowers
growing over long-buried dwellings. Under it are immense caverns, their
uses now unknown; and the earth sounded hollow under my feet, as if I
were treading on the sepulchre of a buried city. I looked across the
plain to Argos; all was as beautiful as when Homer sang its praises; the
plain, and the mountains, and the sea were the same, but the once
magnificent city, her numerous statues and gigantic temples, were gone
for ever; and but a few remains were left to tell the passing traveller
the story of her fallen greatness. I could have remained there for
hours; I could have gone again and again, for I had not found a more
interesting spot in Greece; but my reveries were disturbed by the
appearance of my muleteer and my juvenile escort. They pointed to the
sun as an intimation that the day was passing; and crying "Cavallo,"
"Cavallo," hurried me away. To them the ruined city was a playground;
they followed capering behind; and, in descending, three or four of them
rolled down upon me; they hurried me through the Gate of the Lions, and
I came out with my pantaloons, my only pantaloons, rent across the knee
almost irreparably. In an instant I was another man; I railed at the
ruins for their strain upon wearing apparel, and bemoaned my unhappy lot
in not having with me a needle and thread. I looked up to the old gate
with a sneer. This was the city that Homer had made such a noise about;
a man could stand on the citadel and almost throw a stone beyond the
boundary-line of Agamemnon's kingdom. In full sight, and just at the
other side of the plain, was the kingdom of Argos. The little state of
Rhode Island would make a bigger kingdom than both of them together.
But I had no time for deep meditation, having a long journey to Corinth
before me. Fortunately, my young Greek had no tire in him; he started me
off on a gallop, whipping and pelting my horse with stones, and would
have hurried me on, over rough and smooth, till either he, or I, or the
horse broke down, if I had not jumped off and walked. As soon as I
dismounted he mounted, and then he moved so leisurely that I had to
hurry him on in turn. In this way we approached the range of mountains
separating the plain of Argos from the Isthmus of Corinth. Entering the
pass, we rode along a mountain torrent, of which the channel-bed was
then dry, and ascended to the summit of the first range. Looking back,
the scene was magnificent. On my right and left were the ruined heights
of Argos and Mycenae; before me, the towering Acropolis of Napoli di
Romania; at my feet, the rich plain of Argos, extending to the shore of
the sea; and beyond, the island-studded AEgean. I turned away with a
feeling of regret that, in all probability, I should never see it more.
I moved on, and in a narrow pass, not wide enough to turn my horse if I
had been disposed to take to my heels, three men rose up from behind a
rock, armed to the teeth with long guns, pistols, yataghans, and
sheepskin cloaks--the dress of the klept or mountain robber--and
altogether presenting a most diabolically cutthroat appearance. If they
had asked me for my purse I should have considered it all regular, and
given up the remnant of my stock of borrowed money without a murmur;
but I was relieved from immediate apprehension by the cry of passe
porta. King Otho has begun the benefits of civilized government in
Greece by introducing passports, and mountain warriors were stationed in
the different passes to examine strangers. They acted, however, as if
they were more used to demanding purses than passports, for they sprang
into the road and rattled the butts of their guns on the rock with a
violence that was somewhat startling. Unluckily, my passport had been
made out with those of my companions, and was in their possession, and
when we parted neither thought of it; and this demand to me, who had
nothing to lose, was worse than that of my purse. A few words of
explanation might have relieved me from all difficulty, but my friends
could not understand a word I said. I was vexed at the idea of being
sent back, and thought I would try the effect of a little impudence; so,
crying out "Americanos," I attempted to pass on; but they answered me
"Nix," and turned my horse's head toward Argos. The scene, which a few
moments before had seemed so beautiful, was now perfectly detestable.
Finding that bravado had not the desired effect, I lowered my tone and
tried a bribe; this was touching the right chord; half a dollar removed
all suspicions from the minds of these trusty guardians of the pass;
and, released from their attentions, I hurried on.
The whole road across the mountain is one of the wildest in Greece. It
is cut up by numerous ravines, sufficiently deep and dangerous, which at
every step threaten destruction to the incautious traveller. During the
late revolution the soil of Greece had been drenched with blood; and my
whole journey had been through cities and over battle-fields memorable
for scenes of slaughter unparalleled in the annals of modern war. In
the narrowest pass of the mountains my guide made gestures indicating
that it had been the scene of a desperate battle. When the Turks, having
penetrated to the plain of Argos, were compelled to fall back again upon
Corinth, a small band of Greeks, under Niketas and Demetrius Ypsilanti,
waylaid them in this pass. Concealing themselves behind the rocks, and
waiting till the pass was filled, all at once they opened a tremendous
fire upon the solid column below, and the pass was instantly filled with
slain. Six thousand were cut down in a few hours. The terrified
survivers recoiled for a moment; but, as if impelled by an invisible
power, rushed on to meet their fate. "The Mussulman rode into the passes
with his sabre in his sheath and his hands before his eyes, the victim
of destiny." The Greeks again poured upon them a shower of lead, and
several thousand more were cut down before the Moslem army accomplished
the passage of this terrible defile.
It was nearly dark when we rose to the summit of the last range of
mountains, and saw, under the rich lustre of the setting sun, the
Acropolis of Corinth, with its walls and turrets, towering to the sky,
the plain forming the Isthmus of Corinth; the dark, quiet waters of the
Gulf of Lepanto; and the gloomy mountains of Cithaeron, and Helicon, and
Parnassus covered with snow. It was after dark when we passed the region
of the Nemean Grove, celebrated as the haunt of the lion and the scene
of the first of the twelve labours of Hercules. We were yet three hours
from Corinth; and, if the old lion had still been prowling in the grove,
we could not have made more haste to escape its gloomy solitude.
Reaching the plain, we heard behind us the clattering of horses' hoofs,
at first sounding in the stillness of evening as if a regiment of
cavalry or a troop of banditti was at our heels, but it proved to be
only a single traveller, belated like ourselves, and hurrying on to
Corinth. I could see through the darkness the shining butts of his
pistols and hilt of his yataghan, and took his dimensions with more
anxiety, perhaps, than exactitude. He recognised my Frank dress; and
accosted me in bad Italian, which he had picked up at Padras (being just
the Italian in which I could meet him on equal ground), and told me that
he had met a party of Franks on the road to Padras, whom, from his
description, I recognised as my friends.
It was nearly midnight when we rattled up to the gate of the old
locanda. The yard was thronged with horses and baggage, and Greek and
Bavarian soldiers. On the balcony stood my old brigand host, completely
crestfallen, and literally turned out of doors in his own house; a
detachment of Bavarian soldiers had arrived that afternoon from Padras,
and taken entire possession, giving him and his wife the freedom of the
outside. He did not recognise me, and, taking me for an Englishman,
began, "Sono Inglesi Signor" (he had lived at Corfu under the British
dominion); and, telling me the whole particulars of his unceremonious
ouster, claimed, through me, the arm of the British government to resent
the injury to a British subject; his wife was walking about in no very
gentle mood, but, in truth, very much the contrary. I did not speak to
her, and she did not trust herself to speak to me; but, addressing
myself to the husband, introduced the subject of my own immediate wants,
a supper and night's lodging. The landlord told me, however, that the
Bavarians had eaten everything in the house, and he had not a room, bed,
blanket, or coverlet to give me; that I might lie down in the hall or
the piazza, but there was no other place.
I was outrageous at the hard treatment he had received from the
Bavarians. It was too bad to turn an honest innkeeper out of his house,
and deny him the pleasure of accommodating a traveller who had toiled
hard all day, with the perfect assurance of finding a bed at night. I
saw, however, that there was no help for it; and noticing an opening at
one end of the hall, went into a sort of storeroom filled with all kinds
of rubbish, particularly old barrels. An unhinged door was leaning
against the wall, and this I laid across two of the barrels, pulled off
my coat and waistcoat, and on this extemporaneous couch went to sleep.
I was roused from my first nap by a terrible fall against my door. I
sprang up; the moon was shining through the broken casement, and,
seizing a billet of wood, I waited another attack. In the mean time I
heard the noise of a violent scuffling on the floor of the hall, and,
high above all, the voices of husband and wife, his evidently coming
from the floor in a deprecating tone, and hers in a high towering
passion, and enforced with severe blows of a stick. As soon as I was
fairly awake I saw through the thing at once. It was only a little
matrimonial _tete-a-tete_. The unamiable humour in which I had left them
against the Bavarians had ripened into a private quarrel between
themselves, and she had got him down, and was pummelling him with a
broomstick or something of that kind. It seemed natural and right
enough, and was, moreover, no business of mine; and remembering that
whoever interferes between man and wife is sure to have both against
him, I kept quiet. Others, however, were not so considerate, and the
occupants of the different rooms tumbled into the hall in every variety
of fancy night-gear, among whom was one whose only clothing was a
military coat and cap, with a sword in his hand. When the hubbub was at
its highest I looked out, and found, as I expected, the husband and wife
standing side by side, she still brandishing the stick, and both
apparently outrageous at everything and everybody around them. I
congratulated myself upon my superior knowledge of human nature, and
went back to my bed on the door.
In the morning I was greatly surprised to find that, instead of whipping
her husband, she had been taking his part. Two German soldiers, already
half intoxicated, had come into the hall, and insisted upon having more
wine; the host refused, and when they moved toward my sleeping place,
where the wine was kept, he interposed, and all came down together with
the noise which had woke me. His wife came to his aid, and the blows
which, in my simplicity, I had supposed to be falling upon him, were
bestowed on the two Bavarians. She told me the story herself; and when
she complained to the officers, they had capped the climax of her
passion by telling her that her husband deserved more than he got. She
was still in a perfect fury; and as she looked at them in the yard
arranging for their departure, she added, in broken English, with deep
and, as I thought, ominous passion, "'Twas better to be under the
Turks."
I learned all this while I was making my toilet on the piazza, that is,
while she was pouring water on my hands for me to wash; and, just as I
had finished, my eye fell upon my muleteer assisting the soldiers in
loading their horses. At first I did not notice the subdued expression
of his usually bright face, nor that he was loading my horse with some
of their camp equipage; but all at once it struck me that they were
pressing him into their service. I was already roused by what the woman
had told me, and, resolving that they should not serve me as they did
the Greeks, I sprang off the piazza, cleared my way through the crowd,
and going up to my horse, already staggering under a burden poised on
his back, but not yet fastened, put my hand under one side and tumbled
it over with a crash on the other. The soldiers cried out furiously;
and, while they were sputtering German at me, I sprang into the saddle.
I was in admirable pugilistic condition, with nothing on but pantaloons,
boots, and shirt, and just in a humour to get a whipping, if nothing
worse; but I detested the manner in which the Bavarians lorded it in
Greece; and riding up to a group of officers who were staring at me,
told them that I had just tumbled their luggage off my horse, and they
must bear in mind that they could not deal with strangers quite so
arbitrarily as they did with the Greeks. The commandant was disposed to
be indignant and very magnificent; but some of the others making
suggestions to him, he said he understood I had only hired my horse as
far as Corinth; but, if I had taken him for Athens, he would not
interfere; and, apologizing on the ground of the necessities of
government, ordered him to be released. I apologized back again,
returned the horse to my guide, whose eyes sparkled with pleasure, and
went in for my hat and coat.
I dressed myself, and, telling him to be ready when I had finished my
breakfast, went out expecting to start forthwith; but, to my surprise,
my host told me that the lad refused to go any farther without an
increase of pay; and, sure enough, there he stood, making no preparation
for moving. The cavalcade of soldiers had gone, and taken with them
every horse in Corinth, and the young rascal intended to take advantage
of my necessity. I told him that I had hired him to Athens for such a
price, and that I had saved him from impressment, and consequent loss of
wages, by the soldiers, which he admitted. I added that he was a young
rascal, which he neither admitted nor denied, but answered with a
roguish laugh. The extra price was no object compared with the vexation
of a day's detention; but a traveller is apt to think that all the world
is conspiring to impose upon him, and, at times, to be very resolute in
resisting. I was peculiarly so then, and, after a few words, set off to
complain to the head of the police. Without any ado he trotted along
with me, and we proceeded together, followed by a troup of idlers, I in
something of a passion, he perfectly cool, good-natured, and
considerate, merely keeping out of the way of my stick. Hurrying along
near the columns of the old temple, I stumbled, and he sprang forward to
assist me, his face expressing great interest, and a fear that I had
hurt myself; and when I walked toward a house which I had mistaken for
the bureau of the police department, he ran after me to direct me right.
All this mollified me considerably; and, before we reached the door, the
affair began to strike me as rather ludicrous.
I stated my case, however, to the eparchos, a Greek in Frank dress, who
spoke French with great facility, and treated me with the greatest
consideration. He was so full of professions that I felt quite sure of a
decision in my favour; but, assuming my story to be true, and without
asking the lad for his excuse, he shrugged his shoulders, and said it
would take time to examine the matter, and, if I was in a hurry, I had
better submit. To be sure, he said, the fellow was a great rogue, and he
gave his countrymen in general a character that would not tell well in
print; but added, in their justification, that they were imposed upon
and oppressed by everybody, and therefore considered that they had a
right to take their advantage whenever an opportunity offered. The young
man sat down on the floor, and looked at me with the most frank, honest,
and open expression, as if perfectly unconscious that he was doing
anything wrong. I could not but acknowledge that some excuse for him was
to be drawn from the nature of the school in which he had been brought
up, and, after a little parley, agreed to pay him the additional price,
if, at the end of the journey, I was satisfied with his conduct. This
was enough; his face brightened, he sprang up and took my hand, and we
left the house the best friends in the world. He seemed to be hurt as
well as surprised at my finding fault with him, for to him all seemed
perfectly natural; and, to seal the reconciliation, he hurried on ahead,
and had the horse ready when I reached the locanda. I took leave of my
host with a better feeling than before, and set out a second time on the
road to Athens.
At Kalamaki, while walking along the shore, a Greek who spoke the lingua
Franca came from on board one of the little caiques, and, when he
learned that I was an American, described to me the scene that had taken
place on that beach upon the arrival of provisions from America; when
thousands of miserable beings who had fled from the blaze of their
dwellings, and lived for months upon plants and roots; grayheaded men,
mothers with infants at their breasts, emaciated with hunger and almost
frantic with despair, came down from their mountain retreats to receive
the welcome relief. He might well remember the scene, for he had been
one of that starving people; and he took me to his house, and showed me
his wife and four children, now nearly all grown, telling me that they
had all been rescued from death by the generosity of my countrymen. I do
not know why, but in those countries it did not seem unmanly for a
bearded and whiskered man to weep; I felt anything but contempt for him
when, with his heart overflowing and his eyes filled with tears, he told
me, when I returned home, to say to my countrymen that I had seen and
talked with a recipient of their bounty; and though the Greeks might
never repay us, they could never forget what we had done for them. I
remembered the excitement in our country in their behalf, in colleges
and schools, from the graybearded senator to the prattling schoolboy,
and reflected that, perhaps, my mite, cast carelessly upon the waters,
had saved from the extremity of misery this grateful family. I wish that
the cold-blooded prudence which would have checked our honest enthusiasm
in favour of a people, under calamities and horrors worse than ever fell
to the lot of man struggling to be free, could have listened to the
gratitude of this Greek family. With deep interest I bade them farewell,
and, telling my guide to follow with my horse, walked over to the foot
of the mountain.
Ascending, I saw in one of the openings of the road a packhorse and a
soldier in the Bavarian uniform, and, hoping to find some one to talk
with, I hailed him. He was on the top of the mountain, so far off that
he did not hear me; and when, with the help of my Greek, I had succeeded
in gaining his attention, he looked for some time without being able to
see me. When he did, however, he waited; but, to my no small
disappointment, he answered my first question with the odious "Nix." We
tried each other in two or three dialects; but, finding it of no use, I
sat down to rest, and he, for courtesy, joined me; my young Greek, in
the spirit of good-fellowship, doing the same. He was a tall,
noble-looking fellow, and, like myself, a stranger in Greece; and,
though we could not say so, it was understood that we were glad to meet
and travel together as comrades. The tongue causes more evils than the
sword; and, as we were debarred the use of this mischievous member, and
walked all day side by side, seldom three paces apart, before night we
were sworn friends.
About five o'clock in the afternoon we arrived at Megara. A group of
Bavarian soldiers was lounging round the door of the khan, who welcomed
their expected comrade and me as his companion. My friend left me, and
soon returned with the compliments of the commandant, and an invitation
to visit him in the evening. I had, however, accepted a prior invitation
from the soldiers for a rendezvous in the locanda. I wandered till dark
among the ruined houses of the town, thought of Euclid and Alexander the
Great, and returning, went up to the same room in which I had slept with
my friends, pored over an old map of Greece hanging on the wall, made a
few notes, and throwing myself back on a sort of divan, while thinking
what I should do fell asleep.
About ten o'clock I was roused by the loud roar of a chorus, not like a
sudden burst, but a thing that seemed to have swelled up to that point
by degrees; and rubbing my eyes, and stumbling down stairs, I entered
the banqueting hall; a long, rough wooden table extended the whole
length of the room, supplied with only two articles, wine-flagons and
tobacco-pouches; forty or fifty soldiers were sitting round it, smoking
pipes and singing with all their souls, and, at the moment I entered,
waving their pipes to the dying cadence of a hunting chorus. Then
followed a long thump on the table, and they all rose; my long
travelling friend, with a young soldier who spoke a little French, came
up, and, escorting me to the head of the table, gave me a seat by the
side of the chairman. One of them attempted to administer a cup of wine,
and the other thrust at me the end of a pipe, and I should have been
obliged to kick and abscond but for the relief afforded me by the
entrance of another new-comer. This was no other than the corporal's
wife; and if I had been received warmly, she was greeted with
enthusiasm. Half the table sprang forward to escort her, two of them
collared the president and hauled him off his seat, and the whole
company, by acclamation, installed her in his place. She accepted it
without any hesitation, while two of them, with clumsy courtesy, took
off her bonnet, which I, sitting at her right hand, took charge of. All
then resumed their places, and the revel went on more gayly than ever.
The lady president was about thirty, plainly but neatly dressed, and,
though not handsome, had a frank, amiable, and good-tempered expression,
indicating that greatest of woman's attributes, a good heart. In fact,
she looked what the young man at my side told me she was, the peacemaker
of the regiment; and he added, that they always tried to have her at
their convivial meetings, for when she was among them the brawling
spirits were kept down, and every man would be ashamed to quarrel in her
presence. There was no chivalry, no heroic devotion about them, but
their manner toward her was as speaking a tribute as was ever paid to
the influence of woman; and I question whether beauty in her bower,
surrounded by belted knights and barons bold, ever exercised in her
more exalted sphere a more happy influence. I talked with her, and with
the utmost simplicity she told me that the soldiers all loved her; that
they were all kind to her, and she looked upon them all as brothers. We
broke up at about twelve o'clock with a song, requiring each person to
take the hand of his neighbour; one of her hands fell to me, and I took
it with a respect seldom surpassed in touching the hand of woman; for I
felt that she was cheering the rough path of a soldier's life, and,
among scenes calculated to harden the heart, reminding them of mothers,
and sisters, and sweethearts at home.