my financial condition exceedingly bad! I had just enough cash remaining
to carry me (omitting a few meals) by second-class passage to Athens:
which was the nearest place where I had opened a credit from my bankers,
or where I had any introductions. There was nothing for it but to take a
second-class place on board the Austrian Lloyd’s steamer
_L’Impératrice_; though it was not a pleasant arrangement, seeing that
there was no other woman passenger and no stewardess on the ship at all.
Nevertheless this was just one of the cases in which knocking about the
world brought me favourable experience of human nature. The Captain of
the _Impératrice_, an Italian gentleman, did his utmost, with extreme
delicacy and good taste, to make my position comfortable. He ordered his
own dinner to be served in the second cabin that he might preside at the
table instead of one of his subordinates; and during the day he came
often to see that I was well placed and shaded on deck, and to
interchange a little pleasant talk, without intrusion.
It is truly one of the silliest of the many silly things in the
education of women that we are taught little or nothing about the
simplest matters of banking and stock-and-share buying and selling. I,
who had always had money in abundance given me _straight into my hand_,
knew absolutely nothing, when my father’s death left me to arrange my
affairs, how such business is done, how shares are bought and sold, how
credits are open at corresponding bankers; how, even, _to draw a
cheque_! It all seemed to me a most perilous matter, and I feared that I
might, in those remote regions, come to grief any day by the refusal of
some local banker to honour my cheques or by the neglect of my London
bankers to bespeak credit for me. My means were so narrow, and I had so
little experience of the expenses of living and travelling, that I was
greatly exercised as to my small concerns. I brought with me (generally
tied by a string round my neck and concealed) a very valuable diamond
ring to sell in case I came to real disaster; but it had been constantly
worn by my mother; and I felt at Beyrout that, sooner than sell it, I
would live on short commons for much more than a week!
One day of our voyage I spent at Cyprus where I admired the ancient
church of San Lazzaro, half mosque, half church, and said to be the
final grave of Lazarus. I had visited his, supposed, _temporary_ one in
Bethany. Another day I landed at Rhodes and was able to see the ruined
street which bears over each house the arms of the Knight to whom it
belonged. At the upper end of the way are still visible the arch and
shattered relics of their church. Writing to Miss St. Leger March 28th,
I described my environment thus:
“Dearest Harriet,
“Behold me seated _à la Turque_ close to a party of Moslem gentlemen
who alternately smoke and say their prayers all day long. We are
steaming up through the lovely “Isles of Greece,” having left Rhodes
this morning and Cos an hour ago. As we pass each wild cape and green
shore I take up a certain opera glass with ‘H. S.’ on the top of the
box, and wish very much I could see through it the dear, kind eyes
that used it once. They would be pleasanter to see than all these
scenes, glorious as they are. The sun is going down into the calm blue
sea and throwing purple lights already on the countless islands
through which the vessel winds its way. White sea-gulls follow us and
beautiful little quaint-sailed boats appear every now and then round
the islands. The peculiar beauty of this famous passage is derived,
however, from the bold and varied outline of the islands and adjoining
coast of Asia Minor. From little rocks not larger than the ship
itself, up to large provinces with extensive towns like Cos, there is
an endless variety and boldness of form. Ireland’s Eye magnified to
twice the height, is, I should say, the commonest type. In some almost
inaccessible cliffs one sees hermitages; in others convents. I shall
post this at Smyrna.”
As the _Impératrice_ stopped two or three days in the magnificent
harbour of Smyrna, I had good opportunity to land and make my way to the
scene of Polycarp’s Martyrdom amid the colossal cypresses which outdo
all those of Italy except the quincentenarians in the Giusti garden in
Verona. It was Easter, and a ridiculous incident occurred on the
Saturday. I was busy writing in the cabin of the _Impératrice_ at
mid-day, when, _subito!_ there were explosions in our vessel and in a
hundred other vessels in the harbour, again and again and again, as if a
battle of Trafalgar were going on all round! I rushed on deck and found
the steward standing calm and cheerful amid the terrific noise and
smoke, “For God’s sake what has happened?” I cried breathless. “Nothing,
Signora, nothing! It is the Royal Salute all the ships are firing, of 21
guns.”
“In honour of whom?” I asked, somewhat less alarmed.
“Iddio, Signora! Gesù Cristo, sicuro! È il momento della Resurrezione,
si sà.”
“O, no!” I said, “Not on Saturday. It was on Sunday, you know!”
“Che, che! Dicono forse cosi i Protestanti! Sappiamo noi altri, che era
il Sabato.”
I never got to the bottom of this mystery, but can testify that at
Smyrna in 1858 there were many scores of these Royal Salutes (!) on Holy
Saturday at noon in honour of the Resurrection.
It was one of the brightest hours of my happy life, that on which I
stood on the deck of our ship at sunrise and passed under “Sunium’s
marble steep” and knew that I was approaching Athens. As we steamed up
the gulf, the red clouds flamed over Parnes and Hymettus and lighted up
the hills of Peloponnesus. The bright blue waves were dancing under our
prow, and I could see over them far away the “rocky brow which looks
o’er sea-born Salamis,” where Xerxes sat on his silver-footed throne on
such a morn as this. Above, to our right, over the olive woods with the
rising sun behind it, like a crowned hill was the Acropolis of Athens
and the Parthenon upon it.
Very soon I had landed at the Piræus and had engaged a carriage (there
was no railway then) to take me to Athens. The drive was enchanting,
between olive groves and vineyards, and with the Temple of Theseus and
the buildings on the Acropolis coming into view as I approached Athens,
till I was beside myself with delight and excitement. The first thing to
do was to drive to the private house of the banker to whom I was
recommended, to arouse the poor old gentleman (nothing loath apparently
to do business even at seven o’clock) to draw fifty sovereigns, and then
to go to the French Hotel, choose a room with a fine view of the
Parthenon, and to say to the master: “Send me the very best _déjeuner_
you can provide and a bottle of Samian wine, and let this letter be
taken to Mr. Finlay.” That breakfast, with that view, was a feast of the
gods after my many abstinencies, though I nearly “dashed down the cup of
Samian wine,” not in patriotic despair for Greece, but because it was so
abominably bad that no poetry could have been made out of it by Anacreon
himself. Hardly had I finished my meal, when Mr. Finlay appeared at my
door, having hurried with infinite kindness to welcome me, and do honour
to the introduction of his cousin, my dear sister-in-law. “I put
myself,” said he, “at your orders for the day. We will go wherever you
please.”
It would be unfair to inflict on the reader a detailed account of all I
saw at Athens under the admirable guidance of Mr. Finlay during a week
of intensest enjoyment. Mr. Finlay (it can scarcely yet be forgotten)
went out to Greece a few weeks or months before Byron and fought with
him and after him, through the War of Independence. After this, having
married a beautiful Armenian lady, he bought much land in Eubœa, built
himself a handsome house in Athens and lived there for the rest of his
life, writing his great History (in five volumes) of _Greece under
Foreign Domination_; making a magnificent collection of coins; and
acting for many years as the _Times_ correspondent at Athens. He was not
only a highly erudite archæologist, but an enthusiast for the land of
his adoption and all its triumphs of art; in short, the best of all
possible ciceroni. I was fortunately not wholly unprepared to profit by
his learned expositions and delicate observation on the architecture of
the glorious ruins, for I had made copies of prints of all at Athens and
elsewhere in Greece with ground-plans and restorations and notes of
everything I could learn about them, many years before when I was wont
to amuse myself with drawing, while my mother read to me. I found that I
knew beforehand nearly exactly what remained of the Parthenon and the
Erechtheum and the Temple of Victory, the Propylæum on the Acropolis and
the Theseium below; and it was of intensest interest to me to learn,
under Mr. Finlay’s guidance, precisely where the Elgin Marbles had
stood, and to note the extraordinary fact, on which he insisted
much,—that there is not a single straight line in the whole Parthenon.
_Everything_, down to single stones in the entablatures and friezes, is
curved, in some cases, he felt assured, _after_ they had been placed _in
situ_. The extreme entasis of the columns and the great pyramidal
inclination of the whole building, were most noticeable when attention
was once drawn to them. As we approached the majestic ruins of Adrian’s
Temple of Jupiter on the plains below, (that enormous temple which had
double rows of columns surrounding it and quadruple rows in front and
back, of ten columns each) I exclaimed “Why! there ought to be _three_
columns standing at that far angle!” “Quite true,” said Mr. Finlay, “one
of them fell just six weeks ago.”
Since this visit of mine to Athens a vast deal has been done to clear
away the remains of the Turkish tower and other barbaric buildings which
obstructed and desecrated the summit of the Acropolis; and the fortunate
visitor may now see the whole Propylæum and all the spaces open and
free, beside examining the very numerous statues and bas reliefs some
quaintly archaic, some of the best age and splendidly beautiful, which
have been dug out in recent years in Greece.
I envy every visitor to Athens now, but console myself by procuring
photographs of all the _finds_ from those excellent artists, Thomaïdes,
Brothers.
Mr. Finlay spoke much of Byron in answer to my questions, and described
him as a most singular combination of romance and astuteness. The Greeks
imagined that a man capable of such enthusiasm as to go to war for their
enfranchisement must have a rather soft head as well as warm heart; but
they were much mistaken when they tried in their simplicity to
_exploiter_ him in matters of finance. There were self-devoted and
disinterested patriots, but there were also (as was inevitable), among
the insurgents many others who had a sharp eye to their own financial
and political schemes Byron saw through these men (Mr. Finlay said),
with astounding quickness, and never allowed them to guide or get the
better of him in any negotiation. About money matters he considered he
was inclined to be “close-fisted.” This was an opinion strongly
confirmed to me some months later by Walter Savage Landor, who
repeatedly remarked that Byron’s behaviour in several occurrences, while
in Italy, was far from liberal and that, luxuriously as he chose to
live, he was by no means ready to pay freely for his luxury. Shelley on
the contrary, though he lived most simply and was always hard pressed
for money by William Godwin (who Fanny Kemble delightfully described to
me _àpropos_ of Dowden’s _Memoirs_, as “one of those greatly gifted _and
greatly borrowing_ people!”), was punctilious to the last degree in
paying his debts and even those of his friends. There was a story of a
boat purchased by both Byron and Shelley which I cannot trust my memory
to recall accurately as Mr. Landor told it to me, and which I do not
exactly recognise in the _Memoirs_, but which certainly amounted to
this,—that Byron left Shelley to pay for their joint purchase, and that
Shelley did so, though at the time he was in extreme straits for money.
All the impressions, I may here remark, which I gathered at that time in
Greece and Italy (1858), where there were yet a few alive who personally
knew both these great poets, was in favour of Shelley and against Byron.
Talking over them many years afterwards with Mazzini I was startled by
the vehemence with which he pronounced his preference for Byron, as the
one who had tried to put his sympathy with a struggling nation into
practice, and had died in the noble attempt. This was natural enough on
the part of the Italian patriot; but I think the vanity and tendency to
“pose,” which formed so large a part of Byron’s character had probably
more to do with this last _acted_ Canto of _Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage_,
than Mazzini, (who had no such foibles) was likely to understand. The
following curious glimpse of Byron at Venice before he went to Greece,
occurs in an autograph letter in my possession, by Mrs. Hemans to the
late Miss Margaret Lloyd. It seems worth quoting here.
“Bronwylfa, 8th April, 1819.
“Your affection of Lord Byron will not be much increased by the
description I am going to transcribe for you of his appearance and
manners abroad. My sister, who is now at Venice, has sent me the
following sketch of the _Giaour_:—‘We were presented at the
Governor’s, after which we went to a conversazione at Madlle.
Benzoni’s, where we saw Lord Byron; and now my curiosity is gratified,
I have no wish ever to see him again. A more wretched,
depraved-looking countenance it is impossible to imagine! His hair
streaming almost down to his shoulders and his whole appearance
slovenly and even dirty. Still there is a something which impels you
to look at his face, although it inspires you with aversion, a
something entirely different from any expression on any countenance I
ever beheld before. His character, I hear, is worse than ever;
dreadful it must be, since everyone says he is the most dissipated
person in Italy, exceeding even the Italians themselves.’”
Shortly before my visit to Athens an article, or book, by Mr. Trelawney
had been published in England, in which that writer asserted that
Byron’s lame leg was a most portentous deformity, like the fleshless leg
of a Satyr. I mentioned this to Mr. Finlay, who laughed, and said: “That
reminds me of what Byron said of Trelawney; ‘If we could but make
Trelawney wash his hands and speak the truth, we might make a gentleman
of him!’ Of course,” continued Mr. Finlay, “I saw Byron’s legs scores of
times, for we bathed together daily whenever we were near the sea or a
river, and there was nothing wrong with the _leg_, only an ordinary and
not very bad, club-_foot_.”
Among the interesting facts which Mr. Finlay gave me as the results of
his historical researches in Greece was that a school of philosophy
continued to be held in the Groves of the Academè (through which we were
walking at the moment), for 900 years from the time of Plato. A fine
collection of gold and silver coins which he had made, afforded, under
his guidance, a sort of running commentary on the history of the
Byzantine Empire. There were series of three and four reigns during
which the coins became visibly worse and worse, till at last there was
no silver in them at all, only base metal of some sort; and then, things
having come to the worst, there was a revolution, a new dynasty, and a
brand new and pure coinage.
The kindness of this very able man and of his charming wife was not
limited to playing cicerone to me. Nothing could exceed their
hospitality. The first day I dined at their house a party of agreeable
and particularly fashionably dressed Greek ladies and gentlemen were
assembled. As we waited for dinner the door opened and a magnificent
figure appeared, whom I naturally took for, at least, an Albanian Chief,
and prepared myself for an interesting presentation. He wore a short
green velvet jacket covered with gold embroidery, a crimson sash, an
enormous white muslin _kilt_ (I afterwards learned it contained 60 yards
of muslin, and that the washing thereof is a function of the highest
responsibility), and leggings of green and gold to match the jacket. One
moment this splendid vision stood six feet high in the doorway; the next
he bowed profoundly and pronounced the consecrated formula:—
“_Madame est servie!_”
and we went to dinner, where he waited admirably.
Some year or two later, after I had published some records of my
travels, and sent them to Mr. Finlay, I received from him the following
letter:—
“Athens, 26th May.
“My dear Miss Cobbe,
“Baron von Schmidthals sent me your letter of the 18th April with the
_Cities of the Past_ yesterday; his baggage having been detained at
Syria. This post brought me _Fraser_ with a ‘_Day at Athens_’ with due
regularity, and now accept my sincere thanks for both. I am ashamed of
my neglect in not thanking you sooner for _Fraser_, but I did not know
your address. I felt grateful for it, having been very, very often
tired of ‘Days at Athens!’ It was a treat to meet so pleasant a ‘day,’
and have another pleasant day recalled. Others to whom I lent
_Fraser_, told me the ‘Day,’ was delightful. I had heard of your
misfortune but I hoped you had entirely recovered, and I regret to
hear that you use crutches still. I, too, am weak and can walk little,
but my complaint is old age. The _Saturday Review_ has told me that
you have poured some valuable thoughts into the river that flows
through ages.
‘Rè degli altri; superbo, altero fiume!’
Solomon tried to couch its cataracts in vain. If you lived at Athens
you would hardly believe that man can grow wiser by being made to
think. It only makes him more wicked here in Greece. But the river of
thought must be intended to fertilize the future.
“I wish I could send you some news that would interest or amuse you,
but you may recollect that I live like a hermit and come into contact
with society chiefly in the matter of politics which I cannot expect
to render interesting to you and which is anything but an amusing
subject to me; I being one of the Greek landlords on whose head Kings
and National Assemblies practise the art of shaving. Our revolution
has done some good by clearing away old abuses, but the positive gain
has been small. England sent us a boy-king, and Denmark with him a
Count Sponneck, whom the Greeks, not inaccurately, call his ‘_alter_
NEMO.’ Still, though we are all very much dissatisfied, I fancy
sometimes that fate has served Greece better than England, Denmark, or
the National Assembly. The evils of this country were augmented by the
devotion of the people to power and pelf, but devotion to nullity or
its _alter ego_ is a weak sentiment, and an empty treasury turns the
devotion to pelf into useful channels.
“I was rather amused yesterday by learning that loyalty to King George
has extended the commercial relations of the Greeks with the Turks.
Greece has imported some boatloads of myrtle branches to make
triumphal arches at Syra where the King was expected yesterday. Queen
Amalia disciplined King Otho’s subjects to welcome him in this way.
The idea of Greeks being ‘green’ in anything, though it was only
loyalty, amused her in those days. I suppose she knows now that they
were not so ‘green’ as their myrtles made them look! It is odd,
however, to find that their outrageous loyalty succeeded in
exterminating myrtle plants in the islands of the Ægean, and that they
must now import their emblems of loyalty from the Sultan’s dominions.
If a new Venus rise out of the Grecian sea she will have to swim over
to the Turkish coast to hide herself in myrtles. There is a new fact
for Lord Strangford’s oriental Chaos!
“My wife desires to be most kindly remembered to you.
“Believe me, my dear Miss Cobbe,
“Yours sincerely,
“GEORGE FINLAY.”
I left Athens and my kind friends with great regret and embarked at the
Piræus for Constantinople, but not before I had managed to secure a
luxurious swim in one of the exquisite rocky coves along the coast near
the Tomb of Themistocles.
Stamboul was rather a disappointment to me. The weather was cold and
cloudy and unfit to display the beauty of the Golden Horn; and I went
about with a _valet de place_ in rather a disheartened way to see the
Dolma Batchi Palace and a few other things accessible to me. The Scutari
Hospital across the Bosphorus where Miss Nightingale had worked only
four years before, of course, greatly attracted my interest. How much do
all women owe to that brave heart who led them on so far on the road to
their public duties, and who has paid for her marvellous achievements by
just forty years of invalidism! Those pages of Kinglake’s History in
which he pays tribute to her power, and compares her great
administrative triumph in bringing order out of chaos with the miserable
failures of the male officials who had brought about the disastrous
muddle, ought to be quoted again and again by all the friends of women,
and never suffered to drop into oblivion.
Of course the reader will assume that I saw St. Sophia. But I did not do
so, and to the last, I fear I shall owe a little grudge to the people
whose extraordinary behaviour made me lose my sole opportunity of
enjoying that most interesting sight. I told my _valet de place_ to
learn what parties of foreigners were going to obtain the needful
firmaun for visiting the Mosque and to arrange for me in the usual way
to join one of them, paying my share of the expense, which at that time
amounted to £5. Some days were lost, and then I learned that there was
only one party, consisting of American ladies and gentlemen, who were
then intending to visit the place, and that for some reason their
courier would not consent to my joining them. I thought it was some
stupid _imbroglio_ of servants wanting fees, and having the utmost
confidence in American kindness and good manners, I called on the family
in question at their hotel and begged they would do me the favour to
allow me to pay part of the £5, and to enter the doors of St. Sophia
with them accordingly; at such time as might suit them. To my amazement
the gentleman and ladies looked at each other; and then the gentleman
spoke, “O! I leave _all that_ to my courier!” “In that case,” I said, “I
wish you good morning.” It was a great bore for me, with my great love
for architecture, to fail to see so unique a building, but I could not
think of spending £5 on a firmaun myself, and had no choice but to
relinquish the hope of entering, and merely walk round the Mosque and
peep in where it was possible to do so. I was well cursed in doing this
by the old Turks for my presumption!
Nemesis overtook these unmannerly people ere long, for they reached
Florence a month after me and found I had naturally told my tale of
disappointment to the Brownings, (whom they particularly desired to
cultivate), the Somervilles, Trollopes and others who had become my
friends; and I believe they heard a good deal of the matter. Mrs.
Browning, I know, frankly expressed her astonishment at their behaviour;
and Mrs. Somerville would have nothing to say to them. They sent me
several messages of conciliation and apology, which of course I ignored.
They had done a rude and unkind thing to an unknown and friendless
woman. They were ready to make advances to one who had plenty of
friends. It was the only case, in all my experience of Americans, in
which I have found them wanting in either courtesy or kindness.