their kindred in the Egean, there is nothing bare or rugged in their
aspect. They are generally crowned with arbutus, pine, cypress, myrtle,
and different kinds of oak, particularly the kermes or evergreen, so
that they preserve their leaves unchanged at all seasons, and render
the islands at all times verdant and romantic. The arbutus grows with
such luxuriance, that it ripens its berries into large mellow fruit,
which is sold in the markets, and furnishes a rich dessert; they are
eaten as strawberries, which they nearly resemble in shape, colour,
and taste. There are, besides, various other trees, which, though
deciduous, seldom lose their foliage; such as the terebinth or cypress
turpentine, which yields a resinous aroma, so that a stranger, in
making his way through these romantic thickets, as he presses aside
the branches, is surprised at the grateful odours exhaled about him:
but the shrubs which most abound, are the various species of the
gum-cistus; they cover large tracts, and sometimes so tint the surface
of the hills, that the islands are suffused with a rich hue from their
bright blossoms. The fragrance of these spots is exceedingly rich and
grateful. As the traveller moves through the low shrubs, and disturbs
them with his feet, a dense vapour of odoriferous particles ascends,
and the air seems loaded, as it were, with a palpable fragrance.[6]
This gratification of the senses has conferred upon the islands the
character of luxurious enjoyment, which has at all times distinguished
them; they were, therefore, considered the Capreæ of the Lower Empire,
and became the Capua of the Turks; when their rude military energy
degenerated, they retired there, to gratify themselves with indulgences
which were prohibited even in the license of the capital. Whenever
the plague rages, they are crowded with Frank and Raya fugitives, who
escape to this asylum from the pestilential atmosphere of the city.
By a prescription, some time established, the islands have been
entirely abandoned to the Greeks, and no Turk is allowed to take up his
residence there, except temporarily, on official business. Even the aga
who superintends them, resides on the opposite coast of Asia, and never
visits them except to collect the haratch. No mosque or other Moslem
edifice was allowed to raise its crescent-head; but the larger islands
had one or more Greek monasteries crowning their summits, and forming
the most conspicuous objects. They were erected in the time of the
Lower Empire, and were the asylums to which the sovereigns retired when
compelled to abdicate the throne: many of them were the retreats of
those who were mutilated or blinded by their successors; many were the
receptacles where guilt and remorse sought, by solitude and penance,
to atone for past crimes. Some of these monasteries are now in ruins,
and their “ivy-mantled towers” add to the picturesque scenery; some
are still kept in good repair, and the residence of Caloyers, having
chapels eminent for their sanctity, to which not only the people of the
islands, but many families of the Fanal, resort, and celebrate their
festivals with much pomp and devotion.
On the greater islands are towns called by the same names. They possess
fleets of caïques of a larger size than ordinary, which keep up a daily
communication with the capital in conveying goods and passengers.
Every morning these fleets leave the islands at sunrise, and return by
sunset. The merry disposition of the people is nowhere more displayed
than in these passage-boats, which the gravity and taciturnity of a
Turk, who is an occasional passenger, cannot suppress. It sometimes
happens that this levity is severely punished: on a charge of some real
or supposed delinquency, the crews are cited before the cadi, when they
land at Tophana. His carpet is spread on the ground, and where he sits
cross-legged smoking his nargillai, the laughing culprits are brought
before him, and he dispenses justice in a summary manner. He waves his
hand−-the delinquent is seized by two men who throw him on his back,
while two more raise his feet between poles, presenting their soles.
Executioners then, provided with angular rods as thick as a man’s
thumb, lay on the shrieking wretch till he faints, or the cadi, by
another wave of his hand, intimates to them to cease: this punishment
of the unfortunate caïquegees of the islands, is very frequent, and
sometimes is inflicted on the whole of the boats’ crews. It often
happens to be so severe, that the legs swell as high as the hips, and
the victim is in danger of dying of a mortification; notwithstanding,
it is soon forgotten by the sufferers. On their return, they only laugh
at each other, and the next day repeat the fault for which they were
punished.
During the Greek revolution, these islands were made the prison of
the suspected. The families of the Fanal were sent here, to be kept
in sale custody till their fate was decided in the capital; every day
some unfortunate victim was taken away, and never re-appeared, yet this
seemed to make little impression on the survivors. They were constantly
seen in groups under some favourite trees, playing dominos, chess, or
other games, and entering with as much earnestness and disputation into
the chances, as if they were in a state of perfect security. Sometimes
a caïque was seen approaching, and the turbaned head of a chaoush
appeared over the gunwale−-he landed, approached the groups of players,
and laid a black handkerchief on the shoulder of one of them; the
doomed man rose from his seat, followed the chaoush to the caïque, and
never returned again. His place was supplied by another, and the game
was continued as if nothing extraordinary had happened. The bouyancy
and reckless character of the Greeks, during the perils of their
revolution, was nowhere, perhaps, so displayed as on these occasions;
they saw their friends daily taken from the midst of them, and knew
they were led away to be strangled or decapitated, yet it seemed
but little to affect the careless hilarity of the daily decreasing
survivors.
Among the suspected shut up in one of these insular prisons was the
venerable and learned archbishop of Mount Sinai. After the execution of
the patriarch and his prelates, he hourly expected his mortal summons;
yet it never affected his cheerfulness: he was engaged in a work on
the ancient and modern state of Constantinople, and his only wish,
unfounded then on any hope, was, that he might be allowed to live and
finish it. His wishes, contrary to his expectations, were fulfilled. I
left him in his Patmos, every day looking for death; and I found him,
on my return to Turkey, some years after, elevated to the patriarchal
throne. His susceptibility to the beauties of nature that smiled here
in his prison, was not impaired by any dismal apprehensions. In his
work, since published, he describes with enthusiasm the view presented
from his island: “The prospect from hence,” said he, “formed by the
circle of lovely objects around, is inimitable on the earth; it stands
like the varied representations of some grand amphitheatre, and the
astonished and delighted eye, at sunset, sees the exceeding splendour
of nature’s scenery.”
The view in our illustration is taken from the monastery of the
Triades, or Trinity, in the island of Chalki. This edifice was erected
by the patriarch Photios, who was named “the man of ten thousand
books.” He called it Zion, but its name was afterwards changed. His
ten thousand books were deposited in a library: the greater part was
destroyed by fire, which consumed nearly the whole edifice, and the
rest by time and neglect, so that not one now remains. The present
edifice, inhabited by the Caloyers, is but a wing of the original
building. In the foreground, on a platform, is a kiosk, from whence
is seen one of those lovely views which almost every eminence of the
island presents. Attached to every monastery is such an edifice; it
is kind of coffee-house, open to strangers, in which they repose,
enjoying the beauty of the scenery, and are seen with pipes, coffee,
and sweetmeats by the good monks. The view from this kiosk of the
Triades, comprehending Europe and Asia, is particularly eulogized and
described by the archbishop. The splendid city of Constantinople rising
on its seven hills, with its gilded domes and glittering minarets; the
sweeping shores of Thrace; the Bithynian chain of mountains, in the
midst of which Olympus raises his head, covered with eternal snows;
the whole circle of islands, floating below on the bosom of the placid
sea−-form an unrivalled panoramic picture.
Just below lies the varied face of the island, with its shrubs and
trees; a range of gigantic cypresses leads, along the ridge of a
sloping hill, to an edifice on the sea-shore; this was erected by an
opulent Greek tchelebi, in the palmy days of their prosperity. He
was suspected, apprehended, and executed, and his splendid mansion,
containing all the requisites of modern Greek luxuries, was occupied
by various Franks, who left the sultry heats of the capital for the
refreshing breezes of the islands. Along the shore below run the
streets of the capital of Chalki, with its fleet of small-craft lying
in the harbour. Among the edifices are some which present an unusual
sight in these islands: on a promontory, a minaret raises its taper
head; and on the hill behind, is a Turkish kisla, or barracks. When the
insurrection broke out, the immunities of the islands were withdrawn,
and Moslem edifices and Moslem people are now seen mixed with the
hitherto exclusive Greek population.
[Illustration: T. Allom. J. C. Bentley.
THE MONASTERY OF ST. GEORGE OF THE PRECIPICE.]
There is no saint in the Oriental calendar held in more estimation,
both by Moslems and Christians, than St. George of Cappadocia. The
Greeks and Armenians dedicate many churches to him, and the legends
they tell and believe of him correspond with those that are current
in England of its patron saint. The Orientals do not reproach their
favourite, as some incredulous historians do among us, with being the
son of a fuller, becoming a parasite, a bacon-merchant, and a cheat,
who was torn to pieces by his townsmen for his manifold crimes and
vices, in the reign of Julian the Apostate. They represent him as a
Christian hero, who suffered martyrdom for his inflexible adherence
to Christianity in the persecution of Diocletian, but, before that,
had distinguished himself by deeds of high heroic reputation. One of
them seems a version of Perseus and Andromeda; and, as in many other
instances, fables of pagan mythology are appropriated by Christian
saints. After various achievements against Paynims and Saracens, he
came to the land of Egypt in search of new adventures. He here found
a winged dragon devastating the country with his pestiferous breath,
and devouring those whom he had preserved. The wise men were called
together, and a compact was made with the monster, that he should be
content with devouring a virgin every day. They were all eaten, except
the daughter of the soldan, and her weeping friends had just led her
to the sacrifice, when St. George arrived. He attacked and slew the
monster, and liberated the virgin. This legend, which corresponds
with that of the old English ballad, is commemorated in this church
of St. George, by a picture in the portico: the saint is depicted on
horseback, piercing a winged dragon with a spear, exactly as he is
represented on our coins and armorial blazonry; and so he is displayed
in every one of the numerous churches dedicated to him in the East.
This fable, which is a popular legend both in the East and West, is,
however, explained allegorically. The dragon is the devil, represented
under that form in the Apocalypse; and subduing him, and trampling him
under foot, by the saint, is emblematic of the faith and fortitude
of a Christian. The Greeks call St. George the Megalomartyr, and his
festival is a holiday “of obligation.” Constantine the Great built a
church, which stood over his tomb in Palestine, and erected the first
to his memory in the metropolis, where there were afterwards five more
dedicated to him. Justinian, in the sixth century, introduced him into
the Armenian calendar, and raised a temple to him. At the entrance into
the Hellespont is a large and celebrated convent of his order, which
gives his name to the strait; and the pagan appellation of Hellespont
merged into the Christian one of “the Arm of St. George.” He was the
great patron of Christian knights, and none went to battle without
first offering to him their vows.
When Richard Cœur de Lion laid siege to Acre, the saint appeared to
him in a vision, and the Crusaders attributed their victories to his
interference and aid. The great national council, held at Oxford
in 1222, recognized him, and commanded his feast to be kept as a
holiday; and in 1330, Edward III. instituted an order of knighthood
to his name in England, one of the oldest in Europe, and so he has
become the patron-saint of England. His festival is celebrated on
the 23d of April, in the Greek church; and the English ambassador at
Constantinople, as if to identify our patron-saint with that of the
Greeks, gives a splendid entertainment on the same day at the British
palace, where St. George is held “as the patron of arms, chivalry, and
the garter.”
But our saint has immunities and privileges which do not appear to be
allowed to any other in the Greek calendar. At the early period of the
reformation in the Oriental church, statues were everywhere torn down
by the Iconoclasts, and excluded from their worship as idolatrous,
though pictures were allowed to remain; adhering literally to the
Commandment of making “no graven images,” but, by a singular anomaly
of Greek refinement, venting their religious horror on wood and stone,
and bowing down without scruple to paint and canvass. This distinction
continues in all its strictness to the present day: the churches are
profusely daubed with gaudy pictures of saints, to which profound
adoration is paid, and the most extraordinary miracles are attributed;
while no statue, or sculptured or graven representation, of the same
persons, are tolerated: but to our saint alone an indulgence is
extended. His image in some churches is formed on graven silver plates
attached to a wooden block, which they affirm had miraculously escaped
from the destruction of the Iconoclasts, and has peculiar faculties
conferred upon it, corresponding with the pugnacious propensities of
the character whose person it represents; and to its wonder-working
powers many miracles are attributed.
In the monastery of St. George, in one of the islands of the
Archipelago, is a statue of this kind, which is highly serviceable
to the Caloyers. If any one is indebted to the convent, and does not
pay his dues−-if a penitent omits to perform the penance, or violates
the strict abstinence imposed upon him during the many seasons of
fasting−-above all, if he neglects to perform any vow made to the
saint−-the image immediately finds him out. It is placed on the
shoulders of a blind monk, who trusts implicitly to its guidance, and
walks fearlessly on without making a false step. It is in vain that
the sinning defaulter tries to hide himself. The image follows him
through all his windings with infallible sagacity, and, when at length
he is overtaken, springs from the shoulders of his bearer to the neck
of the culprit, and flogs him with unmerciful severity till he makes
restitution and atonement for all his delinquencies. A French writer,
who was a firm believer in the miracles wrought by the images of saints
in the Latin church, in recording these absurdities of St. George,
adds with great naïveté: _Les Grecs sont les plus grands imposteurs du
monde._
In the church of the convent is a picture highly prized as a _chef
d’œuvre_ of Grecian art; it represents the last day, a subject which
the Greek Caloyers are fond of impressing on their people. In some, the
punishments of a future state, as painted on the walls, are hardly fit
to be looked at. Devils riding ploughshares, and driving them through
naked bodies of men, and serpents twining round the limbs of offending
women. This picture, however, is less exceptionable; it depicts the
Deity on the summit, dressed in sumptuous robes, and crowned like a
king, having an expanded book before him, in which the fate of every
mortal is recorded: below, on one side is a garden, having various
departments like the pews of a church, in each of which is enclosed
some celebrated individual. In one, Abraham with Lazarus in his
bosom,−-in another, the penitent thief with his cross on his shoulder.
Immediately below, are the extended jaws of a vast monster, into
which demons are casting the souls of the condemned, among whom are
all the apostates and persecutors of Christianity−-Judas, Julian, and
Diocletian; with sundry Turks. Among the condemned, one is surprised
to see a Greek with his calpac; he had been a dragoman of the Porte,
who had offended the artist, and he took this not unprecedented mode of
avenging himself on his adversary.
[Illustration: T. Allom. J. Sands.
GUZEL-HISSAR, AND THE PLAIN OF THE MEANDER.
ASIA MINOR. ]
The river Meander is perhaps the most celebrated of all antiquity, and
has been made a generic term, in most languages, to designate a winding
stream; poets and historians equally commemorate it. It rose near the
ancient city of Celene, and, increased by various tributaries, it fell
into the Ægean between Miletus and Priene. So tortuous was its course,
that it was counted to have made 600 windings in its progress to the
sea. It afforded Dædalus the model for his labyrinth, and travellers
have discovered in many parts the various accurate outlines of some of
the most convoluted letters of the Greek alphabet. It was remarkable
for the alterations it caused in the countries through which it wound
its way−-obliterating old, and adding new tracts. This was so frequent,
and attended with such damage, that an indictment lay against the
river; and the person who suffered was remunerated out of the tolls of
the bridges which passed over it.
This constant undermining of its banks, and the fall of them into
its current, was the probable cause of its devious course. The soil,
obstructed in one place, was deposited in another; while the great
quantity held in suspension, was suffered to fall when the waters,
meeting the obstructions of the sea, no longer supported it in the
current. In its mouth it formed great bars, and threw up new lands.
The changes thus made were celebrated by the ancients as so many
mythological and preternatural metamorphoses:−-
“The magic river in its tortuous wheel
Defrauds the mariner; and where his keel
Plough’d up the pliant wave−-the rustic’s share
Delves in the soil, and plants his harvest there.
The moving waves to fixed furrows rise;
The sportive kid the dolphin’s place supplies.
The shepherd’s pipe delights the grazing sheep,
Where the hoarse sailor’s voice outroared the boisterous deep.”
Thus it happened that several celebrated towns, situated on its banks,
are not now to be traced there. The city of Myus stood on a bay;
the constant deposit of mud by the river obstructed the ingress of
salt-water, and the bay was changed into an inland lake; the alluvial
and marshy soil, generated by the slime, afforded a nidus to vast
swarms of insects; and so Myus was infested, and called “the city of
gnats.” The swarms at this day are an intolerable nuisance; towards
evening, the inside of tents become black with them. Myriads of winged
insects cling to the poles and canvass. The torture they give is so
insupportable, that the sufferers blow them up with gunpowder, and
often set fire to their tents, to get rid of a plague equal to any
of those of Egypt. Miletus, celebrated for its woollen manufacture
and rich dyes−-the birth-place of one of the seven wise men, and the
capital of Ionia−-was ruined by the Meander; the capricious stream
removed itself from its vicinity, and, for an easy and inviting
approach, prohibited ingress by depositing inaccessible mounds of mud.
The process, which for revolving centuries marked this singular river,
is still going on; deposits are daily made of soft soil, and that which
had been left before, hardened into firm ground. This new-created land
is stretching beyond the estuary of the stream, and the promontories
which marked its mouth, as its barrier against the encroaching of the
sea, are now so remote from it, that they are seen distant inland
hills. A judicious traveller remarks, that it is probable the land will
be pushed away, to join the island of Samos, and such a change will be
wrought on this coast by the caprice of the river, that “barren rocks
may be enamelled with rich domains, and other cities may rise and
flourish on the bounty of the Meander.”
The rich valley through which this river winds its way, was formerly
filled with many famous cities, and some distinguished for that
luxury and effeminacy which a balmy climate and a fertile soil are
apt to generate. Tralles and Alabanda sent from hence their swarms of
“esurient Greeks,” with their cargoes of figs and prunes, to taint
the Roman citizens, already sufficiently corrupt. Notwithstanding the
desolation which Turkish indolence and barbarism brought into these
fertile regions, the active spirit of the ancient Greeks still seems
to animate their oppressed descendants. The whole plain is seen by the
traveller in the highest state of cultivation: corn, wine, and oil, the
evidence and emblem of fatness and fertility, are now abundant here, as
in the days of the free Greek cities,−-pastures covered with sheep and
oxen, fields waving with golden crops of wheat, vineyards bending under
vast clusters of grape, and gardens shaded by the broad foliage of the
fig, are still the prospects which present themselves.
In the midst of this abundance is situated the town of Guzel-Hissar,
appropriately called “the Castle of Beauty,” which its name imports.
It lies on a small stream, about ten miles from the Meander, and on an
eminence which commands a prospect of the lovely vale through which
the river winds its way. Our illustration presents a view of it, with
Mount Thorax rising behind it, and the ridges of the Messogeis before
it−-the wooded plain of the Meander lying between, and spread out under
the city. Both seem to partake of the same quality of rank vegetation.
Among minarets, and domes, and houses, rise cypress, terebinth, and
oriental platanus, so that the whole is a forest of mingled spires and
trees; among these, myriads of turtle-doves take up their abode, and
they and their progeny, in surprising numbers, covering the branches
and roofs, fill the air all day long with their incessant and plaintive
cooing. The town is the residence of a pasha, but its edifices have
little to boast of; they are mean and ragged, and travellers complain
of the caravansaries, as being more comfortless and destitute than even
Turkish khans. The inhabitants feel the effects of a rank and exuberant
vegetation. During the sultry months, a mal-aria is generated, highly
pestilential. The plague sometimes rages with mortal malignity; and the
traveller, shut up in a small and naked room of a filthy house, panting
with heat and devoured with insects, rather endures any thing within,
than walk abroad, and encounter the ghastly and infected objects that
stalk along, and carry contagion with them through the streets.
[Illustration: T. Allom. Tho^s Turnbull.
GREEK CHURCH OF BALOUKLI, NEAR CONSTANTINOPLE.
ATTACHED TO THE SPRING OF THE MIRACULOUS FISHES.]
There is no superstition so strong in the Greek church as the
efficiency ascribed to fountains, and there are no objects of
veneration to which they are more fondly attached. Like their pagan
ancestors, they consecrate a well to some presiding being, and ascribe
to it corresponding virtues. The efficacy, however, is not of the same
character. A modern Greek recognizes no Hippocrene, whose draughts
inspire him with poetry; but he has innumerable sources of salutary
waters, which, by some supernatural power coupled to it by its patron,
heals diseases; and around Constantinople are many wells dedicated to
different saints, which retain all the virtues of the pool of Bethesda.