THE ISLES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN.
Remember, as the great Dr. Johnson remarks, how life consists not of a
series of illustrious actions or elegant enjoyments; the greater part of
our time passes in compliance with necessities in the performance of
daily duties, in the procurement of petty pleasures; and we are well or
ill at ease as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or is ruffled
by small obstacles and frequent interruptions. This is emphatically true
as regards life at sea. But as we steam along we see much to attract and
excite in the isles of the Mediterranean, that diversify the travel all
the way from Marseilles to Jaffa. It is said that there are eighty ports
in the Mediterranean, and that into all of them Lord Brassey can take his
yacht without a pilot. Alas! I am permitted to tarry at none of them.
As we sail out of the Bay of Naples we pass Capri—a rocky island, where
there is scarce a yard of level ground—dear to Englishmen and artists.
The highest point of Capri is about 1,960 feet above the sea. The
traveller will find there several hotels. Roman remains abound, and
Tiberius, the drunken and dissolute, had twelve palaces there. There he
was in no fear of unwelcome intrusion, and gave himself up to shameless
and unnatural lusts; while his worthy lieutenant, Sejanus, carried on a
series of persecutions against all who stood in any relation to the
imperial family, or excited the suspicions of the tyrant by freedom of
speech, independence of character, or position, or popularity. The
famous Blue Grotto of Capri is on the northern side, near the landing.
In the great war with France, Sir Hudson Lowe—the same General who had
subsequently charge of Bonaparte at St. Helena—had to surrender the
island to Murat, after a fortnight’s siege, and had the mortification of
seeing reinforcements arrive just after the treaty was signed. Leaving
Capri, the Gulf of Salerno opens; Pæstum, with its temples, lying on the
southern bight of the gulf. Then follows the elevated headland of Cape
Palinure—named after Palinurus, the pilot of Æneas, whose tomb is marked
by a tower on the cliff some eight miles northward, thus fulfilling the
Sibyl’s promise in the ‘Æneid,’
‘And Palinurus’ name the place shall bear.’
We next get a peep at the now active volcano of Stromboli, and the Lipari
Islands to the northward. On these islands, the Insulæ-Eoliæ, also the
Vulcaniæ of the ancients, Æolus held the winds enclosed in caverns,
letting them blow and howl as it seemed good in his sight. There, too,
Vulcan forged the bolts of Jove.
From Naples we steer for Sicily, once, though only for a short time,
prosperous under British rule, when we took possession of it in the name
of the King of Naples, after he was driven away from Italy by the
soldiers of France. Garibaldi handed it over to United Italy. Sicily is
a country which is almost unknown to tourists, though in his youth Mr.
Gladstone visited the island and wrote: ‘After Etna, the temples are the
great charm and attraction of Sicily. I do not know whether there is any
one, if taken alone, which exceeds in interest and beauty that of Neptune
at Pæstum, but they have the advantage of number and variety as well as
of interesting position.’ We pass Catania, which had the most celebrated
University in Italy. The present town is comparatively new; many of its
more ancient remains are covered with lava; among them the theatre, from
which it is probable Alcibiades addressed the people in B.C. 415. What
memories rose up before us as we steamed along the Straits of Messina!
It was from Syracuse that St. Paul sailed away to Reggio, on the coast of
Italy, and all the parsons on board pull out their Testaments and compare
notes. I trow I know more of the Greeks, and Romans, and Carthaginians,
who shed so much blood, and waged so many desolating wars in these now
peaceful regions. The town was founded by the Greeks nearly 3,000 years
ago. All the nations seem at one time to have held Sicily—Romans,
Greeks, Moors, Turks, and Normans. There are some of us who can yet
remember how Cicero thundered against Verres for his misgovernment of
Sicily. It was to Sicily that Æschylus retired to die after Sophocles
had borne away the prize from him for his tragedy. The pet of the
Athenian mob, the gay and graceful Alcibiades, fought against the
Sicilians in vain. At that time they must have been a more intelligent
people than they are now. Take, for instance, their appreciation of
Euripides. Of all the poets, writes old Plutarch, he was the man with
whom the Sicilians were most in love. From every stranger that landed in
their island they gained every small specimen or portion of his works,
and communicated it with pleasure to each other. It is said that on one
occasion a number of Athenians, upon their return home defeated, went to
Euripides and thanked him for teaching their masters what they remembered
of his poems; and others were rewarded when they were wandering about
after the battle, for singing a few of his verses. Nor is this to be
wondered at, since they tell us that when a ship from Cannes, which
happened to be pursued by pirates, was going to take shelter in one of
their ports, the Sicilians at first refused to receive her. Upon asking
the crew whether they knew any of the verses of Euripides, and being
answered in the affirmative, they released both them and their vessel.
We are a cultured people. The Americans, according to their own ideas,
are yet more so. Yet it is evident that the Sicilians were far before us
in their admiration of poetic genius. Alas! Pompey the Great, as we
still call him, gave the Sicilians a different lesson when he summoned
the people of Messina before him, who refused to obey his summons,
arguing that they stood excused by an ancient privilege granted them by
the Romans. His reply was, and it was worthy of the present Emperor of
Germany, ‘Will you never have done citing laws and privileges to men who
wear swords?’ Another lesson Sicily teaches us is how much readier the
world is to remember its oppressors than its benefactors. We all have a
vivid impression of Dionysius, the Tyrant of Syracuse, yet how few of us
are familiar with the fame of Dion the Patriot, who was the pupil of
Plato when the philosopher dwelt for a time in Syracuse. It is to the
credit of the Sicilians that they were a grateful people. When Timoleon
died they gave him a public funeral, and instituted games in his honour,
‘as the man who destroyed tyrants, subdued barbarians, repeopled great
cities which lay desolate, and restored the Sicilians their laws and
privileges.’
Gradually we make our way through the Straits, sailing between Scylla and
Charybdis, which for the modern traveller has no terrors. Our last view
of Sicily gives us a fine glimpse of Etna, with the crater into which
Empedocles threw himself, 400 B.C. Men are immortalized as much by their
follies as by their virtues. As we onward press we get a glimpse of
Candia, with the snowy peaks of Mount Ida, and Gavodo, or Goro, supposed
to be the Clauda of St. Paul’s voyage to the westward. What associations
rise as we see Cephalonia, Zante, Corfu!—all looking dry and bare in the
scorching sun. We manage to make our way, though with some difficulty,
through the Canal of Corinth, a work which I fear can never pay, as it is
not large enough for the big steamers which now plough these waters.
Everywhere islands, or rather rocks, diversify the scene, and every day
we have more radiant sunsets and sunrises than you can realize in a
Northern clime. To sail on this summer sea is indeed a treat. No wonder
old Ulysses loved to wander among these isles, and to leave Penelope to
do her knitting and to look after her maids at home. I regret that I
cannot have a peep at Crete and Cyprus, the most famous islands in the
Mediterranean, and we pass over the far-famed bay of Salamis almost
unconsciously.
[Picture: The Corinth Canal (From a photograph by Fradelle and Young)]
It is not my privilege to sail from one of the historic isles of the
Mediterranean to another, nor do I know that in all cases it would be
safe. In many cases besides Corsica and Sicily the traveller has to look
to his ways. There are brigands to be met with still and as we travelled
we heard of a British officer who had just been made captive as he
wandered about in search of a day’s shooting. As you may well suppose, I
gave the brigands a wide berth. I am quite content with being fleeced by
guides and hotel-keepers. When I was in Australia, I was amused to learn
that the last of the bushrangers had sailed to America to carry on a
hotel. I fear that in many parts of the world the two callings have much
in common. I believe the British pay no taxes—at any rate, they do not
in Jerusalem—and this is one reason why we meet with such swarms of shady
Greeks who claim to be British subjects. In this part of the world the
_Civis Romanus sum_ of old Palmerston seems to me in danger of being
carried a deal too far. Not that I am a Little Englander; I am, in fact,
very much the reverse.
Over these waters sailed the hardy mariners of ancient Greece in search
of the Golden Fleece, and the brave Theseus, as he went to do battle with
the monster Minos, who demanded a yearly tribute of Athenian maids. We
all went on deck to have a look at Patmos, where the Apostle John wrote
that wondrous dream, the Revelation, and viewed with interest the white
convent on the island which still bears his name.
In the Sea of Marmora we pass the Princes Islands, four of which are
inhabited. In one of them is the grave of Sir Edward Barton, the first
resident British Ambassador in Turkey. He was sent by Queen Elizabeth to
the Sultan Mahommed III., and died in 1507. Another of them, Plati, was
purchased by Sir H. Bulwer while Ambassador to Constantinople. He built
a castle on it, which is now falling into ruins, and later sold the
island to the ex-Khedive of Egypt, to whose family it still belongs.
Steaming south, we pass Alexandria Troas, which was twice visited by St.
Paul. On the first occasion he came down from Mysia and went to
Macedonia; on the second, on his return from Greece, he had an interview
with a large body of fellow-workers. It was there he restored Eutychus,
who had fallen from an upper window in his sleep.
Next we pass the ancient island of Lesbos, one of the most beautiful in
the Ægean Sea. Islands are around us everywhere. There is no end to
them. The most thickly populated of them is Chio; another is Cos, of
which we see the chief town, the birthplace of Hippocrates, the great
physician. Then we pass Rhodes, famous for its renowned knights, who did
battle with the ever-advancing Turk, of whom Luther had such fear, and
its grand Colossus overthrown and broken in pieces by an earthquake
fifty-six years after its erection, B.C. 224; and then we leave the
lovely Mediterranean at Jaffa, where, according to Greek mythology,
Andromeda was chained to the rock and delivered by Perseus, and where the
prophet Jonah embarked when he tried to escape the command of God to go
and warn Nineveh of its impending fate. Of course I went to the house
where St. Peter lived, the dwelling of Simon the tanner, a very dreary,
tumbledown old place, which required a good deal of climbing, rather
trying in that sultry clime. And here I leave that wonderful
Mediterranean over which the navies of all the world in all ages have
swept.
‘Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee—
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters washed them power while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou;
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves’ play—
Time writes no wrinkles on thine azure brow—
Such as Creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.’