“Where sad Penelope o’erlooked the wave.”
and which Ulysses loved, _non quia larga, sed quia sua_—the most
natural of reasons. We lose Childe Harold’s track here. He turned to the
left into the gulf of Lepanto. We shall find him again at Athens.
Missolonghi, where he died, lies about twenty or thirty miles on our
lee, and it is one, of several places in the gulf, that I regret to pass
so near, unvisited.
* * * * *
Entering the bay of Navarino. A picturesque and precipitous rock, filled
with caves, nearly shuts the mouth of this ample harbour. We ran so
close to it, that it might have been touched from the deck with a tandem
whip. On a wild crag to the left, a small, white marble monument, with
the earth still fresh about it, marks the grave of some victim of the
late naval battle. The town and fortress, miserable heaps of dirty
stone, lie in the curve of the southern shore. A French brig-of-war is
at anchor in the port, and broad, barren hills, stretching far away on
every side, complete the scene before us. We run up the harbour, and
tack to stand out again, without going ashore. Not a soul is to be seen,
and the bay seems the very sanctuary of silence. It is difficult to
conceive, that but a year or two ago, the combined fleets of Europe,
were thundering among these silent hills, and hundreds of human beings
lying in their blood, whose bones are now whitening in the sea beneath.
Our pilot was in the fight, on board an English frigate. He has pointed
out to us the position of the different fleets, and among other
particulars, he tells me, that when the Turkish ships were boarded,
Greek sailors were found chained to the guns, who had been compelled, at
the muzzle of the pistol, to fight against the cause of their country.
Many of them must thus have perished in the vessels that were sunk.
Navarino was the scene of a great deal of fighting, during the late
Greek revolution. It was invested, while in possession of the Turks, by
two thousand Peloponnesians and a band of Ionians, and the garrison were
reduced to such a state of starvation, as to eat their slippers. They
surrendered at last, under promise that their lives should be spared;
but the news of the massacre of the Greek patriarchs and clergy, at
Adrianople, was received at the moment, and the exasperated troops put
their prisoners to death, without mercy.
The peaceful aspect of the place is better suited to its poetical
associations. Navarino was the ancient Pylos, and it is here that Homer
brings Telemachus in search of his father. He finds old Nestor and his
sons sacrificing on the seashore to Neptune, with nine altars, and at
each five hundred men. I should think the modern town contained scarce a
twentieth of this number.
* * * * *
Rounding the little fortified town of Modon, under full sail. It seems
to be built on the level of the water, and nothing but its high wall and
its towers are seen from the sea. This, too, has been a much-contested
place, and remained in possession of the Turks till after the formation
of the provisional government under Mavrocordato. It forms the
south-western point of the Morea, and is a town of great antiquity. King
Philip gained his first battle over the Athenians here, some thousands
of years ago; and the brave old Miualis beat the Egyptian fleet in the
same bay, without doubt in a manner quite as deserving of as long a
remembrance. It is like a city of the dead—we cannot even see a
sentinel on the wall.
* * * * *
Passed an hour in the mizen-chains with “the Corsair” in my hand, and
“Coran’s Bay” opening on the lee. With what exquisite pleasure one
reads, when he can look off from the page, and study the scene of the
poet’s fiction—
“In Coran’s bay floats many a galley light,
Through Coran’s lattices the lamps burn bright,
For Seyd, the Pacha, makes a feast to-night.”
It is a small, deep bay, with a fortified town, on the western shore,
crowned on the very edge of the sea, with a single, tall tower. A small
aperture near the top, helps to realise the Corsair’s imprisonment, and
his beautiful interview with Gulnare:—
“In the high chamber of his highest tower,
Sate Conrad fettered in the Pacha’s power,” &c.
The Pirate’s Isle is said to have been Poros, and the original of the
Corsair himself, a certain Hugh Crevelier, who filled the Ægæan with
terror, not many years ago.
* * * * *
Made the Cape St. Angelo, the southern point of the Peloponnesus, and
soon after the island of Cythera, near which Venus rose from the foam of
the sea. We are now running northerly, along the coast of ancient
Sparta. It is a mountainous country, bare and rocky, and looks as rude
and hardy as the character of its ancient sons. I have been passing the
glass in vain along the coast to find a tree. A small hermitage stands
on the desolate extremity of the Cape, and a Greek monk, the pilot tells
me, has lived there many years, who comes from his cell, and stands on
the rock with his arms outspread to bless the passing ship. I looked for
him in vain.
A French man-of-war bore down upon us a few minutes ago, and saluted the
commodore. He ran so close, that we could see the features of his
officers on the poop. It is a noble sight at sea, a fine ship passing,
with all her canvass spread, with the added rapidity of your own course
and hers. The peal of the guns in the midst of the solitary ocean, had a
singular effect. The echo came back from the naked shores of Sparta,
with a warlike sound, that might have stirred old Leonidas in his grave.
The smoke rolled away on the wind, and the noble ship hoisted her royals
once more, and went on her way. We are making for Napoli di Romania,
with a summer breeze, and hope to drop anchor beneath its fortress, at
sunset.
* * * * *
* * * * *