grand-pupil. His Oxford tutor was my pupil. We are lingering on here
sadly, waiting for the end of Parliament, and having no summer. People
talk of a grand fusion of the Conservative and Liberal-Conservative
parties, modern Tories and modern Whigs making one solid national
defence against Bright and the Radicals. Things tend a good deal that
way, but unless Bright and the Radicals become formidable indeed,
personal jealousies will keep the aristocratic parties in a state
of separation. They have, however, acted together this session, and
have succeeded in staving off Parliamentary Reform, and in some other
things. The future is quite obscure. I don’t think, however, that any
Ministry will venture on an unliberal foreign policy, though there may
be some quiet rapprochement to the Germans, Austrians even included.
The nation generally holds, I think, to alliance with the French in
general, and to support of Italy with or without the French.
Rowse went off yesterday for Southampton. His picture of Owen is very
good; that of me is less successful. He was interrupted in the midst of
it, was delayed by sore eyes, and then had to go to Owen; but still it
is a very good likeness.
_To the same._
Granton House, Edinburgh: October 11, 1860.
Your letter of the 24th came to me two days ago at Glasgow, and was a
very pleasant surprise. We were passing through, and I had not thought
of receiving anything. We have been spending a more than usual length
of time in holidays. We had a visit to Fryston in Yorkshire, and after
passing through the Highlands to Oban, made a three weeks’ stay in
Morven (the Morven of Ossian or Macpherson), a very out-of-the-way
district, whence we had some difficulty in effecting a return; the
equinoctial gales having delayed the steamer and broken up the roads.
We are staying here with Sir John MacNeill, the Crimean Commissioner
and sometime Envoy in Persia; he has the charge of the administration
of the Poor Laws in Scotland. The Highland population is passing
through the stage of decrease. Emigration has been going on pretty
actively since the famine of 1846 and 1847, and Iona, for example,
which had 500, has now 250 inhabitants. The emigrants send back money
to bring out their friends, and this will continue. Sir John MacNeill,
however, who has had a great deal to do with it, expects that the
population will recover when the new methods of cultivation (or using)
the soil are established. Such has been the case in many formerly
Highland and now really Lowland places.
I am glad to hear of Rowse’s restoration to life and happiness in his
native land.
_To the same._
Council Office: October 25, 1860.
I have just sent off the corrected ‘Bothie’ and two copies of all the
little poems. We have been here in town for about ten days, but I think
very likely we shall go to Malvern for a week to complete our holiday,
and for a little gentle water-cure for me, who am a little out of
order, and not quite in vigour for the ten months’ campaign shortly to
commence.
Louis Napoleon is said to be very cross, having offered his company at
Warsaw, and had it declined; however, if he is cross _that_ way, all
the better. But why does he keep his paw on the patrimony of St. Peter,
and exclude the lawful heir, Victor Emmanuel? The popular feeling in
France is said to be very strong for Garibaldi, but there is some
considerable jealousy in the army, where Lamoricière’s disgrace touches
professional vanity, and where Garibaldi is, I suppose, not acceptable
in himself.
Was not the Duke of Newcastle quite wrong to take our young Prince to
Richmond, where it is well known there is a blackguard population?
They say here it is his fault. However, it is no great harm, specially
as it happened in a proud slave state. Just now you will be thinking
about Presidents, not Princes; eight years ago, I think, you were busy
electing Pierce, and I was just starting per ‘Canada’ to visit you.
_To the same._
Freshwater, Isle of Wight: March 10, 1861.
I hope your being at home may be understood to prove that you are a
good deal stronger. I am a good deal better myself, and have no very
good excuse for not writing beyond the advice which is given me to
indulge in laziness. Had I had six months’ leave proclaimed to me from
beforehand, I should have naturally thought of going over to see you
in America; but what with water-cure and other things I don’t think I
shall even go abroad to the Continent for more than a month.
I am glad to hear you speak so hopefully of your future; much, however,
will I suppose in any case depend on the good sense and character of
your new President and his advisers. I for my part should suppose that
an attempt to retake the federal forts would be unwise. You are strong
enough not to need it.
Emerson’s new essays were to me quite as good as, if not better than,
any former volume. The reviews are no great index of public interest
unless you collect a good number. There are now so many local reviews,
and people with us depend so very little on Athenæums and Literary
Gazettes, or even Saturday Reviews. An article in the ‘Times’ is the
really important thing for a book to get with a view to sale, but even
that proves little as to people’s interest. There is a vast deal of
anti-mysticism, and of a dense, supercilious, narrow-minded common
sense, which of course speaks pretty loudly.
_To his Wife._
Athens: April 24, 1861.
This morning about six I got up, and found we had just passed Cerigo,
and had turned upnorth-eastward along the Peloponnesian coast. By
half-past nine we had passed Hydra and seen Calaurea, and were in sight
of Ægina right before us, and of Sunium on the right in the distance.
Coming up from breakfast (half-past nine) we presently came in sight of
a low set of petty hills rising from a little plain, and on one of the
lowest saw the Parthenon. Passing Ægina and advancing towards Salamis
we have this right before us, Hymettus on the right, Pentelicus more
distant, Parnes beyond the plain, the bay stretching towards Corinth
on the left, Salamis hiding all the coast left of Athens, and all very
bright and sunny. We landed in Piræus about twelve, and came on shore
in a boat and up here in a vettura. I’m two pairs up, looking towards
the Acropolis.
April 28.
On Friday we went to Eleusis, through the pass of Daphne; there is
scarcely anything left; the little village just about occupies the site
of the great temple. There is a little quay like a sickle running out
into the water, and in one spot some lesser ruins have been opened out.
The bay, which is completely shut in by Salamis, is beautiful, and so
is the plain, now green with young corn, and the mountains of Parnes
behind it. Dark poppies and small camomile flowers abound everywhere
instead of grass, and a good many flowers quite strange to me.
April 29.
Last night I dined at the Wyses’, and met General Church, Mr. Finlay,
Mr. Elliot, Secretary of Legation, Captain Lambert, R.N. (of the
‘Scylla,’ which lies in the Piræus), who was at Marsala when Garibaldi
landed, and seems a fine hearty gallant sort of officer. An Austrian
Secretary of Legation and an Attaché made up the party. Captain Lambert
spoke of the harbour. Phalerum they say is the right harbour, it is so
hard to tack into Piræus. General Church spoke of seventeen tacks. But
there is no trade at the back. Patras, said Sir T. Wyse, is the only
place with a _back_ to it; _i.e._ currants.
The weather has become perfectly fine, the sun hot, but a fresh breeze
blowing. In a fortnight, they say, all will be brown. Just now the land
is green with barley, into which they turn the horses, partly cutting
it, partly leaving them to feed on as it stands, only shackling them.
This place is very pleasant to stay at, in the lounging way. I walked
to Colonus and the Academy, about a mile and a half away, going
north-east towards the Cephissus and the ‘Olive Grove.’ You are let
into a farm-house garden, with all sorts of fruits and vegetables,
quince-trees, pomegranate-trees, orange-trees, &c.; and here also are a
few remains. I suppose the trees have never grown well up again since
Sylla cut them down.[17] There are a few old olives, and about the farm
newer trees, planes chiefly. Then you cross a bare field to the bare
hill or mound of Colonus, where are two marble monuments to Ottfried
Müller and to Lenormant. The view of the Acropolis is very good.
In the evening I rambled about, along the Ilissus, picked some
maiden-hair from the rocks over the springs of Calirrhoë, where we
found women washing and donkeys drinking, and so through some beer and
wine gardens along the water-side to the Stadium, a great hollow in the
hill-side where the foot-races were.
Tuesday, April 30.
Yesterday I went to Phyle, up on the hills of Parnes; took four hours
on horseback to get there, and nearly four hours back. This is Greek
Passion Week, and horses are not easy to get; my guide had a very poor
one. Phyle is romantic enough; a very steep, rough horse-way leads to
it, and on one side of it, to Thebes. It is a fort with three sides
remaining, and two towers, and from the plateau you see Hymettus and
the plain with the Acropolis far below. The road up rounds a shoulder
of Ægialus, and then gets wilder. You see goats about, nearly all
black. The whole of the mountains are pine-wooded--a light-green with
a stone-pine head; they spring from the bare rock. There is a thin
herbage in places, with bare shrubs; the biggest is the πρῑνος, with
little prickly holly-leaves, quite red when young as now, and very
close; numerous flowers at Phyle, cistus, thyme in blossom. The young
pines look soft of foliage: I mistook them for deciduous trees.
To-day Mr. Finlay called, and took me to the University Library, and
to the βουλευτήριον, where the βουλή were sitting, and apparently at
work. There are fifty βουλευταί. Also we saw the Chamber, who seemed
wholly idle. Thence to the new Cathedral, not yet finished, and very
gorgeous (for so small a place) inside; thence to his house, where the
visit ended by some Scotch marmalade, of which one takes a spoonful and
a glass of water.
At the library I saw a new Greek translation of Plutarch, and of Homer,
in verse. I also saw Mr. Finlay’s Attic coins, from the στατήρ to the
lowest.
May 1.
This morning I was called at ten minutes to four; got some café-au-lait
and went down to Piræus, and embarked on a Greek steamer, which at six
started for Kalamaki, a little landing-place on the Isthmus, whence the
road runs over, four miles long, to New Corinth. As I started, on the
road to Piræus, the light of sunrise (about 5.20) came over Lycabettus,
the sun actually rising over Hymettus with the Parthenon between.
People were then in the fields. Acrocorinthus was visible pretty nearly
all the way, and latterly the mountains of Phocis, clouded, over the
low Isthmus; Megara just beyond, and Salamis very noticeable. Old
Corinth, or New Corinth the elder, nearly on the site of the antique,
was wholly destroyed by earthquake in 1857. To New Corinth, which
is on the sea-side of the Gulf of Corinth, the passengers are taken
by omnibus and cart, and embark for Patras. At Kalamaki I mounted a
horse with a Greek saddle, the most dreadful invention in the world,
which made it hopeless to reach Corinth and return before the steamer
returned to Athens; however, we went on as well as the saddle allowed,
some way up towards Acrocorinthus, a wild country, with a great deal of
low pine about, and with old quarries, and saw from the higher part[18]
the Gulf of Corinth stretching away to the mountains of Phocis, heavily
clouded, to the northern side of it. When we got back it was just
beginning to rain, and it has rained hard ever since. I was fain to go
into the cabin, where I found however a resource in a Greek army doctor
(in full uniform, I only found out that he was a doctor afterwards).
He spoke French well enough. This rain is said to be very unusual.
The morning from five o’clock was delightful. Kalamaki is just at the
north-east extremity of the low level of the Isthmus, out of which
Acrocorinthus rises, almost by itself, and which is filled up, north
and south, as the space widens, by high mountains.
May 2.
The town is full of people buying and selling for πάσχα, _e.g._ lambs;
there are flocks all about, on the Areopagus, and also the outskirts.
Wax candles also, beside the usual marketings.
May 4.
Yesterday was Friday, in Greek παρασκυή, and yesterday in particular,
Good Friday, ἡ μεγάλη παρασκευή, a great fast, and everybody buying his
lamb for the Pascha of Sunday.
On Thursday I went up Pentelicus; left this at eight, got up by
twelve. The view was clouded to the west and north-west, but Eubœa and
the Euripus and Marathon lay like a map below, also South Attica, with
Andros, Tenos, Ceos, and over Eubœa, less distinct, Scyros. The upper
slopes of the mountain are clad with arbutus chiefly, just going out of
flower. There are marble quarries for a great part of the way up, and
one with a great grotto or cave richly adorned with the common English
maiden-hair, and with a little of the true Capillus veneris.
Coming down I stopped to lunch beside the monastery of the Pan-agia;
bread and cheese and oranges, by a beautiful gushing water in a sort
of cup out of a wall, tall white poplars overhead, olives, and also
large dwarf oaks (fifteen feet high or more), the first I have seen.
I looked into the monastery court, in the middle of which is a huge
bay-tree. Mr. Psyllis, a Greek gentleman, a senator, whom Mr. Finlay
had introduced me to, happened to be there; he was spending his holiday
there with some of his family, so he talked to me, and presently gave
me coffee, which Miss Victoria, his daughter, presented on a tray
to us, retiring after so doing. Then he took me up a little outside
staircase to a little set of rooms, and presented me to his relation,
the abbot or ἡγούμενος, Cyrillus Δελγέριος, a fine-looking elderly
man, who lives there in two small rooms; one a sort of reception-room,
where sometimes the king and queen come, and therefore adorned with
their pictures (two common engravings); the other his bedroom and
sitting-room, where he had a little wood fire. He also asked me to take
coffee, so presently his domestic made it at this fire, and presented
it, with that well-known Turkish sweetmeat, but made at Syra, and much
nicer, and with a glass of water. You take first sweetmeat; secondly,
coffee; thirdly, water. The monastery is very rich.
Last night (May 3) was a great night. The people at eight crowd to the
churches. In every church a bier is laid out with a great cloth over
it, and a figure or representation (sometimes a little embroidered map)
of the Crucifixion. The people all come in (in the chief church between
files of soldiers) and kiss the figure, and then perhaps go out. About
half-past nine the priests take up the bier and carry it out, and the
people follow after with lighted candles (stéariques), and go all about
the streets. The chief procession had a band of military music at the
head, and lots of soldiers, then some banners and crosses, and then, a
little way behind, the priests and the bier. All the streets are filled
with the people carrying lighted stéariques, and blue and red lights
were let off.
To-day is pretty quiet, only they are still buying lambs, which are all
to be killed, poor things, this evening.
Sunday, May 5.
The paschal lambs were very generally sacrificed in the course of
yesterday afternoon. About 4 P.M. I met their skins walking about on
the backs of sundry collectors of lambskins here, as of hareskins with
you, and on the doors of the houses one might see here and there in the
byeways a skin ready for delivery.
In the afternoon I went up to the Parthenon; the effect of interval
and depth in the columniation is far greater than in any picture or
imitation; then out on a road towards Phalerum with very good views
of the Parthenon. Coming back I met the lambskins on the backs of
skin-collectors, and hanging at doors, in the byeways by the Lantern of
Demosthenes.
I was tired and a little out of sorts at night, and so did not sit
up to see the hullabaloo at 12 P.M., when the king and queen, after
attending divine service, come out upon a platform and show themselves,
in honour of the great event, and in token that ὁ Χριστὸς ἀνέστη. This
morning I was disturbed by worse than heathen Greeks howling away under
my window in a yard, and looking forth beheld four paschal lambs over
the embers, stuck through with poles, and the heathen turning them,
and singing strange words, among which I thought I could occasionally
detect ‘Yesous.’
Wednesday, May 8.
The weather continues uncertain. Yesterday I went in a boat from Piræus
out into Salamis Bay, past Psyttalea, and then back and round the whole
headland of Piræus, to see the little harbour on the other side, and
the walls, of which very nearly all the circuit can be traced by blocks
still remaining. The two harbours, Munychia and Zea, are pretty little
coves, both very small, Munychia extremely so, with jetties of stone
closing its mouth; it is shallow and deserted. The rain came on, so I
came up by omnibus to the ἄστι, where the dances that should have been,
round the Temple of Theseus, were much interrupted.
Thursday, May 9.
In the afternoon, yesterday, I went to the Acropolis from three to six,
and looked at the sculptures on the left hand as you go in. Note the
minute comparative size of the Erechtheum, which is also a good deal
lower in site than the Parthenon. I suppose the figures are perhaps
seven feet high. This small size shows very well from the terrace under
Lycabettus, where you see both.
I and two other gentlemen have agreed to go to Nauplia by steamer on
the 12th, and to ride thence to Corinth, returning by steamer from the
Isthmus on the 15th. The weather is now beautiful, and seems to promise
favourably. New snow seems to have fallen on some of the hills near the
Isthmus. We are to go with Spiro Adamopulos, a well-known trustworthy
guide.
Pray can you guess what a φεσοπωλεῖον is, or a καπνοπωλεῖον or finally,
a πνενματοπωλεῖον? there are a great many in Athens, but there are even
more καφφενεῖα. You know of course a ὑποδηματάποιος, but what is a
ῥαπτής? and should you know an omnibus as a λεωφορεῖον?
Saturday, May 11.
I dined yesterday at the Hills’, at three, meeting Miss Bremer, who has
been living here three years. She is a little shrunk old lady, very
quiet. In the evening I went to a mixed soirée, consisting chiefly
of Greeks, from nine to near twelve; music, with two professionals,
Italians. I talked a little to Miss Bremer, and to a Mr. and Mrs. and
Miss Dragoumi. Mrs. and Miss Dragoumi had come with us in the boat: he
conducts a Greek review. The music was good, I think; they get pianos
from Vienna, and have some good masters. They say the Greek girls marry
at seventeen; they learn French and music very well. Everybody learns
French; a good many, English, to read; everybody, old Greek, to read a
little.
Thursday, May 16.
I have got back, a little tired, but no worse. We had a beautiful sail
by steamer to Nauplia on Sunday; it is a filthy place, and we left it
gladly at six on Monday, on horseback; saw the ruins of Tiryns, Τίρυνθά
τε τειχιόεσσαν, and stopped half an hour at Argos, after a ride of
seven miles. It was by this time nine o’clock, and very hot; and we
didn’t go up the Acropolis, but rode off, and in about an hour and a
half reached our halting-place below Mycenæ, remains of walls on some
bare rocky ground a mile above being visible as we rode up. We lunched
under a tree, almost the only tree visible, and then went up, riding.
The Tomb,[19] or Treasury, is _extremely_ remarkable, so also are the
other ruins, the Gate and the Wall. Thence back by another course to
the road, and shortly into a pass, the τρητός, which became wooded,
with shrubs, and had a pleasant stream. So into a fine upland among
hills, then down into an open valley, or plain among hills, where we
saw the three columns of Nemea; then down to them, and back over the
hill-side, lower down to our former line, and so down a water-course to
another little plain, to four houses among some willows--one a small
barrack for some ten soldiers; one a little cook and coffee shop; one,
I suppose, a little farm, and a sort of granary place behind the shop,
with a room fitted up over one part of the granary for strangers. Here
we lodged, and next day went on to Corinth; but here rain came on, and
we saw no view. We slept at Kalamaki on the east side of the Isthmus,
and came on yesterday. I go to-day to Constantinople, and shall return
on the 31st.
_To the same._
Constantinople: Sunday, May 19, 10 A.M.
We arrived here this morning at half-past four, and landed between six
and seven; it was raining all the time, so that the far-famed first
view was nil for us. But our voyage otherwise was prosperous, fair and
fine all the way; the moon and stars bright over the isles of Marmora
when we went to bed last night.
The steamer only left Piræus at 3 P.M. on Friday. We passed under Cape
Colonna, and saw the temple very well about 5.30 P.M.; passed then
through the strait between the southern point of Eubœa and the northern
point of Andros: the former is known as Capo d’Oro, _i.e._ Caphareus,
where Minerva drowned Ajax the Lesser. Night fell as we left Eubœa; and
when I came on deck at 6.30 A.M. yesterday, we had Lesbos, a long range
of mountains, on the immediate right; and the coast of Asia, south of
the Troad, on the right bow. An aged modern Greek pointed out to me
a small thing on the horizon, almost straight ahead, a little to the
left of our course, which he said was Tenetho, ‘bello paese, buon vino,
buon’ e forte.’ Some little after we passed it, and several French
savans began to quote, ‘Est in conspectu,’ rather reminding one of ‘As
in præsenti.’ We went in between Tenedos or Tenetho (a desert-looking
island still, but with one little corner occupied by a little town,
with a fort and three minarets) and the Troad, and at this crisis were
summoned to breakfast, but recovered (most of us) the deck in time to
see the actual plain of Troy, and the entrance of the Dardanelles.
There should have appeared three tumuli at the turn, but I could not
well make them out. The embouchure of the Simois, just above the town,
lets you look up into the plain, backed, many miles off, by Mount Ida.
And so up the Dardanelles, which were crowded with vessels taking
advantage of the south wind, and so to Dardanelles (the Turkish town
so called), where we stop, to obtain permission to go on. Here are the
castles and the consuls, and H.M.S. ‘Melpomene,’ having just, as I
now learn, brought Lord Dufferin from Beyrout; and one hears that the
Sultan is very ill and likely to die, which on arriving here one learns
is all a lie. Then past Sestos and Abydos, and the strait gradually
widens till at Gallipoli, where the French and English armies encamped,
it opens into the Sea of Marmora. Lampsacus is on the right, a little
before Gallipoli on the left. Ægospotami I couldn’t quite make out.
The Sea of Marmora, also, was full of shipping, most in full sail for
Constantinople, some also beating down, outward bound.
May 20.
Another wet day! Was there ever such a disaster? We are to have
the firman to see St. Sophia on Wednesday; to-morrow we are to do
the walls; Thursday, Scutari; Friday, Sweet-Waters; Saturday, the
Bosphorus. But the place is one requiring blue sky and bright sun, and
there is no promise of either. The hotel is costly, but comfortable in
its way, if one only had not to stay in it altogether.
May 21, 6.30 P.M.