Nausicaa's shore. We did so at last in the wake of a departing storm.
For several days the wind had been tempestuous. The signal, which is
displayed from the Citadel, had become a riddle; it is an arrangement of
flags by day and of lanterns by night, and no two of us ever deciphered
it alike. If the order was thus and so, it meant that something
belonging to the Austrian-Lloyd company was in sight; if so and thus, it
meant the Florio line; if neither of these, then it might possibly be
our boat--that is, the Greek coasting steamer which we had decided to
take because we had been told that it was the best. I have never
fathomed the mystery as to why our informant told us this. If he had
been a Greek, it would have been at least a patriotic misrepresentation.
We were dismayed when we reached the rough tub. But, after all, in one
sense she was the best, for she dawdled in and out among the islands,
never in the least hurry, and stopping to gossip with them all; this
gave us a good chance to see them, if it gave us nothing else. I have
said "when we reached her," for there were several false starts. We rose
in the morning in a mood of regretful good-bye, expecting to be far away
at night. And at night, with our good-bye on our hands, we were still in
our hotel. But it is only fair to add that with its garlands of flowers
and myrtle for the Christmas season; with its queer assemblage of
Levantines in the dining-room; with its bath-room in the depths of the
earth, to which one descended by stairway leading down underground; with
its group of petticoated Greeks in the hall, and, in its rooms of honor
above, a young Austrian princess of historic name and extraordinary
beauty--with all this, and its cheerful lies, its smiling, gay-hearted
irresponsibility, the Corfu inn was an entertaining place. The Greek
steamer came at last. She had been driven out of her course by the gale,
so said the pirate, ostensibly retired from business, who superintended
the embarkations from the hotel. This lithe freebooter had presented
himself at frequent intervals during the baffling days when we watched
the signal, and he always entered without knocking. He could not grasp
the idea, probably, that ceremonies would be required by persons who
intended to sail by the coaster. When we reached this bark ourselves,
later, we forgave him--a little. Her deck was the most democratic place
I have ever seen. We think that we approve of equality in the United
States. But the Greeks carry their approval further than we do. On this
deck there were no reserved portions, no prohibitions; the persons who
had paid for a first-class ticket had the same rights as those which
were accorded to the steerage travellers, and no more; and as the latter
were numerous, they obtained by far the larger share, eating the
provisions which they had brought with them, sleeping on their
coverlids, playing games, and smoking in the best places. There was no
system, and little discipline; the sailors came up and washed the deck
(a process which was very necessary) whenever and however they pleased,
and we had to jump for our lives and mount a bench to escape the stream
from the hose, as it suddenly appeared without warning from an
unlooked-for quarter. The passengers, who came on board at various
points during a cruise of several days, brought with them light personal
luggage, which consisted of hens tied together by the legs, a live
sheep, kitchen utensils, and bedding, all of which they placed
everywhere and anywhere, according to their pleasure. A Greek dressed
in the full national costume accompanied us all the way to Missolonghi
so closely that he was closer than a brother; save when we were locked
in our small sleeping-cabins below (the one extra possession which a
first-class ticket bestows), we were literally elbow to elbow with him.
And his elbows were a weapon, like the closed umbrella held under the
arm in a crowded street--that pleasant habit of persons who are not
Greeks. The Greek elbow was clothed in a handsome sleeve covered with
gold embroidery, for our friend was a dandy of dandies. His petticoats
and his shirt were of fine linen, snowy in its whiteness; his small
waist was encircled by a magnificent Syrian scarf; his cream-colored
leggings were spotless; and his conspicuous garters new and brilliantly
scarlet. He was an athletic young man of thirty, his good looks marred
only by his over-eager eyes and his restlessness. It was his back which
he presented to us, for his attention was given entirely to a party of
his own friends, men and women. He talked to them; he read aloud to them
from a small newspaper (they all had newspapers, and read them often);
he stood up and argued; he grew excited and harangued; then he sat down,
his inflated skirts puffing out over his chair, and went on with his
argument, if argument it was, until, worn out by the hours of his
eloquence, some of his companions fell asleep where they sat. His meals
were astonishingly small. As everything went on under our eyes, we saw
what they all ate, and it was unmistakable testimony to the Greek
frugality. Our companion had brought with him from Corfu, by way of
provisions for several days, a loaf of bread about as large as three
muffins in one, a vial containing capers, a grapeleaf folded into a
cornucopia and filled with olives, and a pint bottle of the light wine
of the country. The only addition which he made to this store was a
salted fish about four inches long, which he purchased daily from the
steward. There was always a discussion before he went in search of this
morsel, which represented, I suppose, the roast meat of his dinner, and
when he returned after a long absence, bearing it triumphantly on the
palm of his hand, it was passed from one to the next, turned over,
inspected, and measured by each member of the group, amid the most
animated, eager discussion. When comment was at last exhausted, the
superb orator seated himself (always with his chair against our knees),
and placed before him, on a newspaper spread over the bench, his
precious fishlette divided into small slices, with a few capers and
olives arranged in as many wee heaps as there were portions of fish, so
that all should come out even. Then, with the diminutive loaf of bread
by his side and the bottle of wine at his feet, he began his repast,
using the point of his pocketknife as a fork, eating slowly and
meditatively, and intently watched by all his friends, who sat in
silence, following with their eyes each mouthful on its way from the
newspaper to his lips. They had previously made their own repasts in the
same meagre fashion, but perhaps they derived some small additional
nourishment from watching the mastication of their friend. When his fish
had disappeared, accompanied by one slender little slice of bread, our
neighbor lifted the wine-bottle, and gave himself a swallow of wine;
then, after a pause of a minute or two, another. This was all. The
bottle was recorked, and with the remaining provisions put carefully
away. All foreign residents in Greece, whether they like the people or
dislike them, agree in pronouncing them extraordinarily abstemious.
Drunkenness hardly exists among them.
[Illustration: ALBANIAN MALE COSTUME]
At one of the islands a prisoner was brought on board by two policemen.
He was a slender youth--an apprentice to a mason, probably, for his poor
clothes were stained with mortar and lime. He held himself stiffly
erect, making a determined effort to present a brave countenance to the
world. He was led to a place in the centre of the deck, and then one of
his guardians departed, leaving the second in charge. The steamer lay in
the harbor for an hour or more, and four times skiffs put out from the
shore, each bringing two or three young men--or, rather, boys--who came
up the ladder furtively. Reaching the deck, they edged their way along,
first to the right, then to the left, until they perceived their
comrade. Even then they did not approach him directly; they assumed an
air of indifference, and walked about a little among the other
passengers. But after a while, one by one, they came to him, and, taking
bread from under their jackets, they put it hastily and silently into
his pockets, the policeman watching them, but not interfering. Then,
moving off quickly, they disappeared down the ladder in the same
stealthy way, and returned to the shore. Through all their manoeuvres
the prisoner did not once look at them; he kept his eyes fixed upon a
distant point in the bay, as though there was something out there which
he was obliged to watch without an instant's cessation. All his pockets
meanwhile, and the space under his jacket, grew so full that he was
swathed in bread. Finally came the whistle, and the steamer started.
Then, as the island began to recede, the set young face quivered, and
the arm in its ragged sleeve went up to cover the eyes--a touching
gesture, because it is the child's when in trouble, the instinctive
movement of the grief-stricken little boy.
Ten miles south of Corfu one meets the second of the Ionian Islands,
Paxo, with the tiny, severe Anti-Paxo lying off its southern point, like
a summary period set to any romantic legend which the larger isle may
wish to tell. As it happens, the legend is a striking one, and we all
know it without going to Paxo. But it is impossible to pass the actual
scene without relating it once more, and, for the telling, no modern
words can possibly approach those of the old annotator. "Here at the
coast of Paxo, about the time that our Lord suffered His most bitter
Passion, certain persons sailing from Italy at night heard a voice
calling aloud: 'Thamus?' 'Thamus?' Who, giving ear to the cry (for he
was the pilot of the ship), was bidden when he came near to Portus
Pelodes" (the Bay of Butrinto) "to tell that the great god Pan was dead.
Which he, doubting to do, yet when he came to Portus Pelodes there was
such a calm of wind that the ship stood still in the sea, unmoored, and
he was forced to cry aloud that Pan was dead. Whereupon there were such
piteous outcries and dreadful shrieking as hath not been the like. By
the which Pan, of some is understood the great Sathanas, whose kingdom
was at that time by Christ conquered; for at that moment all oracles
surceased, and enchanted spirits, that were wont to delude the people,
henceforth held their peace."
Those of us who read Milton's Ode on Christmas Eve will recall his
allusion to this Paxo legend:
"The lonely mountains o'er,
And the enchanted shore,
A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;
From haunted spring and dale,
Edged with poplar pale,
The parting Genius is with sighing sent."
[Illustration: ALBANIAN FEMALE COSTUME]
Anti-Paxo is one of the oddest spots I have seen. It is a small, bare,
stone plain, elevated but slightly above the surface of the water. The
rock is of a tawny hue, and there is a queer odor of asphaltum. At
certain seasons of the year it is covered so thickly with quail that
"you could not put a paper-cutter between them." There were no quail
when we passed the rock. The sun shone on the flat surface, bringing out
its rich tint against the azure of the sea, and in its strange
desolation it looked like a picture which might have been painted by a
man of genius who had gone mad in his passion for color. Though I
mention the Ionian group only, it must not be supposed that there were
no other islands. Those of us who like to turn over maps, to search out
routes though we may never follow them except on paper--innocent
stay-at-home geographers of this sort have supposed that it was a simple
matter to learn the names of the islands which one meets in any
well-known track across well-known seas. This is a mistake. From Corfu
to Patras, and, later, on the way to Egypt and Syria, and back through
the Strait of Messina to Genoa, I saw many islands--it seemed to me that
they could have been counted by hundreds--which are not indicated in the
ordinary guide-books, and whose names no one on the steamers appeared to
know, not even the captains. The captains, the pilots, and all the
officers were of course aware of the exact position in the sea of each
one; that was part of their business. But as to names, these mariners,
whether Englishmen, Germans, Italians, Turks, or Greeks (and we sailed
with all), appeared to share the common opinion that they had none;
their manner was that they deserved none. But I have never met a steamer
captain who felt anything but profound contempt for small islands; he
appears to regard them simply as interruptions--as some Ohio farmers of
my acquaintance regard the occasional single tree in their broad, level
fields.
Abreast of Paxo, on the mainland, is the small village of Parga. The
place has its own tragic history connected with its cession to the Turks
in 1815. But I am afraid that its principal association in my mind is
the frivolous one of a roaring chorus, "Robbers all at Parga!" This song
may be as much of a libel as that bold ballad concerning the beautiful
town at the eastern end of Lake Erie; the ladies of that place are not
in the habit of "coming out to-night, to dance by the light of the
moon," and in the same way there may never have been any robbers worth
speaking of at Parga. It is Hobhouse who tells the story. "In the
evening preparations were made for feeding our Albanians. After eating,
they began to dance round the fire to their own singing with an
astonishing energy. One of their songs begins, 'When we set out from
Parga, there were sixty of us.' Then comes the chorus: 'Robbers all at
Parga! Robbers all at Parga!' As they roared out this stave, they
whirled round the fire, dropped to and rebounded from their knees, and
again whirled round in a wild circle, repeating it at the top of their
voices:
"'Robbers all at Parga!
Robbers all at Parga!'"
At Parga we met the Byronic legend, which from this point hangs over the
whole Ionian Sea. Parga is not far from the castle of Suli, and with the
word "Suliote" we are launched aloft into the resplendent realm of
Byron's poetry, which seems as beautiful and apparition-like as the
Oberland peaks viewed from Berne--shining cliffs, so celestially and
impossibly fair, far up in the sky. (We may note, however, in passing,
that these lofty limits are, after all, as real as a barn-yard, or as an
afternoon sewing society.) The country near Parga is described at length
in the second canto of "Childe Harold."
[Illustration: GALA COSTUME, CORFU]
The third island of the Ionian group is Santa Maura, the Leucadia of the
ancients. It looks like a chain of mountains set in the sea. Here there
are earthquakes, as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu would have expressed
it. The story is that at Santa Maura and at Zante there is a severe
shock once in twenty years, and a "small roll" twice in every three
months. It is at least true that slight earthquakes are not uncommon,
and that the houses are built to resist them, with strong beams crossing
from side to side to hold the walls together, so that the interiors look
like the cabins of a ship. The rolling motion, when it comes, must make
this resemblance very vivid. The impression of Santa Maura which remains
in my own mind, however, does not concern itself with earthquakes,
unless, indeed, one means moral ones. I see a long, lofty promontory
ending in a silvery headland. I see it flushed with the rose-tints of
sunset, high above a violet sea. Of course I was looking for it; every
one looks for the rock from which dark Sappho flung herself in her
despair. But even without Sappho it is a striking cliff; it rises
perpendicularly from deep water, and it is so white that one fancies
that it must be visible even upon the darkest night. All day its
towering opaline crest serves as a beacon from afar. The temple of
Apollo which once crowned its summit can still be traced in sculptured
fragments, though there are no marble columns like those that gleam
across the waves from Sunium. "Leucadia's far-projecting rock of woe,"
Byron calls it. But it does not look woful. One fancies that exaltation
must flood the soul of the human creature who springs to meet Death from
such a place. The memory of the Greek poetess has nothing to do with
these reflections, unless one refers to the ladies who are announced to
the public from time to time as "the modern Sappho," in which case one
might suggest to them the excellent facilities the rock affords. As to
the greatest of women of letters, I do not know that there is anything
more to say about her in the language of the United States. If she had
flourished and perished last year, M. Jules Lemaitre (her name would
have been Leocadie, probably) would doubtless have written an article
about her: "The career, literary and other, of Mademoiselle Leocadie, a
ete des plus distinguees, bien qu'un peu tapageuse."
As the steamer crossed from Santa Maura to Cephalonia we had a clear
view of little Ithaca, the Ithaca which Ulysses loved, "not because it
was broad, but because it was his own." Except Paxo, Ithaca is the
smallest of the sister islands. The guide-book declares "No steamer
touches at Ithaca, but there is frequent communication by caique." This
announcement, like others from the same authority, is false, though it
may have been true thirty years ago. The very steamer that carried us
stopped regularly at the suitors' island upon her return voyage to
Corfu. We could not take this voyage; therefore we were free to wish
(selfishly) that this particular one, among the many deceptive
statements which we had read, might have been veracious. For
"communication by caique" is surely a phrase of delight. It brings up
not only the Ionian, but the AEgean Sea; it carries the imagination
onward to the Bosporus itself.
Sir William Gell and Dr. Schliemann between them have discovered at
Ithaca all the sites of the Odyssey, even to the stone looms of the
nymphs. Other explorers, with colder minds, have decided that at least
the author of the poem must have had a close acquaintance with the
island, for many of his descriptions are very accurate. We need no guide
for Penelope; we can materialize her, as the spiritualists say, for
ourselves. Hers is a very modern character. One knows without the
telling that she had much to say, day by day, about her sufferings, her
feelings, her duty, and her conscience--above all things, her
conscience. Her confidantes in that upper room were probably extremely
familiar with her point of view, which was that if she should choose
any one of her suitors, or if she should cruelly drive the whole throng
away, suicide on an overwhelming scale would inevitably be the result.
It would amount to a depopulation of the entire archipelago! Would any
woman be justified in causing such widespread despair as that?
The next island, Cephalonia, is the largest of the Ionian group. There
is much to say about it. But I must not say it here. The truth is that
one sails past these sisters as slippery Ulysses sailed past the sirens;
they are so beautiful that one must tie one's hands to the mast (or the
bench) to keep them from writing a volume on the subject. But I must
permit myself a word about Sir Charles Napier. Sir Charles was Governor
of Cephalonia during the period of the British Protectorate, and
officially he was a subordinate of the Lord High at Corfu. One of these
temporary kings appears to have felt some jealousy regarding the
vigorous administration of his Cephalonian lieutenant. It was not
possible to censure his acts; they were all admirable. It was
permissible, however, to censure a mustache, which at that time was
considered a wayward appendage, not strictly in accordance with the
regulations. Ludicrous as it may appear, it is nevertheless true that
this sapient Lord High actually issued an order saying that the
offending ornament must be shaved off. The witty lieutenant's answer was
conveyed in four words: "Obeyed--to a hair." Napier constructed good
roads throughout his rough, mountainous domain. "I wish I could be
buried at the little chapel on the top of the mountain," he said to one
of his friends. "At the last day many a poor mule's soul will say a good
word for me, I know, when they remember what the old road was." One
regrets that this wish was not carried out. But as for the souls of the
poor mules, I for one am sure that they will remember him.
At Zante, for some unexplained cause, the classic associations suddenly
vanished: Homer faded, Theocritus followed him; Pliny and Strabo
disappeared. The later memories, too: Lord Guildford and his university,
Byron and his Suliotes, Napier and his mules--all these left us. We were
back in the present; we must have some Zante flowers and Zante trinkets;
we thought of nothing but going ashore. By pushing a bench, with
semi-unconscious violence, against the Greek, we succeeded in making him
move a little, so that we could rise. Then we landed (but not in a
caique), and went roaming through the yellow town. Zante is the most
cheerful-looking place I have ever seen. The bay ripples and smirks; it
is so pretty that it knows it is pretty, and it smirks accordingly. The
town, stretching, with its gayly tinted houses, round a level semicircle
at the edge of the water, smiles, as one may say, from ear to ear. And
this joyful expression is carried up the hill, by charming gardens,
orange groves, and vineyards, to the Venetian fort at the top, which, as
we saw it in the brilliant sunshine, with the birds flying about it,
seemed to be throwing its cap into the sky with a huzza.
"O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!
Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!"
sang Poe, borrowing his chimes this time, however, from an Italian
song--"Zante, Zante, fior di Levante!" This flower of the Levant exports
not flowers, but fruit. The currants, which had vaguely presented
themselves at Santa Maura and Cephalonia, came now decisively to the
front. One does not think of these little berrylettes (I am certainly
hunted by "ette") as ponderous. But when one beholds tons of them,
cargoes for ships, one regards them with a new respect. It was probably
the brisk commercial aspect of the currants which made the port look so
modern. All the Ionian Islands except Corfu export currants, but Zante
throws them out to the world with both hands. I must confess that I have
always blindly supposed (when I thought of it at all) that the currant
of the plum-pudding was the same fruit as the currant of our
gardens--that slightly acrid red berry which grows on bushes that follow
the lines of back fences--bushes that have patches of weedy ground under
them where hens congregate. I fancied that by some process unknown to
me, at the hands of persons equally unknown (perhaps those who bring
flattened raisins from grapes), these berries were dried, and that they
then became the well-known ornament of the Christmas-cake. It was at
Zante that my shameful ignorance was made clear to me. Here I learned
that the dried fruit of commerce is a dwarf grape, which has nothing in
common with currant jelly. Its English name, currant, is taken from the
French "raisin de Corinthe," or Corinth grape, a title bestowed because
the fruit was first brought into notice at Corinth. We have stolen this
name in the most unreasonable way for our red berry. Then, to make the
confusion worse, as soon as we have put the genuine currants into our
puddings and cakes, we turn round and call them "plums"! The real
currant, the dwarf grape of Corinth, is about as large as a gooseberry
when ripe, and its color is a deep violet-black; the vintage takes place
in August. It is not a hardy vine. It attains luxuriance, I was told,
only in Greece; and even there it is restricted to the northern
Peloponnesus, the shores of the Gulf of Corinth, and the Ionian Islands.
M. About, confronted with the 195,000,000 pounds of currants which were
exported in 1876, dipped his French pen afresh, and wrote: "Plum-pudding
and plum-cake are typical pleasures of the English nation, pleasures
whose charms the Gaul cannot appreciate." He adds that if other
countries should in time be converted to "these two pure delights,"
Greece would not need to cultivate anything else; she would become rich
"enormement."
Zante is the sixth of the islands, and as the steamer leaves her, still
smiling gayly over her dimpling bay, it seems proper to cast at least
one thought in the direction of the seventh sister, upon whom we are now
turning our backs. For "We are seven" the islands declare as
persistently as the little cottage girl, though the seventh has gone
away, if not to heaven, at least to the very end of the Peloponnesus.
Why Cerigo should have been included in the Ionian group I do not know;
it lies off the southernmost point of Greece, near Cape Malea, and might
more reasonably be classed with the Cyclades, or with Crete. Birthplace
of Aphrodite, Cythera of the ancients, though it is, I have never met
any one who has landed there in actual fact (I do not include dreams).
People going by sea to Athens from Naples, or from Brindisi, pass it in
their course, and if they read their Murray or their Baedeker, to say
nothing of other literature, no doubt their thoughts dwell upon the
goddess of love for a moment as they pass her favorite shore. A
photograph of the minds of travellers, as their eyes rest upon this
celebrated isle, would be interesting. To mention (with due respect)
typical names only, what would be the vision of Mr. Herbert Spencer, or
of Prince Bismarck? of the Archbishop of Canterbury, or of Ibsen? of
General Booth, Tolstoi, or Miss Yonge? We can each of us think of a list
which would rouse our curiosity in an acute degree. To come down to an
unexciting level, I know what the apparition in my own mind would
be--that picture in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence: Botticelli's "Birth
of Venus." I should inevitably behold the fifteenth-century goddess
coming over the waves in her very small shell; I should see her high
cheek-bones, her sad eyes, her discontented mouth, her lank form with
the lovely slender feet, and her long, thick hair; and at last I should
know (what I do not know now) whether she is beautiful or ugly. On the
shore, too, would appear that galloping woman, who, clothed in copiously
gathered garments which are caught up and tied in the wrong places,
brings in haste a flowered robe to cover her melancholy mistress. Such
are the idle fancies that come as one watches the track of churned
water, like a broad ribbon, stretching from the steamer's stern--water
forever fleeing backward as the boat advances. Scallops of foam sweep
out on each side; their cool fringe dips under a little as the wavelet
which comes from the opposite direction lifts its miniature crest and
curls over in a graceful sweep.
[Illustration: OLIVE GROVE, CORFU]
The voyage northward to Missolonghi is beautiful. The sea was dotted
with white wings. The Greeks are bold sailors; one never observes here
the timidity, the haste to seek refuge anywhere and everywhere, which is
so conspicuous along the Riviera and the western coast of Italy.
Throughout the Ionian archipelago, and it was the same later among the
islands of the AEgean, it was inspiring to note the smallest craft, far
from land, dashing along under full sail, leaning far over as they flew.
Missolonghi is a small abortive Venice, without the gondolas; it is
situated on a lagoon, and a causeway nearly two miles long leads to it,
across the shallow water. Vague and unimportant as it is upon its muddy
shore, it was the soul of the Greek revolution. It has been through
terrible sieges. During one of these Marco Botzaris was in command, and
his grave is outside the western gate. A few years ago all the
school-boys in America could chant his requiem; perhaps they chant it
still. After the death of Botzaris, Byron took five hundred of the
chieftain's needy Suliotes, and formed them into a body-guard, giving
them generous pay. This is but one of many instances. It is the fashion
of the day to paint Byron in the darkest colors. But when you stand in
the squalid, unhealthy little street where he drew his last breath you
realize that he came here voluntarily; that he offered his life if need
be, and, in the end, gave it, to the cause which appealed to him; he did
not stay safely at home and write about it. He died nearly seventy years
ago, but at Missolonghi he is very real and very present still--with his
red coat, and his bravery and penetration. Napier said that, of all the
Englishmen who came to assist the Greek revolution, Byron was the one
who comprehended best the character of the modern Greek--"all the rest
expected to find Plutarch's men." It is another fashion of the moment to
put aside as of small account the glittering cantos which stirred the
English-speaking world in the early days of this century. But it is not
while the wild, beautiful Albanian mountains are rising above your head
that you think meanly of them. "Remember all the splendid things he said
of Greece," says some one. When you are in Greece, you do remember.