northern shore of the bay; to reach Patras the steamer crosses to the
Peloponnesus side. It was a dark night, and I don't know where we
stopped, but it must have been far out from land. The barges which came
to meet us were rough craft, with loose boards for seats and water in
the bottom. We obtained places in one of them, and after twenty minutes
of pitching up and down, shouting, tumbling about, and splashing, the
crew bent to their big oars, and we started. Swaying lights glimmered
through the darkness here and there; they came from vessels at anchor in
the roadstead. We plunged and rolled, apparently making no progress; but
at last a long, wet breakwater, dimly seen, appeared on the right, and
finally we perceived the lights of the landing-place, which is the
water-side of one of the squares of the town. Our crew jumped out in the
surf, and drew the heavy boat up to the steps of the embankment. Here
were assembled the brigands. There were a hundred of them at least, all
yelling. Probably they were astonished to see ladies landing from the
Greek coaster. This was part of our original misconception in the
selection of that steamer (a mistake, however, which had turned out to
be such a picturesque success); but it was part also of a general error
which came from our nationality. For we were natives of the one land on
earth where to women is always accorded, without question, a first
place. It had never occurred to us that we could be jostled. After
Patras we were more careful (and more proud of our country than ever).
But at the moment, as we were pulled first to the right by men who
wished to carry us and our travelling-bags in that direction, and then
to the left by others who had attacked the first party, felled them, and
captured their prey--at the moment when we were closely pressed by a
throng of wild-looking, dancing, shrieking figures, dressed in strange
attire, and carrying pistols, it was not a little alarming. The fray had
lasted six or seven minutes, and there were no signs of cessation, when
there appeared on the edge of the throng a neatly dressed little man in
spectacles. He made his way within, and rescued us by the simple process
of repeating something that sounded like "La, la, la, _la_! La, la, la,
_la_!" Breathless, freed, we stood, saved, in the square, while our
preserver went back and captured our bags, bringing them out and
depositing them gently, one after the other, on the ground by our side.
We then waited until a handcart, trundled by a petticoated porter,
appeared, when the little man led us quietly to the custom-house near
by, where, after some delay, we obtained our luggage, which was piled
upon the cart. Followed by this cart, we walked across the square to the
hotel. Throughout the whole of this process, which lasted twenty
minutes, the brigands surrounded us in a close, scowling circle that
moved as we moved. When its line drew too near us the little man walked
round the ring--"La, la, la, _la_! La, la, la, _la_!"--and it widened
slightly, but only slightly. We reached refuge at last, and escaped into
a lighted hall. It was a real escape, and the hotel seemed a paradise.
It was not until the next day that we recognized it as a mortal inn,
with the appearance of the well-known tepid soup in the dining-room; but
the coffee was excellent. And this showed that there was a German
influence somewhere in the house; it proved to emanate from our
preserver, who was also the landlord, and an exile from the Rhine. I
think he was homesick. But at least he had learned the dialect of his
temporary abode, and also the way to treat the last remnants of the
pirate and brigand days, as its spirit reappears now and then, though
faintly, among the hangers-on of a Greek port town.
Though I have talked of brigands, for Greece as a whole, for the young
nation, I have but one feeling--namely, admiration. The country,
escaping at last from its bondage to Turkey, after a long and exhausting
war, had everything to do and nothing to do it with. There was no
agriculture, no commerce, no money, and only a small population; there
were no roads, no schools, no industries or trades, and few men of
education. (I quote the words of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, written in 1891.) The
Greeks have done much, and under the most unfavorable conditions. They
will do more. The struggle upward of an intelligent and ambitious people
is deeply interesting, and the effort in Greece appeals especially to
Americans, because the country, in spite of its form of government, is a
democracy.
When we left Patras we left the Ionian Sea, and I ought therefore to
bring these slight records to a close. But it was the same blue water,
after all, that was washing the shores of the long, lake-like gulf
beyond, and the impression produced by its pure, early-world tint, lasts
as far as Corinth; here one turns inland, and the next crested waves
which one meets are AEgean. They rouse other sensations.
There is now a railroad from Patras to Athens. On the morning when we
made the transit there was given to us for our sole use a saloon on
wheels, which was much larger than the compartments of an English
railway carriage, and smaller than an American parlor car. In its centre
was a long table, and a cushioned bench ran round its four sides; broad
windows gave us a wide view of the landscape as we rolled (rather
slowly) along. The track follows the gulf all the way to Corinth, and we
passed through miles of vineyards. But I did not think of currants here;
they had been left behind at Zante. There is, indeed, only one thing to
think of, and the heart beats quickly as Parnassus lifts its head above
the other snow-clad summits. "The prophetess of Delphi was hypnotized,
of course." This sudden incursion of modernity was due no doubt to the
mode of our progress through this sacred country. We ought to have been
crossing the gulf in a Phaeacian boat, which needs no pilot, or, at the
very least, in a bark with an azure prow. But even upon an iron track,
through utilitarian currant fields, the spell descends again when the
second peak becomes visible at the eastern end of the bay.
"Not here, O Apollo!
Are haunts meet for thee,
But where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea--"
How many times, in lands far from here, had I read these lines for their
mere beauty, without hope of more!
And now before my eyes was Helicon itself.
THE END
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