LEAVES CONSTANTINOPLE--BY TROY, SALONICA, MYCONE, DELOS, TO ATHENS--LIFE
IN ATHENS--ACQUAINTANCES--BYRON, ETC.
About the middle of September, Cockerell, with Ingilby[14] and Foster,
set sail for Greece. They stopped on their way to pay a visit to the
Plain of Troy. The facilities for travelling nowadays have made us
calmly familiar with the scenes of the past, but in 1810 to stand upon
classic ground was to plant one's feet in a fairyland of romance, and a
traveller who had got so unusually far might well permit his enthusiasm
to find vent. When Cockerell was pointed out the tomb of Patroclus, he
took off his clothes and, in imitation of Achilles, ran three times
round it, naked. Thence they went by Tenedos and Lemnos to Salonica.
Nothing in the notes of this journey is worth recording except perhaps
the mention he makes of Tenedos as being still in a state of desolation
from the cruel Russian attack upon it in the year 1807.
"I ought to give you a notion of the political state of this part of the
country. Ali Pasha of Yanina rules over the Morea, Albania, and
Thessaly nearly up to Salonica, while the Pasha of Serres has Salonica
and Macedonia nearly up to Constantinople, and both are practically
independent of the Porte, obeying it or assisting it only as far as they
please. Now, Ali Pasha has sent his son Veli with 15,000 men to join the
Sultan's army against the Russians, but he on his way has encamped near
Salonica and threatens to take possession of it. The Bey accordingly
pays every sort of court to him, and sends out presents and provisions
to mollify him. In the meanwhile the Sultan has given to another pasha a
firman to take the Morea in Veli Pasha's absence, and he (Veli) is now
waiting for his father Ali's advice as to whether he should proceed to
the war, recover the Morea, or take Salonica. Fancy, what a state for a
country to be in! The Sultan is a puppet in the hands of the
janissaries, who on their side are powerless outside the city, so that
the country without and within is in a state of anarchy."
The party took a passage from Salonica to Athens in a Greek merchantman.
"We passed Zagora, until lately a rich and prosperous commercial town,
but it has been taken by Ali Pasha and he has reduced it to utter ruin.
Off Scopolo a boat came out and fired a gun for us to heave to. The crew
told me she was a pirate, but when we fired a gun in return to show that
we also were armed, the crew of the boat merely wished us a happy
journey.
The wind falling light, we anchored in a small bay and landed, and
there we made fire in a cave and cooked our dinner. It was most
romantic. After touching at Scyros, we put into Andros. While our ship
was lying here in the port our sailors became mutinous. They began by
stealing a pig from the land, and then went on to ransack our baggage
and steal from it knives, clothes, and other things. All this happened
while we ourselves were on shore, but our servants remonstrated,
whereupon the scoundrels threatened to throw them overboard. There was
nothing for us to do but apply to the English consul for protection. He
sent for the chief instigator of the troubles, but he, as soon as he got
ashore, ran away and was lost sight of. Under the circumstances, what we
did was to deduct from the captain's pay the value of our losses and
shift our goods from on board his vessel into another boat, a small one,
in which we set sail for the island of Tinos.
We slept at San Nicolo on the bare ground, having made ourselves a fire
in a tiny chapel. Fop, my dog, fell into a well and was rescued with
great difficulty. One of the peasants, who had never seen anything like
a Skye terrier before, when he saw him pulled out took him for a fiend
or a goblin, and crossed himself devoutly.
We sailed in the open boat all through a very stormy day, and arrived at
last at Tinos (the town), thoroughly chilled and wet. The island, once
highly prosperous, is now poor and depopulated.
From Tinos we sailed across to Great Delos (Rhenea), slept in a hut, and
next day went on to Little Delos. Here there was nothing to sleep in but
the sail of the boat, and nothing to eat at all. Everything on the
island had been bought up by an English frigate a few days before. We
were obliged to send across to Great Delos for a kid, which was killed
and roasted by us in the Temple of Apollo. I spent my time sketching and
measuring everything I could see in the way of architectural remains,
and copying every inscription. I had to work hard, but without house or
food we could not stop where we were, and in the evening we sailed to
Mycone.
Next day I went back to Delos, and after much consideration resolved to
try to dig there. I had to sleep in the open air, for the company of the
diggers in the hut was too much for me. First I made out the columns of
the temple and drew a restoration of the plan. Then we went on digging,
but discovered next to nothing--a beautiful fragment of a hand, a dial,
some glass, copper, lead, &c., and vast masses of marble chips, as
though it had once been a marble-mason's shop. At last it seemed to
promise so little that I gave it up and went back to Mycone; but on the
28th, not liking to be beaten, I went back alone to have a last look.
But I could discover no indications to make further digging hopeful, so
I came away."
From Mycone the travellers sailed to Syra, and from thence to Zea, where
they stayed some days at least; for there is in Bronstedt's "Voyages et
recherches en Grèce" a drawing by my father of a colossal lion which
must have been made at this time. Ingilby had left them, but my father
and Foster must have arrived in Athens about the beginning of December
1810. Not long after he made acquaintance with a brother craftsman,
Baron Haller von Hallerstein, a studious and accomplished artist, about
fourteen years his senior, and a gentleman by birth and nature;
altogether a valuable companion. The two struck up a great intimacy, and
henceforth were inseparable. They could be of service to each other.
Haller was travelling on a very small allowance from his patron, Prince
Louis of Bavaria; and my father, while he profited by the company of a
man of greater learning and experience, was able in return to add to his
comfort by getting commissions for him to do drawings for some of his
English friends,[15] and in other ways supplementing his means. He had
come to Athens from Rome with one Linckh, a painter from Cannstadt,
Baron Stackelberg,[16] an Esthonian from Revel, Bronstedt,[17] a Dane,
and Koes, another Dane, all of them accomplished men, seriously engaged
in antiquarian studies. Together they formed a society suited to my
father's tastes and pursuits.
In the way of Englishmen there were Messrs. Graham and Haygarth and Lord
Byron, all three young Cambridge men of fortune, with whom, especially
the two first, he was intimate.
His only other friends, except Greeks, were Fauvel, the French consul,
who had taste and information, and was owner of a good collection of
Greek antiquities; and Lusieri,[18] the Italian draughtsman to Lord
Elgin, an individual of indifferent character.
Athens was a small place. There was a khan, of course, but nothing in
the shape of an hotel. The better class of travellers lived in lodgings,
the best known of which were those of Madame Makri, a Greek lady, the
widow of a Scotchman of the name of Macree, who had been British consul
in Athens in his day. She had three pretty daughters known to travellers
as "les Consulines" or "les trois Grâces," of whom the eldest was
immortalised as "the Maid of Athens" in a much overrated lyric by Lord
Byron, who was one of their lodgers.
As they were going to stop some time in the town, instead of going into
an apartment, Foster and my father took a house together.
"There is hardly anything that can be called society among the Greeks. I
know a few families, but I very rarely visit them, for such society as
theirs is hateful.
As for the Greek men, in their slavery they have become utterly
contemptible, bigoted, narrow-minded, lying, and treacherous. They have
nothing to do but pull their neighbours' characters to pieces. Retired
as I am, you would hardly believe there is not a thing I do that is not
known and worse represented. Apropos of an act of insolence of the
Disdar aga's (which I made him repair before the waiwode, the governor
of the town), I heard that it was reported that I had been bastinadoed.
This report I had to answer by spreading another, viz. that I should
promptly shoot anyone, Turk or Christian, who should venture to lay a
hand upon me. This had its effect, and I heard no more of bastinadoing.
I do not think we are in much danger here. The Franks are highly
esteemed by the governor, and the English especially.
The other day we witnessed the departure of the old waiwode and the
arrival of the new. Just as the former was leaving, the heroes from the
Russian war arrived, brown and dusty. The leading man carried a banner.
As they came into the court they were received with discharge of
pistols, and embraced by their old friends with great demonstrations. I
was very much affected. I heard afterwards that the rogues had never
been further than Sofia, and had never smelt any powder but that which
had gone to the killing of one of them by his companion in a brawl. So
much for my feelings. The outgoing waiwode was escorted by the new one
with great ceremony as far as the sacred wood.
March 13 is the Turkish New Year's Day, and is a great festival with
them. The women go out to Asomatos and dance on the grass. Men are not
admitted to the party, but Greek women are. Linckh, Haller, and I went
to see them from a distance, taking with us a glass, the better to see
them. We were discovered, and some Turkish boys, many of whom were
armed, came in great force towards us, and began to throw stones at us
from some way off. Instead of retreating, we stood up to receive them,
which rather intimidated them, and they stopped throwing and came up. We
laughed with them, which in some measure assuaged them, and when some
one said 'Bakshish' we gave them some to scramble for, and so by degrees
retired. Some of the Greek and Turkish women laughed at us for being
driven off by boys; but it was a dangerous thing so to offend national
prejudices, and I was very well pleased to be out of it. At best ours
was an inglorious position.
Foster has received a love letter: a para with a hole in it, a morsel of
charcoal, and a piece of the silk such as the women tie their hair
with. This last signifies that the sender is reduced to the last
extremities of love, and the idea is that a sympathetic passion will
arise in the receiver and make him discover the sender within nine
days."
These love letters are common to all the East, not to Turkey only. Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu gives an account of one consisting of some dozen or
twenty symbols, but she says she believes there are a million of
recognised ones. Common people, however, were probably contented with
very few. According to her, hair (and I suppose that which ties the
hair) means, Crown of my head; coal, May I die and all my years be
yours; gold wire, I die, come quickly. So Foster's letter reads, "Crown
of my head, I am yours; come quickly."
"_April 11th._--Lord Byron embarked to-day on board the transport (which
is carrying Lord Elgin's Marbles) for Malta. He takes this letter with
him, and will send it on to you, I trust, immediately on his arrival in
England. I must close, as he is just off for the Piræus."
The ship did not leave the port, however, for some days, as we shall see
below; and besides this delay, Lord Byron was laid up when he got to
Malta and only arrived in England in July, so the letter was long on its
way.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Sir William Amcotte Ingilby, Bart. (died 1854), of Ripley Castle,
Yorks.
[15] Lord Byron writes that he is having some views done by a famous
Bavarian artist.--Letter 59. Life by T. Moore.
[16] Baron Otto Magnus von Stackelberg (1760-1836), antiquarian; author
of _Der Apollotempel zu Bassae_ and other works.
[17] Peter Oluf Bronstedt (1781-1842), Danish archæologist. Was made
Chevalier Bronstedt and sent by his Government as minister to Rome.
[18] Lusieri, a Neapolitan, painter to the King of Naples; engaged as
draughtsman by Lord Elgin. He was still in Athens in 1816.