ANDRITZENA--CARITZENA--MEGALOPOLIS--BENIGHTED--KALAMATA.
"We left the stylæ and went down to Andritzena by a shorter road. In
going up, the drivers, to be able to charge us more, had taken us round
a longer way. Andritzena is not only beautiful in its situation, the
people who live in it are charming. Everyone seemed to think it the
proper thing to show some attention to the strangers. The girls--and
some of them were very pretty--brought us each as a present a fruit of
some kind, pears or figs, and did it in the prettiest and most engaging
manner; so that we had more than we could carry home with us.
Disinterested urbanity is so unusual a feature in Greek character that
we were surprised, and I must confess that it was the only time such a
thing ever occurred to us in Greece.
The Turks tax these poor wretches unmercifully. To begin with, they have
to pay the Government one-fourth of their produce. Then there is the
karatch or poll tax, which seems to be rather variable in amount, and
the chrea or local tax levied for the local government, which together
make up about another fourth; so that the taxes amount to half the
yearly produce. Of course the people complain. I can't tell you how
often I have been asked 'When will the English come and deliver us from
the Turks, who eat out our souls?' 'And why do they delay?' One Greek
told me he prayed daily that the Franks might come; and while I am on
the subject I may as well mention here, though it was said a few weeks
later, when we were near Corinth, by a shepherd, 'I pray to God I may
live to see the Morea filled with such Franks.' They like us better than
they do the French, because they have heard from Zante and elsewhere
that we treat our dependencies more honourably than they do.
We were five days at Andritzena. Haller made drawings of the village,
and I finished up my memoranda of Phigaleia. Besides that, as I thought
we ought not to leave the neighbourhood without making a final effort to
complete our explorations at the stylæ, and that, the Pasha Veli being
absent from the Morea, we might perhaps get leave from the Waiwode of
Fanari, Foster and I rode over to see him. We found him exceedingly
courteous, perfectly a man of the world; and although his house and the
two old cushions in the corner of a dilapidated gallery on which he was
propped when he received us did not bespeak great affluence, his manner
was not that of a man to whom one could offer a bribe. He said he
regretted very much having had to write the letter we had received
forbidding us to go on digging, but that it was absolutely necessary
that we should cease, and there was an end of the matter. At the same
time he hoped there had been no expression in it to offend us. 'Veli,'
said he, 'is very peremptory about no bouyuruldu or permission being
given by anyone but himself; for he insists on knowing all about
travellers who move about in his pashalik, and upon periodically
inspecting them and their firman and approving it. The mere fact of my
having allowed your party to remain ten days at Phigaleia, no matter
whether you dug or not, was enough to ruin me; for these Albanians [that
is, Ali Pasha and his sons] ask but few questions [listen to no
excuses].' So we had to go back to Andritzena without having effected
anything beyond seeing an Albanian Turkish wedding on our way. When we
came upon them they were gorgeously dressed, playing the djerid and
brandishing their swords. I never saw anything so picturesque. The party
were on their way to fetch the bride from Fanari. They had an Albanian
red and white banner, with a silk handkerchief tied to the top of it,
which was the token sent by the bride to her lover as an invitation to
him to come and fetch her. After sunset she is taken to his house on
horseback, closely veiled.
Hearing of some columns in an old castle not far off, as the account was
a tolerably rational one, I resolved, although I ought to have had
experience enough of Greek lies to warn me, to go and see them. There
was the hope of making some discovery of interest; for my informant
insisted that no milords had ever been there before. So I girt myself
with sword and pistol, and walked 2½ hours to a hill or mountain called
Sultané. I only found a few miserable columns, a considerable fortress
and cyclopean walls, and I made two sketches on the road. I was very
tired when I got back. The Greek shoemaker, our landlord, came and
supped with us, and got very maudlin over the wine.
We went next to Caritzena. The waiwode insisted on our putting up with
him, and gave up a room to us, begging that we would order whatever best
pleased us; that his servants would prepare anything, and we should
purchase nothing. 'Our king at Stamboul is rich enough to receive our
friends and allies, the English,' he said. We were preparing to go out
and draw when a message came to say the waiwode would pay us a visit.
Haller, however, would not stop for anybody. Foster had to ride back to
a place where he had changed his coat and in so doing had dropped a ring
he valued, and which, by the by, he managed to find. So Linckh and I,
though I felt very unwell with a bilious attack, had to stop in and
receive our visitor. He was very polite, and his manners really very
fine. He told us he had been with the ambassador at Vienna and at
Berlin, and spoke a few words of German, which enchanted Linckh. He
presently remarked that I seemed unwell, and I told him that I was
bilious, and had a pain in my head; whereupon he took hold of my temples
in his right hand, while an old Turk who sat near doubled down his
little finger and repeated a charm, which he began in a whisper and
finished aloud, leaning forward and pronouncing something like 'Osman
Odoo--o--o.' Then he asked me if I was better; because if I was not he
would double down his next finger and the next till he came to the
thumb, which he said was infallible. This prospect seemed more than I
could quite bear; so I thought best to sacrifice my principles, and said
'Yes, I was,' to get rid of the matter, but I was not.
Some Greeks came and joined in our conversation. Really, if one had not
some pity for their condition, one could not suffer them, their manners
are so odious. Nevertheless, as they seem to have all the power here and
elect their own governor and give him an allowance, the waiwode would
not join me in criticising them.
The waiwode continued to be as civil as ever, but I could not help
thinking he looked anxiously for presents, and we had none to give him.
All I could do was to offer him one of the common little brass English
boxes with a head of King George on it, filled with bark. He took it
with every expression of delight, but I could see it was put on. We
could only thank him heartily, fee the servants handsomely, and bow
ourselves out with the best grace we could assume. He especially coveted
a miniature Foster wore of a lady, and this Foster promised to have
copied for him and sent him from England; but he could not part with the
original. He gave us strong letters of recommendation for Kalamata.
We left early next day. There was an awkward little episode of a box of
instruments belonging to Foster, which he missed off a certain sofa. The
Boluk bashi had admired them very much. Presently, when the inquiry was
made, an officer of the Boluk bashi came in and searched near the sofa,
and then suddenly went out. We did the same, and lo! there was the case.
And the Boluk bashi looked very disconcerted as we bade him adieu.
We followed the course of the Gyrtinas. These are mountains which on all
hands are celebrated among the modern Greeks for the exploits of the
Colocotroni[28] and other captains who lived among the hills and
maintained a sort of independence of the Turks ever since they have held
the Morea. The peasants delight to sing the ballads composed on these
heroes, and, exulting in their bravery, forget the horrible barbarities
they committed. When Smirke was here the country must really have been
in a fearful state of anarchy; and whatever we may say against him, it
must be laid at any rate to the credit of Veli Pasha that he has cleared
the Morea of banditti. The Colocotroni and the rest of them have had to
fly the country and enlist in Church's contingent at Zante.
We spent some time at Megalopolis, and with Pausanias in our hands were
able to identify remnants of almost everything he mentions, in especial
the spring near the theatre, which only runs part of the year. At
Lycosura the ruins are disappointingly modern, and there is not much of
them; nothing left of the ancient temple at all. The situation is very
fine. Two and a half hours' journey up a stream through woods brought us
to Dervine, the boundary of Messenia. Then we crossed the Plain of
Messenia, admiring, even in the rain, the mountains, Ithome especially,
and at dusk got to a village two hours short of Kalamata. Our agroati
did not know the road on, and it was too late to get a guide; but as
they told us the road was quite straight we went on in the dark. At the
end of an hour we had lost the track; it was pitch black, raining still,
and we on the edge of a river in a marsh. There I thought we should have
stayed. For four hours we groped about, looking first for the lost path,
and then for any path to any shelter. First we tried giving Haller's
horse, who had been to Kalamata before, a loose rein and letting him
lead the way. At first it promised well, for the horse went ahead
willingly; but the agroati took upon him to change his course, and then
we were as lost as ever. We could hardly see each other. Then we sent
off the agroati to try and reach a light we could see. He came back with
awful accounts of bogs and ditches he had met in his path. Finally,
after standing still for a time in the pelting rain, we resolved to
reach the light; and so we did, over hedge and ditch and through bogs,
and Indian corn above our heads as we sat on horseback, and at length,
wet through and wearied, reached a cottage in which were some Greeks.
They, however, refused to lead us to any house; for, said they, 'we know
not what men ye are.' At last one good man took us into his house and
gave us a room, and figs and brandy for supper. We were thankful for
anything. He was a poor peasant with a pretty wife and a perfectly
lovely daughter.
We got to Kalamata next day, meeting on the way numbers of Mainiotes
coming to buy figs &c. in the Messenian plain, all armed. Our baggage
had arrived very late overnight. We went to the so-called consul, an
agent of the consul at Patras, and sent the letter of recommendation of
the Waiwode of Caritzena to the Waiwode of Kalamata; but he took no
notice of it, and did nothing whatever for us, so we had to find a house
for ourselves. We pitched upon a lofty Turkish tower commanding the
city, with a very rotten floor which threatened at any moment to let us
through from the second storey to the base. The only way up to our room
was by a crazy ladder. The shutters were riddled with bullets. Some time
before there had been a grand engagement between this tower and the
cupola of a neighbouring church, where some Mainiotes in the service of
one of their great captains, a certain Benachi, had defended themselves.
Kalamata seems to be a constant scene of fights between the party of the
Bey appointed by the Porte, or rather the Capitan Pasha, and the party
who want to appoint a Bey of their own, and this is the way they fight,
each party from its own tower.
From our tower we made panoramic sketches of the city, but were much
interrupted by visitors. Among them came a young Mainiote Albanian
officer from Church's contingent, who was here recruiting. He was
accompanied by two armed Mainiotes, and said he had twenty more
concealed about the town in case of danger. He invited us to come with
him into Maina as far as Dolus, where his family lived, a proposal we
eagerly closed with, and appointed the next morning."
FOOTNOTE:
[28] One Colocotronis, a chief of klephts, attained great influence in
the War of Independence.