ATHENS--THE EXCAVATION OF MARBLES AT BASSÆ--BRONSTEDT'S MISHAP--FATE OF
THE CORINTHIAN CAPITAL OF BASSÆ--SEVERE ILLNESS--STACKELBERG'S
MISHAP--TRIP TO ALBANIA WITH HUGHES AND PARKER--THEBES--LIVADIA--THE
FIVE EMISSARIES--STATE OF THE COUNTRY--MERCHANTS OF LIVADIA--DELPHI--
SALONA--GALAXIDI--PATRAS--PREVISA--NICOPOLIS--ARTA--THE PLAGUE--JANINA.
The fate of the Ægina Marbles being now practically settled, Foster, who
was engaged to make a marriage very displeasing to his family, with a
Levantine, left for Smyrna, while Haller, Linckh, and Cockerell went to
Athens. The latter had not been in Greece since November 1811. In the
interval the expedition to dig up the sculptures he had discovered at
Bassæ had been there and had successfully accomplished their purpose,
the party consisting of Haller, Foster, Linckh, Stackelberg, Gropius,
Bronstedt, and an English traveller, Mr. Leigh.[42] They had provided
themselves with powers from Constantinople sufficient to overcome the
resistance of the local authorities, and after many difficulties had
succeeded in bringing away the sculptures with one exception, to which I
will presently refer.
The excavations were carried out in June, July, and August, while my
father was absent at Malta and in Sicily. Nevertheless, as he had
discovered their existence it was understood that he was to be a
participator in any sculptures that should be disinterred.
The party of excavators established themselves there for nearly three
months, building huts of boughs all round the temple, making almost a
city, which they christened Francopolis. They had frequently from fifty
to eighty men at work at a time, a band of Arcadian music to entertain
them, and in the evening after work, while the lamb was roasting on a
wooden spit, they danced. However, if Cockerell lost the pleasure, he
escaped the fever from which they all suffered desperately--and no
wonder, after living such a life in such a climate.
It was during this expedition that a misfortune befell Bronstedt which,
although it had an element of absurdity in it, was very serious to the
victim. While the work at Bassæ was proceeding he left his companions to
take a trip into Maina. Before starting he wrote for himself a letter of
introduction to Captain Murzinos purporting to be from my father, and
would have presented it; but, as ill-luck would have it, on the 20th of
August, on the road between Sparta and Kalamata, he fell into the hands
of a band of eight robbers. Understanding them to be Mainiotes, and
supposing all Mainiotes to be friends, he tried to save his property by
saying that he had a letter with him to Captain Murzinos; but the
robbers replied: "Oh, have you? If we had Murzinos here we would play
him twice the pranks we are playing you," and spared nothing. They
decamped with his money, his watch, his rings, a collection of antique
coins, all that he had in their eyes worth taking, to the tune, as he
considered, of 800l. (11,000 piastres fortes d'Espagne), leaving him
disconsolate in the dark to collect his scattered manuscripts, which
they had rejected with the contemptuous words: [Greek: Kartasia einai.
Den ta stochasomen] ("Papers! we don't look at them.") In the darkness
and confusion after the departure of the robbers he managed to lose some
of these as well. The poor traveller returned quite forlorn to
Phigaleia. After this, Linckh writes in his delicious French: "Bronstedt
parcourt la Morée en longue et à travers pour cherger ses hardes pertus
par les voleurs. Le drôle de corps a beaucoup d'espérance, parce que le
consul Paul lui a recommendé fortement au nouveau Pascha dans une letter
qui a etté enveloppée en vilours rouge." Such a letter, bound in red
velvet, was esteemed particularly urgent, but he obtained no redress
whatever, nor ever saw again any of "ses hardes," except the ring which
had been given him by his _fiancée_, Koes' sister. This was recovered
for him by Stackelberg on a journey which he took through Maina, when he
saw it exposed for sale in the house of one of the captains or
chieftains of the country, together with the watch, purse, and several
other articles which had been Bronstedt's; but the prices asked were too
exorbitant for him to ransom any but this, which he knew the late owner
had highly prized.
The piece of sculpture I have just mentioned, which the explorers of
Phigaleia failed to bring away, was the capital of the single Corinthian
column of the interior of the temple. It will be remembered by those who
have read my father's work on the subject, that all the columns of the
interior were of the Ionic order with one exception, which was
Corinthian, and which stood in the centre of one end of the cella. The
capital of this Corinthian column was of the very finest workmanship;
and although the volutes had been broken off, much of it was still well
preserved, and the party of excavators took it with them to the coast
for embarcation with the rest. There are figures of it by Stackelberg in
his book, and by Foster in a drawing in the Phigaleian Room of the
British Museum. Veli Pasha, the Governor of the Morea, had sanctioned
the explorations on the understanding that he should have half profits;
but when he had seen the sculptures he was so disappointed that they
were not gold or silver, and so little understood them, that he took the
warriors under shields for tortoises, allowing that as such they were
rather well done. It chanced that at this moment news reached him that
he had been superseded in his command, and not thinking much of them,
and eager to get what he could, he accepted 400l. as his share of the
spoil and sanctioned the exportation of the marbles. The local archons,
however, put every impediment they could in the way by fomenting a
strike among the porters which caused delays, and by giving information
to the incoming pasha, who sent down troops to stop the embarcation.
Everything had been loaded except the capital in question, which was
more ponderous than the rest, and was still standing half in and half
out of the water when the troops came up. The boat had to put off
without it, and the travellers had the mortification of seeing it hacked
to pieces by the Turks in their fury at having been foiled. The volute
of one of the Ionic columns presented by my father to the British Museum
is the only fragment of any of the interior capitals of the temple
remaining. He brought it away with him on his, the first, visit.
To return to where I left my father before this digression. As I said,
after the sale of the Ægina Marbles, Haller and he came to Athens,
where, finding the summer very hot in the town, they went to live at
Padischa or Sadischa, not far outside the town, and set earnestly to
work upon the drawings for the book on Ægina and Phigaleia. All went on
quietly till on the 22nd of August Cockerell was attacked by a malignant
bilious fever, which brought him to death's door: at least, either the
illness or the remedies did. The doctor, Abraham, the first in Athens,
thought it must be yellow fever, gave him up, and fearing infection for
himself, refused to attend him after the first few days. It was even
whispered that it might be the plague, for the enormous swelling of the
glands was not unlike it. But Haller would listen to no counsels of
despair, and refused to leave his friend. The kind Madame Masson, too,
the aunt of the Misses Makri, came out from Athens, and the two nursed
him with ceaseless devotion. Haller never left his bedside, night or
day, for the first month. The vice-consul, hearing that the sufferer was
as good as dead, came to take away his keys and put seals upon his
property, and was only prevented by Haller by main force. The same
faithful friend compelled the doctor to do his duty. The first having
deserted his patient, a second was called in and kept attentive by
threats and persuasion. The methods of medicine were inconceivably
barbarous. Bleeding was the great remedy in fever, and calomel the
alternative. When the patient had been brought by this treatment so low
that his heart was thought to have stopped, live pigeons were cut in
half and the reeking portions applied to his breast to restore the vital
heat. Medicine failing, spells were believed in. Madame Masson, though
described as one of the first personages in Athens, could neither read
nor write, and was grossly ignorant. She had a great faith in spells;
and Haller, fearing that in the feeble condition of the patient she
might commit some folly, kept a strict watch upon her. One day, however,
in his absence, when my father was suffering agonies from his glands,
she took the opportunity to tie round his neck a charm of particular
potency. It was a little bag containing some resin, some pitch, a lock
of hair, and two papers, each inscribed with the figure of a pyramid and
other symbols drawn with a pen. They even got so far as to speak of his
burial, and it was settled that it should be in the Theseum, where one
Tweddle, an Englishman, and other foreigners had been interred, and
where Haller himself was laid not many years after.
The churches were kept lighted night and day for his benefit, and his
nurse attributed his final recovery entirely to the intercession of
Panagia Castriotissa, or "Our Lady of the Acropolis." At length, after
long hovering between life and death, his robust constitution carried
him through, and towards the end of September the doctor advised his
being removed to Athens. He was carried thither in a litter and set down
at Madame Masson's, where he was henceforth to live. Before this episode
was fairly concluded or my father had progressed far in convalescence, a
new cause of agitation arose. Notice was received that Baron Stackelberg
was in the hands of pirates.
He had been for a tour in Asia Minor, and was on his way back between
Constantinople and Athens, when in crossing the Gulf of Volo he was
taken. His case was even more deplorable than Bronstedt's, for he not
only lost whatever he had with him, and saw his drawings torn to pieces
in sheer malice before his very eyes, but the miscreants claimed an
enormous ransom, amounting to about 3,000l., and sent a notice to his
friends in Athens to the effect that the money must be forwarded
promptly or portions of the prisoner would be sent as reminders.
Meanwhile he had to live with the pirates, and his experiences were no
laughing matter. The ruffians used to show him hideous instruments of
torture to frighten him into paying a higher ransom. They made him sleep
in the open air, which half killed him with fever; and as they had
nowhere to keep him when they went on their marauding expeditions, he
had to go with them. On one occasion he saw a vessel run aground to
avoid capture, and the sailors clamber up the rocks to escape. An old
man who could not follow fast enough was brought in to be sold as a
slave. The rest got away, and one of the pirates, in his fury at being
eluded, in order to slake his thirst for blood seized on a wretched goat
that was grazing by him and cut its throat. Several weeks of this sort
of company and exposure left poor Stackelberg more dead than alive. His
rescue, which was managed with great diplomacy and a splendid disregard
for his own safety by Baron Haller, was finally effected at a cost of
about 500l.
A Mr. Hughes, in company with Mr. Parker, whom he was "bearleading,"
arrived in Athens when my father was recovering; and about the last week
of November, at their invitation, tempted by the opportunity of
travelling with a Tartar and a buyulurdi--that is to say, in security
and with as little discomfort as possible--he consented to join in a
tour to Albania. I shall not give a detailed account of this voyage. It
was over ground everyone has read about. It resulted in no discoveries
and few adventures, and anyone who is curious about it will find it
fully described in Hughes's book. General Davies, quartermaster-general
to the British forces in the Mediterranean, was to form one of the
party.
"We set out from Athens on November 29th, a large cavalcade. Two of my
friends, though they had not yet learnt that to travel in these
countries one must sacrifice a little personal comfort, were otherwise
agreeable companions, gentlemanlike and goodhumoured; but I early began
to foresee trouble with the General. He was one of those people who
think everyone who cannot speak English must be either an assassin or a
rogue, and was more unreasonable, unjust, and unaccommodating than any
Englishman I ever met, odious as many of them make themselves abroad. It
rained heavily, but everyone tried to be gay except the general, who
damned gloomily, right and left.
We went over an interesting country, but as it was all in the clouds we
enjoyed the scenery neither of Parnes nor of Phylæ. Our way was beguiled
by the singing of some of the party. The Tartar especially gave proofs
of a good voice, a very desirable quality in a Greek companion. The
recollection of the scenery of any part of Greece or Asia Minor is bound
up with that of the cheerful roundelays of the guides as one rides
through the mountains, or the soft melodious song of the Anatolian
plains. It is the characteristic thing of Eastern travel. After about
three hours in the clouds we got down into Boeotia and saw below us a
splendid country of mountain, plain, and sea.
Our Tartar had gone on before us to Thebes, so that when we arrived at
our conachi (lodging) it was all ready for us. It was as well, for the
weather had given Hughes a return of his fever, and he had to lie in
bed.
Parker and I rode next morning without the others to Platæa. It has an
admirable situation, and its walls are in better preservation and more
interesting and venerable than any I have seen yet.
We could find nothing interesting at Thebes, so as soon as Hughes was
better we all set out for Livadia. As we were passing through the hills
that separate the respective plains of these two towns a pleasant
coincidence occurred. We fell in with an English traveller, a Mr. Yonge,
who was a friend of Hughes, and was bearing a letter of introduction to
me. After greetings and compliments he gave us the latest European news,
viz. of the grand defeat of the French at Leipsic. Glorious news indeed!
Hughes being laid up again at Livadia and the General impracticable,
Parker and I made excursions thence to the Cave of Trophonius,
Orchomenus, and Topolias, the point from which one visits the five
emissaries of the Lake Copais. These last struck me as perhaps the most
astonishing work of antiquity known to me. Two are still running, but
the first, third, and fifth are quite dry. At the entrances the mountain
has been cut to a face of thirty or forty feet high at the mouth and not
a tool-mark visible, so they look like the work of nature. I wanted to
go to the other side of the ridge to see the exits, but our guide
assured me that it was too dangerous, because of the pirates who lie in
the mountain in the daytime and would probably catch us. Poor
Stackelberg's misfortune was too recent a warning to be neglected, so I
gave it up.
All this country, broadly speaking, is quite uncultivated, and inhabited
by immense herds attended by whole families living in huts and
wandering, according to the pasture and season, in parties of perhaps
twenty with horses and mules. They are not Turcomans, such as I saw in
Asia, but are called Vlaki and speak Greek. One can imagine nothing more
picturesque than they are and the mountains they live in.
Our quarters during our three nights out had been of the roughest, and
when Parker and I got back to Livadia our whole evening was spent in the
bath, ridding ourselves of the fleas and dirt we had been living in.
Hughes was found to be better, and the General (thank goodness!) tired
out and gone off to Salona. He was an odious individual--got drunk every
day of our absence--and we were well rid of him. We had brought with us
from Athens letters of introduction to the principal Greek merchants,
primates of Livadia, Messrs. Logotheti. On the first day of our arrival
they had come very civilly to call upon us. Now that we were back from
our excursion we returned the visit. The Greeks appear to possess great
wealth and influence here, whereas the Turks are but few in the place,
and those there are speak Greek and to some extent have Greek manners.
When we came into the Logothetis' house we found some actually arguing a
point--a thing not to be thought of among Turks elsewhere: the
affectation of pride among Orientals, so stupefying to themselves and so
exasperating to others, would forbid it. When we came in they rose to
go, leaving Signor Nicola to attend to his foreign guests. Our host gave
us a striking instance of the devices used by well-to-do Greeks to
conceal their wealth from the rapacious Government. He at once led us
out of the room he had received us in at the head of the first landing,
which was reserved for the reception of Turks and was very simple, into
his own apartments, which were exceedingly splendid. There in one corner
of the room was the beautiful Logothetina, wife of a Logotheti nephew,
in bed. Her father went up to her when he came in and she kissed his
hand. One might have thought her being in bed embarrassing, but not at
all; we all sat down and stopped with them for an hour. No one either
said or did much, for those who talked had little to say, and many said
nothing. When Logotheti went home we accompanied him, and very grand he
was, with a large stick in his hand and five or six persons escorting
him--quite in the splendid style of the ancient Greeks.
It so happened that in the morning while on a visit to the bey, or
waiwode, we heard the reading of a firman bringing the news of the
taking of Belgrade by the Turks. During the reading the primates all
stood up, and when it was concluded all exclaimed: 'Thanks to God for
this success! May our Sultan live!' In the evening we went to dine with
Logotheti. There were a Corfiote doctor and several other Greeks. Our
talk was of their hopes of emancipation, as it always is when one is in
company with Greeks, with the inevitable references to Leonidas and the
Hellenes.
Our hosts and the other Greeks struck me as heavier and more Boeotian
in appearance than the Greeks I was accustomed to, but also more
polished. The Corfiote, of course, was talkative and ignorant: they
always are. We ate an immense quantity of turkeys--roast, boiled, hashed
and again roasted--fowls and all sorts of poultry dressed in all sorts
of ways, and we drank a great deal of bad wine in toasts to King George,
success to the Greeks, &c.
As soon as Hughes could move we went on from Livadia by Chæronea to
Castri,[43] the ancient Delphi. Until within the last few years the
region we were now in was impassable owing to robbers, but Ali Pasha's
tyranny has at any rate the merit of an excellent zabete or police, so
that it is now fairly safe. The scenery among the mountains is splendid.
Our visit to Castri was not a long one. Except the Castalian spring and
the stadium, one could make out nothing of the ancient topography. The
whole site is covered with walls running in every sort of direction,
possibly to keep the earth from slipping down the hill.
In the evening we got to Crisso.
A buyulurdi such as we carried confers the most arbitrary rights; but it
was not until the protocaro had been cudgelled by our Tartar that we
were able to procure a lodging, a tolerably good one, in the house of
the papa. I reflected how wretched is the position of the Greeks, and
how ungenerous of us Englishmen to live at their expense and assist in
the general oppression; but I was too pleased to get a lodging for the
night to act upon it.
From Crisso we went to Salona, and here it became necessary to settle
upon our further route. When we came to look into it, it appeared that
the plague is raging in every town on our way by Nepacto and Missalonghi
through Ætolia. Moreover, the roads are rough and infested by robbers,
the horses bad, and in fact the best way to get to Albania seemed to be
to go by sea. This was settled upon accordingly, and we started to do
it. From Salona to the port is a two hours' ride. Thence we set sail in
a felucca. The sea was running very high, the wind was in our teeth, and
though we got to Galaxidi at last, it was not without considerable
peril. I have had a good many adventures, but I do not think I was ever
in greater danger than during those four hours of sailing in that
weather in the dark, and I thanked God heartily when I found myself
ashore. The only lodging we could get was in the guard-house, a filthy
magazine so alive with bugs that after a first failure I gave up all
idea of going to sleep, and sat up with Parker smoking till morning. It
was out of the question going to look for other quarters. The country is
so infested with robbers, who think nothing even of penetrating into
the town and carrying off a primate or so, that arriving late and
knocking at doors we should have been taken for brigands and answered by
pistol shots from the windows.
In the morning our buyulurdi stood us in good stead. With its help we
were able to get some good fowls and a sheep, bread and rice. Then going
to the shore we made a bargain to be taken to Previsa in a boat. The
voyage was fairly prosperous. The second day we landed at Patras, and
heard the news of the grand defeat of the French confirmed. We set out
again at night and got becalmed, and with difficulty reached a small
port, the Scrofé, beyond the flat at the mouth of the Achelous. Here was
a scampa-via from Santa Maura, and other boats, and we entered with some
trepidation lest we should be taken for pirates and fired upon.
Here we were detained several days by stormy weather. Getting away we
passed the mouth of the Achelous, and tried to find either of two
excellent ports, Petala and Dragonise; but as they were not marked in
our bad charts we failed, and were finally obliged to put into a creek
not far from Santa Maura, and lay there the greater part of the night,
till the wind blew us off again to sea. At daylight we anchored in the
shallow port of Santa Maura.
The weather again detained us some days, till we with some difficulty
got across to Previsa. Here the harbour is a fine one, but too shallow
to admit large vessels, and with an awkward bar. The shore is all
desolation and misery, with one exception, the palace of the vizier,
which is splendid. The foundations on the side towards the sea are all
of stones from Actium and the neighbouring San Pietro, the ancient
Nicopolis.
In Venetian days Previsa had no fortifications. Now the pasha has made
it quite a strong place, with several forts and a deep ditch across the
isthmus, though the cannon, to be sure--which are old English ones of
all sorts and sizes--are in the worst possible order, their carriages
ill-designed, and now rotten as well. The population has fallen from
16,000, to 5,000 at the outside, mostly Turks.
We went of course to Nicopolis. The ruins are most interesting. There
are the theatre, the baths, the odeum, and the walls of the city, all in
fair preservation and most instructive: the latter especially, as an
example of ancient fortification. An aqueduct, which is immensely high,
brought water from nine hours off.
We went from Previsa, in a scampa-via belonging to the vizier, to
Salona, the port for Arta. It consists of only two houses, the Customs
house and the serai of the vizier. In the latter we got lodgings for the
night, and bespoke some returning caravan horses to carry us to Arta.
The road, 25 feet wide, is one which has been lately made for the vizier
by a wretched Cephaloniote engineer across otherwise impassable flats.
It is not finished yet; 800 to 1,000 men are still at work upon it.
There is no doubt that this road and the canal from Arta to Previsa, as
well as the destruction of the Suliotes, who made this part of the world
impassable to travellers without a large escort, are public benefits to
be put to Ali Pasha's credit.
Arta is a flourishing place under the special eye of the vizier. The
bazaar is considerable, and there is every sign of industry.
We left it about midday. The ice was thick on the pools and the road
hard with frost. Passing the bridge, we got again on to the vizier's new
road. The Cephaloniote superintendent, who was very desirous that we
should express to the vizier great admiration for the work, was
assiduous in doing the honours of it. After various stoppages, at last,
at seven o'clock, nearly frozen, we reached the khan of Five Wells.
A rousing fire we made to warm ourselves by was no use, for it smoked so
intolerably that it drove us out again to walk about in the cold till
the room was clear. Our only distraction was a Tartar we fell in with
who had lately been to Constantinople by land, and his account of the
journey is enough to make one shudder.
He passed through no less than nineteen vilayets, or towns, in which
the plague was raging. At Adrianople the smell of the dead was so great
that his companion fell ill. At the next place he asked at the post if
there was any pest. 'A great deal, God be praised,' was the reply. At
another town, in answer to inquiries he was told 'half the town is dead
or fled, but God is great.'
What a miserable country!
Next day, riding along a paved way, we got to Janina or Joannina, the
capital of Ali Pasha.
The first _coup d'oeil_ of the great town and the lake is certainly
impressive, but not so much so as I had expected. Once inside the town
the thing that struck me most was the splendid dress of all ranks and
the shabby appearance we Franks presented.
We made for the house of our minister, George Foresti, with whom we
dined, and there met Colonel Church, just arrived from Durazzo."
FOOTNOTES:
[42] Grandfather of the present Lord Leigh.
[43] By a convention with the Greek Government made in 1891, the French
Government obtained power to buy out the inhabitants of Castri and
remove the village in order to excavate the site. The ancient topography
is now well ascertained.