ATHENS--TO ZANTE FOR SALE OF PHIGALEIAN MARBLES--RETURNS TO
ATHENS--FEVER--SPENCER STANHOPE--TRIP TO MARATHON, ETC.--RAMAZAN--LIVING
OUT IN THE COUNTRY--A PICNIC AT SALAMIS--PRESENTED WITH A BLOCK OF
PANATHENAIC FRIEZE--TRIP TO ÆGINA--LEAVES ATHENS FOR ITALY.
My father seems to have got back to Athens to his old quarters at Madame
Masson's with Haller and Stackelberg, and there remained. He kept a
diary only under the excitement of travel or novelty, and as the sights
and society of Athens were too familiar to stir him, there is no precise
record of how he passed his time; but he says in a letter that he
intends to spend his winter in completing the Ægina and Phigaleian
drawings. After all, it was only two or three months he had to be there.
The Phigaleian Marbles were to be sold in Zante in May, and this time he
meant to be present. The fiasco of the Ægina Marbles in his absence was
a warning of what might happen again if the sale were not properly
looked after; and as Gropius after his failure had been dismissed from
his functions as agent (although still part proprietor) the necessary
work had to be done by the others--each one probably communicating with
his own Government. He had taken care that his (the British) should be
kept properly posted up. In consequence, everything went off without a
hitch. In May he went to Zante. The marbles were sold to General
Campbell,[46] commandant of the Ionian Islands, acting on behalf of
H.R.H. the Prince Regent, and were already packed up for transport on
the 12th of July.
During his stay in Zante my father made many elaborate drawings of the
Phigaleian bas-reliefs, with a view to determining their relative
positions for the book, and he now returned to Athens to go on with it.
He arrived on the 11th of July. But his health was no longer able to
bear an Athenian summer. In August he writes:
"A most tiresome fever has been worrying me for the past month,
sometimes leaving me for a few days, at others rendering me incapable of
doing anything. Few people, even natives, escape it, either in this or
any other summer. Such is the fine climate of Greece, which poets would
persuade you is a paradise, whereas really hyperborean England, with all
her fogs, has still the best in the world....
I am summing up a few observations, wonderfully _savant_ and deep, on
the temples we are preparing for publication, and the Grecian
architecture in general. Between you and me, I verily flatter myself, we
understand it practically better than anybody--as indeed we ought to. I
arrived from Zante on the 11th July. While I was there I received a very
fresh (!) letter from home of twenty-nine days.
I was rejoiced to find here my friends and old schoolfellows, Spencer
Stanhope and his brother. Conceive our pleasure talking at Athens over
Westminster stories and all our adventures since we left. He, poor
fellow, has been a prisoner in France for two and a half years, having
been taken in Spain owing to the treachery of a Gibraltar vessel, which
took him into the port of Barcelona. He is now exploring and excavating
(at his own expense) for the French Government as the condition for his
freedom! A few days later he and I made a trip to Marathon. We proceeded
to Rhamnos, and sleeping a night at a fountain near by, visited in the
morning the Temple of Nemesis and stayed there the whole day. It had
been well examined, and by this time will have been published by
Gell[47] and Gandy. We then went on to a village near which we had the
good fortune to find Tanagra, the situation of which had never yet been
known. We could trace the whole circuit of the walls and a theatre.
Thence to Aulis, the walls of which are easily traceable; then we
crossed the bridge over the Euripos into Euboea. The town of Negropont
is a wretched place, inhabited by nothing but Turks. The fortress is
ruined and contemptible, and the cannon out of order, as usual, although
it is by way of being one of the principal fortresses in these parts.
The more one sees of the Turks the more one is astonished at their
prolonged rule in these countries. We visited a bey in this place who
had a set of maps, and was considered one of the most enlightened men in
the town. He produced them immediately he saw us, and boasted of his
extensive knowledge on the subject, and the respect the bystanders paid
this philosopher was perfectly delightful. The usual custom, before
making a visit to these great personages, is to send them an offering of
two or three pounds of sugar or coffee, and I thought he seemed rather
offended at our exempting ourselves, as Englishmen, from this tribute.
Next day we went along the seashore, riding through delightful gardens
and olive groves, to Eretria, which has not been seen by modern
travellers. It must have been a great city, little less than three miles
in circumference. The whole extent of the walls and theatres is still
visible.
The greater part of Greece is naturally a rich and productive country.
This needs no better proof than the immense population to which the
ruins still remaining bear testimony. The ruins of towns of immense
extent and close to each other are found everywhere, and now it is a
desert. Neither plague, pestilence, nor famine is so destructive as
tyranny. We returned to Athens on the tenth day.
We hear that the plague is raging at Constantinople, Salonica, and
Smyrna; whereas Athens, with the Morea and Greece in general, though
surrounded on all sides by it, has escaped.
The festival of Ramazan is being celebrated. The bazaar has been well
sprinkled with water, and lights are hung before every shop. The
caffanee (coffee shops) are all open and lighted, as well as the
balconies of the mosques. All day, if any Turks are seen, they are
walking about in their best, with long wands, but looking very cross,
and not lightly to be accosted by a Greek. At kinde (sunset) the imams
call, and the faithful, having fasted from sunrise, not having smoked or
even drunk a drop of water, sit down with holy zeal to the very best
meal their funds can afford, for it is accounted a crime at this feast
to deny themselves what the heart desires. After this the mosque, gaily
lighted, is filled with songs and prayer and thanksgiving. Later on the
streets are filled. Each in his best enjoys whatever pleasures and
amusements the town has to offer--_ombres chinoises_, long stories from
the 'Arabian Nights,' music, chess-playing, &c. Above all, the women now
have liberty. They go about in parties, unmasked, visiting, feasting,
and amusing themselves, and the whole place is a continual Vauxhall
from sunset to sunrise. At midnight the imam again ascends to the
minaret with a chorus, who sing a solemn and beautiful hymn, far more
impressive than the finest bells in Christendom. The words begin--
Arise, arise, and pray, for ye know not the hour of death.
Towards the morning passes the dumbanum, a huge drum which a man beats
as he goes; while another accompanies him in a sort of sing-song,
calling up each householder and bidding him eat his pillau, for the
morning is near. He winds up with good wishes and kind terms, for which,
at the end of the Ramazan, he expects a present. My name was brought in.
What do you think of Cockarella to rhyme with Canella?
From the minaret a beggar is crying for charity and threatening to throw
himself down unless he gets it. He goes there at the same hour every day
till he has got what he wants.
The wife of the old disdar (commandant of the castle) died a few days
ago. She was one of the first ladies of the place, and a respectable
good woman. Everyone was touched with the disdar's lamentation. 'She was
the ship in which all my hopes were embarked. She was the port in which
I took shelter from all the storms and troubles of the world; in her my
comforts and joys were confided; she was the anchor in which I
trusted.' Each morning he has visited her tomb, and, causing water to be
brought, has poured it around that her remains may be refreshed. Three
days after, as is the custom, the elders of his relations went to him,
desiring that he should marry again. But he refused, looking, as he
said, soon to follow his wife.
_October 30._--I have been having continual relapses of this abominable
fever ever since August. The worst was in the beginning of this month,
and it has taken me till now to get over it. After having leeches on, I
had removed one of the bandages too soon, and lost a greater quantity of
blood than was intended.
It is impossible to describe the feebleness this fever leaves. I
sometimes felt as if I was breathing out my soul, and had ceased to
belong to this world at all. I lost all interest in my pursuits.
I should have been badly off indeed if it had not been for Madame
Masson. She had been a second mother to me, and more attentive in this
and in all my other illnesses than any attendants I could have hired. As
soon as I was a little better she was so good as to accompany me to a
monastery in the Sacred Way, some little distance from Athens, to which
I had been advised to go for change of air. There was only one old woman
there to take care of the keys, and in the big deserted place we were
like two owls in a barn. I cannot say it was gay. I passed most of my
time in sleeping, for that has been the chief effect of my weakness,
and what little was left in reading. Occasionally we were favoured with
a visit by some of our Athenian friends, who brought their provisions
with them, as their custom is. The monastery stands in a beautiful dell
or pass through the mountains. On one side is a beautiful view of the
bay and mountains of Eleusis, and on the other, of the Plain of Athens,
with the long forest of olive trees between us and the Acropolis, which
dominates the plain and is backed by Hymettus. On the right is the
Piræus, at no great distance. I could not enjoy this lovely scene. Alas!
one can enjoy nothing with a low fever. And now, after a stay of a
fortnight, we are just returned, and I am not much the better for it.
But one of the last days I was there I was tempted by my friend Linckh
to ride to Piræus, to join in celebrating the anniversary of the victory
of Salamis--the 25th October--by a fête on the island of Psytalia, where
the thickest of the fight was waged. He had assembled a large party of
Athenians, who, to tell the truth, were more intent on the feast than on
the occasion of it. We embarked from Piræus in a large boat, accompanied
by music--to wit, fiddles and tambourines--as is the Athenian fashion,
and a great cargo of provisions which were to be prepared while the
modern Athenians contemplated the interesting scene before us, and were
to weep over the fall of their country since those glorious days, &c.
&c. All set out in the greatest glee. Beyond the port, in the open sea,
some countenances began to change; though we had almost a calm, some
began to feel the effects of the 'gentle motion' and hung their heads
over the side, while several pinched each other with fear and anxiety at
our distance from _terra firma_. Gradually all became silence. Then some
murmurs began to arise, together with advice and recommendation to the
sailors to row gently and hold fast. A council of war sat, and agreed
_nem. con._ that it would be best to return to the nearest land. A small
bay was found and all leapt ashore, crossing themselves and thanking
their stars for their deliverance. A fire was lighted, the lamb roasted
in no time, a cloth laid on the ground, and all set to. The Greeks of
old could not have attacked the Persians with more ardour than these
moderns did the turkeys and lamb before us. The bottle went round apace,
and all soon began to glorify themselves, the demoiselles also playing
their part; and when at length, and not until at length, the desire of
eating and drinking was accomplished, each one filched the remaining
sweets off the table as she found her opportunity. Music's soft
enchantment then arose, and the most active began a dance, truly
bacchanalian, while the rest lingered over the joys of the table. Punch
crowned the feast. All was rapture; moderation was no longer observed,
and the day closed with a pelting of each other with the bones of the
slain, amidst dancing, singing, and roars of laughter or applause. I
venture to assert most positively that not one thought was given to the
scene before us, or the occasion, by any one member of the party except
my friend Linckh and the [Greek: didaskalos], the schoolmaster of
Athens, who, having brought tools for the purpose, carved on the rock an
inscription which will one day be interesting to those who may chance to
light upon it a thousand years hence--'Invitation [or repast] in memory
of the immortal Salaminian combat.' Our party embarked not till after
sunset; and though the sea was twice as high and the wind as contrary as
it was coming, such are the powers of nectar and ambrosia that all
conducted themselves with uncommon courage and resolution. Choruses,
Dutch and Athenian, beguiled the way, and all was harmony except the
music. So one might have hoped the day might have concluded; but no! the
Greek fire, once lighted, is not so easily quenched. I, as an invalid,
and exceedingly tired with so much pleasure, retired to my cell in a
monastery where we were all to pass the night, and some of my friends
kindly gave me a coverlet and a sort of bed, on which I threw myself;
but not until long after midnight did the music or the dancing cease, or
I or any sober person get a chance of sleep. We got away next day, but
not without difficulty; for the Athenians are like our journeymen: when
once they are out on the spree they must carry it on for a week.
We are now in Athens again, and I have just returned to my work-table
covered with the dust of so many lost days. This waste of time is
terrible. Altogether, out of twenty-four months spent in Athens, seven
have been passed in illness. If ever I get away from this country in
health and safety, how I shall thank my stars!"
It was in these last days of his stay in Athens that he became possessed
of a portion of the Panathenaic frieze of the Parthenon in the following
strange manner. The disdar or commandant of the castle on the Acropolis
was by now an old friend of Cockerell's, and had ended by becoming
exceedingly attached to him. When he understood from the latter, who
came to pay him a farewell visit, that he was leaving for good, he told
him that he would make him a present. He said he knew that Cockerell was
very fond of old sculptured stones, so if he liked to bring a cart to
the base of the Acropolis at a certain hour at night (it could not be
done in the daytime for fear of giving offence to the Greeks) he would
give him something. Cockerell kept the appointment with the cart. As
they drew near there was a shout from above to look out, and without
further warning the block which forms the right-hand portion of Slab I.
of the South Frieze now in the British Museum was bowled down the
cliff. Such a treatment of it had not been anticipated, but it was too
late for regrets. The block was put on to the cart, taken down to the
Piræus, and shipped at once. Cockerell presented it to the British
Museum, and its mutilated appearance bears eloquent testimony to its
rough passage down the precipices of the Acropolis.
"My fever continued to harass me until I took a trip to Ægina, which I
made for the purpose of change of air, as well as of correcting and
revising our drawings of the Temple of Jupiter Panhellenius. In both
respects I have succeeded beyond my hopes. I am now in perfect health,
and have made some improvements and additions to our observations which
will be of importance to our work. Taking ladders from here, I have also
succeeded in measuring the columns of a temple supposed to have been
that of Venus--I think Hecate--which are of universally admired
proportion, and so high that hitherto no travellers have been able to
manage them. Only two columns still exist. They belong, I found, to the
posticum between the antæ. In digging at their base to prove this, I
came upon a very beautiful foot in a sandal, life-size, of Parian
marble, of precisely the same school and style as those of our
Panhellenian discovery.[48] You may imagine I counted on nothing less
than finding a collection as interesting and extensive as the other. I
procured, with some difficulty, authority from the archons of the
island, and struck a bargain by which they were to have one half of the
produce of the excavation, which was to be made at my expense, and I the
other, with a first refusal of purchasing their portion. I dug for three
days without finding the smallest fragment, and, what was worse,
satisfied myself that it had been dug over and re-dug a hundred times,
the foundations of the temple having served time out of mind as a quarry
for the Æginetans. The money spent was not very great, the time wasted
was all to the good of my health, and I was able to make a curious
observation on the foundations of the building. Greek temples are
commonly on rock. This was not; and the foundations were no less than 14
to 15 feet deep, the first three courses of well-cut stone, the last set
in mortar on a wall of small stones in mortar, at the sides of which is
a rubble-work of largish stones beaten down with sea sand and charcoal
and bones of sacrifices. Underneath, again, are other courses of
well-cut stones which form a solid mass under the whole temple.
I have also with great difficulty, since there are no carpenters in this
country, ascertained what I spoke of before as a matter of
conjecture--viz. the entasis or swelling of the Greek columns. A
straight line stretched from the capital to the base showed the
swelling at about a third of the height to be in the Temple of Minerva
an inch, in that of Ægina half an inch, which is the same proportion in
both. The ruined state of the columns of the Theseum makes it less easy
to ascertain the exact swelling. Those of Minerva Polias and the
Erechtheum are also swelled. I have no doubt that it was a general rule
with the Greek architects, though it has hitherto escaped the eyes of
Stuart and our most accurate observers."
Cockerell had long been anxious to get into Italy. There alone could he
see and study an architecture in some measure applicable to modern
needs, if he was ever to become a practical architect. For four years he
had been studying abstract beauty, practising his hand in landscape
painting, interesting himself in archæology, and generally, except for
his vigour and perseverance, behaving as many a gentleman at large might
have done whose place in the English world was already made for him. But
he had a position to win, and in one of the most arduous of professions,
for which all this unsettling life was not merely not preparing him but
actually making him unfit.
Since his first startling success at Ægina, he had been led on from one
expedition to another, losing sight for months together, in the easy
life and simple conditions which surrounded him, of the keen competition
in the crush of London for which he ought to be girding himself. He had
been forming a taste, but a taste in the externals and details of
building only. Of composition and of planning he had seen as yet no fine
example and had learnt nothing. There was nothing left for him to do in
Greece. He had traversed it in all directions, seen every place of
interest, and whenever there appeared a prospect of finding anything
with the moderate means at his disposal, he had tried digging.
Under Napoleon's continental system Italy of course was closed to
Englishmen, but to Bavarians it was accessible, and Cockerell had often
talked with Haller of the possibility of smuggling himself as his
servant into the country under cover of his (Haller's) passport.
Fortunately this was never attempted. Even if they had succeeded in
passing the frontiers under Governments where every foreigner was
subjected to continual espionage, the delusion would soon have been
discovered. It was a boy's scheme. He had also tried to engage the good
offices of Louis of Bavaria to obtain him admission as an artist, but
nothing had come of it; and finally, when he heard that Lady Hester
Stanhope had got leave to travel in Italy, he had applied to Lord
Melville for a similar indulgence. But with the abdication of Napoleon,
which took place in April 1814, the whole prospect changed. France was
at once thrown open to Englishmen, and the rest of the Continent by
degrees. It is not easy to discover at what precise date the kingdom of
Naples and Rome became accessible, but it must have been during the
summer. Western news took time to percolate into Greece, but as soon as
he learnt that there was a possibility of penetrating into Italy, he had
begun making preparations for doing so. And now that there was nothing
left to detain him, he arranged to start with Linckh for Rome on the
15th of January, 1815. When the appointed day came, Madame Masson saw
him off at the Piræus, and shed floods of tears. She was very fond of
him. Two years after she writes: "Non si sa cosa è Carnovale dopo la
vostra partenza."
A curious fact about the journey is that they brought away with them a
German of Darmstadt of the name of Carl Rester, who appears to have been
a fugitive slave, of whom more hereafter.
The party was joined by a Mr. Tupper. This young gentleman had been
lodging at Madame Makri's, and had fallen in love, as it was the
indispensable fashion for young Englishmen to do, with one or all of the
charming daughters. He left them in tears, vowing to return, but it does
not appear that he ever did.
The diary of this journey is kept in a sketch-book in pencil, and is not
everywhere legible. The country was one well traversed by tourists and
minutely described by Gell. There were no discoveries to be made or new
impressions to be felt. They had no adventures. The weather was odious.
The entries consist largely of the kind of information--estimates of
population, accounts of products, and possibilities--which for the
modern traveller is "found" by Murray or Baedeker, and would never
figure in his diary. At the mouth of the Alpheus he remarks how well
suited the situation would be for a naval dockyard, close to vast
forests of oak and fir--forests, all of which must have disappeared in
the devastations of Mehemet Ali, for there are none there now.
The route taken was by Corinth, Argos, Tripolizza, Caritzena, Phigaleia,
which they found buried in snow, Olympia, Patras, Ithaca, Corfu,
Otranto, Lecce, Bari, and Foggia. The Pass of Bovino, between Foggia and
Naples, was considered exceedingly dangerous, on account of banditti,
and perhaps the most interesting thing in the whole diary is the
extravagant size of the escort considered necessary to see the
travellers through it. It consisted of no less than sixty men--thirty
cavalry and thirty infantry.
But on the whole the diary of the journey, which was through interesting
places and at an interesting moment, could hardly be duller. It may be
due to Cockerell's having been in poor health, or to Tupper's having
been a stupid, unstimulating companion.
They arrived at Naples on the 14th of April, 1815.
FOOTNOTES:
[46] General Sir James Campbell, Bart. (1763-1819), Governor of the
Ionian Islands till 1816.
[47] Sir William Gell (1777-1836), traveller, author of the _Itinerary
of Greece_, _Pompeiana_, and other works. The Augustus Hare of his day.
[48] This foot was presented to the Glyptothek at Munich.