CYPRUS
THERE was a Greek at Limasol who hoisted his flag as an English
vice-consul, and he insisted upon my accepting his hospitality. With
some difficulty, and chiefly by assuring him that I could not delay my
departure beyond an early hour in the afternoon, I induced him to allow
my dining with his family instead of banqueting all alone with the
representative of my Sovereign in consular state and dignity. The lady
of the house, it seemed, had never sat at table with a European. She was
very shy about the matter, and tried hard to get out of the scrape, but
the husband, I fancy, reminded her that she was theoretically an
Englishwoman, by virtue of the flag that waved over her roof, and that
she was bound to show her nationality by sitting at meat with me.
Finding herself inexorably condemned to bear with the dreaded gaze of
European eyes, she tried to save her innocent children from the hard fate
awaiting herself, but I obtained that all of them (and I think there were
four or five) should sit at the table. You will meet with abundance of
stately receptions and of generous hospitality, too, in the East, but
rarely, very rarely in those regions (or even, so far as I know, in any
part of southern Europe) does one gain an opportunity of seeing the
familiar and indoor life of the people.
This family party of the good consul’s (or rather of mine, for I
originated the idea, though he furnished the materials) went off very
well. The mamma was shy at first, but she veiled the awkwardness which
she felt by affecting to scold her children, who had all of them, I
think, immortal names—names too which they owed to tradition, and
certainly not to any classical enthusiasm of their parents. Every
instant I was delighted by some such phrases as these, “Themistocles, my
love, don’t fight.”—“Alcibiades, can’t you sit still?”—“Socrates, put
down the cup.”—“Oh, fie! Aspasia don’t. Oh! don’t be naughty!” It is
true that the names were pronounced Socrāhtie, Aspāhsie—that is,
according to accent, and not according to quantity—but I suppose it is
scarcely now to be doubted that they were so sounded in ancient times.
To me it seems, that of all the lands I know (you will see in a minute
how I connect this piece of prose with the Isle of Cyprus), there is none
in which mere wealth, mere unaided wealth, is held half so cheaply; none
in which a poor devil of a millionaire, without birth, or ability,
occupies so humble a place as in England. My Greek host and I were
sitting together, I think, upon the roof of the house (for that is the
lounging-place in Eastern climes), when the former assumed a serious air,
and intimated a wish to converse upon the subject of the British
Constitution, with which he assured me that he was thoroughly acquainted.
He presently, however, informed me that there was one anomalous
circumstance attended upon the practical working of our political system
which he had never been able to hear explained in a manner satisfactory
to himself. From the fact of his having found a difficulty in his
subject, I began to think that my host might really know rather more of
it than his announcement of a thorough knowledge had led me to expect. I
felt interested at being about to hear from the lips of an intelligent
Greek, quite remote from the influence of European opinions, what might
seem to him the most astonishing and incomprehensible of all those
results which have followed from the action of our political
institutions. The anomaly, the only anomaly which had been detected by
the vice-consular wisdom, consisted in the fact that Rothschild (the late
money-monger) had never been the Prime Minister of England! I gravely
tried to throw some light upon the mysterious causes that had kept the
worthy Israelite out of the Cabinet, but I think I could see that my
explanation was not satisfactory. Go and argue with the flies of summer
that there is a power divine, yet greater than the sun in the heavens,
but never dare hope to convince the people of the south that there is any
other God than Gold.
My intended journey was to the site of the Paphian temple. I take no
antiquarian interest in ruins, and care little about them, unless they
are either striking in themselves, or else serve to mark some spot on
which my fancy loves to dwell. I knew that the ruins of Paphos were
scarcely, if at all, discernible, but there was a will and a longing more
imperious than mere curiosity that drove me thither.
For this just then was my pagan soul’s desire—that (not forfeiting my
inheritance for the life to come) it had yet been given me to live
through this world to live a favoured mortal under the old Olympian
dispensation—to speak out my resolves to the listening Jove, and hear him
answer with approving thunder—to be blessed with divine councils from the
lips of Pallas Athēnie—to believe—ay, only to believe—to believe for one
rapturous moment that in the gloomy depths of the grove, by the
mountain’s side, there were some leafy pathway that crisped beneath the
glowing sandal of Aphrodētie—Aphrodētie, not coldly disdainful of even a
mortal’s love! And this vain, heathenish longing of mine was father to
the thought of visiting the scene of the ancient worship.
The isle is beautiful. From the edge of the rich, flowery fields on
which I trod to the midway sides of the snowy Olympus, the ground could
only here and there show an abrupt crag, or a high straggling ridge that
up-shouldered itself from out of the wilderness of myrtles, and of the
thousand bright-leaved shrubs that twined their arms together in lovesome
tangles. The air that came to my lips was warm and fragrant as the
ambrosial breath of the goddess, infecting me, not (of course) with a
faith in the old religion of the isle, but with a sense and apprehension
of its mystic power—a power that was still to be obeyed—obeyed by _me_,
for why otherwise did I toil on with sorry horses to “where, for HER, the
hundred altars glowed with Arabian incense, and breathed with the
fragrance of garlands ever fresh”? {77}
I passed a sadly disenchanting night in the cabin of a Greek priest—not a
priest of the goddess, but of the Greek Church; there was but one humble
room, or rather shed, for man, and priest, and beast. The next morning I
reached Baffa (Paphos), a village not far distant from the site of the
temple. There was a Greek husbandman there who (not for emolument, but
for the sake of the protection and dignity which it afforded) had got
leave from the man at Limasol to hoist his flag as a sort of
deputy-provisionary-sub-vice-pro-acting-consul of the British sovereign:
the poor fellow instantly changed his Greek headgear for the cap of
consular dignity, and insisted upon accompanying me to the ruins. I
would not have stood this if I could have felt the faintest gleam of my
yesterday’s pagan piety, but I had ceased to dream, and had nothing to
dread from any new disenchanters.
The ruins (the fragments of one or two prostrate pillars) lie upon a
promontory, bare and unmystified by the gloom of surrounding groves. My
Greek friend in his consular cap stood by, respectfully waiting to see
what turn my madness would take, now that I had come at last into the
presence of the old stones. If you have no taste for research, and can’t
affect to look for inscriptions, there is some awkwardness in coming to
the end of a merely sentimental pilgrimage; when the feeling which
impelled you has gone, you have nothing to do but to laugh the thing off
as well as you can, and, by the bye, it is not a bad plan to turn the
conversation (or rather, allow the natives to turn it) towards the
subject of hidden treasures. This is a topic on which they will always
speak with eagerness, and if they can fancy that you, too, take an
interest in such matters, they will not only think you perfectly sane,
but will begin to give you credit for some more than human powers of
forcing the obscure earth to show you its hoards of gold.
When we returned to Baffa, the vice-consul seized a club with the quietly
determined air of a brave man resolved to do some deed of note. He went
into the yard adjoining his cottage, where there were some thin,
thoughtful, canting cocks, and serious, low-church-looking hens,
respectfully listening, and chickens of tender years so well brought up,
as scarcely to betray in their conduct the careless levity of youth. The
vice-consul stood for a moment quite calm, collecting his strength; then
suddenly he rushed into the midst of the congregation, and began to deal
death and destruction on all sides. He spared neither sex nor age; the
dead and dying were immediately removed from the field of slaughter, and
in less than an hour, I think, they were brought on the table, deeply
buried in mounds of snowy rice.
My host was in all respects a fine, generous fellow. I could not bear
the idea of impoverishing him by my visit, and I consulted my faithful
Mysseri, who not only assured me that I might safely offer money to the
vice-consul, but recommended that I should give no more to him than to
“the other,” meaning any other peasant. I felt, however, that there was
something about the man, besides the flag and the cap, which made me
shrink from offering coin, and as I mounted my horse on departing I gave
him the only thing fit for a present that I happened to have with me, a
rather handsome clasp-dagger, brought from Vienna. The poor fellow was
ineffably grateful, and I had some difficulty in tearing myself from out
of the reach of his thanks. At last I gave him what I supposed to be the
last farewell, and rode on, but I had not gained more than about a
hundred yards when my host came bounding and shouting after me, with a
goat’s-milk cheese in his hand, which he implored me to accept. In old
times the shepherd of Theocritus, or (to speak less dishonestly) the
shepherd of the “Poetæ Græci,” sung his best song; I in this latter age
presented my best dagger, and both of us received the same rustic reward.
It had been known that I should return to Limasol, and when I arrived
there I found that a noble old Greek had been hospitably plotting to have
me for his guest. I willingly accepted his offer. The day of my arrival
happened to be the birthday of my host, and in consequence of this there
was a constant influx of visitors, who came to offer their
congratulations. A few of these were men, but most of them were young,
graceful girls. Almost all of them went through the ceremony with the
utmost precision and formality; each in succession spoke her blessing, in
the tone of a person repeating a set formula, then deferentially accepted
the invitation to sit, partook of the proffered sweetmeats and the cold,
glittering water, remained for a few minutes either in silence or engaged
in very thin conversation, then arose, delivered a second benediction,
followed by an elaborate farewell, and departed.
The bewitching power attributed at this day to the women of Cyprus is
curious in connection with the worship of the sweet goddess, who called
their isle her own. The Cypriote is not, I think, nearly so beautiful in
face as the Ionian queens of Izmir, but she is tall, and slightly formed;
there is a high-souled meaning and expression, a seeming consciousness of
gentle empire, that speaks in the wavy line of the shoulder, and winds
itself like Cytherea’s own cestus around the slender waist; then the
richly-abounding hair (not enviously gathered together under the
head-dress) descends the neck, and passes the waist in sumptuous braids.
Of all other women with Grecian blood in their veins the costume is
graciously beautiful, but these, the maidens of Limasol—their robes are
more gently, more sweetly imagined, and fall like Julia’s cashmere in
soft, luxurious folds. The common voice of the Levant allows that in
face the women of Cyprus are less beautiful than their brilliant sisters
of Smyrna; and yet, says the Greek, he may trust himself to one and all
the bright cities of the Ægean, and may yet weigh anchor with a heart
entire, but that so surely as he ventures upon the enchanted isle of
Cyprus, so surely will he know the rapture or the bitterness of love.
The charm, they say, owes its power to that which the people call the
astonishing “politics” (_πολιτικη_) of the women, meaning, I fancy, their
tact and their witching ways: the word, however, plainly fails to express
one half of that which the speakers would say. I have smiled to hear the
Greek, with all his plenteousness of fancy, and all the wealth of his
generous language, yet vainly struggling to describe the ineffable spell
which the Parisians dispose of in their own smart way by a summary “Je ne
sçai quoi.”
I went to Larnaca, the chief city of the isle, and over the water at last
to Beyrout.