the island, and ascertained, in the interior, the site of Golgos, a city
known to have been in existence before the Trojan war. The disclosures
at this place excited both the wonder and the incredulity of the
civilized world, and it was not until the marvellous collection of the
explorer was exhibited, partially in London, but fully in New York,
that the vast importance of the labors of General di Cesnola began to be
comprehended. In exploring the necropolis of Golgos, he came, a few feet
below the soil, upon the remains of the temple of Venus, strewn with
mutilated sculptures of the highest interest, supplying the missing link
between Egyptian and Greek art, and indeed illustrating the artistic
condition of most of the Mediterranean nations during the period from
about 1200 to about 500 b. c. It would require too much space to tell
how the British Museum missed and the Metropolitan of New York secured
this first priceless “Cesnola Collection.” Suffice it to say, that
it was sold to a generous citizen of New York, Mr. John Taylor Johnson,
for fifty thousand dollars,—a sum which would not compensate the
explorer for his time and labor, and would little more than repay
his pecuniary outlay, which reached the amount of over sixty thousand
dollars in 1875. But it was enough that the treasure was secured by his
adopted country; the loss of it to the Old World, which was publicly
called an “European misfortune,” was a piece of good fortune to the
United States, which time will magnify.
From 1870 to 1872 the General's attention was directed to the
southwestern portion of the island, and he laid open the necropoli of
Marium, Paphos, Alamas, and Soli, and three ancient cities whose names
are yet unknown. In 1873 he explored and traced the cities of Throni,
Leucolla, and Arsinôe, and the necropoli of several towns still
unknown. In 1874 and 1875 he brought to light the royal cities of
Amathus and Curium, and located the little town of Kury.
It would not be possible here to enumerate all the objects of art or
worship, and of domestic use, which these excavations have yielded. The
statuary and the thousands of pieces of glass, some of them rivalling
the most perfect Grecian shapes in form, and excelling the Venetian
colors in the iridescence of age, perhaps attract most attention in the
Metropolitan Museum. From the tombs were taken thousands of vases of
earthenware, some in alabaster and bronze, statuettes in terra-cotta,
arms, coins, scarabæi, cylinders, intaglios, cameos, gold ornaments,
and mortuary steles. In the temples were brought to light inscriptions,
bas-reliefs, architectural fragments, and statues of the different
nations who have conquered and occupied the island. The inscriptions
are in the Egyptian, Assyrian, Phoenician, Greek, and the Cypriote
languages; the last-mentioned being, in the opinion of the explorer, an
ancient Greek dialect.
At Curium, nineteen feet below the surface of the ground, were found the
remains of the Temple of Apollo Hylates; the sculptures contained in it
belong to the Greek period from 700 to 100 B.C. At Amathus some royal
tombs were opened, and two marble sarcophagi of large dimensions, one
of them intact, were discovered, which are historically important, and
positive additions to the remains of the best Greek art.
After Golgos, Paleo Paphos yielded the most interesting treasures. Here
existed a temple to the Paphian Venus, whose birthplace was in sight
of its portals, famous throughout the East; devotees and pilgrims
constantly resorted to it, as they do now to the shrines of Mecca and
Jerusalem. Not only the maritime adventurers and traders from Asia Minor
and the Grecian mainland crowded to the temple of this pleasing and
fortunate goddess, and quitted their vows or propitiated her favor by
gifts, but the religious or the superstitious from Persia and Assyria
and farthest Egypt deposited there their votive offerings. The collector
of a museum of antiquity that should illustrate the manners and religion
of the thousand years before the Christian era could ask nothing better
than these deposits of many races during many centuries in one place.
The excavations at Paphos were attended with considerable danger; more
than once the workmen were obliged to flee to save their lives from the
fanatic Moslems. The town, although it has lost its physical form, and
even its name (its site is now called Baffo), retains the character
of superstition it had when St. Paul found it expedient to darken the
vision of Elymas there, as if a city, like a man, possessed a soul that
outlives the body.
We spent the afternoon in examining the new collection of General di
Cesnola, not so large as that in the Metropolitan Museum, but perhaps
richer in some respects, particularly in iridescent glass.
In the summer of 1875, however, the labors of the indefatigable explorer
were crowned with a discovery the riches of which cast into the shade
the real or pretended treasures of the “House of Priam,”—a
discovery not certainly of more value to art than those that preceded
it, but well calculated to excite popular wonder. The finding of this
subterranean hoard reads like an adventure of Aladdin.
In pursuing his researches at Curium, on the southwestern side of the
island, General di Cesnola came upon the site of an ancient temple, and
uncovered its broken mosaic pavement. Beneath this, and at the depth of
twenty-five feet, he broke into a subterranean passage cut in the rock.
This passage led to a door; no genie sat by it, but it was securely
closed by a stone slab. When this was removed, a suite of four rooms
was disclosed, but they were not immediately accessible; earth sifting
through the roofs for ages had filled them, and it required the labor
of a month to clean out the chambers. Imagine the feverish enthusiasm
of the explorer as he slowly penetrated this treasure-house, where every
stroke of the pick disclosed the gleam of buried treasure! In the
first room were found only gold objects; in the second only silver
and silver-gilt ornaments and utensils; in the third alabasters,
terra-cottas, vases, and groups of figures; in the fourth bronzes, and
nothing else. It is the opinion of the discoverer that these four rooms
were the depositories where the crafty priests and priestesses of the
old temple used to hide their treasures during times of war or sudden
invasion. I cannot but think that the mysterious subterranean passages
and chambers in the ancient temples of Egypt served a similar purpose.
The treasure found scattered in these rooms did not appear to be the
whole belonging to the temple, but only a part, left perhaps in the
confusion of a hasty flight.
Among the articles found in the first room, dumped in a heap in the
middle (as if they had been suddenly, in a panic, stripped from the
altar in the temple and cast into a place of concealment), were a gold
cup covered with Egyptian embossed work, and two bracelets of pure gold
weighing over three pounds, inscribed with the name of “Etevander,
King of Paphos.” This king lived in 635 B.C., and in 620 b. c. paid
tribute to the Assyrian monarch Assurbanapal (Sardanapalus), as is
recorded on an Assyrian tablet now in the British Museum. There were
also many gold necklaces, bracelets, ear-rings, finger-rings, brooches,
seals, armlets, etc., in all four hundred and eighty gold articles.
In the silver-room, arranged on the benches at the sides, were vases,
bottles, cups, bowls, bracelets, finger-rings, ear-rings, seals, etc.
One of the most curious and valuable objects is a silver-gilt bowl,
having upon it very fine embossed Egyptian work, and evidently of high
antiquity.
In the third room of vases and terra-cottas were some most valuable and
interesting specimens. The bronze-room yielded several high candelabra,
lamp-holders, lamps, statuettes, bulls'-heads, bowls, vases, jugs,
patera, fibula, rings, bracelets, mirrors, etc. Nearly all the objects
in the four rooms seem to have been “votive offerings,” and testify
a pagan devotion to the gods not excelled by Christian generosity to
the images and shrines of modern worship. The inscriptions betoken the
votive character of these treasures; that upon the heavy gold armlets
is in the genitive case, and would be literally translated “Etevandri
Regis Paplii,” the words “offering of” being understood to precede
it.
I confess that the glitter of these treasures, and the glamour of these
associations with the ingenious people of antiquity, transformed the
naked island of Cyprus, as we lay off it in the golden sunset, into a
region of all possibilities, and I longed to take my Strabo and my spade
and wander off prospecting for its sacred placers. It seemed to me, when
we weighed anchor at seven o'clock, that we were sailing away from
subterranean passages stuffed with the curious treasures of antiquity,
from concealed chambers in which one, if he could only remove the stone
slab of the door, would pick up the cunning work of the Phoenician
jewellers, the barbarous ornaments of the Assyrians, the conceits in
gold and silver of the most ancient of peoples, the Egyptians.
XIX.—THROUGH SUMMER SEAS.—RHODES.
AT daylight next morning we could just discern Cyprus sinking behind
us in the horizon. The day had all the charm with which the poets have
invested this region; the sea was of the traditional indigo blue,—of
which the Blue Grotto of Capri is only a cheap imitation. No land was in
sight, after we lost Cyprus, but the spirit of the ancient romance
lay upon the waters, and we were soothed with the delights of an idle
existence. As good a world as can be made with a perfect sea and a
perfect sky and delicious atmosphere we had.
Through this summer calm voyages our great steamer, a world in itself,
an exhibition, a fair, a fête, a camp-meeting, cut loose from the earth
and set afloat. There are not less than eight hundred pilgrims on board,
people known as first-class and second-class stowed in every nook and
corner. Forward of the first cabin, the deck of the long vessel is
packed with human beings, two deep and sometimes crossed, a crowd which
it is almost impossible to penetrate. We look down into the hold upon
a mass of bags and bundles and Russians heaped indiscriminately
together,—and it is very difficult to distinguish a Russian woman from
a bundle of old clothes, when she is in repose. These people travel with
their bedding, their babies, and their cooking utensils, and make a home
wherever they sit down.
The forward passengers have overflowed their limits and extend back
upon our portion of the deck, occupying all one side of it to the stern,
leaving the so-called privileged class only a narrow promenade on
the starboard side. These intruders are, however, rather first-class
second-class. Parties of them are camped down in small squares, which
become at once miniature seraglios. One square is occupied by wealthy
Moslems from Damascus, and in another is a stately person who is rumored
to be the Prince of Damascus. These turbaned and silk-clad Orientals
have spread their bright rugs and cushions, and lounge here all day and
sleep here at night; some of them entertain themselves with chess, but
the most of them only smoke and talk little. Why should they talk? has
not enough already been said in the world? At intervals during the day,
ascertaining, I do not know how, the direction of Mecca, these grave men
arise, spread their prayer-carpets, and begin in unison their kneelings
and prostrations, servants and masters together, but the servants behind
their masters. Next to them, fenced off by benches, is a harem square,
occupied by veiled women, perhaps the wives of these Moslems and perhaps
“some others.” All the deck is a study of brilliant costume.
A little later the Oriental prince turns out to be only a Turkish pasha,
who has a state-room below for himself, and another for his harem; but
in another compartment of our flower-bed of a deck is a merchant-prince
of Damascus, whose gorgeousness would impose upon people more
sophisticated than we.
“He no prince; merchant like me,” explains Achmed, “and very rich,
God be merciful.”
“But why don't you travel about like that, Achmed, and make a fine
display?”
“For why? Anybody say Mohammed Achmed any more respect? What for I
show my rich? Take my advice. When I am dragoman, I am servant; and
dress [here a comico-sarcastic glance at his plain but handsome dragoman
apparel] not in monkey shine, like Selim—you remember him—at Jaffa,
fierce like a Bedawee. I make business. When I am by my house, that is
another thing.”
The pasha has rooms below, and these contiguous squares on deck are
occupied, the one by his suite and the other by their ladies and slaves,
all veiled and presumably beautiful, lolling on the cushions in the
ennui that appears to be their normal condition. One of them is puffing
a cigarette under her white veil at the risk of a conflagration. One of
the slaves, with an olive complexion and dark eyes, is very pretty, and
rather likes to casually leave her face uncovered for the benefit of the
infidels who are about; that her feet and legs are bare she cares still
less. This harem is, however, encroached upon by Greek women, who sprawl
about with more freedom, and regard the world without the hindrance of a
veil. If they are not handsome, they are at least not self-conscious,
as you would think women would be in baggy silk trousers and embroidered
jackets.
In the afternoon we came in sight of the ancient coasts of Pamphylia and
Lycia and a lovely range of what we took to be the Karamanian mountains,
snow-covered and half hid in clouds, all remote and dim to our vision as
the historical pageant of Assyrian, Persian, and Roman armies on these
shores is to our memory. Eastward on that rugged coast we know is
Cilicia and the Tarsus of Paul and Haroun al Raschid. The sunset on
the Lycian mountains was glorious; the foot by the water was veiled
in golden mist; the sea sank from indigo to purple, and when the light
waves broke flecks of rose or blood flowed on the surface.
After dark, and before we were abreast of old Xanthus, we descried the
famous natural light which is almost as mysterious to the moderns as it
was to the ancients. The Handbook says of it: “About two miles from
the coast, through a fertile plain, and then ascending a woody glen,
the traveller arrives at the Zanar, or volcanic flame, which issues
perpetually from the mountain.” Pliny says: “Mount Chimaera, near
Phaselis, emits an unceasing flame that burns day and night.” Captain
Beaufort observed it from the ship during the night as a small but
steady light among the hills. We at first mistook it for a lighthouse.
But it was too high above the water for that, and the flame was too
large; it was rather a smoky radiance than a point of light, and yet
it had a dull red centre and a duller luminous surrounding. We regarded
with curiosity and some awe a flame that had been burning for over
twenty centuries, and perhaps was alight before the signal-fires were
kindled to announce the fall of Troy,—Nature's own Pharos to the
ancient mariners who were without compass on these treacherous seas.
Otherwise, this classic coast is dark, extinguished is the fire on the
altar of Apollo at Patera, silent is the winter oracle of this god, and
desolate is the once luxurious metropolis of Lycia. Even Xanthus, the
capital, a name disused by the present inhabitants, has little to show
of Greek culture or Persian possession, and one must seek the fragments
of its antique art in the British Museum.
Coming on deck the next morning at the fresh hour of sunrise, I found
we were at Rhodes. We lay just off the semicircular harbor, which is
clasped by walls—partly shaken down by earthquakes—which have noble
round towers at each embracing end. Rhodes is, from the sea, one of the
most picturesque cities in the Mediterranean, although it has little
remains of that ancient splendor which caused Strabo to prefer it to
Rome or Alexandria. The harbor wall, which is flanked on each side by
stout and round stone windmills, extends up the hill, and, becoming
double, surrounds the old town; these massive fortifications of the
Knights of St. John have withstood the onsets of enemies and the tremors
of the earth, and, with the ancient moat, excite the curiosity of
this so-called peaceful age of iron-clads and monster cannon. The city
ascends the slope of the hill and passes beyond the wall. Outside and on
the right towards the sea are a picturesque group of a couple of dozen
stone windmills, and some minarets and a church-tower or two. Higher
up the hill is sprinkled a little foliage, a few mulberry-trees, and an
isolated palm or two; and, beyond, the island is only a mass of broken,
bold, rocky mountains. Of its forty-five miles of length, running
southwesterly from the little point on which the city stands, we can see
but little.
Whether or not Rhodes emerged from the sea at the command of Apollo, the
Greeks expressed by this tradition of its origin their appreciation of
its gracious climate, fertile soil, and exquisite scenery. From remote
antiquity it had fame as a seat of arts and letters, and of a vigorous
maritime power, and the romance of its early centuries was equalled if
not surpassed when it became the residence of the Knights of St. John.
I believe that the first impress of its civilization was given by the
Phoenicians; it was the home of the Dorian race before the time of the
Trojan war, and its three cities were members of the Dorian Hexapolis;
it was in fact a flourishing maritime confederacy, strong enough to
send colonies to the distant Italian coast, and Sybaris and Parthenope
(modern Naples) perpetuated the luxurious refinement of their founders.
The city of Rhodes itself was founded about four hundred years before
Christ, and the splendor of its palaces, its statues and paintings,
gave it a pre-eminence among the most magnificent cities of the ancient
world. If the earth of this island could be made to yield its buried
treasures as Cyprus has, we should doubtless have new proofs of the
influence of Asiatic civilization upon the Greeks, and be able to trace
in the early Doric arts and customs the superior civilization of the
Phoenicians, and of the masters of the latter, in science and art, the
Egyptians.
Naturally, every traveller who enters the harbor of Rhodes hopes to see
the site of one of the seven wonders of the world, the Colossus. He is
free to place it on either mole at the entrance of the harbor, but he
comprehends at once that a statue which was only one hundred and five
feet high could never have extended its legs across the port. The fame
of this colossal bronze statue of the sun is disproportioned to the
period of its existence; it stood only fifty-six years after its
erection, being shaken down by an earthquake in the year 224 b.c., and
encumbering the ground with its fragments till the advent of the Moslem
conquerors.
When we landed, the town was not yet awake, except the boatmen and the
coffee-houses by the landing-stairs. The Greek boatman, whom we accepted
as our guide, made an unsuccessful excursion for bread, finding only a
black uneatable mixture, sprinkled with aromatic seeds; but we sat
under the shelter of an old sycamore in a lovely place by the shore, and
sipped our coffee, and saw the sun coming over Lycia, and shining on the
old towers and walls of the Knights.
Passing from the quay through a highly ornamented Gothic gateway, we
ascended the famous historic street, still called the Street of the
Knights, the massive houses of which have withstood the shocks of
earthquakes and the devastation of Saracenic and Turkish occupation.
At this hour the street was as deserted as it was three centuries and
a half ago, when the Knights sorrowfully sailed out of the harbor in
search of a new home. Their four months' defence of the city., against
the overwhelming force of Suleiman the Magnificent, added a new lustre
to their valor, and extorted the admiration of the victor and the most
honorable terms of surrender. With them departed the prosperity of
Rhodes. This street, of whose palaces we have heard so much, is not
imposing; it is not wide, its solid stone houses are only two stories
high, and their fronts are now disfigured by cheap Arab balconies, but
the façades are gray with age. All along are remains of carved windows.
Gothic sculptured doorways, and shields and coats of arms, crosses and
armorial legends, are set in the walls, partially defaced by time and
accident; for the Moslems, apparently inheriting the respect of Suleiman
for the Knights, have spared the mementos of their faith and prowess.
I saw no inscriptions that are intact, but made out upon one shield the
words voluntas mei est. The carving is all beautiful.
We went through the silent streets, waking only echoes of the past, out
to the ruins of the once elegant church of St. John, which was shaken
down by a powder-explosion some thirty years ago, and utterly flattened
by an earthquake some years afterwards. Outside the ramparts we met, and
saluted frith the freedom of travellers, a gorgeous Turk who was
taking the morning air, and whom our guide in bated breath said was the
governor. In this part of the town is the Mosque of Suleiman; in the
portal are two lovely marble columns, rich with age; the lintels are
exquisitely carved with flowers, arms, casques, musical instruments,
the crossed sword and the torch, and the mandolin, perhaps the emblem of
some troubadour knight. Wherever we went we found bits of old carving,
remains of columns, sections of battlemented roofs. The town is
saturated with the old Knights. Near the mosque is a foundation of
charity, a public kitchen, at which the poor were fed or were free to
come and cook their food; it is in decay now, and the rooks were sailing
about its old round-topped chimneys.
There are no Hellenic remains in the city, and the only remembrance of
that past which we searched for was the antique coin, which has upon one
side the head of Medusa and upon the other the rose (rhoda) which gave
the town its name. The town was quiet; but in pursuit of this coin in
the Jews' quarter we started up swarms of traders, were sent from
Isaac to Jacob, and invaded dark shops and private houses where Jewish
women and children were just beginning to complain of the morning light.
Our guide was a jolly Greek, who was willing to awaken the whole town in
search of a silver coin. The traders, when we had routed them out,
had little to show in the way of antiquities. Perhaps the best
representative of the modern manufactures of Rhodes is the wooden shoe,
which is in form like the Damascus clog, but is inlaid with more taste.
The people whom we encountered in our morning walk were Greeks or Jews.
The morning atmosphere was delicious, and we could well believe that the
climate of Rhodes is the finest in the Mediterranean, and also that it
is the least exciting of cities.
“Is it always so peaceful here?” we asked the guide.
“Nothing, if you please,” said he, “has happened here since the
powder-explosion, nothing in the least.”
“And is the town as healthy as they say?”
“Nobody dies.”
The town is certainly clean, if it is in decay. In one street we found a
row of mulberry-trees down the centre, but they were half decayed, like
the street. I shall always think of Rhodes as a silent city,—except in
the Jews' quarter, where the hope of selling an old coin set the whole
hive humming,—and I suspect that is its normal condition.
XX.—AMONG THE ÆGEAN ISLANDS.
OUR sail all day among the Ægean islands was surpassingly lovely;
our course was constantly changing to wind among them; their beautiful
outlines and the soft atmosphere that enwrapped them disposed us to
regard them in the light of Homeric history, and we did not struggle
against the illusion. They are all treeless, and for the most part have
scant traces of vegetation, except a thin green grass which seems rather
a color than a substance. Here are the little islands of Chalce and
Syme, once seats of Grecian culture, now the abode of a few thousand
sponge-fishers. We pass Telos, and Nisyros, which was once ruled by
Queen Artemisia, and had its share in the fortunes of the wars of Athens
and Sparta. It is a small round mass of rock, but it rises twenty-two
hundred feet out of the sea, and its volcanic soil is favorable to the
grape. Opposite is the site of the ruins of Cnidus, a Dorian city of
great renown, and famous for its shrine of Venus, and her statue by
Praxiteles. We get an idea of the indentation of this coast of Asia
Minor (and its consequent accessibility to early settlement and
civilization) from the fact that Cnidus is situated on a very narrow
peninsula ninety miles long.