Travels and Discoveries in the Levant/Volume 1/Letter I
LETTER I.
Athens, March 20, 1852.
We left Southampton on the 17th February, 1852, in the Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamer "Montrose," from which we were transferred at Gibraltar to the "Ripon," then on her way to Alexandria with the Indian and Australian mails. As I passed through the Straits for the first time and saw the blue expanse of the Mediterranean stretching far away before me, I felt that the true interest of my voyage had there and then commenced. I had made my first step on that ancient highway of navigation of which the Pillars of Hercules were so long the extreme western boundary. My destination was that Ionian coast whence, in the 7th century before the Christian era, issued forth those enterprising mariners who first among the Greeks traversed the length of the Mediterranean and boldly competed with Phoenician traders in the ports of Spain. As, sailing on the track of these early adventurers, I thought over their Odyssean voyages, the recollection seemed to inspire me with fresh hope and energy. I compared myself to one of the old Phocæan mariners seeking for a Tartessus in unknown Western waters, and long cherished visions of discoveries in the Levant seemed to ripen into a positive presentiment of success as I advanced on my way towards that land of promise.
We arrived at Malta after a very prosperous voyage, and were most kindly welcomed by my old friends Captains Graves and Spratt, who took a warm interest in my projects, and gave me much valuable information respecting that Levantine world in which I was about to establish myself, and to which I was as yet an utter stranger.
As we had to wait several days at Malta for a steamer to Patras, I took the opportunity of visiting the curious ruins at Krendi, which are generally considered to be of Phoenician origin. These ruins are situated on the south coast of Malta, opposite to a small island called Filfile. They consist of two groups of enclosures formed by masses of stones ranged upright like a paling, over which others are placed horizontally. Some of these stones are from 15 to 20 feet high. The whole have been quarried out of the tertiary calcareous rock on which the enclosures are built. The principal group consists of three large elliptical enclosures, set obliquely to which are three smaller enclosures, also elliptical; this is situated on higher ground than the other group, which is nearer the sea.
Within the outer enclosures are inner walls, in which there is an approximation to regular masonry. The lower part of these inner walls is composed of uprights about six feet in height, above which large blocks are built into regular horizontal courses. In the principal temple are two doorways, through which the central enclosure is approached from the east. These have jambs, ornamented with small holes, evidently drilled with a screw, the marks of the worm being visible in each hole. The angles of the jambs are cut away so as to form a kind of pilaster, a slight projection in the upper part of which serves to indicate a capital. The jambs of the doorways, the lintels, and the threshold-stones, are pierced with holes, showing the position of the hinges and bolts of the doors. The irregular ellipses formed by these walls terminate at either end in a kind of apse; in several of these apses the inner wall remains to a considerable height, and bends inwards as it rises, as if it had converged to a conical roof, formed by approaching horizontal courses of masonry. Within the apses are no remains at present of fallen vaulting, as might have been expected if these recesses had been covered over; but the disappearance of all such evidence in situ may be accounted for by the fact that these ruins have been cleared out within a recent period.
The inner walls of these ellipses are pierced with a number of square apertures cut out of the large blocks, some of which seem intended to admit light or sound, like the openings in Gothic churches to which ecclesiologists have given the name hagioscope. Others communicate with small chambers like cupboards, cut in the rock.
Within the enclosures are several altars, formed by large slabs of stone set upon short pillars. One very tall piece of rock towers above these enclosures. Steps cut in the rock lead up to the top, in which is a hollow, as if for a man to stand in. Perhaps this isolated rock served as a watch-tower or place for signals.
The lower group is of smaller extent than the upper one, but has its inner walls, doorways, and apertures better preserved. In both groups the space enclosed within the walls is floored over with a rude concrete, composed of gravel and small pieces of stone.
In the upper group I found a block of stone in form like a square Roman altar, on each face of which, within an oblong panel, is a rude relief representing a tree in a basket. Close by this stone is another, on which is carved a rude spiral or volute. In the upper group were also found seven small female figures, cut out of Maltese stone, a skull, a number of human bones, and some stones, shaped like women's breasts. The figures, which are now preserved in the Museum at Malta, range from 1 ft. 8 in. to 1 ft. 2 in. in height.1 Four are entirely nude, the others draped. Two are seated. The heads are broken away. The proportions and execution of these figures are alike barbarous. The enormous hips and breasts, and bulging outlines, suggest the notion that they are of African origin. At any rate the type represented is unlike that of any of the races of the ancient world, so far as we know them through art.
In both groups of enclosures great quantities of broken pottery have been found. Having obtained authority from the Governor, Sir William Reid, to remove this pottery to the Museum at Malta, where it might be properly cleaned and examined, I transported two cartloads of it, and removed at the same time the curious altar with a tree on it, which the sacrilegious hand of the British sightseer had already begun to chip and deface.
The pottery I found to be of several kinds; black ware of a heavy, brittle kind, made of black earth, and ornamented with rude rows of notches or indented triangular marks; finer black ware, less brittle and more polished; coarse red ware, and coarse and fine drab ware. Some of the finer black and drab ware had incised patterns of the rudest kind. All the varieties seem to have been baked in the fire, and have a polished surface. I sent some specimens to the British Museum. Pottery somewhat similar in character has been found in the island of Jersey.
Dr. Henry Barth, the well-known African explorer, has given a detailed description and a plan of these remains in Gerhard's "Archaologische Zeitung" for 1848.2 He supposes that both groups of enclosures were hypæthral temples, enclosed within a common peribolus wall, of which he found some traces.
According to his plan, the entry into the upper temple is from the east; a doorway opposite to this entry leads into the middle chamber. In the eastern chamber he found an aperture in the wall, communicating with a small outer chamber; through this hole he supposes that oracles were delivered by the priests. In the museum at Malta is a conical stone, three feet high, resembling in form the well-known symbol of Aphrodite, placed in her temples at Paphos and elsewhere.3 This stone. Dr. Barth states to have been found in the most eastern chamber of the upper temple. The enclosures at Krendi are very similar to the remains at Gozo, known by the name, Torre dei Giganti; but these latter present certain differences in plan, which have been carefully noted by Dr. Barth. Two heads from female figures discovered within the enclosures at Gozo, have been published by Delia Marmora, and seem to be no less barbarous than those at Krendi.4 On the whole, it may, I think, be inferred that the remains in both islands are the work of some race much lower in the scale of civilization than the Phoenicians as we know them in ancient history. I am disposed to regard these temples as the work of some indigenous people, who having; been brought into contact with Phoenician settlers at some time or other, imbibed from this source some scanty tradition of the arts of civilization; whether, however, these remains should be assigned to a remote or to a late period of pagan antiquity, can only be determined by further evidence.
The day before I left Malta, Mr. Lushington, the chief Secretary of the Government, invited me to be present at the opening of some tombs, at a place called Santi, near Bengemma. These are all cut in the solid rock, on the slope of a hill facing the north, and commanding a beautiful view of the sea. Our party was accompanied by a Maltese gentleman. Dr. Onofrio, who found a tomb when required, with as much sagacity as a pointer finds a partridge.
Each tomb is entered by an oblong aperture cut in the rock, about six feet deep and twice as broad as an English grave, in the side of which is a flight of steps. At the bottom of these is a square opening large enough to admit easily a man's body, which leads to a small chamber with a curved ceiling. Each chamber contained one or more skeletons laid on a ledge, and several vases. In one of the graves the heads lay to the N.E., in another to the N.W. The pottery was coarse and unvarnished, of a drab colour, and is probably of the late Roman period. Roman coins are found in these tombs, and as I was informed, Greek coins and vases; but I could not verify this assertion, for everything at Malta is dispersed as soon as found, from the want of a well-organized museum.
It is to be regretted that these tombs are not explored in a more systematic manner than at present, when gay parties meet to hold their picnics over the open grave; the pale ale and champagne corks contrasting strangely with the broken vases, relics probably of a funeral feast held on this spot fifteen hundred years ago.
We left Malta in the English mail steamer "Medina," and arrived at Patras after a very stormy passage. Here I first saw a Greek town. The strange half-savage look of the inhabitants, with their shaggy capotes and white kilts, seemed quite in harmony with the wild desolate character of the landscape, shut in by high mountains, which at the time of our visit were covered with snow.
We were most kindly received by the British Vice-Consul, Mr. William Wood, who has been engaged in the currant trade at Patras for some years.
He took us to see a fine marble sarcophagus in the garden of a M. Kritikos. On the front is a relief of eight naked boys, with the type of Cupid, but wingless. At one end of the sarcophagus are Bellerophon, Pegasus, and the Chimæra; at the opposite end a female sphinx seated. These sculptures are executed in a better style than is generally found on sarcophagi.
The bottom inside is perforated with round holes, five inches above which is a thin slab. The body, probably, was placed on this, the perforations below being intended to drain off all that was dissolved in the process of natural decay.
Having to wait for an Austrian steamer to take us to Corinth, we rode to see a castle at Rhion, the Gibraltar which commands the narrowest point in the gulf.
In this fortress were a number of prisoners, the most determined cut-throats and bandits in all Greece. They were kept in cells, through the bars of which we could see them. Their eyes had a ferocious glare, like those of wild beasts in a cage. Two sentinels were pacing up and down with their muskets loaded, ready to fire in case there was any attempt to escape, and a cannon was placed so as to command the whole line of windows. One of these brigands managed to escape two or three years ago, and afterwards committed fourteen murders, and when he was again tried and condemned, threatened the judge and jury with death. When he was taken to execution, he managed to conceal a small knife, with which he cut his cords, and then defied the executioner. It happened, however, that among the guard present were two soldiers whose brother he had killed, and they rushed in and stabbed him with their swords till he was disabled, when the executioner finished the work of the law with a long-knife. I was assured that such scenes are by no means uncommon at executions at Patras.
As the Austrian steamer did not come in, we proceeded to Vostitza in a small English steamer, which having to tack against a head-wind, took twelve hours for this little voyage. On landing at Vostitza we were very kindly received by a Greek agent of Mr. Wood, to whom I had a letter of introduction. At this port a large portion of the currants are shipped for exportation, and we saw on our arrival the materials of many a future plum-pudding rolling down to the beach in casks. The currant merchants here complain at present that the supply of currants is too abundant for the demand. It appears that the growers of currants have adopted the plan of cutting rings in the bark of the tree, just below the bunches, by which process a greater quantity, but an inferior quality of fruit, is produced.
The scenery here was very grand; snow-capped mountains hemmed us in on every side; both here and at Patras the ground near the shore has been rent and convulsed by earthquakes into strange fantastic forms. The market-place presented a strange appearance to our civilized eyes, and we gazed with wonder on the wild-looking shepherds' dogs; the men in their shaggy dresses, seated on a pile of baggage on the top of small mountain ponies; the women standing bare-legged under a gigantic plane tree, trampling on and bleaching the linen in the fresh springs which burst forth from the shore close to the sea. This primitive mode of washing seems unchanged from the time of Nausicaa. The plane-tree measures more than 40 feet in girth.
Vostitza is the site of the ancient Ægium, which, when Pausanias visited Greece, contained a number of temples and statues, nearly all trace of which has disappeared. It is probable, as Leake supposes, that much of the architecture was of brick, as the fields near the town are strewn with fragments of brick and painted tile. In the house of one of Mr. Wood's agents, called Aristides Georgios, I saw two fine statues of white marble, and some fragments of a third, found in the garden attached to the house. One of these statues appeared to be a Mercury, very similar to the celebrated one in the Vatican; the other a female figure, with a head-dress like that of the younger Faustina, probably an empress in the character of some goddess. These statues are well preserved and are good specimens of art of the Roman period. Of the third figure there remain only the head and the right hand, which has held a small vase.
Some years ago a tessellated pavement was found in the town, but is now nearly destroyed. A little to the east of Vostitza, in a field overlooking the sea, I noticed part of a fluted column and some remains of buildings which had just been dug up; near them was a piece of massive wall. The column was of travertine covered with stucco. After waiting at Vostitza till the Austrian steamer was due, finding that it did not arrive, we took a Greek guide and horses, and rode along the coast to Corinth: this occupied two days. The scenery was extremely wild and beautiful. Along the coast there is a high mountain-range, sometimes overhanging the sea, sometimes leaving a narrow strip of alluvial shore, covered with arbutus and other shrubs. The road is not what would be called a road in England; it is either a sheep-track or a goat-track, according to the nature of the country it traverses; sometimes winding along the precipitous edge of the high cliffs, sometimes disappearing in the brushwood and shingle below. Bridges there are none, and rivers can only be crossed when in a fordable state: fortunately they are not very deep. Along these wild tracks the little Greek horses clatter in a long file, always following one behind another; they are very sure-footed, rather mulish in temper, but sometimes indulge in a wonderful gallop, ventre à terre. Being shod with shoes which cover nearly the entire foot, they bear being rattled along rough ground better than English horses.
After the first day's journey we made our first acquaintance with a Greek khan. This primitive hostel may be described as a large bare apartment occupying the whole interior of the house, which has no second story. The roof is supported by an arch of masonry, thrown across the house from wall to wall. In one corner is the fire; the smoke finds its way through a hole in the roof. or into the eyes of the inhabitants, according to the direction of the wind or the character of the fuel. At this fire all the cooking takes place; the inmates of the khan and the guests all sit round and warm themselves till their beds are ready, when everybody turns in. The brass lamp lit with oil is extinguished, and the weary traveller looking upwards from his pillow through the tiles, sees a star twinkle here and there, or feels the dripping of the shower, according to the weather. The bed is a kind of wooden settle or dresser, with a quilting generally well peopled with aborigines.
After the dirt and discomfort of such a night's lodging, for which our host demanded an exorbitant sum, we rejoiced to find ourselves in our saddles in the fresh morning air. To me, who had been so long pent up in the close and murky atmosphere of London, the silence and solitude of the route, occasionally interrupted by meeting a string of mules, or a party of shepherds driving their herds with fierce wolf-like dogs; the space of the sky around, and the combination of the wildest mountain scenery with the richest and most delicate colouring, had an ineflable charm. To my unagricultural eye, it was a relief to look at a country still very much as nature made it, and which tillage had not yet cut up into those plats and patches which so distiu'b the breadth and repose of the landscape. On approaching the isthmus, we saw in the distance the steep rock of the Acro-Corinthus, which towers above the plain in majestic isolation, and from the summit of which a large part of Greece is seen stretched out like a model map. As we drew near Corinth, we found ourselves again within the precincts of civilization: first came the phenomenon of ruts and roads ; then here and there a wheeled vehicle, such as we had not seen during two days' journey ; then cultivated fields and gardens; at last, when we got into the miserable village, we found a regular inn, full of English tourists, whose presence rather disturbed the impression of the scene. We took a sailing-boat at Kalamaki, and got to Athens after a night's becalming in an open boat, crowded with ladies. Fortunately the weather was very fine. As we entered Athens in the early morning, I saw the colonnade of the Parthenon lit up into sudden splendour with the rays of the god Helios.