15 FEBRUARY 1868, Page 17

ROUGHING IT IN CRETE.*

BUT for Mr. Skinner's title-page we should have thought that he had rather a pleasant time of it in Crete. This is certainly the impression produced by the book as a whole, though when we look closely into the details we find that many of them must have been slightly disagreeable. We should not have eared to smoke our cigarettes on boxes of ammunition, or to eat beans as a luxury, or to hide in caves on the north coast of the island for fear of being picked off by passing blockaders, or to run the blockade on the other side in an open boat, expecting to be fired upon by Turkish frigates, and being made a mark for patriotic rifles. But Mr. Skinner makes light of all these hardships. He is a born special correspondent, and be takes the fortune of war. He is not sent out to all these strange places, to battles and memories of battles, in order that he may grumble. He leaves that to travellers for pleasure. It is his part to see what is going on, to make lively sketches of passing events, to relieve political questions of their ordinary complication, and to subdue the flash of cannon into the steady glow of the gas by which fathers of families read aloud their paper. There is no objection to his having decided sympathies, so long as he is not what is called prejudiced. When the public is not committed to either side, the special correspondent may take either. It is only when public feeling runs strongly one way that the other way cannot be safely represented. But at other times Englishmen are always ready to back up the weaker party. If a small man attacks a big man, the big man is sure to be hooted either as a coward or a bully. By bearing this law of natural justice in view, our special correspondents have often misled us, and have pledged us to a moral support of more than one cause which we could neither understand nor appreciate.

We do not aim this censure against Mr. Skinner's partiality for the Cretans. On the contrary, we think he makes out a very good case, both for himself and them. But we must say that to some extent we are blinded by his sympathies. We are forced to begin by running a blockade, and are then plunged into the midst of an insurgent camp. After that there is no room for criticism. The mere fact of being in a blockade-runner puts us in the pre- dicament of the stork that was found with the cranes. It is all very well for Mr. Skinner, who has just come from the Bohemian battle-fields, to take another turn at fighting, but how fares it with his innocent readers ? They are, so to speak, pressed into the service. We grant that the service is by no means grievous, and that Mr. Skinner relieves them of every sort of annoyance. But still, they have to take the part of the Cretans against their especial protige of the Russian war, and they are forced to execrate the Turks, for whom they have spent so much money. All the time, too, they know nothing about the rights of the quarrel. They can only see that Mr. Skinner has written a bright and cheerful book, and that for this and other reasons it is as well that his patriot friends took a bad aim when they fired upon him. As he escaped being knocked on the head by the Turks, who would have done it heartily, and as he recovered from the fever which attacked him at an inconvenient time, it would have been doubly unfortunate if the Cretan rifle had made such a blunder.

There is nothing to surprise us in the zeal which Mr. Skinner found among the insurgents. In the picture of Petropoulaki, with his flag which bore the motto of the Spartan mother sending forth her son to battle, and of Korakas who, in "discharging his first shot at the Turks, might have served for a study of the old country gentleman who sees the fox break away," we might think we had the unattainable ideal of Eastern party chiefs. But we almost prefer the description of the chaplain of Petropoulaki's corps, and we will mark that as our first extract :— "Of all who marched under the Spartan flag, Father Zelaios displayed the most varied energy of body and mind. He was chaplain, quarter- master, and commissary with an eye for the minutest details. Now he

* Roughing it in Crete in 1867. By J. E. Hilary Skinner. London: Bentley. 1868. might be seen assisting in the service of some village church, his power- ful voice leading the chants, and his wild haggard face smoothed into momentary repose. Then he was out in the hot sunshine, arranging some dispute between villagers and volunteers, shouting, expostulating, and bearing down all opposition. If there were biscuits to distribute, he stood over the sacks and gave each man his portion, snatched away a piece from one who took too much, and flung balk another who had crowded nearer than was reasonable. It was Father Zelaios on whom the especial care of messengers to head-quarters and complainants of every sort devolved. He was ready to usher in the messengers, to answer the complainants, to do anything within his power for helping

forward the Christian cause. When there was a battle, Zelaios was among the skirmishers, firing and shouting with the boldest of them.

He prided himself on his well cleaned rifle, and would help others to keep their weapons bright. No matter what the occupation in hand, Zelaios might be counted on as an assistant. I have seen him straining to secure a load upon a pack-saddle until the perspiration streamed down his face. Then in another moment he was at the side of a lad whose car- tridge had jammed half-way down the barrel of his rifle. Zelaios seized the weapon, rammed home furiously till the cartridge was in its place, and had overtaken the mule with the pack-saddle before it was out of sight, to make sure that his fastenings hold firm. You must banish all thought of a neat black dress, with high cap and flowing skirt, if you would realize the outward appearance of Father Zelaios. Neither must you imagine him in any sort of monkish cowl, nor even in the loose blue trousers and short upper robe of a Cretan priest. Picture rather a strong active figure, dressed in close-fitting garments, with shoes and gaiters of the approved fashion among the volunteers, with a brass cross sewn upon the front of a low black cap, and with a leather belt round the waist to support the bayonet and cartouche-box. I have said that Father Zelaios had a wild and haggard face, but those words do not con- vey a sufficient impression of his terribly eager look. The spirit of a Crusader, landing on the shores of Palestine, seemed to burn within him."

Among the rank and file there was a similar ardour, and it went down to the youngest in the community. Mr. Skinner amuses us by his sketch of the little shepherd-boys who cried out in shrill voices, "This way, patriots !" or, "Turn to the right, patriots 1" as men ran up to take part in the battle of Tylissos. During the battles of May 18 the non-combatants were busy making car- tridges, rolling the paper tight with a feverish energy, and asking every now and then, "How goes the fight ?" As for the villages which had submitted to the Turks, "the volunteers would fling a stray curse or two at them," says Mr. Skinner, and the villagers themselves often regretted that they had not had the courage to die rather than give up their arms. But it struck him, as it strikes us, that the respect for individual rights which marked the conduct of the insurgents was most creditably shown in their abstaining from "patriotic requisitions" on the submitted villages. This regard for property is, perhaps, a singular, certainly a notable fea- ture in an insurrection. "I have seen," Mr. Skinner tells us, "twenty armed men bargain with an unarmed shepherd-boy for a jar of cream-cheese, and pay him his price in the end, though with much grumbling." And in another place he describes an attempt on the part of several full-grown insurgents to borrow a donkey which was under the charge of two little boys, and which, in spite of arguments, oaths, and promises remained in their keep- ing. It is not every band of powerful men that would thus be thwarted.

Of course, none of these scruples were felt so far as the Turks were concerned. The Cretans were, no doubt, provoked by the barbarities of their enemy, especially those practised at the monastery of Arkadi, and after some of the other encounters. Mr. Skinner takes care to show that though the insurgents struck off Turkish heads and carried them in triumph, the Turks tor- tured their prisoners, and says significantly that while the Turks made war with much of their old barbarity, the insurgents "did not burden themselves with Turkish prisoners. They received no quarter," he continues, "and they gave none, striking down their foes with stern retribution when the chance was offered there. They could not massacre women and children, because the Moslem families were sheltered in the fortresses. So there was a heavy balance of cruelty and wrong against the Turks, as matters stood." Fortunately, Mr. Skinner does not fill up the columns of this debtor and creditor account. Once or twice he gives us some of the horrible details of uncivilized warfare. But as a general rule he neither shocks nor startles us, and he has a tendency to dwell on what is picturesque even in the midst of heavy firing, to note the rippling moonlight even when he is coasting the shores of a blockaded island. Here is a little touch which explains our meaning :—

" There was a lovely sunset, and we could see the mountains of Sphakia as clearly as though they had been three hours', not three days' journey, distant. There were lines of light and sombre shadows upon the rugged sides of Mount Ida, with the blue iEgaean rippling gladly towards Crete, and even the Turkish cruisers were mellowed by distance into picturesque phantoms. Nature was very fair, too fair to harmonize with the hideous din from the plain. Cannon and musketry crashed

louder as the sun went down, the shouts of the Christians could be heard above the voices of their enemies, and the Turkish line was steadily forced back. Then began the heavy file-firing at nothing in particular with which the Sultan's troops were wont to end a battle, that they might honourably dispose of their powder and shot. A few more discharges of artillery, a final roll of musketry from flank to flank, and, on a sudden, there is comparative silence."

In like manner, the sketch of the battle of Tylissoa is taken wholly from the point of view of a special correspondent, with a keen eye for the spectacle before him, and a mind which never forgets the practical question, "What will they say in England ? " But for the very marked sympathy with the Cretans that pervades Mr. Skinner's description (like the brilliant air through which he makes us look on every scene), this might almost have represented a volunteer review :—

"Up the opposite hillside there moved a column of Turks with red banners, clearly to be distinguished, at their head. On the stony road- way of the defile were other Turks pressing forward, and we could bear their furious shouts above the crash of musketry. But the attack died away, like a wave losing its force on level sand. Koraltas had arrived in time to make a powerful diversion, and Koroneos began to recover the ground which he had lost. There was a loader discharge of musketry from our rocky vantage-point to the southward, the Christians advanced with ringing cheers, and we could see the Turkish banners waver and fall back. Faster and faster they retreat. They are in full flight. 'There is a shout of triumph from every side, Victory to the Cross!' And, now, our fire ceases, for we can no longer distinguish friend from foe, whilst down towards the plain goes crackling a brisk fusillade. The 'Turkish irregulars fly with goat-like activity, whilst their disci- plined troops move more slowly and fire at intervals during the retreat. We who are high up can see that our friends below had better stop and pursue no farther. We can clearly make out a large reserve of Turks en the plain with cavalry and cannon, and we know that it is useless to descend. But the Cretans have warmed to their work, and they push forward with loud shouts until they have reached the lowermost range of rocks. Here they must pause, as we can well discern, for the guns and cavalry will bar their progress. So it tarns out in a very few min- utes. There aro white puffs of smoke, and there is whizzing of shells from the Turkish reserve. Then some horsemen move quickly forward, and sonic Egyptian infantry, in white uniforms, come charging up to- wards the summit of the pass. The Christians fall back before these new assailants, though not without a murderous fire to protect their retreat. The Egyptians charge resolutely on, and there is again a fusil- lade from our side the valley. Yielding step by step, Koroneos and Korakas move slowly out of reach. No bayonet charge can last all night, and when the enemy has lost his breath and our men have spent their „ammunition, the battle is over."

We are almost tempted to ask if any one was wounded. But, on second thoughts, we refrain from putting the question. The battle has been brought so vividly before us that we can imagine all the rest, and we have no wish to exercise Mr. Skinner's powers 'of description on any of those matters which he so judiciously leaves in the background.