BA.YARD TAYLOR IN GREECE AND CRETE. * TEMR,E are more things
to be seen and thought of in Greece than the relics and reminiscences of her past glories. These have been elaborately explored by enthusiastic scholars, and too many a hash of them has been cooked up by travellers who were neither scholarly nor enthusiastic, but thought it expedient to pretend that they were both. Mr. Bayard Taylor is not a traveller of this class. Perfectly free from false pretensions, and looking on men and things through no conventional medium, he relates what he himself has seen, felt, and thought ; and, therefore, his books are always pleasant and often instructive even when their matter is not new. He has a quick eye, and sometimes it must be owned that he relies too much upon its quickness ; but at least he may be trusted for not overlooking anything worth seeing that comes in his way. In Greece he directed his attention chiefly to the physical aspects of the country and the character and habits of its present inhabitants. On his route thither by the steamer from Trieste he left behind him the Julian Alps, wheeling in a splendid are around the head of the Adriatic, crossed the Gulf of Fiume, whereof he " cheerfully testifies " that it is as rough a piece of water as the Bay of Biscay, and touched at Zara, the capital of Dalmatia, and a place of some note in the days of Augustus, but now as dull as a orab-fish in the process of changing its shell. " I know nothing," he says, "more slovenly and melancholy than the aspect of those Mediterranean ports which are in a transition state—where the old costume, habits, and ways of living have been for the most part given up, and those of Western Europe are still new enough to appear awkward and affected." The modern renown of Zara rests upon its staple manufacture, Maraschino, so called from the marasca, a variety, of wild cherry from which it is made. Mr. Taylor tasted the liqueur on its native soil, and came to the conclusion that its flavour is improved by banishment. A few hours sail from Zara brought our traveller to Sebenico, a wonderfully picturesque place built along the side of a hill, and dominated by three massive but now worthless and neglected Venetian fortresses, behind which towers a bald barren mountain.
" Sebenico is a poor place, and as proud as it is poor, if one may rely upon the statements made by a thriving brewer, who keeps a beer-house on the quay. There is no such thing as enterprise here,' said he ; 'the coun- try is capable of producing much more than it does, if the people were not so lazy. Here, for instance, are half-a-dozen old Venetian families, who consider themselves too nobly born to do anything, and who are gradually starving in their pride. After having sold everything except the family mansion, they then sell their plate piece by piece. What they will do when that is gone I cannot tell.. I am considered rich, because I earn more than I spend, but am despised by these gentry because I have a business. My father was once applied to by one of them, who wished to borrow money. He went to the house, but was refused admittance by the noble lady, who said :—" Stay in the street until my lord comes out." Well, when my lord came out, my father said to him—" If my person is not worthy to enter your house, my money is not worthy to touch your fingers " ; and so left him. These people would like to restore the Venetian rule, because they held offices then, and were somebodies ; but if we were well rid of them, and could fill their places with Germans, not afraid to work, it would be better for Dalmatia.' I have no doubt there is much truth in the brewer's remarks. Dalmatia seems to me as well adapted for the production of wine, oil, and silk, as any part of Southern Europe."
Spalato, not Spalatro, as it is generally spelled, is founded on the spot where Diocletian grew cabbages. The walls of his mag- nificent palace, some portions of which are well preserved, still contain the whole of the mediaeval city ; and as the imperial re- sidence rose again before his mind's eye, our traveller said to himself, " Who would not be willing to raise cabbages in this style ? " After a glance at Old Ragusa, we reach Bocca di Cat- taro, the entrance to one of the wildest and most wonderful har- bours in the world. This is the natural port of Montenegro, but it is comprised within a strip of coast of which Austria has pos- sessed herself, extending from Zara to Budua between two and three hundred miles in length, and varying from five to thirty in breadth. In two places this strip is interrupted by narrow wedges of Turkish territory, but Austria has taken care that the contact with the sea here enjoyed by Turkey should be at points where no seaport can be erected. Corfu, one of the pleasantest of the
• Travels in Greece and Russia, with an Excursion to Crete. By Bayard Taylor, Author of " Views a Foot," Sze. Published by Sampson Low, Son, and Co.
Mediterranean islands, was particularly agreeable to Mr. Taylor for the English order, cleanliness, and security prevailing there, and the reverse of which, he ventures to say, would in less than five years be as manifest there as in Greece itself, if the Ionians had their wish, and the islands became incorporated into the Hellenic kingdom.
Patras, one of the most flourishing ports in Greece, was the point where our traveller first set foot on the mainland. It seems to be altogether an exception to the order of things prevailing in modern Hellas. The streets are broad, regular, and well kept, the houses comfortable and substantial, the bazaars crowded, and the open shops of the mechanics present a series of busy pictures. Very different was the first impression made by Athens, when its worst part was seen by moonlight on a cold, windy night, after a disagreeable journey across the isthmus, and by steamer to the Piraeus ; but things looked better next day.
" Our first Athenian day was bright and fair, and what we saw during a walk to the Temple of Jupiter Olympus was entirely sufficient to remove the chill impression of the previous night. There are few towns of its size in the world as lively as Athens. We saw almost the worst of it on entering from the Fillet's. All the northern portion, which is newer, is very sub- stantially built, and has a comfortable air of growth and improvement. As half the population may be said to live out of doors, the principal streets are always thronged, and the gorgeous raiment of the dandy palikars brightens and adorns them amazingly. It is not the Orient, by a great deal ; yet it is far removed from the soberness of Europe. Indeed, the people speak of Europe as a continent outside of Greece. Neither is Athens particularly Greek, with its French fashions and German architecture. It is simply gay, bizarre, fantastic—a salad in which many heterogeneous substances com- bine to form a palatable whole."
Mr. Taylor was presented at court, and what he says of the King and Queen agrees with the generally received estimate of their characters. The King appeared to him amiable, not de- ficient in sense, but irresolute ; the Queen remarkably graceful and self-possessed, a woman of will, energy, and ambition, and wholly selfish. What gratified Mr. Taylor most at Otho's court was the evidence he found there that honour and honesty existed and still exist among the Greeks.
"One may be deceived in the impression created by a single individual, but hardly in that of a whole class, and the distinction was here too broadly marked not to be real. It was a refreshing thing to turn from the false, sneaking, plotting faces of some of the present bangers-on of the Court, to the brave, determined heads, keen, straightforward glances, and native no- bility of bearing of the old chieftains. I said as much to General Church. I am glad to hear it,' said he, andyou are right. These are good and true men. I have known some of them for thirty years, and have had every op= portunity of testing their characters.' This evidence, coming from a man whom to see is to trust, should be a sufficient answer to those who brand all Greeks with one sweeping sentence of condemnation."
From Athens Mr. Taylor made an excursion to Crete, dined with the governor Vely Pacha, a statesman about whom every scrap of information should be welcome, for his name is one of those which are likely to be made familiar to Western ears by coming events in Turkey. "It,was sunset when we reached Kalepa, where we stopped to dine with the Pasha, according to previous arrangement. He has a country-house handsomely furnished in the moat luxurious European style, the walls hung with portraits of prominent livingsovereigns and statesmen. On the dinner- table was an epergne of pure gold, two feet long and eighteen inches high ; the knives, forks, and spoons were also of the same metal. He had an accomplished French cook, and offered us, beside the wine of Crete, Burgundy, Rhenish, and Champagne. He drank but sparingly, how- ever, and of a single kind. After dinner, I had a long conversation with him on the state of the Orient, and was delighted to find a Turk in his posi- tion imbued with such enlightened and progressive ideas. If there were nine men like him, the regeneration of the East would not be so difficult. One man, however—unless he fills the very highest administrative position —is almost powerless, when the combined influence of the European Powers is brought to bear against him. Before the close of 1858 Vely Pasha was re- called from Crete, and the good works he had begun completely neutralized. The real condition of affairs was so thoroughly misrepresented that in all the newspapers of Europe but a single voice (the correspondent of the London Times) was raised to do him justice."
The main cause of the rebellion in Crete, a few months after this conversation, was the carriage-road which Vely Pacha had begun to construct from Khania to Heracleon. " I am satisfied," he said, "that Turkey will never advance until she has means of communication sufficient to make her internal resources available. This is the first step towards the regeneration of the Orient—and the only first step in the path of true progress. The power and civilization of Europe rest on this foundation." The late Sir Charles Napier was not prouder of the conquest of Soinde than of the excellent road with which he enriched the re- fractory Cephalonians, in spite of their virulent opposition which nearly drove him out of the governorship, and left him no peace while he held it. At Rhithymnos, Mr. Woodward, the English engineer of Vely Pasha's road, who had been a year and a half in the island, gave the travellers his account of the people. "Towards evening, we received a visit from Mr. Woodward, the English engineer who had charge of the new road. He had been a year and a half in Crete, and seemed very glad to get a chance of speaking his own language again. His account of the people went very far to confirm my own im- pressions. They are violently opposed to improvement of any kind, and the road, especially, excited their bitterest hostility. They stole his Jim- poles, tried to break his instruments, and even went so far as to attack his person. He was obliged to carry on the work under the protection of a company of Albanian soldiers. The Cretans, he stated, are conceited and disputatious in their character, to an astonishing degree. His greatest diffi- culty with the labourers on the road was their unwillingness to be taught anything, as it wounds their vanity to confess that they do not know it already. They even advised him how to use his instruments. If a stone was to be lifted, every man gave his advice as to the method, and the day would have been spent in discussing the different proposals, if he had not cut them short by threatening to fine every man who uttered another word.
Their pockets are the most sensitive portion of their bodies, and even vanity gives way to preserve them. The law obliged the population of each dis- trict, in turn, to work nine days annually upon the road, or commute at the rate of six piastres a day. This was by no means an oppressive measure, yet men worth their hundreds of thousands were found in the ranks of the Labourers, in order to save the slight lax. Some of the villages were just beginning to see the advantage of the road, and, had a few miles been cora- elated, the engineer thought the opposition would be greatly diminished. .Nothing but an enlightened despotism can accomplish any good with such a ,population.
In the evening, the British Consular Agent, an Ionian Greek, paid us *visit, and there was along fumarium in the Governor's divan. The Agent, waxing confidential, began explaining to the Governor, how it was possible to cheat in selling oil. ' When you buy your oil,' said he, get the largest cask you can find—the very largest that is made—and fill it. You must have it standing on end, with the cock quite at the bottom. When you sell an oka of it, the pressure forces it out in a very strong stream ; it becomes inflated with air, and the measure is -filled with a less quantity of oil. You can make a gain of three per cent in this way.' He then went on to de- scribe other methods by which, all together, the gain might be increased to fifteen or twenty per cent. Francois becoming impatient, cried out : 'Now I see that the ancient Greeks were perfectly right, in having the same god for merchants and thieves l' The Governor laughed heartily, but the Agent, -considerably nettled, exclaimed : Do you mean to speak of me as a thief ? ' answered Franoia, with the greatest coolness; 'I speak of you as a Merchant.' At this the Governor laughed still more loudly, and the dis- eoaifited Agent was obliged, by Oriental politeness, to laugh too."
The Hattihumayoon, or bill of religious liberty, which remains a dead letter beyond a circle of thirty miles round Con- stantinople, was in full force in Crete in Vely Pasha's time. The island is one of the richest in the Mediterranean, and under a governor like Vely it might support, as it once did, a population of a million. Mr. Taylor gives it as his opinion that there are fortunes to be made by persons who have enterprise and skill enough to undertake the business of properly preparing and ex- porting the wines of Crete, which he much prefers to the re- nowned wine of Cyprus. It is not resined, as in Greece, where- the practice is universal, and prevailed, he doubts not, in ancient times, the pine cone topping of the staff of Bacchus being pro- bably a symbol of .the fact. The resin helps to preserve the wine, but gives it a flavour which to an unaccustomed palate is horrible ; but Mr. Taylor came to like it before he left Greece— 'no docile is the palate. To return to the people of Crete, Mr. Taylor's experience of them is confirmatory of the opinion pro- nounced upon them by one of their own blood. " St. Paul, referring to the Cretan poet Epimenides, says : One of them- selves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretans are always liars, evil` beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true.' It is just as true at the present day, as applied to the Cretan Christian; and to many, but not all, of the Turks. I scarcely know which disgusted me more, during the journey— the beastly manner of life of the Cretans and their filthy bodily-habits, or 'their brazen falsehood and egregious vanity."
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