A Journey to Crete, Costantinople, Naples and Florence: Three Months Abroad

But it was not only my air-cushion and opera-glass which excited the curiosity and wonder of the little and big children at Rettimo. Every thing I had and wore seemed to astonish them—my kid gloves, my straw hat and feather, the cut of my dress, my diary. They saw me once or twice write down some little note into it, and seemed to watch the operation with a kind of awe. I, for my part, was surprised at the absence of many common things. I have already mentioned that I could not buy any blotting paper; they told me that for a pair of kid gloves one would have to send to Smyrna, which is a forty-eight hours’ sea-voyage, four times the journey between London and Paris, and I found it even difficult to get a few hair-pins. The wary Greek shopkeeper of whom I inquired for the latter article, as he could not serve me with it, offered me instead, to my great amusement, a whole chest of Holloway’s pills and ointment at a greatly reduced price. The enterprising quack had actually sent a chest of his valuable medicines to Rettimo, but the natives evincing no inclination to take them, the Greek hoped he might get rid of his stock by selling it to me, thinking, as he told me, that all English people took these pills as regularly as their dinners or suppers. Why had not Mr. Holloway read in the “Museum of Antiquities” that extract from a history of Candia, published in 1550, where they say:—“The primitive name by which this country was known was Aëria, which was given to it on account of the temperature and salubrity of the air, and from the fertility and abundance which reigned in the island. It is, indeed, most temperate, insomuch that the inhabitants have much less need of medicine than in other countries, and consequently live to a great age—occasionally to one hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty, and the author confirms having seen one who, by his baptismal records, proved himself to be one hundred and thirty-four, and was then in the possession of all his faculties.” What will become of the pills in so provokingly healthy a country? Probably they will be eaten by the ants which abound there in summer; with what effect upon their digestion, I cannot conjecture. I am sorry to say that the weather, which had not been very favourable on our journey to Rettimo, became, after our arrival there, very rough and stormy indeed. The people there said they never remembered such a Tramontane (north-wind) except in December or January. The gale blew for twenty-four hours, the sea had become exceedingly rough, and now and then we had a pelting rain. Under these circumstances we found Rettimo anything but a pleasant sejour, and the worst was that as long as this weather lasted the Lloyd steamer, which was to take us back to Canea, could not be expected to arrive. When on the next day the wind had abated a little, and the weather was altogether finer, we went out for a stroll to the sands. The sea was still very rough, and we looked disconsolate towards the horizon, feeling very much like two poor shipwrecked creatures on a desert coast, and evincing a strong inclination to quarrel with every thing and every body. All at once I cried delighted, like Enoch Arden, “A sail, a sail,” it was however no sail, but what was a thousand times more welcome still, the funnel of a steamer. We saw however, at once, that it was not the Lloyd, but the Greek steamer, as it came from the opposite direction from which the former was expected; still we conjectured that if one could come the other would also arrive ere long. We hurried to the port to see her come in, and to get our letters, which we knew were on board. The fine vessel rode gallantly on the waves, and seemed to rock but little. It approached the entrance of the harbour: now it will stop, I thought, and in half an hour I shall have my letters, when coolly and proudly she passed on, finding the sea too rough to venture the disembarcation of either letters, merchandize, or passengers. My dear longed-for letters went to Candia, and although it is but forty miles from Rettimo, they could not return before the lapse of a whole week, when the steamer would bring them back. Ah! one must be patient and in no hurry in Crete. The forty poor passengers for Rettimo, who as I afterwards heard had been on board the Greek steamboat, must have found that out. They too were left at Candia, and had to wait there a week till the steamer returning from Sira brought them to their destination.

Our impatience drove us again to the shore after dinner, to look out for the Austrian steamer, but we spied for it in vain. The weather, however, became clearer and pleasanter as the day declined, and shortly before sunset all the clouds that had hung over the island vanished, and then appeared, as if by magic, the mountain giant Ida shining in the evening light.

We had intended to make an excursion from Rettimo to Mount Ida, and visit the “Cradle of the Gods,”

“Rea la scelse già per cuna fidaDel suo figliolo * * * * * ”—Dante.

and try to discover the sources of the infernal streams,

“Lor corso in questa valle si diroccia;Fanno Acheronte, Stige e Flegetonta;”

but this plan could not be carried out on account of the weather. I felt a pang of regret that I had not been able to reach it, “it seemed so near, and yet so far.”

But the sun set, the rosy light on the snowy mountain top disappeared, and we had to return to our quarters with the disagreeable impression that we might have to sleep another night at Rettimo. I longed to be in Canea again, which was much the pleasanter place.

We sat up later than usual, and had only just gone to bed when our host knocked at our door and told us that the steamer was in sight. We dressed quickly, and then our host and his son, of whom I have spoken before, conducted us to the Marina. The boy carried in one hand a bouquet of roses he had given me in the morning, in the other a little lantern, for the streets of Rettimo are not lighted up, and after dusk, every one is obliged under pain of imprisonment, to carry a lantern about with him.

When we arrived at the harbour I saw the lights of the steamer at what seemed to me a great distance out at sea.

A row in a small boat at night, and in a rough sea, is not at all a thing I am particularly fond of, for I am not of a romantic turn of mind; I dislike adventures, and have, above all, a great objection to being drowned.

However, in Rettimo I could not remain, so I must try to reach the steamer. When in the boat, I clung tightly to my husband, who promised to take care of me. How much were we surprised when the young man with the lantern and the flowers boldly entered the boat after us, for I had been told by his brother-in-law that M. Pietro was afraid of the water, having once had a very bad passage to Smyrna. But in answer to our remonstrances he said, as well as he could in his broken Italian, that he would see us safely on board.

When we were out of the harbour, and the little boat went up and down the high waves, he called out every time a new wave came, “Non paura, non paura!” if to encourage me or himself I cannot tell. But he did me a service by coming; it amused me so much that I forgot my fear while laughing at my husband’s good-humoured jokes at the poor fellow. When he had given me my roses, and we had shaken hands and thanked him, he left with his lantern. We watched the little light as it danced up and down on the waves till it reached terra firma, and knew then that the kind soul had no more need to call out “Non paura!”

We arrived safely at Canea; and two days after Marietta packed my trunks while I went to pay a farewell visit to Leilà, at a country-house in Kaleppa, where the Pasha had removed his family during my absence from Canea. I drove there in the Pasha’s carriage, the only vehicle of any kind on the island, and which resembled somewhat the Lord Mayor’s coach.

On Monday, the 17th of April, we left Canea and paid a flying visit to Candia, the ancient capital of the island. We walked through the town, which is a desolate place—ten times too large for its inhabitants. Grass grows in all the streets, and the very dogs seem more lean and hungry here than elsewhere. The fine massive old Venetian walls that surround the harbour and town have been cracked by earthquakes, and they seem unable to resist the general decay. There are many palm-trees in Candia whose graceful forms rise up amidst the ruin and desolation which surround them; and beyond the town, as in Canea, one sees a chain of snow-covered mountains.

It was noon when we weighed anchor, and the steamer left. I remained on deck as long as I could see the island; the sea in the blaze of the mid-day sun was of a brilliant blue, the sky showed all shades of it from a deep azure over head, to a pale milky-white on the horizon. And thus, encircled by sea and sky, lay like a giant emerald the enchanted island to which a kind fairy had led me to dream away a few weeks that had passed like so many hours. Farther and farther it receded. Now, I can no longer distinguish the snow-covered mountain-tops from the clouds above them; all becomes misty and indistinct. I shut my eyes for a little while, for I have strained them in looking so fixedly. I open them again—it is gone like a dream. I see it no more! the enchanted island has vanished.

CHAPTER III.

CONSTANTINOPLE. 6

“Along with the barbarous TurkWhere woman has never a soul to save.”Thomas Hood.

Goethe says in his journey to Italy: “Thus it was written on my leaf in the Book of Fate, that on the twenty-eighth of September, 1786, towards five o’clock in the evening, I should see Venice for the first time.” So important and momentous—so much like an event—appeared also to me my entry into Constantinople on the twenty-first of April, 1865.

It was about seven o’clock in the morning when we saw the seven towers that mark the beginning of the town. I had been already some time on deck, pacing it with a feeling akin to the emotion with which I used to sit when a child in some theatre, before the rising of the curtain, expecting to see a Christmas Pantomime. And, as in that happy age, the red and blue fire, and the lovely fairies in pink tarlatan with silver gauze wings, far surpass our greatest expectations, so, although I had formed no mean idea of what I was going to see, did the sight of Constantinople far surpass all I had ever imagined. After we had passed the Seraglio Point and neared the harbour, the city appeared to encircle the sea and close around us. It was not so much the beauty, as the grandeur that surprised me. Genoa “la superba” and even glorious Naples appear but small in comparison to the wide extended sea and the mountains that tower above them; but Constantinople appears great in proportion to the surrounding scenery—a gigantic town. Immediately after we had passed the “Seven Towers” the mist that had till then obscured the horizon disappeared, and now the grand picture lay before us in a clear transparent light. It was a most exciting, happy moment. Round our boat crowds of porpoises were gambolling in the water in the “maddest, merriest” manner; over our head we saw innumerable flights of birds of passage coming from the south, and bringing the spring to Constantinople. At the very moment our boat entered the harbour all the Turkish men-of-war lying there, having all their flags hoisted, began to fire a splendid cannonade. The people around me said they were firing because it was Friday, which is the Turkish Sunday, and the Sultan was just going to the Mosque. That may have been the case; but at that moment I felt as elated as any Sultan can feel, and it seemed to me those guns were firing only to express the joy and wonder of my heart at what is certainly one of the most wonderful sights in the world. I shall not attempt to describe it; that has been done by far abler pens than mine, and even they have failed in conveying to their readers any adequate idea of it. In fact, I believe it is a hopeless undertaking. As no description can give to an Esquimaux an idea of the warmth and brightness of the sun when its rays make the waves of the Bosphorus and the Gulf of Naples appear a sea of gold; or a South American, who had heard nothing but the shriek of parrots and cockatoos, could never imagine what the song of the nightingale or lark is like; so one must have seen Constantinople and Scutari, the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus to know what they are like, as they resemble nothing else on earth.

Everybody knows that Constantinople seen from the sea, is the grandest and most beautiful town in the world; it is also a well known fact that as soon as one puts one’s foot on shore, the picture changes entirely. But I must confess that after Smyrna, and the towns of Crete, I did not find it so wretchedly mean and dirty as I had expected, although the houses of Pera (the European quarter) are insignificant, and the wooden palaces of Stamboul not at all imposing. I never had much time to look at them, for the people that move through the streets, and that seem a series of strange, interesting, and beautiful pictures attracted all my attention. I advise all painters who are at a loss for subjects to go to Constantinople; one stroll along the great street of Pera, or through the bazaars of Stamboul, will supply him with subjects for years, so picturesque and beautiful is the life that moves around him. The first figure you see is the Kaïktchi or boatman, who in his kaik, the most elegantly shaped, and most neatly ornamental boat in the world, takes you ashore. With his bronzed face, his athletic chest and shoulders, in his thin silk shirt, that leaves his muscular arms and chest uncovered, his whole dress consisting besides this shirt of a red fez, and a pair of white pantaloons, he presents a most striking appearance; but you have hardly time to look at this new and interesting figure, when another one attracts your attention, it is the Hammal, or porter of Constantinople, who carries your luggage, which consists perhaps of two large trunks, a hat box, a dressing bag, wrappers, umbrellas, etc., all at once on his back. This human beast of burden is dressed in a light brown flannel suit, trimmed with black braid. He is often an elderly man, with a mild venerable face, and bent almost double under the weight on his back, looks the personification of the words “In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread.” But there are gayer pictures in the streets of Pera. You step aside to let a carriage pass, that is all gilt and glass, and that comes rattling up the streets. A child would mistake the coachman for a prince, so splendid does he look in his gold embroidered coat. The pavement, even in Pera, is not good enough to allow a carriage to drive quickly, so you have full leisure to look at its inmates. The crimson curtains are half let down, and through them a magic light falls on the picture within. Generally the carriage is occupied by three or four Turkish ladies. They are always young, and all look beautiful; old ladies it seems have no carriages to ride in. The mothers of Beys and Pashas stop at home, dressed in old calico gowns which they exchange for some rich attire on extraordinary occasions only. These young Turkish beauties wear gossamer veils so thin and transparent, as to hide no beauty of form or colour, while they just soften any little defect of either. Under this thin veil, face and neck show off to great advantage, and the jewellery they wear, and the gay colours of their satin cloaks, seen in the soft crimson light of the carriage, produce a very charming effect, unsurpassed even by our beauties, when they drive crowned with flowers, to the Princess of Wales’ Drawing-room. I think it is in these carriages that Turkish ladies look best, even better than in the Harem, where however, when they are well dressed, gracefully reclining on the divan, they often look very beautiful. Only those who are above the middle size, and they are few, look well standing. None walk gracefully, not even those that have exchanged the sock and clumsy slippers, usually worn, for French chaussure. This however is considered no fault in a Turkish lady, who would be almost ashamed to walk well, as it would prove that she had often used such vulgar exertion. Having a whole host of female slaves at her command, a Turkish lady moves about but little when in the Harem, which she never leaves except in a carriage. The women of the middle and lower classes however walk as badly as the ladies, which appears to be occasioned in a great measure by their mode of sitting. They shuffle along with their toes turned in, wearing large yellow boots, over which they often have slippers of the same colour. You seldom see a really pretty face among them. I believe beauty has a market value in Constantinople, and the women know that very well, and wont marry a poor man if their face can buy them a rich one. We must however not judge them too harshly on that account. Marriage from love is out of the question in a country where it would be scandal for a man to say that a lady is beautiful. He must never have seen her face, nor have exchanged a word with her before she is his wife. He values nothing but beauty in his wife, she looks for a rich Harem, jewels, carriages, and a handsome compensation in case he sends her away. The women of the middle classes, who have of course no carriages, ride sometimes on horseback. They sit like men, and are accompanied by some black or white man servant, who runs behind the horse, and carries his mistress’s slippers and parasol. These Amazons do not look particularly pretty or graceful, but the men on horseback are splendid. A Bey or Pasha, on a fine Arab horse, especially if he is an old man, and still wears the national dress, is a sight worth seeing. Horse and rider look as if moulded in one form, so firm and gracefully sits the rider in his saddle. Many of the horses are splendid, and seem gentle as well as lively, but now and then I saw a vicious one among the horses of the cavalry, that kicked with both front and hind legs, and frightened me in the narrow crowded streets of Stamboul. Yet I never saw any accident in consequence. The Turkish soldiers have a bold martial look, but in their dress they want entirely the neatness which European discipline requires of the soldier. The body guard of the Sultan looks magnificent. They are perhaps not such fine men as our horse-guards, but their dress is far more picturesque and imposing. But I forget that I intended to take you up the great street of Pera, to our hotel. Well, all I have hitherto described you may have seen before you have taken many steps in that crowded thoroughfare. Who is the next person that passes you? A Circassian with his high fur cap, and his row of cartridges across his chest, leading a pretty child of ten or eleven years, with soft brown melancholy eyes. He is taking her to the slave dealer, unless he attract in the street the attention of some rich Turk, or Turkish lady, who will perhaps there and then buy the child and take her away.

The little Turkish children appeared to me anything but what are vulgarly called “little Turks.” There are numbers of them in the streets, on the steamboats, and in the Harems, but I seldom saw a child in a real fit of naughtiness or passion. In their miniature dressing gowns of cotton, wool or silk, as the case may be, but always of most gorgeous colours and pattern, they looked funny little objects. The little girls in the Harems were sometimes pretty.

But what are those strange, wild figures, surrounded by a crowd of people coming slowly up the street? They are leading bears along to some more retired spot than the high street of Pera, where the bears and their masters dance together; a strange performance which the men accompany with a monotonous kind of song and beating of a tambourine. They look as uncouth and wild as the shaggy animals they lead along, but not more so than the shepherds you meet a little further on walking before their flocks of sheep and lambs. These wear a waistcoat and trowsers of undressed sheepskin, and a sheepskin hangs down their back as a cloak. Their long black hair falls over their shoulders and partly hides their faces. They carry long sticks in their hands, that look almost like the stems of young trees, and are of all the strange and wild figures you see perhaps the strangest and wildest.

What a contrast they form to the handsome Greek lady that now passes you. She is dressed in the latest Paris fashion, which is however modified just a little in accordance with the irresistible liking of all inhabitants of the South for gayer colours. Goethe observed this love for bright colours in Italy, and with his usual intelligence seems to have discovered at once a reason for it. What he wrote from Naples, on the 29th of May 1787, he might have written from Constantinople in 1865. He says: “The many coloured, variegated flowers and fruits, with which nature adorns itself here, seem to invite man to adorn himself and all that belongs to him with the brightest colours. Whoever can afford it decorates his hat with ribbons or flowers. Chairs and drawers in the poorest houses are painted with flowers, the carriages are scarlet with gilded ornaments, &c. We consider generally the love of gay colours vulgar and barbarous, and such it may become in certain conditions; but beneath a very clear blue sky there really exists no very bright colour, because nothing can vie with the splendour of the sun and its reflexion on the sea. The brightest colour is softened by the powerful light, and because all colours, such as the green of the trees and plants, and the yellow, brown and red of the ground, act with full power upon the eye, the flowers and dresses harmonize with it. Everything seems desirous to become somewhat visible under the splendour of sky and sea.”

If the Greek lady be the gayest figure in the crowd, the Arab woman is the most dreary and dismal. She is so entirely enveloped and thickly veiled, that but to look at her gives one a feeling of suffocation. The Turkish veil at Constantinople is a pretence, the Arab veil a reality. How the women can breathe or see through it is a wonder to me.

These are but a few of the strange and picturesque figures one meets on a walk through a street of Pera or Stamboul; there are many others, priests in a variety of dresses, Persians, Chaldeans, Jews, and some so strange and new, that like the flowers of Crete, I do not know their names, nor where they come from, nor what they mean. There are of course also some very disgusting sights; the dirty beggar that importunes you, the wretched lunatic with his shorn head uncovered, who touches your arm, the deaf and dumb boy that begs with hideous noises, the nasty dogs that in a torpid kind of dose lie about in the streets, and worst of all the cripples, that expose their deformed limbs in order to excite your pity. But as I always turned away from these wretched sights, I will not remember them here.

If this long description of a walk through Pera should seem tiring it is no wonder, for it is a long steep hill that leads from the Custom House where you land to the Hotel in Pera. Apropos of the Custom House, I must relate a little incident that happened to us when we arrived at Constantinople, and which well characterises Turkish Custom House administration. When the officer had minutely examined all our trunks, dressing-bags, etc., and had looked with great suspicion at my pincushion, the use of which he could not understand, and tried to open it in order to see if it contained any contraband, he discovered in a small basket half a dozen oranges, which kind Sig. A— of Canea had insisted upon my taking with me. These were seized, and the Turk asked us to pay five piastres (10d.) duty, when, to our utter astonishment, the dragoman of our hotel gave him one piastre (2d.), which he took and was thankful.

To walk up to the hotel in Pera is, as I said before, very tiring, for the hill is steep, the pavement bad, and there are no footpaths; still it is vastly preferable to driving. Those gaily-painted, gilded carriages have very bad springs, and on the pavement of Constantinople and across the wooden bridges they shake one to such a degree, that I felt if the human body was not grown together mine would surely have fallen to pieces. Men are much better off in that respect, they can hire a nice little horse, which may be found everywhere, and at a moderate price, while even a short drive always costs from fifty to seventy piastres (10s. or 12s.) There is one other kind of conveyance for women, that is the sedan-chair; it is not a cheap mode of transit, as you can go no distance under 6s. or 8s.; but the men carry you along quite as quickly as the carriages, and the movement is not unpleasant. These sedan-chairs are much used by the stout Greek and Armenian matrons. I did not notice that Turkish women used them, they seem to be of a sociable character, and like to go out in sets of three or four, and therefore ride in carriages.