A Woman's Journey Round the World Part 46

On the following morning I inquired about the regulations of the quarantine--they were very bad and very dear. A small room, quite empty, cost three drachmas (2s. 3d.) a-day; board, five drachmas (3s. 9d.); very small separate portions, sixty or seventy leptas (6d. or 7d.); the attendance, that is, the superintendence of the guardian, two drachmas a-day; the supply of water, fifteen leptas daily; the physician, a drachma; and another drachma on leaving, for which he inspects the whole party, and examines the state of their health. Several other things were to be had at a similar price, and every article of furniture has to be hired.

I cannot understand how it is that the government pays so little attention to inst.i.tutions which are established for sanitary purposes and which the poor cannot avoid. They must suffer more privation here than at home; they cannot have any hot meals, for the landlord, who is not restricted in his prices, charges five or six times the value. Several artizans who had come by the vessel were put into the same room with a servant-girl. These people had no hot food the twelve days; they lived entirely upon bread, cheese, and dried figs. The girl, after a few days, begged me to let her come into my room, as the people had not behaved properly to her. In what a position the poor girl would have been placed if there had not happened to be a woman among the pa.s.sengers, or if I had refused to receive her!

Are such arrangements worthy of a public inst.i.tution? Why are there not a few rooms fitted up at the expense of government for the poor?

Why cannot they have a plain hot meal once in the day for a moderate price? The poor surely suffer enough by not being able to earn anything for so long a time, without being deprived of their hard earnings in such a shameful manner!

On the second day the court-yard was opened, and we were permitted to walk about in an inclosed s.p.a.ce a hundred and fifty paces wide, on the sea-sh.o.r.e. The view was very beautiful; the whole of the Cyclades lay before us: small, mountainous islands, mostly uninhabited and covered over with woods. Probably they were formerly a part of the mainland, and were separated by some violent convulsion of nature.

On the fourth day our range was extended, we were allowed to walk as far as the hills surrounding the lazaretto under the care of a guard. The remains of a temple stand upon these hills, fragments of a wall, and a very much decayed column. The latter, which consisted of a single piece of stone, was fluted, and, judging from the circ.u.mference, had been very high. These ruins are said to be those of the remarkably fine temple of Jupiter.

21st October. This was the day we were set at liberty. We had ordered a small vessel the evening before which was to take us to Athens early in the morning. But my fellow-travellers would insist upon first celebrating their freedom at a tavern, and from this reason it was 11 o'clock before we started. I availed myself of this time to look about the town and its environs. It is very small and contains no handsome buildings. The only remains of antiquity which I found were traces of the floor of a room in Mosaic work of coloured stones. From what I could see of the island of AEgina, it appeared extremely barren and naked, and it does not show any indications of having been once a flouris.h.i.+ng seat of art and commerce.

AEgina is a Greek island, about two square miles in extent, it was formerly a separate state, and is said to have received the name of AEgina from the daughter of AEsop. It is supposed that the first money of Greece was coined in this island.

Our pa.s.sage to the Piraeus occupied a long time. There was not a breath of wind, and the sailors were obliged to row; we did not land at our destination until nearly 8 in the evening. We were first visited by the health-officer, who read through the certificates which we brought from the quarantine very leisurely. There was unfortunately n.o.body among us who was inclined to make it more understandable to him by a few drachmas. Of course we could not neglect going to the police-office; but it was already closed, in consequence of which we dare not leave the town. I went into a large fine-looking coffee-house to look for night quarters. I was conducted to a room in which half of the window-panes were broken.

The attendant said this was of no consequence, it was only necessary to close the shutters. In other respects the room looked very well but I had scarcely laid down on the bed when certain animals compelled me to take to flight. I laid down upon the sofa, which was no better. Lastly, I tried an easy chair, in which I pa.s.sed the night, not in the most agreeable position.

I had already been told in AEgina of the great dirtiness and number of vermin prevalent in the Piraean inns, and had been warned against pa.s.sing a night there; but what was to be done? for we could not venture to leave the town without permission of the police.

22nd October. The distance of the harbour of the Piraeus from Athens is thirteen stadia, or six English miles. The road leads through olive-plantations and between barren hills. The Acropolis remains continually in sight; the town of Athens does not appear till afterwards. I had intended to remain eight days in Athens, in order to see all the monuments and remarkable places of the town and environs leisurely; but I had scarcely got out of the carriage when I heard the news of the breaking out of the Vienna revolution of October.

I had heard of the Paris revolution of the 24th February while in Bombay; that of March in Germany, at Baghdad; and the other political disturbances while at Tebris, Tiflis, and other places.

No news had astonished me so much in my whole life as that from Vienna. My comfortable, peace-loving Austrians, and an overthrow of the government! I thought the statement so doubtful, that I could not give full credit to the verbal information of the Resident at Baghdad; he was obliged to show it to me in black and white in the newspaper to convince me. The affair of March so delighted and inspirited me that I felt proud of being an Austrian. The later occurrences of May, however, cooled my enthusiasm; and that of the 6th of October completely filled me with sadness and dejection. No overthrow of a state ever began so promisingly. It would have stood alone in history if the people had gone on in the spirit of the March movement; and then to end in such a way! I was so grieved and upset by the result of the 6th of October, that I lost all enjoyment of everything. Moreover, I knew my friends were in Vienna, and I had heard nothing from them. I should have hastened there immediately if there had been an opportunity of doing so; but I was obliged to wait till the next day, as the steamer did not start till then. I made arrangements to go by it, and then took a cicerone to show me all the objects of interest in the town, more for diversion than pleasure.

My fate had been very unfortunate; twelve days I had patiently endured being shut up in the lazaretto at AEgina, in order to be able to see the cla.s.sic country, and now I was so anxious to leave it that I had neither rest nor peace.

Athens, the capital of the former State of Attica, is said to have been founded in the year 1300, fourteen hundred years before Christ, by Cecrops, from whom it then took the name of Cecropia, which in after-times was retained only by the castle: under Eriktonius the town was named "Athens." The original town stood upon a rock in the centre of a plain, which was afterwards covered with buildings; the upper part was called the "Acropolis," the lower the "Katopolis;"

only a part of the fortress, the famous Acropolis, remains on the mountain, where the princ.i.p.al works of art of Athens stand. The princ.i.p.al feature was the temple of Minerva, or the Parthenon; even its ruins excite the astonishment of the world. The building is said to have been 215 feet long, ninety-seven feet broad, and seventy feet high; here stood the statue of Minerva, by Phidias.

This masterly work was executed in gold and ivory; its height was forty-six feet, and it is said to have weighed more than 2000 pounds. Fifty-five columns of the entrance to the temple still remain, as well as parts of enormous blocks of marble which rest upon them, and belonged to the arches and roof.

This temple was destroyed by the Persians, and was again restored with greater beauty by Pericles, about 440 years after the birth of Christ.

There are some fine remains of the temples of Minerva and Neptune, and the extent of the amphitheatre can still be seen; there is but little of the theatre of Bacchus remaining.

Outside the Acropolis stands the temple of Theseus and that of Jupiter Olympus; the one on the north, the other on the south side.

The former is in the Doric style, and is surrounded by thirty-six fine columns. On the metope are represented the deeds of Theseus in beautiful reliefs. The interior of the temple is full of fine sculptures, epitaphs, and other works in stone, most of which belong to the other temples, but are collected here. Outside the temple stand several marble seats which have been brought from the neighbouring Areopagus, the former place of a.s.sembly for the patricians. Of the Areopagus itself nothing more is to be seen than a chamber cut out of the rock, to which similarly cut steps lead.

Of the temple of Jupiter Olympus so much of the foundation-walls still remain as to show what its size was; there are also sixteen beautiful columns, fifty-eight feet in height. This temple, which was completed by Hadrian, is said to have exceeded in beauty and magnificence all the buildings of Athens. The exterior was decorated by one hundred and twenty fluted columns six feet in diameter and fifty-nine in height. The gold and ivory statue of Jupiter was, like that of Minerva, the production of the masterly hand of Phidias. All the temples and buildings were of pure white marble.

Not far from the Areopagus is the Pnyx, where the free people of Athens met in council. Of this nothing more remains than the rostrum, hewn in the rock, and the seat of the scribe. What feelings agitate the mind when it is remembered what men have stood there and spoke from that spot!

It was with sadness that I examined the cave near here where Socrates was imprisoned and poisoned. Above this memorable grotto stands a plain monument erected in memory of Philopapoe.

The Turks surrounded the Acropolis with a broad wall, in the building of which they made use of many fragments of columns and other remains of the most beautiful temples.

No remnants of antiquity are to be seen in the old town of Athens except the Tower of the Winds, or, as others call it, Diogenes'

Lantern, a small temple in the form of an octagon, covered with fine sculpture; also the monument of Lysicrates. This consists of a pedestal, some columns, and a dome in the Corinthian style.

The chapel Maria Maggiore, is said to have been built by the Venetians, 700 years after Christ. Its greatest peculiarity is that it was the first Christian church in Athens.

The view of the whole country from the Acropolis is also very interesting; there can be seen the Hymetos, the Pentelikon, towards Eleusis, Marathon, Phylae, and Dekelea, the harbour, the sea, and the course of the Ilissus.

Athens contains a considerable number of houses, most of which are, however, small and unimportant; the beautiful country-houses, on the contrary, surrounded by tasty gardens, have a very agreeable appearance.

The small observatory was built by Baron Sina, the well-known banker in Vienna, who is by birth a Greek.

The royal palace, which is of modern date, is built of brilliant white marble, in the form of a large quadrangle. On two sides, which occupy a large part of the breadth of the wings, under a peristyle, is a kind of small porch which rests upon pillars. The one approach is for the ministers, amba.s.sadors, etc., the other for the royal family. With the exception of these two peristyles, the whole building is very tasteless, and has not the least ornament; the windows are in the ordinary form; and the high large walls appear so naked, bare, and flat, that even the dazzling white of the beautiful marble produces no effect; and it is only on a close approach that it can be seen what a costly material has been employed in the building.

I regretted having seen this palace, especially opposite to the Acropolis, on a spot which has made its works of art as cla.s.sic as its heroes.

The palace is surrounded by a rather pretty though recently-formed garden. In the front stand a few palms, which have been brought from Syria, but they bear no fruit. The country is otherwise barren and naked.

The marble of which this palace is built, as well as the temples and other buildings on the Acropolis, is obtained from the quarries of the neighbouring mountain, Pentelikon, where the quant.i.ty of this beautiful stone is so great that whole towns might be built of it.

It was Sunday, and the weather was very fine, {335} to which I was indebted for seeing all the fas.h.i.+onable world of Athens, and even the Court, in the open promenade. This place is a plain avenue, at the end of which a wooden pavilion is erected. It is not decorated by either lawns or flower-beds. The military bands play every Sunday from five to six. The King rides or drives with his Queen to this place to show himself to the people. This time he came in an open carriage with four horses, and stopped to hear several pieces of music. He was in Greek costume; the Queen wore an ordinary French dress.

The Greek or rather Albanian costume is one of the handsomest there is. The men wear full frocks, made of white perkal, which reach from the hips to the knees, buskins from the knee to the feet, and shoes generally of red leather. A close-fitting vest of coloured silk without arms, over a silk s.h.i.+rt, and over this another close- fitting spencer of fine red, blue, or brown cloth, which is fastened only at the waist by a few b.u.t.tons or a narrow band, and lays open at the top. The sleeves of the spencer are slit up, and are either left loose or slightly held together by some cords round the wrists; the collar of the s.h.i.+rt is a little turned over. The vest and spencer are tastily ornamented with cords, ta.s.sels, spangles and b.u.t.tons of gold, silver or silk, according to the means of the wearer. The material, colour and ornament of the Zaruchi correspond with those of the spencer and vest. A dagger is generally worn in the girdle, together with a pair of pistols. The head-dress is a red fez, with a blue ta.s.sel.

The Greek dress is, as far as I saw, less worn by the women, and even then much of its originality is lost. The princ.i.p.al part of the dress consists of a French garment, which is open at the breast, over this a close spencer is drawn on, which is also open, and the sleeves wide and rather shorter than those of the gown. The front edges of the gown and spencer are trimmed with gold lace. The women and girls wear on their head a very small fez, which is bound round with rose or other coloured c.r.a.pe.

24th October. I left Athens by the small steamer Baron Kubeck, seventy-horse power, and went as far as Calamachi (twenty-eight miles). Here I had to leave the s.h.i.+p and cross the Isthmus, three English miles broad. At Lutrachi we went on board another vessel.

During the pa.s.sage to Calamachi, which lasts only a few hours, the little town of Megara is seen upon a barren hill.

Nothing is more unpleasant in travelling than changing the conveyance, especially when it is a good one, and you can only lose by doing so. We were in this situation. Herr Leitenberg was one of the best and most attentive of all captains that I had ever met with in my travels, and we were all sorry to have to leave him and his s.h.i.+p. Even in Calamachi, where we remained this day and the following, as the s.h.i.+p which was to carry us on from Lutrachi did not arrive, on account of contrary winds, until the 25th, he attended to us with the greatest politeness.

The village of Calamachi offers but little of interest, the few houses have only been erected since the steamers plied, and the tolerably high mountains on which it lies are for the most part barren, or grown over with low brambles. We took several walks on the Isthmus, and ascended minor heights, from whence on one side is seen the gulf of Lepanto, and on the other the AEgean sea. In front of us stood the large mountain, Akrokorinth, rising high above all its companions. Its summit is embellished by a well-preserved fortification, which is called the remains of the Castle of Akrokorinth, and was used by the Turks in the last war as a fortress. The formerly world-famous city of Corinth, after which all the fittings of luxury and sumptuousness in the interior of palaces were named, and which gave the name to a distinct order of architecture, is reduced to a small town with scarcely a thousand inhabitants, and lies at the foot of the mountain, in the midst of fields and vineyards. It owes the whole of its present celebrity to its small dried grapes, called currants.

It is said that no town of Greece had so many beautiful statues of stone and marble as Corinth. It was upon this isthmus, which consists of a narrow ridge of mountains, and is covered with dense fig-groves, in which stood a beautiful temple of Neptune, were held the various Isthmian games.

How greatly a people or a country may degenerate! The Grecian people, at one time the first in the world, are now the furthest behind! I was told by everyone that in Greece it was neither safe to trust myself with a guide nor to wander about alone, as I had done in other countries; indeed, I was warned here in Calamachi not to go too far from the harbour, and to return before the dusk of the evening.

26th October. We did not start from Lutrachi until towards noon, by the steamer h.e.l.lenos, of one hundred and twenty-horse power.

We anch.o.r.ed for a few hours in the evening near Vostizza, the ancient AEgion, now an unimportant village, at the foot of a mountain.

27th October, Patras. That portion of Greece which I had already seen was neither rich in beauty, well cultivated, nor thickly inhabited. Here were, at least, plains and hills covered with meadows, fields, and vineyards. The town, on the Gulf of Lepanto, was formerly an important place of trade; and before the breaking out of the Greek revolution in 1821, contained 20,000 inhabitants; it has now only 7,000. The town is defended by three fortresses, one of which stands upon a hill, and two at the entrance of the harbour. The town is neither handsome nor clean, and the streets are narrow. The high mountains pleased me better; and their chain can be followed for a considerable distance.

I saw grapes here whose beauty and size induced me to buy some; but I found them so hard, dry, and tasteless, that I did not even venture to give them to a sailor, but threw them into the sea.

28th October. Corfu is the largest of the Ionian Islands, which formerly belonged to Greece, and lie at the entrance to the Adriatic sea. Corfu, the ancient Corcyra, has been subject to England since 1815.

The town of Corfu is situated in a more beautiful and fertile country than Patras, and is far larger. It contains 18,000 inhabitants. Adjoining the town are two romantic peaks of rock, with strong fortified works, upon which stand the telegraph and the lighthouse. Both are surrounded by artificial ditches, with draw- bridges leading across. The immediate environs of the town, as well as the whole island, are rich in delightful groves of olive and orange trees.

The town contains handsome houses and streets, with the exception of the bye-streets, which are remarkably crooked and not very clean.

At the entrance of the town stands a large covered stone hall, in which on one side are the stalls of the butchers; on the other, those of the fishermen. In the open s.p.a.ce in front are exposed the choicest vegetables and most beautiful fruits. The theatre presents a very pretty appearance; it would seem, from the sculptures upon it, to have been used for a church. The princ.i.p.al square is large and handsome; it is intersected by several avenues, and one side faces the sea. The palace of the English governor stands here; a fine building in the Grecian-Italian style.

The famous and much-visited church of St. Spiridion is but small; it contains many oil-paintings, some are good specimens of the old Italian School. In a small dark chapel at the furthest end of the church lies, in a silver sarcophagus, the body of St. Spiridion, who is held in great veneration by the Ionians. The chapel is always full of devotees who tenderly kiss the sarcophagus.