[E]The Turks count their hours from sunset, which is always 12 o’clock; when the next day begins.
[E]The Turks count their hours from sunset, which is always 12 o’clock; when the next day begins.
All at once I heard a sound that seemed strange and yetfamiliar. It was the song of the cuckoo of Crete. It resembles the call of our cuckoo, in so far as it also consists of two notes; but they are not the same notes, and he rests longer on the last than our cuckoo does. He sang a long time, I heard him still in my sleep. Of other birds of any kind I heard or saw little on my excursions through Crete. A few large black creatures, which I took for ravens, a flock of what seemed a kind of pigeon, swallows, and sparrows, who there as here made as much noise as they could; but I heard no sound that resembled the song of the lark, the thrush, the blackbird, or the nightingale. Altogether the island seemed to me poor as regards animal life. Horses and mules are very beautiful in form, but extremely small; so are the cows and oxen, which are not larger than a fine donkey is with us. The sheep and goats are also quite diminutive creatures. The little lambs are lovely, but when they get a few monthsold, they look very lean and miserable. After a night which had not been very refreshing, for I was not quite accustomed yet to that kind of night accommodation, we set out early in the morning for our second day’s expedition.
Our way led us through the valley I had looked down into from our castle tower at Xopoli, towards the sea-shore. When we had reached it, my guide jumped up on the horse behind Sali, and the party put itself into a canter, which with little intervals lasted two hours; we only fell into a walk when sometimes the shore became very shingly, or when the sand was very soft and wet, which the mules particularly disliked. They seemed never to mind how steep, or stony, a road was, but on damp and muddy places they looked with great suspicion, and could only be coaxed or driven across. After two hours sharp riding we came to a little river that flows into the sea. Mustapha led us to a point where we could cross, and then under the broken arch of a ruined bridge we halted and breakfasted with a hearty appetite. What however somewhat disturbed our enjoyment of the meal was, that Sali told us, now would begin the bad roads. After what we had gone through, to be told that the bad roads were but coming, was rather hard. However, as like to Küsnach“there led no other road” to Rettimo, we set out for it, when we had rested ourselves. And the reality was far worse than my gloomiest anticipations had pictured. As I had never thought of trying a ride on the top of Milan Cathedral, I could have formed no idea of the road from Petres (our halting place) to Rettimo. Like the top of that famous building, we were in a forest of stone. The sea, the rain, the air, had worked almost as elaborately as the mason and sculptor. And through this forest of stone and rock, up steep mountains and down again, sometimes high above the sea, then again so near to it that the spray wetted the feet of our mules, we had to pick our way for two hours. To make matters worse still, a heavy shower came on, and in order to protect ourselves a little against it, we had to turn our backs to it, and halt till it passed over. Happily the high wind prevented the shower from continuing, so after a little while we were able to proceed on our journey. My husband, who had put on his waterproof, and tied a handkerchief round his ears, over his battered wide-a-wake, to prevent its being blown away, looked anything but dignified, which however, under the circumstances, was of small consequence.
Our guides, on the contrary, pulling the capuchof their cloaks over their heads, looked if anything more picturesque and imposing. The worst part of the road lasted about two hours. That seems a short time; not worth mentioning, but any one who for instance has crossed the Channel in very rough weather, and been wretchedly sick all the time, will know that two hours may seem very long. However, our mules carried us safely along, and by and bye the road, although still very bad, was on comparatively level ground, which made it much less trying. For the last mile or so the road was good, and thus we reached Rettimo. It lies on a promontory, which ends in a cliff, on which a fortress is built that looks strong and foreboding. There are no gardens here like in Canea, the shrubs and trees here and there are stunted, and grow in a horizontal direction, as trees and shrubs will do near a sea-shore which is exposed to high winds. One solitary palm-tree is an exception; it stands in some little garden in the town, and rises high above the houses, waving its graceful leaves. “What is this town here for, in this stony wilderness, on a rocky coast, with but a small harbour, which can be entered in fair weather only?” I asked our host, M. G—. He told me that behind these mountains are fruitful valleys full of olive-trees, the fruit ofwhich the peasants bring to Rettimo, where it is made into oil and soap. We visited one of the many soap manufactories in Rettimo; the soap was very nice and pure, and I heartily wished that it had been more extensively used in the island, instead of being exported to Constantinople, Trieste, &c.
M. G—, the English Vice Consul, in whose house we lived, and who received us with great kindness, is an Ionian Greek. He spoke Italian, and one of his sons had also a slight knowledge of that language, which enabled him generally to make out what we said, though he seemed to have great difficulty in replying. My husband, however, persisted in saying that M. Pietro’s want of fluency in speech, arose from another cause than from a want of knowledge of the language. He said he was sure I had made a conquest, and I am inclined not altogether to disbelieve that assertion, for he certainly seemed uncommonly fond of being in the same room with us, and whenever he was there he stared at me with a mixed expression of kindness and wonder in his face, which was so ridiculous that it cost me a supreme effort to suppress a smile whenever I looked at him. When he heard that I was fond of flowers he brought me some twice or thrice a day. Wherehe got them from I cannot tell, for they are not so plentiful at Rettimo as they are at beautiful Canea.
M. G—’s wife, daughter, and daughters-in-law understood nothing but Greek. I could, therefore, only speak with them by signs, and as one can convey but very simple ideas by that mode of communication, we did not tell one another much. They were dressed in a way that was a mixture of primitive simplicity and gorgeous finery. With a plain cotton dress, and a handkerchief tied round the head, they would yet wear splendid diamond ear-rings, pearl necklace, bracelets, etc. There was the same incongruity observable in their houses, which were wanting in many of what seem to us the very first and indispensable comforts of life, while the beds had gold embroidered counterpanes. With the children I got on better than with these ladies. I won at once the heart of a little boy to whom I showed my air-cushion, and who never tired of filling it and then letting the air escape again. He would abandon this delightful occupation only in order to look through my opera-glass; but, of course, using it the wrong way, so as to make things that were near appear far off and small, which he seemed to think much more interesting than bringing distant objects near.
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. Whyhad 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 exceedinglyrough, and now and then we had a pelting rain. Under these circumstances we found Rettimo anything but a pleasantsejour, 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 andproudly 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,”