RHODES[65]

Coming on deck the next morning at the fresh hour of sunrise, I found we were at Rhodes. We lay just off the semicircular harbor, which is clasped by walls—partly shaken down by earthquakes—which have noble, round towers at each embracing end. Rhodes is, from the sea, one of the most picturesque cities in the Mediterranean, altho it has little remains of that ancient splendor which caused Strabo to prefer it to Rome or Alexandria. The harbor wall, which is flanked on each side bystout and round, stone windmills, extends up the hill, and becoming double, surrounds the old town; these massive fortifications of the Knights of St. John have withstood the onsets of enemies and the tremors of the earth, and, with the ancient moat, excite the curiosity of this so-called peaceful age of iron-clads and monster cannon. The city ascends the slope of the hill and passes beyond the wall. Outside and on the right toward the sea are a picturesque group of a couple of dozen stone windmills, and some minarets and a church-tower or two. Higher up the hill is sprinkled a little foliage, a few mulberry trees, and an isolated palm or two; and, beyond, the island is only a mass of broken, bold, rocky mountains. Of its forty-five miles of length, running southwesterly from the little point on which the city stands, we can see but little.

Whether or not Rhodes emerged from the sea at the command of Apollo, the Greeks exprest by this tradition of its origin their appreciation of its gracious climate, fertile soil, and exquisite scenery. From remote antiquity it had fame as a seat of arts and letters, and of a vigorous maritime power, and the romance of its early centuries was equaled if not surpassed when it became the residence of the Knights of St. John. I believe that the first impress of its civilization was given by the Phœnicians; it was the home of the Dorian race before the time of the Trojan War, and its three cities were members of the Dorian Hexapolis; it was, in fact, a flourishing maritime confederacy strong enough to send colonies to the distant Italian coast, and Sybaris and Parthenope (modern Naples) perpetuated the luxurious refinementof their founders. The city of Rhodes itself was founded about four hundred years before Christ, and the splendor of its palaces, its statues and paintings gave it a pre-eminence among the most magnificent cities of the ancient world. If the earth of this island could be made to yield its buried treasures as Cyprus has, we should doubtless have new proofs of the influence of Asiatic civilization upon the Greeks, and be able to trace in the early Doric arts and customs the superior civilization of the Phœnicians, and of the masters of the latter in science and art, the Egyptians.

Naturally, every traveler who enters the harbor of Rhodes hopes to see the site of one of the seven wonders of the world, the Colossus. He is free to place it on either mole at the entrance of the harbor, but he comprehends at once that a statue which was only one hundred and five feet high could never have extended its legs across the port. The fame of this colossal bronze statue of the sun is disproportioned to the period of its existence; it stood only fifty-six years after its erection, being shaken down by an earthquake in the year 224 B.C., and encumbering the ground with its fragments till the advent of the Moslem conquerors.

Passing from the quay through a highly ornamented Gothic gateway, we ascended the famous historic street, still called the Street of the Knights, the massive houses of which have withstood the shocks of earthquakes and the devastation of Saracenic and Turkish occupation. This street, of whose palaces we have heard so much, is not imposing; it is not wide, its solid stone houses are only two stories high, and their fronts are now disfigured by cheap Arab balconies; but the façades are gray with age. All along are remains of carved windows. Gothic sculptured doorways and shields and coats of arms, crosses and armorial legends, are set in the walls, partially defaced by time and the respect of Suleiman for the Knights, have spared the mementos of their faith and prowess. I saw no inscriptions that are intact, but made out upon one shield the words "voluntas mei est." The carving is all beautiful.

We went through the silent streets, waking only echoes of the past, out to the ruins of the once elegant church of St. John, which was shaken down by a powder-explosion some thirty years ago, and utterly flattened by an earthquake some years afterward. Outside the ramparts we met, and saluted, with the freedom of travelers, a gorgeous Turk who was taking the morning air, and whom our guide in bated breath said was the governor. In this part of the town is the Mosque of Suleiman; in the portal are two lovely marble columns, rich with age; the lintels are exquisitely carved with flowers, arms, casques, musical instruments, the crossed sword and the torch, and the mandolin, perhaps the emblem of some troubadour knight. Wherever we went we found bits of old carving, remains of columns, sections of battlemented roofs. The town is saturated with the old Knights. Near the mosque is a foundation of charity, a public kitchen, at which the poor were fed or were free to come and cook their food; it is in decay now, and the rooks were sailing about its old, round-topped chimneys.

There are no Hellenic remains in the city, and the only remembrance of that past which wesearched for was the antique coin, which has upon one side the head of Medusa and upon the other the rose (rhoda) which gave the town its name. The town was quiet; but in pursuit of this coin in the Jews' quarter we started up swarms of traders, were sent from Isaac to Jacob, and invaded dark shops and private houses where Jewish women and children were just beginning to complain of the morning light. Our guide was a jolly Greek, who was willing to awaken the whole town in search of a silver coin. The traders, when we had routed them out, had little to show in the way of antiquities. Perhaps the best representative of the modern manufactures of Rhodes is the wooden shoe, which is in form like the Damascus clog, but is inlaid with more taste. The people whom we encountered in our morning walk were Greeks or Jews. The morning atmosphere was delicious, and we could well believe that the climate of Rhodes is the finest in the Mediterranean, and also that it is the least exciting of cities.

Beyond Thasos is the Thracian coast and Mt. Pangaus, and at the foot of it Philippi, the Macedonian town where republican Rome fought its last battle, where Cassius leaned upon his sword-point, believing everything lost. Brutus transported the body of his comrade to Thasos and raised for him a funeral pyre; and twenty days later, on the same field, met again that specter of death which had summoned him to Philippi. It was not many years after this victory of the Imperial power that a greater triumph was won at Philippi, when Paul and Silas, cast into prison, sang praises unto God at midnight, and an earthquake shook the house and opened the prison doors.

In the afternoon we came in sight of snowy Mt. Athos, an almost perpendicular limestone rock, rising nearly six thousand four hundred feet out of the sea. The slender promontory which this magnificent mountain terminates is forty miles long and has only an average breadth of four miles. The ancient canal of Xerxes quite severed it from the mainland. The peninsula, level at the canal, is a jagged stretch of mountains (seamed by chasms), which rise a thousand, two thousand, four thousand feet, and at last front the sea with the sublime peak of Athos, the site of the most conspicuous beacon-fire of Agamemnon. The entire promontory is, and has been since the time of Constantine, ecclesiastic ground; every mountain and valley has its convent; besides the twenty great monasteries are many pious retreats. All the sects of the Greek church are here represented; the communities pay a tribute to the Sultan, but the government is in the hands of four presidents, chosen by the synod, which holds weekly sessions and takes the presidents,yearly, from the monasteries in rotation. Since their foundation these religious houses have maintained against Christians and Saracens an almost complete independence, and preserved in their primitive simplicity the manners and usages of the earliest foundations.

Here, as nowhere else in Europe or Asia, can one behold the architecture, the dress, the habits of the Middle Ages. The good devotees have been able to keep themselves thus in the darkness and simplicity of the past by a rigorous exclusion of the sex always impatient of monotony, to which all the changes of the world are due. No woman, from the beginning till now, has ever been permitted to set foot on the peninsula. Nor is this all; no female animal is suffered on the holy mountain, not even a hen. I suppose, tho I do not know, that the monks have an inspector of eggs, whose inherited instincts of aversion to the feminine gender enable him to detect and reject all those in which lurk the dangerous sex. Few of the monks eat meat, half the days of the year are fast days, they practise occasionally abstinence from food for two or three days, reducing their pulses to the feeblest beating, and subduing their bodies to a point that destroys their value even as spiritual tabernacles. The united community is permitted to keep a guard of fifty Christian soldiers, and the only Moslem on the island is the solitary Turkish officer who represents the Sultan; his position can not be one generally coveted by the Turks, since the society of women is absolutely denied him. The libraries of Mt. Athos are full of unarranged manuscripts, which are probably mainly filled with the theologic rubbish of the controversial ages, and can scarcely be expected to yield again anything so valuable as the Tishendorf Scriptures.

At sunset we were close under Mt. Athos, and could distinguish the buildings of the Laura Convent, amid the woods beneath the frowning cliff. And now was produced the apparition of a sunset, with this towering mountain cone for a centerpiece, that surpassed all our experience and imagination. The sea was like satin for smoothness, absolutely waveless, and shone with the colors of changeable silk, blue, green, pink, and amethyst. Heavy clouds gathered about the sun, and from behind them he exhibited burning spectacles, magnificent fireworks, vast shadow-pictures, scarlet cities, and gigantic figures stalking across the sky. From one crater of embers he shot up a fan-like flame that spread to the zenith and was reflected on the water. His rays lay along the sea in pink, and the water had the sheen of iridescent glass. The whole sea for leagues was like this; even Lemnos and Samothrace lay in a dim pink and purple light in the east. There were vast clouds in huge walls, with towers and battlements, and in all fantastic shapes—one a gigantic cat with a preternatural tail, a cat of doom four degrees long. All this was piled about Mt. Athos, with its sharp summit of snow, its dark sides of rock.

FOOTNOTES:[1]From "Pictures from Italy." Dickens made his trip to Italy in 1844.[2]From "Italy: Florence and Venice." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers. Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1869. Translated by John Durand.[3]Begun in 1386. Its architects were Germans and Frenchmen.[4]From "Italy: Florence and Venice." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1869. Translated by John Durand.[5]From "The Story of Pisa." Published by E. P. Dutton & Co.[6]From "Pictures From Italy."[7]From "Cities of Southern Italy and Sicily."[8]From "Travels in Italy."[9]A German friend with whom Goethe was traveling.[10]From "Pictures from Italy."[11]From "Italy: Rome and Naples." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1869. Translated by John Durand.[12]This term designates a road built along the rocky shore of a seaside, being a figurative application of the architectural term "cornice."—Translator's note.[13]From "Cities of Southern Italy and Sicily."[14]From a letter to Thomas Love Peacock, written in 1819.[15]From "Pictures from Italy."[16]From "Journeys in Italy." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Brentano's. Copyright, 1902.[17]The memoir writer.[18]From "Journeys in Italy." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Brentano's. Copyright, 1902.[19]From "Unknown Switzerland." Published by James Pott & Co. Politically, Lake Lugano is part Swiss and part Italian.[20]The St. Gothard.[21]From a letter to Thomas Love Peacock, written in 1818.[22]From "The Spell of the Italian Lakes." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, L. C. Page & Co. Copyright, 1907.[23]From "Remarks on Several Parts of Italy in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703."[24]In the town are now about 1,500 people; in the whole territory of the republic, 9,500. San Marino lies about fourteen miles southwest from Rimini.[25]At the present time, fourteen hundred years; so that San Marino is the oldest as well as the smallest republic in the world.[26]From "French and Italian Note-Books." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, Houghton, Mifflin Co., publishers of Hawthorne's works. Copyright, 1871, 1883, 1889.[27]The author's son, Julian Hawthorne.[28]From "Italian Cities." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1900.[29]From "Italy: Florence and Venice." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1869.[30]From "Historical and Architectural Sketches: Chiefly Italian." Published by the Macmillan Co.[31]From "Cities of Southern Italy and Sicily."[32]From "Letters of a Traveler."[33]From "Historical and Architectural Sketches: Chiefly Italian." Published by the Macmillan Co.[34]From "Sicily: The Garden of the Mediterranean." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, L. C. Page & Co. Copyright, 1909.[35]From "The History of Sicily." Published by the Macmillan Co.[36]The Greek name for Girgenti.[37]From "Travels in Italy."[38]From "Travels in Italy."[39]From "Sicily: The Garden of the Mediterranean." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, L. C. Page & Co. Copyright, 1909.[40]From "Vacation Days in Greece." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1903.[41]From "Constantinople." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1875.[42]From "Rambles and Studies in Greece." Published by the Macmillan Co.[43]From "Travels in Greece and Russia." Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.[44]From the "Description of Greece." Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer who lived in the second century A.D.—in the time of the Roman emperors, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius.[45]From "Rambles and Studies in Greece." Published by the Macmillan Co.[46]The Venetian commander who bombarded the Parthenon in 1687.[47]Edward Dodwell (1767-1832), an English traveler and archeologist, notable for his investigations in Greece when it had been little explored, and author of various records of his work.—Author's note.[48]From "Rambles and Studies in Greece." Published by the Macmillan Co.[49]This very pattern, in mahogany, with cane seats, and adapted, like all Greek chairs, for loose cushions, was often used in Chippendale work, and may still be found in old mansions furnished at that epoch.—Author's note.[50]From "Rambles and Studies in Greece." Published by the Macmillan Co.[51]From "Travels in Greece and Russia." Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.[52]From "Rambles and Studies in Greece." Published by the Macmillan Co.[53]From "Greece and the Aegean Islands." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1907.[54]From the "Description of Greece." Pausanias wrote in the time of Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius.[55]From "Vacation Days in Greece." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1903.[56]From "In the Levant." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1875. Salonica, formerly Turkish territory, was added to the territory of Greece in 1913, under the terms of the treaty of peace that followed the Balkan war against Turkey.[57]From "In the Levant." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1875.[58]From "Travels in Greece and Russia." Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.[59]From "Travels in Greece and Russia," Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.[60]From "Rambles and Studies in Greece." Published by the Macmillan Co.[61]From "Travels in Greece and Russia." Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.[62]From "Greece and the Ægean Islands." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1907.[63]From "Sketches from the Subject and Neighbor Lands of Venice." Published by the Macmillan Co.[64]The ancient Greek name of Corfu.[65]From "In the Levant." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1876.[66]From "In the Levant." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1876. As one of the results of the Balkan war of 1912-1913, Mt. Athos, which had formerly been under Turkish rule, was added to the territory of Greece. Nature made Mt. Athos a part of the mainland, but a canal was cut by Xerxes across the lowland at the base of the lofty promontory, making it an island. Some parts of this canal still remain.

[1]From "Pictures from Italy." Dickens made his trip to Italy in 1844.

[2]From "Italy: Florence and Venice." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers. Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1869. Translated by John Durand.

[3]Begun in 1386. Its architects were Germans and Frenchmen.

[4]From "Italy: Florence and Venice." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1869. Translated by John Durand.

[5]From "The Story of Pisa." Published by E. P. Dutton & Co.

[6]From "Pictures From Italy."

[7]From "Cities of Southern Italy and Sicily."

[8]From "Travels in Italy."

[9]A German friend with whom Goethe was traveling.

[10]From "Pictures from Italy."

[11]From "Italy: Rome and Naples." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1869. Translated by John Durand.

[12]This term designates a road built along the rocky shore of a seaside, being a figurative application of the architectural term "cornice."—Translator's note.

[13]From "Cities of Southern Italy and Sicily."

[14]From a letter to Thomas Love Peacock, written in 1819.

[15]From "Pictures from Italy."

[16]From "Journeys in Italy." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Brentano's. Copyright, 1902.

[17]The memoir writer.

[18]From "Journeys in Italy." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Brentano's. Copyright, 1902.

[19]From "Unknown Switzerland." Published by James Pott & Co. Politically, Lake Lugano is part Swiss and part Italian.

[20]The St. Gothard.

[21]From a letter to Thomas Love Peacock, written in 1818.

[22]From "The Spell of the Italian Lakes." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, L. C. Page & Co. Copyright, 1907.

[23]From "Remarks on Several Parts of Italy in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703."

[24]In the town are now about 1,500 people; in the whole territory of the republic, 9,500. San Marino lies about fourteen miles southwest from Rimini.

[25]At the present time, fourteen hundred years; so that San Marino is the oldest as well as the smallest republic in the world.

[26]From "French and Italian Note-Books." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, Houghton, Mifflin Co., publishers of Hawthorne's works. Copyright, 1871, 1883, 1889.

[27]The author's son, Julian Hawthorne.

[28]From "Italian Cities." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1900.

[29]From "Italy: Florence and Venice." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1869.

[30]From "Historical and Architectural Sketches: Chiefly Italian." Published by the Macmillan Co.

[31]From "Cities of Southern Italy and Sicily."

[32]From "Letters of a Traveler."

[33]From "Historical and Architectural Sketches: Chiefly Italian." Published by the Macmillan Co.

[34]From "Sicily: The Garden of the Mediterranean." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, L. C. Page & Co. Copyright, 1909.

[35]From "The History of Sicily." Published by the Macmillan Co.

[36]The Greek name for Girgenti.

[37]From "Travels in Italy."

[38]From "Travels in Italy."

[39]From "Sicily: The Garden of the Mediterranean." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, L. C. Page & Co. Copyright, 1909.

[40]From "Vacation Days in Greece." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1903.

[41]From "Constantinople." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1875.

[42]From "Rambles and Studies in Greece." Published by the Macmillan Co.

[43]From "Travels in Greece and Russia." Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.

[44]From the "Description of Greece." Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer who lived in the second century A.D.—in the time of the Roman emperors, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius.

[45]From "Rambles and Studies in Greece." Published by the Macmillan Co.

[46]The Venetian commander who bombarded the Parthenon in 1687.

[47]Edward Dodwell (1767-1832), an English traveler and archeologist, notable for his investigations in Greece when it had been little explored, and author of various records of his work.—Author's note.

[48]From "Rambles and Studies in Greece." Published by the Macmillan Co.

[49]This very pattern, in mahogany, with cane seats, and adapted, like all Greek chairs, for loose cushions, was often used in Chippendale work, and may still be found in old mansions furnished at that epoch.—Author's note.

[50]From "Rambles and Studies in Greece." Published by the Macmillan Co.

[51]From "Travels in Greece and Russia." Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.

[52]From "Rambles and Studies in Greece." Published by the Macmillan Co.

[53]From "Greece and the Aegean Islands." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1907.

[54]From the "Description of Greece." Pausanias wrote in the time of Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius.

[55]From "Vacation Days in Greece." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1903.

[56]From "In the Levant." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1875. Salonica, formerly Turkish territory, was added to the territory of Greece in 1913, under the terms of the treaty of peace that followed the Balkan war against Turkey.

[57]From "In the Levant." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1875.

[58]From "Travels in Greece and Russia." Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.

[59]From "Travels in Greece and Russia," Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.

[60]From "Rambles and Studies in Greece." Published by the Macmillan Co.

[61]From "Travels in Greece and Russia." Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.

[62]From "Greece and the Ægean Islands." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1907.

[63]From "Sketches from the Subject and Neighbor Lands of Venice." Published by the Macmillan Co.

[64]The ancient Greek name of Corfu.

[65]From "In the Levant." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1876.

[66]From "In the Levant." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1876. As one of the results of the Balkan war of 1912-1913, Mt. Athos, which had formerly been under Turkish rule, was added to the territory of Greece. Nature made Mt. Athos a part of the mainland, but a canal was cut by Xerxes across the lowland at the base of the lofty promontory, making it an island. Some parts of this canal still remain.

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