VIEW OF THE MONASTERY OF SAINT BARLAAM, AT METEORAVIEW OF THE MONASTERY OF SAINT BARLAAM, AT METEORA
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Albania—Ignorance at Corfu concerning that Country—Its reported abundance of Game and Robbers—The Disturbed State of the Country—The Albanians—Richness of their Arms—Their free use of them—Comparative Safety of Foreigners—Tragic Fate of a German Botanist—Arrival at Gominitza—Ride to Paramathia—A Night's Bivouac—Reception at Paramathia—Albanian Ladies—Yanina—Albanian Mode of settling a Quarrel—Expected Attack from Robbers—A Body-Guard mounted—Audience with the Vizir—His Views of Criminal Jurisprudence—Retinue of the Vizir—His Troops—Adoption of the European Exercises—Expedition to Berat—Calmness and Self-possession of the Turks—Active Preparations for Warfare—Scene at the Bazaar—Valiant Promises of the Soldiers.
Corfu, Friday, Oct. 31, 1834.—I found I could get no information respecting Albania at Corfu, though the high mountains of Epirus seemed almost to over-hang the island. No one knew anything about it, except that it was a famous place for snipes! It appeared never to have struck traveller or tourist that there was anything in Albania except snipes; whereof one had shot fifteen brace, and another had shot many more, only he did not bring them home, having lost the dead birds in the bushes. There weresome woodcocks also, it was generally believed, and some spake of wild boars, but I had not the advantage of meeting with anybody who could specifically assert that he had shot one: and besides these there were robbers in multitudes. As to that point every one was agreed. Of robbers there was no end: and just at this particular time there was a revolution, or rebellion, or pronunciamiento, or a general election, or something of that sort, going on in Albania; for all the people who came over from thence said that the whole country was in a ferment. In fact there seemed to be a general uproar taking place, during which each party of the free and independent mountaineers deemed it expedient to show their steady adherence to their own side of the question by shooting at any one they saw, from behind a stone or a tree, for fear that person might accidentally be a partizan of the opposite faction.
TATAR, OR GOVERNMENT MESSENGERTATAR, OR GOVERNMENT MESSENGER
The Albanians are great dandies about their arms: the scabbard of their yataghan, and the stocks of their pistols, are almost always of silver, as well as their three or four little cartridge boxes, which are frequently gilt, and sometimes set with garnets and coral; an Albanian is therefore worth shooting, even if he is not of another way of thinking from the gentleman who shoots him. As I understood, however, that they did not shoot so much at Franks because they usually have little about them worth taking, and are not good to eat, I conceived that I should not run any great risk;and I resolved, therefore, not to be thwarted in my intention of exploring some of the monasteries of that country. There is another reason also why Franks are seldom molested in the East—every Arab or Albanian knows that if a Frank has a gun in his hand, which he generally has, there are two probabilities, amounting almost to certainties, with respect to that weapon. One is, that it is loaded; and the other that, if the trigger is pulled, there is a considerable chance of its going off. Now these are circumstances which apply in a much slighter degree to the magazine of small arms which he carries about his own person. But, beyond all this, when a Frank is shot there is such a disturbance made about it! Consuls write letters—pashas are stirred up—guards, kawasses, and tatars gallop like mad about the country, and fire pistols in the air, and live at free quarters in the villages; the murderer is sought for everywhere, and he, or somebody else, is hanged to please the consul; in addition to which the population are beaten with thick sticks ad libitum. All this is extremely disagreeable, and therefore we are seldom shot at, the pastime being too dearly paid for.
The last Frank whom I heard of as having been killed in Albania was a German, who was studying botany. He rejoiced in a blue coat and brass buttons, and wandered about alone, picking up herbs and flowers on the mountains, which he put carefully into a tin box. He continued unmolested for some time, theuniversal opinion being that he was a powerful magician, and that the herbs he was always gathering would enable him to wither up his enemies by some dreadful charm, and also to detect every danger which menaced him. Two or three Albanians had watched him for several days, hiding themselves carefully behind the rocks whenever the philosopher turned towards them; and at last one of the gang, commending himself to all his saints, rested his long gun upon a stone and shot the German through the body. The poor man rolled over, but the Albanian did not venture from his hiding-place until he had loaded his gun again, and then, after sundry precautions, he came out, keeping his eye upon the body, and with his friends behind him, to defend him in case of need. The botanizer, however, was dead enough, and the disappointment of the Albanians was extreme, when they found that his buttons were brass and not gold, for it was the supposed value of these precious ornaments that had incited them to the deed.
I procured some letters of introduction to different persons, sent my English servant and most of my effects to England, and hired a youth to act in the double capacity of servant and interpreter during the journey. One of my friends at Corfu was good enough to procure me the use of a great boat, with I do not know how many oars, belonging to government; and in it I was rowed over the calm bright sea twenty-fourmiles to Gominitza, where I arrived in five hours. Here I hired three horses with pack-saddles, one for my baggage, one for my servant, and one for myself; and away we went towards Paramathia, which place we were told was four hours off. Paramathia is said to be built upon the site of Dodona, although the exact situation of the oracle is not ascertained; but some of the finest bronzes extant were found there thirty or forty years ago, part of which went to Russia, and part came into the possession of Mr. Hawkins, of Bignor, in Sussex, where they are still preserved.
Our horses were not very good, and our roads were worse; and we scrambled and stumbled over the rocks, up and down hill, all the afternoon, without approaching, as it seemed to me, towards any inhabited place. It was now becoming dark, and the muleteers said we had six hours more to do; it was then seven o'clock, P.M.; we could see nothing, and were upon the top of a hill, where there were plenty of stones and some low bushes, through which we were making our way vaguely, suiting ourselves as to a path, and turning our faces towards any point of the compass which we thought most agreeable, for it did not appear that any of the party knew the way. We now held a council as to what was best to be done; and as we saw lights in some houses about a mile off, I desired one of the muleteers to go there and see if we could get alodging for the night. "Go to a house?" said the muleteer, "you don't suppose we could be such fools as to go to a house in Albania, where we know nobody?" "No!" said I, "why not?" "Because we should be murdered, of course," said he; "that is if they thought themselves strong enough to venture to undo their doors and let us in; otherwise they would pretend there was nobody in the house, or fire at us out of the window and set the dogs at us; or——" "Oh!" I replied, "that is quite sufficient; I have no desire to trouble your excellent countrymen, only I don't precisely see what else we are to do just now on the top of this hill. How are they off for wolves in this neighbourhood?" "Why," quoth my friend, "I hope you understand that if anything happens to my horses you are bound to reimburse me: as for ourselves, we are armed, and must take our chance; but I don't think there are many wolves here yet; they don't come down from the mountains quite so soon: though certainly it is getting cold already. But we had better sleep here at all events, and at dawn we shall be able, perhaps, to make out a little better where we have got to." There being nothing else for it, we tied the horses' legs together, and I lay down on a travelling carpet by the side of my servant, under the cover of a bush. Awfully cold it was: the horses trembled and shook themselves every now and then, and held their heads down, and I tried all sorts of postures in hopes ofmaking myself snug, but every change was from bad to worse; I could not get warm any how, and a remarkable fact was, that the more sharp stones I picked out from under the carpet the more numerous and sharper were those that remained: my only comfort was to hear the muleteers rolling about too, and anathematizing the stones most lustily. However, I went to sleep in course of time, and was, as it appeared to me, instantaneously awakened by some one shaking me, and telling me it was four o'clock and time to start. It was still as dark as ever, except that a few stars were visible, and we recommenced our journey, stumbling and scrambling about as we had done before, till we came to a place where the horses stopped of their own accord. This it seemed was a ledge of rock above a precipice, about two hundred feet deep, as I judged by the reflection of the stars in the stream which ran below. The dimness of the light made the place look more dangerous and difficult than perhaps it really was. It seems, however, that we were lucky in finding it, for there was no other way off the hill except by this ledge, which was about twelve feet broad. We got off our horses and led them down; they had probably often been there before, for they made no difficulty about it, and in a few hundred yards, the road becoming better, we mounted again, and after five hours' travelling arrived at Paramathia. Just before entering the place we met a party on foot, armed to the teeth, andall carrying their long guns. One of these gentlemen politely asked me if I had a spare purse about me, or any money which I could turn over to his account; but as I looked very dirty and shabby, and as we were close to the town, he did not press his demand, but only asked by which road I intended to leave it. I told him I should remain there for the present, and as we had now reached the houses, he took his departure, to my great satisfaction.
On inquiring for the person to whom I had a letter of introduction, I found he was a shopkeeper who sold cloth in the bazaar. We accordingly went to his shop and found him sitting among his merchandise. When he had read the letter he was very civil, and shutting up his shop, walked on before us to show me the way to his house. It was a very good one, and the best room was immediately given up to me, two old ladies and three or four young ones being turned out in a most summary manner. One or two of the girls were very pretty, and they all vied with each other in their attentions to their guest, looking at me with great curiosity, and perpetually peeping at me through the curtain which hung over the door, and running away when they thought they were observed.
The prettiest of these damsels had only been married a short time: who her husband was, or where he lived, I could not make out, but she amused me by her anxiety to display her smart new clothes. Shewent and put on a new capote, a sort of white frock coat, without sleeves, embroidered in bright colours down the seams, which showed her figure to advantage; and then she took it off again, and put on another garment, giving me ample opportunity of admiring its effect. I expressed my surprise and admiration in bad Greek, which, however, the fair Albanian appeared to find no difficulty in understanding. She kindly corrected some of my sentences, and I have no doubt I should have improved rapidly under her care, if she had not always run away whenever she heard any one creaking about on the rickety boards of the ante-room and staircase. The other ladies, who were settling themselves in a large gaunt room close by, kept up an interminable clatter, and displayed such unbounded powers of conversation, that it seemed impossible that any one of them could hear what all the others said; till at last the master of the house came up again, and then there was a lull. He told me that I could not hire horses till the afternoon, and as that would have been too late to start, I determined to remain where I was till the next morning. I passed the day in wandering about the place, and considering whether, upon the whole, the dogs or the men of Paramathia were the most savage: for the dogs looked like wolves, and the men like arrant cut-throats, swaggering about, idle and restless, with their long hair, and guns, and pistols, and yataghans; they have none ofthe composure of the Turks, who delight to sit still in a coffee-house and smoke their pipes, or listen to a story, which saves them the trouble of thinking or speaking. The Albanians did not scream and chatter as the Arabs do, or as their ladies were doing in the houses, but they lounged about the bazaars listlessly, ready to pick a quarrel with any one, and unable to fix themselves down to any occupation; in short they gave me the idea of being a very poor and proud, and good-for-nothing set of scamps.
November 2nd.—The next morning at five o'clock I was on horseback again, and after riding over stones and rocks, and frequently in the bed of a stream, for fourteen hours, I arrived in the evening at Yanina. I was disappointed with the first view of the place. The town is built on the side of a sloping hill above the lake; and as my route lay over the top of this hill, I could see but little of the town until I was quite among the houses, most of which were in a ruinous condition. The lake itself, with an island in it on which are the ruins of a palace built by the famous Ali Pasha, is a beautiful object; but the mountains by which it is bounded on the opposite side are barren, yet not sufficiently broken to be picturesque. The scene altogether put me in mind of the Lake of Genesareth as seen from its western shore near Tiberias. There is a plain to the north and north-west, which is partially cultivated, but it is inferior in beauty to theplains of Jericho, and there is no river like the Jordan to light up the scene with its quick and sparkling waters as it glistens among the trees in its journey towards the lake.
I went to the house of an Italian gentleman who was the principal physician of Yanina, and who I understood was in the habit of affording accommodation to travellers in his house. He received me with great kindness, and gave me an excellent set of rooms, consisting of a bed room, sitting room, and ante-room, all of them much better than those which I occupied in the hotel at Corfu: they were clean and nicely furnished; and altogether the excellence of my quarters in the dilapidated capital of Albania surprised me most agreeably.
The town appears never to have been repaired since the wars and revolutions which occurred at the time of Ali Pasha's death. The houses resemble those of Greece or southern Italy; they are built, some of stone, and some of wood, with tiled roofs. On the walls of many of them there were vines growing. The bazaars are poor, yet I saw very rich arms displayed in some mean little shops, or stalls, as we should call them; for they are all open, like the booths at a fair. The climate is rainy, and there is no lack of mud in wet weather, and dust when it is dry. The whole place had a miserable appearance, nothing seemed to be going on, and the people have a savage, hang-dog look.
I had a good supper and a good bed, and was awakened the next morning by hearing the servants loud in talk about the news of the day. The subject was truly Albanian. A man who had a shop in the bazaar had quarrelled yesterday with some of his fellow townsmen, and in the night they took him out of his bed and cut him to pieces with their yataghans on the hill above the town. Some people coming by early this morning saw various joints of this unlucky man lying on the ground as they passed.
I occupied myself in looking about the place; and having sent to the palace of the vizir to request an audience, it was fixed for the next day. There was not much to see; but I afforded a subject of uninterrupted discussion to all beholders, as it appeared I was the only traveller who had been there for some time. I went to bed early because I had no books to read, and it was a bore trying to talk Greek to my host's family; but I had not been asleep long before I was awakened by the intelligence that a party of robbers had concealed themselves in the ruins round the house, and that we should probably be attacked. Up we all got, and loaded our guns and pistols: the women kept flying about everywhere, and, when they ran against each other in the dark, screamed wofully, as they took everybody for a robber. We had no lights, that we might not afford good marks for the enemy outside, who, however, kept quiet, and did not shoot at us,although every now and then we saw a man or two creeping about among the ruins. My host, who was armed with a gun of prodigious length, was in a state of great alarm; and, having sent for assistance, twenty soldiers arrived, who kept guard round the house, but would not venture among the ruins. These valiant heroes relieved each other during the night; but, as no robbers made their appearance, I got tired of watching for them, and went quietly to bed again.
November 4th.—At nine o'clock in the morning I paid my respects to the Vizir, Mahmoud Pasha, a man with a long nose, and who altogether bore a great resemblance to Pope Benedict XV [XVI in the original (n. of etext transcriber). I stayed some hours with him, talking over Turkish matters; and we got into a brisk argument as to whether England was part of London, or London part of England. He appeared to be a remarkably good-natured man, and took great interest in the affairs of Egypt, from which country I had lately arrived, and asked me numberless questions about Mehemet Ali, comparing his character with that of Ali Pasha, who had built this palace, which was in a very ruinous state, for nothing had been expended to keep it in repair. The hall of audience was a magnificent room, richly decorated with inlaid work of mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell: the ceiling was gilt, and the windows of Venetian plate-glass, but some of them were broken: the floor was loose and almost dangerous; and two holes in the sidewalls, which had been made by a cannon-ball, were stopped up with pieces of deal board roughly nailed upon the costly inlaid panels. The divan was of red cloth; and a crowd of men, with their girdles stuck full of arms, stood leaning on their long guns at the bottom of the room, listening to our conversation, and laughing loudly whenever a joke was made, but never coming forward beyond the edge of the carpet.
The Pasha offered to give me an escort, as he said that the country at that moment was particularly unsafe; but at length it was settled that he should give me a letter to the commander of the troops at Mezzovo, who would supply me with soldiers to see me safely to the monasteries of Meteora. When I arose to take my leave, he sent for more pipes and coffee, as a signal for me to remain; in short, we became great friends. Whilst I was with him a pasha of inferior rank came in, and sat on the divan for half an hour without saying a single word or doing anything except looking at me unceasingly. After he had taken his departure we had some sherbet; and at last I got away, leaving the Pasha in great wonderment at the English government paying large sums of money for the transportation of criminals, when cutting off their heads would have been so much more economical and expeditious. Incurring any expense to keep rogues and vagabonds in prison, or to send them away from our own country to be the plague of other lands,appeared to him to be an extraordinary act of folly; and that thieves should be fed and clothed and lodged, while poor and honest people were left to starve, he considered to be contrary to common sense and justice. I laughed at the time at what I thought the curious opinions of the Vizir of Yanina; I have since come to the conclusion that there was some sense in his notions of criminal jurisprudence.
In the afternoon, as I was looking out of the window of my lodging, I saw the Vizir going by with a great number of armed people, and I was told that in the present disturbed state of the country he never went out to take a ride without all these attendants. First came a hundred lancers on horseback, dressed in a kind of European uniform; then two horsemen, each with a pair of small kettle-drums attached to the front of his saddle. They kept up an unceasing pattering upon these drums as they rode along. This is a Tartar or Persian custom; and in some parts of Tartary the dignity of khan is conferred by strapping these two little drums on the back of the person whom the king delighteth to honour; and then the king beats the drums as the new khan walks slowly round the court. Thus a thing is reckoned a great honour in one part of the world which in another is accounted a disgrace; for when a soldier is incorrigible, we drum him out of the regiment, whilst the Tartar khan is drummed into his dignity. After the drummers came a brilliantlydressed company of kawasses, with silver pistols and yataghans; then several trumpeters; and after them the Vizir himself on a fine tall horse; he was dressed in the new Turkish Frank style, with the usual red cap on his head; but he had an immense red cloth cloak sumptuously embroidered with gold, which quite covered him, so that no part of the great man was visible, except his two eyes, his nose, and one of his hands, upon which was a splendid diamond ring. Two grooms walked by the sides of his horse, each with one hand on the back of the saddle. Every one bowed as the Vizir went by; and I became a distinguished person from the moment that he gave me a condescending nod. The procession was closed by a crowd of officers and attendants on horseback in gorgeous Albanian dresses, with silver bridles and embroidered housings. They carried what I thought at first were spears, but I soon discovered that they were long pipes; there was quite a forest of them, of all lengths and sizes. When the Vizir was gone and the dust subsided, I strolled out of the town on foot, when I came upon the troops, who were learning the new European exercise. Seeing a man sitting on a carpet in the middle of the plain, I went up to him and found that he was the colonel and commander of this army; so I smoked a pipe with him, and discovered that he knew about as much of tactics and military manœuvres as I did, only he did not take so much interest in the subject.We therefore continued to smoke the pipe of peace on the carpet of reflection, while the soldiers entangled themselves in all sorts of incomprehensible doublings and counter-marches, till at last the whole body was so much puzzled, that they stood still all of a heap, like a cluster of bees. The captains shouted, and the poor men turned round and round, trod on each other's heels, kicked each other's shins, and did all they could to get out of the scrape, but they only got more into confusion. At last a bright thought struck the colonel, who took his pipe out of his mouth, and gave orders, in the name of the Prophet, that every man should go home in the best way he could. This they accomplished like a party of schoolboys, running and jumping and walking off in small parties towards the town. The officers wiped the perspiration from their foreheads, and strolled off too, some to smoke a pipe under a tree, and some to repose on their divans and swear at the Franks who had invented such extraordinary evolutions.
TURKISH COMMON SOLDIER.TURKISH COMMON SOLDIER.
In the evening, among the other news of the day, I was told that three men had been walking together in the afternoon; one of them bought a melon, and his two companions, who were very thirsty, but had no money, asked him to give them some of it. He would not do so; and, as they worried him about it, he ran into an empty house, and, bolting the door, sat down inside to discuss his purchase in quiet. The other twowere determined not to be jockeyed in that manner, and, finding a hole in the door, they peeped through, and were enraged at seeing him eating the melon inside. He jeered them, and said that the melon was excellent; until at last one of them swore he should not eat it all, and, putting his pistol through the hole in the door, shot his friend dead; they then walked away, laughing at their own cleverness in shooting him so neatly through the hole.
November 5th.—The next day I went again to the citadel to see the Vizir, but he could not receive me, as news had arrived that the insurgents or robbers—they had entitled themselves to either denomination—had gathered together in force and laid siege to the town of Berat. There had been a good deal of confusion in Yanina before this, but now it appeared to have arrived at a climax. The courtyard of the citadel was full of horses picketed by their head-and-heel ropes, in long rows; parties of men were, according to their different habits, talking over the events of the day,—the Albanians chattering and putting themselves in attitudes; the Arnaouts or Mahometans of Greek blood boasting of the chivalric feats which they intended to perform; and the grave Turks sitting quietly on the ground, smoking their eternal pipes, and taking it all as easily as if they had nothing to do with it. Both before and since these days I have seen a great deal of the Turks; and though, for many reasons, I do notrespect them as a nation, still I cannot help admiring their calmness and self-possession in moments of difficulty and danger. There is something noble and dignified in their quietness on these occasions: I have very rarely seen a Turk discomposed; stately and collected, he sits down and bides his time; but when the moment of action comes, he will rouse himself on a sudden, and become full of fire, animation, and activity. It is then that you see the descendant of those conquerors of the East, whose strong will and fierce courage have given them the command over all the nations of Islam.
Although I could not obtain an audience with the vizir, one of the people who were with me managed to send a message to him that I should be glad of the letter, or firman, which he had promised me, and by which I might command the services of an escort, if I thought fit to do so. This man had influence at court; for he had a friend who was chiboukji to the vizir's secretary, or prime minister—a sly Greek, whose acquaintance I had made two days before. The pipe-bearer, propitiated by a trifling bribe, spoke to his master, and he spoke to the vizir, who promised I should have the letter; and it came accordingly in the evening, properly signed and sealed, and all in heathen Greek, of which I could make out a word here and there; but what it was about was entirely beyond my comprehension.
Whilst waiting the result of these negotiations I had leisure to notice the warlike movements which were going on around me. I saw a train of two or three hundred men on horseback issuing out from the citadel, and riding slowly along the plain in the direction of Berat. They were sent to raise the siege; and other troops were preparing to follow them. As I watched these horsemen winding across the plain in a long line, with the sun glancing upon their arms, they seemed like a great serpent, with its glittering scales, gliding along to seek for its prey; and in some respects the simile would hold good, for this detachment would be the terror of the inhabitants of every district through which it passed. Rapine, violence, and oppression would mark its course; friend and foe would alike be plundered; and the villages which had not been burned by the insurgent klephti would be sacked and ruined by the soldiers of the government.
As I descended from the citadel I passed numerous parties of armed men, all full of excitement about the plunder they would get, and the mighty deeds they would perform; for the danger was a good way off, and they were all brim-full of valour. In the bazaar all was business and bustle: everybody was buying arms. Long guns and silver pistols, all ready loaded, I believe, with fiery-looking flints as big as sandwiches, wrapped up first in a bit of red cloth, and then in a sort of open work of lead or tin, were being handedabout; and the spirit of commerce was in full activity. Great was the haggling among the dealers. One man walked off with a mace; another, expecting to perform as mighty deeds as Richard Cœur de Lion, bought an old battle-axe, and swung it about to show how he would cut heads off with it before long. Another champion had included among his warlike accoutrements a curious, ancient-looking silver clock, which dangled by his side from a multitude of chains. It was square in shape, and must have been provided with a strong constitution inside if it could go while it was banged about at every step the man took. This worthy, I imagine, intended to kill time, for his purchase did not seem calculated to cope with any other enemy. He had, however, two or three pistols and daggers in addition to his clock. An oldish, hard-featured man was buying a quantity of that abominably sour, white cheese which is the pride of Albania, and a quantity of black olives, which he was cramming into a pair of old saddle-bags, whilst his horse beside him was quietly munching his corn in a sack tied over his nose. There was a look of calm efficiency about this man, which contrasted strongly with the swaggering air of the crowd around him. He was evidently an old hand; and I observed that he had laid in a stock of ball-cartridges—an article in which but little money was spent by the buyers of yataghans in silver sheaths and silver cartridge-boxes.
"Hallo! sir Frank," cried one or two of these gay warriors, "come out with us to Berat: come and see us fight, and you will see something worth travelling for."
"Ay," said I, "it's all up with the enemy: that's quite certain. They will be in a pretty scrape, to be sure, when you arrive. I would not be one of them for a good deal!"
"Sono molto feroce questi palicari," said my guide.
"Oh! yes, they are terrible fellows!" I replied.
"What does the Frank say?" they asked.
"He says you are terrible fellows."
"Ah! I think we are, indeed. But don't be afraid, Frank; don't be afraid!"
"No," said I, "I won't; and I wish you good luck on your way to Berat and back again."
This night the people had been so much occupied in purchasing the implements of death that I heard no accounts of any new murders. In fact it had been a dull day in that respect; but no doubt they would make up for it before long.
Start for Meteora—Rencontre with a Wounded Traveller—Barbarity of the Robbers—Albanian Innkeeper—Effect of the Turkish Language upon the Greeks—Mezzovo—Interview with the chief Person in the Village—Mount Pindus—Capture by Robbers—Salutary effects of Swaggering—Arrival under Escort at the Robbers' Head-Quarters—Affairs take a favourable turn—An unexpected Friendship with the Robber Chief—The Khan of Malacash—Beauty of the Scenery—Activity of our Guards—Loss of Character—Arrival at Meteora.
November 6th.—I had engaged a tall, thin, dismal-looking man, well provided with pistols, knives, and daggers, as an additional servant, for he was said to know all the passes of the mountains, which I thought might be a useful accomplishment in case I had to avoid the more public roads—or paths, rather—for roads there were none. I purchased a stock of provisions, and hired five horses—three for myself and my men, one for the muleteer, and the other for the baggage, which was well strapped on, that the beast might gallop with it, as it was not very heavy. They were pretty good horses—rough and hardy. Mine looked very hard at me out of the corner of his eye when I got upon his back in the cold grey dawn, as if to find out what sort of a person I was. By means of a stout kourbatch—a sort of whip of rhinoceros hide which theyuse in Egypt—I immediately gave him all the information he desired; and off we galloped round the back part of the town, and, unquestioned by any one, we soon found ourselves trotting along the plain by the south end of the lake of Yanina. Here the waters from the lake disappear in an extraordinary manner in a great cavern, or pit full of rocks and stones, through which the water runs away into some subterranean channel—a dark and mysterious river, which the dismal-looking man, my new attendant, said came out into the light again somewhere in the Gulph of Arta. Before long we got upon the remains of a fine paved road, like a Roman way, which had been made by Ali Pasha. It was, however, out of repair, having in places been swept away by the torrents, and was an impediment rather than an assistance to travellers. This road led up to the hills; and, having dismounted from my horse, I began scrambling and puffing up the steep side of the mountain, stopping every now and then to regain my breath and to admire the beautiful view of the calm lake and picturesque town of Yanina.
As I was walking in advance of my company, I saw a man above me leading a loaded mule. He was coming down the mountain, carefully picking his way among the stones, and in a loud voice exhorting the mule to be steady and keep its feet, although the mule was much the more sure-footed of the two. As they passed meI was struck with the odd appearance of the mule's burden: it consisted of a bundle of large stones on one side, which served as a counterpoise to a packing-case on the other, covered with a cloth, out of which peeped the head of a man, with his long black hair hanging about a face as pale as marble. The box in which he travelled not being more than four feet and a half long, I supposed he must be a dwarf, and was laughing at his peculiar mode of conveyance. The muleteer, observing from my dress that I was a Frank, stopped his mule, when he came up to me, and asked me if I was a physician, begging me to give my assistance to the man in the box, if I knew anything of surgery, for he had had both his legs cut off by some robbers on the way from Salonica, and he was now taking him to Yanina, in hopes of finding some doctor there to heal his wounds. My laughter was now turned into pity for the poor man, for I knew there was no help for him at Yanina. I could do nothing for him; and the only hope was, as his strength had borne him up so far on his journey, that when he got rest at Yanina the wounds might heal of themselves. After expressing my commiseration for him, and my hopes of his recovery, we parted company; and as I stood looking at the mule, staggering and slipping among the loose stones and rocks in the steep descent, it quite made me wince to think of the pain the unfortunate traveller must be enduring, with the raw stumps of his two legsrubbing and bumping against the end of his short box. I was sorry I had not asked why the robbers had cut off his legs, because, if it was their usual system, it was certainly more than I bargained for. I had pretty nearly made up my mind to be robbed, but had no intention whatever to lose my legs; so I sat down upon a rock, and began calculating probabilities, until my party came up, and I mounted my horse, who gave me another look with his cunning eye. We continued on Ali Pasha's broken road until we reached the summit of the mountain, where we made a short halt, that our horses might regain their wind; and then began our descent, stumbling, and sliding, and scrambling down, until we arrived at the bottom, where there was a miserable khan. In this royal hotel, which was a mere shed, there was nothing to be found except mine host, who had it all to himself. At last he made us some coffee; and while our horses were feeding on our own corn, we sat under the shade of a walnut-tree by the road-side. Our host, having nothing which could be eaten or drank except the coffee, did not know how in the world he could manage to get up a satisfactory bill. I saw this very plainly in his puzzled and thoughtful looks; but at last a bright thought struck him, and he charged a good round sum for the shade of the walnut-tree. Now although I admired his ingenuity, I demurred at the charge, particularly as the walnut-tree did not belong to him. It was a wild tree,which everybody threw stones at as he passed by, to bring down the nuts:—
"Nux ego juncta vise quae sum due crimine vitæ,Attamen a cunctis saxibus usque petor."—Ovid.
Little did the unoffending walnut-tree think that its shade would be brought forward as a cause of war; for then arose a fierce contest between Greek oaths and Albanian maledictions, to which Arabic and English lent their aid. Though there were no stones thrown, ten times as many hard words were hurled backwards and forwards as there were walnuts on the tree, showing a facility of expression and a redundance of epithets which would have given a lesson to the most practised ladies of Billingsgate.
When the horses were ready the khangee came up to me in a towering passion, swearing that I should pay for sitting under the tree. "Englishman," said he, "get up and pay me what I demand, or you shall not leave this place, by all that is holy." "Kiupek oglou," said I, without moving from the ground, "Oh, son of a dog! go and get my horse, you chattering magpie!" These few words in the language of the conqueror had a marvellous effect on the khangee. "What does his worship say?" he inquired of the dismal-faced man. "Why, he says you had better go and get his excellency's worship's most respectable horse, if you have any regard for your life: so go! be off! vanish! don't stay there staring at the illustrioustraveller. 'Tis lucky for you he doesn't order us to cut you up into cabobs; go and get the horse; and perhaps you'll be paid for your coffee, bad as it was. His excellency is the pasha's, his highness's, most particular intimate friend; and if his highness knew what you had been saying, why, where would you be, O man?" The khangee, who had intended to have had it all his own way, was taken terribly aback at the sound of the Turkish tongue: he speedily put on my horse's bridle, gave his nosebag to the muleteer, tightened up his girths, helped the servants, and was suddenly converted into a humble submissive drudge. The way in which anything Turkish is respected among the conquered races in Syria or in Egypt can scarcely be imagined by those who have not witnessed it.
Leaving the khangee to count his paras and piastres, with which, after all, he was evidently well satisfied, we rode on down the valley by the side of a brawling stream, which we crossed no less than thirty-nine times during our day's journey. Our road lay through a magnificent series of picturesque and savage gorges, between high rocks. Sometimes we rode along the bed of the stream, and sometimes upon a ledge so far above it that it looked like a silver ribbon in the sun. Every now and then we came to a cataract or rapid, where the stream boiled and foamed among the rocks, tossing up its spray, and drowning our voices in its noise. In the course of about eight hours of continualscrambling up and down all sorts of rocks, we found ourselves at another wretched shelty dignified with the name of khan. Here, after a tolerable supper, we all rolled ourselves up in the different corners of a sort of loft, with our arms under our heads, and slept soundly until the morning.
November 7th.—This day we continued along the banks of a stream, in the direction of its source, until it dwindled to a mere rivulet, when we left it and took to the hills at the base of another mountain. We rode some way along a rocky path until, turning round a corner to the left, we found ourselves at the town or village of Mezzovo. As Mahmoud Pasha had supplied me with a firman and letters to the principal persons at the several towns on my route, I looked out my Mezzovo letter, with the intention of asking for an escort of a few soldiers to accompany me through the passes of Mount Pindus, which were reported to be full of robbers and cattiva gente of every sort and kind, the great extent of the underwood of box-trees forming an impenetrable cover for those minions of the moon.
Most of the population of Mezzovo turned out to see the procession of the Milordos Inglesis as it entered the precincts of their ancient city, and defiled into the market-place, in the middle of which was a great tree, under whose shade sat and smoked a circle of grave and reverend seignors, the aristocracy of theplace; whereupon, holding the pasha's letter in my hand, I cantered up to them. On seeing me advance towards them, a broad-shouldered good-natured looking man, gorgeously dressed in red velvet, embroidered all over with gold, though something tarnished with the rain and weather, arose and stepped forward to meet me. "Here is a letter," said I, "from his highness Mahmoud Pasha, vizir of Yanina, to the chief personage of Mezzovo, whoever he may be, for there is no name mentioned; so tell me who is the chief person in this city; where is he to be found, for I desire to speak with him?" "You want the chief person of Mezzovo?" replied the broad-shouldered man; "well, I think I am the chief person here, am I not?" he asked of the assembled crowd which had gathered together by this time. "Certainly, malista, oh yes, you are the chief person of Mezzovo undoubtedly," they all cried out. "Very well," said he, "then give me the letter." On my giving it to him, he opened it in a very unceremonious manner; and, before he had half read it, burst into a fit of laughing. "What are you laughing at?" said I: "Is not that the vizir's letter?" "Oh!" said he, "you want guards, do you, to protect you against the robbers, the klephti?" "Yes, I do; but I do not see what there is to laugh at in that. I want some men to go with me to Meteora; if you are the captain or commander here, give me an escort, as I wish to be off at once: itis early now, and I can cross the mountains before dark."
After a pause, he said, "Well, I am the captain; and you shall have men who will protect you wherever you go. You are an Englishman, are you not?" "Yes," I said, "I am." "Well, I like the English; and you particularly." "Thank you," said I: and, after some more conversation, he tore off a slip from the vizir's letter (a very unceremonious proceeding in Albania), and, writing a few lines on it, he said, "Now give this paper to the first soldiers you meet at the foot of Mount Pindus, and all will be right." He then instructed the muleteer which way to go. I took the paper, which was not folded up; but the badly-written Romaic was unintelligible to me, so I put it into my pocket, and away we went, my new friend waving his hand to us as we passed out of the market-place; and we were soon trotting along through the open country towards the hills which shoot out from the base of the great chain of Mount Pindus, a mountain famous for having had Mount Ossa put on the top of it by some of the giants when they were fighting against Jupiter. As that respected deity got the better of the giants, I presume he put Ossa back again; for which I felt very much obliged to him, as Pindus seemed quite high enough and steep enough without any addition.
We rode along, getting nearer and nearer to themountains; and at length we began to climb a steep rocky path on the side of a lofty hill covered with box-trees. This path continued for some distance until we came to a place where there was a ledge so narrow that two horses could not go abreast. Here, as I was riding quietly along, I heard an exclamation in front of "Robbers! robbers!" and sure enough, out of one of the thickets of box-trees, there advanced three or four bright gun-barrels, which were speedily followed by some gentlemen in dirty white jackets and fustanellas; who, in a short and abrupt style of eloquence, commanded us to stand. This of course we were obliged to do; and as I was getting out my pistol, one of the individuals in white presented his gun at me, and upon my looking round to see whether my tall Albanian servant was preparing to support me, I saw him quietly half-cock his gun and sling it back over his shoulder, at the name time shaking his head as much as to say, "It is no use resisting; we are caught; there are too many of them." So I bolted the locks of the four barrels of my pistol carefully, hoping that the bolts would form an impediment to my being shot with my own weapon after I had been robbed of it. The place was so narrow that there were no hopes of running away, and there we sat on horseback, looking silly enough, I dare say. There was a good deal of talking and chattering among the robbers, and they asked the Albanian various questions to which I paid no attention, all my faculties beingengrossed in watching the proceedings of the party in front, who were examining the effects in the panniers of the baggage mule. First they pulled out my bag of clothes, and threw it upon the ground; then out came the sugar and the coffee, and whatever else these was. Some of the men had hold of the poor muleteer, and a loud argument was going on between him and his captors. I did not like all this, but my rage was excited to a violent pitch when I saw one man appropriating to his own use the half of a certain fat tender cold fowl, whereof I had eaten the other half with much appetite and satisfaction. "Let that fowl alone, you scoundrel!" said I in good English; "put it down, will you? if you don't, I'll——!" The man, surprised at this address in an unknown tongue, put down the fowl, and looked up with wonder at the explosion of ire which his actions had called forth. "That is right," said I, "my good fellow, it is too good for such a dirty brute as you." "Let us see," said I to the Albanian, "if there is nothing to be done; say I am the King of England's uncle, or grandson, or particular friend, and that if we are hurt or robbed he will send all manner of ships and armies, and hang everybody, and cut off the heads of all the rest. Talk big, O man! and don't spare great words; they cost nothing, and let us see what that will do."
Upon this the Albanian took up his parable and a long parleying ensued, for the robbers were takenaback with the good English in which I had addressed them, and stood still with open mouths to hear what it all meant. In the middle of this row I thought of the paper which had been given me at Mezzovo. "Here," said I, "here is a letter; read it, see what it says." They took the paper and turned it round and round, for they could not read it: first one looked at it and then another; then they looked at the back, but they could make nothing of it. Nevertheless, it produced a great effect upon them, for here, as in all other countries of the East, any writing is looked upon by the uneducated people as a mystery, and is held in high respect; and at last they said they would take us to a place where we should find a person capable of reading it. The thing which most provoked me was that the fellows seemed not to have the slightest fear of us; they did not even take the trouble to demand our arms: my much cherished "patent four-barrelled travelling pistol" they evidently considered too small to be dangerous; and I felt it as a kind of personal insult that they deputed only two of their number to convoy us to the residence of the learned person who was to read the letter. They managed matters, however, in a scientific way: the bridles of our horses were turned over their heads and tied each to the horse that went before; one of our captors walked in front and the other behind; but just when I thought an opportunity had arrived toshake off this yoke, I perceived that the whole pass was guarded, and wherever the road was a little wider or turned a corner round a rock or a clump of trees, there were other long guns peeping out from among the bushes, with the bearers of which our two conquerors exchanged pass-words. Thus we marched along, the robber who went first apparently caring nothing about us, but the one in the rear having his gun cocked and ready to shoot any one of us who should turn restive. The road, which ascended rapidly, was rather too dangerous to be agreeable, being a narrow path cut on the side of a very steep mountain; at one time the track lay across a steep slope of blue marl, which afforded the most insecure footing for our horses: all mountain-travellers are aware how much more dangerous this kind of road is than a firm ledge of rock, however narrow.
We had now got very high, and the ground was sprinkled with patches of ice and snow, which rendered the footing insecure; and frequently large masses of the road, disturbed by our passing over it, gave way beneath our feet, and set off bounding and crashing among the box trees until it was broken into powder on the rocks below.
In process of time we got into a cloud which hid everything from us, and going still higher we got above the cloud into a region of broken crags and rocks and pine-trees, among which there was a largewooden house or shed. It seemed all roof, and was made of long spars of trees sloping towards each other, and was very high, long, and narrow. As we approached it several men made their appearance armed at all points, and took our horses from us. At the end of the shed there was a door through which we were conducted into the interior by our two guards, and placed all of a row, with our backs against the wall, on the right side of the entrance. Towards the other end of this sylvan guard-room there was a large fire on the ground, and a number of men sitting round it drinking aqua vitæ out of coffee cups, and talking load and laughing. In the farthest corner I saw a pile of long bright-barrelled guns leaning against the wall, while on the other side of the fire there were some boards on the ground with a mat or carpet over them, whereon a worthy better dressed than the rest was lounging, apart from every one else and half asleep. To him the paper was given, and he leant forward to read it by the light of the blazing fire, for though it was bright sunshine out of doors, the room was quite dark. The captain was evidently a poor scholar, and he spelt and puzzled over every word. At last a thought struck him: shading his eyes with his hand from the glare of the fire he leant forward and peered into the darkness, where we were awaiting his commands. Not distinguishing us, however, he jumped up upon his feet and shouted out "Hallo!where are the gentlemen who brought this letter? What have you done with them?" At the sound of his voice the rest of the party jumped up also, being then first aware that something out of the common had taken place. Some of the palicari ran towards us and were going to seize us, when the captain came forward and in a civil tone said, "Oh, there you are! Welcome, gentlemen; we are very glad to receive you. Make yourselves at home; come near the fire and sit down." I took him at his word and sat down on the boards by the side of the fire, rubbing my hands and making myself as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. My two servants and the muleteer seeing what turn affairs had taken, became of a sudden as loquacious as they had been silent before, and in a short time we were all the greatest friends in the world.
"So," said the captain, or whatever he was, "you are acquainted with our friend at Mezzovo. How did you leave him? I hope he was well?"
"Oh, yes," I said; "we left him in excellent health. What a remarkably pleasing person he is! and how well he looks in his red velvet dress!"
"Have you known him long?" he asked.
"Why, notverylong," replied my Albanian; "but my master has the greatest respect for him, and so has he for my master."
"He says you are to take some of our men with you wherever you like," said our host.
"Yes, I know," said the Albanian; "we settled that at Mezzovo, with my master's friend, his Excellency Mr. What's-his-name."
"Well, how many will you take?"
"Oh! five or six will do; that will be as many as we want. We are going to Meteora and then we shall return over the mountains back to Mezzovo, where I hope we shall have the pleasure of meeting your general again."
Whilst we were talking and drinking coffee by the fire, a prodigious bustling and chattering was going on among the rest of the party, and before long five slim, active, dirty-looking young rogues, in white dresses, with long black hair hanging down their backs, and each with a long thin gun, announced that they were ready to accompany us whenever we were ready to start. As we had nothing to keep us in the dark, smoky hovel, we were soon ready to go; and glad indeed was I to be out again in the open air among the high trees, without the immediate prospect of being hanged upon one of them. My party jumped with great alacrity and glee upon their miserable mules and horses; all our belongings, including the half of the cold fowl, werein statu quo; and off we set—our new friends accompanied us on foot. And so delighted was our Caliban of a muleteer at what we all considered a fortunate escape, that he lifted up his voice and gave vent to his feelings in a song. Thegrand gentleman in red velvet to whom I had presented the Pasha's letter at Mezzovo, was, it seems, himself the captain of the thieves—the very man against whom the Pasha wished to afford us his protection; and he, feeling amused probably at the manner in which we had fallen unawares into his clutches, and being a good-natured fellow (and he certainly looked such), gave us a note to the officer next in command, ordering him to protect us as his friends, and to provide us with an escort. When I say that he of the red velvet was captain of the thieves, it is to be understood, that although his followers did not excel in honesty, as they proceeded to plunder us the moment they had entrapped us in the valley of the box-trees, yet he should more properly be called a guerilla chief in rebellion for the time being against the authorities of the Turkish government, and I being a young Englishman, he good-naturedly gave me his assistance, without which, as I afterwards found, it would have been impossible for me to have travelled with safety through any one of the mountain passes of the Pindus. I was told that this chief, whose name I unfortunately omitted to note down, commanded a large body of men before the city of Berat, and certainly all the ragamuffins whom I met on my way to and from the monasteries of Meteora acknowledged his authority. I heard that soon afterwards he returned to his allegiance under Mahmoud Pasha, for it appears thatthe outbreak, during which I had inadvertently started for a tour in Albania, did not last long.
Late in the evening we arrived at a small khan something like an out-building to a farmhouse in England; this was the khan of Malacash: it was prettily situated on the banks of the river Peneus, and contained, besides the stable, two rooms, one of which opened upon a kind of verandah or covered terrace. My two servants and I slept on the floor in this room, and the four robbers or guards (as in common civility I ought to term them) in the ante-chamber. I gave them as good a supper as I could, and we became excellent friends. It was almost dark when we arrived at this place, but the next morning when the glorious sun arose I was charmed with the beautiful scenery around us. On both sides banks of stately trees rose above the margin of a rippling stream, and the valley grew wider and wider as we rode on, the stream increasing by the addition of many little rills, and the trees retiring from it, affording us views of grassy plains and romantic dells, first on one side and then on the other. The scenery was most lovely, and in the distance was the towering summit of the great Mount Olympus, famous nowadays for the Greek monasteries which are built upon its sides, and near whose base runs the valley of Tempe, of which we are expressly told in the Latin Grammar that it is a pleasant vale in Thessaly; and if it is more beautiful than thevalley of the Peneus, it must be a very pleasant vale indeed.
I was struck with the original manner in which our mountain friends progressed through the country; sometimes they kept with us, but more usually some of them went on one side of the road and some on the other, like men beating for game, only that they made no noise; and on the rare occasions when we met any traveller trudging along the road or ambling on a long-eared mule, they were always among the bushes or on the tops of the rocks, and never showed themselves upon the road. But despite all these vagaries they were always close to us. They were wonderfully active, for although I trotted or galloped whenever the nature of the road rendered it practicable, they always kept up with me, and apparently without exertion or fatigue; and although they were often out of my sight, I believe I was never out of theirs. Altogether I was glad that we were such friends, for, from what I saw of them, they and their associates would have proved very awkward enemies. They were curious wild animals, as slim and as active as cats: their waists were not much more than a foot and a half in circumference, and they appeared to be able to jump over anything; and the thin mocassins of raw hide which they wore enabled them to run or walk without making the slightest noise. In fact, they were agreeable, honest rogues enough, and we got on amazinglywell together. I had a way of singing as I rode along for my own particular edification, and from mere joyousness of heart, for the beautiful scenery, and the fine fresh air, and the bright stream delighted me, so I sung away at a great rate; and my horse sometimes put back one of his ears to listen, which I took as a personal compliment: but my robbers did not like this singing.
"Why," they said to the Albanian, "does the Frank sing?"
"It is a way he has," was the reply.
"Well," they said, "this is a wild country; there is no use in courting attention—he had better not sing."
Nevertheless I would not leave off for all that.Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator; so I went on singing rather louder than before, particularly as I was convinced that my horse had an ear for music; and in this way, after travelling for seven hours, we came within sight of the extraordinary rocks of Meteora.
Just at this time we observed among the trees before us a long string of travellers who appeared to be convoying a train of baggage horses. On seeing us they stopped, and closed their files; and as my thieves had bolted, as usual, into the bushes some time before, my party consisted only of four persons and five horses. As we approached the other party, a tall, well-armedman, with a rifle across his arm, rode forwards and hailed us, asking who we were. We said we were travellers.
"And who were those who left you just now?" said he.
"They are some of our party who have turned off by a short cut to go to Meteora," replied my Albanian.
"What! a short cut on both sides of the road! how is that? I suspect you are not simple travellers."
"Well," he replied, "we do not wish to molest you. Go on your way in peace, and let us pass quietly, for you are by far the larger party."
"Yes," said the man, "but how many have you in the bushes? What are they about there?"
"I don't know what they are about," said he, "but they will not molest you [one of them was peeping over a bush at the back of the party all the while, but they did not see him]; and we, I assure you, are peaceable travellers like yourselves."
Our new acquaintance did not seem at all satisfied, and he and all his party drew up along the path as we passed them, with evident misgivings as to our purpose; and soon afterwards, looking back, we saw them keeping close together and trotting along as fast as their loaded horses would go, some of them looking round at us every now and then till we lost sight of them among the trees.
The proverb says—you shall know a man by his friends, and my character had evidently suffered from the appearance of the company I kept, for the merchants held me as little better than a rogue; there was, however, no time for explanations, and it was with feelings of indignant virtue that I left the forest, and after crossing the river Peneus at a ford, my merry men and I continued our journey along the grassy plain of Meteora.
Meteora—The extraordinary Character of its Scenery—Its Caves formerly the Resort of Ascetics—Barbarous Persecution of the Hermits—Their extraordinary Religious Observances—Singular Position of the Monasteries—The Monastery of Barlaam—The difficulty of reaching it—Ascent by a Windlass and Net, or by Ladders—Narrow Escape—Hospitable Reception by the Monks—The Agoumenos, or Abbot—His strict Fast—Description of the Monastery—The Church—Symbolism in the Greek Church—Respect for Antiquity—The Library—Determination of the Abbot not to sell any of the MSS.—The Refectory—Its Decorations—Aërial Descent—The Monastery of Hagios Stephanos—Its Carved Iconostasis—Beautiful View from the Monastery—Monastery of Agia Triada—Summary Justice at Triada—Monastery of Agia Roserea—Its Lady Occupants—Admission refused.
Thescenery of Meteora is of a very singular kind. The end of a range of rocky hills seems to have been broken off by some earthquake or washed away by the Deluge, leaving only a series of twenty or thirty tall, thin, smooth, needle-like rocks, many hundred feet in height; some like gigantic tusks, some shaped like sugar-loaves, and some like vast stalagmites. These rocks surround a beautiful grassy plain, on three sides of which there grow groups of detached trees, like those in an English park. Some of the rocks shoot up quite clean and perpendicularly from the smooth green grass; some are in clusters; somestand alone like obelisks: nothing can be more strange and wonderful than this romantic region, which is unlike anything I have ever seen either before or since. In Switzerland, Saxony, the Tyrol, or any other mountainous region where I have been, there is nothing at all to be compared to these extraordinary peaks.
At the foot of many of the rocks which surround this beautiful grassy amphitheatre, there are numerous caves and holes, some of which appear to be natural, but most of them are artificial; for in the dark and wild ages of monastic fanaticism whole flocks of hermits roosted in these pigeon-holes. Some of these caves are so high up the rocks that one wonders how the poor old gentlemen could ever get up to them; whilst others are below the surface; and the anchorites who burrowed in them, like rabbits, frequently afforded excellent sport to parties of roving Saracens; indeed, hermit-hunting seems to have been a fashionable amusement previous to the twelfth century. In early Greek frescos, and in small, stiff pictures with gold backgrounds, we see many frightful representations of men on horseback in Roman armour, with long spears, who are torturing and slaying Christian devotees. In these pictures the monks and hermits are represented in gowns made of a kind of coarse matting, and they have long beards, and some of them are covered with hair; these I take it were the ones most to be admired, as in the Greek church sanctity is always in theinverse ratio of beauty. All Greek saints are painfully ugly, but the hermits are much uglier, dirtier, and older than the rest; they must have been very fusty people besides, eating roots, and living in holes like rats and mice. It is difficult to understand by what process of reasoning they could have persuaded themselves that, by living in this useless, inactive way, they were leading holy lives. They wore out the rocks with their knees in prayer; the cliffs resounded with their groans; sometimes they banged their breasts with a big stone, for a change; and some wore chains and iron girdles round their emaciated forms; but they did nothing whatever to benefit their kind. Still there is something grand in the strength and constancy of their faith. They left their homes and riches and the pleasures of this world, to retire to these dens and caves of the earth, to be subjected to cold and hunger, pain and death, that they might do honour to their God, after their own fashion, and trusting that, by mortifying the body in this world, they should gain happiness for the soul in the world to come; and therefore peace be with their memory!
On the tops of these rocks in different directions there remain seven monasteries out of twenty-four which once crowned their airy heights. How anything except a bird was to arrive at one which we saw in the distance on a pinnacle of rock was more than we could divine; but the mystery was soon solved. Windingour way upwards, among a labyrinth of smaller rocks and cliffs, by a romantic path which, afforded us from time to time beautiful views of the green vale below us, we at length found ourselves on an elevated platform of rock, which I may compare to the flat roof of a church; while the monastery of Barlaam stood perpendicularly, above us, on the top of a much higher rock, like the tower of this church. Here we fired off a gun, which was intended to answer the same purpose as knocking at the door in more civilized places; and we all strained our necks in looking up at the monastery to see whether any answer would be made to our call. Presently we were hailed by some one in the sky, whose voice came down to us like the cry of a bird; and we saw the face and grey beard of an old monk some hundred feet above us peering out of a kind of window or door. He asked us who we were, and what we wanted, and so forth; to which we replied, that we were travellers, harmless people, who wished to be admitted into the monastery to stay the night; that we had come all the way from Corfu to see the wonders of Meteora, and, as it was now getting late, we appealed to his feelings of hospitality and Christian benevolence.
"Who are those with you?" said he.
"Oh! most respectable people," we answered; "gentlemen of our acquaintance, who have come with us across the mountains from Mezzovo."
The appearance of our escort did not please the monk, and we feared that he would not admit us into the monastery; but at length he let down a thin cord, to which I attached a letter of introduction which I had brought from Corfu; and after some delay a much larger rope was seen descending with a hook at the end to which a strong net was attached. On its reaching the rock on which we stood the net was spread open: my two servants sat down upon it; and the four corners being attached to the hook, a signal was made, and they began slowly ascending into the air, twisting round and round like a leg of mutton hanging to a bottle-jack. The rope was old and mended, and the height from the ground to the door above was, we afterwards learned, 37 fathoms, or 222 feet. When they reached the top I saw two stout monks reach their arms out of the door and pull in the two servants by main force, as there was no contrivance like a turning-crane for bringing them nearer to the landing-place. The whole process appeared so dangerous, that I determined to go up by climbing a series of ladders which were suspended by large wooden pegs on the face of the precipice, and which reached the top of the rock in another direction, round a corner to the right. The lowest ladder was approached by a pathway leading to a rickety wooden platform which overhung a deep gorge. From this point the ladders hung perpendicularly upon the barerock, and I climbed up three or four of them very soon; but coming to one, the lower end of which had swung away from the top of the one below, I had some difficulty in stretching across from the one to the other; and here unluckily I looked down, and found that I had turned a sort of angle in the precipice, and that I was not over the rocky platform where I had left the horses, but that the precipice went sheer down to so tremendous a depth, that my head turned when I surveyed the distant valley over which I was hanging in the air like a fly on a wall. The monks in the monastery saw me hesitate, and called out to me to take courage and hold on; and, making an effort, I overcame my dizziness, and clambered up to a small iron door, through which I crept into a court of the monastery, where I was welcomed by the monks and the two servants who had been hauled up by the rope. The rest of my party were not admitted; but they bivouacked at the foot of the rocks in a sheltered place, and were perfectly contented with the coffee and provisions which we lowered down to them.
My servants, in high glee at having been hoisted up safe and sound, were busy in arranging my baggage in the room which had been allotted to us, and in making it comfortable: one went to get ready some warm water for a bath, or at any rate for a good splash in the largest tub that could be found; the other made me a snug corner on the divan, andcovered it with a piece of silk, and spread my carpet before it; he put my books in a little heap, got ready the things for tea, and hung my arms and cloak, and everything he could lay his hands on, upon the pegs projecting from the wall under the shelf which was fixed all round the room. My European clothes were soon pitched into the most ignominious corner of the divan, and I speedily arrayed myself in the long, loose robes of Egypt, so much more comfortable and easy than the tight cases in which we cramp up our limbs. In short, I forthwith made myself at home, and took a stroll among the courts and gardens of the monastery while dinner or supper, whichever it might be called, was getting ready. I soon stumbled upon the Agoumenos (the lord abbot) of this aërial monastery, and we prowled about together, peeping into rooms, visiting the church, and poking about until it began to get dark; and then I asked him to dinner in his own room; but he could eat no meat, so I ate the more myself, and he made up for it by other savoury messes, cooked partly by my servants and partly by the monks. He was an oldish man. He did not dislike sherry, though he preferred rosoglio, of which I always carried a few bottles with me in my monastic excursions.
The abbot and I, and another holy father, fraternised, and slapped each other on the back, and had another glass or two, or rather cup, for coffee-cups ofthin, old porcelain, called fingians, served us for wine-glasses. Then we had some tea, and they filled up their cups with sugar, and ate seaman's biscuits, and little cakes from Yanina, and rahatlokoom, and jelly of dried-grape juice, till it was time to go to bed; when the two venerable monks gave me their blessing and stumbled out of the room; and in a marvellously short space of time I was sound asleep.
November 9th.—The monastery of Barlaam stands on the summit of an isolated rock, on a flat or nearly flat space of perhaps an acre and a half, of which about one-half is occupied by the church and a smaller chapel, the refectory, the kitchen, the tower of the windlass, where you are pulled up, and a number of separate buildings containing offices and the habitations of the monks, of whom there were at this time only fourteen. These various structures surround one tolerably large, irregularly-shaped court, the chief part of which is paved; and there are several other small open spaces. All Greek monasteries are built in this irregular way, and the confused mass of disjointed edifices is usually encircled by a high bare wall; but in this monastery there is no such enclosing wall, as its position effectually prevents the approach of an enemy. On a portion of the flat space which is not occupied by buildings they have a small garden, but it is not cultivated, and there is nothing like a parapet-wall in any direction to prevent your falling over. The placewears an aspect of poverty and neglect; its best days have long gone by; for here, as everywhere else, the spirit of asceticism is on the wane.