John Stephens - Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland, Vol. 1 (of 2)

Sweetmeats, coffee, and pipes were served; and in about an hour we were conducted to supper in a large room, also opening from the hall. Our supper would not have tempted an epicure, but suited very well an appetite whetted by exercise and travel. It consisted of a huge lump of bread and a large glass of water for each of us, caviari, black olives, and two kinds of Turkish sweetmeats. We were waited upon by two priests: one of them, a handsome young man, not more than twenty, with long black hair hanging over his shoulders like a girl's, stood by with a napkin on his arm and a pewter vessel, with which he poured water on our hands, receiving it again in a basin. This was done both before and after eating; then came coffee and pipes. During the evening the young priest brought out an edition of Homer, and I surprised him , and astounded myself , by being able to translate a passage in the Iliad. I translated it in French, and my companion explained it in modern Greek to the young priest. Our beds were cushions laid on a raised platform or divan extending around the walls, with a quilt for each of us. In the morning, after sweetmeats, coffee, and pipes, we paid our respects to the good old archbishop, and took our leave. When we got out of doors, finding that the wind was the same, and that there was no possibility of sailing, my friend proposed a ride into the country. We procured a couple of mules, took a small basket of provisions for a collation, and started.

Our road lay directly along the shore; on one side the sea, and on the other the ruins of houses and gardens, almost washed by the waves. At about three miles' distance we crossed a little stream, by the side of which we saw a sarcophagus, lately disinterred, containing the usual vases of a Grecian tomb, including the piece of money to pay Charon his ferriage over the river Styx, and six pounds of dust; being all that remained of a man —perhaps one who had filled a large space in the world; perhaps a hero—buried probably more than two thousand years ago. After a ride of about five miles we came to the ruins of a large village, the style of which would anywhere have fixed the attention, as having been once a favoured abode of wealth and taste. The houses were of brown stone, built together, strictly in the Venetian style, after the models left during the occupation of the island by the Venetians, large and elegant, with gardens of three or four acres, enclosed by high walls of the same kind of stone, and altogether in a style far superior to anything I had seen in Greece. These were the country-houses and gardens of the rich merchants of Scio. The manner of living among the proprietors here was somewhat peculiar, and the ties that bound them to this little village were peculiarly strong. This was the family home; the community was essentially mercantile, and most of their business transactions were carried on elsewhere. When there were three or four brothers in a family, one would be in Constantinople a couple of years, another at Trieste, and so on, while another remained at home; so that those who were away, while toiling amid the perplexities of business, were always looking to the occasional family reunion; and all trusted to spend the evening of their days among the beautiful gardens of Scio. What a scene for the heart to turn to now! The houses and gardens were still there, some standing almost entire, others black with smoke and crumbling to ruins. But where were they who once occupied them? Where were they who should now be coming out to rejoice in the return of a friend and to welcome a stranger? An awful solitude, a stillness that struck a cold upon the heart, reigned around us. We saw nobody; and our own voices, and the tramping of our horses upon the deserted pavements, sounded hollow and sepulchral in our ears. It was like walking among the ruins of Pompeii; it was another city of the dead; but there was a freshness about the desolation that seemed of to-day; it seemed as though the inhabitants should be sleeping and not dead. Indeed, the high walls of the gardens, and the outside of the houses too, were generally so fresh and in so perfect a state, that it seemed like riding through a handsome village at an early hour before the inhabitants had risen; and I sometimes could not help thinking that in an hour or two the streets would be thronged with a busy population. My friend continued to conduct me through the solitary streets; telling me, as we went along, that this was the house of such a family, this of such a family, with some of whose members I had become acquainted in Greece, until, stopping before a large stone gateway, he dismounted at the gate of his father's house. In that house he was born; there he had spent his youth; he had escaped from it during the dreadful massacre, and this was the first time of his revisiting it. What a tide of recollections must have rushed upon him!

We entered through the large stone gateway into a courtyard beautifully paved in mosaic in the form of a star, with small black and white round stones. On our left was a large stone reservoir, perhaps twenty-five feet square, still so perfect as to hold water, with an arbour over it supported by marble columns; a venerable grapevine completely covered the arbour. The garden covered an extent of about four acres, filled with orange, lemon, almond, and fig trees; overrun with weeds, roses, and flowers, growing together in wild confusion. On the right was the house, and a melancholy spectacle it was; the wall had fallen down on one side, and the whole was black with smoke. We ascended a flight of stone steps, with marble balustrades, to the terrace, a platform about twenty feet square, overlooking the garden. From the terrace we entered the saloon, a large room with high ceilings and fresco paintings on the walls; the marks of the fire kindled on the stone floor still visible, all the woodwork burned to a cinder, and the whole black with smoke. It was a perfect picture of wanton destruction. The day, too, was in conformity with the scene; the sun was obscured, the wind blew through the ruined building, it rained, was cold and cheerless. What were the feelings of my friend I cannot imagine; the houses of three of his uncles were immediately adjoining; one of these uncles was one of the forty hostages, and was hanged; the other two were murdered; his father, a venerable-looking old man, who came down to the vessel when we started to see him off, had escaped to the mountains, from thence in a caique to Ipsara, and from thence into Italy. I repeat it, I cannot imagine what were his feelings; he spoke but little; they must have been too deep for utterance. I looked at everything with intense interest; I wanted to ask question after question, but could not, in mercy, probe his bleeding wounds. We left the house and walked out into the garden. It showed that there was no master's eye to watch over it; I plucked an orange which had lost its flavour; the tree was withering from want of care; our feet became entangled among weeds, and roses, and rare hothouse plants growing wildly together. I said that he did not talk much; but the little he did say amounted to volumes. Passing a large vase in which a beautiful plant was running wildly over the sides, he murmured indistinctly "the same vase" (le même vase), and once he stopped opposite a tree, and, turning to me, said, "This is the only tree I do not remember." These and other little incidental remarks showed how deeply all the particulars were engraved upon his mind, and told me, plainer than words, that the wreck and ruin he saw around him harrowed his very soul. Indeed, how could it be otherwise? This was his father's house, the home of his youth, the scene of his earliest, dearest, and fondest recollections. Busy memory, that source of all our greatest pains as well as greatest pleasures, must have pressed sorely upon him, must have painted the ruined and desolate scene around him in colours even brighter, far brighter, than they ever existed in; it must have called up the faces of well-known and well-loved friends; indeed, he must have asked himself, in bitterness and in anguish of spirit, "The friends of my youth where are they?" while the fatal answer fell upon his heart, "Gone murdered, in captivity and in exile."