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

After diligent search by Demetrius (the name by which we had taken him, whose true name, however, we found to be Jerolamon), and by all the idlers whom the arrival of strangers attracted, we procured a room near the farthest wall; it was reached by ascending a flight of steps outside, and boasted a floor, walls, and an apology for a roof. We piled up our baggage in one corner, or, rather, my companions did theirs, and went prowling about in search of something to eat. Our servant had not fully apprized us of the extreme poverty of the country, the entire absence of all accommodations for travellers, and the absolute necessity of carrying with us everything requisite for comfort. He was a man of few words, and probably thought that, as between servant and master, example was better than precept, and that the abundant provision he had made for himself might serve as a lesson for us; but, in our case, the objection to this mode of teaching was, that it came too late to be profitable. At the foot of the hill fronting the sea was an open place, in one side of which was a little cafteria, where all the good-for-nothing loungers of Lepanto were assembled. We bought a loaf of bread and some eggs, and, with a cup of Turkish coffee, made our evening meal.

We had an hour before dark, and strolled along the shore. Though in a ruinous condition, Lepanto is in itself interesting, as giving an exact idea of an ancient Greek city, being situated in a commanding position on the side of a mountain running down to the sea, with its citadel on the top, and enclosed by walls and turrets. The port is shut within the walls, which run into the sea, and are erected on the foundations of the ancient Naupactus. At a distance was the promontory of Actium, where Cleopatra, with her fifty ships, abandoned Antony, and left to Augustus the empire of the world; and directly before us, its surface dotted with a few straggling Greek caiques, was the scene of a battle which has rung throughout the world, the great battle of the Cross against the Crescent, where the allied forces of Spain, Venice, and the pope, amounting to nearly three hundred sail, under the command of Don John of Austria, humbled for ever the naval pride of the Turks. One hundred and thirty Turkish galleys were taken and fifty-five sunk; thirty thousand Turks were killed, ten thousand taken prisoners, fifteen thousand Christian slaves delivered; and Pope Pius VI., with holy fervour, exclaimed, "There was a man sent from God, and his name was John." Cervantes lost his left hand in this battle; and it is to wounds he received here that he makes a touching allusion when reproached by a rival: "What I cannot help feeling deeply is, that I am stigmatized with being old and maimed, as though it belonged to me to stay the course of time; or as though my wounds had been received in some tavern broil, instead of the most lofty occasion which past ages have yet seen, or which shall ever be seen by those to come. The scars which the soldier wears on his person, instead of badges of infamy, are stars to guide the daring in the path of glory. As for mine, though they may not shine in the eyes of the envious, they are at least esteemed by those who know where they were received; and, even was it not yet too late to choose, I would rather remain as I am, maimed and mutilated, than be now whole of my wounds, without having taken part in so glorious an achievement."

I shall, perhaps, be reproached for mingling with the immortal names of Don John of Austria and Cervantes those of George Wilson, of Providence, Rhode Island, and James Williams, a black of Baltimore, cook on board Lord Cochrane's flagship in the great battle between the Greek and Turkish fleets. George Wilson was a gunner on board one of the Greek ships, and conducted himself with so much gallantry, that Lord Cochrane, at a dinner in commemoration of the event, publicly drank his health. In the same battle James Williams, who had lost a finger in the United States service under Decatur at Algiers, and had conducted himself with great coolness and intrepidity in several engagements, when no Greek could be found to take the helm, volunteered his services, and was struck down by a splinter, which broke his legs and arms. The historian will probably never mention these gallant fellows in his quarto volumes; but I hope the American traveller, as he stands at sunset by the shore of the Gulf of Lepanto, and recalls to mind the great achievements of Don John and Cervantes, will not forget George Wilson and James Williams .

At evening we returned to our room, built a fire in the middle, and, with as much dignity as we could muster, sitting on the floor, received a number of Greek visiters. When they left us we wrapped ourselves in our cloaks and lay down to sleep. Sleep, however, is not always won when wooed. Sometimes it takes the perverse humour of the wild Irish boy: "The more you call me, the more I won't come." Our room had no chimney; and though, as I lay all night looking up at the roof, there appeared to be apertures enough to let out the smoke, it seemed to have a loving feeling toward us in our lowly position, and clung to us so closely that we were obliged to let the fire go out, and lie shivering till morning.

Every schoolboy knows how hard it is to write poetry, but few know the physical difficulties of climbing the poetical mountain itself. We had made arrangements to sleep the next night at Castri, by the side of the sacred oracle of Delphi, a mile up Parnassus. Our servant wanted to cross over and go up on the other side of the gulf, and entertained us with several stories of robberies committed on this road, to which we paid no attention. The Greeks who visited us in the evening related, with much detail, a story of a celebrated captain of brigands having lately returned to his haunt on Parnassus, and attacked nine Greek merchants, of whom he killed three; the recital of which interesting incident we ascribed to Demetrius, and disregarded.

Early in the morning we mounted our horses and started for Parnassus. At the gate of the town we were informed that it was necessary, before leaving, to have a passport from the eparchos, and I returned to procure it. The eparchos was a man about forty-five, tall and stout, with a clear olive complexion and a sharp black eye, dressed in a rich Greek costume, and, fortunately, able to speak French. He was sitting cross-legged on a divan, smoking a pipe, and looking out upon the sea; and when I told him my business, he laid down his pipe, repeated the story of the robbery and murder that we had heard the night before, and added that we must abandon the idea of travelling that road. He said, farther, that the country was in a distracted state; that poverty was driving men to desperation; and that, though they had driven out the Turks, the Greeks were not masters of their own country. Hearing that I was an American, and as if in want of a bosom in which to unburden himself, and as one assured of sympathy, he told me the whole story of their long and bloody struggle for independence, and the causes that now made the friends of Greece tremble for her future destiny. I knew that the seat of the muses bore a rather suspicious character, and, in fact, that the rocks and caves about Parnassus were celebrated as the abodes of robbers, but I was unwilling to be driven from our purpose of ascending it. I went to the military commandant, a Bavarian officer, and told him what I had just heard from the eparchos. He said frankly that he did not know much of the state of the country, as he had but lately arrived in it; but, with the true Bavarian spirit, advised me, as a general rule, not to believe anything a Greek should tell me. I returned to the gate, and made my double report to my companions. Dr. W. returned with me to the eparchos, where the latter repeated, with great earnestness, all he had told me; and when I persisted in combating his objections, shrugged his shoulders in a manner that seemed to say, "your blood be on your own heads;" that he had done his duty, and washed his hands of the consequences. As we were going out he called me back, and, recurring to our previous conversation, said that he had spoken to me as an American more freely than he would have done to a stranger, and begged that, as I was going to Athens, I would not repeat his words where they could do him injury. I would not mention the circumstance now, but that the political clouds which then hung over the horizon of Greece have passed away; King Otho has taken his seat on the throne, and my friend has probably long since been driven or retired from public life. I was at that time a stranger to the internal politics of Greece, but I afterward found that the eparchos was one of a then powerful body of Greeks opposed to the Bavarian influence, and interested in representing the state of the country as more unsettled than it really was. I took leave of him, however, as one who had intended me a kindness, and, returning to the gate, found our companion sitting on his horse, waiting the result of our farther inquiries. Both he and my fellow envoy were comparatively indifferent upon the subject, while I was rather bent on drinking from the Castalian fount, and sleeping on the top of Parnassus. Besides, I was in a beautiful condition to be robbed. I had nothing but what I had on my back, and I felt sure that a Greek mountain robber would scorn my stiff coat and pantaloons and black hat. My companions, however were not so well situated, particularly M., who had drawn money at Corfu, and had no idea of trusting it to the tender mercies of a Greek bandit. In the teeth of the advice we had received, it would, perhaps, have been foolhardy to proceed; and, to my great subsequent regret, for the first and the last time in my ramblings, I was turned aside from my path by fear of perils on the road. Perhaps, after all, I had a lucky escape; for, if the Greek tradition be true, whoever sleeps on the mountain becomes an inspired poet or a madman, either of which, for a professional man, is a catastrophe to be avoided.