Chapter VII

Gun-room--Mountains of Morea--Minister of the Interior--Quarantine--
Deck companions--Holystone--Mr. Dawkins--Russian policy--Captain
Lyons--Hospitality--Bay of Napoli--Bustle of the streets--Public
walks--Count Armansperg--Modern Greeks--Their advantages--Democracy--
Aristocracy--The Senate--The Laws--The Sovereign--Judicial office.

We lingered about Hydra all the morning (2d November), and it being Sunday the men all assembled on deck in their best clothes at ten o’clock, when the officers read to them, in different groups, the Act of Parliament which directs that divine service shall be performed on-board his Majesty’s ships of war. I confess I think that this part of the ceremony is particularly objectionable. To summon a ship’s company to prayers by virtue of an Act of Parliament, is, of all things, the most absurd, considering that a duty of that kind ought to be performed from motives of a nature altogether superior to the authority of mere temporal legislation. The men then proceeded to the lower deck, where forms were arranged, and a temporary pulpit covered with a signal flag was erected for the chaplain, who read the service and a very good sermon in an unaffected and impressive manner. I observed with great pleasure that almost all the men and all the boys had books, and that they attended to the solemn duties of the hour in a very collected and becoming manner.

♦ GUN-ROOM ♦

The captain generally dines in the gun-room with the officers on a Sunday. This, however, is by no means considered as a matter of course. It is always the result of a regular invitation formally given and as formally accepted. The officers were so good as to send me also a similar invitation, of which I was most happy to avail myself. In our walks upon deck I had already become acquainted with most of the gentlemen on-board, and it gave me great pleasure to meet them assembled together at their own table, where they appeared to be so many brothers. There was less of style about their saloon than one is accustomed to at the captain’s; but the large tureen of excellent pea-soup, the noble sirloin of beef, the crowd of fowls and bacon, and stews, and vegetables of all kinds, and pies and puddings, with which their board was spread, recalled the best days of English hospitality, when the silver tankard foaming with nut-brown ale circulated from hand to hand, and the ruddy glow of health on every cheek predicted a considerable diminution in the weight of the plentiful dishes before they were permitted to take their departure.

♦ MOUNTAINS OF THE MOREA ♦

My friend, Captain Price, who has himself a taste for the beauties of nature, summoned me early on the following morning (3d November) to witness the effect of the rising sun on the mountains of the Morea. The higher peaks were capped with snow, and as the orb rose in the heavens, new peaks similarly diademed appeared to be called into existence every moment, until they appeared a congress of kings. From time to time as we were wafted tardily up the gulf, a different combination of mountain scenery opened on our view, looking like the work of enchantment, as we scarcely felt the vessel moving along the shore of these classic and delightful regions.

♦ MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR ♦

The Palamede of Napoli, as the acropolis or fortified capital of that ancient city is called, was already in sight, the Greek flag bearing the cross waving over its towers; but we did not reach our anchorage before it until three o’clock in the afternoon, when the _Portland_ announced her arrival by a royal salute, conducted with that rapidity and order which characterize all the operations of our ships of war. It was very fairly returned from the Palamede.

As we had some quarantine to go through, the duration of which we had not yet been able to ascertain, Captain Price dispatched a note to Mr. Waller, the secretary of the British legation, to make some inquiries on the subject. We were aware that Mr. Dawkins, our minister, had taken a little trip in the _Madagascar_ with Captain Lyons to Candia, whence he was expected back every moment. Mr. Waller’s reply was, that the “Minister of the Interior” had gone a little way into the country, and would return in an hour or two, when the period of our imprisonment would be settled. The title of “Minister of the Interior” for Greece--a country which had so long been the victim of misrule and oppression in every form--sounded oddly, but by no means disagreeably in my ears. How intelligence connected with such a title would have thrilled the soul of Lord Byron! Our messenger brought back a file of Galignani’s newspapers, down to the 10th of October, which afforded an agreeable occupation to us all for the whole evening.

♦ QUARANTINE ♦

The _Madagascar_, which had been for some time within our telescopic view, came in at nightfall. I was extremely anxious to get ashore, to touch the soil of that territory so sacred in my estimation, and to behold her newly-recovered freedom in one of its earliest phases. Having letters for Mr. Dawkins, I sent them with Captain Price’s dispatches as soon as the _Madagascar_ was anchored, adding a note by way of petition for an early deliverance from quarantine.

♦ DECK COMPANIONS ♦

Upon reflection, however, I wondered at myself for feeling any inclination at all to quit the pleasant quarters I enjoyed in the _Portland_. I can never look back at the days and nights which I spent on-board that vessel without classing them among the happiest of my life. Should Captain Price, Lieutenant Burridge, my good friends Cooper, the Purser, and Captain M’Adam, of the marines, the companions of many of my walks on the deck, happen to see this work, I beg they will remember me when next they meet in the gun-room, and that they will assure my other friends also, “the members of the junior branches of the service,” that if ever occasion should arise for her services, in a more active scene than the Piræus, I shall look with confidence and peculiar interest for the dispatches which shall announce that the _Portland_ has “done her duty.” By Jupiter! I should not like to be roaming about in a Russian ship of war, if any danger existed of her coming into hostile contact with those hosts of mine. I never saw them in their element until that day, when, in voices that had nearly burst the tympana of my auricular organs, their guns bade old Palamede “good morning!” But had they been blowing up the veteran!--

♦ HOLYSTONE ♦

By the way, talking of tympana, I should be glad to learn from Basil Hall, Glascock, or Marryatt, who was the inventor of _holystone_? Wrapped one fine morning in such dreams as may be supposed to haunt the mind slumbering within sight of Argos, Mycenæ, and Tiryntha, I was suddenly awoke by a succession of sounds, which were to me utterly incomprehensible. They were above, around, below. I made no doubt at first that we were in for an earthquake, or rather for all the earthquakes that ever yet took place concentrated in one series of explosions. But this idea was dissipated by the regularity of the moving power, whatever that might have been, for on it went, like the lever of some infernal engine, scraping, rubbing, scrubbing, thumping with a noise of thunder, without the intermixture of one human sound, to prevent me from believing that the whole of this interruption to my repose was brought about by some preter-natural agency I had read of the region where unexpiated crime is punished by “weeping and gnashing of teeth;” but until _Holystone_ morning, I never could fix in my thoughts any thing like an idea of those sounds of anguish and unalterable despair.

♦ MR. DAWKINS ♦

Forsooth! that the captain may be able to see his face reflected from the deck as in a mirror, on stated days the men assemble at the dawn, each with a huge brick in his hand, and kneeling down--whence they call the duty _holy_!--on they go over the whole surface with their inquisitorial torturer, until they expel from the very souls of the unfortunate planks the slightest stain of transgression. When the work is over, and the polished timbers shine out with a sort of bridal smile, the captain struts forth like a bridegroom, and walks up and down his empire, perfectly convinced that he is the happiest of human creatures! The operation cannot, one should think, be pleasant to any man of common sense--and yet I do believe, if it were altered by any chemical substitution for a process not quite so horrible, the reform would lead to a general mutiny in his Majesty’s navy! _Holystone_ and I shall never be friends--nevertheless, I bow to it as a most venerable institution!

♦ RUSSIAN POLICY ♦

Mr. Dawkins came alongside the _Portland_ in a boat from the _Madagascar_, which was also in quarantine, the plague having been then rife at Alexandria, which communicated with Candia, almost unrestricted by any sanatory regulations. That beautiful and fertile island is in the possession of Mehemet Ali, to whom it is rather an incumbrance than an advantage, for the expenditure which it costs him is more than double its revenue. Mr. Dawkins appeared to have been delighted with his visit to it, and talked of its lemon and orange groves in terms that made me desirous of following his example, if time and opportunity had allowed me. But my present purpose was to get ashore as speedily as possible; and when the minister told me that he expected to see Price and myself, as well as his friend Lyons at his house to dinner, I assured him, very sincerely, that I accepted his invitation with the greatest satisfaction. I was much pleased with Mr. Dawkins. My notions of a man’s character are pretty generally formed on a first interview, and I have seldom occasion to correct them. In this instance I saw a remarkably strong and clear mind, united with a most excellent heart, and every hour of my further acquaintance with both confirmed my earliest impressions in their favour.

And so it happened, that in the evening (4th November) we really did receive from the “Minister of the Interior,” permission to terminate our quarantine, which we had feared would be extended to eleven days. I stepped upon the soil of Greece with feelings which arose from the double reflection, that I touched a territory at once classic and free--classic from its own genius, and free by the genius of England! Those who claim for Russia any share in that important result, must be but very imperfectly acquainted with the policy which it was her great aim to establish in that quarter. It is very well-known, that the real object of the late and the present emperor was, to establish principalities in Attica and the Morea, upon the system adopted in Moldavia and Wallachia. It was our business to resist and defeat that design, and we have succeeded--and that success is very much to be imputed to the exertions of Mr. Dawkins, who has represented his Majesty in Greece during the whole of the discussions, which ended in the election of a Bavarian prince as the sovereign of the new kingdom.

♦ CAPTAIN LYONS ♦

♦ HOSPITALITY ♦

When I met Captain Lyons, I could scarcely convince myself that it was for the first time. There are some faces to be encountered in this world of ours which never seem new; they approach at once without ceremony, all beaming with honesty of purpose, and thorough kindliness of disposition, which open an instant way for them to our hearts, as if they had been already its best known and most familiar guests. I think the very first words he spoke to me were these--“Well, as you have come to Napoli in the _Portland_, assuredly you will come home with us in the _Madagascar_.” What could I say in the way of thanks to such a salutation as this? “But Mr. Quin shall do no such thing,” said Mr. Dawkins, “for you are going away to-morrow or the next day, and if he does not stay here as long as he can, and see what we have been doing here for the last eight or ten years, his character will be lost as a Philhelline.” Imagine these sort of things going on amidst iced champagne, old port, and sweet lemons, and fragrant oranges from Candia, after a dinner cooked and served in the best English style, and zested by the true Yorkshire hospitality!

As Bruno’s hotel was full, Mr. Dawkins assigned to me the apartments of his private secretary, Mr. Griffith, who was engaged at Athens in superintending the progress of the building which had been purchased for the future residence of the British legation. Thus every where I lighted on a home. However, the next day finding a vacancy at Bruno’s, I removed to his not uncomfortable establishment; as, however well disposed our ministers abroad may be to show every mark of attention and even of kindness to our countrymen, it is by no means fair to trespass upon their domestic arrangements beyond the strict necessity of any case that may arise.

♦ BAY OF NAPOLI ♦

Before making myself familiar with the streets of Napoli, my first steps were directed towards the mountain on which the Palamede is erected. Though exceedingly rough and rocky, there was not a handful of earth any where to be seen that did not produce some kind of vegetation, and all of it perfumed with that wild thymy fragrance, which I afterwards found to be characteristic of all the rocky hills I visited in Greece. I looked down upon Napoli, which lay like a map beneath me, and beheld with a lively feeling of gratification the bustling crowds running here and there through its squares and market-places. The _Portland_ and _Madagascar_ were anchored at some distance from the shore; near the latter were two French ships of war, under the command of Commodore Laland, and almost within the port, two Russian frigates of sixteen guns each--the _Ajax_ and _Achilles_, stationed there for the purpose, it was said, of carrying on the correspondence. Several merchant vessels and abundance of small craft gave the bay an appearance of animation. Argos, and its famous plain in the west, and the mountains which extend in a semicircle from its Acropolis by Mycenæ and Tiryntha, round the head of the gulph, were reposing in the golden light of the morning sun. A goatherd was wandering about the mountains with his shaggy company and one or two donkies, who neglected no blade of verdure they could detect among rocks, which to most other animals would have been inaccessible.

♦ BUSTLE OF THE STREETS ♦

Accustomed to the laziness of the Turkish towns which I had so lately left, I was rejoiced to observe the variety of groups I met every where in Napoli, and the industry that appeared to reign in almost every habitation. French, English, Bavarians, Greeks from all the provinces in their beautiful and gay costume, moving about with that air of freedom to which we are habituated at home, served, in my estimation, as the best commentary that could be written upon their revolution. Except at Pera, and in one of the bazaars at Constantinople, I had not seen a single book-shop since I left Vienna, and nothing like a news-room since I quitted France. Here I beheld both the one and the other; I think there were six or eight in all, and they appeared to be well frequented.

♦ PUBLIC WALKS ♦

In the afternoon the public walks near the town displayed a still greater variety of costume, as the ladies made their appearance, some as pedestrians, some riding, others in carriages, attended by military officers in their handsome uniform; by several English gentlemen, some of whom were like myself, travellers; some, as General Church, distinguished Philhellenes; by noisy Greeks, who with their freedom seemed to have completely recovered their ancient propensity to talk; by the ministers and other members of the different legations; and by mercantile gentlemen, who appear not to have yet established their legitimate grade in the social intercourse of the country. The “junior branches of the service” intermingled also in this interesting scene, “on the look-out;” while idling soldiers, tars, nurses, and children, contributed to swell the ranks moving up and down with great regularity. Among the distinguished of the scene were the Countess Armansperg and her daughters, and the lady of the Russian envoy.

As a first external view of the changes which had already come over Greece, these exhibitions were by no means unsatisfactory. I was told, however, that beneath all this pleasant-looking surface, much rankling and jealousy, and ambition and disappointment prevailed; that cabal was working in its dangerous sinuosities, and rivalry, or rather envy, was planning perpetually fresh disturbances; that is to say, in Greece there are men and women, as well as in England or France, who are desirous of profiting by circumstances to advance themselves and their families in the world. So much the better. It is upon such constant personal warfare, whether latent or avowed, that nations must always depend for their progress in civilization. I was glad to hear that there was so much of it already in Greece; and although one might silently wish to see the contest carried on with more generosity and charity on all sides, nevertheless we must take men as we find them, and look forward to a more perfect stage of society, when that which we now justly stigmatize as envy, may become emulation; when cabal shall be impotent against public opinion; and disappointment in the different walks of life shall only be the portion of those who, from want of conduct or of talents, are unfit to gain the distinctions to which they aspire.

♦ COUNT ARMANSPERG ♦

There were evening assemblies once a week at Count Armansperg’s, one of which I attended. The rooms were crowded. The Count is a man of tried ability, of simple engaging manners, much attached by sentiment to Greece, and to every thing Greek, possessing a mind stored with various information, and remarkably well fitted to be the Mentor of the young monarch, who has lately taken into his own hands the reins of sovereignty. It has been wisely arranged that the termination of the regency was to be attended with no substantial change in the position of the Count. He is now arch-chancellor of the kingdom, an office which will enable him more effectually even than that he lately held as the head of the regency, to carry into execution his plans for the gradual regeneration of a country and a people, capable of being raised to a most important rank among the civilized communities of Europe.

♦ MODERN GREEKS ♦

It is a kind of fashion amongst our circles at home to decry the Greeks as a set of knaves, idlers, banditti, swaggerers, and peculators, of whom no good can ever be augured. Is perfection, then, to be expected at once from a nation just risen from a long night of oppression, with all the marks of the manacle upon its limbs, with all the defensive stratagems of the slave still lurking in its mind? Have we no knaves, no idlers, no swaggerers, no peculators, in England? Are none such to be found in France? I know nothing more unjust, in every sense of the word, than the vituperative language which I have heard every where uttered against the Greeks since my return home. The truth is, that they are neither more or less perfect, as to moral character, than any other people. My experience has taught me this truth, that under every phasis of civilization, whether the brightest or the darkest, the sum of human happiness or virtue, of misery and vice, is much the same, and that it generally bears about the same proportion to the number of families comprised in each community.

♦ THEIR ADVANTAGES ♦

The Greeks require time for repairing the ruins of their ancient institutions, and for engrafting upon those institutions, with the requisite skill, which can alone ensure success, such improvements as the new interests of society may demand. They come to the task of reform with incalculable advantages, which will enable them to accelerate their march towards a stable government, and an assured, compact, social condition. They have the press, the newspaper, the rail-road, the steam-boat; they soon will have a powerful tide of public opinion, representing not the passions, but the good sense of a decided majority of their intelligent men; they have derived from their illustrious ancestors minds capable of any thing within even the highest range of the human faculties; they possess powerful muscular frames, inured to labour; they are prone to agricultural and commercial pursuits; they are easily rendered excellent soldiers and the best sailors in the Mediterranean; they cultivate a land where, although barren mountains abound, the plains compensate for that sterility by their double harvests, when properly irrigated; and as their great object will be to _restore_, having little to _invent_ in the way of government, laws, manners, arts of navigation and war, industrious occupations, whether connected with the soil or manufactures, the convenience or amusement, the wants or embellishments of social existence--they will unquestionably have fewer difficulties to contend against than any other people on the earth, struggling at the present moment to emerge from barbarity to freedom.

♦ DEMOCRACY ♦

Many persons have lamented that instead of a monarchy, a republic had not been established in Greece. I am not one of those persons. The purely democratic forms of government, attempted to be established in the new states of South America, have already cost those countries oceans of blood, and mines of gold; and at this hour they appear to be farther removed from the stages of peace and prosperity, than they were even when oppressed by the domination of Spain.

I have taken none of my notions of the United States from the works of English or other foreign tourists. I have conversed with Americans; I constantly read their reviews and magazines, and, above all, their newspapers, which reflect their manners, ideas, and every day practices, as in a glass; and I find, on the whole, that a President may, during his hour upon the stage, play many more of the tricks of a tyrant, than a monarch of England would dare even to meditate; that a senate may be as obstinate and as wrong as a house of lords, without their dignity; that a congress may be in every possible attribute, requisite for legislators and statesmen, infinitely below comparison with a reformed house of commons; and that a whole mass of sovereign citizens may be actuated by feelings of the most rancorous jealousy, which enter into and disturb all the relations of life, while the loyal subjects of a king, possessed of a free constitution, which they know how to guard, may also have their political quarrels; but that the stability of the succession to the crown, of property, and of the natural gradations of rank, and the perfect capability which the lowest individual on the scale enjoys of ascending to the highest, if borne thither by his merits, and by the approbation of his country, offer to society pledges of public and domestic happiness, and of steady, progressive improvement, as yet unrivalled by any other nation.

♦ ARISTOCRACY ♦

It is certain that the earliest, and, for a long period, the only, form of government, which prevailed in the various cities or states of Greece, was that of monarchy, controlled by councils of the elders, and of the great body of the people. Wisdom, or the acquisition of years spent in temperate, virtuous, and thoughtful habits, and the same qualifications which entitled a citizen to become a senator, gained for him also an unbought veneration, which naturally diffused itself over all the members of his family. Thus, an aristocracy, in the literal sense, was one of the very first products of society; and though it rarely happens that the wisdom of the sire descends in all its plenitude to the son, still, in the natural order of things, such a transmission is presumed, and the rank and merits of the ancestor shed a lustre upon his posterity, which is guaranteed by their uncontested inheritance of his name and possessions. It is not probable, therefore, that the creation of a class of nobility was the work of any lawgiver, for it existed as soon as communities found themselves provided with a regular system of government.

♦ THE SENATE ♦

In process of time, the council thus became an assembly of men, young and old, whose only right to the exercise of senatorial functions arose from descent. To establish that right, the preservation of pedigrees was necessary; it soon grew into a subject of pride, and formed a decided mark of distinction, which, while it repelled the familiarity of the multitude, attracted their respect. They were naturally as deeply interested in the maintenance of public liberty, as the people themselves; indeed more so, for they had rank and property to lose.

♦ THE LAWS ♦

From the comparative paucity of their numbers, they were easily convened; the same circumstance gave consistency to their deliberations; and hence we find that in almost all the states, the council of nobles formed an integral branch not only of the legislative, but also of the executive departments of government. The prince scarcely did any act of importance without their sanction. It was his duty to offer his own opinions in council, to hear those of its members, and to adopt that advice alone which appeared to him most conducive to the general welfare. Indeed so intimate was the connection between the senate and the chief magistrate, that they may be said to have conducted the ordinary affairs of government in conjunction. They judged of the necessity of sending ambassadors to other states, and even nominated them. They received also the ambassadors from foreign powers. They had authority to confer grants of land, and to bestow other rewards, on those individuals whose public services deserved well of the country. They were the depositories of those principles of natural equity, and of those customs peculiar to each state, which added to a few maxims, handed down from sage to sage, formed the only code of laws with which they were as yet conversant.

♦ THE SOVEREIGN ♦

The necessity of resorting so frequently to the senate for advice, and of depending on its members for the ordinary administration of public affairs, created of itself a limit to the authority of the prince, beyond which, if he had the disposition, he had not as yet the means to force it. They were the dispensers of justice between man and man. The prince more than insinuated that he derived his sceptre from Jove, though he acknowledged at the same time that he was to frame his counsels according to the laws. His race was moreover looked upon as sacred; and this species of sanctity with which he was surrounded rendered his person inviolable.

♦ THE JUDICIAL CHARACTER ♦

But it may be doubted whether the princely character was so profoundly venerated by the people in any state of Greece, as the judicial office, when its functions were executed with impartiality, wisdom, and eloquence. Poetry, in the opinion of the people, was the gift of Apollo and the Muses, but the eloquence of the judge was breathed into him by Jove himself. The chief of the Muses attended on his steps, and poured a gentle dew upon his tongue; words were honeyed that dropped from his lips; he spoke firmly, but at the same time with a graceful modesty; he soothed the unfortunate, defended the oppressed, discerning in his righteousness the ways of justice; while he spoke, strife disappeared, all his hearers gazed upon him with delighted wonder; he shone in the great assembly, and when he moved abroad, in his majesty, the people honoured him as a god. This was a character to be found in the senate alone. The weight which their judicial functions thus gave them in the state, rendered them a body formidable to the prince: he could scarcely oppose their will without bringing on himself the hostility of the people.