Chapter XIII (2)

The voices of the Cypriot women had something in them peculiarly dissonant, and they all seemed to speak in a false tone, nor did use ever make these shrill accents agreeable. They were not, in general, beautiful, nor was their dress graceful, being in no sense calculated to display their shapes. Seen from behind, they resembled nothing so much as a horse in a mantua-maker’s show-room, with a dress appended to it. In their habits they were indolent; they were not good although niggardly housewives. They were oftener to be seen at the windows and doors of their houses than elsewhere, looking at passengers with the most idle curiosity. They were addicted to the grossest superstitions. For example: when oil is spilt from a lamp, a cruet, or otherwise, some dire misfortune is supposed to overhang the family; and, upon one occasion, having the misfortune to upset a lamp, I saw the eyes of the servants turned upon me, as on one whose presence foreboded evil. A neighbour would in vain attempt to obtain a light from the adjoining house, if applied for after sunset. These superstitions are harmless enough; but they become hurtful when they interfere with the cultivation of a useful study. Thus, a labourer on the estate of a gentleman of Larnaka struck upon the head of a statue, as he was ploughing. Curiosity induced him to clear away the soil from it; but when he saw the features (as it was of remarkably white marble), he took them for those of a spirit, and ran away. He bethought himself of going to the priest, who, hearing his story, accompanied him to the spot, and there found the head; which, under pretence of exorcising, he carried home, and presented to his patron, a Greek. His patron was proud of a handsome piece of ancient sculpture, and gave it a conspicuous situation in his house. It so happened, that, immediately afterwards, there was an epidemical disorder in Cyprus. The effects of it were felt in every house, and the possessor of the marble head did not escape. At last his sisters, unmarried ladies, who lived with him, conceived that the bust had brought the malady upon them. In vain he attempted to convince them of the absurdity of such a notion: they persisted, and he was obliged to give the bust away.

They rule their servants by caprice, and educate their children by fits of anger and indulgence.

The manufactures of Cyprus are chiefly coarse printed cottons for furniture, which are of lively chintz patterns, and remarkably cheap. The principal articles imported at this time into Cyprus were German looking-glasses, queen’s and other earthenware, sugar, syrups and liqueurs, cloth, Lyons’ stuffs, Manchester goods, glass, &c.

The Greek spoken at Cyprus is as corrupt as that in any part of the Turkish empire. An attempt to enumerate the words that have been introduced into it from other tongues would be to select almost all the expressions of eating, drinking, visiting, and business, common to the Turkish, Arabic, Italian, and French languages. An example of each will suffice.

Arabic.--Τι χαβαρι εχει; what news is there? from _kaber_, _news_.

Italian.--Καμνειν μιαν βισιταν], to pay a visit: from _visita_.

French.--Το εκαμεν εξακταμεντε, we have done it exactly: from _exactement_.

Turkish.--Γοκσα; or not? from _yok_.

Ditto.--Ρεζιλες, disputes.

The ῤ is aspirated in pronunciation at Cyprus, which is not done, I believe, elsewhere in the Greek islands.

Living at Cyprus was extremely cheap: but the term means nothing, when applied as relative to England; for all countries almost are cheap in comparison with it, and hence to Englishmen a great advantage is afforded wherever they travel. Compared with the adjacent districts of Syria and Caramania, living in Cyprus was cheap even then.

Cyprus still felt the effects of an insurrection which had convulsed the island some time before. To understand the causes of it, it is necessary to premise, that the Greeks enjoyed so much influence in Cyprus, as to be able often to displace a governor who had become obnoxious to them; not by an act of authority (for they had none in the eye of the law), but by representations to the Porte, backed by money. At the head of the Greek party was the archbishop. The one who held the crosier before the reigning archbishop was so infirm, that he employed, in all transactions with the government, his dragoman, named Hadji Georgaki, a man of great talents, which he perverted to the purposes of intrigue. To such a height had this man’s power grown, that he was supposed, by his machinations, to have removed more than one motsellem, or governor; and it was thought that no one could hold that dignity long, who had not previously entered into a friendly understanding with him.

In this way, Hadji Georgaki’s measures were generally uncontrolled, and he proceeded to the length of oppressing Turks and Christians indiscriminately, which was ill borne by the Turks, who submit reluctantly to authority exercised over them by an infidel; but not unwillingly by the Greeks themselves, who cared not to lose a portion of their substance, if their oppressors were to be fellow-sufferers. At length, however, the complaint of the Turks found its way to Constantinople, and Hadji Georgaki thought fit to go in person to the capital to counteract the machinations of his enemies; which, by force of bribes, he succeeded in doing, and returned triumphantly to Cyprus.

The hatred of the Turks against the dragoman now knew no bounds; and, finding they could not obtain justice from the Porte, they resolved to take the cause into their own hands. They accordingly laid a plot to seize the person of Hadji Georgaki, and to take away his life, but he was apprized of it in time to escape to Larnaka, where (after concealing himself some days in a consular house) he embarked for the Archipelago, and betook himself again to Constantinople. The Turks, having lost their victim, and committed themselves too far to recede, hoisted the standard of rebellion, and were headed by the governor. The Greeks were oppressed without appeal, and complaints poured into Constantinople, demanding relief.

The Porte now saw that energetic measures must be resorted to, and looked about for a proper man to execute its commands. Cara Pasha, a subtile chieftain, versed in intrigue, and who would stick at no means to effect his ends, was selected for the purpose. He embarked from the opposite coast of Asia with a large body of troops, and, landing, marched strait for Leucosia: but Leucosia, a fortified place, was so well defended by the rebels, that he found himself unable to carry it by assault. He accordingly sat down before the city, having seized on the flour-mills at Cytherea as the best means of straitening the besieged, who had no means, except by hand and mule-mills, of grinding corn within the walls. The archbishop and the chief Greeks found themselves shut in with the rebels. The former, fearing for his personal safety, and pretending to be alarmed only for that of his flock, wrote letters to the different consuls at Larnaka, begging them to intercede with the pasha for a truce, and to endeavour to settle the affair any how so that he might escape; signifying that, if hostilities commenced, he and the Greeks should be massacred. For it was the artifice of the rebels to hold out the threat, knowing how much could be done by the archbishop, if made a party in the affair.

The consuls, pleased with the importance they were likely to acquire in becoming mediators, set off, to the number of five, for Leucosia. They made known their business to the pasha, who eagerly availed himself of an opportunity which he thought was thus afforded him of getting within the walls. He accordingly treated them with great distinction, and expressed himself disposed to accede to any thing which their negociations might effect. A correspondence was immediately entered upon, and thirty days passed in messages to and fro; the rebels endeavouring to obtain permission to leave Leucosia with their property, and the pasha, on his side, offering them their lives and property, but with the condition that they should remain where they were. The rebels were at last brought to consent to these terms, on a solemn promise being made to the consuls by the pasha that their lives should be saved.

On an appointed day the gates were thrown open, and the pasha and the consuls marched in together in procession. The day was spent in merriment, and most persons thought the pasha honourable in his intentions. Night came, and the consuls retired to their respective houses, where they were to sleep. It was then that the pasha began to play his treacherous game. Despatching soldiers in different directions, he secretly caused to be seized, at the same moment, thirteen rebels, who were brought to the palace and beheaded immediately. Their relations flew to the consuls, whilst these executions were yet going on, and told them that the pasha had not respected the compact made between them. Monsieur Regnault, the French consul, as first in rank among them, despatched his dragoman to the pasha, and bade him hold his hand and respect the treaty. The dragoman, a timid Levantine, arrived whilst the bow-string was yet at work. Fainting and trembling, his tongue faltered, and his representations were unheeded by a man, who, in having made the consuls the tools of his perfidy, could well ask them why they meddled between the Porte and its subjects.

The next morning, when the day dawned, the pasha sent for the consuls. Monsieur Regnault at first refused to attend on him, but his timid associates advised him not to offend so sanguinary a man, and he accompanied them. The pasha received them not like one convicted of treachery, but as a magistrate vested with an authority in which they had no part. He read to them the firman of the Porte, commanding him to exterminate the rebels; and excused the mode in which he had effected it, by saying that no faith could be kept with them. He then invested each consul with a pelisse of one thousand piasters value, and, when they had suffered this, they went away, held their peace, and returned humbled to Larnaka.

To add to the disgrace which this whole transaction brought on the consuls, when the pasha afterwards came to Larnaka, previous to his embarkation for Latakia, they invited him alternately to their houses, where he made himself drunk with brandy, which he asked for incessantly; and, retiring to vomit, returned to drink again. These scenes were renewed from house to house, and often lasted through the night. And here Monsieur Regnault was destined to betray a second time the folly of meddling in affairs that did not concern him, however good and honourable the motive; for when, on the evening of the massacre, he had favoured the escape of certain rebels, and had caused them to be secreted in his house at Larnaka, the pasha sent a detachment of troops, and compelled him to give them up. Two, however, of the leaders, named Hadj Mustafa and Delli Omàr, escaped. The latter was for some time secreted at Signor Vondiziano’s, until an opportunity offered for stealing on board a ship and sailing for Syria. The whole affair cost a vast deal of money to the island, which was obliged to maintain so many troops; and the pasha enriched himself individually by presents extorted by terror, and by avanies levied on each rich person who could in any manner be implicated in the rebellion. The troops themselves departed with their arms covered with gold.

Will it then be said, after this, by writers and travellers, that the Turks are a nation devoid of animation, activity, or enterprise? Rather let us look on them as unmoved by the tranquil occupations of virtuous minds, and by the ordinary pursuits which agitate a Christian’s bosom, because they play a deeper game, and are to be excited to energy only where the stakes are fortune and life: but we must not charge them with dullness or inactivity.

The information acquired respecting Hadji Georgaki induced the pasha to denounce him to the Porte. On his arrival at Constantinople, after his flight, he had concealed himself at the village of Arnaûtkui on the Bosphorus, until by fresh bribes he could judge himself sufficiently protected at court; after which he appeared in public. But, his work not having been well done, one day he was seized and beheaded. His house was despoiled at Leucosia, and in the floor of one room was found a trap-door leading by steps to a stone vault, where immense treasures were discovered. When at Leucosia, I descended into this place, and was satisfied more than ever that such means of concealment were often resorted to by the natives of these countries.

The archbishop, in this conflict, saw himself deprived of half the authority which before, by peculiar privileges, had belonged to the see of Cyprus. For, up to this time, no judicial proceedings could be enforced against a Greek subject without his presence, personally or by deputy: now the motsellems of Leucosia, Larnaka, and Famagusta, were vested with the same authority as the governors of other cities of the empire.

The archbishop had once been an οικονομος, or commissary, and served as purveyor in the camp of the vizir, who conducted an army against the French in Egypt.

From the 3rd of February continued rain had fallen. The weather had become exceedingly tempestuous, and a succession of storms rendered it impossible for vessels to take in their cargoes; for Larnaka has no harbour, and vessels coming for a freight lie at anchor in the bay, and receive their merchandize by boats from the shore. There was a polacca brig loading for Marseilles, by which I had resolved to take my passage: but there was little prospect that she would be ready for some time, for the reasons assigned above.

On the 24th of February, after a very tempestuous night, the house of Mr. Caridi, (whose wife was sister to Mr. Vondiziano) was struck by lightning, which, after taking an irregular course through four chambers, breaking in its way a looking-glass, singeing a coverlet, and bursting a door, entered the wall of the house, which wall was of burnt brick. It so happened that there was a New Testament in Greek lying by the mirror; the mirror was broken, but the Testament remained uninjured. This book immediately acquired a degree of sanctity equal to what a τέμενος, (_temenos_) would have done among the ancients. But what amused me greatly was to see Mr. Caridi obliged to keep open house for three days, that people might view the book and compliment him on the miracle. His wife was much inclined to make a vow to go to Mount Athos, and return thanks for the signal deliverance. The same house was soon afterwards visited by another hurricane, when a gust of wind carried away a staircase, which led from the ground floor to the upper story, and which was on the outside, as is customary in the island.

Lent had now begun, and I resolved to live with Mr. Vondiziano’s family as if I had been of their own religion, in order to see how I could bear a meager diet. Yet he would not suffer me to do so entirely, apprehensive that it would not agree with my constitution. The eldest of Signor Vondiziano’s daughters, about twelve years old, had been so schooled by their confessor, that she fed on bread and olives only. Our meals consisted generally of rice soup, made with oil, instead of meat or butter; fish done in oil; wild and garden artichokes; salads, peas, beans, or other vegetables, fried in oil; botarga, caviare, olives, anchovies; and some other things, which I forget. The children vied with each other in undergoing privations of this kind: and the maid-servants were their abettors. Signor Vondiziano, under the plea of a weak stomach, obtained an exemption for himself twice a week.

In this way time wore on, but the weather did not change for the better: even the passage between Syria and Cyprus was interrupted. The drought of the preceding year was now more than overbalanced by the flooding rains; and, from the standing pools which they made, fevers and endemic maladies were anticipated.

The inhabitants of Larnaka, and, after them, travellers, have attributed the malignant fevers, which almost annually infest that town to a small lake of stagnant water, which lay between Larnaka and the Marina. As this lake is not more than a few hundred yards across in its longest diameter, it seems inadequate to the production of such extensive effects. There would appear to be sufficient reason in the sudden change of temperature which takes place at sunset, wherever in these latitudes there are low flats, in which heat is confined by day, and vapours are condensed by night. Even in the winter, after a sunny day, there was, at the close of it, such a chill suddenly pervading the atmosphere, as to give an instantaneous check to perspiration in any one incautiously exposed to it. In the spring and autumn, this must necessarily be more sensibly felt; as the quantity of vapour carried into the atmosphere is greater from the greater heat, and the system is then more easily acted upon, at one time from the sudden cessation of a renovated circulation, at another from the sudden contraction of relaxed pores.

Tired of waiting for the vessel’s departure, I resolved on another excursion into the interior; and, on the 21st of March, I set off with two mules, which cost me eleven piasters and a half per diem, for Leucosia. I was desirous, this time, of taking the road through Idalia; but my guide, who wished to pass the night at his own village, turned from the road which led to Idalia into that to Athegainon, imagining that, when once there, I could do no more than fume and talk, without any positive mischief to him. But I knew a Greek’s shifts well enough to suspect that the direction he took was not the right one, as I had previously instructed myself respecting the way. Accordingly, I suffered him to take the lead for about two hundred yards, and then suddenly, without apprizing him, turned off in a northerly direction. He did not look round, until I and my servant were almost out of sight; when, discovering what I had done, he came hurrying after me.

Idalia, now called Dali, is five leagues from Larnaka, west by north. It proved to be a village of eighty houses, twenty of which were Turkish, and sixty Christian. It had four _papases_, or priests. I was lodged at the ξενοδοκε̃ ιον, or public lodging, than which nothing could be more wretched. I went the following morning to see the site of ancient Idalia, to the south-east, over a fine plain of whitish soil. Half a dozen stones of rude workmanship, at a spot where the hills form a bogáz, or ravine, were all that now remained. My guide was very anxious that I should sit down and look around me; because, he said, the last Englishman who had been there had done the same: and I was inclined, therefore, to believe, that he had no other reason for calling these scattered stones ruins of Idalia, than because this Englishman had told him so. On my return to the village, I inquired for coins and statues, as is customary with travellers, and found, at a papas’s, a small woman’s head, in marble. I mounted my mule to depart, and, in passing a heap of stones and rubbish by the church, I observed what I thought to be the drapery of a statue peep out. I alighted, and found a statue in high relief, about twenty inches long, without a head, done in alabaster. This I brought away with me.

The road lay through hills, where I occasionally caught a glimpse of Leucosia; but did not enjoy the complete view until within a quarter of an hour’s distance from it. The day was beautifully fine. On my arrival at the monastery, the archbishop received me civilly, but with a settled gloom on his countenance, the cause of which will be presently shown. His dinner, as being Lent fare, was no better than the repasts which I had left behind me at Larnaka.

I visited, on the following day, Mâlem Anthony Brins, a native of Tripoli in Syria, who may pass as a person of some mark in the eyes of Europeans, as having been Monsieur Volney’s teacher in Arabic, when living at Mar Hanneh, on Mount Lebanon.[107]

Brins was now a merchant, living in affluence at Leucosia. His house was spacious and agreeable. Ali Bey had paid him a long visit during his stay at Leucosia. He spoke of that traveller as ill able to support the character of a Moslem, either by his exercise of the rites of the Mahometan religion, or by his general language and demeanour.

Let us now revert to the cause of the archbishop’s gloominess. About a week before this my second visit to Leucosia, a large sum of money, amounting to about twenty purses, or nearly £500, had been stolen in the night from the room where Andréa, the archbishop’s dragoman, sat every day for the purpose of transacting the business of the island between the governor and his master. In the bottom of the chest which was rifled, human ordure was left, as if to add insult to theft. It is to be observed that the palace of the governor, in which this room was situated, was enclosed in a quadrangular court, and had but one outlet.

At break of day, Andrea’s servant went, as was his custom, to put the room in order, when, finding the door forced and papers scattered in confusion on the floor, he ran back in dismay to inform his master, who hastened to see what had happened. The palace was soon in an uproar, and the extraordinary event of burglary committed in the very residence of the governor was considered as without a parallel.

When the first tumult was over, Andrea’s servant, the porter of the gate, who was a Turk, and three Christians, employed near these rooms, were apprehended. The _tufenkgi bashi_ (or head of the police, whose apartment was immediately under the treasury, and where it was supposed no noise could have been made without his hearing it), was suspected; as was Signor Andrea himself. Over these two persons, though not imprisoned, a guard was set to see that they did not escape.

It is usual with the Turks, when suspicion rests on particular persons, to resort to torture for a confirmation of their doubts. Accordingly, after four or five days, persons, to the number of thirty-two, having been arrested, and all these but six having proved their innocence (which six were, the porter, Andrea’s servant, and three Greeks, with a woman, the wife of one of them), the suspected were confined in separate rooms, and the investigation was begun in the following manner. Meal barley, wetted, was made up into boluses of a large size, and one of these was given to each of the accused. If he swallowed it, he was innocent; if guilty, it was supposed to be impossible to do so. Let it not, however, be imagined that the Turks place more reliance on evidence of this sort than we do. But they know that guilt sometimes betrays itself in superstitious trials, where the regular process of justice would be balked. Andrea’s servant was most cruelly tormented. He was placed on a cross, like that on which we represent St. Andrew to have been crucified. His temples were screwed by the pressure of a diadem of what are vulgarly called knuckle bones. Hot stones were applied to his head, hot irons to his flesh. Inflammable matter was smeared on him, and then ignited; and he was prevented from sleeping by persons placed near him for that purpose. On the other Greeks and on the gatekeeper the same torture was exercised.[108]

For the woman, a mode of torture was resorted to which may be called a refinement on cruelty. The trousers worn by women in these countries are exceedingly large, and tied at the ancles and waist. The plan pursued with her was this. A cat was put into the trowsers, which, being pricked and beaten, and unable to escape, grows furious, and tears the thighs and legs of the sufferer with his teeth and claws.

It was in the midst of this dreadful investigation that I arrived at Leucosia; and, walking the next day by the palace, I was startled by the sight of a man dangling by the neck to the iron grating of one of the palace windows, from fifteen to twenty feet from the ground. This was the porter, who had been hanged in this way, just as he was about to expire from the tortures he had undergone. As the investigation advanced, it was rumoured that an Armenian seràf (banker to the governor, and the rival of Andrea’s influence among the Turks) had invented this nefarious plot for the purpose of ruining Andrea. The servant of the latter died soon afterwards of his sufferings.

In the mean time, Andrea himself was exposed to the greatest danger, for his enemies were powerful; and, although the proofs of his innocence were satisfactory at home, he knew that such representations might be made at Constantinople as would totally change the face of things. And the event justified his apprehensions; for, although the cause was still under investigation when I left Cyprus, and the certainty of the Armenian’s plot became every day more apparent, the affair was not finished without a great sacrifice of money on the part of the archbishop; whilst Andrea, to avert a continuance of the persecution, sold off his household furniture and pictures, which he had recently imported from Italy, and reduced his establishment and his dress to so humble a guise, that envious and malevolent people should not have it in their power to allege anything against him.[109]

I got back to Larnaka just before Easter day. It fell this year on the 6th of April, and to a dull Lent succeeded visiting and festivities. Mass was celebrated at midnight, and, this over, the ceremony of kissing the cheek and saluting each other with “Christ is risen,” began. By 10 o’clock, Mr. Vondiziano’s courtyard was filled with drums and dancers, whilst in the saloon was the bishop with a party of priests chanting.

A circumstance, however, somewhat interrupted the harmony of the inhabitants. On the restoration of Louis XVIII., and the arrival of a new ambassador at Constantinople, religion had again raised her head, and the Catholic priests attempted to resume the influence which they had once so extensively enjoyed, even in these distant colonies. The freemasons were supposed to have been the fomenters of all the insults which the priests had suffered for so many years during the revolution, and the anathemas of the preachers were now levelled principally against them.

This spirit of persecution was encouraged by the arrival of the Abbé de Masure, almoner to the French ambassador, who denounced them as the machinators of all evil, political and moral. It is customary for Roman Catholics to confess themselves before receiving the sacrament at Easter; and, according to the new order of things, the French consul and the nation (for so the few individuals of each country style themselves) went to confession. Three, who were freemasons, were sent back, unless they would give up their masonic diplomas, which, of course, they refused to do. Nor was the matter settled until the consul threatened to imprison the priest, if he withheld absolution any longer from the individuals in question.

I dismissed my servant Giovanni, who was to return to Syria, where he proposed marrying a young person to whom he had been affianced three or four years. Wishing to make the best recompence in my power to a man, who, though he sometimes gave me reason, as has been related, to be angry with him, still had served me faithfully, I had previously presented him, on quitting Abra, with the best part of the furniture my cottage contained; and I now made him a present of a few articles for his bride, and of a sum of money for himself.