CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM Mr. and Mrs.Wm.F.E.Gnrley Cornell University Library DS 48.H14 3 1924 028 518 987 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92402851 8987 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE WORKS BY H. RIDER HAGGARD CETYWAYO AND HIS WHITE NEIGHBOURS. DAWN. THE WITCH'S HEAD. KING SOLOMON'S MINES. SHE. JESS. ALLAN QUATEEMAIN. MAIWA'S REVENGE. MK. MEESON'S WILL. COLONEL QUARITCH, V.C. CLEOPATRA. ALLAN'S WIFE. BEATRICE. ERIC BEIGHTEYES. NADA THE LILY. MONTEZUMA'S DAUGHTER. THE PEOPLE OF THE MIST. JOAN HASTE. HEART OF THE WORLD. DOCTOR THBENE. SWALLOW. BLACK HEART AND WHITE HEART. LYSBETH. A FARMER'S YEAR. (.IN COLLABORATION WITH ANDREW LANG) THE WORLD'S DESIRE. A WINTER PILGRIMAGE Being an Account of Travels through PALESTINE, ITALY, and the ISLAND OF CYPRUS, accomplished in the Year 1900 rfc? By H. RIDER HAGGARD WITH ILLUSTRATIONS SECOND IMPRESSION LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1902 All rights reserved / offer these Pages to Me. & Mrs. HART BENNEIT and all other Cyprian friends whose hospitalities and kindness have made my sojourn in the Island so pleasant to remember Ditchinffham, 1901. CONTENTS CHAP. riatt 1 I. Milan Cathedral II. A Tuscan Wine-Faem III. FlESOLE AND FlOEBNCE IV. Pompeii ...... V. Naples to Larnaca .... VI. Colossi VII. A Cypriote Wedding VIII. Amathus IX. Curium ...... X. Limasol to Acheritou XI. Famagusta XII. The Siege and Salamis . XIII. Nicosia and Kykenia XIV. Betrout, Tyre, and Sidon XV. Nazareth and Tiberias . XVI. The Sea of Galilee XVII. Tabor, Carmel, and Acre XVIII. Jaffa XIX. The Noble Sanctuary, the Pools or Solomon, and Bethlehem ..... XX. Jericho, The Dead Sea, Bethany, and Solo mon's Quarries XXI. Gordon's Tomb and Golgotha . XXII. The Church of the Sepulchre XXIII. The Mount of Olives and The Wailing of 13 27 37 52 66 78 92 109 124 141 157 175 188 203 221 236 257 272 288 305 319 THE Jews 334 Tii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Cathedral op St. Sophia, Famagusta . Tombstone of the Cardinal Leonardo Buonapbdk Brass Lamp-Holder from the Chapfsl op the Family Luperelli-Pitti in Cortona Curtain Wall, Famagusta Tower op Colossi . Cyprian Farriers . Cyprian Boot-Shop . On Trooidos . Wall of New Reservoir, Acheritou . Ancient Sluice Gate at Acheritou Dbsdemona's Tower, Famagusta . EuiNS OP Ancient Church, Famagusta St. Hilarion Monastery op Bella Pais Heights of Hilarion Venetian Fortress, Kykenia . Door of St. Nicholas, Nicosia Our Cavalcade Mary's Well, Nazareth Boat on the Sea op Galilee Site op Capernaum Mount Tabor Eoman Catholic Convent with Ruins on Mount Tabor Shepherd Carrying a Lost Sheep The River Jordan .... Site op the Temple of the Jews . Interior op the Noble Sanctuary, showing the Sacred Rock .... The Golden Gate .... View on the Road to Jericho The only House by the Dead Sea The Place op Stoning . Frontispiece To face page 17 65 75 88 91 112 139 139 153 153 176 178 181 181 187 203 203 221 224 234 234 246 246 270 vfii 272 279 292 292 308 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE CHAPTER I MILAN CATHEDRAL Surely Solomon foresaw these days when he set down that famous saying as to the making of many books. The aphorism, I confess, is one which strikes me through with shame whenever I chance to be called upon to read it aloud in the parish church on Sunday. Indeed it suggests to me a tale which has a moral — or a parallel. Some months ago I tarried at Haifa, a place on the coast of Syria with an abominable port. It was at or about the hour of midnight that a crowd of miserable travellers, of whom I was one, might have been seen cowering in the wind and rain at the gates of this harbour. There the judge and the officer bullied and rent them, causing them to fumble with damp hands and discover their tezkerehs in inaccessible pockets, which they did that the account given in those documents of their objects, occu- pations, past history, and personal appearance might be verified by a drowsy Turk seated in a box upon the quay. Not until he was satisfied on all these points, indeed, would he allow them the privilege of risking death by drowning in an attempt to reach a steamer which rolled outside the harbour. At length the ordeal was done with and we were informed that we might embark. That is to say, we were graciously permitted to leap five feet from an unlit 2 A WINTER PILGEIMAGE pier — the steps of which had been washed away in the gale of the previous night, but will, I am informed, be repaired next season — trusting to Providence to cause us to fall into a dark object beneath believed to be a boat. Another Turkish officer watched our departure sus- piciously, though what he imagined we could be carrying out of his barren land is beyond my guessing. " Cook, Cook, Cook ! " we croaked in deprecatory tones as one by one we crept past him cowed and cold, fearing that he might invent some pretext to detain us. There- fore it was indeed that we hurried to bring to his notice the only name which seems to have power in Syria ; that famous name of the hydra-headed, the indispens- able, the world-wide Cook. " Cook, Cook, Cook ! " we croaked. " Oh ! yes," answered the exasperated Turk in a tone not unlike that of a sleepy pigeon, " Coook, Coook, Coook ! oh yes, all right ! Coook, always Coook ! Go to — Jericho — Coook ! " In the same way and with much the same feelings, thinking of the long line of works before me, I mutter to the reader now, " Book, Book, Book ! " Can he be so rude as to answer, after the example of the Haifa Turk— " Oh ! yes, all right ! Boook, &c. &c." The thought is too painful : I leave it. To be brief, I write for various reasons. Thus from the era of the " Bordeau Pilgrim " who wrote in the year 333, the very first of those who set on paper his impressions of the Holy Land, to this day, from time to time among those who have followed in his steps, some have left behind them accounts of what they saw and what befell them. The list is long. There are St. Sylvia, and the holy Paula ; Arculfus and St. Wilibad, Mukadasi and Bernard the Wise ; Ssewulf and the Abbot Daniel ; Phocis the Cretan and Theodoric ; Felix Fabri ; Sir John MandevUle, de la Broequifere and Maundrell — and so on MILAN CATHEDRAL 3 down to Chateaubriand and our own times. But one thing they had in common. They — or most of them — were driven on by the same desire. Obedient to a voice that calls in the heart of so many, they travelled by land and sea to look upon the place where Jesus Christ was born — where the Master of mankind hung upon His cross at Calvary. I will confess that I have a fancy to be numbered among their honourable company. So it may chance — this is my hope — that when another thousand years or more have gone by advancing the Holy Land thus far upon its appointed future, and the Moslem has ceased to occupy the sacred places, my name may appear with their names. Thus perhaps I also may be accounted a link in the chain of those who dedicated some of their uncertain days to visiting and describing that grey stretch of moun- tain land which is the cradle of man's hope in the dark- ness that draws near to every one of us. My second reason is that I should like to say something about that neglected British possession, the fair island of Cyprus. To-day a Cinderella among our colonies, with a little more care — and capital — she might again become what she was of old, the Garden of the Mediterranean, a land of corn and wine, and in fact, as well as figuratively, a mine of wealth. Of Cyprus but few have written ; travellers rarely think it worth the while to visit there, so in this particular at the least I trust that I may not be blamed. There is, further, a last argument or excuse which I will venture to use, because it seems to me to have a very wide application, far wider, indeed, than is neces- sary to the instance of these humble pages. It is the fashion nowadays to say that everything is hackneyed ; that the East itself, for instance, is practically exhausted ; that the reader, who perchance has never travelled further than Ramsgate, can have little more to learn therefrom. " Give us some new thing," cries the tired world, as the Athenians cried of old. They ask in vain, 4 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE on this side the grave there is no new thing. We must make the best of the old material or give up thinking and reading, and the seeing of sights. Yet what a fallacy underlies the surface meaning of these words. Is not everything new to the eyes that can see and the ears that can hear ? Are there not joys and wonders about us by the thousand which, being so blind and deaf, we seldom seize or value ? Oh, jaded reader, go stand in a garden as I did to-night and watch the great cold moon creep up beyond the latticed trees, while the shadows grow before her feet. Listen to the last notes of the thrush that sways on the black bough of yonder beech, singing, with a heart touched by the breath of spring, such a sons: as God alone could teach her. And there, in the new-found light, look down at those pale flowers. Or if you prefer it, stand upon them, they are only prim- roses, that, as Lord Beaconsfield discovered, are very good in salad. To drop the poetical — and the ultra-practical, which is worse — and take a safer middle way, I cannot for my part believe that this old world is so exhausted after all. I think that there is still plenty to be seen and more to be learned even at that Ramsgate of which I spoke just now. Therefore I will try to describe a few of the things I saw last winter as I saw them, and to chronicle their meanings as I caught and understood them, hoping that some will yet be found for whom they may have interest. "Upon a certain foggy winter morning we stood at Charing Cross Station en route for Italy, Cyprus, and Syria, via the St. Gothard, &c." This, surely, is how I should begin, for it is bold to break away from the accepted formula of books of travel consecrated by decades of publication. Still let me do so, and before we leave it, look round the station. It is a horrible, reeking place, Heaven MILAN CATHEDRAL 5 knows, on such a morning as this of which I write. The most common of sights to the traveller also, and one of the most unnoticed. And yet how interesting. In a sense even it is majestic. The great arching roof, a very cave of the winds ; the heavy pencils of shadow flung across its grey expanse ; the grimy, pervading mist ; the lumps of black smoke edged with white propelled labori- ously upwards ; the fierce, sharp jets of steam ; the constant echo of the clanging noises ; the sense of bitted force in those animate machines that move in and out, vanishing there into the wet mist, appearing here in the soot-streaked gloom. Then the population of this vast unfriendly place, the servants of the great engines, and those whom the engines bear on their way to many lands. They come, they go, those multitudinous forms ; they are seen, they disappear, those various faces, each of them, if you watch, dominated by some individual note — grief, joy, expectancy, regret, enmii even, as may chance. That train steams out, and those who clustered round it have melted like last night's snow. Some it has borne away; some, friends and spectators, having waved their last farewell, are departed upon their affairs. Now a new train arrives ; other crowds appear, drawn from the vast reservoir of London, and with variations the scene repeats itself. This time we take an active part in the play, and presently steam out into the billows of black mist and are lost behind the curtain of the swinging rain. There beneath us runs the inky Thames, sombre, mysterious-looking even, and to the eye, notwithstanding its creeping squalor — though why this should be so it is hard to say — endued with a grandeur that is not the property of many a nobler stream. Next appear countless, sordid houses, the crowded, monotonous homes, if homes they can be called, for which tens of thousands of Englishmen abandon the wholesome country-side and the pure air of heaven, because — for those who can get it — here in London the 6 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE wage is higher. They are done with. Now in their place is stretched the open English landscape, wet and wretched, its green fields showing almost grey beneath the embracing, ashen sky, the trees mere black blots, the roads yellow lines of mud. Yet in its own way it is beautiful, all of it, as the face of Nature is ever beautiful to those who love her, and knowing her moods, can sympathise with them and catch something of their meaning. So through these familiar things onward to the sea. " Moderate " was the report of the Channel weather at Charing Cross, which, as the Station-master explained mysteriously, might mean a good deal. In fact we find it blowing a gale, for the spray drives right over the train on to the unhappy passengers as they splash towards the boat quivering and livid, some of them, with anticipatory qualms. But the history of a bad crossing may well be spared. The boat did get out and it was accomplished — at a price — that is all. If I were asked to devise a place of punishment for sinners of what I may chance to consider the direst degree, a first-class continental hotel is the purgatorial spot to which I would commit them — for a century at a time. Yes, and thither they should travel once a month (with a family) in the waggon-lit of a train de luxe with all the steam-pipes turned on. And yet there are people who like hotels. I have known some wanderers even who inhabit them from choice. Ameri- cans, too, are very happy there. Strange it is that folk can be so differently constituted. Rather would I dwell — for a life choice — in a cottage in the country on a pound a week than free in those foreign, gorgeous hostel- ries, where every decoration strikes you like a blow, surrounded by hard servility on fire for unearned fees, fed with messes such as the soul loathes, and quailing beneath the advancing shadow of a monstrous bill. The subject is a large one — it should be treated fitly in a MILAN CATHEDKAL 7 book. " Hotel life and its influence on human character " would do for the title. I think that I must have been somewhat unfortunate in my experiences of continental travel — a kind of rail- way Jonah. The last time that I made this Italian journey, for instance, at two minutes' notice my fellow- voyagers and I, in the exact dead of night, were dragged from our sleeping-berths, and on the top of the Alps in the midst of the snows of winter, were transferred to an icy railway-carriage with such of our belongings as we could grasp. One lady, I remember, in her hm-ry, lost a valuable sable cloak. The reason alleged for this per- formance was that the wheels of our sleeping-car had become heated, but the conductor informed me that the real cause was a quarrel between the directors of two lines of railway. Thrice in succession, it would appear, and at this very spot had the wheels become "heated," and the travellers torn half-awakened from their berths. On the present occasion we met with a somewhat similar experience. Leaving Basle in the hope and ex- pectation of reaching Milan that night, at Lucerne we were informed that the St. Gothard was blocked by a train which had gone off the Ime. So in that beautiful but cold and expensive town we must remaia for four- and-twenty hours. Once I climbed the St. Gothard, now over thirty years ago, when a brother and I walked from Fluellen to the top of the pass with the purpose of bidding fare- well to another brother who was travelling across it by coach upon his way to India. In those far-off days there was no railway, and the tunnel was not even completed. J recollect little of the trudge except that I grew footsore, and that my brother and senior by a year or two sang songs to me to keep up my spirits. About half-way up the pass we slept at some village on the road. Here the innkeeper had a pretty servant who — strange entertainment — took us to a charnel-house 8 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE attached to the church, where amongst many others she pointed out a shining skull which she informed us was that of her own father. This skull and its polished appearance I remember well ; also some other incidents connected with the arrival and departure of the coach upon the summit. Of the scenery, however, I recall little or nothing — I do not think that views have great attractions for youth, at any rate they had few for me. When I was a " soaring human boy " my father took me up the Rhine by boat with the hope and expectation that my mind would be improved in contemplating its lovely and historic banks. Wearying of this feast, very soon I sUpped down to the cabin to enjoy one more congenial, that of " Robinson Crusoe," in a Tauchnitz edition. But some family traitor betrayed me, and protesting, even with tears, that " I hated views," I was dragged to the deck again. " I have paid six thalers," shouted my justly indignant parent, as he hauled me up the steamer stahs, " for you to study the Rhine scenery, and whether you like it or not, young man, study it yovi shall ! " That was — ehmfugaces lahuntur anni ! — in or about 1 867. To return to the year 1900, so it came about that to all intents and purposes, the St. Gothard was to me a new experience. Therefore I was the more disappointed when on steaming out of Lucerne station we found ourselves in the midst of a raging snowstorm, so fierce and thick indeed that I began to fear that for a second time we should be stopped in our attempt to cross the Alps. Yet that snow had its compensations, for in it the observer understood, better perhaps than he might other- wise have done, the vastness of the panorama which lay outstretched beneath him. Fhst, all seen through that veil of flying flakes, appear forests of firs growing tier above tier upon the face of a precipice so steep that almost it might be a titanic wall. Then the pines vanish and are replaced by thousands of delicate birch- MILAN CATHEDKAL 9 trees, hanging like white hair about some bald, gigantic head, while beneath them roars a torrent, its waters cream-thick with snow. These vanish also as the white curtain grows too dense for the eye to pierce. Suddenly it thins and lifts, and there, far down below, appears a toy town with a toy wood-built church. Next an enor- mous gulf, and in its depths a torrent raging. And always a sense of mountains, invisible indeed but over- hanging, impending, vast. Now a little hut is seen and by it a blue-robed woman, signal-flag in hand. There, heedless of the bitter wind and weather she stands, like the wife of Lot, stone- still and white with snow. We rush past her into mile upon mile of tunnel, to pull up at last by some Uttle mountain station where the drifts lie deep. Here I beheld an instance of true politeness. Two ItaUan gentlemen, one old, one young, were engaged at the useful task of clearing the rails with long-handled shovels and depositing the snow in barrows for removal. Presently the younger of the pair, giving way to some sudden sportive impulse, shot a whole spadeful of snow over his companion's head. Imagine how such an unex- pected compliment would have been received by the average EngUsh navvy ! Next morning the police-courts would have rung with it. As it was, remembering the fiery southern blood, I expected to see knives flash in the mountain air. But not so. The older person merely coughed, shook the snow from his grizzled locks, and with a deep bow and splendid sweeping gesture — pointed to the barrow. Could reproof have been more gentle or more effective ? Beyond the tunnels to our joy the snow is much thinner, mere patches indeed, lying in the hollows of enormous bold-shouldered mountains whose steep flanks are streaked with white ropes of water, or here and there by the foam of some great fall. In the kloofs also cling lumps and lines of dense mist, like clouds that have sunk 10 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE from heaven and rested there. Down in the valley where the railway runs, begin to appear evidences of a milder climate, for vines, grown upon a trellis-work of poles, are seen in plots, and by the stream bank flourish willows, alders, and poplars. So through changing scenes we run southwards into Italy and welcome a softer air. I have visited many cathedrals in various parts of the world, but I cannot remember one that struck me more than the interior of that of Milan, which I now explored for the first time. I say the interior advisedly, since the exterior, with its unnumbered pinnacles and thousands of statues, does not particularly appeal to my taste in architecture, such as it may be. The grand proportions of the building as viewed from within, the tall fluted columns, the rich windows, the lace-worked roof of the marble dome — an effect produced by painting, as a loquacious and disturbing cicerone insisted upon inform- ing us, with many other details which we did not seek — the noble cruciform design ; all such beauties are familiar to many readers and doubtless may be equalled, if not surpassed, elsewhere. As it happened, however, we found more than these, or being fortunate in the time and circumstances of our visit, to me they suggested more. Passing the ancient door from the busy piazza where electric cars glide up and down continually like mis- shapen boats with bells fixed in front of them, and pushing aside the heavy curtain of leather, of a sudden we stood in another world. Life and death could scarcely be more different. Vast spaces, very dim, for it was four o'clock on a winter's day, full of shadow and a certain majestic emptiness. Column upon column, more than the eye could number, and above, the scarce-seen, arching roof In the far distance of the apse something white about the sanctuary, in fact a great veil of which I do not know the use or symbolical significance, but from where we saw it first, suggesting the appearance of the white wings of some angel cherishing the altar of his MILAN CATHEDRAL 11 God. Then upon that altar itself twinkling sparks of light, and, swinging high in front of it, near to the towering roof indeed, like some sleepless eye watching from above, another starry lamp. Along the vast nave, down the empty aisles creeps the stately, measured music of the organ. Now quite suddenly sweet voices take up their chant and the offer- ing of song arises, falls to rise again, tUl slowly its echoes faint andMie in the spaces of the dome. As we draw near through the cold and perfumed gloom, priests be- come visible, robed in white vestments and moving to and fro about the shrine. Others also, or may be they are acolytes, pass from time to time down through the sparse congregation into the body of the church and there vanish to right or left. The invisible censers swing, we hear their clank- ing chains and perceive the clouds of incense which float upwards one by one, past the tall lights of the candles. The voices chant still more sweetly and the music of the organ sinks low as though it too were human, and knew that in such a hallowed dusk and silence it is well to whisper. The bright-robed priests, from time to time breaking in upon the ceremonial with utterances of their own that are scarcely less haxmonious, move mysteriously, waving their hands like to the officers of some gorgeous, magic incantation, till at length — let him confess it — the mind of the observer softens and he understands, even sympathises with, much at which he has been wont to smile, and presently will smUe again. Great is the Church of Rome, who knows so well how to touch our nature on its mystic side and through it reach the heart. To aU this solemn splendour there were but few spectators. The scanty audience of worshippers, or such of them as sat outside the choir and could be easily observed, consisted for the greater part of aged men. Among these one old gentleman — I should put his years 12 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE at eighty — attracted my particular attention. His face was still handsome and sharply cut, his short hair snow- white, and his appearance that of one who had been a soldier. Most noticeable, however, was the extraordinary earnestness and devotion of his bearing. His presence there could be no perfunctory observance, this was easy to be seen. Easy was it to guess also that this man from whom, many as they had been, the sands of life were ebbing fast, appreciated the fateful truth only too keenly, and, while time remained to him, was en- deavouring with a desperate vigour, through the avenues provided by his Church, to win the freedom of a more abiding city. The whole tragic story was written there, in those upturned tearful eyes, those clasped and trem- bling hands upon which even in that half light the blue veins showed, and on the worn features so purified by time, loss, and sorrow that no beauty of their youth could rival them to-day. A pathetic sight indeed, rightly studied and understood, suggesting many thoughts, but one frequent enough in such places. So farewell to Milan cathedral, its music, priests, and mystery. Farewell also to that sad old worshipper whose face I shall not see again, and who for his part will never know that the Englishman standing by his side there upon a certain winter evening took note of him and wondered. CHAPTER II A TUSCAN "WINE-FAEM For generations past, visitors to Italy have written about Florence. Therefore, mindful of a certain saying, I pro- pose to leave that noble army unrecruited. Here the reader will find no account of the architecture of its cathedrals ; no list of the best pictures, no raptures over the loveliness of Giotto's Campanile — a building, by the way, that grows very much upon the observer, or at least, upon this observer — whose charm also varies more with the conditions of the light than any other with which I am acquainted. StUl a few general remarks may be permitted ; for instance on the climate, which is the common property of every traveller and requires no critical training to appreciate. What a climate it is — in the month of January — or can be, for -with my common evil chance it appears that we " happened on," as they say in Norfolk, the worst winter experienced in Tuscany for many, many years. Such was ever my fortune ! Once I went to Iceland to fish for salmon, a country where habitually it pours, but the summer proved the driest that had been known for decades. To the ordinary traveller this would have been a satisfactory circumstance, to the seeker after salmon, which love a swollen river, it was disastrous. Other notable instances occur to me but I pass them by, for, according to the accounts of all inhabitants of the places visited, these misfortunes are common to voyaging mankind. Within the space of a single month we enjoyed at 14 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE Florence piercing gales — tramontane is the local name, which reminded me of winds I have felt blowing straight off the pack ice in northern latitudes and nothing else — fogs that would have done no discredit to London in November, and rains whereof the tropics might be proud. When the tramontane in its glory leaps and howls along the dusky streets of Florence, then indeed does the traveller think with a repentant affection of the very bleakest spot he knows upon England's eastern shores, yes, even on the bitterest day of March. Is there anything in the wind line quite so deadly cold, I wonder ? At least clothes cannot prevail against it, for wrap yourself up till you look like a very Falstaff and still the temperature within is that of a snow-man. To the bones it pierces, to the very marrow. Yet for generations these extraordinary Florentines built their houses without fireplaces. I remember notLug the same phenomenon in Mexico City, another frigid spot ; there, indeed, they swore that fires were unwholesome. Here the sole concession of a vast majority of the inhabi- tants to our common human weakness, consists of a scaldino, that is, a little pot full of glowing wood ashes which is placed under the owner's chair, or carried in any convenient fashion. Men, I gather, have not even the comfort of this Lustrument of joy, which among its many uses in the event of sickness, or of damp sheets, makes an excellent warmiag-pan. In this case it is sus- pended in a kind of enlarged wooden mouse-cage and plunged boldly between the blankets. Of all the domestic institutions in Tuscany, I think that the scaldino is most to be desired. There are others which strike me as far from admirable. I do not wish, however, to asperse this climate, against which I may have been more or less prejudiced by the prevalent influenza, which hit us rather hard. I am instructed indeed that except for certain, or uncertain, outbursts of cold, it is really beautiful in April and May, A TUSCAN WINE-FAKM 15 and even for the first part of June, after which it becomes too hot for the taste and comfort of most people. The autumns also are said to be fine. Moreover, it is only Florence itself that is so severe. During the first few weeks of my stay there I visited some country villas, one " two mountains beyond Fiesole " (that was the local description and means very high indeed), and another on the lower slopes of the same ancient city, which is built among the hill-tops about three miles to the north-east of Florence. At each of these villas I found the most lovely satisfying sunshine, in which a man might bask like a lizard till at length the chill left his bones. There I was told that the crowning joy to the dwellers in these mansions of the blest, is to sit in golden light on their verandahs and for quite a considerable portion of the winter look at a damp, dark cloud far below, which cloud is Florence hid in icy fog. Decidedly a villa at Fiesole, where the mists cannot creep and because of its sheltered position the tramontane has no power, is a possession to be coveted — far above a palace on the Arno. Yet when the winter voyager can forget the climate, what city has greater charm than Florence, if to some, its note seems one of melancholy ? Here, so pervading is its presence, history seems to press upon the student with an actual sense of weight. The numberless churches, some of them still unfinished ; the cold, stately palaces ; the public buildings and piazzas ; the statues, monuments, and pictures ; all things distinguish- ing and distinguished belonging for the most part, as they do, to a single century, seem to bring the dead time and those who shaped it as it was, so near to us that in its shadow the present is made mean and dwarfed. All the intervening generations that the locust has eaten, those dim, quite forgotten generations which once in their hour furnished the daily bread of Time appear to drop away. In our garish modernity, wearing 16 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE no wedding garment of their art, we find ourselves unbidden guests at this banquet of the past — face to face with the age of Donatello and Era Bartolommeo and Savonarola and the great Medici, and of the rest who lived when Florence was in flower. The effect is strange. Perhaps it does not strike the Italian thus, or even those foreigners who are constant residents. Perhaps in this case also, such as seek find, and the period which gave Florence her glory, is the period which oppresses us now that her sons are no longer mighty preachers, painters, or architects. Why is it ? Who can explain the mystery of the change ? Why, when we look into a picture or sculpture shop on the Lung' Arno, for instance, do we see on the one side replicas of the famous and beautiful antique ; and, on the other, marbles indeed, but what marbles ! Simpering children in frilled dresses ; young women with their nudity accentuated by means of bathing drawers ; vulgar-looking busts of vulgar-looking men ; coy creatures smirking at butterflies seated on their naked arms or bosoms, and other sculptured delights. But never a work that has a spark of the old Promethean fire, which elevates its student, or moves him — at any rate as art should move. Of painting and buildings is it not the same ? Where has the genius flown and will it ever return ? I know the fashion is to decry our modern Enghsh art, and doubtless much of it is poor. Yet so far as my small experience goes, that art has, at any rate in some instances, more truth and spirit than any other of the day which I have found abroad. I have said that I will not discourse upon the art treasures of Florence. Still I may be permitted to mention two, by no means of the best known, which perhaps impressed me most among them. Of these one is a certain life-sized Annunciation by Donatello, fashioned of a dark- coloured freestone, cut in high relief and set A TUSCAN WINE-FARM 17 into a very gloomy wall of the church of Santa Croce. It was, I believe, one of the master's earlier works, but looking at it I wondered whether he ever fashioned any- thing more beautiful. The Virgin is of a somewhat modern type of face, with rippliag hair parted in the middle; indeed I can remember a lady who might have sat for a model of that statue. As for the exquisite grace of her pose and shape, or that of the angel who bends the knee to her, to be understood they must be seen. Description here is hopeless ; I can say only that in my case at any rate they affect the mind as does the sight of same perfect landscape, or of a lovely flower breaking into bloom. What imagiaation also is comprised in the Virgin's pose. She has risen from her seat and her left hand clasps the book she reads. Her robe has caught upon a corner of the chau- so that her mantle is strained tight. What under ordinary conditions would be a woman's first instinctive thought ? Doubtless to free it with the hand that was disengaged. But no — the message has come to her — the Power has fallen upon her, and that hand is pressed upon the heart wherein It lies. There is much else that might be said of this true masterpiece, but let an artist say it, not one merely of art's most humble admirers. The second work that struck me pre-eminently, although in a fashion totally different, is in the church of Certosa di Val d'Ema. It is by Francesco da Sangallo, and represents in white marble the body of the Cardinal Leonardo Buonafede, who died in 1545, as laid out for burial. Not an attractive subject it may be thought, this corpse of an old, old man. Yet with what power and truth is it treated ; those full, somewhat coarse features are instinct with the very dignity of death. There before us is the man as his mourners laid him upon the bier centuries ago — every line of his wrinkled face, every fold of the flesh that after serving him so B 18 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE well has failed him now. It is a triumph of forceful portraitm'e. The old monastery where this statue lies, and with it others almost as perfect, is a strange and lovely place. Inhabited by a few ancient monks who, under the Italian law abolishing the religious establishments, are, I believe, not allowed to recruit their numbers ; a vast pile of rambling buildings fortified for defence, it stands supreme upon a cypress-covered hill. Its interior with the halls, chapels, crypts, and columned galleries need not be de- scribed. Indeed, quaint as they are, there is something better here — the view from certain windows and cloisters. This prospect is quite unlike any that I have seen in other parts of the world. Perhaps some of the high uplands of Mexico, with their arid, aloe-clothed soil, go nearest to it in general character and colouring, though that is not so very near. The prevailing colour-note of Tuscany, in winter, is greyness. This tone it owes chiefly, though not altogether, to the sad-hued olives which clothe its slopes and plains, broken here and there by rows and clumps of tall and gracious cypresses, standing sometimes, and thus they are most beautiful, upon a mountain ridge clear-cut against the sky. Let the reader visit any good art-collection and study the backgrounds of old Florentine pictures. There he will find these same cypresses. So grey and hueless, though so strangely charming, is the scene indeed, that the eye falls almost with rapture upon the vivid patches fur- nished by a species of rosy-twigged sallow which grows in the damper bottoms. Considered from above these sallows look like no bush or tree ; they are as little golden clouds that have fallen from heaven to melt upon the earth. Other peculiarities of that wide stretch of plain and mountain-slope are its lifelessness and silence. Were this England, or even Africa, birds great and small, animals also, would be audible and moving. But here, nothing. A TUSCAN WINE-FARM 19 Not a note, not a beating wing, not even the white scut of a rabbit. So far as small fowl are concerned the ex- planation is easy ; they form one of the favourite articles of Florentine food. In every eating-shop, thrust through with a skewer, may be seen their tiny bodies separated from each other by squares of toast or bacon. I remember that a man in front of the cathedral offered to sell me a bundle of dead birds which I examined. They included robins, thrushes, blackbirds, goldfinches, and jays, taken, most of them, with bird- lime. Needless to add of these birds the jays, which I should have imagined uneatable, were the only ones that ought to have been killed. What is the result ? In a long walk through wooded country in the neighbourhood of Fiesole, although I kept my eyes open, I saw but one small bu-d, which was so wild that it would not let me get near enough to distinguish its species. Just before that rare event I had met a sportsman with a double- barrelled gun and shortly afterwards I heard a shot. Probably this last little bird is now no more. No wonder that Browning was anxious to get back to England in April — " Oh, to be in England Now that April's there " — living as he did in a country where scarcely a songster is left to greet the spring. How thankful should we be for our English birds, which add so much to the innocent happiness of our lives— the sparrow always excepted, and even he is welcome in a town. In the garden of the old and rambling house where I stayed in Florence lived some of these sparrows, and two cherished pairs of black- birds, which I used to contemplate from my window. Also there were sundry stray cats, and sometimes I wonder if those birds will ever see the autumn. May St. Francis (he of Assisi) protect them. I think that it was on the day of our visit to Certosa, where by the way, as I have neglected to mention, 20 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE the monks make excellent Chartreuse, that I became the proud possessor of a bronze crucifix and two hanging lamp-holders, which I discovered in a small curiosity-shop. These articles, with a bell which I did not purchase, were part of the furniture of the ancient chapel of a private family which has become extinct — that of the Cardinal Luperelli-Pitti in Cortona. Thus they found their way into the market. They are, I imagine, sixteenth-century work, though here I may be mistaken, as I can judge only by such knowledge of Dutch brass as I possess. It is possible, indeed, that the raised medallions of the Father, the Virgin, St. John and St. Mary Magdalene, at the four extremities of the cross, may show a somewhat earlier date. My reason for mentioning these articles, however, is because of the great elegance of the shape and workman- ship of the lamp-holders, whereof unfortunately I can give no idea in words, and the quaintness of the little figures suggestive of embryonic angels to which are fixed the hanging chains. Why, I ask, cannot such antiques be taken as models for the church furniture of ta-day in England ? Any churchwarden or clergyman will know how extraordinarily difficult it is to procure lamps of. really handsome and pleasing design.'- Yet it rarely seems to occur to makers to copy those which were fashioned in times when even the manufacturer of useful brass-work was not ashamed to be an artist. Unhappily it is not in the case of church-fittings only that such a state of affairs prevails, especially in this matter of lamps. A year or two back I remember searching the entire stock of a great London establish- ' In the church at Heacham in Norfolk may be seen a set of hanging lamps presented to it by Mr. Neville Rolfe, the British Consul at Naples. These beautiful pierced holders are reproduced from one that hangs in the sanctuary of St. Mark's Cathedral at Venice. Their design is well worthy of the attention of any who desire to follow Mr. Rolfe's excellent example, and provide an English church with lamps that are as service- able as they are satisfactory to the eye nnd taste. Brass Lamp-Holdei; from the Chapel of the Family lui'erei.li-pitit in cortona (The chains have been set further apart since purchase) A TUSCAN WINE-FARM 21 ment before I could procure hanging lamps that were even simple and, to my fancy, of a not unpleasing shape. When in Florence itself I looked through the contents of a shop where such articles were sold, with a like result. All were florid in execution and vulgar in design. It is the same everywhere in the case of brass-work. Thus some of my readers may have noticed the beautiful seventeenth-century chandeliers which still hang in certain of the churches of Holland — herlc-krone they are called — and have noticed too how pleasingly they attract the eye, making bright points whereby it can appreciate the dimensions of those great fanes. Yet when gas became common, in very many cases these herh-hrone were puUed out of the churches to be sold as old brass and replaced by cast gun-metal brackets of the most atrocious patterns. Yes, and this was done although the ancient chandeliers are capable of easy adaptation to the use of gas. As a consequence they are now becoming very rare. Why do not the Arts and Crafts add the education of the taste of the British lamp-maker to the list of their good works ? Hundreds of artists complain that they cannot make a living. Let them do as men of their profession did a few centuries ago, and direct their talents to the design and manufacture at a moderate price of really beautiful articles for common use. So shall their gene- ration rise up and call them blessed. Perhaps, however ■ — I have heard as much suggested — the generation as a whole prefers things as they are. One day I accepted the kind invitation of a gentle- man who lives on the mountain about four hundred feet above Fiesole, the ancient Etruscan city that preceded Florence, to inspect his vineyard, where he manufactures wine for the English market. The view from this farm is very fine, including as it does Florence spread out like a map far below and an enormous stretch of country dotted with villas, farmhouses, and even ancient castles that in past ages have been the scene of siege and sack. 22 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE This expanse is divided into hundreds of vineyards and olive orchards, broken here and there on the slope of hiUs with patches of oak scrub which is used for firewood. My host's farm is approached up a steep and constant incUne that winds through a large wood of cypress trees, sombre but graceful in appearance, although in most in- stances disfigured by the local habit of trimming off the boughs as high as possible. This is done under the im- pression, which I believe to be erroneous, that it improves the timber. At any rate it does not improve its beauty. The farmstead itself is very ancient, some parts of it dating back to the fourteenth century. Indeed everything here is ancient. It has a pretty little court or cortile with graceful arches round about it, adorned in the centre with an old effigy of a lion in stone, which was dug up somewhere in the neighbourhood. In front of this court is a well nearly a hundred feet deep — probably Etruscans drew their water here. Looking downwards I could see the ripple on the face of the pool which shows where the spring flows that has fed it for so many centuries. The well has this peculiarity also — that it can be approached for the drawing of water at two distinct levels, the lower having an arched entrance of its own which opens on to a terrace twenty feet or more below. Another remarkable feature of the house is a very massive wooden roof covering the apartments now used as sitting-rooms. Few of these wine-farms seem to be large. My host's, I gathered, is of the common size, some twenty acres under vines and olives, excluding such portion as is still unreclaimed and as yet produces nothing but scrub and stray cypress trees. There is absolutely no live stock on the place beyond a horse and a cow for domestic use, such carting as may be necessary being done with hired ox-wains, picturesque in appearance, but slow and cumber- some in practice. As I saw it, this is the process of preparing land for vines. A suitable area having been chosen on the steep A TUSCAN WINE-FARM 23 slope of a hill facing south-east, which seems to he the aspect preferred, the shale soil, mixed with what looked to me like light loam covered with a good spit of turf, is trenched to a depth of a little over three feet. First a foot or so of broken rock is laid in the bottom of the trench for drainage before it is filled up with the soil and turf. This is the most important requisite. More than twenty years ago at Pretoria in the Transvaal I remem- ber, by the way, making a little vineyard on a very similar soil and in a very similar fashion ; only labour being scarce and inefficient, I did not trench nearly so thoroughly. Our host is now planting vines of a Burgundy char- acter, setting them as cuttings at a good distance from each other. These take from three to four years to come into full beariag. American vines are much sought after ia this part of Tuscany because of their supposed quality of resistance to the attacks of phylloxera, which dread disease is the blackest cloud on the horizon of the Italian grape-grower. These, however, seem very difficult to obtain of good and true stock, owing apparently to the existence of Government regulations prohibiting the im- portation of foreign vines, trees, or flowers. Not satisfied with the ample drainage provided at the roots and by the natural slope of the land, stone channels are laid upon the surface to carry off flood- water. Viaes, it has been proved, are very fastidious as to their supply of moisture, although in some seasons of drought they are much helped by irrigation where this is practicable. What they dislike more than anything, however, as indeed I have noticed in English glass- houses, is stagnant water at the roots. The other re- quisites to a successful cultivation of the grape in this part of Italy are that the soil should be dug annually between the rows, and artificial manures, such as nitrates and phosphates, applied in suitable quantity. In the older vineyards below this house many olive 24 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE trees grow among the vines, but my host informs me that they are unremunerative. A great number of these trees were destroyed during November in the following curious fashion. First fell a heavy rain, which was succeeded instantly by a fierce frost that coated every bough with ice. The trees could not bear the weight, and in many instances snapped in two or lost their largest boughs, a mutilation which was often shared by the young firs. I noted this destruction on my walk up to the house, and ignorantly jumped to the conclusion that a tornado had visited the district. On this farm the olive trees which were slain thus are not to be replanted. The actual vintage, which of course answers to our harvest, occupies a few days only, nearly one hundred hands being employed upon this small acreage, so that the grapes may be got off when they are exactly ripe. Here it is that the wine-farmer must show judgment and even courage. The grapes ought not to be gathered before they are ripe. But if wet weather chances to come on then so that they cannot be handled, they crack and great damage is done. Therefore the tempta- tion to begin the vintage too soon is considerable. Once plucked the grapes are brought up to the house in hired ox-waggons, there to go through the various processes of pressing. When this is completed the wine is stored for a while in huge vats holding I forget how many hundred gallons, but I think about a thousand. There it remains for a certain period. Then it is drawn off into other casks and kept for three years or so, after which the produce of this particular vineyard goes to the English market. My host informed me that it is quite a mistake to suppose that the red Italian Chianti will not travel and keep without undue alcoholic fortification. The new wine has this weakness, not so the old. That there are limits to its keeping qualities I can, however, testify. Long ago I remember my father producing from his cellar some flasks of Itahan wine, which he had A TUSCAN WINE-FARM 25 imported when on his wedding tour to Rome some forty years before. I never tasted better vinegar. To return, my host finds that he can make a fair profit on his Chianti by charging eighteen shillings a dozen for it delivered in London. At least this was so, but since Sir Michael Hicks-Beach has increased the duty on light drinking wines there is a different tale to tell. As regards the quality and character of the wine, although it cannot compete with high-class French clarets, it is very sound and agreeable to the palate. Above all, it is pure grape-juice and nothing else. On the day of my visit some men, about four or five, were employed in the wine-cave washing the flasks with successive rinsings of soda, acid, and water hot and cold. This careful cleansing was preparatory to the wine being bottled for shipment, really bottled with corks, not with oil poured into the neck to exclude the air, and a piece of pink paper, according to the local custom. These ilasks or fiaschi, which are very pretty, and half covered with reed netting, cost about a penny halfpenny apiece, but I noticed that a- good percentage of them break in the washing. Hence the term " fiasco " used in our sense ; or, to be quite accurate, it is derived from the breaking of a full wine-flask when lifted by the neck. A supplementary product of the farm is olive oil, that is ground out by the help of an ox which walks round and round and drives a simple crushing-mill. The raw resulting oil is divided into three grades or qualities, of which the second is best for lamps, and the third mixed with water is used by the poor. This season the olive harvest was a very bad one, consequently oil is dear. As regards the profit of such vineyards, my host seemed to be of opinion that a man of energy and in- telligence, taking one year with another, in the absence of phylloxera, can make about ten per cent, upon the capital invested. Other experienced vine-growers, how- 26 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE ever, told me that they consider this estimate too high. Then comes the question of the capital itself. Even in the case of a vineyard of moderate size I gather that the amount required is considerable. The farmer may begin on less, but if he wishes to earn a living out of his labour, it seems that he ought to be able to com- mand about £5000. The item of labour in the neighbourhood of Florence is not heavy, the men, who are docile and willing, being paid only about eight shillings a week. They decline, however, to work in wet weather, nor are they very strong, living as they do upon poor and insufficient food, and at times in their fireless hovels suffering severely from the cold. The result of my investigations into the prospects of the Tuscan wine industry is that, on the whole, I should not recommend it to young men seeking new lands in which to farm. The capital required seems too con- siderable and the margin of profit too small. More- over there is always the possibility of phylloxera to be reckoned with. Still, for those to whom considerations of health or other private reasons may make residence in a sunny climate under a foreign flag desirable, who at the same time do not wish or cannot afford to lead an idle life, the occupation would be excellent. To live be- neath those sheltering hills, to feast the eyes upon that glorious view, to watch the vines put forth their tender leaves, to see the tiny clusters form and in autumn to gather the rich harvest all in the glow of a glorious sun — what more could be asked by the man of quiet, contemplative mind, who yet loves not to be idle ? Or, at the least, what more is he likely to get in this hard world ? CHAPTER III FIESOLE AJSTD FLORENCE One bitter night at moonrise I stood near to the highest point of the mountain of Fiesole and looked down upon the wide valley in whose lap lies Florence, far down across lines of solemn cypresses and grey groves of oUves to the vast plain beneath. Cold and dead-coloured appeared old Fiesole, now that the sun had left it; cold, yet lovely, with a death-like loveliness, the vague and stretching landscape. And Florence herself, that great city, how small she seemed at this distance of some few mUes ! Her towering palaces of huge stones were but as huts, the vast dome of her cathedral as that of a village church. The landscape dominates and dwarfs her. The sweeping circle of black hills ; that mighty mirror of the Arno flashing in the last ray of sunset — what is she compared to these ? The ancient Etruscan studying that view from this very standpoint, can have felt no need of Florence to complete the scene, and were she rased now to the earth as in the middle days one of her rulers would have rased her, she would scarce be missed — from here. In fact it is the old story. These hills and plains have borne the yoke of man almost from the begianing, and yet how faint its scar ! The scratches which we make on Nature's face are very shallow and soon heal. That there is nothing permanent about man and his labours, is a truism which the consideration of such a scene as this brings home. Those thousand lamps that are now beginning to shine in the streets and windows of Florence far below, will only burn — till at dawn the light of lights arises. 28 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE In the winter season, at the time of approaching night, there is something very mysterious and melancholy about this Tuscan landscape. It looks so coldly solemn, so lifeless, while one by one the stars spring out in the blue depths above. One meets a great many funerals in Florence, all of them after nightfall. Perhaps this may be accounted for by the influenza prevailing at the time of my stay, but as a people the Florentines seem to me to have a strange fancy for parading their sick and dead in public. At the least I have not noticed so many of these melancholy sights in other cities. Very common is it, as the visitor walks down some narrow street, to hear a measured tread behind, and look round to see the brethren of the Miseri- cordia at their work of mercy. These are they who, drawn from every rank of society, for more than five centuries have laid out the dead, or carried the sick of Florence to where they might be succoured. Their very appearance indeed is ominous of death and sorrow ; when they come upon the sight thus swiftly it even shocks. Their robes are black from head to foot, covering the wearer, all but his hands and feet, so that nothing of him can be seen save perhaps his eyes as they glitter through the little openings in the hood. Six of them go together, three in front and three behind, and between them is the stretcher, also arched over with black cloth. These stretchers are apt to excite a somewhat morbid curiosity in the mind of the passer-by. Watching many of them I learned at last to know, by the way the crossed straps pressed upon the shoulders of the bearers, and the fashion in which these stepped and set their feet upon the ground, whether or no they were empty or laden ; also by any little movements of the cover, or the lack of them, whether the occupant, if there should be one, was alive or dead. From time to time the bell of the church sounds FIESOLE AND FLORENCE 29 the " misericordia," twice for an accident, thrice for a death. Thereon the brethren who are on duty, rise up at once wherever they may be, at dinner, at mass, in the theatre, or at their business, don their robes and go forth, not to come back until their task, whatever it proves, is done. As the first pair of them set their returning feet upon the threshold of the church they turn and give to those who follow, the ancient greeting, " May God reward you ! " to receive back the salutation, " And you also ! " It is a worthy society and their work is holy, though perhaps the ambulances of a London hospital would do it better. Also here is no mere picturesque survival. One day while I stood for a few minutes near the Campanile I saw three parties of them come up to the door of the commonplace, green-shuttered house which is their habitation. Each company carried a stretcher, though whether these were empty or brought bodies thither to be coffined, I could not tell. Who are the greatest men in the true sense that have lived since the day of our Lord ? The ques- tion is difficult if not impossible to answer. Yet three names leap to my mind, all of them as it chances con- nected with religion : Martin Luther, William the Silent, Savonarola. If these stars do not shine most bright among that heavenly host, I think that there are none more luminous, none at least that burn with a purer fire, none with one more immortal. Of the three Savonarola has always fascinated me the most, perhaps because a man instinctively gives reverence to an abnegation and a nobility from which he feels that his own weakness would have locked him. We worship the crown of thorns we dare not wear. Savonarola was no pale-blooded monk, no mere shadow of a man, but one to whose ears the world had a siren voice. He could love and he could suifer, and finally take up his cross not because he had loved and suffered, not that its grinding weight might cause him to forget his worldly smarts, but so A WINTEK PILGRIMAGE for the high reason that the days were evil and he was called to deny himself and cure them. Surely this man was almost a Christ without Christ's consolations and secret strength. He only saw through a glass darkly, he only knew in part. The Spirit spoke within him, but its accents were broken, imperfect and contradictory ; he could not hear with any clearness ; often he could not understand what he heard. At times he believed his own prophecies to be the very voice of God. At times he seems to have doubted whether they were not merely vapours arising from his harrowed soul, the fantastic smoke of his own fervid imagination fashioned to angel shapes to lead him through a gateway of the presumptuous sin. See him when the trial by fire brings him face to face with a more furious trial — that of his own faith. He had interpreted the promises literally ; he taught that faith could move mountains. But had he not meant spiritual mountains ? Did he really believe that the Powers of Heaven would alter the law of nature and keep the fire from peeling the skin off the flesh and burning the hair and the garments of Fra Domenico ? He wavered, he hung between two opinions. Then faith conquered. The ordeal went on so far as it was allowed to go, till rain fell indeed and put out the untrodden fire, and the furious populace, baulked of a blood-feast, turn- ing upon their prophet tortured and slew him by rope and flame. The home of this man stands in Florence much as it was in his own day. There is the church of San Marco, an uninteresting building with the pulpit from which he used to preach, imtil his audiences grew so great that even the vast Duomo could not hold them. One day I attended this Daomo — that is, the cathedral — in order to witness a procession of the White Brethren. Except for the colour of their garment this order is clothed like the Brethren of the Misericordia, and indeed, as I believe, performs similar merciful oflaces outside the gates of FIESOLE AND FLOKENCE 31 Florence. The occasion was a great festival, and these White Brethren, preceded by priests and banners, carry- ing, each of them, a lighted taper, wound about the building, to gather at last in masses before the altar. This, however, at any rate to my eye, was not the real sight. That was to see the thousands upon thousands of spectators which crowded, not the dome only, but the whole cathedral to its uttermost recesses, so densely indeed that it was difficult to move. " Thus," thought I to myself, " must this Duomo have appeared when its walls rang to the echoes of the voice of Savonarola as he rolled out his threats and warnings upon a sinful generation, as he told of the sword of God about to fall — Gladius Domini supra terram cito et velociter." At first, however, it was in this church of San Marco that he preached, and surely the lessons of his life and death will echo from its walls down all the stream of Time. Yet the convent moves one more. Here are the cloisters planted with roses where Savonarola used to walk ; the chapter-house with its life-sized and dreadful crucifixes; the vaulted refectories where he ate his simple food among his brethren. Upstairs too is the library with its double row of supporting arches, quite plain and yet so beautiful, beneath whose centre the prophet stood to administer the Sacrament to his com- pany while without, the furious mob of Florentine wolves clawed down the doors, snarling for his blood. The day that we visited the place was very cold though bright, and for this reason, or some other, it was almost unoccupied. As I discovered afterwards in Palestine, it is thus that one should study such abodes. Foolish as it may be to think it, a crowd disturbs their associations and memories ; sometimes even it seems to make them vulgar. So it happened that we went round San Marco alone, untroubled by guides or tourists. The details of the convent are all known, and volumes 32 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE have been written about the paintings of Fra Angelico,- many of which are so beautiful and yet so simple, that they might well be visions of heaven and its inhabitants seen by some spiritual child. On the walls of many of the cells the patient Brother painted one of them, and had I been destined to dwell there I should have blessed his name. When a man has nothing else to look at save white walls, a picture in blue and red and gold by Fra Angelico would fill the mind with rapture. Only some- times I should have wished to move on a little and study the next design. Of all these narrow, white-washed apartments, how- ever, that once were the home of passionate and earnest men, wrestling their way to heaven by a thorny, doubtful path, long-forgotten dust now, every one of them, those that most fix the mind and fascinate the imagination were the abode of Savonarola. From the cloisters with- out the visitor sees two little windows, each a few feet square. At the end of a long passage on the upper floor are the apartments, not larger than an ordinary dressing-room, to which those windows with their massive hanging shutters give light, a place to sleep and a place to sit. Here the pious visitor who is of that mind, through the mere fact of visiting them obtains — or obtained by the decree of Pope Leo X., who flourished at the beginning of the sixteenth century — "an in- dulgence of ten years," whatever that may mean. The inner cell contains a copy of an ancient picture of the hanging and burning of its greatest occupant upon the -piazza. It is very much a work of fancy, representing in a stiff, conventional manner the three poor corpses hanging each to its cross while the fire curls around them, and little knots of spectators strolling about un- concernedly over the expanse of the great square. Very different, I imagine, was the real scene when the place was packed with thousands of excited onlookers. There they watched and shouted while the mighty martyr FIESOLE AND FLORENCE 33 whose blood was indeed a seed of righteousness, with his disciples was stripped of his robes by the brutal Domini- cans, traitors to their most famous brother, and with due pomp and form publicly degraded by the bishop of Vasona. " I separate thee from the Church militant and triumphant," cried the bishop, exulting over his fallen foe. " Not from the Church triumphant, that is beyond thy power," through all the ages rings the answer of the dying prophet. Then the yells of the mob, the last dread scene of death prolonged to its uttermost, the crackling of the eager pyre, the flames blown out straight like a banner by a sudden gust of roaring wind, the shouts of " A miracle ! a miracle ! " and as the wind passes and the fire gets to its destroying work again, the sound of the sobbing of the Piagnoni and the sight of their tears which fall like dew. Even this copied painting is old now, so old that the worms are busy, as the tiny holes and little piles of white dust upon the frame testify. I pointed this out to the custodian, and suggested that paraffin skilfully appUed might prolong the life of the panel, but he only shrugged his shoulders. Doubtless he thought that it would last his time — after that others could see to it. The outer place is that where Savonarola sat and worked for years. Here he wrote his notes for the sermons which shook the world, his commentaries upon portions of the Bible in that tiny illegible handwrit- ing, and his treatise against the trial by fire. Here hangs the robe in which he went to torture and execu- tion, that same robe whereof the Dominican stripped him. Here too are kept his hair-shirt, the rosary which his long nervous fingers must so often have counted as he bent over it in prayer, and his Bibles. The curious chair in which he was wont to sit is here also, with 34 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE an exact copy of his deal desk — the original has crumbled away — and beneath it a platform of some more enduring -wood worn by the shufHing of his feet. There on the wall is his portrait, the strong, large- nosed, thick-lipped face framed in a black hood, so ugly and yet so fascinating. One feels that the owner of this face might easily have become a sensuous brute, and yet by the grace that was given him he became one of the greatest of saints. The flesh was trodden down, the spirit triumphed. Yes, and in this spot it seems to live on. Something of the atmosphere which environed Savonarola, something of the essence that inhabited him, appears to occupy the place which he himself inhabited. His breath is about those ancient walls, his prayers, so strangely answered, yet echo round them. To some at least it is not hard to imagine that his ghost or its reflection still dwells there. It is a chamber to leave with a bowed head and a humble heart. The palace of the Signoria is surmounted by a famous and beautiful tower of wondrous architecture that soars I forget how many hundred feet into the air. Quite near to the top of this tower the visitor, who has the breath to climb it, is shown a tiny prison with a stone seat and a single slit to furnish it with light and air, through which, looking down, he may see the church of Santa Croce. Here for some forty days Savonarola was incarcerated, and hence from time to time he was led down to the torture which his frail flesh could not bear. Here too, whenever his agonies were abated, he wrote some of his last commentaries. What a picture this monk must have presented as he dragged his crushed and twisted limbs from the torment-place of the Bargello, up those countless stairs to lay his poor head down upon the stone while the great bell of Florence boomed out the hours of the night above him. FIESOLE AND FLORENCE 35 Below in this same palace is that gorgeous apart- ment known as the Hall of the Five Hundred. When some years before Savonarola urged its enlargement to a size which would allow it to contain two thousand citizens, his spirit of prophecy did not tell him that here he would be tried and condemned, that here also he would pass some of the latest and most holy hours of his life. In this great chamber for the last time, or rather the last before the last, the master and his two disciples, Domenico and Sylvestro, met after their forty days of torment, each of them having been assured that the others had recanted and betrayed them. Here then Savonarola prayed with them, counselling them to submit to doom meekly but bravely ; here he blest and bade them farewell. What a subject for the hand of an artist i But he should be a great artist. One day I paid a visit to the kind and fortunate possessor of a certain most ancient and beautiful villa on the lower slope of the Fiesole mountain. It is a vast building with great cool rooms, on the walls of one of which is frescoed the portrait of some one's pet dog that died hundreds of years ago, and beneath it a touching epitaph. The building is old indeed, for its history can be traced since the year nine hundred and odd, and the family from whom the present owners bought it, held the property for over five centuries. In the garden, also, is the very well used by Boccaccio as the gathering-place where his gay party of gallants and their ladies, flying from the pest in Florence, wiled away the heat of a summer day by telling to each other stories. Were those Arcadian tales written and published in this year of grace almost might they earn their author six weeks in gaol and the opportunity of posing as a martyr to the zeal of Puritans. As it is they are classics ; therefore, like the masterpieces of Queen Margaret of Navarre and of Rabelais, they may circulate unafraid. Perhaps the most beautiful thing, however, about 36 A WINTER PILGEIMAGE this beautiful house is the prospect which it commands, for from its verandahs in clear weather can be seen a stretch of no less than thirty leagues of hill, plain, and valley. On the whole, I think that my most pleasing recollection of Florence and its neighbourhood is this white and ancient villa and the marvellous landscape which lies beneath and around it for miles on miles. CHAPTER IV POMPEII It is the fashion of Englishmen to decry their own customs and institutions. How common it is, for instance, to hear our system of railway travelling compared unfavour- ably with that of other countries ; and yet in what foreign land does the traveller meet with half the com- fort, assistance, and civihty that he finds at home ? Take the question of luggage. Theoretically the fashion of booMng may be perfect ; in practice, at any rate in Italy, it means that you lose your portmanteaus. Under our despised habit of labelling, on the other hand, during many years of travel I have never as yet lost a single article. Again, consider the much -vaunted warming of trains. All I can say is that for my part far, far rather would I travel in the coldest compartment than in the heated infernos with every air-hole hermeti- cally sealed, that are fashionable in the continental corridor-carriages. Then the porters. Is there a more civil being than the average English porter, and one more contented with a very humble fee ? Compare him with the gentleman of his profession across the Channel. Sometimes, moreover, these simply are not, the passenger must carry his own things or leave them behind ; and seldom is one met with who does not grumble at his fee however ample. As a specimen journey our own from Florence to Rome is one to be remembered. First, as usual, we were penned up like sheep. Then by dint of bribery, as we were informed that the train would be full, S7 38 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE my nephew was smuggled on to the platform to secure two seats. Having got their money those who accom- panied him did not return. In the end indeed, no porter being available, a lady who had come to see me off and I were personally obliged to drag a considerable number of heavy articles for a distance of over a hundred yards just as the express was about to start. It was crowded, the habit upon most foreign railways being to run as few trains and furnish them with as few carriages as possible. In this one there was not a seat to spare, but the overcrowding was nothing in the scale of dis- comfort compared to the heat, which I should imagine cannot have registered much less than ninety degrees. We ventured to open a window in the corridor, whereon instantly a fellow-traveller sprang up, rushed and shut it with a slam. Yet these are the people whose houses throughout their bitter winter are innocent of fires. I can only conclude that here we discover a tribute to the frugal mind. The warmth in the railway carriages costs nothing, it is included in the fare. Therefore they absorb as much of it as possible. The end of this particular journey was as wretched as the beginning. Half-way to Rome, in conformity with my common experience, a train went off the line in front of us, and so at some wayside place we were de- layed for hours, the English among us marching up and down the platform in the biting cold to escape the air- less heat within. Finally, instead of the scheduled time of eleven at night, we arrived in Rome at something past three in the morning — without on this occasion, I am proud to say, losing any of our luggage. Rome ! What is the chance visitor who sees it for the first time to say of the Imperial City ? Silence is best. What struck you most there ? people are fond of asking. Well, for my part, everything struck me, not forgetting the fearful weather which it was our fortune to encounter. During the first day that I was in Rome, POMPEII 39 it rained in torrents, snowed and thundered, while the atmosphere was that of an ice-house. No wonder that there were I forget how many tens of thousands of people down with the influenza, a company to which presently I added one more humble unit. But what struck me most ? Well, one or two little things, for in the words of Herodotus, of the great ones out of the scantiness of my experience I do not consider it "lawful to speak." In the Colosseum, opposite to the place where the Csesars sat on days of festival and slaughter, and if I remember right, in the neigh- bourhood of that occupied by the Vestals, is an avenue, or entrance, which was called, I think, the Triumphant Way. By it, we were told, the gladiators marched in before they crossed the arena to give their famous salutation to the emperor, that same salutation which, unconsciously perhaps, day by day from the beginning to the end of Time the whole creation renders to its Creator, " Those about to die, salute thee ! " Their " triumphant " feet must have trod upon a long- vanished wooden flooring. Beneath this floor ran a dark pas- sage — one can see it to-day — along which, within some few minutes of time, the bodies of many of them were dragged by iron hooks fixed in their flesh to certain vaults, where they lay tiU it was convenient to be rid of them. That struck me — the contrast between the living men, splendid lusty animals, the muscles swelling on their limbs, the fire of fight in their keen eyes, the harness clanking as they walked, and the limp, gashed, senseless corpses which presently the slaves dragged thence to the last oblivion. Between the one and the other was but the thickness of a single plank. One wonders if they understood, if they foresaw. Perhaps, probably not, for if so they would have been unmanned, their steel nerves must have turned to water, they would not have given satisfaction to their patrons. No, 40 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE as it is with us to-day, doubtless each of them hoped and believed that he would be the victor. That he would stand over the conquered enemy of the combat, who per- haps for years had been his own companion, watching, while eighty thousand voices roared their plaudits, for the movement of the Vestals' thumbs. Watching — for this hour — from above, not from below. Then the catacombs. Who that has imagination and a heart can fail to be moved by these ? The smell of that hot damp air clings long about the nostrils; I do not think that I shall ever be quite free of it. Those narrow, tortuous passages, whole furlongs of them, and on either side rising tier above tier, the loculi containing each a body, or what is left of it, of some early professor of our faith shut in behind three or four rough tiles. On some there is a symbol, on some an epitaph daubed in various-coloured paint, on some a name. I noted one particularly — Flora. Who was the girl Flora, I wonder, and what part did she play in that huge and blessed tragedy, what humble, quite forgotten part ? What a life also must these poor innocents have led who crowded into those darksome burrows, to worship while they lived and to sleep when life had left them, often enough by the fangs of a wild beast, the sword of the gladiator, or the torment of the tarred skin and the slowly burning fire. Truly these were faithful unto death, and as we are taught and hope then reward is not lacking. Think of the scene in the catacombs of San Sebastian. It was, I believe, during the persecution of Diocletian that a vast mob of them were shut up here, men, women, and little children, to starve in the sweltering heat. They still show the staircase where at length the legionaries came down. The rest can be guessed. " Thy slaughtered saints, Lord ! " A tile of one of these loculi was loose. I moved it surreptitiously, and thrusting my taper to the hollow, looked in. There was the Christian as he had been POMPEII 41 entombed, or rather his bones, sunk in a soft grey dust, the skull turned upon one side as a living person lays his head upon a pillow. Set with cement, as is very common, so that every passer-by could see, was a little glass vessel stained at the bottom with red pigment. This, said our guide, showed that it must be the grave of a martyr — the pigment was his blood. Traditions cling long but this is not so, it is but the sediment of the sacramental wine partaken of at the funeral. Yet martyrs are enough and to spare in these places. God alone knows to-day which of them died by the common sword death lifts against our race, which by the monstrous, fratricidal hand of man. Also, it no longer matters now that the slayers and the slain are at one, and judgment alone is left. I will mention one thing more out of the multitudes that I studied and one only, and then farewell to Rome. In the sculpture galleries of the Vatican is a beautiful effigy of a woman seated in a kind of low nursing chair and suckling an infant at her breast. We were told that the model for this statue was Agrippina personi- fying motherhood, and the innocent-eyed baby at her breast became known to the world as Nero, the matricide. Even to-day, after all these centuries, what a hell's jest is this piece of carven stone. At Naples the evil weather still pursued us. When we woke up on the morning after our arrival, the rain was falling in a steady torrent and thus it fell till night. Also the hotel was bitterly cold, and colder still was the Museum where we spent the day wrapped about with many cloaks. Yet it was a happy day although I coughed and shivered through its dark hours, for never before, as I think, have I seen so many beautiful things in one place. Truly, since in any case their inhabitants would be long dead by now, we should be grateful to Vesuvius which buried up Herculaneum and Pompeii with all their wonderful treasures of art. The dwellers in those 42 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE cities were in many ways uncivilised enough. For in- stance the system of house-drainage, as I myself observed at Pompeii, was of a most primitive and poisonous nature, consisting apparently of a cesspool under the floor of the sitting-room. Again their monstrous and open licen- tiousness, of which the walls and buildings bear such unmistakable evidence, their gladiatorial shows and other of their customs, are scarcely what we should associate with civilisation as it is understood by us. In this connection, however, it must be remembered that behind the very thinnest veil of decent seeming, in almost every one of these respects Naples is as bad to-day as was Pompeii in the year of our Lord 79. Yet what artists were these Pompeians. All the talent of the world in our generation could not produce such statues and bronzes as have been found beneath the lava of Herculaneum and the ashes of Pompeii. There- fore it would seem that high civilisation does not favour the production of the finest art. On the other hand, neither does savagery. Nor can its appearances upon the earth as in the best Greek period, the very early Egyp- tian period, the period under discussion and that of the Fvenaissance, be accounted for as in the instance of the uprising of great writers such, as Homer, Shakespeare, and others, in the occasional touching of the high-water mark of human intellect by a wave of individual genius. For at such epochs genius seems to have been a common gift. It fell like a sudden rain upon the heads of all. Then like the rain it ceased, to be followed by a long period of ineffective undewed sterility. The problem is too high for me, I abandon it. Naples, in a domestic sense, is pre-eminently remark- able for two things, its beggars, and its method of driving horses by means of a band across the nose in place of the common bit. I have never elsewhere seen this habit of harnessing. As for the beggars, so far as the traveller is concerned, they include practically the entire popula- POMPEII 48 tion. Against him every man uplifts his hand, or rather he stretches it out. The right carriage fare for a course, that is, from any one point to another in the town, is 7 5 centimes ; yet we saw ten francs extralcted from a wretched American who still was followed with complaints and voluble abuse. One morning I sat at breakfast be- hind a massive window of plate glass which did not open. Nor was there any access to the street beyond under quite a moderate walk. Yet during the whole of that meal a sturdy youth stood without and begged of me. He knew that even if I was so minded I could not com- municate to him the desired coin, because between us there was a great pane fixed, in short that his was but labour wasted. And yet he begged, his nature prompting to the act. There sat an EngHshman, and he must practise his trade if only in empty, unsatisfying panto- mime. In Naples every one expects a fee, generally for doing nothing, and no one is satisfied with it when received. Perhaps the cabmen, some of whom are black- mailers and scoundrels of peculiar vUlainy, take the palm for impudent extortion. Or should it be given to the boatmen ? Of them I anticipate to tell a story. When we reached Naples on our return from Syria my nephew went ashore to see a tradesman about some statuettes which we had purchased on our first visit, that did not appear to have reached their destinations. This he did against my advice, for the vessel was only staying two hours and the man lived near the Museum. The two hours passed, the last tug came off, eight o'clock was strik- ing. One ofScer after another asked me if my nephew was on board. I said that I could not see or hear him, and at last the captain announced firmly but regretfully that he had business at Marseilles and must be going. I shrugged my shoulders but inwardly I was anxious, as Naples is not a place for a young man to be left stranded without money, of which I knew he had little in his pocket. Also he wore my only ulster and I had lent him an 44 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE umbrella ! The time came to hoist the gangway and I gave him up. Just then through the gloom at a little distance from the ship I caught sight of my ulster struggling violently, and of my umbrella waving in the air. Now followed an indescribable hubbub. The figure of the lost one, with a Neapolitan hanging on to his leg, struggled from one boat into another boat whence, with a well-planted kick, he neatly floored the Neapolitan and, breathless but triumphant, reached the companion and the deck. His tale was moving. It appears that he had been detained at the art-dealer's shop, and that the cabman who drove him to the quay, either by accident or very possibly on purpose, for one can never be quite certain of the designs of these men, took him a long way round. By the time he reached the embarking-place and had finished the usual altercation over his fare, the tug had gone, leaving him with something under fifteen minutes to reach the Oroya, which lay a mile or more away. Somehow, after being nearly torn to pieces, he made a bargain and got a boat, only to discover that his oarsmen either could not, or would not row at a speed needful in the situation. He coached them in the best Cambridge style, and when that proved ineffective, threat- ened by expressive pantomime to cast the elder of the two men into the deep, for the bellowing of the siren and the ringing of the bell on board the distant Oroya were sounds full of meaning to his ears. Thus encouraged the rowers put on the pace and arrived at length within fifty yards of the steamer, whose donkey engines were now beginning to clank upon the anchor chains. But there they stopped and opened negotiations for blackmail. Whether he would have ever got on board the ship, or now be at the bottom of Naples Bay, or the hero of some other unpleasant pre- dicament, had not an accident chanced, I know not. The accident was that while the altercation and mutual POMPEII 45 threats proceeded the boat drifted against another boat, into which, with commendable agihty, he sprang, as I have described, the Italian hanging to his leg. Thence he gained the tug and from it the steamer. The officers of the ship told me that these incidents are common at Naples. There it is quite customary for boatmen to bring off wretched passengers just before their vessel sails, and refuse to put them on board until they receive some exorbitant ransom. In Cyprus the traveller has no need of any defensive weapon ; in most parts of Palestine he is not likely to regret its absence; but in Naples, for my part, I should in future always carry a pistol to show if necessary. How blessed is the sun after long periods of cold and wet, especially in those lands where one expects sun and artificial heat is not employed. The night before we visited Pompeii, for instance, was not a happy one for me. I was actually frozen out of the hotel smoking- room with its glass roof and a toy stove which did not burn. By way of consolation I manufactured myself some hot whisky and water with the help of a dreadful Etna that would not blow out, boiled over and took the varnish off the table (damage five francs at least, if it was discovered). Then I crept to bed and to such sleep as an incessant influenza cough would allow. It was not much, but towards morning I began to enjoy nightmares. One I remember particularly ; it was to demonstrate on paper one hundred different methods of folding an india-rubber bath in five seconds of time, and fifty different methods of emptjring the same without spilling a drop, under pain of being thrown living from the top of the Bargello tower in Florence. Another pleasing dream was that I was actually very ill in a dreadful hotel with no one to attend upon me except Italian waiters, who always demanded five francs before they would give you anything to drink, or ten if you were particularly thirsty. At length I woke up stiff and 46 ■ A WINTER PILGRIMAGE aching, and there, streaming through the window, was the sun, at last — the bright Italian sun of many a romance. I could have worshipped it. To what the books on the subject, and their name is legion, say about Pompeii I shall attempt to add no- thing. For many years I desired to see this place, and when I saw it, it did not disappoint me. It is wonderful. The houses as they were, only without their roofs — very small houses for the most part. The narrow streets down which in times of storm the water ran, with the raised steppLag-stones across them. The wear of the chariot wheels upon the paving, of the children's feet at the doors of school-houses, of the merchants' feet at the entrances of shops and places of business, of the priests' feet upon the thresholds of temples. The scrib- blings of gladiators and even of Christian slaves upon the walls. The obscene pictures and places. The fountains in the middle of the way with holes hollowed in their solid stone by the pressure of the hands of those who for six or seven centuries had leant down to refresh them- selves with their waters. The casts enclosing the actual skeletons of some of the poor creatures who were over- taken in the last catastrophe. The garden- courts still adorned with statues. All these and a hundred other things were wonderful. But how should a man see them ? From place to place he walks at the heels of an attentive guide who is full of information till he grows bewildered. Here are temples, here are baths, here a theatre, a forum, a wall, a circus, a private house with the statues still standing about the court, an abode not to be described, a baker's, a silver- smith's, an artist's shop, what not ? All the wreckage of a city, none of the finest or most large, it is true, suddenly obhterated in the midst of its active life, a clock that has stopped, the case decayed but the works laid bare, sui generis — alone in the relics of the universe. It is overwhelming, to study it in detail POMPEII 47 would take weeks, and even then who would be very much the wiser ? No, I think it is best to slip away alone as I did, and seated upon some stone or wall in the soft shine of the sunlight, to let the general scene and the unique atmos- phere that surrounds it, sink into the imagination. Then where no tourist disturbs, where no cicerone, explains, the mind may strive to re-create. Its ears may hear the hum of voices in the populous pleasure-seeking town, its eyes may see the lost thousands in their strange attire crowding down the cramped ways, till at length something of the meaning and the pathos of it all will come home. Yet why should this place move us so much ? There are scores of dead cities strewn about the world, only more stripped by decay and man. I suppose it is because of the feebleness of our fancy, that cripple who finds it so hard to stir from the little plot of time upon which it is our chance to wander. Here it has crutches, here the evidences of the departed are plentiful. We see the bread that they baked, the trinkets which they purchased. The pleasures they pursued so fiercely, the sins that were their joy, the higher aspiration that touched them at times, the superstitions before which they cowered, are written of on every ruined stone. Therefore, thus aided by these helpful props of evidence they draw near to us and we to them. Vesuvius towering there, Vesuvius which saw it all and so much before from the very beginniags of the world, and will see so much hereafter till the end of the world, ought to stir us more, but it does not. It is a wondrous, an awe-inspiring phenomenon of Nature, no more, something above our human sympathy. But the stone hollowed by the hands of the dead, ah ! that stirs. We think that if we had lived then our palms would have helped to wear the edge of the solid water-trough, and comprehend, and are sorry. By the sign of this 48 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE sharp example we remember that we too are making our faint marks upon such stones as we are fated to tread and handle. Other more imperceptible marks also upon things intangible and yet real which generations to come will look on with dull incomprehensive eyes, and though they know it not, in their own souls gather up the harvest. This knowledge makes us sympathetic, or at least I think so. In Naples men learned in the English tongue write works on Pompeii (to them a mine of wealth) for the benefit of the traveller. One of these we purchased for half a franc at the railway station. It is infinitely more entertaining than most guide-books. Here are a few extracts : — First of all our author is historical and tells us " it is mentioned by Pliny : a M. Erinnius, duumvir, a Pom- pean who was thundered at Pompeii." One wonders whether by this the author means that the duumvir was applauded at a theatre, or that he came in sudden and unexpected contact with the electric current. If so, his fate was scarcely so bad as that of Drusus, son of Claudius. " He was in Pompeii and took his pleasure to throw some pears in the air and then received them in his mouth, when one of those fruits strangled him, stopping up his throat." What an occupation for the son of an emperor who had apparently but just become engaged, and what size can his mouth have been ! Further on our author, who by the way is too modest to record his name, describes some of the corpses found in the ashes. Here, for in- stance, are Nos. 39 and 40 : — "39. A young woman fallen upon her face, her head is leaned upon her arm, the coat or shift which she was covered of was brought near her head in the act of defense or fright, and causes all her beautiful naked body to be seen. Her shoulder has some trace of dress. It is still seen a lock of hair tied on her occiput. POMPEII 49 "40. A young woman having a ring to her finger, to her foot a buskin. Her leg is admirable." Will some scholar kindly place the god or goddess described thus darkly as " another womanish divinity of an uncertain determination " ? Perhaps the fact that Neptune " on foot ' is said to be leaning upon her shoulder may assist the student. I will pass over the account of " a xystus " adorned with porticoes which protect it from the " ardours of the sun," although curiously enough " in one of the columns is the augury that was made to a girl that she may sneeze, that is pleasingly." After this no wonder that many find the customs and manners of the ancients curious and hard to understand. But to proceed. Here is an extract Ln a style which may be commended to the notice of art critics. It has all the necessary obscurity and can scarcely fail to impress the unlearned. A bronze is under discussion. Our book describes it thus : — " The counterpoise represents a nice womanish bust with a covering on its head, under which are ivy leaves ; she has her hair curled on her deck. She leans softly on her cheek the index of her right hand, of which the pulse is adorned with a bracelet, and she tiuns her head on the right. A lamp and a beak ; Jupiter, radiated on a disc, leaning on the sceptre and sitting between Minerva, armed with a lame, and the Abundance, with the cornu- copea, both seated." If it involves nothing incorrect, I confess that I should much like to learn what portion of a lady's frame is referred to as " her deck." There is, however, information as well as amusement in these pages. Thus they call attention to a graffito scribbled on the wall of the theatre which announces that a certain Methe, a player of farce, " amat Chrestwm corde sit utreisque" — loves Christ from the heart, and prays that a like fate may befall others. So within two D 50 A WINTEE PILGKIMAGE generations of His death the Saviour had followers in heathen Pompeii even among actors. Here is another curious inscription conceived in a very different spirit, and scratched upon the wall of the house of a certain Cecilius Jucundus : " Qids amat valeat. Fereat qui luscit amare. Bis tanto pereat, quisquis amare vetat," which I may render, " May the lover flourish ! Bad luck to him who turns his back on love ! But to him who bars the lover's path — damnation ! " Jucundus was a banker. It is not difHcult to ima- gine that this vigorous screed was inscribed upon the wall by some poor aspirant for his daughter's hand, to whom he had shown the door. The old tradition was that Pompeii perished during the summer months. As our guide-book points out, however, this theory is entu-ely refuted by one curious little circumstance. Near the Stabian Gate in December 1889 were discovered some human bodies and a tree, which in the words of the book "was poured there, as one habitually is used to do the liquid chalk," so that " besides the impress of its thick past remained as engraved on the ashes " the remains of the leaves and of the berries. From the cast obtained thus obscurely (which we saw) botanists were enabled to identify the tree with its leaves and fruit as a variety of lauris nobilis, whereof the berries do not ripen until late autumn. As these particular berries were quite ripe when the ashes covered them, Pompeii, it is clear, must have perished in the winter months. I will confess that I leave this place with a deep professional grudge against that admirable romancer, the late Lord Lytton. Who is there of our trade that would not like to write a novel about Pompeii ? But Lytton bars the way. Not that it would be difficult to find another and quite different plot. It is his title which presages failure to all who would follow in his path. Had he called his book " Glaucus," or " The POMPEII 51 Blind Girl," or " A Judgment from Heaven," or any- thing else, it would not have mattered. But every one has heard of the novel named " The Last Days of Pompeii," and he who tried to treat of that city and event with the pen of fiction would certainly hear of it also. It is even possible that he might become involved in correspondence on the hoary theme of literary plagiarism. CHAPTER V NAPLES TO LARNACA The morning of our departure from Naples came, and "vve departed, this time very early. Long before " the saffron-tinted dawn," as I remember when a boy at school I used to translate the Homeric phrase, had touched the red pillar of smoke above Vesuvius, I was up and doing my experienced best to arouse my companion, by arranging the electric lights in such an artistic fashion that their unveiled and con- centrated rays struck full upon his " slumber-curtained eyes." But he is an excellent sleeper, and the effort was a failure. Therefore stronger measures had to be found. At length we were off, the extreme earliness of the hour saving me something considerable in the matter of hotel tips. By the time we reached the station, however, every Italian connected with the place was wide-awake and quite ready to receive the largesse of the noble foreigner. I think that I had to fee about ten men at that station, at least eight of them for doing nothing. Gratuities were dispensed to the bus-conductor who introduced us to a porter; to the porter who led us three yards to the ticket office ; to an official who inspected the tickets after we had taken them ; to two other officials who showed us respectively the platform from which the train for Brindisi started and the place where the luggage must be booked ; to a superior person who announced that he would see the luggage properly booked, and to various other inferior persons, each of NAPLES TO LARNACA 53 whom prepared to carry some small article to the plat- form. Then being called upon suddenly to decide, and very much afraid that the said small articles would vanish in transit, I determined upon the spur of the moment to accompany them to the carriage, leaving my nephew to attend to the registration of the heavier baggage. Even in that crowded tumultuous moment I had, it is true, my doubts of the wisdom of this arrangement, but remembering that on the last occasion when he per- formed this important office, the intelligent booking- clerk had managed to relieve my companion of half a napoleon, by the simple process of giving change to the amount of twenty centimes instead of ten francs twenty centimes, I was sure that experience would have made him very, very cautious. Presently he arrived radiant, having accomplished all decently and in order at the moderate expense of another few francs of tips. " Have you got the luggage-ticket ? " I asked with sombre suspicion. " Rather," he answered ; " do you suppose that I am green enough to come without it ? " and he showed me the outside of a dirty bit of paper. The outside, re- member, not the inside, for thereby hangs a very painful, moving tale. Well, we started, this time in great comfort, since, except for an Italian sportsman arrayed in quaint attire, we had the carriage to ourselves. We steamed past Pompeii and Sorrento, thence for hours climbing over huge mountain ranges covered with snow, sometimes almost to the level of the railway line. After these came vast stretches of plain. Then in the afternoon we travelled for many miles along the seashore, a very lonely strand fringed with pines blown by the prevalent winds to curious, horizontal shapes, as though a gardener had trimmed them thus for years. Ultimately once more we headed inland across the foot of Italy, and 54. A WINTEK PILGRIMAGE at last, after a journey of about thirteen hours, to my great rehef, for I feared lest another train off the line might make us lose our boat, ran into Brindisi. Here to our joy the local Cook was in attendance, who put us into a cab, strictly charging us to "pay nothing to nobody." He announced further that he would follow presently to the mail steamer Isis with the heavy baggage, for which he took the ticket. We reached the Isis, a narrow, rakish-looking boat, found our cabin, and began to arrange things. While we were getting rid of the dust of our long journey I heard a voice outside, the voice of Cook, though strangely changed and agitated. " Mr. Haggard," said the voice, " Mr. Rider Haggard." " Yes," I answered ; " what's the matter ? I've paid for the passages at the office." " It isn't the passages, it's your luggage," he replied through the door ; " it's gone ! " I sank upon my berth. " Gone ? " I said feebly, ■' gone where ? " " To Reggio," replied the mournful voice, " Reggio on the other side of Italy, where you booked it to." " It was booked to Brindisi," I shouted. " Oh no, it wasn't," wailed the voice, " it was booked to Reggio ; here's the ticket." " Do you hear that ? " I said to my nephew, who, with his dripping head lifted from the basin, was staring at vacancy as though he had seen a ghost ; " do you hear that ? He says you booked the luggage to Reggio." " I didn't," he gasped ; " I gave them the tickets for Brindisi." A horrible thought struck me. ^' Did you examine the voucher ? " I asked. Then almost with tears he confessed that he had overlooked this formality. " My friend," I went on, " do you understand what you have done ? Has it occurred to you that this NAPLES TO LARNACA 66 exceedingly thick and uncomfortable brown suit, with three flannel shirts, a leather medicine-case, and some wraps and sundries are all that we possess to travel with to Cyprus, where, such is the hospitable nature of its inhabitants, we shall probably be asked out to dinner every night ? " " We've got some cigarettes and a revolver, and you can have my dinner-jacket, it is in the little bag," he answered with feeble inconsequence. I took the dinner-jacket at once; it was several sizes too small for me, but better than nothing. Then I expressed my feelings in language as temperate as I could command. Considering the circumstances it was, I think, wonderfully temperate. At this juncture the voice of the patient (and most excellent) representative of the world-wide majesty of Cook spoke as though in reverie through the door. " It is a strange thing," he said, " these sad accidents always happen to you gentlemen with double names. The last time it was to the great artist gentleman — how did he call himself ? Ah ! I have it. Mr. — Mr. — Melton Prior. He went on with nothing, quite nothing. His luggage too travelled to Reggio." Enough. Let oblivion take that dreadful hour. But the odd thing is that this is the second time in my life that the said " sad accident " has happened to me. Once before, bound to the East, did I arrive upon the mail- steamer at Brindisi to find that by some pretty caprice of the Italian railway officials my portmanteaus were at Milan, or elsewhere, and that I must travel to Egypt and sojourn there in what I stood up in, plus the contents of a hand-bag. I remember that on this occasion my suffer- ings were somewhat soothed by the melancholy state of an Australian family, who found themselves doomed to voyage to Sydney with an outfit that would not have cut up into an infant's layette. Their luggage also had gone to Reggio. 56 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE As a matter of curiosity I should like to know why the Italians play these tricks with the belongings of travellers, as is their common and undoubted habit. To take the present case, it is true that my nephew neglected to study the scrawl upon the voucher, but really he was not to blame, for he gave the clerk the tickets for Brindisi, by which that functionary was bound to register the luggage. Moreover, every official in the station knew that we were going to Brindisi — a fact upon the strength of which many of them, under this pretext or that, had managed to extract something from my pocket. Yet quite calmly, although there was no press of business for we were almost the only passengers, they sent the luggage to Reggio. My own belief is that sometimes this kind of thing is done as a bad practical joke, or possibly to annoy the foreigner within their gates, and sometimes for the purposes of pillage. If this be so, the effort is eminently successful, especially when the un- fortunate victim has to catch a mail for the East and must leave his effects to take their chance. The Isis is one of the swift boats which carry the mail from Brindisi to Port Said. The bags leave London at nine on Friday night. By seven or eight on Sunday night they should be at Brindisi, and by Wednesday night or Thursday morning at Port Said, where the big boat awaits them. It is very curious to see these bags come on board. Somebody announces that the mail is in, and an officer takes his station opposite the gangway at a little table on which lies a great lined and printed form, while another officer stands by the gangway itself. Quarter- masters and sailors also station themselves at con- venient spots between it and the mail-room. Pre- sently there is a rumble, and a covered van drawn by a wretched-looking horse appears in the strong ring of electric light upon the quay. Attending it are an extra- ordinary collection of ragamuffins, of whom the use now NAPLES TO LARNACA 67 becomes apparent. The van is unlocked by some one in charge, and the first ragamuffin is given a sack and a tally-stick. Up the gangway he trots, delivers the tally- stick to the quartermaster at its head, who calls out the destination of each bag to the officer at the table, who in his turn checks and enters it upon the sheet. That carrier trots away to the right towards the mail-room, where he delivers his bag and descends by a second gangway to the quay for another. Meanwhile his companions are following him like a stream of ants, each with a sack of letters on his shoulder and a tally-stick in his hand. When the tally-sticks come to the number of ten, they are placed in the section of a box that stands on the deck at the feet of the quartermaster. A hundred tally-sticks exactly fill this box, which is then replaced by another empty box. Thus an additional check is kept upon the number of the bags. Now that van is empty and another arrives, and so on and on for hours, till at last all the mail is safely aboard, checked, and sorted. I believe that on this particular Sunday night the count amounted to some- thing over two thousand bags, which is not very heavy. One of the officers told me that the letters, &c., in which Great Britain sent her last Christmas wishes to the East filled nearly four thousand bags. As may be imagined, the introduction of the penny Imperial post is not likely to lessen these totals. Before the mail was all on board we were fast asleep, waking up the next morning to find the Isis tearing at about eighteen knots (she can run twenty-three) through a stormy sea and beneath a wet and sunless sky. By midday our course was taking us through the beautiful islands of the Greek Archipelago, to some of which we passed quite close. Here it was that we found most reason to mourn the lack of sunlight, which in this dripping weather caused even those green Ionian slopes 58 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE to look cold and grey. Amongst other places yre saw that Leucadian crag whence the Greek poetess Sappho leapt into the sea. Studying the spot I came to the conclusion that her nerve must have been almost as remarkable as her genius. Women very rarely commit suicide by jumping off a great height, especially into water. By the way, I wonder if Sappho was as beautiful as the bust in the Naples Museum, that was discovered at Pompeii or Herculaneum, I forget which, seems to suggest. Tradition describes her as small and dark, so perhaps the head is a fancy portrait by some great artist of a later age. So real and so full of life and intelligence is it, however, that whoever was its model must have been both a lovely and a clever woman. Indeed, genius seems to sit upon that brow of bronze and to look from those wide enamelled eyes. Leaving Brindisi late on Sunday night, early on the Wednesday morning we sighted the low shores of Egypt. By eight we were steaming past the well-re- membered breakwater at Port Said, very empty now on account of the war and the coal famine, and in another half-hour had cast anchor alongside the great liner which was ready to receive our mails. Once I spent three or four days in Port Said waiting for my steamer, and may claim, therefore, to know it fairly well. Of all the places I have visited during many travels I can recall but one that strikes me as more dreary. It is a fever-stricken hole named Frontera at the mouth of the Usumacinto River in Tabasco, that can boast the largest and fiercest mosquitoes in the whole world. However on this occasion we were destined to see but little of Port Said, since the vessel that was to take us on to Cyprus, named the Mora, would sail as soon as we had transhipped her mails. Accordingly, bidding farewell to the Isis and her kind commander, we took a boat and rowed across to the Flora, a small and ugly- looking vessel painted black, and belonging to the NAPLES TO LARNACA 59 Austrian-Lloyd. On board of her I found no one who could speak any tongue I knew, and it was with some difficulty that at last, by the help of the steward's assistant, who understood a little French, I was able to explain that we wished to proceed to Larnaca. At the time it struck me as so odd that the English Government mails should be carried in a vessel thus dis- tinctly foreign, that afterwards in Cyprus I inquired into the reason. It seems that the Colonial Office, or rather the Treasury, are responsible. The Austrian-Lloyd Hne, being in the receipt of a subsidy from their Government, were able to make a lower tender for the transport of mails than another line, owned by a British company. So notwith- standing the manifest inconveniences of employing an alien bottom for this important purpose, which in certain political conditions might easily prove dangerous, the home authorities decreed that the contract should go to the foreigner. Perhaps they thought that the sacred principles of Free Trade, or rather of subsidised foreign competition, ought to prevail even in the matter of the conveyance of her Majesty's mails. Another thing became evident, that Cyprus is not a place of popular resort, since my nephew and I were the only first-class passengers in the ship. Unless he be a Government official, or some friend or connection of one of the very few British residents, it is not often, I imagine, that the Flora takes a traveller to the island. Still she provides for them, by printing a set of rules in English and hanging them on the companion. They cover much ground ; in them even pohteness finds its place, since the reader is reminded that passengers being " persons of education, will pay a due regard to the fair sex." Reflection, however, seems to have suggested that this axiom might meet with too liberal a rendering. At any rate, farther down we are informed with grave sincerity that " gentlemen are not allowed to enter the cabins of the ladies." 60 A WINTEE PILGRIMAGE After the dull weather we had experienced between Italy and Egypt, the twenty-four hours' run of our lonely voyage to Larnaca was very pleasant, for the sun shone brightly, the wind did not blow, and the sea was blue as only the Mediterranean in its best moods knows how to be. When we got up next morning — we were provided, each of us, with a whole four-berth cabin, but the Mora does not boast a bath — it was to find that Cyprus was already in sight : a long, grey land with occasional moun- tains appearing here and there. Onward we steamed, watching a single white-sailed bark that slid towards us across the azure sea like some dove on outstretched wings, till at length we cast anchor in the roadstead off the little port of Larnaca, a pretty town lying along the seashore. Some miles away, and to our left as we face it, rises the mountain of the Holy Cross — I think that it is, or used to be called Ores Staveros by the Greeks, and by the Latins Monte Croce, at any rate in the time of Pocock. Felix Fabri, the German monk who made two pil- grimages to Palestine in or about the year 1480, tells how he visited this monastery and saw its relics. It will be remembered that St. Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, who when an old woman journeyed to the Holy Land in 325 of our era, was so fortunate as to discover beneath the alleged site of the Holy Sepulchre, the veritable cross of our Lord together with that of one or both of the thieves who suffered with Him. But of this more hereafter. The cross of the good thief who, why I know not, has been named Dysma, she is said to have brought to Cyprus and established upon this mountain. Whether anything of it remains there now I cannot say, as I made no visit to the place either on this occasion or on a former journey in the island some fourteen years ago. This is what old Felix says about it. I quote here and else- where from the most excellent and scholarly translation of NAPLES TO LARNACA 61 his writings by Mr. Aubrey Stewart, M.A., which is unfortu- nately practically inaccessible to most readers, as it can only be obtained as part of the Library of the " Palestine Pil- grims' Text Society '' at a minimum cost of ten guineas : — " She " — i.e. St. Helena — " brought her own cross, that which had been Dysma's, entire from Jerusalem to this mount, and here she built a great convent for monks, and a church within which she placed this cross as an exceeding holy relic. She ordered a chamber or closet to be built in the wall over against the altar, and placed the cross within it ; and there it stands unmoved even to this day, albeit the monastery itself has long since been overthrown, even to the ground, by the Turks and Saracens, and the monks of the Order of St. Benedict who once dwelt therein have been scattered. The position and arrangement of this cross in its place is wonderful. The cross stands in a blind window, and both its arms are let into holes made in the walls, and its foot is let into a hole made in the floor. But the holes which contain the arms of the cross and the foot of the cross are large out of all proportion, and the cross nowhere touches the wall, but is free and clear from contact with the wall on every side. The miracle which is noised abroad about the cross is that it hangs in the air without any fastening, and withal stands as firm as though it were fixed with the strongest nails or built into the wall, which nevertheless it is not, because all the three holes are very great, so that a man can put his hand into them and per- ceive by touch that there is no fastening there, nor yet at the back or at the head of the cross. I might indeed have searched this thing more narrowly than I did, but I feared God, and had no right to do that which I had forbidden others to do. I climbed this mount to show honour to the cross, not to try v/hether there was a miracle or not, or to tempt God. That this cross may be the more worthy of reverence, they have joined to it a piece of the true Cross of Christ." Felix Fabri was easily satisfied, as a mediaeval monk should be. So much for the cross of Dysma. Soon we were rowing ashore in the Government boat, a distance of three-quarters of a mile or so, for Larnaca is not a harbour, but an open roadstead — there are now no 62 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE harbours -worthy of the name in Cyprus. Landing at the pier we were at once conducted to the custom-house, and explained that we had nothing to declare. " But have you a revolver ? " asked the o£Scer. I answered that I had. " Then I must trouble you to hand it over," he replied. " I will give yo^i a receipt for it, and you can claim, it when you leave the island." I looked what I felt, astonished, but obeyed. On in- quiry it appeared that the Cyprus Government has recently passed some legislation as to the importation of firearms. It would seem that murders had been somewhat frequent in the island, mostly carried out by shooting, hence the law. Whether it was intended to prevent respectable travellers who purpose journeying in the mountain dis- tricts from carrying a pistol for their own protection, is another matter. Doubtless in fact it was not ; but in Cyprus they have a great respect for the letter of the law, and therefore put this somewhat unnecessary query. For instance, they have another regulation — aimed, I suppose, at the exclusion of phylloxera — against the importation of seeds or plants, which has been known to work in an unforeseen manner. Thus a year or two ago a foreign royalty, I think it was the Prince of Naples, visited the island wearing a carnation in his buttonhole. His Royal Highness must have been somewhat amazed when a custom-house official leant forward and gently but firmly removed the contraband flower. I am told that this story is quite true, but it may be only a local satire upon the kindly providence of a patriarchal Government. It is right to add, however, that there is not the slightest need for a traveller of the ordinary stamp to carry any defensive weapon in Cyprus. Since the EngHsh occupation of the island at any rate, now some twenty years ago, no place can be more safe. In the wildest parts of it he who behaves himself has nothing NAPLES TO LABNACA 63 to fear from the natives, a kindly, gentle-natured race, Turk or Christian, although, as I have said, not averse to murdering each other upon occasion. But of this also more hereafter. Having delivered up the weapon of war and been given an elaborate receipt for the same, we proceeded to our hotel accompanied by a motley collection of various blood and colour, each of them bearing a small piece of our exiguous belongings, whereof the bulk, it will be remem- bered, had travelled to Reggio. These folk, however, are not exorbitant in their demands and do not grumble or ask for more. Tourists have not come to Cyprus to spoil it ; I never heard of an American even setting foot on the island, therefore a shilling here goes as far as five elsewhere. The hotel at Larnaca is now I believe the only one in Cyprus. It stands within a few feet of the shore — safely enough, for the sea is tideless — is comfortable, with large, cool rooms, and absurdly cheap. I grieve to add that its proprietor cannot make it pay. No travellers visit this lovely and most interesting isle, in ancient days the garden of the whole Mediterranean, therefore there are no hotels. Once there was one at Limasol, but it failed and converted itself into a hospital. He who would journey here must either rely upon tents, which are a poor shelter before the month of April, or upon the kind and freely offered hospitality of the Government officials. Naturally this lack of accommodation frightens away tourists, which for many reasons in a poor country like Cyprus is a vast pity. Yet until the tourist comes it is idle to expect that conveniences for his reception will be provided. So this matter stands. Where Larnaca now lies was once the ancient Citium, of which the marsh near at hand is believed to have been the harbour. Quite half of the present town, indeed, is said to be built upon the necropolis of Citium, whence comes its name, Larnaca, derived, it is supposed, 64 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE from Larnax, an urn or a sepulchre. The town is divided into two parts, Larnaca proper and the Marina along the seashore, which is reported to have been recovered within the last few centuries from the bed of the ocean. After luncheon we went to a house whose owner deals occasionally in curiosities. Of these and all antiquities indeed the export is forbidden except to the British Museum, private digging having been put a stop to in the island, as its inhabitants aver, in the especial interest of that institution. Here we saw a few nice things, but the price asked was impossible, £12 being demanded for a set of little glass vases which I should have valued at 40s. So we left the place, richer only by an Egyptian or Phoenician spear-head of Cyprian copper, a very excellent specimen, and walked to the upper town about a mile away to take tea with Mr. Cobham, the Commissioner. Mr. Cobham lives in a beautiful house which he has purchased. For generations it had been the abode of the British consuls at Larnaca, but was abandoned by them many years ago. Here in a noble room he has his unique collection of ancient books written by travellers during the last five or six centuries, and others dealing with, or touching on, Cyprus and its affairs. It is from these sources that its learned author has compiled the work known as Excerpta Gypria, which consists of transla- tions from their pages, a book invaluable to students, but now unhappily out of print. I considered myself for- tunate in being able to purchase a set of the sheets at an advanced price in the capital, Nicosia, where it was printed. Set upon a wall of the saloon in this house and although 'newly painted, dating from a century and a half or more ago, is a fine, carved example of the royal arms of England. This very coat, as Mr. Cobham has ascertained, used to stand over the doors of the old British Consulate during the tenancy of his house by 5Sii?S, ■ a:^ ^ .Mm ■.r■.•^■^"^ •^ NAPLES TO LARNACA 65 the consuls. When they left it was taken down and vanished, but within the last few years he found it in a stable La Larnaca, whence the carving was rescued, re- painted by some craftsman on board an English man-of- war which visited Cyprus, and after a hundred years or so of absence, returned in triumph to its old home. Cyprus is fortunate in possessing in Mr. Cobham an oflScial who takes so deep an interest in her history, and spares no expense or pains in attempting its record. On the occasion of my visit he spoke to me very sadly of the vandalism which the authorities threaten to commit by the throwing down of the seaward wall, curtain-wall I think it is called, of the ancient, fortified city of Fama- gusta, in order, principally, that the stone and area may be made use of for the ptirposes of the railway, which it is proposed to construct between Famagusta and Nicosia. Of this suggested, but as yet happily unaccomplished crime, I shall have something to say on a later page. CHAPTER VI COLOSSI On the day follo^ving that of our arrival m Cyprus the Flora reappeared from Famagusta and about noon we went on board of her to proceed to Limasol, some forty or fifty miles away, where we were engaged to stay a week or ten days. The traveller indeed is lucky when he can find a chance of making this journey in the course of an after- noon by boat, instead of spending from ten to fifteen hours to cover it in a carriage. Although Cyprus in its total area is not much, if any, larger than the two counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, locomotion is still difficult owing to the impassable nature of the ways and the steepness and frequency of the mountains. When I visited it fourteen or fifteen years ago there were no roads to speak of in the island, except one of a very indifferent character between Larnaca and Nicosia. The Turks, its former masters, never seem to make a road ; they only destroy any that may exist. Now in this respect matters are much improved. The English Government, out of the pitiful sums left at its command after the extraction from the colony of every possible farthing towards the payment of the Turkish tribute, has by slow degrees con- structed excellent roads between all the principal towns, with bridges over the beds of the mountain torrents. But as yet in the country districts nothing of the sort has been attempted. With us were embarked a number of lambs, little things not more than a week or two old, bought, I suppose, for the provisioning of the ship. At this season COLOSSI 67 of the year everybody in Cyprus lives upon. lamb. It was melancholy to see the tiuy creatures, their legs tied together, heaped one upon another in the bottoms of large baskets, whence, bleating piteously for their mothers, they were handed up and thrown upon the deck. A more satisfactory sight to my mind were one or two cane creels half filled with beautiful brown-plumaged wood- cock, shot or snared by native sportsmen upon the moun- tain slopes. On board the steamer, a fellow-passenger to Limasol, whither he was travelling to negotiate for the land upon which to estabUsh a botanical garden, was Mr. Gennadius, the Director of Agriculture for the island. He told me what I had already observed at Larnaea — that the orange and citron trees in Cyprus, which on the occasion of my former visit were beautiful to behold, are to-day in danger of absolute destruction, owing to the ravages of a horrible black scale which fouls and disfigures fruit and leaves alike. {Avnidia coceinea or Avnidia orantii.) For the last dozen years or so this blight has been increasingly prevalent, the mandarin variety of fruit alone showing any power of resisting its attacks. The proper way to treat the pest is by a number of sprayings with a mixture of from twenty to twenty-five per cent, of soft soap to eighty or seventy-five per cent, of warm water. A dressing thus prepared destroys the scale by effecting a chemical union of the alkali of the soap with the fatty matter in the organism of the parasite, or fail- ing this stifles it by glazing it over and excluding the air necessary to its existence. Mr. Gennadius believes that if this treatment could be universally adopted, scale would disappear from Cyprus within a few years. But here comes the difficulty. For three centuries the Cypriote has been accustomed to Turkish rule with its great pervading principle of Kismet. If it pleases Allah to destroy the orange-trees (in the case of the Chris- tian peasant, read God) so let it be, he says, and shrugs 68 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE his shoulders. Who am I that I should interfere with the will of Heaven by syringing ? Which being trans- lated into Anglo-Saxon means, " I can't be bothered to take the trouble." If the Director of Agriculture in person or by proxy would appear three or four times a year in the sufferer's garden with the wash ready made and a squirt and proceed to apply it, the said sufferer would look on and smoke, making no objection. Beyond this he will rarely go. Therefore unless the blight tires of attack it begins to look as though the orange is doomed in Cyprus. This is a pity, as that fruit does very well there, and the mildew which threatened it at one time was taken at its com- mencement and conquered by means of powdered sulphur puffed about the trees with bellows, Government distribut- ing the sulphur at cost price. About three hours after leaving Larnaca the vessel passes a sloping sward clothed with young corn and carob-trees that, backed by lofty peaks of the Trooidos range, runs from a hill-top to the lip of the ocean. Here once stood Amathus, a great city of immemorial an- tiquity which flourished down to Roman times if not later, and ultimately, it is said, was destroyed by an earthquake. Now all that is left of it are acres of tumbled stone and a broken fragment of fortress, whether ancient or medieval I cannot say, against the walls of which the sea washes. It is told that here, or at some later town built upon the same site, Richard Cceur-de- Lion landed when he took Cyprus from the Emperor Isaac Comnenus. Wonderful indeed is it for us, the children of this passing hour, to look at that grey time-worn coast and as we glide by to reflect upon the ships and men that it has seen, who from century to century came up out of the deep sea to shape its fortunes for a while. Who were the first ? No one knows, but very early the fleets of Egypt were here. Then followed the Phcenicians, those COLOSSI 69 English of the ancient world as they have been called, who like eagles to the carcass, gathered themselves wherever were mines to be worked or moneys to be made. They have left many tombs behind them and in the tombs works of art, some of them excellent enough. Thus before me as I write stands a bronze bull made by Phoenician hands from Cyprian copper, a well-modelled animal full of spirit, with a tail that wags pleasingly upon a balled joint. After the Phoenicians, or with them perhaps, were Greeks of the Mycenian period. Their tombs also celebrate a glory that is departed, as the British Museum can bear witness. Next to the Greek the Persian ; then the satraps of Alexander the Great ; then the Ptolemies ; then galleys that bore the Roman ensign which flew for many generations; then the Byzantine emperors — these for seven centuries. After this a new flag appears, the lions of England flaunting from the ships of war of Richard the First. He took the place and sold it to Guy de Lusignan, King of Jerusalem so called, whose descendants ruled here for three centuries, tUl at length the island passed into the hands of the Venetians. These only held it eighty years, and after them came the most terrible fleet the Cy- prian Sea has seen, that which flew the Crescent. For three centuries Cyprus groaned and withered under the dreadful rule of the Turk, till at last a few gentlemen arrived in a mail-steamer and for the second time in the history of the island ran up the flag of Britain. How long will it float there, I wonder ? It was very interesting to watch the beautiful gulls that followed the vessel off this coast, the wLad blowing against them making not the slightest difference to the perfect ease of their motion. So near did they hang that I could see their quick, beady eyes glancing here and there, and the strong bills of a light pink hue. From time to time as I watched, one of them would 70 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE qatch sight of something eatable in the water. Then down he went and suddenly from the feathers of his underpart out shot his claws, also pink-coloured, just as though he were settling upon a tree or rock. Why, I wonder, does a gull do this when about to meet the water ? To break his fall perhaps. At least I can suggest no other reason, unless in the dim past his pro^ genitors were wont to settle upon trees and he is still unable to shake off an hereditary habit. At length on the low mountain-hedged coast-line appeared the white houses, minarets, and scattered palms of Limasol, with its jetty stretching out into the blue waters. The town looked somewhat grown, otherwise its aspect seems much the same as when first I saw it many years ago. So we landed, and after more custom-house form- aUties, marched through the crowded streets of the little town, preceded by stalwart Cypriotes bearing our belong- ings, to dine (in borrowed garments) with the kind friends who were awaiting us upon the pier. Our first occupation on the following morning was to retain the services of three mules and their coal-black muleteer, doubtless the offspring of slaves imported in the Tiu'kish days, known to us thenceforth by a cor- ruption of his native name or designation which we crystallised into " Cabbages." For a sum of about thirty shillings a week this excellent and intelligent person placed himself and his animals at our disposal, to go whither we would and when we would. Our first expedition was to a massive tower, or rather keep, called Colossi, which stands at a distance of about six miles from Limasol, in the midst of very fertile fields upon the Paphos road. Off we went, my nephew and myself riding our hired mules and the rest of the party upon their smart ponies, which in Cyprus are very good and cheap to buy and feed. I have now had considerable experience of the mule COLOSSI 71 as an animal to ride, and I confess that I hate him. He has advantages no doubt. Over rough ground in the course of an eight or ten hours' day he will cover as great a distance as a horse, and in the course of a week or less he will wear most horses down. Also he will live somehow where the horse would starve. But what a brute he is ! To begin with, his fore-quarters are invari- ably weak, and feel weaker than they are. The Cypriote knows this and rides him on a native saddle, a kind of thick padded quilt so cruppered that he is able to sit far back, almost on the animal's tail indeed, as, doubtless for the same reason, the costermonger rides a donkey. To the stranger, until he grows accustomed to it, this saddle is most uncomfortable, but old residents in the island generally prefer to use it upon a long journey. Also it is dangerous to the uninitiated, since the stirrups are very short. Not being fixed they slide from side to side, suddenly lengthening themselves, let us say to the right, with any unguarded movement, which will produce a proportionate curtailment on the left and the unexpected consequence that the traveller finds himself face down- wards on the ground. With a European saddle this particular accident cannot happen, also it is more com- fortable for a short journey. As a set-off to this advan- tage, however, the rider's weight comes upon that portion of his steed which is least able to support it, namely the withers. The result is that the mule, especially if pushed out of its customary amble, sometimes falls as though it were shot, propelling him over its head. It is a mistake to suppose, also, that these creatures are always sure-footed ; many of them stumble abomin- ably although they do not often actually fall. Never shall I forget my first mule-ride in Cyprus in the days when there were no roads. It was from Nicosia to Kyrenia, a distance of about sixteen miles over a moun- tain path. The muleteer into whose charge I was given was a huge man weighing at least eighteen stone, and I 72 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE thought to myself that where this monster could go, certainly I could follow. In this I was right, I did follow, but at a very con- siderable distance. Mr. Muleteer perched himself upon his animal, doubtless one of the best in the island, looking in his long robes for all the world like a gigantic and half-filled sack, and off we ambled. Scarcely were we clear of the town when my mule, unaccustomed, I sup- pose, to the weight upon his withers and the European saddle, began to stumble. I do not exaggerate when I say that he stumbled all the way to Kyrenia, keeping me absolutely damp with apprehension of sudden dives on to my head down precipitous and unpleasant places. Mean- while Mr. Muleteer, very possibly anticipating my diffi- culties, had been careful to place about five hundred yards between us, a distance which he maintained throughout the journey. I yelled for assistance — in fact I wished to persuade him to exchange mules — but either he would not or he could not hear ; moreover he had no knowledge of iny tongue, or I of his. So we accomplished that very disagreeable journey. Once, however, I made one much more dangerous, this time over the rarely travelled mountains of Chiapas in Mexico. My companions, I remember, had excellent mules — they lived in the country ; that given to me as the lighter weight was weak and poor, with no fore-legs worth mentioning. We scrambled up the mountains somehow, but when it came to descending, the fun began. A road in Tabasco, then at any rate, was made of three component parts. First, a deep and precipitous ditch worn out by the feet of generations of animals, covered at the bottom with from six inches to a foot of red butter, or clay quite as greasy as butter, down which one slowly slithered. Secondly, stretches, sometimes miles in length, of swamp land where the path consists of little ridges of hard clay about two feet apart, the space between each ridge into which the mule must step, filled with some COLOSSI 7S tliree feet of liquid and tenacious mud that often reached to the saddle-flap. Thirdly, when the swamps were passed great tracts of the most grizzly precipices, which to my taste were worst of all. Along these steeps the path, never more than three to five feet in width, would run across boulder-strewn and sloping rock very slippery in nature. Below yawned chasms more or less sheer, of anything from two to fifteen hundred feet in depth. Now a mule always chooses the extreme edge of a precipice. For this reason : its load is commonly bound on in large, far-protruding bales or bags. Were it there- fore to walk on the inner side of the path, it would con- stantly strike its burden against the cliff, so, not being troubled with nerves, it clings to the outer edge. A common result is that in going round a corner it meets another mule proceeding from the opposite direction. Thereon in the attempt to struggle past one of the pair vanishes into space and with it the load, merchandise or man. On this particular Mexican journey I very nearly came to a sudden and untimely end. The mule wUl not go your way, he always goes his own. At one point in the precipice path it forked, the lower fork being rough but safe and solid, the upper, which travelled round some twenty yards and then again joined the lower, smooth but exceeding greasy. The mule insisted upon taking the top road, with the result that when we reached its apex he began to slide. Down we shot, ten or fifteen paces to the very edge of that awful cliff and, I confess it without shame, I have rarely been in such a fright in my life. Indeed I thought that I must be gone, there seemed no help for it, since to dismount was quite impossible. At the utter verge of the gulf, however, the animal put on a sort of vacuum brake of which a mule alone has the secret, and when its head was absolutely hanging over it, we stopped. That day also this same trusty creature fell with me in the midst 74 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE of a flooded river, and in the evening I ended an enter- taining Journey by being slung across another rearing torrent some eighty yards wide in a loop of string attached to a very rotten rope, along which I was pulled in jerks. But of the varied experiences of that expedi- tion I must not stop to tell. I lived through it, so let its memory be blessed. Still I do not wish to asperse the mule, as upon a long journey a really good ambler is worth untold wealth. Such as a general rule, however, do not fall to the lot of the visitor, who has to take what he can get at the time ; as frequently as not, pack animals, which have never carried a man before. The mule is very cunniug. I saw one in Cyprus, a noted creature which always looks to see whether the man who purposes to ride him is or is not wearing spurs. If he is he does not mount that day, or at least until the spurs are off. The next thing this mule looks at is the whip. Should it be a goad such as the natives use, he resigns himself to circumstances ; if a mere useless walk- ing-stick, well, he wUl not travel fast that trip. One more thing about the mule ; it is hopeless to try to ride him in the company of horses. The horse has his paces of walk, trot, and canter, and the mule his, an amble, so that however close together their riders may find themselves at the end of a day's journey, during the course of it they will be widely separated. Much of the land through which we rode to Colossi was under crops of wheat and barley, the latter now coming into ear. The cultivation struck me as generally very poor, but what can one expect in a country where they merely scratch the surface of the soil, and so far as I could see never use manure ? So shallow is their ploughing that in most cases squills and other bulbous roots are not dislodged by it, but grow on among the corn, where, dotted about, also stand many carob-trees, of which the fruit, a bean, is the basis of Thorley's and COLOSSI 75 other foods for cattle. On tbe patches of uncultivated land a great many very beautiful anemones, the har- bingers of spring, were in flower, also large roots of asphodel with its stiff sword-shaped leaves. This was the flower of which the Greek poets were so fond of singing. Their wars and labours o'er, the heroes are to repose "... in the shadowy field Of asphodel." In point of fact it is in my opinion an unpleasicg plant, the flowers, which spring from a tall stem, being small individually and neutral-tinted. Also they have this pecuUarity ; if cut and set in a room, they cause the place to smell as though many cats had slept there. A ride of about an hour brought us to Colossi. That the tower in its present shape was built or repaired in the Lusignan time is evident from the coats of arms — very beautifully cut — of the orders of the Knights Templars and St. John which still appear upon the east face of the fortress. On one of these shields, that below the other three, all the four quarters carry a fleur-de-lys and nothing else. Another, the centre of the three in the upper line, immediately beneath the crown which seems to take the place of a crest, has four crosses in the dexter quartering, and a rampant Uon on the rest. I say of the three coats, but as a matter of fact there are only two, the third, which has been removed, being repre- sented by an ugly gaping hole. It seems that some cantankerous old person who still lives in the village had a lawsuit, which he lost, as to the ownership of this tower of Colossi. In order to reassert his rights, however, he wrenched out one of the coats-of-arms and took it off to his house, where it remains. In the interest of the archae- ology of the island the Government ought to insist upon its being restored, or if necessary to replace it by force.* ' Since the above passage was written, I hear that on the death of the individual spoken of, a search was made for the missing shield. It has vanished quite away — probably by secret burial I — H. H. H. 76 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE The tower itself, according to my rough pacings, is a square of about fifty-seven feet internal measurement, and from sixty to seventy feet in height. It is a very massive building still in fair order, although I suppose that it has not been repaired for centuries. Now — so low are the mighty fallen — it serves only as a grain and chaff store for the surrounding farm. Its bottom storey, which is strongly vaulted, evidently was used for soldiers' quarters and dungeons. Above is a fine chamber now partitioned off, which occupies the whole square of the castle and is adorned with a noble, vaulted fireplace stamped on either side with a fleur-de-lys. The tradition is that Richard Coeur-de-Lion spent his honeymoon with Berengaria in this chamber after rescuing her vi et armis from the Emperor Isaac, whom he defeated in the plains below. There is another story which I have heard but am unable to trace, namely that Richard in his hurry to attack the forces of the Emperor outrode his companions, and reach- ing this tower of Colossi, shook his lance and galloped about it alone calling to Isaac, who was a poor creature and had not the slightest wish to accept the invitation, to come out and fight him. A narrow winding stair of the usual Norman type, whereof the ends of the steps themselves form the central supporting column, leads to the cement roof, which is flat, as is common in Cyprus. Hence the view is very beautiful, for beneath lies a wide stretch of country, now looking its best in the green garment of springing crops, while to the right the eye is caught by a great salt lake, once a source of considerable revenue to the island. This it might be again indeed, were it not that with the peculiar ineptitude and want of foresight which dis- tinguished the agreement concluded by the Government of this country as to the occupation of Cyprus, we have promised the Turks not to work it in competition with other salt lakes of their own on the mainland. Loveliest of all perhaps is the blue background of the measureless. COLOSSI 77 smiling sea, dotted here and there with white-sailed ships. Projecting from this roof upon one side is a curious grating of massive stone, of which presently I guessed the use. Immediately beneath hung the portcullis of the castle, whereof the wooden rollers or pulleys are still to be seen. Doubtless this grating was designed as a place of vantage whence the defenders could let fall stones or boiliag oil and water upon the heads of those who attacked the drawbridge. Some rich man ought to buy Colossi, sweep away the filthy farm-buildings about it, and restore the tower to its original grandeur. With suitable additions it would make a deUghtful country-house. Night was falling before we came home to Limasol. The last glow of sunset still lingered on the white walls and red roofs of the scattered houses, while above them here a feathery palm, and there a graceful minaret stood out against the pale green sky in which the moon shone coldly. CHAPTER VII A CYPRIOTE WEDDING On Sunday we attended church in the Sergeants' room, a congregation perhaps of twelve or fifteen people. Limasol has a chapel belonging to it which was once used for the troops, but as it seems that the War Office, or the Treasury, I am not sure which, lay claim to the altar rails and benches, no service is now held there. In Cyprus as elsewhere there is such a thing as Red Tape. After luncheon I accompanied Mr. Michell, the Com- missioner, to a grand Greek wedding to which he had kindly procured me an invitation. On arriving at the house we were conducted upstairs to a large central room, out of which opened other rooms. In one of these stood the bride dressed in white, a pretty, dark- eyed girl, to whom we were introduced. By her, arrayed in evening clothes, was the bridegroom, a Greek, who is registrar of the local court, and about them thek re- spective parents and other relatives. In the main apart- ment were assembled a mixed crowd of friends, guests, and onlookers. Near its centre stood a marble-topped table arranged as an altar with two tall candlesticks wreathed in orange blossoms, a cup of sacramental wine, two cakes of sacramental bread, a silver basket holding two wreaths of orange blossom with long satin streamers attached, and a copy of the Gospels beautifully bound in embossed silver. Presently a procession of six priests entered the room, attired all of them in magnificent robes of red and blue A CYPRIOTE WEDDING 79 worked with, silk, gold and silver. They wore tall Eastern-looking hats very much like those affected by Parsees and had their hair arranged in a pigtail, which in some instances hung down their backs and in others was tucked up beneath the head-dress. All of them were heavily bearded. Most of these priests were striking in appearance, with faces by no means devoid of spirituality. Indeed, studying them, it struck me that some of the Apostles might have looked like those men. The modern idea of the disciples of our Lord is derived in the main, perhaps, from pictures by artists of the Renaissance school, of large-made, brawny individuals, with wild hair and very strongly-marked countenances, quite different from the type that is prevalent in the East to-day. It is probable that these fanciful portraits have no trustworthy basis to recommend them to our conviction; that in appearance indeed the chosen twelve did not differ very widely from such men of the more Lutellectual stamp, as are now to be seen in Cyprus and Syria. But this is a question that could be argued indefinitely, one moreover not susceptible of proof. Tradition, however, curiously unvarying in this in- stance, has assigned to the Saviour a certain type of face which, with differences and modifications, is not unUke that of at least two of the priests whom I saw at this ceremony. They looked good men, iutellectual men, men who were capable of thought and work — very different, for example, in their general aspect and atmosphere to the vast majority of those priests whom the traveller sees in such a place as Florence. Still the reputation of these Greek clergy is not uncommonly malodorous. Critics say hard things of them, as the laity do of the priests in South America. Probably all these things are not true. In every land the clergyman is an individual set upon a pedestal at whom it is easy to throw dirt, and when the dirt strikes it sticks, so that all the world may 80 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE see and pass by on the other side. Doubtless, however, here as elsewhere there are backsliders, and of these, after the fashion of the world, we hear more than of the good and quiet men who do their duty according to their lights and opportunities and are still. When all the preliminaries were finished the bride and bridegroom took their places before the table-altar which I have described, and crossed themselves cere- moniously. Then the service began. It was long and impressive, consisting chiefly of prayers and passages of Scripture read or chanted by the different priests in turn, several men standing round them who were, I suppose, professionals, intoning the responses with considerable effect. At an appointed place in the ceremony a priest produced two rings with which he touched the foreheads and breasts of the contractLng parties, making with them the sign of the cross. One of these rings was then put on by the bridegroom and the other, oddly enough over her glove,' by the bride. At later periods of the service the silver-covered book of the Gospels was given to the pair to kiss, and cotton-seed, emblematic apparently of fertility, like our rice, was thrown on to them from an adjoining room. Also, and this was the strangest part of the ceremony, the two wreaths that I have described were taken from the silver basket and set respectively upon the brow of the bridegroom and the veil, already wreath-crowned, of the bride, where it did not sit at all well, giving her, in fact,' a somewhat bacchanalian air. The bridegroom also looked peculiar with this floral decoration perched above his spectacles, especially as its pendent satin tails were seized by six or eight of his groomsmen of all ages who, with their help — the bride being similarly escorted by her ladies — proceeded to drive the pair of them thrice round the altar-table. Indeed this part of the service, however deeply symbolical it may be, undoubtedly had a comic side. Another rite was that of the kissing by the priests of the A CYPRIOTE WEDDING 81 wreaths when set upon the heads of the contracting parties, and the kissing of the hands of the priests by the bride and bridegroom. After these wreaths had been removed the newly- married pair partook of the Communion in both kinds, biting thrice at the consecrated cake of bread that was held to their mouths, and drinking (I think) three sips of the wine. This done the elements were removed. The ceremony ended with a solemn blessing delivered by the head priest and the embracing of the bride and bridegroom by their respective relations. At this point the bride wept after the fashion of ladies in her situation throughout the world. Indeed she was moved to tears at several stages of the service. After it was over, in company with other guests we offered our congratulations to the pair, drank wine to their healths and partook of sweetmeats. Also we in- spected the nuptial chamber, which was adorned with satin pillows of a bright and beautiful blue. I am in- formed, but of this matter I have no personal knowledge, that the friends of the bride stuff her mattress with great ceremony, inserting in it pieces of money and other articles of value. So we bade them good-bye, and now as then I wish to both of them every excellent fortune in life. It struck me as curious that with so many churches close at hand this rite should have been celebrated in a room. The last solemn ceremony connected with the fortunes of man at which I assisted in a private house was in Iceland amid the winter seas, far away from this southern home of Venus. At a stead where I was stay- ing dwelt an aged man, a relative of the owners of the farm whom they were supporting out of charity. There is no poor-law in Iceland, so relations are legally obliged to take its place, a state of affairs that must lead to curious complications. While I was in the house — a lonely place far from 82 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE any other stead — the old man died. They made him a coffin and laid him in it, and I was invited to be present at the ceremony which followed. It consisted chiefly of a long and most beautiful chant which, as I was told, had come down for many generations but has never been printed. All present in the room, perhaps a dozen people, intoned this solemn chant, standing round the coffin where the dead man lay with the light shining upon his snowy beard and calm majestic face. Then they prayed and the coffin was closed. Afterwards I saw a little party of rough, earnest men carry it over the rocks down to the head of the fiord where a boat was waiting. There they laid it and rowed away till they were swallowed up in the awesome loneliness of mountain, sky, and sea which seemed to sleep beneath the blue and ghostly shadows of the Iceland summer night. To return to Cyprus ; later in the afternoon of the wedding we went for a ride to the military camp, about three miles from Limasol. Once there was a regiment quartered here, but the garrison is now, I think, reduced to a single company. It would be difficult to find a healthier or more convenient site whereat to station soldiers, the place being high and the water excellent. Perhaps those empty huts will be filled again some day. On our way back we passed through a grove of the most gigantic olive-trees that I ever saw. Those in the Garden of Gethsemane seem small compared to them. Having a rule in my pocket I dismounted and took the measure of one of these. It proved to be approximately fifty feet in circumference by sixteen in diameter at the ground, but of course was almost hollow. How old must that tree be ? Taking into consideration the hard wood and slow-growing habit of the olive, I imagine that in the time of the Romans, and very possibly in those of the Ptolemies, it was already bearing fruit. Perhaps a Mycenian, or one of Alexander's legionaries, planted it, "who can say ? Probably, too, it will last for another three A CYPRIOTE WEDDING 83 or four hundred years before, in the grip of slow decay, that end overtakes it which awaits everything earthly, not excepting the old earth herself. One morning Mr. Mavrogordato, the Commandant of Police for the Limasol district, to whose kindness I owe many of the photographs of scenes in Cyprus which are reproduced in these pages, took us to see the ancient fortress of the town, now used as its prison. The road to this castle passes through a disused Turkish graveyard where Mr. Mavrogordato has had the happy thought to plant trees which, in that kindly air and soil, are now growing up into a welcome patch of greenery and shade. This castle is a massive building in stone belonging apparently to the Venetian period, that is, above ground, for the chapel and vaults below are Gothic. The in- terior is kept most scrupulously clean and whitewashed. Round the central well run galleries in two storeys, which galleries are divided into cells whereof the iron gates are secvued with large and resplendent brass padlocks. I do not think that I ever saw padlocks which shone so bright. From side to side of the second storey, stretched across the deep well beneath, is an ugly-looking black balk of timber, and screwed into it are two bolts and eyes of singularly uncompromising and suggestive appearance. This is the gallows beam, so placed and arranged that the prisoners in the cells have the advantage of a daily contemplation of the last bridge of evil footsteps, An execution from that beam, and there have been several, I believe, must create quite an excitement among the wrong-doers of Limasol. It is curious, by the way, although I daresay that the thought may never have occurred to the reader, how singularly ugly are the instruments of judicial death and torment. Take a rack, for instance. Even those who had not the slightest idea of its sinister uses would ex- claim — " What a hideous thing ! " I have seen a certain rack m one of the old cities of North Holland, Alkmaar 84 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE or Hoorn, I think, whereof the mere appearance is dis- tressing ; yet it has none of the superfluous complications of more highly finished instruments of its class. Indeed it is of a stern simplicity ; a board, two rollers, two wind- lass handles and trestle legs bolted together, very stout and broad-footed. Yet the man who made it contrived to fill its every line with a horrible suggestiveness. Thus the plank, like the bottom of some old coffins, is cut in and out to the shape of the human body, and each other part has some separate quaintly-dreadful look. Again how ugly are a beheading-block and its companion axe. Even a pair of stocks is not ornamental, and I am told that the new electrical machine of death now used in the United States is a thing hideous to behold. The subject is disagreeable, so I will not treat of it further, except to say generally that there seems to be some mysterious rapport between violent sufferings and deaths and the instruments which man has found most convenient to produce them. Here we have another exemplification of the old proverb — like to like — the cruel things to the cruel deeds. But this matter is too large to enter upon in the pages of a book of travel. On the occasion of my visit, amongst other convicts there were in the Limasol prison, contemplating the gallows-beam aforesaid, four men who were accused of the murder of a fellow-villager suspected of having poisoned their cattle. Murder is a crime of not uncommon occur- rence in Cyprus, where many of the inhabitants are very poor and desirous of earning money, even in reward of the destruction of a neighbour with whom they have no quarrel. It has been proved in the course of investigation of some of these cases that the fee paid was really absurdly small, so low as ten shillings indeed, or, as one of the judges informed me, in the instance of a particularly abominable slaughter, four shillings and no more. Some of the victims suffer on account of quarrels about women, as in Mexico, where in a single village street on a Sunday A CYPKIOTE WEDDING 85 morning, after the orgies of a Saturday night, I have seen as many as three dead, or at least two dead and one dying. More frequently, however, in Cyprus the victim is a downright bad character of whom a community are determined to be rid, so that in fact the murder, as in the present example, partakes of the nature of lynch-law. After the commission of the crime its perpetrators, if suspected, hide themselves in the mountains, where they must be hunted down like wild beasts. One party of these outlaws defied arrest for quite a number of months, during which time they took several shots at the pursu- ing Mr. Mavrogordato. Ultimately, however, they were themselves shot, or caught and hanged. The view from the top of the castle was perhaps even more beautiful than that of Colossi. In front, the boundless sea whereon poor Berengaria of Navarre, rolling in the roads of Limasol, suffered such dire perplexities and exercised so wise a caution. Behind, the slopes of the grey mountains with Trooidos towering above them, white-capped just now with snow. To the right the salt lake, and immediately beneath, the town dotted here and there with palms. Just at the foot of the fortress is the Turkish quarter, for the most part nothing better than a collection of mud hovels. The population of Cyprus, it may be explained, is divided into Turks and pure Cypriotes. These Turks, I suppose, are the descendants of those members of the invading Ottoman army under Mustafa which conquered Cyprus three centuries ago, who elected to remain in the island as settlers. The proportion is roughly — Turks one-third of the population, Cypriotes two-thirds. The Turks, who generally live in villages by themselves, are going down the hill rapidly, both in numbers and wealth, being poor, lazy, fatalistic, and quite unfitted to cope with their cleverer Christian compatriots. In many instances, however, they are respected and respectable members of the community, brave in person and upright in con- 86 A WINTEK PILGRIMAGE duct. Few of them can afford more than one wife and as a rule their families seem small. The richer and more successful class of Cypriotes have a habit of adopting Greek names, but ia fact very- few of them are Greeks except for so much of the Mycenian blood as may remain in their veins. Still some of them intrigue against the British Government and affect a patriotic desire for union with Greece, that even the disillusionment of the Turkish war has not quenched. These aspirations, which, in some instances at any rate, are said to be not uninfluenced by the hope of rewards and appointments when the blessed change occurs, are scarcely likely to be realised. If Cyprus is ever handed over to any one by Great Britain, it must be to its nominal suzerain the Sultan, to whom the rever- sion belongs. But surely, after the stories of the recent massacres of Christians, and other events connected with Turkish rule, British public opinion, exercised as it is profoundly by the existing if half-avowed alliance be- tween this country and the evil system which the Sultan represents, could never allow of such a step. It would be monstrous to give back Christians into his keeping, and a crime to plunge Cyprus once more into the help- less, hopeless ruin, out of which under our just if sorely hampered government it is being slowly lifted. After inspecting Mr. Mavrogordato's stud — if that be the correct expression — of homing pigeons which with characteristic energy — not too common a quality in Cyprus — he is breeding up from imported birds, we descended from the roof to the foundations of the castle. Here we visited a large vaulted place whereof the windows have been built up in some past age. Now, we see by the light of our lanterns, it is a rubbish room, and before that, as I imagine from several indications, under the Turkish riigime, probably it served as a magazine for the storage of powder. In the old days, however, this place was a chapel and here it is said, upon what exact A CYPKIOTE WEDDING 87 authority I know not, that Richard Coeur-de-Lion was married to Berengaria of Navarre. The only account of these nuptials that I can lay my hand on at this moment is from a contemporary chronicle of Geoffrey de Vinsauf or Vinosalvo. He, it will be observed, although writing of Limasol, or Limouzia as he calls the town, does not mention the church in which the wedding was solemnised. If there was more than one available, which is to be doubted, it seems most probable that the chapel of the fortress would have been chosen. This is what Geoffrey says : — "On the morrow, namely on the Svmday, which was the festival of St. Pancras, the marriage of King Richard and Berengaria, the daughter of the King of Navarre, was solemnised at Limouzin : she was a damsel of the greatest prudence and most accomplished manners, and there she was crowned queen. There were present at the ceremony the Archbishop and the Bishop of Evreux and the Bishop of Banera, and many other chiefs and nobles. The king was glorious on this happy occasion, and cheerful to all, and showed himself joyous and affable." How strange are the vicissitudes of walls ! The fortunes of the short-lived generations that inhabit them are not so variable, for these stones last longer and see more. What a contrast between this place in its present state, lumber-strewn and lit only by a few dim lamps, to that which it must have presented in the year 1191 when the warrior king, Richard, one of the most remarkable and attractive characters who occupy the long page of our English history, took to himself a wife within their circuit. It is not difficult, even to the dullest and least imaginative of the few travellers who stray to this un- visited 'place, to reconstruct something of that pageant of the mighty dead. The splendid figure of the king himself, clad in his shirt of mail and broidered tabard gay with the royal arms of England. The fair bride glittering in her beautiful silken garments and rich adorn- 88 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE ment of gems. The archbishop and bishops in their mitred pomp. The great lords and attendant knights arrayed in their various armour. The crowd of squires and servitors pressing about the door. The altar decked with flowers, the song of such choristers as could be found among the crews of the galleys — all the gathered splendour, rude but impressive, of perhaps the most picturesque age that is known to history. Then these great folk, thousands of miles away from their northern home, who had laboriously travelled hither exposed to the most fearful dangers by land and sea, enduring such privations as few common soldiers would now consent to bear, not to possess themselves of gold- mines or for any other thinly- veiled purposes of gain, but in the fulfilment of a great idea ! And that idea — -what was it ? To carry out a trust which they conceived, wisely or in foolishness, to be laid upon them — the rescue of the holy places from the befouling hand of the infidel. Well, they are gone and their cause is lost, and the Moslem, supported by the realm which once they ruled, still squats in the Holy Land. Such is the irony of fate, but for my part I think that these old crusaders, and especially our hot-headed Richard of England, cruel though he was at times, as we shall see at Acre, are worthy of more sympathy than a practical age seems inclined to waste upon them. Peace to their warlike, superstitious souls ! On leaving the castle we visited an inn, in the yard of which stood scores of mules. It was an odoriferous but interesting place. Under a shed at one side of it sat about a dozen smiths at work, men who hire their stands at a yearly or monthly rent. Fixed into the ground before each of them — -it must be remembered that these people sit at their work, which is all done on the cold iron without the help of fire — was a tiny anvil. On these anvils the craftsmen were employed in fashioning the great horseshoe nails of the country, or in cutting out A CYPRIOTE WEDDING 89 and hammering thin, flat, iron plates which are used in the East for the shoeing of mules and donkeys. These discs that are made with only one small hole in the centre, must in many ways be prejudicial to the comfort and health of the beast, or so we should think, since they cause its frog to grow foul and rot away. The teachings of practical experience, however — for which after some study of such things I have great respect — seem to prove this kind of shoe to be best suited for use upon the stony tracks of the country. These plates are secured to the animal's hoof by six of the huge-headed nails that I have mentioned, and if properly fixed will last for several months without renewal. The instrument used to trim the hoof before the shoe is fastened, is a marvellous tool, almost of the size of a sickle with a flat knife attached to it as large as a child's spade. Probably all these implements, especially if con- nected in any way with agriculture, such as the wooden hook with an u'on point which they call a plough, are essentially the same as those that were familiar to the Phoenicians and the Mycenian Greeks. In the Holy Land, at any rate, as we shall see later, they have not changed since the time of our Lord. That this was so as regards the shoeing of horses in or about the year 1430 is proved by the following passage which I take from the travels of Bertrandon de la Brocquiere of Guienne, who made a pilgrimage to Palestine in 1432. Ho says: — " I bought a small horse that turned out very well. Before my departure I had him shod in Damascus ; and thence as far as Bursa, which is fifty days' journey, so well do they shoe their horses that I had nothing to do with his feet, excepting one of the tore ones, which was pricked by a nail, and made him lame for three weeks. The shoes are light, thin, lengthened towards the heel, and thinner there than at the toe. They are not turned up, and have but four nail-holes, two on each side. The nails are square, with a thick and heavy head. When a shoe is 90 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE wanted, and it is necessary to work it to make it fit the hoof, it is done cold, without ever putting it in the fire, which can readily be done because it is so thin. To pare the hoof they use a pruning knife, similar to what vine-dressers trim their vines with, both on this as well as on the other side of the This description might well apply to the shoeing of animals in Cyprus and Syria to-day. From the inn we walked to the municipal market, where we found many strange vegetables for sale, in- cluding radishes large as a full-grown carrot. Nothing smaller in the radish line seems to flourish here, and I am informed that for some occult reason it is impossible to intercept them in an intermediate stage of their de- velopment. Perhaps, like mushrooms, they spring up in a single night. I am grateful to these vegetables, how- ever, for the sight of them made clear to me the meaning of a passage by which I have long been worried. I remember reading, I forget where, in the accounts of one of the pyramid-building Pharaohs — Chufu, I believe — that he supplied tens of thousands of bunches of radishes daily to the hundred thousand labourers who were engaged upon the works. What puzzled me was to know how Chufu provided so enormous and perennial a supply of this vegetable. The radishes of Cyprus solve the problem. One of these would be quite enough for any two pyramid-builders. I tasted them and they struck me as stringy and flavour- less. Another old friend in a new form was celery tied in bunches, but such celery ! Not an inch of crisp white root about it, nothing but green and leathery head. It appears in this form because it has been grown upon the top of the ground like a cabbage. Many people have tried to persuade the intelligent Cypriote to earth up his celery, but hitherto without result. " My father grew the herb thus," he answers, " and I grow it as my father did." Doubtless the Phoenicians, ignorant of the A CYPRIOTE WEDDING 91 arsenic it is said to contain, liked their celery green, or perhaps it was the Persians. Meat and game, the former marked — so advanced is Limasol — with the municipal stamp for octroi purposes, are also sold here. There on one stall next to a great pile of oranges, lie half-a-dozen woodcock, brown and beautiful, and by them a brace of French partridges now just going out of season, while further on is a fine hare. On the next, hanging to hooks, are poor little lambs with their throats cut, scarcely bigger than the hare, any of them ; and full-grown sheep, some not so large as my fat black- faced lambs at Easter. A little further on we came to a cobbler's shop, where we inspected the native boots. These are made of goatskin and high to the knee, with soles composed of many thicknesses of leather that must mea- sure an inch through. Cumbersome as they seem, the experience of centuries proves these boots to be the best wear possible for the inhabitants of the mountainous districts of this stony land. On the very day of which I write I saw a Cypriote arrayed in them running over the tumbled ruins of an ancient city and through the mud patches whereby it was intersected, with no more care or inconvenience than we should experience on a tennis lawn. CHAPTER VIII AMATH0S Now I have to tell of Amathus, the place we passed on our journey down the coast, to-day a stone-strewn hill covered with springing corn. Even in the far past Amathus was so ancient that no one knew with certainty of its beginnings. It is said to have been founded by the Phoenicians; at any rate in it flourished a temple to the god Melkarth, and with it a famous shrine erected in honour of Venus. The mythical hero, Theseus, ac- cording to one account, is reported to have landed here with Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, who died in child- birth in the city, although the story more generally accepted says that he abandoned her on the island of Naxos. Whatever truth there may be in all these legends — and probably it is but little — this is certain, that in its day Amathus was a great town inhabited by a prosperous and powerful people. It lies about five or six miles from Limasol and is approached by a road which runs along the sea, whence it is separated by a stretch of curious black sand which blows a good deal in high winds. On the way Mr. Mavrogordato pointed out to me an ingenious method whereby he is attempting to turn that barren belt into profitable soil. He seems to have discovered that this sand, wherein one might imagine nothing woidd grow, is suitable to the needs of the black wattle. At any rate the trees of that species which he planted there, although scarcely more than a year old, are now large and flourishing shrubs. As we drew near to Amathus I perceived curious AMATHUS 98 holes by the roadside, covered in for the most part with rough slabs of stone. Once these holes were tombs, rifled long ago. Then we came to the site of the town stretching down to the sea-beach, where stand the rem- nants of a castle which we saw from the steamer. Now it is nothing but a hillside literally sown with stones that, no doubt, once formed the foundations of the dwellings of Amathus. I say the foundations, for I believe that the houses of these ancient cities, as in the villages of Cyprus to-day, were for the most part buUt of green brick, or what here in Norfolk we should call clay-lump, which in the course of centuries of sun and rain has melted away into the soil. The temple, public buildings, and palaces must have been magnificent, and as I shall show presently, wonderful care was lavished upon the tombs ; but the habitations of the great mass of the citizens were in all likelihood humble and tem- porary structures, or so I think. It is the same in Egypt, where the old inhabitants grudged neither wealth nor labour in the preparation of graves, their everlasting abode, but were content to fashion their earthly lodgings of the Nile mud that lay at hand. Amathus must have been very strong, indeed it would be difficult to find a site better suited to defence. It is sm-rounded by steep natural ravines which served the purpose of moats, and surmounted by a towering rock with precipitous sides, along whose slopes the city lay. Upon this rock, says tradition, stood an impregnable citadel ; indeed the site is still called " The Old Castle " by the peasants of the neighboiaring village of Agia Tychenos. Now all these countless stones furnish their humble tillers with a seed-bed for wheat and barley. The inexperienced might imagine that no place could be more unsuitable for the growing of crops, but in fact this is not so, seeing that in the severe Cyprian droughts stones have the property of retaining moisture to nurture the roots which otherwise would perish. 94 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE On arriving at the foot of the hill we rode round it to visit the tombs which lie behind and beyond, taking with us a supply of candles and several peasants as guides. These sepulchres were, I believe, discovered and plundered more than twenty years ago by General Cesnola, the consul, whose splendid collection of anti- quities is to be seen in America. The first we reached lay at the bottom of a deep pit now rapidly refilling with silt washed into it by the winter wet. In the surrounding rubbish we could still see traces of its violation, for here lay many fragments of ancient amphorae and of a shat- tered marble sarcophagus. After the rains that had fallen recently the path through the hole leading into the tomb was nothing but a pool of liquid mud through which, to win an entrance, the explorer must crawl upon his stomach, as the soil rises to within about eighteen inches of the top blocks of its square doorway. The task seemed dirty and in every way unpleasing, but I for one did not travel to Cyprus to be baffled by common, harm- less mud. So I took off my coat, which in the scant state of our wardrobe I did not care to spoil, and went at it, on my hands and toes, that the rest of me might avoid the slush as much as possible. It was a slimy and a darksome wriggle, but quite safe, in this respect diff'ering somewhat from a journey of a like nature which I made a good many years ago. That was near Assouan in Egypt, where at the time certain new tombs had just been discovered which I was anxious to explore. These tombs were hollowed in the rock at the top of a steep slope of sand, which choked their doorways. Seeing that, as at Amathus, there was just sufficient space left beneath the head of the door- way of one of them for a man of moderate size to creep through, I made the attempt alone. Writhing forward, serpent-wise, through the sand, presently I found myself in the very grimmest place that I have ever visited. It was a cave of the size of a large room, and when my eyes AMATliUS 96 grow accustomed to the faint light which crept through the hole, I saw that it was literally full of dead, so full that their bodies must once have risen almost to the roof. Moreover these dead had not boon embalmed, for round me lay their clean bones by hundreds and their skulls by scores. Yet once this sepulchre was at the service of older and more distinguished occupants, as under the skeletons I found a broken muminy-caso of good Avorkmanship, and in it the body of a woman whose wrappings had decayed. She died young, since at the time of lior decease she was just cutting her wisdom teeth. As I wondered over those jumbled relics of the departed, I remembered having read that about the time of Christ, Assouan was smitten with a fearful plague which slew its inhabitants by thousands. Doubt- less, I thought, here are the inhabitants, or some of them, whose bodies in such a time of pestilence it would have been impossible to embalui. So they must have brought and piled them ono on another in the caves that had served as sepuluhres of the richer notables among their forefathers, till all were full. I remembered also that plague germs are said to be singularly long-lived and that these might be getting hungry. With that thought I brought my examination of this interesting place to a sudden end. Just as I was beginning my outward crawl, foolishly enough I shouted loudly to my companion whom I had left at the entrance of another sepulchre, thinking that he might help to pull me through the hole. Almost inmiodiatoly afterwards I felt something weighty begin to trickle on to my back with an ever-increasing stream, and in a flash understood that the reverberations of my voice had loosened the over-hanging stones already shaken and shattered by earthquakes, and that the sand was pouring down upon me from between them. Heavens ! liow fiightened I was. Luckily one does not argue under 96 A WINTEK PILGRIMAGE such circumstances where, indeed, he who hesitates is lost. If I had stopped to think whether it would be best to go back or to go forward, to go quick or go slow, it is very probable that long since I should have added an alien cranium to those of that various pile. Instead I crawled forward more swiftly than ever I crawled before, notwithstanding the increasing weight upon my back, for the sand fell faster and faster, with the result that as no stone followed it to crush me, presently, some- what exhausted, I was sitting fanning myself with a grateful heart in the dazzling sun without. To return to Amathus and a still older tomb : this doorway beneath which we passed was also square and surmounted by four separate mouldings. Once through it, we lighted our candles to find ourselves standing in a kind of chapel, where I suppose the relatives of the dead assembled at funerals or to make offerings on the anniversaries of death. Out of this chapel opened four tombs, each of them large enough to contain several bodies. They are empty now, but their beautiful work- manship is left for us to admire. Thousands of years ago — though to look at them one might think it yester- day — the hard limestone blocks of which they are built were laid with a trueness and finish that is quite ex- quisite. Clearly no scamped work was allowed in old Phcenician tombs. In these graves and others close at hand, General Cesnola found many antiques of value. Indeed one of our guides, who was employed to dig for him, assisted at their ransack. Some readers may remember a violent controversy which arose among the learned over the allegation that Cesnola unearthed the most of his more valuable antiquities in a single treasury at Curium. The said antiquities, how- ever, being, so the critics declared, of many different styles and periods, it was found difficult to understand how they could have been discovered in one place, unless indeed Curium boasted a prehistoric British Museum with a gold- AMATHUS 97 room attached. Here I may say that a few days later I visited Curium in the company of official gentlemen, who informed me that they were present when excavations were made with the object of investigating these statements. The statements, they said, were not proved. Bearing this dispute in mind, I asked the Cypriote guide whether General Cesnola found his most important objects heaped in one place at Curium. He answered that antiquities were found here and there; that often Cesnola himself was not present when they were found, but that as they were dug up from the tombs they were collected by the workmen and taken care of, to be given over to him whenever he might come. I quote this bit of evidence for what it is worth, as in future generations, when all these burial-places have been thoroughly ran- sacked, the matter may become of interest because of the side-light which it throws upon ancient history. Much of our knowledge of the remote past is derived from tombs, and yet to my mind our pleasing habit of violating the dead, whether for purposes of gaia or in order to satisfy our thirst for information, is not alto- gether easy to justify. It is a very ancient habit. Because of it the mummies of Rameses, the Pharaoh of the Oppression, of the wondrous-faced Seti, his father, of the monarchs of, I think, the Her-hor dynasty, and a host of others, about the period of the Persian invasion were moved from their immemorial resting-places to the hiding hole of Deir-el-Bahari. Long before this indeed the rulers of Egypt, knowing the danger, were in the habit, at intervals of several hundred years, of despatching royal commissioners to inspect the bodies of the great de- parted and ascertain that they slept safe and undisturbed. I myself have seen writings upon the outer wrappings of the deceased which notified that such and such a commission inspected the corpse of such and such a divine king — he who lay within the wrappings — now " sleeping in Osiris," and found his cofiins and corpse intact. 98 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE In this particular instance the efforts of the ancient Egyptians to preserve the earthly remnants of those who ruled over them thousands of years before, did but postpone the evil day. Tens of generations went by, and in a fashion interesting enough but too long to describe here, the hiding-place of Deir-el-Bahari was discovered. Modern savants hurried to the place — one of them told me not long afterwards that he nearly fainted with joy when by the light of candles held above his head, he discovered the richness of that hoard. Up the deep and narrow well were dragged the corpses of kings and queens as great in their own time as Victoria or Napoleon. As thej'' were borne to the steamer the fellaheen women, in- spired by some spirit of hereditary veneration, ran along the banks of Nile weeping, tearing their hair and throwing dust upon their heads because the ancient lords of their land were being taken away and none knew where they would lay them. Now rent from their wrappings, their half-naked bodies lie in the glass cases of a museum to be stared at by every tourist. The face before whose frown whole nations trembled and mayhap Joseph or Moses bowed the knee, is an object for the common jest of the vulgar, and so will remain uatil within a few decades or centuries it is burnt in a conflagration, or torn to pieces by a drunken rabble, or perchance — happier destiny — crumbled into dust as must happen soon or late, to be thrown out upon the dung-heap for hens to scratch at. Is it right ? I ask who have been a sinner. Myself in the neighbourhood of Abydos, to take one example out of several whereof the recollections to-day fill me with some remorse, I found the mummy of a child. She was a little girl, who, poor dear, had lived and died in the first centuries of the Christian era, of Greek parentage, probably, for her skin was exceeding white. She lay wrapped in coloured bandages, not unlike some of the cottons which are manufactured to-day, and on a piece of mummy cloth which covered them, her AMATHUS 99 parents had drawn a cross in red pigment and scrawled beneath it in Greek characters the word " Christos." I hold that holy rag in my hand as I write and it shames me that I do so, but if I had not taken it the Arabs who were with me and who showed me the hiding- place, would have sold it to the next traveller. I remember that on the same journey we unwrapped the head of a mummy purchased from some tomb-breaker for a few piastres. Oh ! what a face appeared ! That man who had lived four thousand years ago might have been a king, or a high-priest, so majestic were his withered features. Certainly his blood must have been noble and his place high. Yet his end was that a doctor sawed his skull open to see how it was embalmed. May he forgive me for the part I took in that business, who then was younger and more thoughtless. At the time perhaps I did not understand quite as well as I do now — I mention this in my excuse — how sincere and solemn was the beUef which among the old Egyptians led to this practice of embalming. Of all people who have ever lived, not even excluding those of our Chris- tian faith, they held most firmly to the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. Therefore they preserved that body against the hour of its awakening, and the idea of its disturbance, or destruction, was to them horrible. It was a futile faith, as 'they themselves recognised, since knowing that no efforts of their own could guard against future events — such as the arrival of the Nile tourist — they multiplied images and pictures of the deceased, hoping that some one of them might survive for the Ka or Double to haunt, and the Khu, or Spirit, to reanimate at the appointed season. Piteous and idle plan, since dust must to dust, be it soon or late. Still their faith may fulfil itself in other ways, and we may venture to believe that at the last the Spirit they were so sure of will not be left without its tabernacle. Yet is our offence as great, although with a strange 100 A WINTEK PILGRIMAGE and gross materialism we suppose, when we consider the matter at all, that the fact of these folk having died so long ago makes them fair prey for our greed or curiosity. But what is time to the dead ? Ten million ages and a nap after dinner, unconsciousness can know no differ- ence — to consciousness refound they must be one. On awakening in each case the recollections would be as vivid, the aspirations, the motives, the thoughts, the beliefs, the sorrows, hopes and terrors as firm and dis- tinct. Once the senses are shut, time ceases to exist, if ia truth it exists at all. Then is the offence of the violation of this hallowed dust so carefully hid away, any the less because it has slept five thousand years, than it would be in the case of a resurrection man who drags it from the grave it has occupied six hours, to sell it to the dissecting-table ? We are so apt to judge of the dead by a standard of the possible feelings of the survivors, forgetting that they may have their own feelings. Also the survivors, or rather the departed contemporaries, may still be shocked. These poor Phoenicians of Amathus had no such high hopes, although from time to time there were plenty in Cyprus who shared them. Yet they built their sepulchres with extraordinary expense and care, facing towards the sea as though they wished to watch the sun rise and set for ever. We break into them under the written order of the British Museum, or secretly by night, and drag their ear-rings from their ears, and their rings from their fingers, and set their staring skulls upon back shelves in dealers' dens in Limasol where once they ruled, to be sold for a shilling — skulls are cheap to-day — to the first relic-hunting traveller. Well, so it is and so it wUl ever be. The next tomb we came to had a beautiful V-shaped doorway, though only the top of the inverted V was visible above the rubbish. I did not go in here, being already sufficiently plastered with mud, almost from head AMATHUS 101 to foot indeed, but my companion, who is young and active, achieved the adventure. As it turned out it might very easily have been his last, for in climbing up the walls of the pit again, his foot slipped on a little piece of greasy earth and down he went backwards, drag- ging two Cypriotes with him in such fashion that all three of them lay in a tangled heap at the bottom of the hole. The sight was ludicrous enough, but as the older of the two guides explained to us, had it not been for his quickness and address my nephew would certainly have met with a serious accident. The man saw from the way he was falling that his head or neck must strike against a stone at the bottom of the pit, and managed to thrust his arm and thick sleeve between the two. Once my own life was saved in a very similar fashion, except that no human agency intervened. I was galloping a pony along an African road when suddenly it crossed its legs and went down as though it had been shot. In falling my head struck a stone on the road with great force, but by chance the thick cloth hat which I was wearing, being jerked from its place, interposed itself as a kind of doubled-up cushion between my temple and the stone, with the result that I escaped with slight concussion. I remember that the shock of the fall was so great that my stout buckskin braces were burst into four pieces. That my nephew's danger was not exaggerated by the Cypriote is shown by the fact that, within the last few years, at the mouth of this or the very next tomb a German professor was killed in precisely the same way. Indeed, now that I think of it, I remember reading of his sad death in a paper. The poor gentleman, who was accom- panied only by an old woman, having finished his inspection began to climb up the sides of the pit when a stone came out in his hand and he fell head first to the bottom. He only lived about five minutes and our friend, the protecting Cypriote, helped to carry away his body. 102 A WINTEE PILGRIMAGE After this experience, having had enough of the in- teresting but dirty pursuit of " tombing," we mounted our mules and rode round the hill of the ancient city, a stone-strewn and somewhat awkward path. The streets there must have been very steep in their day and a walk up to the citadel on business, or to buy a slave or two kidnapped on the shores of Britain as a special line for the Cyprian market, excellent exercise for the fat old wine-bibbing merchants, whose scattered bones and broken drinking-cups we had just been handling yonder among the tombs. Now the place is melancholy in its desolation. There is nothing left, nothing. It might have formed the text of one of Isaiah's prophecies, so swept of life is it and of all outward memorials of life. I could only find one remnant. On the face of a towering rock we discovered a short uncial Greek inscription which is beginning to feel the effects of weather. Our united scholarship pieced this much out of it : "Lucius Vitellius, the great conqueror, erected this from his own." Here the information comes to a full stop, for we could not make out any more. Perhaps some reader of this page may know with cer- tainty which Lucius Vitellius is referred to and why he was engaged in conquering at Amathus. Is it perchance Lucius Vitellius, the father of the emperor who was governor in Syria, in A.D. 34 ? If so he might well have described himself as " the great humbug " instead of the great conqueror, as is proved by the famous story that is told of him concerning Caligula and the moon. Accord- ing to Tacitus, however, he was a good governor. " I am not ignorant that he had a bad name in Rome and that many scandalous things were said of him, but in the administration of the provinces he showed the virtues of an earlier age." I daresay that yonder crumbling screed may be the only actual monument that is left to-day of this Vitellius, his pomp, his cunning, and his flattery. AMATHUS 103 As we returned home the scene was very beautiful. In the west the sun sank gorgeously, his fan-like arrows breaking and reflecting themselves from the dense purple under-clouds that had gathered and lay low upon the horizon of the slumbering deep. High above in the fathomless blue spaces of the Cyprian heavens, rode the great moon, now rounding to her full, her bright face marked with mountain scars. And the lights that lay on sea, sky and land, on the plain of Limasol and the mount of ruined Amathus, who shall describe them — ■ those changeful, many-coloured lights, so delicate, so various and so solemn ? On the day after our visit to Amathus I attended the Court-house to listen to the magisterial examination of the men (whose numbers had now increased to six) whom I had seen previously in jail awaiting their trial upon a charge of murder. The court was crowded with the relatives of the accused ; zaptiehs, or policemen ; a selection of idlers from among the general public ; a goodly number of Greek advocates crowded together in the front bench, and the six prisoners themselves all squeezed into a dock which was much too small for them, where they stood in a double row listening to the evidence with an indifferent air, real or affected. For the rest Mr. Mavrogordato, as I am told a veritable terror to evildoers, conducted the case for the prosecution, bringing out his points with great clearness, while the district judge, Mr. Parker, sat as a magistrate's court. The judicial functions of the legal oiEcials in Cyprus are by the way rather curiously mixed, the same indi- vidual being able, apparently, to sit in varying executory capacities. The case was opened by the different advocates announcing for which of the prisoners they appeared. Then Mr. Mavrogordato took up his parable and began to examine the Greek doctor through an interpreter, whose somewhat lengthy translations made the proceed- 104 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE ings rather slow. When, after a couple of hours, we had just got to the point where he turned the body over growing weary I went home to lunch. To this hour I cannot say whether or no those reputed murderers, or if any, which of them, still adorn the land of life, or whether under Mr. Mavrogordato's guidance, they have passed beneath that black beam which spans the central well in the old castle at Limasol. I think very possibly, how- ever, that they were all acquitted or reprieved, for although I am certain that they, or some of them, did the deed, from the opening of the case, out of the depths of a not inconsiderable experience of such inquiries, I am convinced that every ounce of the evidence in possession of the prosecution was absolutely and solely circumstantial. Moreover, although they had dug him up again and looked for it, the missing knife-point could not be found in the vitals of the late-lamented cattle-poisoning rascal whom somebody had slain. A broken and recovered knife -point goes a long way with a jury, and its absence is equally favourable to the prisoner. One afternoon I attended some athletic sports at Limasol. It was a general feast-day, in honour of what or of whom I grieve to say I forget, but on that occasion there were festivities everywhere. Earlier in the day I went for a ride to a village some miles distant which also was celebrating sports, that is to say a few loungers were gathered together about an open place in the hamlet, and nobody was doing any work. This I noticed, how- ever, both in the village aforesaid, on the ground at Limasol, and from the spires of all the churches that I could see, a flag was flying. As it was a public holiday one might have expected that this flag would be English, or perhaps here and there, in deference to 'ancient and long-established custom, Ottoman. It was neither, it was Greek. Everywhere that not very attractive banner flaunted in the wind. I asked the reason but nobody AMATHUS 105 seemed to know an answer. They suggested, however, that it had something to do with the Greek churches, and added that the upper classes of the Cypriotes who call themselves, but are not, Greeks, always flew the Greek flag. I submit that this is not a good thing. Throughout the world and at all periods of its history the flag flown is the symbol of the authority acknowledged, or that the population wish to acknowledge. In Cyprus of course the bulk of the inhabitants are not concerned in this matter. The villagers of the remote hills and plains care little about banners, but if they see continually that of Greece displayed on every church tower and high place, and never, or raxely, that of Great Britain which rules them, they may, not unnaturally, draw their own con- clusions. It is a smaU affair perhaps, but one, I believe, which might with advantage be attended to by the Govern- ment. Eastern peoples do not understand our system of laissez faire where the symbols of authority are concerned, and are apt to argue that we are afraid to show the colours which we do not fly. The Union Jack is not a banner that should be hidden away in British territory. Nor is this my own view only. It is shared by every imofiioial Englishman in Cyprus, though these are few. OfiScials may have their opinions also, but it would not be fair to quote them. After the sports were over I had an interesting conver- sation with a gentleman well acquainted with the customs of the country. He told me that few traces of the old Phoenician rites remain, except that which is still cele- brated in some districts upon Whitsunday. Then, as did their forefathers thousands of years since, the villagers go down to the sea and bathe there, both sexes together. It is the ancient welcome given to Venus in the island fabled to be her chosen home, mixed up perhaps with some Christian ceremony of washing and regeneration. The bathers throw water over each other, but so far as 106 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE outward appearances go, there is nothing incorrect in their conduct at these quaint and primitive celebrations. My friend told me also, to turn to another subject, of the vast benefit which the British Government has conferred upon the island by the practical extermination of the locust. All the ancient visitors to Cyprus, or at least many of them, speak of this curse, which twenty years ago, and even on the occasion of my last visit, was in full operation. An ingenious Greek gentleman devised the remedy. Roughly the system is this. Locusts, im- pelled thereto by one of those wondrous instincts that continually amaze the student of nature, at the appointed season select certain lands wherein to lay their eggs, which must not be too deep or too shallow, and when the pests begin to grow must furnish certain food on the surface of the sandy soil necessary to their support. Observation soon enables skilled persons to discover these spots. Then the system first invented by Mr. Mattel and perfected by my late friend, Mr. Samuel Brown, is brought into operation. Briefly it consists of the erection of screens of canvas many yards in length edged at the top with shiny American cloth, in front of which screens are dug deep trenches. About a fortnight after the locusts are hatched out of the egg, having exhausted the supply at the breed- ing-place, they begin their march across country in search of nutriment. Then it is that strange things happen to them, for climbing up the canvas screens which they find barring their path, their feet slip upon the leather and down they slide backwards into the ready-made grave beneath. Before they can crawl up again others tumble on the top of them, and so it goes on till the trench is full. Now observant human beings arrive, cover it in to prevent effluvium and move the screen a few yards further on to another trench that they have prepared, where this page of locust-history repeats itself. It might be thought that learning wisdom — from his AMATHUS 107 fellows' fate — the locust would in time educate himself to go round the screen. But not so, for of all this insect's characteristics obstinacy is the most prominent. He means to travel a certain path; if it involves his death, so much the worse, at least he will travel till he dies. Doubtless it is this singleness of purpose, this in- capability of changing his mind, that makes the locust so great and formidable. And formidable he is, or was, as any one will know who has ever seen a stretch of growing corn, or a grove of fruit-trees, or any green thing that is of service to man, over which the locust has passed. Joel the prophet knew him long ago, before ever Messrs. Mattel and Brown had at last taught humanity how to beat him (i.e. in an island like Cyprus). " He hath laid my vine waste and barked my fig-tree : he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away ; the branches thereof are made white. . . . How do the beasts groan ! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture : yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate." And again — here he describes them at their work. Could it be more wonderfully done, could any words give a more vivid picture of the overwhelming invasion of this bane and the waste it leaves behind ? " A fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth : the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness ; yea, and nothing shall escape them. . . . Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame that devoureth the stubble." Such indeed is the sound that has been heard to rise from the millions of their moving jaws. However, as I have said, thanks to the continued exertions of the Government, locusts are now practically exterminated in Cyprus. What their ravages have been in the island for ages past may be gathered from a single quotation which I take from the writings of Benedetto Bordone, the geographer, 108 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE of Padua, whose work was published in 1528. It is only one example, but it will serve : — "But among so much fgood, that there maybe nothing in this world without its bitterness, the luck of the island has this one drawback, mingling with its blessings so heavy a curse that men can hardly bear up against it — that a vast multitude of cavalette or locusts appear with the young wheat : these as they pass from place to place are so many in number that like a thick cloud they hide the sun : and where they light they devour and consume not only the grain and grass, but even the roots below ground, so that one might say that fire had blasted everything. Yet they use all diligence to destroy these insects, and make a very great outlay to seek out the eggs while they are in the earth, and they do indeed in some years find of them thirty thousand bushels. Besides this they use yet another remedy of a strange kind ; they send to Syria to fetch a certain water, with which they soak the ground, and where it is thus soaked the eggs burst and produce none of these insects." What water was this, I wonder ? CHAPTER IX CURIUM Charming as is Cyprus in many ways, it is a place where the traveller, especially the English traveller, and still more the unofficial dweller in the land, has some reason to congratulate himself if he was born with the gifts of patience and humihty. In practice the island is inhabited by two classes only, the Government officials and the native Cypriotes. Between these there is a great gulf fixed, in itself a bad thing as I think, since it is not good for any man, or body of men, to be continually surrounded by people whom they consider very much their inferiors. In Africa I have known weak folk driven crazy by this plethora of authority, and nine individuals out of ten it makes conceited. Only really large - minded men can bear the weight of unquestioned power and remain un- spoiled, men big enough to know how frail and small the rest of us are. To return — wide as that gulf may be, it is not altogether easy to float there. In other words, an in- habitant who is not an official has no "position" in Cyprus, and is collectively relegated to a class by him- self, or so it seemed to me. It is, however, very much to be regretted that this class is not larger. In that event not only would life become less narrow in the island, for red tape in quantity does constrict the intellect ; its rulers also would be exposed to the tonic and stimulus of competent and independent public opinion. At present of factious opposition to the Government from the Greek party and others there is plenty, of intelligent and sug- 110 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE gestive criticism at the hands of equals and compatriots, little or none at all. The questions of social status and precedence do not affect the traveller, however, though if he be of an observant mind they may amuse him. What does affect him are the hide-bound Cyprian regulations. One I have mentioned, and its inconveniences — that having to do with revolvers — but it is as nothing compared to those which overtake the individual who ventures to come to Cjrprus armed with a fowling-piece in the hope of shooting duck or woodcock. I, unfortunate, had sent mine on, and finding it awaiting me at the custom-house at Limasol, suggested that I might take it away. Thereon I was informed very politely that I must comply with a few formalities. First, it proved imperative that I should obtain from the Government at Nicosia a certificate that I was a fit and proper person to be allowed to carry so dangerous a weapon as a shot-gun. Secondly, a value must be set upon the said gun which must be approved. Thirdly, the fourth part of the value thus ascertained must be paid over in cash to the custom-house ofiicer, who, on the owner quitting the island within a certain period of time and satisfying him that he had not disposed of the gun, would repay three-quarters of the total amount so deposited, the Government retaining the rest for its trouble. Fourthly, a game-licence must be taken out. This I think an excellent regulation. It can easily be imagined that by the time I had written the necessary letters, signed the necessary documents, paid the necessary deposit and interviewed the necessary number of officers, I wished almost that I had thrown my gun into the sea before I was foolish enough to bring it to Cyprus. Even now when the trouble is done with, I venture to ask whether all these formalities are really needful in the case of a person known to be a lonA-fide traveller who proposes to tarry for a few weeks only in the land ? The same question CURIUM 111 might be asked of other Cyprian regulations and of their method of enforcement. A more serious matter, as I myself experienced, for which indeed the Government is not responsible, although I thiak it might take action to prevent the inconvenience, is connected with the Turkish telegraph line which purports to deliver messages in Cyprus. What happens, and has happened perpetually for the last year or so since the cable was hopelessly broken, and intermittently before that time, is that a message taken by the Turkish line, without warning or other enlightenment to the sender in whatever part of the world he may be, passes over their wires to Port Said or Beyrout, where it is left to lie until a ship is sailing. Thence it is sent on by post and re-telegraphed from Larnaca to its address by the Eastern Telegraph Company, for which service is charged a fee of one and ninepence. In my case I despatched a cable to Italy, by the Eastern Telegraph Company, to which I had previously arranged to receive an immediate reply. No answer came and I grew anxious. Days passed and finally the reply did come, a week late, having been forwarded by post from Port Said ! My hostess informed me that within a single year the same thing had happened no less than thrice to people staying in her house. For a specimen result I quote an instance that occurred just before I arrived. The father of a lady who was staying with a friend in the island, died in England, and the sad news was at once telegraphed to her. This message was sent by the Turkish wires with the shocking result that the person concerned first learned of her bereavement through a casual perusal of the advertisement columns of the Times. The cable itself was delivered a day or two later than the newspaper. It would seem that the Government might move to put a stop to this constant and intolerable scandal 112 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE of a telegraph line accepting and being paid for messages which it has neither the intention nor the means of delivering. I am informed, however, that it does not do so because such action might raise '" a political question " and give offence to the Turks. If I were in a position of authority I think that I should take the risk of that offence and of the use of a little plain language. Still notwithstanding these and other drawbacks, unavoidable perhaps in a country soaked with oriental traditions, Cyprus is in many ways a most delightful spot, and it is remarkable that more EngHsh people do not live there, at least for the winter season. Actual residence in the island to all but those inured to heat, involves a three months' stay in summer under canvas or in huts on the mountain heights of Trooidos, whither the oiEcials move annually from Nicosia. This is a sojourn that must become monotonous in spite of the delightful air and scenery of the pine forests, since lawn-tennis parties and picnics, where the guests are continually the same, will pall at last on all except the youngest and most enthusiastic. For the other nine months of the year, or most of them, the climate is pleasant and healthy. I know that in the last respect, it has a different reputation ; arising I believe from the fact, that when it was first acquired from the Turks, some regiments of debilitated troops were sent from Egypt to recover health in Cyprus. Those in authority proceeded to secure this object through the great heats of summer by setting them down in overcrowded tents upon an undrained marsh, where they sickened and died in con- siderable numbers. Also in old days the island's re- putation for wholesomeness was of the most evil. I have discovered many references to this in the course of my reading, but lack the time to search them out now ; also to do so would be to overburden these pages. Here are one or two extracts, however, upon which I am CURIUM 113 able to lay hands, that will suffice to prove the point. They are taken, for the most part, from Excerpta Cypria. Felix Fabri writing in the fifteenth century says that on returning from a certain expedition inland in Cyprus — " When we reached the sea in our galley we found that two pilgrims were dead, one of whom was a priest of the Minorite order, a brave and learned man, and the other was a tailor from Picardy, an honest and good man. Several others were in the death agony. "We, too, who had come from Nicosia, cast our- selves down on our beds very sick ; and the number of the sick became so great, that there was now no one to wait upon them and furnish them with necessaries." He goes on to tell how they put out to sea and met with sad adventures : — " During this time one of the knights ended his days most piteously. We wound a sheet about him, weighted his body with stones, and with weeping cast him into the sea. On the third day from this another knight, who had gone out of his mind, expired in great pain and with terrible screams," and so forth. Again Egidius van Egmont, and John Heyman, whose work was translated from the Dutch in London in 1759, say: — "It is known by experience that the inhabitants of this island seldom attain to any great age, owing possibly to the badness of the air ; malignant fevers being common here, especially towards the end of summer, and during our stay in the island, though it was in the spring, a contagious distemper swept away great numbers at Nicosia. But the air is most noxious at Famagusta and Lernaca owing to the vapours rising from the fens and saltpans in the neighbourhood. And at Lernaca the air is most unhealthy when the sun is above the horizon." Also Richard Pococke, whose well-known work was published in London in 1743, writes: — " These mountains and the shallow soil, which is mostly on a white free-stone, make it excessively hot in summer and the H 114 A WINTEE PILGRIMAGE island is very unhealthy especially to strangers, who often get fevers here, which either carry them off, or at least continue for a considerable time, the disorder lurking in the blood and occa- sioning frequent relapses." To come to quite recent times Monsieur Delaroi^re, whose book, Voyage en Orient, was published in 1836, talking of Larnaca says : — "We went out to this shrine, which is charmingly situated near a great lake and wooded hills, but the air is very unwhole- some. In a visit we paid to the sheik we saw the insalubrity of the place stamped on every face ; the pale and leaden com- plexions testified to habitual fever." These short quotations, which could be easily supple- mented by others of like tenor, sufl&ce to show that the healthiness of Cyprus has always been in bad repute. Why this is so I cannot say, for, given the most ordinary precautions, among warm countries it is certainly the most wholesome that I have visited. I have scarcely heard of a death that could in any way be attributed to climate among the European officials, and children of northern blood seem to flourish there. Probably its reputation may be set down to the lack of those ordinary precautions and the insanitary condition of the place in the past. Few people whose reading has not been more or less extensive know the extent of the mortality throughout all lands in bygone generations. A great pro- portion of the death rate everywhere was, I am convinced, due to typhoid which nobody knew how to treat or how to avoid. It had not even any specific name except the generic term of " feaver." For proof of this such works as the Verney Memoirs may be consulted. It is probable that a traveller from Cyprus visiting London about the year 1600 might have returned and described the city as most unwholesome. Living in Cyprus is extraordinarily cheap. A family can flourish there and have many comforts, such as CURIUM 115 riding-horses, &c., who at home would be obUged to look twice at a bus fare and consider a visit to the pit of a theatre a great luxury. Servants also are inexpensive and, on the whole, might be a great deal worse. One in a house where I received hospitality was really a very good, all-round man. He went by the name of Cristo or Christ, an appellation common enough in Cyprus, though one from the use of which northern people would refrain. There was a boy also, an amusing young rascal, who when taken into service evidently was half starved. Then he made up for it, for to my own knowledge he could devour a large tin of bad potted lobster with appetite and without ill effects ; nor did he shrink from swallowiag at a draught a whole tureen of mint-sauce. On such diet he grew wondrous fat. In Cyprus everybody depends upon the sun, which is presumed to be, but is not, always on show, at any rate in the winter months. Fireplaces in the dwelling-rooms are a luxury introduced by the English, pleasant enough and even needful in January and February. When the sun refuses to shine inconveniences ensue. Thus the washing generally comes home wet and I could discover but one means of airing it — to place the garments which it was proposed to wear on the following day in bed and sleep upon them. This receipt I frequently adopted. Old travellers wUl know the plan and young ones may note the same. Fourteen years or so ago when I was there, Cyprus was a very happy hunting ground for the lovers of antiquities. Then many desirable things could still be purchased. For instance there were objects of silver that I suppose must be of mediasval date, or a little later; worked buckles that were worn by the inhabit- ants on great occasions, round or shell-shaped and very beautiful, of which in those days I obtained several pairs. Also there were curious reliquaries to be worn about the neck, generally fashioned in the form of a hollow cross, 116 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE inside of which was placed a bit of saint or some other sacred scrap. Now few such objects are to be found. Nearly all have vanished. I searched the bazaar at Nicosia and every likely place in the other towns, without discovering even a single pair of buckles. I could find nothing except one small reliquary. Veritable antiquities are almost as rare to-day, owing largely to the prohibition that has been put upon private digging in the interests of the British Museum. On my first visit I was rather fortunate. Thus in a village not far from Cyrenia I bought for a small sum from the man who dug it up, a beautifully worked oriental bowl of bronze, dating, I should think, from the fifteenth or sixteenth century. In this bowl the finder discovered coins which he sold for the sum of three hundred pounds, their value by weight. What coins they were I cannot say, for he had parted with every one and could give no clear description of them. Also I obtained from him a piece of glass which he had found, that at once struck me as very curious. It is about six inches high, round, with a narrow neck, and its great peculiarity lies in the fact that it has five spirals of glass that spring from near the bottom of the bowl, clearing its arch to join the vessel again at the root of its neck. This vase I carried in my hand on horseback for many a weary mile, fearing accidents, and ultimately brought it safe to England. Here, as I saw that he was much struck with it, I gave it to my friend, Sir John Evans, who read a paper on the piece at the Society of Antiquaries, in whose records it is published.^ It seems that the vessel is Roman and unique. Sir John Evans ingeniously discovered the method by which it was made, and even caused a replica to be manufactured, how, it would be too long and difficult to explain. This replica I still possess. Another find was a marble head that once has worn 1 Proceedings, March 13, 1890. CURIUM 117 a bronze helmet. It seems to be of a very good Greek style and period. At first I thought that it had adorned a statue of a goddess, but a well-known expert tells me that after taking measurements, &c., he believes it to be a contemporaneous portrait of Faustina, of which lady of that name, I am not certain, but I imagine, the elder. This head, the best thing of the sort that I can find in any Cyprian collection, either in the island or the British Museum, I discovered serving the gentleman who ploughed it up as a door-stop. But although he valued it so little it took me two years to reduce it into posses- sion, as I think that the man who owned the land where it was found, claimed an interest in the marble. An- other beautiful object that came my way was a corroded silver ring found in a tomb with an engraved scarabseus bezel. This ring the late Mr. Samuel Brown, who gave m.e a whole collection of Cyprian pottery, offered to me for any price I chose to fix. But I had spent all my money, so I said that I would take it home and sell it for what I could get on his account. I disposed of the ring for ten guineas to a well-known dealer who passed it on to the British Museum for twenty guineas. After- wards I felt sad when one of the great experts there informed me that it was the best thing of the sort they had secured for many a day, being, it would appear, an early and exceedingly good copy of some famous work of art by, I think, Praxiteles. And the moral of that is, as the Queen said to Alice, never be economical when you see what your instinct tells you is a good antique, or you will live to regret your virtuous impulse. Also I procured one or two other objects which I submitted to the British Museum. They said they were worth keeping — and kept them, by way of exchange kindly presenting me with plaster casts edged round with blue paper. Perhaps they are better there. I like to think so. Now it is otherwise. Except the spear -head already 118 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE mentioned, one silver coin of Alexander is all my harvest, and of this I found a better example years ago. About Alexanders, my friend, Mr. Christian, an old resident in the island, told me a wondrous and authentic tale. Some peasants digging, found an earthenware pot and in it nearly a thousand gold coins, for the most part stamped with the head of that monarch. The peasants disposed of them for their weight in gold, and they were afterwards sold by the fortunate purchasers for seven or eight pounds each. Where are they now, I wonder ? Imagine the feelings of the happy man who suddenly discovered a pot full of a thousand such coins as these.^ By the way I remem- ber that a lady once showed me a magnificent necklace made of gold coins of Alexander of different sizes, which had been given her as a wedding present. Perhaps part of that Cyprian find went to make this necklace. But of antiquities I must stop talking, since they may have more fascination for me than for my readers. Our next expedition was to the site of ancient Curium, which is said by Herodotus to have been peopled by Argives. To reach this ruined city we passed the tower of Colossi and lunched in the police-station of the beautiful and fertile village of Episcopi, a pleasant place for picnics. Thence we rode on a mile or so to the waste that once was Curium, through whole rows of tombs, every one of which are said to have been plundered by the omnivorous Cesnola. In front of us rose a steep hUl upon whose face could be seen more tombs or rock chapels. Up this mount we climbed and at the summit came to the ancient city. As usual it was nothing but a tumbled heap of stones, but here the anemones grew by thousands among them and made the place most beautiful. Presently we found ourselves on the site of a ^ I see that Mr. Hamilton Lang in his book " Cyprus," published in 1S78, gires a more detailed account of the finding of this treasure. CURIUM 119 temple. The great columns prostrate and broken, the fragments of shattered frieze, and the bits of mosaic flooring revealed by tearing up the sod, all told the same unmistakable story of fallen greatness and a magnificence that time, man, and earthquake have combined to deso- late. A little further on we reached a spot where the ground is literally strewn with fragments of broken statues, some of them almost life-size, but the greater number small. I picked up the lower parts of two of these stone statues and put them into my — or rather the zaptieh's pocket. As I anticipated, they make excellent letter-weights. What a falling off is here 1 The effigies of the gods of old — the feet that were bedewed with tears of amorous maidens and of young men anxious to succeed in piratical expeditions, serving as the humble necessary letter-weight ! Well, perhaps it is more honourable than to be broken up to fill the shovel of a Cyprian roadmaker. By this spot is a well or pit which is said to be quite full of these broken statues. Probably they were thrown here on some occasion when the temple was sacked. Picking our path on horseback through the countless stones for two-thirds of a mile or so, we came to another and a larger temple. This was the great fane dedicated to Apollo Hylatus. A wonderful place it must have been when it stood here in its glory, peopled by its attendant priests and the crowd of worshippers flocking to its courts with gifts. The situation on that bold highland brow is superb and must be most splendid of all at dawn when the first level rays of the sunrise sweep its expanse. Doubtless the ancients placed the temple of their sun-god here that it might catch his arrows while darkness yet veiled the crowded town below, the wide, fertile plain which we call Episcopi, and the fields about the Norman tower of Colossi — compared to these old columns but a mushroom of yesternight. It is not possible, at any rate to the uninstructed 120 A WINTEK PILGKIMAGE traveller with scant time at his disposal, to follow the exact configuration of this temple of Apollo and its courts, nor indeed if he knew them, would these details be of any great assistance to the imagination. Everywhere are tumbled stones, shattered pillars, some of them elegantly wreathed, overthrown altars and cavernous holes, in the depths of which underground cisterns and passages become visible. In short the cult of the worship of Apollo and his brother and sister divinities — always excepting that of Venus who is immortal — is not more ruined, neglected, and forlorn than this unvisited place, once its splendid sanctuary. Apollo was a joyous god, but evidently he had his stern side. At any rate not far away a headland runs out into the sea, and from its precipitous bluff those who had offended against his majesty — or had differences of opinion with his priests — were hurled to expiate their crimes by a terrifying death. At least so says tradition. ' Leaving the temple of the lost Apollo our animals scrambled on through the stones till at last these ceased and we came to a stretch of bush-clad country. This is now one of the Government reserves kept thus to enable the timber of which the Turks denuded the island to spring up again safe from the ravages of man and beast. In such reserves goats are not allowed to graze, for of all animals these do the most damage to young timber, which they gnaw persistently until it perishes. It is not too much to say that where there are many goats no forest can arise. Cyprus in bygone ages was a densely wooded land. Strabo, writing in the first year of the Christian era, says of it : — " Such then is Cyprus in point of position. But in excellence it falls behind no one of the islands, for it is rich in wine and oil and uses home-grown wheat. There are mines of copper in plenty at Tamassos, in which are produced sulphate of copper and copper-rust, useful in the healing art. Eratosthenes talks of the plains as being formerly full of wood run to riot, choked CURIUM 121 in fact with undergrowth and uncultivated. The mines were here of some little service, the trees being cut down for the melting of copper and silver ; and of further help was ship- building, when men sailed over the sea without fear and with large fleets. But when even so they were not got under, leave was given to those who would and could cut them down to keep the land they had cleared in full possession and free of taxes." Alas ! far different is the case to-day. The Turks suffered the timber to be destroyed in all save the most inaccessible places, and the wasteful habits of the peasants who, if allowed, will cut up a whole tree to make a single sheep-trough, completed the ruin. So it came about that at last the land which used to supply Egypt with all the wood necessary to build her fleets was almost denuded save on the mountain peaks of Trooidos, with the result that the rainfall lessened alarmingly. Since its advent the British Government has done its best to remedy this state of affairs. As it has no money to spend in planting it has adopted another and perhaps on the whole a more effective method. Although the trees have vanished in Cyprus, by the wonderful preservative agency of nature their seeds remain in the soU, and if goats can be kept off the hUls where forests stood, forests ■will again arise. Thus, although to speak of it anticipates my story a little, it was with a most real pleasure that in travelling from Nicosia to Cyrenia I saw the tops of great mountains which fourteen years ago I remembered naked as a plate, covered to-day with a thick growth of young firs that must now be fifteen or twenty feet in height. A generation hence and those mountain tops will once more bear a splendid forest. Care, however, is required which I do not think is always exercised. The new-formed forest should be thinned, as the wise woodman knows how to do, and the peasants allowed the use of the thinnings. This would prevent their destroy- ing the trees by secretly firing the country, either from 122 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE irritation and spite, or to get the benefit of the young grass which springs up afterwards. In this particular reserve near Curium of which I speak, however, to my surprise I saw a flock of sheep and goats in the charge of a herd. On asking how this came about, Mr. Michell, the commissioner for the Limasol district, who kindly accompanied us and gave us the advantage of his knowledge and experience, told me that the owners of these animals claim ancient rights of which they cannot be dispossessed. These rights endure until the man dies, or sells his flock. They are however un- transferable, nor may he add to the number of the animals which he grazes. Thus by degrees the matter mends itself In the midst of this bush-clad plain stands the ancient stadium of Curium, where according to tradition the old inhabitants of classic times celebrated their chariot races. In considering the place I was much puzzled by one detail. The course is about two hundred yards or six hundred feet long, but according to my rough pacings it never measured more than eighty-four feet at the end where the chariots must turn. I could not understand how three or four vehicles, harnessed with four horses abreast, could possibly manage to negotiate this awkward corner at full speed without more smashes than would tend to the success of the en- tertainment. On reflection I am convinced that chariot races were not run in this place. It has never, I think, been a hippodrome, but was intended solely for athletic games and foot-running. To this supposition its actual measurements give probability, as they tally very well with those which were common in old days. This stadium is still singularly perfect ; its walls being built of great blocks of stone which here and there, however, must have been shaken down by earthquakes, for nothing else could have disturbed masonry so solid. The visitor can see also where the spectators sat, and in CURIUM ns the midst of that desolate scrub-covered plain it is curious to think of the shouting thousands gathered from Curium, Amathus, and perhaps Paphos, who in bygone generations hailed the victor in the games and hooted down the vanquished. Now the watching mountains above, the eternal sea beneath, and the stone-ringed area of their fierce contests remain — nothing more. All the rest is loneliness and silence. Dust they were, to dust they have returned, and only wondering memory broods about the place that knew them. These relics of a past which we can fashion forth but dimly, seem to come home with greater vividness to the mind when a traveller beholds them, as on this spot, in the heart of solitudes. Seen in the centre of cities that are still the busy haunts of men they do not impress so much. So we turned back to Limasol, riding by another road along the headlands which overhang the ocean, and pausing, as I did now and again, to watch the wide- winged vultures sweep past us on their never-ending journeys. Very solemn they looked hanging there upon outstretched pinions between the sky and sea, as they hung when the first Phoenician galley rowed to the Cyprian shores, as they will hang till the last human atom has ceased to breathe among its immemorial plains and mountains. CHAPTER X LIMASOL TO ACHERITOU Hope, almost eclipsed off the Italian shores, rose again like a star at LLmasol, for thither came post-cards from the Brindisi Cook saying that our lost luggage had actually been discovered and despatched to the care of the Alexandria Cook, who would forward it at once. Indeed it was time, for one feels, however generous- hearted may be the lender, that it is possible to wear out a welcome to a borrowed dress-suit. The Flora came in ; we rushed to meet her, but nobody on board had even heard about our luggage. Then followed expensive cables and in due course a fateful answer from the de- luded Alexandria Cook : " Cjrprus quarantine restrictions forbid shipment." I confess that at this point I nearly gave way, but recovering, commenced the study of the maritime regula- lations of Cyprus, to be rewarded by discovering that the importation of " rags and worn clothing was prohibited until further notice." The " worn clothing " referred to, I may explain, are the cast-off garments that have clad the pilgrims to Mecca, or the donkey boys of Cairo. Applied in any other sense no traveller or inhabitant could appear in a presentable condition on the island, since that which they carry on their backs would be " worn clothing." Yet, such is the inexorable stupidity of oflScials in the East, thus was the clause — none too clearly drafted, I admit — rendered by I know not whom in Alexandria. Then followed more telegrams, letters of mingled threat and entreaty, and so forth, till many days after- LIMASOL TO ACHERITOU 125 wards at length the luggage reappeared and with it a very pretty bill. The matter seems small, even laughable when written down in after-days, but at the time it was troublesome enough, especially as the remote places of the earth are just where a visitor must dress most carefully. On the termination of our stay at Limasol, our plan was to go by sea to Paphos, forty miles away, where our mules would meet us, thence to ride to Lymni where an enterprising English syndicate is at- tempting to reopen the old Phcenician copper mine, and lastly by Pyrga and Lefka to the capital, Nicosia; in all about five days' hard travelling, for the most part over mountains. As the time of departure drew near, mighty and exhausting were the preparations. Packing is always a task as laborious to the mind as to the body. But when it means thinking out what is to go on the mules, what to go to Nicosia, what to the final port of departure, what to be thrown away as too cumbersome to carry, and what must be kept with the traveller at all hazards in the very probable event of these various parcels and belong- ings vanishing away to be seen no more, then positive genius and genius of a peculiar sort is required to deal with the emergencies of the situation. However at last Cabbages, that is the muleteer, departed with his animals on which were laden camp-beds, kettles, pounds of tea, candles, and I know not what besides, with instructions to await our arrival at Paphos. The day passed on and it was announced that the Flora was once more in sight. We went to the office and it was suggested that I should take the tickets. Now Paphos is a harbour where the voyager can only land in fine weather, whence, too, if it be not fine he is carried on to Egypt, where he must wait until the unwearjdng Flora again begins her weekly round. As it happens, in the course of my life I have had some experience of remote places where one cannot land or embark. Indeed a mishap which once I 126 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE met with at one of these in a far country entailed upon me a considerable risk of being drowned, a large expendi- ture of cash, some anxiety of mind, and a five days' journey in a railway train. But although it is rather interesting, I will not tell that tale in these pages. " I suppose," I said to the agent, " that we shall be able to land at Paphos ? " " Oh ! I think so," he replied casually, whereon I intimated that I would wait to take the tickets tUl the boat came in. In time one learns to put a very exact value on the " I think so " of a shipping agent. In this instance it assured me that there was not a chance of our visiting the temple of Venus on the morrow. The Flora came in and with her my friend, Mr. Charles Christian, who was kindly going to conduct us upon our tour. " Shall we be able to land at Paphos ? " I shouted. He shook his head. "All the agents say we can," he said, " but the captain and the boatmen say we can't." Then resignedly I suggested that we had better give it up, since I could not face the risk of making an involun- tary trip back to Egypt. Mr Christian agreed and it was given up, though with great regret, a message being de- spatched to Cabbages to travel with his mules to Nicosia. It was a true disappointment to me thus on my second visit to the island, as on my first, to be prevented from visiting the very home of Aphrodite, the place that the goddess chose to set her foot when she rose from the foam of the sea. Not that there is, as I understand, much more to be seen at either Old or New Paphos — Paleopaphos and Neopaphos ; they are six or eight miles apart — than among the ruins of other ancient cities in the island. Still I wished to look upon the place where St. Paul once reasoned with Sergius Paulus, the Deputy. What a spectacle even for those ancient shores of Chittim that have witnessed so many things — the mighty Apostle LIMASOL TO ACHERITOU 127 before the gates of the wanton shrine of Venus, thunder- ing denunciations at the wizard Elymas and smiting him to darkness with the sword of the wrath of God ! I desired to have stood upon that road which, as Strabo tells us, " was crowded year by year with men and women votaries who journeyed to this more ancient shrine " from all the towns of Cyprus, and indeed from every city of the known world. I desired also to have seen the ! tumbled wrecks of the temple, that " sacred enclosure " which Perrot and Chipiez recreate so vividly and well that, as I cannot better them, I will quote their words, where " everything spoke to the senses ; the air was full of perfume, of soft and caressing sounds, the murmur of falling water, the song of the nightingale, and the voluptuous cooing of the dove mingled with the rippling notes of the flute, the instrument which sounded the call to pleasure or led the bride and bride- groom to the wedding feast. Under tents or light shelters built of branches skilfully interlaced, dwelt the slaves of the goddess, those who were called by Pindarus in the scoliast composed for Theoxenius of Corinth, the servants of the persuasion. These are Greek or Syrian girls, covered with jewels and dressed in rich stuffs with bright-coloured fringes. Their black and glossy tresses were twisted up in mitras, or scarves of brilliant colour, with natural flowers such as pinks, roses, and pomegranate blossoms hung over their foreheads. Their eyes glittered under the arch of wide eyebrows made still wider by art ; the freshness of their lips and cheeks was heightened by carmine ; necklaces of gold, amber and glass hung between their swelling breasts ; with the pigeon, the emblem of fertility, in one hand, and a flower or myrtle-branch in the other, these women sat and waited." But Aphrodite was against me who serve Thoth, a foreign Egyptian god with whom she had naught in com- mon, and doubtless did not admire, since — except in Ladies' Colleges — learning does not consort with loveliness. So her shrine remains and will remain unvisited by me. I regretted also not being able to examine the copper-work- ings of the ancients at Lymni with the vast pit whence 128 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE the ore was dug, the mountains of slag that lie around, and the tunnel hundreds of yards long which the genius and perseverance of the men of our generation have burrowed through the solid rock with a lake of water above their heads, in search of the lode which is waiting somewhere to make the fortunes of those who find it/ Last of all and most of all perhaps, was I sorry not to see the beautiful stretch of mountain country which lies in this part of the island. Yet it was well that we did not attempt the adventure travelling overland, as for a while we contemplated, for immediately thereafter it came on to rain and rained for days. Now a journey on muleback over the roadless Cyprian hills in rain is not a thing to be lightly under- taken. The paths are slippery and in places dangerous, but worst of all is the continual wet which, wrap himself as he will in macintoshes, soaks baggage and traveller. If he could dry himself and his belongings at the end of the day, this would matter little, but here comes the trouble. The fire made of wUd thyme or what not that suffices to cook his food in a police-station or a tent, will not draw the moisture from his clothes or blankets. So he must sleep wet, and unless the sun shines, which in these seasons it often does not do for days together, start on wet next morning. In any country this is risky, in Cyprus it is dangerous, for here, as all residents in the land know, a soaking and a subsequent chill probably breed fever. I may add that certain passengers, pooh-poohing doubts, went on by the Flora to Paphos, to find them- selves in due course in Egypt, whence they returned ten days or so later. One gentleman, Mr. Mavrogordato indeed, did succeed in landing, but from another steamer. When the Paphos boatmen learned by signal or other- wise that he was on board this ship, which as I under- stand, having cargo to discharge, rolled off the port for ^ Although the main lode is not yet discovered, since the above was written extensive deposits of copper ore have been struck at Lymni. LIMASOL TO ACHERITOU 129 days, they clad themselves in lifebelts and made an effort, with the result that ultimately he was landed, also in a lifebelt and little else. The journey, I gather, was risky, but there comes a time when most of us would rather take the chance of being drowned than after a pro- longed, involuntary tour return miserable and humiliated to the place of starting. At length came the eve of our departure from Lima- sol, not for Paphos, but for Famagusta vi& Larnaca and Acheritou. In the afternoon we went for a walk and gathered many wild flowers, and as the sun set I betook myself to stroll upon the jetty. It was a calm evening and the solemn hush which pervaded the golden sky and the sea, still heaving with recent storm, made the place lovely. Some brutal boys were trying to drown a cat, but to my delight the poor creature escaped them and scrambled along the rough planks to the shore. They followed it into the town, and I was left alone there listening to the water lapping against the piers and watching an old fisherman in a fez sitting still as a statue, his line between his fingers. He did not seem to belong to the nineteenth century. He might have lived, and doubtless in the persons of his progenitors did live, one or two or three or four thousand years ago. I smoked my cigarette and contemplated him, half expecting that presently he would draw out a brass bottle, as was the fortune of fishermen in the " Arabian Nights," and thence uncork a Jinn. But the brass bottle would not bite, or the fish either. Somehow it reminded me of another scene — a little pier that runs out into the icy waters of the North Sea at Reykiavik, whence on such an eve as this I remember seeing a boy angling for the flat fish that lie in the yellow sands. Only here in Cyprus were no eider-duck, and there in Iceland rose no minarets or palms. I do not suppose that I shall see Limasol again, but thus while memory remains I wish ever to recall it, with I 130 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE its twilight stillness, its illimitable darkling ocean, its quaint eastern streets and buildings, and over all of them and the mountains beyond a glorious golden pall of sunset. On a certain Sunday — everybody seems to travel upon the Sabbath in Cyprus — the three of us, my nephew, Mr. Christian, and myself, started in a rattle-trap carriage dragged by four scaffoldings of ponies, one of which was dead lame, for Larnaca, about forty-five mdes away. There were many agitations about this departure. First of all arrived a sulky-looking Greek, who declared that the carriage could not take the luggage and refused to allow it to be loaded. This was rather gratuitous on his part, as it seems that he had no interest in the convey- ance, except some possible unearned commission. Then it was doubtful whether the dead-lame horse could go at all ; but after a nail had been extracted from his bleeding frog he was pronounced to be not only fit, but eager for the journey. At this season of the year it is customary in Cyprus to turn the horses and mules on to green barley for three weeks, whence they arrive fat and well- seeming. This is why all draught animals were then so hard to hire. At length with many farewells we creaked off through the narrow streets and difficult turnings of Limasol, to find ourselves presently in the open country. Here among the springing corn I saw white thorns in bloom, though I think that their species differs slightly from our own ; also many carob-trees, some of them in the warmer situations now beginning to form their pods. Trees, by the way, do not as a rule belong to the owner of the soil. If you buy a piece of land in Cyprus, it will be to find that the timber on it is the lawful possession of somebody else, with all rights and easements thereto per- taining. These must be purchased separately, a fact that makes the possession of property under the prevailing Turkish law a somewhat complicated and vexatious affair. I noticed that at the extremity of the boughs many LIMASOL TO ACHEKITOU 131 of these carobs, especially in the case of old specimens, were disfigured by bunches of red and rusty leaves. On inquiring the reason Mr. Christian informed me that the harm is due to the ravages of rats which live Lq the hollow boles and gnaw the juicy bark of the young shoots. Sometimes they destroy the entire tree, but the Cypriotes are too idle to kill them out. They prefer to lose their crop. . The goats too damage everything that they can reach, and show extraordinary ingenuity in their efforts to secure the food they love. Thus with my own eyes I saw a couple of these intelligent animals reared up upon their hind-legs, their fore-feet propped together in mid air for mutual support, their bearded heads outstretched to pluck the succulent shoots above. The group thus formed would have furnished an admir- able subject for a sculptor, but I have never seen it represented in any work of art, ancient or modern. Per- haps it is too difficult for easy treatment, or it may be of rare occurrence. One of the methods by which Cyprian peasants avenge injuries upon each other, is to attempt to destroy the olive-trees of an offending neigh- bour by cutting the bark with knives. Some of the ohves which we passed upon this journey were disfigured with curious wart-like growths upon their ancient boles, which Mr. Christian informed me, as he believed, had been produced by such acts of petty malice practised perhaps hundreds of years ago. In these instances of course the trees had ultimately recovered. The country through which we passed was on the whole very desolate. Although a good deal of the land seemed to be under cultivation of a kind, we saw few villages. These, I suppose, lay hidden behind the hills, but in truth the population is scant. Different indeed must it have been in the days of the Roman occupation. Then there were enough people in Cyprus to enable the Jews who had settled there to put two hundred and forty thousand to the sword in the course of a single 132 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE revolt, that is, a hundred thousand more than the present population of the island. After we had driven for nearly five hours and beguiled the tedium of the road by lunching in the carriage, we came to a half-way house or hovel, called Chiro-Kitia, i.e. Kitia of the Pigs. Although it looked somewhat dreary in the rain which fell from time to time, it was a prettily situated place, hill-surrounded, fronting a bold brown mountain which lay between it and the sea, and standing over a green and fertile bottom with olive-gardens and fig-trees through which a torrent brawled. The inn itself, if such it can be called, had a Uttle verandah, reached by external steps, half ladder and half staircase. From this verandah we entered the guest-room, which was whitewashed and scribbled over with writings in English, Turkish, Greek, and French ; with drawings also whereby long-departed travellers had solaced the weary hours of their stay. This room was stone-paved and furnished with a table, a bench, a bed, and some rush-bottomed chairs. Here the mistress of the rest-house, the mother of several pretty little girls, who were standing about in the mud ragged and bootless, presently arrived with refreshments, a sort of cream cheese that is eaten with sugar, and tiny cups of sweet Turkish coffee accompanied by glasses of water with which to wash it down. Mr. Christian asked me how old I thought this good woman might be. I replied nearly sixty, and indeed she looked it. He said that she was about twenty-six, and that he remembered her not many years ago as a pretty girl. Since that time, however, she had presented the world with an infant regularly once a year, and her present weary, worn-out aspect was the result. " You shouldn't have so many children," said Mr. Christian to her in Greek. " God sends them," she answered with a sad little smile. LIMASOL TO ACHERITOU 133 This poor •woman, with another of her famihar troubles close at hand, was in the unhappy position of being separated from her husband, now doing " time " under the care of Mr. Mavrogordato. She told us that he had come into this misfortune on the false evidence of the keeper of a rival rest-house some few hundred yards away ; the only other dwelling in the place, indeed. As to our house and the owner there was a sad, and if true, a cruel tale of how its host, he of the jail, seeking to better his fortunes had put up a mill upon a piece of land at the back of the dwelling ; how the rival had waited untU the mill was erected and then claimed the land, and various other oppressions and distresses which resulted in assaults, false evidence, and for one of them, a term of retirement. Mr. Christian told me that the story was accurate in the main, and added that out of such quarrels as these come most of the frequent Cyprian mur- ders. It is quite likely that the injured man will emerge from jail only to lie up behind a wall with a loaded gun, thence in due course to return to the care of Mr. Mavro- gordato steeped lq the shadow of a graver charge. The scene from the verandah, at least while it rained, was not much more cheerful than the story of our hostess. To the right lay a Uttle patch of garden with nothing particular growing in it, surrounded by an untidy fence of dead thorns. Behind this were filthy sheds and stables, in. one of which kneeled half-a-dozen angry- lookiug camels, great brown heaps, with legs doubled under them, showing their ugly hock-joints. The saddles were on their backs but the loads lay beside them, and resting against these reposed their drivers, smoking ; motley-garbed men with coloured head-dresses, half- cap, half-turban, who stared at the wretched weather in silence. In front of the house a pair of geese were waddling in the mud, while a half-starved cat crouched against the wall and mewed incessantly. Presently we had a little welcome excitement, for along the road came a 134 A WINTEK PILGRIMAGE Turk mounted on a donkey. He was followed by three wives also mounted on donkeys, one or two of them bear- ing infants, and shrouded head to foot from the vulgar gaze of the infidel, in yashmahs and white robes that in such chilly weather must be somewhat cheerless wear. They passed chattering and arguing, their poor beasts piled up behind the saddles with what looked like, and I believe were, feather-beds, for whatever else these people leave behind, they like to take their mattresses. Then the prospect was empty again save for the groaniug camels, the geese, the thin cat, and the pretty little ragged girls who stood about and stared at nothing. Wearying of these delights after an hour and a half or so, as the rain had stopped at length, I went for a walk along the edge of the stream which looked as though trout would flourish there, did it not dry up in summer. Here, growing among the grasses I found several beautiful flowers, ranunculi, anemones, and others that were strange to me. Also I noted our English friends, chafiinches and sparrows, looking exactly as they do at home, only somewhat paler, as is the case with almost every other bird I saw. I suppose that the hot svm bleaches them. One sparrow that I saw fl3dng about was pure white, and the larks of which there are two varieties, crested and common, are almost dust-coloured. By the way these larks never soar like their English cousins. At length the poor screws being rested, or a little less tired, we resumed our journey, travelling for some distance through hills. What a pity it is that it does not please the War Office to make Cyprus a half-way house for troops on their road to India, where they might grow accustomed to a warm climate without running any particular risk to health. Also there would be other advantages. The great lesson of the present war in Africa is the value of mounted infantry who can shoot, think for themselves, and ride over rough country. What a training-ground Cyprus would afford to such LIMASOL TO ACHEKITOU 135 troops as these. There are horses and perhaps the best mules in the world in plenty ; the country is wild and mountainous, and nothing would be hurt in manoeuvring men. Moreover every conceivable physical difficulty can be found here and dealt with for practice as occasion may require. There is heat, there is cold, there are droughts and rains, flooded torrents to be bridged and precipices to be climbed ; forests to take cover in and plains to scout over ; besides many more advantages such as would appeal to a commander anxious to educate his army to the art of war in rough countries. Why then does not the Government always keep a garrison of say five or ten thousand mounted men manceuvring through the length and breadth of Cyprus ? This would assist the island and produce a force that ought to be absolutely invaluable in time of war. Also, the place being so cheap, the cost would be moderate. I give the suggestion for what it is worth. It was past nine at night when at last we crawled into Larnaca, the journey having taken three hours longer than it should have done owing to the weakness of our miserable horses. Next morning we started for Acheritou near to Famagusta, where we were to be the guests of Messrs. Christian, who are now completing their contract for the great drainage works and reservoirs which have been undertaken by the Government of Cyprus with money advanced by the British Treasury. Of these I shall have something to say in their place. Leaving Larnaca in a high wind, for the first few miles we passed through a very grey and desolate part of the island, having the sea on our right and flat swampy lands upon our left. Striking inland we halted for a few minutes to look at a curious stone tower of the Lusignan period, in appearance not unlike a small Colossi, which raises its frowning walls among the dirty mud dwellings of a dilapidated, poverty-stricken, Turkish village. There is nothing remarkable about the building 136 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE ■whicli is now tenanted only by goats and pigeons, except its age. Doubtless it was once the stronghold of some petty noble, built for refuge in times of danger. After- wards we came to a place, Pergamos, where stood some deserted-looking huts, out of one of which ran a large rough-haired dog. " That dog is all that is left of the Dukobortzi," was Mr. Christian's cryptic remark. I inquired who or what the Dukobortzi might be and learned that they are a sect of vegetarian Quakers from the Caucasus distinguished from their countrymen, and indeed the rest of mankind, by various peculiarities. Thus they have no marriage ceremony, all their earnings go into a common fund, and whole families of them sleep in a single room. One of the chief articles of their faith, however, is a horror of killing. This it was that brought them into conflict with the Russian Government, who persecuted them mercilessly because, being men of peace, they refused to serve in the army. In the end the English Society of Friends exported them, settling two thousand or so in Cyprus and another three thousand in Canada. A place less suited to this purpose than Per- gamos could scarcely be found in the whole island. To begin with the Dukobortzi are vegetarians, and the land being here unirrigated will only grow vegetables for about half the year. Also the climate of the locality, which is very hot, was not at all congenial to emigrants from the Caucasus with a perfect passion for overcrowd- ing at night. So the poor people sickened rapidly and a considerable number died. Some of them went to labour at the irrigation works, but were quite unable to bear the sun. Then they tried working at night and resting dur- ing the heat, but still it did not agree with them. In the end they were helped to join their co-religionists in Canada, and now all that remains of them is the rough- haired Russian dog, which must feel very lonely. They were it seems in most respects an estimable people, LIMASOL TO ACHERITOU 137 gentle and kindly, but clearly this was no Promised Land for them. Cyprus seems to be a favourite dumping-ground for philanthropists who wish to better communities that cannot flourish elsewhere. I remember that when I was last in the island some well-intentioned persons had for- warded thither a motley assortment of Whitechapel Jews, who were expected to turn their old hats into shovels and become raisers of agricultural produce upon lands that had been provided for the purpose. Needless to say they entirely refused to cultivate the said lands. The unfortunate Commissioner of the district had been placed in charge of them and never shall I forget his tale of woe. He furnished them with implements, but they would not plough ; with seeds, but they declined to sow. As the charitable society in England was endow- ing them with sixpence a head per diem, and food is cheap in Cyprus, things went on thus until the fund dried up. Then the Commissioner descended full of wrath and interviewed the head of the settlement, who met him, as he told me, clad in a tall black hat and adorned with lavender kid gloves. Much argument followed, till at last the exasperated Commissioner exclaimed — "Well, you must either work or starve. Will you work ? " The kid-gloved representative shook his head and murmured " No." " Will you starve ? " asked the Commissioner. Again the answer was a gentle but decided " No." " Then what the devil will you do ? " shouted the enraged official. " We will telegraph to the Lord Mayor of London," repUed the representative suavely. " In fact, sir, we have already telegraphed,!' The end of the matter was that the members of the community dispersed to the coasts of Syria, where, when last heard of, they were understood to be doing well in 138 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE more congenial lines. The Whitechapel Jew has no agricultural leanings. He prefers to till some richer field. Leaving Pergamos we crossed an enormous stony plain that is named after it. This tract of country, there is no doubt, would grow certain classes of timber very well, and within twenty years of its planting, produce a large revenue. Unfortunately, however, the Government has no money to devote to the experiment, and private capital is wanting. Next we came to the pretty village of Kouklia and passed the recently finished dam enclosing an area of two square miles, now for the first time filling up with water. Then we began to travel round the great basin of the Acheritou reservoir, which when finished is to include forty square miles, most of which will be under water during the winter season. It is destined to irri- gate the lower part of the Messaoria plain, which com- prises league upon league of some of the most fertile soil in the world. On our way we came to a stony pass in the neck of two small hills, where I noticed that every rock was scored with rude crosses. It appears that some years ago frequent complaints were received by the ecclesiastical authorities to the effect that this place was badly and persistently haunted, the ghosts being of a violent and aggressive order, given to sallying forth at night with uncanny shouts and leapings, to the great disturbance of peaceable travellers on the highway. Feeling that the thing must be dealt with, every avail- able priest and bishop assembled, and cursed and exor- cised those ghosts by all lawful and efficient means ; stamping them morally flat and abolishing them so that from that day to this not one of them has been heard or seen. To make their triumph sure and lasting the holy men cut and painted these crosses upon the rock, with the result that no " troll " of dubious origin can now stop there for a moment. '■iteA'- .'■''* ^?:" '•^k'' r . ■■-•'■ Wail uk ^sew Iveseiuxuk, Acheritou AXCIKNT Sl.UICK (_;a1K A 1' AcilliklTOU LIMASOL TO ACHERITOU 139 At length we saw the house that the Messrs. Christian have built to live in while the works are in progress. It is splendidly placed upon a bluff overlooking the great plain, and from a distance, I know not why, has the appearance of a small ruined temple. Very glad were we to reach it about three o'clock in the afternoon, and partake of a lamb roasted whole in the Cyprian fashion, with other luxuries. Just below this house start the six miles of massive dam that runs across the plain to fonn the retaining wall of the vast body of water which is to be held up. As yet this water is allowed to escape, but next winter, when the dam is completed, it will be saved and let out for purposes of irrigation. There is nothing new in the world. In the course of the building of the dam were discovered the remains of one more ancient, also running across the plain, but enclosing a smaller area ; indeed its sluice is to be pressed into the service of the present generation. I examined it, and came to the conclusion that the masonry is of the Roman period. Mr. J. H. Medlicott of the Indian Irrigation Department, the very able engineer who has designed these great works and carried them out so successfully, is however of opinion that it is Venetian. Probably he is right. This at least is clear, that people in days long dead could plan and execute such enterprises as well as we do to-day. Roman or Venetian, the stone-work is admirably laid and bound together with some of the hardest and best cement that ever I saw. The Messrs. Christian, who have contracted to com- plete this undertaking, employ about three thousand men and women, mostly on a system of piece-work. In the evening I walked along the great dam and saw them labouring like ants there and in the trenches which are to distribute the water. They were then engaged in facing the dam with stone which is fitted together but not mortared, carrying up great blocks upon their backs 140 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE and laying them in place under the direction of overseers. At first the provision of this facing stone was difiicult and expensive, as the stuff had to be carted six or seven miles ; indeed its cost threatened to swallow up most of the contractors' profits. Then it was, that within half a mile of the place where the material was needed, very luckily Mr. Charles Christian in the course of an evening walk discovered an outcrop of excellent stone, soft to work but with the property of hardening in water. The cutters get it out by a simple but effective system, no doubt that which has been followed by their ancestors for thousands of years. A skilled man can loosen a great number of suitable blocks in a day, apparently with ease. When I tried it, however, I found the task somewhat beyond me. From the strong resemblance of the material I believe that this was the very stone used by the builders of the ancient dam below the house. Doubtless they discovered the quarry as Mr. Christian did, although oddly enough the natives who had lived in the neigh- bourhood all their lives, declared that nothing of the sort existed for miles around. It was the old case of eyes and no eyes. I said some pages back that living in Cyprus is cheap, and of this here I had an instance. The house put up by Messrs. Christian for their convenience while directing the works is spacious, two-storeyed, and capitally built of stone, with, if I remember right, a kind of mud roof laid upon rafters covered with split cane mats. Properly made and attended to, such roofs last for years. The whole cost of the building, which was quite large enough to accommodate with comfort seven or eight people and servants, was less than £300, including the large veran- dahs. In England it would cost at the very least a thousand, and probably a great deal more. CHAPTER XI FAMAGTJSTA That night a great gale blew roaring round the house as though we had been in Coll, or at Kessingland, instead of southern Cyprus. In the morning the wind had dropped, but the sky was heavy with ominous-looking rain-clouds floating here and there in the blue deeps. After break- fast we mounted the ponies that had been provided for us, a blessed change from the familiar mule, and set out to explore the Messaoria plain and the Kouklia dam. This magnificent plain, which varies in breadth from ten to twenty miles, runs practically the whole length of the body of the island from Famagusta on the east to Morphu on the west, that is, a distance of about fifty- five miles. Once it was a dense forest, now it is open level country cultivated here and there, but for the most part barren. On either side of it, north and south, stretch the two ranges of Cyprian mountains, that of Kyrenia and that of Trooidos, and it is the decomposed, basic-igneous rock brought down from these mountains in the winter-floods by the river Pidias and other torrents that form the soil of the plain. What a soil it is ! Deep brown in colour, of an un- known thickness — it has been proved to fifty feet — and I suppose as rich and productive as any in the world. Hitherto, or at any rate since the Venetian days, two natural accidents however have made it comparatively valueless, that of drought and that of flooding. The greater part of this end of the plain which I am now describing, for instance, has been a swamp in winter and 142 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE an arid wilderness in summer. It is to remedy this state of things that the irrigation dams have been con- structed, to hold up the waters in winter and pour their life-giving streams forth again in summer. In the future all this vast area of land, or thousands of acres of it that will fall under their influence, ought to produce the most enormous crops. On this point I see only one fear ; upon the top surface of the soil, and in places going a foot or two into it, are little veins of white salty substance, deposited, I suppose, from the floods. These may make the siurface earth sour and, until they are evaporated, affect the health of crops. I know that the same thing happens in Coll in the Hebrides, where new-drained lands have to be treated, I think with lime, in order to sweeten them. It is my belief that here, however, one or two deep ploughings and the exposure of the earth to the scorching heat of a Cyprian summer would do this work effectively. I have suggested to Mr. Christian that he should cut out a block, or blocks of soil to the depth of three feet, enclose them as they stand in boxes with the natural vegetation growing on the top, and ship them to me. This he has promised to do, and I shall then submit them for analysis to the chemists of the Royal Agricultural Society, to which I belong, who will doubtless be able to advise as to the nature and power of the salts, and to say what method should be adopted to be rid of them. Now when flooding is prevented and water will be available for irrigation, it seems to m^e that upon the Messaoria, if anywhere on the earth, farming ought to pay. I can imagine no more interesting and, as I believe, profitable experiment, than to take up let us say five thousand acres of this area upon easy terms such as no doubt the Government would grant, paying its price for example by a certain tithe of the profit of the produce terminable in a certain number of years. This land might then be farmed by the process, simple, where FAMAGUSTA 143 labour is so cheap, of making raised roadways to divide it into blocks with an irrigation ditch at the foot of each, along which roadways a pair of steam ploughs could travel, cultivating the expanse between. Consider the advantages. An inexhaustible soil which the sUt from the irrigation water would go far towards manuring, if indeed, with an occasional fallow, other manure is necessary. Fields that can, whenever needful, be absolutely cleaned of weeds and rubbish by ploughing and laying them dry for a few months in the fierce summer sun which kills every root and seed. A great variety of possible crops from cotton down, whereof very often two could be taken in succession in a single season. For instance wheat or barley to be harvested about May, followed by maize to be harvested in autumn. A port, Famagusta, within seven or eight miles, and a splendid market for most products at Port Said, and for the barley La England, where it is much in request among brewers on account of its saccharine and golden bright- ness. A district where the ordinary cattle and horse sicknesses seem to be unknown except anthrax, which can be avoided with common care ; where, moreover, oxen and sheep fatten marvellously upon grasses, lucerne, and the carob beans of the country, and meet with a ready sale at good prices in Egypt. Such are some of the most obvious merits of this neglected plain ; added to which must be the ample supply of very inexpensive and fairly intelUgent labour. Of course there are drawbacks also, or the place would be a paradise. To begin with it is very hot in summer, when Europeans must be careful about exposing them- selves to the sun, although this heat is generally tempered by the wind blowing up from the sea which is near at hand. Next the Messaoria plain has a reputation for fever. Personally I believe this to be exaggerated, as is shovvn by the fact that among the three thousand men, women, and chUdren employed by the Messrs. Christian, 144 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE the number of casualties from sickness has been very small indeed, and this although they frequently sleep in the trenches of newly-turned earth at all seasons of the year. The doctor, an Armenian, who from his appearance and speech I took to be a Scotchman, and a gentleman who seemed to understand his business very thoroughly told me however that occasionally they had cases, re- sulting for the most part from the use of the swamp water, of a horrible and sometimes fatal ailment which he called " marbled " fever. This sickness is, I believe, known by the same name in parts of Central and South America. Sufferers from it feel icy cold with an exterior temperature that sinks a good deal below normal, whereas the interior temperature is 105° or 106°. The symptoms are those of congestion, I think of the blood-vessels, and indeed congestion is found on necropsy. Also there are other fevers, but the doctor said that they were not com- mon and that the general health was good. For a long while before their house was built the Messrs. Christian, Mr. Medlicott, and their various English assistants lived as best they could in native huts or tents. Yet I think I am right in saying that during the two years or so while the works have been in progress, none of them have suffered from serious illness, although the nature of their occupation prevented them from refuging from the summer heat for the accustomed three months on Trooidos. This fact speaks for itself, and on the whole I in- cline to the belief that with ordinary care and precautions, healthy residences and pure water — boiled for preference —adult Europeans of temperate habits would have little to fear from the climate of the Messaoria plain. There is, however, a danger I have mentioned before which cannot always be avoided, that of a soaking followed by a chill, producing fever. This must be risked. After all it is not uncommon in hot countries. Another drawback is that to prove successful such farming must be under absolutely honest and intelligent FAMAGUSTA 145 supervision. The casual company manager despatched from England would in eight cases out of ten bring it to financial grief. The farmer should live on the spot, giving his own constant care to every operation. Otherwise those interested in the venture would be certain to hear from time to time that this or that crop had failed. What they would not hear is that the overseer had neglected to irrigate the cotton, or whatever the crop might be, and thus destroyed the prospects for the year, because he was away on a holiday at Nicosia, or perchance had taken a trip to Egypt, leaving a native in charge. But this necessity for the eye of the owner or faithful steward holds good of every business in all parts of the world. " The farmer's foot is the best manure " runs the old agricultural saw. To sum the matter up, although, being a farmer, and understanding something of the question, I should like to dwell upon it at greater length, I can only say that if I were a young man, owning, or with the com- mand of £10,000 capital, nothing would please me better than to make such an experiment upon the irrigable por- tion of the Messaoria, near to the KoukJia dam for choice. I believe that, given health and strength, I should return thence in fifteen years or so with no need to farm any- thing except the fortune I had acquired. Indeed it is sad to see so much wealth, agricultural and other, lying ungarnered in Cyprus while millions of pounds of English capital, as many of us know to our cost, are squandered in specious, wild-cat schemes at the very ends of the earth. Were the island in the heart of West Africa or China, for instance, companies would be formed to exploit it, and in due course lose their money and the lives of their managers. But as it is only a British possession close at hand nobody will trouble. The great cry of Cyprus is for capital. Whatever may be the fate of the present copper-mining venture at Lymni, there is no doubt that with enough money the K 146 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE old lode could be discovered. The same thing applies to the other copper areas : the ancients could not mine deep, the metal must be there, and, now as of old, to the value of sums uncountable ; yet nobody will even put down a bore-hole to look for the deposits. In conversa- tion I ventured to suggest to the Governor, Sir William Haynes-Smith, that the Government should do this on their own account, since if once they proved the mines they could make handsome terms with the companies which would come forward to work them. The answer was, " We have no money, the Turkish tribute takes all our money." This is true. Every year the British taxpayer is informed that a grant of £30,000 has been made in aid of the revenues of Cyprus. He is not informed that never a penny of that £30,000 comes to Cyprus; that, on the contrarjr, Cyprus has a surplus of revenue over expenditure, even in its present starved condition, of more than £60,000 a year. This £60,000 is taken, nominally, towards paying the tribute of £93,800 per annum, promised to the Turk when we took over the island. The £30,000 annually granted by Parliament, ostensibly in aid of the revenues of Cjrprus, goes to make up the balance which cannot be wrung from the island. But — and here is the point — that money is never seen at Constantinople. It stops in the British Treasury. In 1855, a loan of I forget how much, raised by Turkey, was jointly guaranteed by France and England. Need- less to say, under these circumstances Turkey does not trouble to pay the bondholders their interest. Neither does France pay as a joint-guarantor, why I know not, but probably because we are afraid to ask her. So John Bull pays. What is more, he was tricked. The revenue received by the Porte from Cyprus was assessed at double its actual amount. Also he pays four per cent., whereas at the present rates of money, on the credit of the British Empire, the loan could easily be converted to one FAMAGUSTA 147 of two and a half or three per cent. If this were done, practically it would ease Cyprus of its tribute and make it a most prosperous colony. But to do it does not please the Treasury — probably it would involve a good deal of trouble. So year by year we hear of a grant of £30,000 in aid of the revenues of a possession which has an annual surplus of £60,000, that might with assistance and fore- thought, as I believe firmly, within a single generation be midtiphed into a surplus of £600,000. Further, the Turkish tribute might be capitalised ; indeed to do our Government justice, I believe that efforts, hitherto un- successful, have been made in this direction. But as yet nothing happens. Another possible source of wealth in Cyprus, as I suggested with reference to the Pergamos plain, lies in the judicious planting of valuable timbers which, as the history of the island shows, would grow here like weeds upon land that is practically useless for other purposes. I must instance one more, that of the wine industry. That Cyprus produced excellent vintages in the past is proved by history — the Ptolemies all got tipsy on them, especially, if I remember right, Ptolemy Auletes, Ptolemy the Piper. To this day indeed, although it is so ill prepared, the wine is good. Mavro is a strong, black, rather rough wine, but I prefer the lighter, white variety which we drank at Limasol. Then there is the vintage called Commanderia, famous in the Crusading times and produced upon certain mountains only. This is of the Madeira class, nutty in flavour and very sweet, more of a liqueur than anything else. Indeed when the Madeira vines were killed out by disease, that island was replanted, I believe, from the Commanderia stock, the original vines, it was said, having come from Cyprus. At Kyrenia, our kind host, Mr Tyzer, the judge, gave us some Commanderia to drink which an old woman had brought round in a wLne-skin — she only made a few gallons from a patch of vines — and sold to him at a 148 A WINTEK PILGRIMAGE price of about twopence a bottle. To my fancy it was a wonderful wine, but perhaps I am no judge of such matters. Other specimens which I tasted struck me as heady and cloying to the palate. This is certain, how- ever, that if the cultivation was carried out upon a proper system, a vintage could be produced that now, as of old, would command a high price. Here again is room for enterprise and capital. To return to our expedition. We rode for miles across the great plain with the beautiful peaks of the mountains showing in bold outline against the sky to our right. All the way we followed wide dykes in course of being delved out of the rich soil to carry the waters that are to be stored behind the dam. In these dykes hundreds of Cypriotes were at work, most of them Chris- tians, but some, if I remember right, Turkish. Men and women labour together here by the piece. Thus one might see a man and his wife, his sons and daughters, engaged in scooping out their allotted task, which had been already carefully measured and pegged. They all seemed very good-humoured and much chaff went on between them and their employer, Mr Charles Christian, because of the non-arrival of the water-cart upon which they rely for refreshment at their thirsty toil. They were dying of drought, they declared, and he would have to send to bury them, whereupon he replied that it was for the good of their health to make them thinner, and so forth. At length following the endless dykes and observing many things by the way, such as the character of the grasses, we came to the completed Kouklia dam, a splendid work, on the further side of which the waters are now gathering for the first time. It is curious to see how soon the wild duck have found out this new and excellent home, where whole flocks of these beautiful birds now swim peacefully, keeping themselves, however, well out of gunshot. Thence we turned homeward across FAMAGUSTA 149 the wide dreary plain that as I hope within the next ten years will be rich with luxuriant crops. Indeed this undertaking has already so greatly advantaged the peasants that, as I hear since I left the island, after their simple fashion they put up prayers in the churches imploring that every blessing may fall upon the heads of Messrs. Charles and Percy Christian. They ought also to pray for Mr. Chamberlain, who might, on occasion, be glad of such spiritual assistance. Whatever may be said against that statesman, this at least is true ; he is the best Colonial Minister that we have had for many a long year. A business man himself, he understands more or less, and to a certain extent can sympathise with, the needs and aspirations of the undeveloped countries in bis charge. To him and no one else it is due that the spell of consistent neglect has been broken and the small sum of £60,000 necessary for the carrying out of these works has been advanced to Cyprus. On our return we were overtaken by a heavy thunder rain and soaked. Unfortunately, although the house was quite close to us, we could not gallop home since the downpour made the clay soil so slippery that to do so would have been to risk a fall. Therefore we were obliged to walk our horses and get wet. As a change was at hand, however, in this instance the ducking did not matter. Towards evening we started on a sporting expedition, so at last the gun that I rescued from the Customs with such trouble was of use. We had hoped for some woodcock-shooting among the scrub on the hillsides, but it was so late in the season that enough birds were not left to make it worth while to go after them. The duck remained, however, and to these we devoted our attention. The place where we were to station ourselves was three or four miles away, a ridge of rock between two lakes over which the wild-fowl flight at sunset. I was 150 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE asked if I would walk or ride, and gaily declared in favour of walking. Before I got back I was sorry for my choice. We waded through swamps, we scrambled along an ancient causeway built of blocks of stone, many of them missing, and over a slope of rough ground to the appointed ridge, where we took up our posts, four of us, at a distance of about two hundred yards from each other. It was a lonely and beautiful spot, set in a bow of the hills like the section of an amphitheatre, its vast open circus lying behind us. In front, looking towards the sea and another lake whence the duck were to come, lay a desert plain covered with low scrub across which the fresh wind whistled. Above was a stormy heaven, splendid to look at but not favourable for fowl- shooting, since the heavy clouds blotted out the light. What is wanted on these occasions is a clear sky marked with light fleecy clouds, for against these it is easy to see the birds as they sweep towards the guns. I took my place, sitting on one rock and laying my cartridges ready upon another over which my head pro- jected, wrapping myself up also in a coat which I had brought with me, for now the air felt very damp and cold, especially after our arduous trudge. For a long while nothing happened and I was left in the midst of the intense silence to examine the drear scenery, the ancient rocks worn and hollowed by seons of weather, and the flowers and grasses which grew about me. The sun set, the sky darkened and darkened, the black masses of clouds seemed to dominate the earth. At last I heard a sound of whistling wings and about a hundred yards to my right I saw a flight of duck, their long necks extended, shoot past me like arrows and vanish. Then came another flight sixty yards off, or more, at which I ventured a useless shot that echoed strangely along the stony ridge. Now the night fell rapidly like something tangible. One little lot of fowl passed in front of me within forty yards, and of these I FAMAGUSTA 151 managed to see and bag the last, which fell with a heavy thud fifty yards or more from where it had died in air After this it was hopeless ; the duck had been disturbed too late by the beaters sent to flush them in the pans towards the sea. On they came in thousands and tens of thousands ; the air was full of the rush of their wings, and the earth echoed with their different cries — the deep note of geese, the unearthly call of curlew, and the whistling pipe of teal. Sometimes they seemed to pass so close to me that they nearly struck my head, but against the black clouds nothing was visible except a brown line that vanished almost before it was seen. I fired wildly and once or twice heard the thud of a falling bird far behind, but these I never retrieved. As sport our expedition was a failure ; moonlight and a clear sky were needed, both of which were absent. But in its wildness, in the sense of infinite, winged life rushing past us, in the last view of that desolate country as the darkness embraced it, it was a perfect and unique experience. I am old enough to be no longer very anxious for a bag, therefore I enjoyed that evening's expedition with its one resulting widgeon, more than many a day's pheasant-shooting when the slain, carefully raised for the occasion, might be counted by hundreds. At length it grew pitch dark, so that it was difficult for us to find each other in the gloom. Still more diflScult was our homeward journey, steering by the appropriate light of Venus which glowed before us, lying low upon the sky. First came the causeway. This relic of antiquity which shows how careful its inhabitants, now so long dead, once were about their roads in Cyprus, is some eight feet wide and built of large blocks of stone. On either side of it lie the waters of the swamp, several feet deep in places. Much of this massive raised road- way has been destroyed by floods or other accidents of time, so that here and there one must leap from block 152 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE to block or subside into the pools between. Now " Stepping - Stones by Starlight " would make a good title for a novel but are in fact an awkward path, and very glad was I when with the assistance of a Cypriote, who seemed to be able to see in the dark, I had nego- tiated the last of them. After these stepping-stones we advanced over a mile or two of greasy mud about six inches deep. Then came some ploughed patches of ground with ditches in them, and another long stretch of mud, this time covered with water. Struggling to its edge we found ourselves on a path strewn with boulders, and fell down in deep but invisible ruts. Next followed a stroll through a large patch of standing barley which was reeking wet and reached almost to our middles, where we were exposed to the attentions of the " skilos " or homeless dogs, which in Cyprus are such a nuisance. At last, however, about nine o'clock we saw the welcome lights of home. I confess that I was glad to reach its shelter, thoroughly tired out as I was and absolutely wringing wet with perspiration, a fruit of the labours of that interminable walk. Little expeditions of this sort teach us that we are not so young as once we were. Still I enjoyed our abortive duck-hunt. My nephew, fired by the sight or rather the sound of more wild-fowl than he had ever dreamt of, announced his intention of being back at the place by the first streak of dawn to catch the birds as they passed from the marshes out to sea. I congratulated him upon his superb energy, but declined to share the adventure, fore- seeing in the depths of my experience as in a magic crystal exactly what would happen. It did happen. About an hour after we had finished breakfast on the following morning, two hot and weary young men ap- peared carrying guns and cartridges, but nothing else. They had risen a little too late, the duck were up before them and they reached the distant ridge just in time to see the last flock of geese vanishing seaward. Desdkmona's TiiWKk, Kamagu.sta Krj.Ns 01' Ancikni' (.'iniRf ii, 1' am Miusiw FAMAGUSTA 153 The rains had departed for the present and the day was lovely, with so clear an air that every little peak and pinnacle of the mountains seemed close at hand. It was with great regret that on so fair a morning we bade farewell to our hosts and started for Famagusta. I should have liked to stay longer at Acheritou. The place has many charms, not the least of which is its solitude. The tower, where according to ancient tradition Desdemona was actually stifled by Othello, is an odd place for picnics, yet thither on our arrival we were escorted through the ancient gates of Famagusta. Indeed the feast was spread exactly where the poor victim lived and died, that is, if ever she existed beyond the echoes of romance. In the Venetian days Famagusta, which is said to be built upon the site of the ancient Arsinoe, was a great commercial port. Now its harbour is choked and, principally because of the heat within the walls, such population as remains to the place lives about a mile away, in a new town called Varoshia. How am I to de- scribe this beautiful mediseval monument ! An attempt to set out its details would fill chapters, so I must leave them to the fancy of the reader. The whole place is a ruin. Everywhere are the gaunt skeletons of churches, the foundation walls of long-fallen houses, and around, grim, soHd, solemn, the vast circle of the rich- hued fortifications. What buildings are here ! Millions of square yards of them, almost every stone, except where the Turks have cobbled, still bearing its Venetian mason's mark. Walls thirty feet thick; great citadels; sally ports ; underground foundries still black with the smoke of Venetian smithies ; fragments of broken armour lying about in the ancient ash-heaps ; water-gates, ravelins, subterranean magazines ; gun embrasures, straight and enfilading ; enormous gathering-halls now used as grain- stores; tortuous, arched vaults of splendid masonry, the solid roof-stones cut upon the bend ; piers running out to 154 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE sea commanding the harbour mouth ; every defence and work known to mediEeval warlike art. Then round them all, hewn in places through the solid rock, the mighty ditch sixty feet or more in depth. It was an impregnable stronghold this Famagusta, and in the end it fell to the power of the greatest of aU generals, Hunger, and not through the batterings of Mustafa the Moslem, known as the Destroyer, and his vast army. The Turk came and conquered, how I will describe presently, and from that hour the glory of Famagusta departed. To begin with, no Christian was allowed to live within the gates. Even the visitor of distinction must not ride or drive there, but walk humbly as became a representative of a conquered faith. " Where the Turk sets his foot, there the grass will not grow," but here the saying is reversed, the grass grows everywhere amid the empty walls. Indeed barley is sown where men dwelt in thousands, and the Christian churches, some of them, were turned into baths for the comfort of the Mussulman, while the rest rotted into ruin. One of the three hundred and sixty-five of these ruined fanes — it is said that there were this number — that of St. Peter and St. Paul, a very noble and beautiful building, is now a Government grain-store, a desecration which I do not think ought to be allowed under the rule of England. The grand Gothic cathedral wherein lie the bones of many knights and noted men of the Lusignan period, whose wealth, intelligence, and labour reared it up, is now a mosque. I am not learned enough to describe its architecture in detail, this should be left to those who understand such matters. I can only say that it is lovely. In the front are three pointed, recessed arches, the centre pierced by the doorway surmounted with exquisite carved work. Above are three windows in similar style, all of them now walled up, and above them again two ruined towers. Fixed on to one of these, that to the left of the spectator as he faces the building, is a FAMAGUSTA 155 wretched and incongruous Moslem minaret, a veritable pepper-pot. Within the place is bare and empty, with here and there a carpet, or a tawdry pulpit. Is it right, I ask, now that the country is again in the hands of a Christian power, that this ancient shrine dedicated in the beginning to the God we worship, should he left in the hands of the followers of Mahommed ? I say, and the remark applies also to the cathedral at Nicosia, that in my humble judgment this is wrong. A matter of policy, that is the answer. But has policy no limits ? Would it be so very hard and dangerous for this great empire to say to those Turks who are now its subjects : " This is a Christian place which your fathers snatched with every circumstance of atrocity and violence from Christians. Take your shrines else- where. The land is wide and you are at liberty to set your altars where you will." It is true that they might answer : " D oes it Ue in your mouth to protest when you turn other bmldings equally sacred in your eyes into grain-stores, and clerks sit upon their altars to take count ? " For generations the Turks have used Famagusta as a quarry, exporting most of the stone of its old buildings to Egypt. Now, it is commonly said, our Government pro- poses to follow their evil example, since the present railway and harbour scheme involves the destruction of the beautiful curtain-wall abutting on the sea and the use of the material it contains in the projected works. I have been assured by a competent engineer and others who can judge, that such an act of vandalism is absolutely unnecessary; that this monstrous thing will be done, if it is done, principally for the sake of the shaped stone that lies to hand. Will nobody stop it ? If the Colonial Office refuses to intervene, where are the Company of Antiquaries and where is Public Opinion ? Where too is the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments ? Famagusta is one of the most perfect specimens of 156 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE mediaeval forfcification left in the world. It can never be reproduced or reborn, since the time that bred it is dead. Now in our enlightened age, when we know the value of such relics, are the remains of the old city to be wantonly destroyed before our eyes ? I trust that those in authority may answer with an emphatic " No." In itself the scheme for clearing out the ancient harbour and making of Famagusta a port connected by railway with Nicosia is good. But the haven thus re- constructed, although old Sir John Mandeville, more regardless of the truth than usual even, declares that it was one of the first harbours of the sea in the world,' can never be of great importance or competent to shel- ter liners and men-of-war. Also I imagine that it will be incapable of defence except by sea-power. Now at Limasol it is different. There, owing to the natural con- figuration of the shore, a harbour where fleets might ride could be made with two entrances far apart, and having seven or eight miles of high land between it and the ocean, so that in practice nothing could touch the vessels that lay within. The necessary dredging would of course cost a good deal, although the bottom to be acted upon is soft and kindly. Perhaps the total expenditure might mount up to a million and a half, or even two millions, the price of a few battle-ships. Battle-ships are superseded in a score of years ; the harbour, with proper care, would remain for centuries. We need such a place in this part of the Mediterranean. Is not the question worth the serious care of the Admiralty and the nation ? 1 In the same passage this king of travellers — and their tales — tells las that in Cyprus they "hunt with papyons," which are "somewhat larger than lions." The "papyons " are not quite imaginary, since cheetahs were used for sporting purposes in mediseval Cyprus. When Sir John goes on to add, however, that the inhabitants of Cyprus in search of coolness "make trenches in the earth about in the halls, deep to the knee, and pave them and when they will eat they go therein and sit there," we wonder if he was well informed. The preceding passage also, which un- happily cannot be quoted, makes us marvel even more. CHAPTER XII THE SIEGE AND SALAMIS I COULD see but few changes in Famagusta since I visited it fourteen years ago. Trees have grown up round the tombs -where the execrable and bloody Mustafa and some of his generals lie buried; also the Commissioner, Mr. Travers, has planted other trees in portions of the moat ■where they do not flourish very well owing to the stony nature of the subsoil. Moreover, a large fig-tree which I remember growing in the said moat has vanished — I recall that I myself found a Cyprian woman engaged in trying to cut it down, and frightened her away. Probably when we had departed, she returned and completed the task. Lastly, when I was here before the iron cannon- balls fired into the city by the Turks three centuries since, stUl lay strewn all about the place as they had fallen. Now they have been collected into heaps, or vanished in this way or in that. Otherwise all is the same, except that Time has thrust his finger a little deeper into the crevices of the ruined buildings. What a tragedy was the siege of Famagusta ! Pro- bably few of my readers, and of the British pubho at large not one in every hundred thousand, have even heard of that event. Yet if it happened to-day the whole world would ring with its horror and its fame. The Boer war that at present fills the newspapers and the mouths of men has, to this day of writing, cost us at the outside six thousand dead. At the siege of Famagusta, taking no account of those in the city, if I remember right for I quote from memory, more than 158 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE forty thousand of the attacking force alone perished beneath the walls. This Ln brief was the tale as it is told by Era Angelo Calepio of Cyprus, an eye-witness and a doctor in theology of the order of Preachers, and others. In the year 1570, according to Era Angelo, the Sultan Selim was persuaded by his head mufti to undertake the enterprise of the eon- quest of Cyprus from the Venetians : " avarice, lust of fame, difference of religion, diabolic suggestion, divine permission, an unbounded appetite for new territory to be added to the Ottoman dominion, these were the remote causes for the conspiracy against Cyprus. A nearer cause was the wish of Selim, the Emperor of the Turks, to build a mosque and school." Cyprus was to furnish the revenues for this pious enterprise. Era Angelo says also that the Sultan was influenced to the conquest of the island " from his fondness for its excellent wines and the beautiful falcons that are taken there." A great army was collected and allowed, owing to the mismanagement of affairs by the Venetians and local authorities, to invest the inland capital of Nicosia. After a gallant defence by the untrained troops and inhabitants within, they took the town. It is curious to read to-day, that grim badinage such as has recently been practised by the Boers investing Ladysmith, was indulged in by the Turks at Nicosia. Thus they drove a donkey up the wrecked wall cryLag in mockery, '' Don't hurt the poor ass, it can do you no harm," and shouted, " Surrender, for you are in a bad way." The horrors that occurred when once the Turkish soldiers were inside Nicosia are too dreadful to dwell on. Here is a single example. Says Era Angelo : " Among the slain were Lodovico Podochatoro and Lueretia Calepia, my mother, whose head they cut off on her serving- maid's lap. They tore infants in swaddling-clothes from their mothers' breasts, of whom I could baptize only one," and so forth. On the day following the sack the best-looking THE SIEGE AND SALAMIS 159 of the surviving lads and girls were sold by auction, " the buyers taking no thought or count of their noble bh-th, but only of the beauty of their faces." But these poor victims, or most of them, were not destined to serve as slaves in any Turkish harem. The great galleon of Muhamites and two other vessels were laden with them as a gift to the Sultan, to Mehmed Pasha, and Murad the Sultan's son. But some noble girl or woman, her name is not recorded though surely her glory should live on for ever, thinking that the death of herself and her companions was prefer- able to so infamous a fate, contrived to creep to the maga- zine and fire it, with the result that the galleon and two other ships with every living soul on board of them were blown into the air. The incident is in perfect keep- ing with the horrid history of that period throughout Europe. Famagusta was invested by Mustafa and between one and two hundred thousand soldiers and adventurers upon September 18, 1570, the defence being under the charge of the immortal Mark Antonio Bragadino, the captain of the city. For nearly eleven months did the little garrison and townsfolk hold out, with but scant aid from Venice. They beat back assault after assault — there were sis or eight of them ; they mined and counter- mined ; they made saUies and erected new defences as the old were battered down ; in short they did everything that desperation could contrive or courage execute. At length when only five hundred ItaUan soldiers and a few Cyprian men and women were left sound within their gates, and many of their walls and towers had been blown into the air, it was want that conquered them, not the Turk. " The position of the city was now desperate ; within the waUs everything was lacking except hope, the valour of the commanders, and the daring of the soldiers. The wine was exhausted, neither fresh nor salted meat nor cheese could be had except at extravagant prices. The horses, asses, and cats 160 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE were consumed. There was nothing to eat but bread and beans, nothing to drink but vinegar and water, and this too soon failed ! " Then after between 140,000 and 170,000 cannon- balls, many of which I have seen lying aboiit to this day, had been fired into the city, and the Turks had suffered a loss of from thirty to fifty thousand men, at length the brave Bragadino negotiated an honourable surrender under the terms of which the defenders were to be given their arms, lives, and goods, " a safe-conduct to Candia under an escort of galleys," and the townsfolk the grace of staying " in their houses to enjoy what was their own, living like Christians without any molestation therefor." Upon these terms peace was signed, and the soldiers began to embark in the vessels provided for them. The next evening, or at any rate upon that of August the 5 th, the Signer Bragadino, accompanied by about a dozen officers and attended by a guard of fifty men, according to Fra Angelo, and nearly two hundred accord- ing to Bishop Graziani, paid a visit to Mustafa who received him courteously and kindly, praising the valour of the defence. The visit concluded, they rose to take leave, whereupon Mustafa asked that the prisoners cap- tured during the siege might be sent to him. Bragadino replied that he had no prisoners. Then the Turk, pre- tending to be astonished, shouted out, " They were then murdered during the truce," and bade his soldiers who stood ready to seize and bind the Christians. Now it was that the brutal ruffian, Mustafa, showed himself in his true colours. The story is best told in the words of Mr. Cobham's translation of Fra Angelo Calepio, although Bishop Graziani's account as rendered by Midgley is almost as good. " They were defenceless, for they were compelled to lay aside their arms before entering the tent, and thus bound were led one by one into the open square before the tent, and cut to THE SIEGE AND SALAMIS 161 pieces in Mustafa's presence. Then twice and thrice he made Signer Bi-agadino, who showed no sign of fear, stietch out his neck as though he would strike oflF his he-ad, but spared his life and cut off his ears and nose, and as he lay on the ground Mustafa reviled him, cui-sing our Lord and saying, ' Where is now thy Christ that He doth not help thee ? ' The general made never an answer, bvit with loft}' patience waited the end. Count Hercule Martiuengo, one of the hostages, was also bound, but was hidden by one of Mustafa's eunuchs until his chief's fury was passed. He did not slay him, but doomed him, as long as his soul cleaved to his body, to continual death in life, making him his eunuch and slave, so that happy he had he died with the rest a martyr's death. There were thi-ee citizens in the tent, who were released, but the poor soldiers bound like so many lambs were hewed in pieces, with three hundred other Christians, who never di-eamed of such gross perfidy, and impious savagery. The Christians who were already embarked were brutally robbed and thrown into chains. " The second day after the murders, August 7th, Mustafa first entered the city. He caused Signer Tiepolo, Captain of Baffo, who was left in Signer Bragadino's room, to be hanged by the neck, as well as the commandant of the cavalry. On August 17th, a dav of evil memory, being a Friday and their holiday, Signor Bragadino was led, full of wounds which had received no cai-e, into the presence of Mustafa, on the batteries buUt against the city, and for all his weakness, was made to carry one basket f ull of earth up and another down, on each redoubt, and forced to kiss the ground when he passed before Mustafa. Then he was led to the shore, set in a slung seat, with a ci-own at his feet, and hoisted on the yard of the galley of the Captain of Rhodes, hung ' like a stork ' in view of all the slaves and Christian soldiers in the port. Then this noble gentleman was led to the square, the drums beat, the ti-umpets sounded, and before a great crowd thej- sti-ipped him, and made him sit amid every insult on the grating of the piUory. Then they stretched him on the ground and brutally flayed him alive. His saintly soul bore all with great firmness, patience, and faith : with never a si^n of wavering he commended himself to his Saviour, and when their steel reached his navel he gave back to his Maker his L 162 A WINTEE PILGRIMAGE truly happy and blessed spirit. Hi s skLn was taken and stuffed with straw, carried round the city, and then, hung on the yard of a galliot, was paraded along the coast of Syria with great rejoicings. The body was quartered, and a part set on each battery. The skin, after its parade, was placed in a box together with the head of the brave Captain Hestor Baglione, and those of S. Luigi Martinengo, G. A. Bragadino, and G. A. Querini, and all were carried to Constantinople and presented to the Gran Signer, who caused them to be put in his prison, and I who was a captive chained in that prison as spy of the Pope, on my liberation tried to steal that skin, but could not." According to Johaimes Cotovicus, or Johann van KootTvick, a Hollander whose work was pubUslied at Antwerp in 1619, this hideous execution of Bragadino was carried out by a Jewish hangman. The same author tells us that the martyr's skin was in the end purchased at a great price by his brother and sons, and, five-and-twenty years after the murder, buried in a marble urn in the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo at Venice. Here is the inscription and a translation : — D. O. P. M. Antonii Bragadeni dum pro fide et patria Bello Cyprio Salaminse contra Turcas constanter Fortiterq. curam principem sustineret longa Obsidione victi a perfida hostis manu ipso vivo ac Intrepide sufferente detracta Pellis Ann. Sal. cio. ic. LXXi. xv. Kal. Sept. Anton, fratris Opera et inpensa Byzantio hue Advecta Atque hie a Marco Hermolao Antonioque filiis Pientissimis ad summi Dei patrise patemique nominis Gloriam sempitemam Posita Ann. Sal. cio. ic. t.xkxx vi. vixit ann. XLVi. THE SIEGE AND SALAMIS 163 To GrOD THE BeST AND MiGHTIEST. The skin of Mark Antony Bragadino, torn from him while alive and suffering fearlessly, by the fsiithless hand of the enemy, on the eighteenth day of August, in the year of our Salvation 1571, when, in the Cyprian war waged against the Turks for faith and fatherland, he was overborne in the long siege of Salamis, where he commanded with constancy and valour, was bitjught hither from Byzantium by the cai-e and at the cost of his brother Antony, and laid here by his devoted sons, Mark Hermolaus and Antony, to the eternal glory of God most High, of their country, and their father's name, in the year of our Salvation 1596. He lived forty-sis years. In this inscription it will be observed that the besieged town is spoken of as Salamis, that being the name of the ancient ruined city which stood a few mUes from Famagusta. Thus Famagusta and with it all Cyprus feU into the power of the Turk, who for three centuries ruled it as ill as only he can do. Now once more it has passed into the hands of England. Long may this fair and fruitful island abide there, to its own benefit and that of the empire. One sad change I noticed on this my second visit to Famagusta. Fourteen years ago the gardens of Varoshia, as the present town is called, were full of the most lovely orange-trees. Even at this distance of time I can recall the pleasure with which I walked ia one of them, sme lling the scent of the flowers and considering the golden fruit and green, shiny leaves. Now they are all dead, or nearly so. The bhght of which I have spoken upon a previous page, in the absence of remedies that their owners were too idle to apply, has slain them. Here and there stick up old stems with blackened foliage and some shrivelled fruit, sad mementoes of the past that would be better done away. Often have I wished that I could paint but never more so, I think, than at Famagusta, especially one 164 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE morning when I stood upon the lonely seashore looking out across the still more lonely ocean. Storm-clouds were gathering, and in their blackest shadow, old as the walls of Famagusta perhaps, stood a single giant fig-tree, its buds just bursting into points of crinkled, green-gold leaf. There was something very strange about the aspect of that tree. It looked as though it lived and suffered ; it reminded me, fantastically enough, of the tortured Bragadino. Its natural bent was sideways and ground- wards, but the straight branches, trained thus by centuries of wind, lay back from the sloping trunk like the out- blown hair of a frightened fleeing woman. In colour it was ashen, the hue of death, only its roots were gold- tinted, for the shifting sand revealed them, gripping and strangling each other like hateful yellow snakes. It was such a tree as the Saviour might have cursed for barren- ness, and the site seemed appropriate to its aspect. About it were the sand-dunes, behind it lay a swamp with dead and feathered grasses shivering in the wind. To the right more sands, in front the bitter sea, and to the left, showing stately against a background of gloom, the cathedral of Famagusta still royal in its ruins. As I stood a raven flew overhead, croaking, and a great fox darker than our own in colour, loped past me to vanish among the dunes. Altogether it was a scene fitted to the brush of an artist, or so I thought. Within three miles or so of Old Famagusta lie the ruins that were Salamis, formerly the famous port of the Messaoria plain, where once St. Paul and Barnabas " preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews." It was a town eight hundred years before Christ was born however, for a monument of Sargon the Assyrian tells of a certain king of Salamis, and until the reign of Constantine the Great when an earthquake destroyed it, it flourished more than any other Cyprian city. Now not even a house is to be found upon its vast site, and THE SIEGE AND SALAMIS 165 the harbour that was always full of ships, is quite silted up. Many of the stones also that made its palaces and temples, have been built into the walls and churches of Eamagusta, to find often enough an ultimate home in Egypt, whither the Turks exported them. One day we visited this place. On our left as we went our host, Mr. Percy Christian, pointed out to me a tumulus, in Cyprus a rare and notable thing. Some years ago he opened it, indeed the scar of that operation is still visible. TunnelUng through the outer earth the workmen came to a most beautiful tomb, built of huge monolithic stones fitted together with an accuracy which Mr. Christian describes as marvellous. As it proved impossible to pierce these stones, the visitors were obliged to burrow lower and force a passage through the floor. I could not, I confess, help laughing when Mr. Christian added that to his intense disgust he discovered that other antiquarians, in some past age, had attacked the sepulchre from the further side of the mound. They also had been beaten by the gigantic blocks. They also had burrowed and made their visit through the floor. Moreover, by way of souvenir they had taken with them whatever articles of value the tomb may have chanced to contain. Even sepulchre-searching has its sorrows. I am afraid that if after those days and weeks of toil, it had been my fortune, full of glorious anticipation, to poke my head through that violated floor merely to discover in the opposite corner another hole whereby another head had once arisen, I should have said how vexed I was and with some emphasis. He who labours among the tombs should be very patient and gentle-natured — like Mr. Christian. Almost opposite to this tumulus is a barrow-shaped building also composed of huge blocks of stone, set in an arch and enclosing a space beneath of the size of a small chapel out of which another little chamber opens. This is called the tomb of St. Katherine, why I do not know. 166 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE From its general characteristics I should imagine that it is of the Mycenian period, if the Myoenians imderstood how to fashion an arch. The individual blocks are truly huge, and it is nothing short of marvellous that men of the primitive races were able to handle them. It seems probable that this sepulchre and that in the opposing tumulus date from the same age. Perhaps both the tombs were first buUt upon the level with the design of covering them in beneath mounds of earth. In this event we may conclude that the reputed burying- place of St. Katherine was never finished or occupied by any distinguished corpse. At least it is a curious and most durable monument of the past. All this district is very rich in tombs. Near by is the village of Enkomi where Mr. Percy Christian, digging on behalf of the British Museum, recently found the Mycenian gold ornaments now to be seen in its Gold- room. These Enkomi tombs are not structurally remark- able and lie quite near the surface. Indeed they were first discovered by the accident of a plough-ox putting his hoof into one of them. At the period of their con- struction, however, evidently it was the habit of the people who used them as their last resting-places, to bury all his most valuable possessions with the deceased. Thus one of the graves appears to have been that of a jeweller, for in it were found solid lumps of gold sliced iirom cast bars of the metal, as well as fashioned trinkets. In many instances they have been plundered in past days, although when this has happened the conscience of the ancient tomb-breakers, more sensitive than that of us moderns, generally forbade them to take everything. Thus in one tomb which Mr. Charles Christian entered, though this was not at Enkomi, he found a portion of a splendid beaker, worth £60 or £70 in weight of gold, which fragment very clearly had been wrenched from the vessel and thrown back into the grave. It is a common thing in such cases to find that all valuables have been THE SIEGE AND SALAMIS 167 removed except a single ear-ring, or one bead of a neck- lace, left among the mouldering bones to appease the spirit of the dead. Obviously these poor ghosts were not supposed to possess more intelligence than the domestic hen which, after all the rest have been removed, will continue solemnly to sit upon a single egg, even if it be of china. In one of the Enkomi tombs Mr. Percy Christian discovered the unique ivory casket which is now in the British Museum and valued there, I understand, at thousands of pounds. The story of its finding is curious, and shows how easily such precious treasures may be missed. The actual clearing of the tombs from loose earth and rubbish is of necessity generally left to experienced overseers. On a certain evening Mr. Christian came to the diggings and was informed by the head man that he had care- fully excavated and sifted out this particular grave, finding nothing but a few bones. By an after-thought, just to satisfy himself, Mr. Christian went into the place with a light and searched. Seeing that it was as bare as the cupboard of Mother Hubbard, he was about to leave when by a second after-thought — a kind of enacted lady's postscript — he began to scrape among the stuff upon the floor. The point of his stick struck something hard and yellow which he took up idly, thinking that it was but a bit of the skull or other portion of the frame of a deceased Mycenian. As Mycenians, however, did not carve their skeletons, and as even in that light he could see that this object was carved, he continued his researches, to discover, lying just beneath the surface much disjointed by damp, the pieces of a splendid ivory casket. The method, extraordinarily ingenious, whereby he succeeded in removing all these fragments in situ and without injury, is too long to describe, even if I remem- bered its details. Suffice it to say that he poured plaster of Paris or some such composition over them, thereby 168 A WINTEE PILGRIMAGE recovering them in such perfect condition that the experts at home have been able to rebuild this valuable casket exactly as it was when, thousands of years ago, some Mycenian placed it in the resting-place of a beloved relative. Doubtless it was that relative's most treasured possession. In some respects these ancients must have been curiously unselfish. Few heirs of to-day would consent to objects of enormous value — such as pictures by Titian or gold cups by Benvenuto Cellini — being interred with the bones of the progenitor or testator who had cherished them during life. Yet in the early ages this was done con- tinually. Thus, to take one example, I saw not long ago, I think in the N aples Museum, a drinking-vase that even in its own period must have been absolutely without price, which was discovered in the tomb of one of the Roman emperors. More, a screw or nail hole has been pierced rudely through the bottom of the vase, whether to destroy its value or to fasten it to the breast-plate or furnitures of the corpse, I cannot say. In Cyprus such instances are very common. Close by St. Katherine's tomb stands that grove which among the inhabitants of this neighbourhood is known as the " accursed trees." Those trees nobody will touch, since to carry away any portion of them for burning or other purposes, is supposed to entail sudden and terrible disaster. Indeed it is said that one bold spirit who, being short of firewood, dared to fly in the face of tradition, suffered not long ago many horrible things in consequence of his crime. Of these trees it is reported also that they have never put out any leaves in spring or summer for uncounted generations, and yet neither rot or die. Also that no other trees of the sort are known in Cyprus, which I do not believe. Certainly at first sight their appearance is very curious, for they are spectral-looking and seem to be quite dead. On careful examination, however, I solved the mystery. It THE SIEGE AND SALAMIS 169 is this, or so I think ; the thorns grow upon very poor, shallow, and stony ground, perhaps over ruins. Nearly all their twigs are sere and brittle for they snap between the fingers, but if looked at closely it will be seen that upon the stems faint new growths can be found here and there, which at the period of our visit were just breaking into leaf like those of every other tree. Their vitality is sufficient to enable them to do this and no more, thereby saving them from actual decay. So much for the ■" accursed grove " and its attendant superstition. All about this place among the ruins grow huge plants of fennel throwing up iiower-stems six or eight feet high. With the roots of this herb is found a species of mushroom or fungus, which is much prized locally and considered very dehcate eating. We saw a native search- ing for these mushrooms by the help of a long stick. As he wandered from bush tonbush, his steadfast eyes fixed upon the ground, this man added a curiously lonesome and impressive note to that solemn and deserted landscape. The walls of old Salamis, enclosing a great area of land, and even some of its gateways, can still be clearly traced. The sites of Amathus and Curium were desolate, but neither of them, to my fancy, so desolate as this, where not even a patch of barley is sown among the ruins that stretch on and on, tumbled heaps of stone, till they end in barren dunes, self-reclaimed from the sea, the place where flighting cranes pause to rest after their long journeys. Since last I visited this dead city the Cyprus Ex- ploration Fund has been at work here, revealing amongst other buried buildings the site of the great market, or forum, a vast place, at a guess six hundred yards or so in length by some two hundred broad. This mart was surrounded by colunms of Egyptian granite ; there they lie in every direction, shattered, doubtless, by the earth- quake in the time of Constantino. What labour and money it must have cost to set them here. Along one 170 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE side of this public ground, which in its day must have been magnificent indeed, probably beneath the shelter of the colonnade, there seems to have been a row of shops, whereof some of the name or broken advertisement boards carved on marble in Greek letters are still lying here and there. Perhaps this was the Burlington Arcade of Salamis, but oh ! where are the Arcadians ? It is wonderful, in a sense it is almost terrifying, to look at this empty stone-strewn plain with its tall yellow- flowered weeds, its solitary fungus-hunter, its prostrate colonnades ; its mounds that once were walls, its depres- sions which once were gates, its few scattered sheep and goats hungrily seeking for pasture among the coarse growth that in every cHme springs up where mankind has had his home ; its choked harbour, and then to close our living, physical eyes and command those of the mind to look backward through the generations. Behold the great glittering sea alive with galleys, the hollow port filled with rude trading vessels from the coasts of Italy, Syria, Greece, and Egypt. Look down from this high spot upon the thousands of flat, cemented roofs, pierced by narrow streets roughly paved and crowded with wayfarers and citizens standing or seated about their doors. Yonder, a mile away upon the hill beyond the harbour, stands a lovely building supported and surrounded with columns of white marble, between which appear statues, also of white marble. It is the temple of Venus, and those gaily - decked folk advancing to its portals are pilgrims to her shrine. Turn, and here and here and here are other temples dedicate to other gods, all dead to-day, dead as their worshippers. And this market at our feet, it hums like a hive of bees. There law-courts are sitting ; see the robed pleaders, each surrounded by a little following of anxious, eager clients. There to the south on the paved place clear of buildings, except the marble shelters for the auctioneers, two sales are in progress, one of human THE SIEGE AND SALAMIS 171 beings and one of beasts of burden. There again in the shadow of the colonnade is the provision mart where butlers, eunuchs, and housewives haggle loudly with peasants and fishermen. At yonder shop several young men of fashion and a white-robed woman or two with painted eyes inspect the marvellous necldace wrought by the noted jeweller named — ah ! his name escapes us. He neglected to write it in his tomb whence last year Mr. Christian took this golden collar that the artist would not part with save at a price which none of those gallants or their loves could pay. Hark now to the shouting ! Why do those gorgeously attired runners, followed by outriders clad in uncouth mail, push a way through the crowd beat- ing them with their wands of office ? The king — the king himself drives down the street to pass along the market towards that temple at its head, where he will make an offering because of the victory of his arms over certain enemies Ln the mountains. He is a splendid-looking figure, shining with gold and gems, but very sick and weary, for this king loves the rich Cyprian wine. But such pictures are endless, let us leave them buried every one beneath the dust of ages. Our lamp is out, only the blank duD sheet is there; about us are ruins, sky and sea, with the fungus-pickers, the yellow- flowered weeds and the wandering sheep — no more. Wliat a sight must that have been when great Salamis fell at last, shaken down, hurled into the sea, sunk to the bowels of the earth beneath the awful sudden shock of earthquake. Those mighty columns shattered Uke rods of glass tell us something of the story, compared to which the burying of Pompeii under its cloak of flaming stone was but a trivial woe. But each reader must fashion it for himself My version might not please him Not far away from the forum or market are baths. One can still see portions of their mosaic floor, polished by the feet of many thousand bathers, and the flues that 172 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE warmed the water. Further on is the site of the great reservoir with remains of the aqueduct that filled it. As one may still see to-day its waters must have been dis- tributed along the streets by means of little marble channels at their sides, a poisonous practice that doubt- less bred much sickness, since they were open to every contamination. It would be interesting to know what was the death-rate in these old places. I imagine that it would appal us. The necropolis of Salamis, as Mr. Percy Christian informed me sadly, has never yet been discovered. He showed me, however, where he believed it to be, under certain drifted sand-heaps near the temple of Venus and the seashore, but outside the walls of the city. If so, there it will rest till the British Museum ransacks it, since private persons may dig no longer. Then what treasures will appear ! The gathered wealth of forty or fifty generations of the citizens of one of the richest cities of the ancient world, or such portions of it as its owners took with them to their tombs — nothing less. If only all the multitudes which once inhabited these walls could rise again before our eyes and in their com- pany those of the other dead cities of Cyprus ! The great Messaoria plain would be white with the sea of their faces and alive with the flash of their eyes. There would be no standing-room in Cyprus ; the millions of them would overflow its shores and crowd the brow of ocean further than the sight could follow. What has become of them ? Where can there be room for them — ^even for their ghosts ? I suppose that we shaU find out one day, but meanwhile the problem has a certain uncanny fascination. Perhaps the stock is really strictly limited and we are their ghosts. That would account for the great interest I found in Salamis, which most people, especially ladies, think a very dull place, duller even than Famagusta. Perhaps the most interesting relic of all those at THE SIEGE AXD SALAMIS 173 Salamis is that ruin of the fane of Cypris which is set upon a hill. There is, however, not much to be seen except broken columns of the purest white marble, and here and there the fragments of statues. But the shape of the temple can still be traced ; its situation, overlook- ing the sea upon a rising mount where grow asphodel, anemones, and other sky-blue flowers of whose name I am ignorant, is beautiful, and the sighs of a million lovers who worshipped Venus at this altar still seem to linger in the soft and fragrant air. When we reached home again a lady, our fellow- guest, described to me the ceremony of a Turkish wedding to which she had been invited that afternoon. I will not set down its details second-hand, but the bride, she said, was a poor Uttle child of eleven who had to be lifted up that the company might see her in her nuptial robes and ornaments. The husband, a grown man, is reported to be an idiot. It seems strange that such iniquities, upon which I forbear to comment further, can still happen under the shadow of the British flag. This reminds me of another Turkish ceremony. On the day that we left Famagusta, at the conclusion of our visit, for Nicosia, we halted a while to breathe our horses in the village of Kouklia, where, by the way, there is a beautiful leaking aqueduct that is covered with maidenhair fern. While I was admiring the ferns and the water that dripped among them, a Turkish funeral advanced out of the village, which at a respectful distance we took the liberty of following to the burial-ground. The corpse, accompanied by a motley crowd of mourners, relatives, sight-seers, and children, was laid imcoffined upon a rough bier that looked like a large mortar-board, and hidden from sight beneath a shroud ornamented with red and green scarves. Upon arrival at the graveyard, an unkempt place, with stones innocent of the mason's hammer marking the head and foot of each grave and serving as stands for pumpkins to dry on in the sun. 174 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE the dead man was carried to a primitive bench or table made of two slabs set upright in the ground about seven feet apart, and a third laid on them crossways. Here, while a woman sitting on a little mound at a distance, set up a most wild and melancholy wail for the departed, a priest, I know not his proper appellation, stepping forward began to offer up prayers to which the audience made an occasional response. The brief service con- cluded, once more the body was lifted and borne round the cemetery to its grave, that seemed to be about three feet six inches in depth. Here it was robbed of its gay- coloured scarves, of which a little child took charge, and after a good deal of animated discussion, lowered into the hole in a sitting posture with the help of two linen bands that one of the company unwound from about his middle. Then while a sheet was held over the corpse, as I suppose to prevent its face from being seen, some of the mourners arranged planks and the top of an old door in the grave above it, perhaps to keep it from contact with the earth. At this point we were obliged to leave as the carriage waited, and I am therefore unable to say if there was any further ceremony before the soil was finally heaped over the mortal remains of this departed and, I trust, estim- able Turk. Then we drove on across a grey expanse relieved now and again with patches of rich green barley breaking into ear. On our right the rugged, towering points of the five-fingered mountain called Pentadactylon, stood out above the black clouds of a furious storm of wind and rain which overtook us. Still we struggled forward through its gloom, till at length the sun shone forth, and in the glow of evening we saw the walls, palms and minarets of the ancient and beautiful city of Nicosia. CHAPTER XIII NICOSIA AND KYKENIA Nicosia looks little changed since first I saw it many years ago. The trees that were planted in portions of the moat by the governor of that day, Sir Henry Bulwer, have grown into considerable timbers, though, by the way, those set upon the rocky soU round the wooden Government House have not flourished as I hoped they would. Also the narrow streets are somewhat cleaner and more wholesome, if any Eastern town where all household slops are thrown out into the gutters or gardens can be called wholesome ; that is about all. No, not quite all, for sundry houses have arisen outside the new city, pretty dwellings with gardens round them, inhabited for the most part by officials, and the old Konak, or Turkish government ofiice, after standing for some six hundred years, has been in great part pulled down, and is now a gaping ruin. This seems to me a very wanton and ill- judged act, for the building had many beauties which can never be seen again. Indeed on second thoughts the authorities appear to have shared this view, since when it was pressed upon them by some local antiquaries, they desisted from their destroying labours, leaving the unique gateway untouched, though, unless something is soon done to support it, not, I fear, for long. Now it is a sheltering place for wanderers, at least I found the blackest woman I ever saw, in bed there, who as I passed made earnest representations to me, in an un- known tongue, to what purpose I was unable to discover. It seemed odd to find so very black a person reposing 176 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE thus in the middle of the day beneath that draughty antique portal. Otherwise all is the same ; even many of the government officers remain, like myself grown somewhat older, although death and migrations to a better post have removed several familiar faces. I think it was on the day after our arrival that we started with our hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Hart Bennett, on a visit to Kyrenia, the beautiful little seaport which lies across the northern mountains. Our plan was to drive to the foot of these mountains and thence to ride on mule-back to the wonderful old castle of Hilarion, set high upon its almost inaccessible crags. We never got there, however, for the rain stopped us. In my case this did not so much matter, for I had visited the place before, but to my nephew it was a great disappointment. The country between Nicosia and the mountains is very curious and desolate. Here the strata seem to have been tilted on edge by some fearful convulsion in the beginnings of the world, so that more than anything else they resemble long lines of military trenches of brown earth lying behind each other in numberless succession, and topped, each of them, with a parapet of rock. On arriving at the police-station near the foot of the mountains, we halted to lunch in the company of friends who had ridden out from Kyrenia. Our meeting-place should have been Hilarion, but as I have said the rain stayed us. To climb up into the bosom of that black cloud seemed too forbidding, and had we done so the castle is sheltered by no roof beneath which we could have picnicked. Nobody seems to know who built Hilarion or who lived there. Mr. Alexander Drummond, writing in 1754, tells us that it is said to have been fortified by one of the Lusignan queens, Charlotta, who was obliged to shelter there when a usurper called James the Bastard, as I think, her half-brother, had been established on the NICOSIA AND KYRENIA 177 throne by the " Egyptian Power." Cesnola writes also that it was a stronghold of the Lusignans and used by them as a state prison. Lastly, I remember that when I was there in past years, a well-informed gentleman told me that it had once stood a siege and been captured, whereon three hundred persons, men, women, and chil- dren, were hurled from a particularly hideous height into a chasm of the mountains. I do not know if there is any foundation for this legend. At least the place, which still boasts some lovely windows and a huge cistern for the storage of soft water, is very wonderful, set as it is so high among those giddy peaks. With what infinite toil, cost, and pains must some old tyrant have reared its towers. Their style by the way is Gothic. When the rain began to slacken I went for a walk, to look at a wood of young trees which some enterprising gentleman has planted here. They are doing well, and among them I was so fortunate as to find the bee orchis of our shores in flower. Also, as I think I have said upon a previous page, to my delight I observed that all the steep-flanked mountains round are becoming clothed again with forests of young fir. In the afternoon, the weather now being fine, we started for Kyrenia on the mules, some of us taking a rough ride across country to visit Bella Pais — or De la Paix as it is called by Cornelius van Bruyn, who wrote about 1693, and other authors— the old Lusignan abbey which stands in the village of Lapais, to my mind the most beautiful spot in all Cyprus. I am not, how- ever, certain that it was an abbey. Drummond (1745) questions this, saying that he supposes it to have been " the grand commanderie of the island owned by one of the knightly orders." He finds corroboration of his view in the name Delia Pays, derived, he says, from the Italian Delia Paese, though how this proves that the building was a commanderie I am at a loss to understand. I confess, however, to a certain curiosity as to the true M 178 A WINTER PILGRIMAGE designation of the ruin. De la Paix means, of the peace ; de la Pays, of the country; Bella Pais, beautiful peace; Bella Paese, beautiful country. Whatever may have been the ancient form, the last and modern reading seems the most appropriate. The building is as I remember it years ago, only somewhat more dilapidated. Certain cracks are wider, certain bits of wall have fallen, its end draws more near. This indeed must come within the next few generations unless the Government will find money to restore one of its most beautiful possessions. At present, as I assured myself by personal inquiry, it is not the wUl that is wanting, but the means. While the British Treasury grabs at every farthing of surplus revenue, Cyprus has no funds wherewith to preserve her ancient and mediaeval monuments. The place cannot have changed much during the last two centuries. Indeed van Bruyn's description of it might almost pass to-day. One thing that struck him, I remember struck me also. Talking of the underground chamber or crypt, he says " one might fancy it all built live or six years ago.'' Even now, over two hundred years later, the masonry is extraordinarily fresh. Also he speaks of a certain very tall cypress. I think that tree, a monster of its kind, is still standing, at least it stood fourteen years ago. Owing to the circumstances under which we left the abbey, on this visit I had no time to seek out its gracious towering shape. It is difficult to describe such a building as Bella Pais, for to give a string of measurements and architectural details serves little — out of a guide-book. Much it owes to the wonderful charm of its situation. In the solemn old refectory, a beauteous chamber, leading I think to the reader's pulpit, is a little stair in the seaward wall, and at the head of this stair a window, and out of that window a view. If I were asked to state what is the most lovely prospect of all the thousands I have studied in different M^i^^^ NICOSIA AND KYRENIA 179 parts of the world, I think I should answer — That from the little window of the refectory of the Abbey of Bella Pais in Cyprus. Around are mountains, below lie woods and olive groves and bright patches of green corn. Beyond is the blue silent sea, and across it, far away but clearly out- lined, the half-explored peaks and precipices of Kara- mania. I said it was difficult to describe an ancient building, but who can describe a view which so many things combine to perfect that can scarcely be defined in thought, much less in words ? The thousand colours of the Eastern day drawing down to night, the bending of the cypress tops against the sky, the slow flash of the heav- ing ocean in the level rays of simset, the shadows on the mighty mountain tops, the solemnity of the grey olives, the dizzy fall of the precipice, the very birds of prey that soar about it — all these are parts of that entrancing whole. But what worker in words can fit them into their proper place and proportion, giving to each its value and no more ? In this refectory they show rings in the wall where Turks stabled their horses when they took the island ; also many holes at one end caused, the old native custodian swore, with buUets fired in sport by British soldiers who were quartered here at the time of the occupation. I like to think, however, that the Turk is responsible for these also, and not Mr. Atkins. I went to look at the old chapel, not the building now used as a Greek church, which we also visited. This chapel is quite in ruins, and weeds grow rankly among the stones that doubtless hide the skeletons of the priests and Templars who once bent the knee upon them. The cloisters still remain with their charming pillared arcades and the marble sarcophagus of which all the old travellers talk. Now the quadrangle they en- close is a grove of oranges which have been planted since my last visit. In van Bruyn's day it was a garden, and 180 A "WINTER PILGRIMAGE some other voyager a century or so later talks of it as a barley patch. Perhaps the Templars used it as a court set out with flower-beds and fountains. By the time that we had finished our inspection the rain set in again and night was near. For a while we waited under the shelter of the cloisters hoping that it would stop, but at length made up our minds to a soaking and started. We were not disappointed ; it poured, and that is why in the gathering gloom I was unable to look out for my old friend the cypress tree. Moreover the road, or rather the track, was awful and my mule, a proud and high-stomached beast which had waxed fat on green barley, one of the laziest I ever rode. My belief is that he had been accustomed to carry baggage, not men, and baggage mules have their pace. At least being innocent of spurs I could not get him along, and to make matters worse, at every slippery or awkward place he stumbled out of sheer idleness, once very nearly falling in a mud-hole three feet deep. What between the mule, the rain, and the cold, it was, I confess, with joy that at last we dismounted at the door of our host Mr. Tyzer, the judge for the district of Kyrenia. Before finally bidding farewell to Bella Pais there is one point which I will mention, in the hope that the matter may be looked into, that is, if I am not mistaken in my surmise. While riding through the village my companions and I observed the strangely unhealthy appearance of the children, indeed I am sure that several of these poor, hollow-eyed little creatures are, or were, not long for this world. Now as the site is so high and wholesome, I imagine that their ill looks must be accounted for in some other way. Perhaps the water is contaminated. The sights at Kyrenia, now vastly improved from what it used to be, are the harbour and the old Venetian fortress. Also in former days there was a Phoenician rock-cut tomb with the skeleton of the occupant in situ * ^ tor >V*-''?^ |j^~ '^f*«;^4.^ ^^ Jli*:ii;ii I.S