CHAPTER XIV.

In judging of such acts as the intervention of Russia, we have no standard but success, and the greater or less fitness of one of the participants to rule; but from the point of view from which I must look at it, the conduct of Russia seems to me as the most base, cruel, and politically dishonorable which I have ever known, being, as it was, practised on a wretched people, co-religionary, whose sufferings had been extreme, and which, being offered a tangible and not inconsiderable concession in return for its efforts, was only induced to refuse it from faith in Russian promises of better things.

A'ali Pasha landed on the 4th of October, and on the 13th Captain Murray reported to his Government: "The insurgents have thrown away a golden opportunity in the advent of A'ali Pasha, for I believe, short of annexation, they might have anything they asked for. Whether the concessions would be temporary or not, is a matter of opinion; but his mission has completely failed." This was clear to all, and in December following, the highest Christian functionary of the Turkish Government in the island said to me: "We have got to come to the principality with a Christian prince, and that before it is too late to gain even that--we have nothing to hope for from arms."

Yet in a desultory way fighting went on. Omar Pasha went home in disgrace on the 11th of November, but left for his successor, Hussein Avni, a plan for paralyzing the insurrection, by lines of block-houses running across the island and cutting it into three principal parts, each of which was then to be subdued in turn. But if the Cretans had been weakened by the withdrawal of the most of the volunteers, the Turks were enfeebled by sickness and extreme dejection, and the war was languidly carried on, the Turks maintaining themselves within their fortified lines and now and then making a sortie on some bold party of insurgents, the principal affair of the winter being an attack on Zurba, on the 13th of December, which was, like all the previous ones on the village, repulsed with disaster. And under such auspices--the insurrection, less disputed on its ground than at any previous period, holding posts within sight of Canéa; the hospitals of the island filled with sick troops (at and about Canéa alone were an average of 3,000 in the hospital, with unexampled mortality from hospital gangrene and fevers, and the funerals ranging from ten to twenty per day); supplies very low, and the troops only paid three months' pay for the last twenty--the year 1867 went out and the third year of the insurrection came in. And all through the spring and summer this state of things continued, neither the Government nor the insurrection capable of making the feeble effort necessary to extinguish the forces of the other. We in the Turkish lines suffered almost as much as if we were in a besieged town, for supplies from the interior were cut off, and they came not by sea; meat was very dear and poor, vegetables rare and sometimes unattainable, so that I was shut up in my house for three months with a scorbutic malady. What the unfavored must have suffered may be conceived. Despondency and gloom were dominant in all official circles. Building of block-houses went on slowly, but there were not troops enough left in the island to garrison all that were planned, while on the other hand the Hellenic Government gave only assistance enough to keep the insurgents from surrendering, and the Greeks from revolution, which would have been the most probable result of the open abandonment of the insurrection. In August of this year, I had unmistakable proof of the reality of the insurrection, having witnessed a skirmish between Zurba and Lakus, and narrowly escaped being taken prisoner near Theriso, with some of my colleagues and several officers of the men-of-war in port, Mr. Dickson and a portion of our excursion party having been actually captured by Hadji Mikhalis' forces within an hour's walk of Canéa.

This season brought no change in the military position, there being a gradual weakening of the army until only about 5,000 regulars were disposable for field operation, and a total of less than 17,000 were reported to me by Turkish officers as the effective remaining from 82 battalions of Turkish troops, which with 22,000 Egyptians were the regular forces employed since the commencement of the insurrection, and of which only 10,000 of the latter had been since sent home otherwise than as sick or wounded.

In September of 1868 I left Crete under medical orders, and with the impression, generally felt in Crete, that the Hellenic Government was about abandoning the insurrection. On arriving at Athens, where I determined to wait the result, I found the Cretan committee so far convinced of the bad faith of the Bulgaris government that they meditated resignation _en masse_ as an appeal to the people, and to discharge themselves of all responsibility for the impending collapse of the revolt. The Minister of Foreign Affairs soon after waited on me at my house to beg me to use my influence with the committee to persuade them to hold on, assuring me in the most earnest manner that the Government had no intention of withdrawing its support from the Cretans, and that it intended organizing an expedition on a most effective scale to reassure and reanimate the movement; and that it had the intention of directing this organization officially to ensure its efficiency.

Meanwhile the Provisional Government of the island had made an earnest appeal to Coroneos to return and assume the command-in-chief of the insurrection, and he had prepared a plan by which he was confident of keeping up the war through another winter by a judicious employment of Cretan forces. His plan was accepted by the committee, but, on being laid before the Government, was rejected under the pretence that the sum demanded (£10,000) was beyond its means, and it proceeded without reference to the committee to organize at more than double the expense an expedition under the old Mainote palikari, Petropoulaki, in so open and undisguised a manner that, with most other friends of the Cretans, I was convinced that it was meant to give Turkey an opportunity to _brusquer les choses_ by (what Greece had hitherto avoided) _open_ violation of international law.

Every subsequent movement of the Government confirmed me in this opinion. The bands paraded the streets openly with the Cretan flag; were furnished with artillery from the national arsenal; and embarked in two detachments for Crete, unmolested by any of the Turkish ships, though all the world knew when and where they were going; on landing they sent back the artillery, and not only made no offensive movement, but did not even defend themselves; the smaller detachment being cut to pieces in a few days, the other, fleeing in disorder to the plain of Askyfó, made overtures at once for surrender, carrying with them in their defection most of the Cretans of the western provinces. There still remained in the eastern provinces a strong nucleus of insurrection undismayed even by this apparent disaster, and capable of rallying 5,000 men. In compliance, however, with what has always seemed to me a preconcerted plan between the Porte and Bulgaris, Hobart Pasha, the new English commander of the Turkish fleet, waylaid the _Ennosis_ blockade-runner in Greek waters on her return from Crete, and pursued her into the port of Syra, where he blockaded her with the whole squadron, leaving the coast of Crete utterly unguarded, though there were still three good steamers at the disposal of the committee. But in the new excitement of this patent outrage on international law the Bulgaris government found its opportunity to withdraw all support from Crete, and, while public opinion was diverted to the not slight chances of war with Turkey, further supplies to the insurrection were cut off and it collapsed almost without notice.

In all this shaping of events there was no disguising the control of the Russian Government. The insurrection became a menace to bring on the Eastern question, for which Russia was not yet ready, and which she could not permit to be brought on under Hellenic auspices. The moment could not have been more auspiciously chosen for Greece to carry on a war with the Ottoman empire, and public opinion in Greece was unanimous in favor of this emergency rather than abandoning Crete, be the risks and event what they might. The Turkish army was already fully occupied--a further levy of troops would have been perilous, and Joseph Karam waited at Athens the signal to arouse the Lebanon. The Greeks had little money, but the Turks had comparatively less, for their army and navy had not been paid, were discouraged and mutinous, and the treasury was empty. Egypt was hostile, the Principalities ready to revolt. My own opinion then was, and is still, that if Greece had gone to war she had a reasonable chance of victory--not without disasters or great sacrifices, but her history has shown that she is capable of enduring both the one and the other; and if Russia had been friendly to her in this crisis, success would have been _most_ probable. The Bulgaris administration, its object gained in the suppression of the insurrection, was in its turn overthrown by the popular indignation at the discovered trick, but when the diplomatic flurry had passed, and tranquillity had returned to the Ægean, we had only to see drift over to the shores of their kindred land the débris of one of the best justified and best deserving revolts against misgoverning tyranny which modern history has recorded. All was quiet in Crete.

THE YEAR AFTER THE WAR.

The last year of the war I had left Crete on a leave of absence of two months, which was extended indefinitely by Mr. Washburn, then Secretary of State, on account of the health of my family; but in April my wife, broken by the hardships of our Cretan life and sick-bed watching; and dejected greatly by the loss of a cause in which she had the most passionate sympathy, and by the misery of the unhappy Cretans around us, became insane and ended her life.

Simultaneously, Mr. Fish, now become Secretary of State, removed me from the consulate at the request of the Turkish Government, and in June I went to Crete to hand over the consular effects to my successor, and, on the petition of the Cretan chiefs still remaining in Athens, to obtain, if possible, some mitigation of the measures which prevented them from repatriating themselves. I found the island as I had left it, in peace indeed, but the peace of destruction and paralysis. Roads were being made, and block-houses being constructed, but no houses being rebuilt, and the roads were all military. The new Governor-General seemed amiable, just, and good-willed, but in Turkish disorganization the best will does not go far. The subordinates of the local administration were the spies, the traitors, and "loyal" people of the war, with rancors to vent and revenges to take. There was nothing to rob the people of, but there remained prisons and persecutions.

I found, naturally enough, all my efforts with the Governor useless, and that the condition of things made return unsafe for any one who had taken a prominent part in the war; and so, despairing of finding any opening, I was about to return to Athens without awaiting my successor, but before going decided to make that visit to Omalos and Samaria which the insurrection had stopped and the state of hostilities ever since had rendered impracticable from the Turkish posts.

Even when peace had been restored and not a recusant fugitive remained in the mountain hiding-places, the local authorities could with difficulty reconcile themselves to the idea of my going there; and it was only after the failure of several petty intrigues to prevent my getting away, that they determined to pass to the other extreme and do handsomely what they could not avoid doing. I set out in the dawn of a July day with an officer of the mounted police, a chosen and trusty man, with one private of the same force and my own cavass. The private rode a hundred yards ahead _en vidette_ against any attack on the official dignity by unknowing peasant or unheeding patrol or straggler of the faithful, and discharged his duty on the road to my complete satisfaction, no countermarching troops daring to hold the narrow way to the detriment of the consular dignity. The lawlessness of the Turkish administration in Crete has kept alive, more than in most of the Christian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, the power of and respect for foreign officials. Just as much as the unjust Governor dreads the inspecting eye and the exposing blue-book, so much the Rayah hopes from them, and honors the Effendi as the Turk curses the Ghiaour; and so in Crete the extreme of official deference is kept up, corresponding to the degree of official oppression hitherto obtaining.

So, when my _avant-courrier_ announced to the awkward squad of Anatolian infantry, ragged, sullen, that the "Consolos Bey" demanded the road, a savage frown of unwelcome gleamed through the disciplinary respect; while the shouting, chattering groups of Christian peasants ambling along on the mules and donkeys, with their little loads of fowls or oil for the market at Canéa, were generally arrested by the summons of the guard, and drew up respectfully at the roadside, the most respectful dismounting until I had passed.

The road for ten or twelve miles runs westward over a level plain, the ancient bed of the Iardanos, by whose banks we know, from Homer, that the Cydonians dwelt. The fact that the Iardanos (now called Platanos, from the immense plane-trees growing on its banks) now empties into the sea ten miles from Canéa, has puzzled geographers to reconcile Cydonia with Canéa; but, on arriving at the point where the river debouches into and cuts across the plain, it will be seen that the new channel to the sea has been cut through the hills by the action of the river, and that the ancient course was evidently eastward through the still marshy plain into the bay of Suda, passing close to the position of Canéa.

The roads in Crete are marked with historical associations of all ages, as the Appian Way with recollections of the great dead. The town that we pass, near the mouth of the Platanos, was the ancient Pergamos, whither Lycurgus, to evade the possibility of his laws being revoked, banished himself, where he died, and was buried. The town which we enter as we cross the Platanos at the ford is Alikianu, the scene of that atrocious and perfidious massacre of which I have told the story. It is a town of half ruinedd villas--some, of the Venetian days--buried in orange-trees, and so surrounded with olive groves that but little of it can be seen from the river. The road we must follow only skirts it, following the river, until it rises on a ridge of mountains, zigzag and undulating, up to Lakus. The Lakiotes are accounted among the bravest of the Cretans; and though military science, flank movements, and artillery made their town untenable in the late insurrection, it is still a formidable position. The village itself lies along under the summit ridge of the chain of hills which form a buttress to the Asprovouna, stretching north, with steep approaches from every side. It used to be a prosperous village, one of the largest in the island, but now its straggling houses were in ruins, two or three only having the roofs replaced, others having only a canopy of boughs laid over one end of the space enclosed by the blackened walls, enough to keep the dews off while the inhabitants slept, for rain never falls here through the summer months. All bespoke utter exhaustion and extreme poverty. The jaded, listless look of the people, the demoralization of war and exile, most of them having been of the refugees in Greece, the ravage and misery of all surroundings, made a picture which never has passed from my memory.

In the first capture by Mustapha Pasha, Lakus was taken by surprise and a flank movement of the Turkish irregulars, the Lakiotes having only time to secure their most valuable and portable goods and bury the church-bell, retiring up the mountain slopes beyond, firing a few shots of defiance as they went. When A'ali Pasha arrived in Crete, he ordered the reconstruction of the church of Lakus, demolished by the Turks at the capture of the village, and the primates were ordered to find the bell. Declining to know its whereabouts, they were thrown into prison, to lie until they did, a few days of which treatment produced the desired effect, and the bell was hung over the reconstructed church. That afternoon notes of compulsory joy sounded from the belfry, and the insurgents from the ridge of Zourba opposite came down to the brink of the ravine to ask who had betrayed the bell. Their submitted townsmen replied by an avowal of the _modus operandi_ of getting at the required knowledge; and the "patriots" replied, "Ring away. We will come and ring it to-night." And agreeably to promise, a band of insurgents came across the ravine at midnight, carried off the bell, and, hanging it on a tree near Zourba, rang the night out. The Turkish guard, which occupied the block-house in the village, scarcely thought it worth while to risk the defence of the bell, if indeed they knew of its danger.

At Lakus I had made my plans to breakfast and pass the noon-heat, but I had reckoned without my hosts, for, on "pitching my tent" and sending out my cavass to find a lamb to roast, I found evidence of the inroads of civilization--I could not get one for less than three pounds sterling--about fifteen times the usual price, and a sure attempt at swindle based on my supposed necessities. Fortunately my escort had amply provided themselves, and we had bread and cheese, caviar and coffee, to stay our appetites until we should reach Omalos, where were a garrison and an army butcher. So I ate my modicum of what they gave me, smoked my cigarette, and tried to doze, while the chattering villagers, holding themselves aloof in reminiscent dread of the Moslem, mingled their hum with that of the bees from the hives near us. My "tent" was an ancient mulberry-tree above, and a Persian carpet beneath; and, though I tried to sleep away the time, I did nothing but listen to the story my cavass, Hadji Houssein, was telling his companions of the adventure we had had the year before in the valley below, and which, lest he have not given the true version, I will tell as it happened.

In the bottom of the valley at our feet lies the village of Meskla, built along the banks of the Platanos, where it is a pure, cold, rushing mountain brook, of which, in any other part of the world, the eddies would have been alive with trout, but in which now there are only, as in all other Cretan rivers, eels. A party of official personages in Canéa, including her Britannic Majesty's consul, myself, the American ditto, with the captain and officers of the English and French gunboats on the station, and an English colonel in the Turkish army, had made a picnic party to Meskla, in August of the last year of the war. The Turkish troops held Lakus and Omalos and the western bank of the Platanos down to the plain; but the insurgents still remained in possession of all the northern spurs of the Asprovouna, from Lakus east for twenty miles, including Zourba; and, while we drank toasts and ate our roast-lamb under the plane-trees by the river, a perpetual peppering of rifles was going on from the hill-tops on each side of the valley above. Was it fighting, or was it fun? I began to climb one of the nearest spurs on the Turkish side of the ravine to see, and, not to be suspected of both sides, took my way to the picket of Turkish irregulars, which, sheltered by a group of trees on the summit, was firing across the valley in a desultory way. As I showed myself in one of the windings of the path to the patriots at Zourba, I saw the smoke-puff of a rifle on the edge of a ravine, and the ball glanced along the rocks within three feet, spattering the lead over me in a most convincing way. I naturally made a flank movement, which shortly degenerated into the retrograde of a satisfied curiosity.

The incident had a side interest to the whole party, for it showed us that the road we proposed to take might be dangerous, the more as we had a Turkish officer and his two attendants in uniform in our company. We had purposed following the river up still higher, and then crossing the ridge to Theriso.

Consulting one of the submitted Meskliotes, who waited his chance for the _débris_ of the picnic, we were informed that it would be very far from safe to follow our proposed route, which was exposed in its whole line to the chance of shots from the main mountain ridge; but he offered to guide us by a road running along the side of the ridge furthest from the insurgents, and where he could warn any outposts of them that we were coming. This road was a fair sample of those which existed in Crete before the war, a mere bridle-path scratched in the slope of a huge landslide, which rose above us two or three hundred feet, and descended three or four times that distance into the bed of the Platanos. Part of it was too dizzy and dangerous to ride, and we led our beasts hesitating and hobbling along. We were soon amongst the outposts of the insurgents, as we had unmistakable evidence on arriving at Theriso, where we found a detachment of a dozen or more rough, motley-looking fellows, armed with all kinds of guns, and clad in all ways except well. They looked askance at our fez-wearing colonel and his two cavalrymen, but from respect for the consular presences respected _their_ persons. We drank with them at the spring, exchanged identifications, and pursued our way down the celebrated ravine, the scene of two terrible disasters to the Turkish army during different insurrections. Nothing can be more uncomfortable, in a military point of view, than one of these Cretan ravines. Cut in the limestone rock by the glacier torrents of ages, zigzag in their courses, and shut between abrupt ridges, with no road but an unsatisfactory bridle-path, the troop which is incautious enough to enter without crowning the heights on each side as it advances is certain to be hemmed in, and to be severely treated by a comparatively small foe or exterminated by a large one.

We had delayed too long, and, as we entered the most precipitous portion of the ravine, the red sunlight on the eastern cliffs told us that the sun, long shut from direct view, was sinking; and in our haste we missed the way, and fell into a vineyard-path, out of any line of travel. Immediately we heard voices hailing us from the hill-tops, to which we paid no attention, thinking them the cries of shepherd-boys, and continued until we found ourselves in a maze of vineyards, and the path and sun gone at the same instant. Now the hailing began with bullets. The uniforms of our Turkish escort demanded explanation, and as our guides had left us at Theriso we were helpless. To go back and explain was to be a better mark, and to march ahead, anywhere, was our only chance. Unfortunately, Hadji, who carried my hunting rifle, considered it his military duty to return the fire, and in a few moments, other pickets coming in, we had about forty sharpshooters popping away at us in the twilight. Our further passage was shut by an abrupt hillside, along which we must make a movement by the flank toward the road we had lost, and directly across the line of fire. The sound of the bullets suggested getting to cover, and as all path had now disappeared we dismounted and led our beasts at random, no one knowing where we were going or should go, and only aiming to turn the point of the ridge above us, to get out of the fire, which was increasing, and the pinging of Enfield bullets over our heads was a wonderful inducer of celerity. It was a veritable _sauve qui peut_. I saw men of war ducking and dodging at every flash and whistle in a way that indicated small faith in the doctrine of chances, according to which a thousand shots must be fired for one to hit. We found, at length, where the ridge broke down, a maze of huge rocks, affording shelter, but beyond was a deep declivity, down which in the dark we could see nothing; further on again was the river, along which the road led. We could hear the shouts and occasional shots of a detachment running down the road to intercept us, and another coming along the ridge above us. My mule was dead-beat, and could scarcely put one leg before another, and few others were better off. A short council showed two minds in the party--one to lie still to be taken, with the chance of a shot first; the other to push on for the road before the insurgents reached it. The only danger of any moment was to Colonel Borthwick and his Turks, who would be prizes of war, and to me the chance of a fever from lying out all night. The majority, nine, voted with me to go on, and, abandoning mules and horses, we plunged, without measuring our steps, down the slope, falling, slipping, tripping over rocks, in bogs, through overtopping swamp-grass, bushes (for the hillside was a bed of springs), pushing to strike the road before the insurgents should head us off, so as to be able to choose our moment for parleying. I knew if I could get there first, saving the chance, that all would be well; if a rash boy of fourteen saw me first, I might be stopped by a bullet before any explanation would avail.

Tired, muddy, reeking with perspiration, bruised on the stones, exhausted with haste and trepidation, we won the race, and halted behind a little roadside chapel to gather the state of things. Above, we heard voices of a colloquy, and knew that the remainder of the party were in safe custody, and our road was quiet. A short walk brought us to the outpost of the Turkish army, a village garrisoned by a couple of companies of regulars and a few Albanians. The commandant, a major, was outranked by Borthwick, who ordered him at once to send out a detachment to rescue Consul Dickson and his companions. The poor major protested and remonstrated, but in vain. "It was dangerous," he said; but the colonel insisted, he ordered out a detachment, and then called for pipes and coffee, after which, under a heavy escort, we started for Canéa. Borthwick obtained a battalion of the regulars in garrison, and started next morning at early dawn to rescue our friends; but no persuasion could induce the Turkish commander to enter the ravines. He posted his troops along the overlooking ridge and waited in ambush. I have it on Borthwick's word that, while the troops were lying concealed, under orders to keep the most profound silence, a hare started up at the end of the line, and the Turkish commander instantly ordered the first company to their feet, and to make ready, and was about to give the order to fire when a hound of the battalion anticipated the volley by catching the poor beast and despatching him on the spot.

Meanwhile, Dickson and his companions were in the hospitable hands of a party of Hadji Michali's men, and at about eight A.M. came down the road into view of the ambush, escorted by a guard of honor of insurgents, none the worse for their adventure, and bringing back our beasts and baggage; but nothing would induce the Turkish officer to go the mile separating him from the insurgent outpost which had fired on us.

While Hadji told his story to his admiring companions (he was an excellent _raconteur_, and put the whole of his barbaric soul into the narration, though his respect for the Effendi kept his voice low and quieted a little his camp manner), one or the other of the three made my cigarettes and brought me fire, and only when the sun began to sink from the meridian did we move on.

As we passed the blockhouse, I found that the General-in-Chief had preceded me, and given orders that the honors due to a consular personage--the same as those paid to a superior officer in their own army--should be carefully observed, and so we had the whole garrison of each blockhouse on the way out at the "Present arms!" The road not only zigzags going from Lakus to the plain of Omalos, but makes such ascents and descents as well accounted for the fruitlessness of so many attempts to enter the plain, which is a sort of portico to Samaria. But now a fair artillery road followed the ridges up to the very plain, and blockhouses covered with their fire every point where an ambush could be made, and those little glens, famous in Cretan tradition for extermination of Turkish detachments, will never again help native heroism against organized conquest. We passed, in one of the wildest gorges through which the road passes, a blockhouse perched high on a hill-top like an eyrie, a peripatetic atom on the parapet of which caught my eye, as a wild goat might have done amongst the cliffs around. As we came into sight, looking again, I saw the garrison swarming down the hillside amongst the rocks like ants, wondered what they were at, and rode on, when at another turn the officer said, "They salute, Effendi!" I looked around, and, only on his indication, saw drawn up in rank, hundreds of feet above me, a line of animalcules, which, by good eyesight, I could perceive was the whole garrison presenting arms, and they so continued presenting until, after turn upon turn of the road, they disappeared from view definitively, when I suppose they swarmed back to their fastness.

We passed through the ravine of Phokes, where Hadji Michali once caught a small detachment which incautiously attempted to penetrate to Omalos. I had heard the story of the fight, told at the time by an Albanian who was in it, in a brief but graphic way. The Christians waited invisible, he said, till the troops were in the bottom of the ravine, and then began to fire from many directions. The troops stopped, made a show of resistance, and then broke and made for the blockhouse at Lakus; "and those who couldn't run well never got there," he interjected laconically. He frankly admitted that he was so far in advance that he saw very little actual fighting, and made no halt, nor did any others, Mussulman or Christian, till they arrived at the door of the blockhouse, which he was surprised at their shutting in time to keep out the Christians.

It was well into the afternoon when we entered the plain of Omalos, evidently a filled-up crater, its level about five thousand feet above the sea. The snows and rains of winter and spring flood it, and as no stream runs from it the waters disappear by a Katavothron--a gloomy Acherontic recess--into whose crooked recesses the eye cannot pierce, and down whose depths is heard a perpetual cavernous roaring of water.

In the plain was no vestige of human habitation visible, except the tents of a battalion of regulars, and a two-story blockhouse on a spur of hill which projected into the plain. We rode into the camp, and were received with emphasis by the Pasha, who, with true Eastern diplomacy, expressed unbounded, surprise at my visit, "so entirely unexpected;" and, learning the result of my attempts at feeding in Lakus, called to the mess-boy to bring me the remains of the breakfast, apologizing abundantly, and informing me that I should be expected to dine with him and the commander of the post at eight. The residual breakfast, supplemented by a plate of kibaubs, the mutton-chop of the East, despatched; the ceremonial pipes and coffee finished, and the more than usually complimentary speeches said, the shadows meanwhile falling longer on the plain; I accepted the Pasha's offer of a fresh horse, and rode across to the famous descent into the glen of Samaria, the Xyloscala, so-called from a zigzag colossal staircase made with fir-trunks, and formerly the only means of descent into the glen. There was a detachment of troops building a blockhouse to command the upper part of the glen, and the commander kept me salaaming, coffee-taking, etc., until I saw that the sunlight was getting too red to give me time to explore the ravine, and I contented myself with a look from the brink down into the blue depths.

I doubt if, in the range of habitual travel, there is another such scene. It was as if the mountains had gaped to their very bases. In front of me were bare stony peaks 7,000 to 8,000 feet high, whose precipitous slopes plunged down unbrokenly, the pines venturing to show themselves in increasing number as the slope ascended, and ended in a narrow gorge. At the side, the rock rose like the aiguilles of Chamouny, cloven and guttered, with the snow still lying in its clefts, and broad fields of it on the opposite eastern peaks. I looked down through the pines and cedars that clung in the crevices of the rocks below me, and the bottom of the glen looked blue and faint in their interstices. The Xyloscala, destroyed by the insurgents at the beginning of the insurrection, was replaced by a laborious zigzag road, which sidled off under crags, and came back along slopes, blasted out of rock, and buttressed up with pines, seeming to me, where I stood, as if it finally launched off into mid-air, and would only help another Dædalus into the mystery of the labyrinth of pines and rock gorges below.

As I watched, the flame of the sunlight crept up the peaks across the glen, the purple-blue shadow following it up, changing the snow-fields from rosy to blue, and the peaks of pale-gray rock to russet, as the day died away. The chill of night reminded me to put my overcoat on. We rode back across the plain in the twilight, accompanied by the building gang, whose polyglot murmur was as cheerful and full of mirth as though they were peasants going home from the vintage.

Nothing can surpass the good-humor and patience of the Turkish soldier. Brutal and barbarous they doubtless were when their fanaticism and the rage of battle united to excite them, but in camp and in peace I have found them always models of the purely physical man.

Our dinner was luxurious, and in the true Eastern manner. The Pasha, the Bey commanding the place, and his aide-de-camp made four with me, and one dish, placed in the middle of the table, served our fingers or spoons according as the viand was dressed, each one of the four scrupulously adhering to his quadrant of the copper circle. The dinner was almost interminable; it was dark and cold when the end did come.

The soldiers, gathered round their camp some half a mile away, had eaten their suppers and were at ease, the shouting of their merriment coming to us occasionally above the general hum. Presently we saw them taking fir-branches, and, each lighting one at the nearest campfire, come running to us at full speed, making a long madcap procession of torch-bearers, the pitchy fir giving out an immense flame; and, making for the headquarters, followed by the battalion band playing, they threw their branches in a pile on a level space before the Pasha's tent, and then, turning to the right and left, sat down in a semicircle open towards us. A detachment was told off to keep up the fire, and a sort of glee club, accompanied by rude instruments, drums beaten by the hand, and a kind of flute and mandolin, commenced singing at the top of their voices the plaintive monotonous songs which all who have been in the East know.

This was the overture to a terpsichorean and dramatic entertainment most unique and amusing. The programme opened with a dance of Zebeques, the barbarous race who occupy the country behind Smyrna. They are wrapped in a sash from the armpits to the hips, with a sort of baggy knee-breeches, and bearing long knives thrust crosswise through their sashes. They formed a circle, and began a movement which seemed like a dance of men in armor, half stage-stride and half hop. The music struck up an appropriate air, and the dancers, joining in the song, circled slowly two or three times in the same staid and deliberate manner, then, drawing their knives, brandished them in time, quickening their pace, and hurrying around quicker and quicker as the song grew more excited, when they finally came to a climax of fury, rushing in on each other at the centre of the circle as if to cut each other down. But the raised knives were arrested by the opposing empty hands; and, the paroxysm passed, the song died down to its lower tone and moderate time, and the dance began a new movement, each dancer thrusting his knife into the ground at the centre, and then repeated the quickening circles; this time, rushing, at the climax, on their knives and drawing them from the earth, they threw themselves on an imaginary enemy outside the circle, and, having hypothetically demolished him, returned to their gyrations, varying the finale by lifting one of the company into the air on their hands, and dropping him simultaneously with their voices. This lasted half an hour.

After an intermission, in which the soldiers, unawed by the presence of the Pasha, laughed and joked and shouted to their content, a soldier entered the circle dressed as an Egyptian dancing woman. He was one of the tallest men in the regiment, capitally travestied, and all who have seen the dance of the Almah can imagine the bursts of laughter with which his grave, precise imitation of one of them was received by the circle. I have never seen anything more exquisitely ludicrous. His figure seemed lithe as a willow-wand, and he twisted and bent, and bowed and doubled, with the peculiar expression of physique which seemed impossible to any other than the slender Egyptian girl.

Roars of applause followed this performance, and the next was a pantomime--"The Honey-Stealers." Two men enter dressed as peasants, one carrying a gun on his back, and begin groping about as in the dark, run against each other, stumble and fall, and finally, by much listening, find a box, which had been placed to represent the hive. The thief lays down his gun to be more free in his motions, and a soldier runs into the circle and carries it off. Enter presently a third honey-seeker, blacked to represent a negro or some diabolical personage, it was impossible to say which, and, stumbling on the other two, an affray ensues, in the course of which the bees get disturbed, and come out in swarms, the luckless black getting the lion's share of the stings. At this moment an alarm is given, and the gunner misses his gun, upon which he falls on the black as the thief, and between the stings and the blows the intruder expires, the play ending with the efforts of the two living to carry out and dispose of the one dead, interfered with greatly by a spasmodic life remaining in the members, which refuse to lie as they are put. But this finally subsiding, the body is satisfactorily disposed of, and the pantomime gives way, amid the most uproarious laughter and applause, to a Circassian dance. The dancers were few, and the dance tame, and, not meeting any appreciation, gave way to a repetition of the Zebeque saltations, of which they seemed never disposed to tire.

The entertainment lasted till eleven o'clock, when, each soldier taking a branch of fir, the actors and audience raced off like a demoniac festival breaking up, the band following with a blare of trumpets and bang of drums, and we were left to our dignity and the dying embers of the theatre fire. Although in July, the night was so intensely cold that, sharing the Pasha's tent, and with all the covering he could spare me, in addition to my own Persian carpet over instead of under me, I was almost too cold to sleep, and the morning found me well disposed to put my blood in motion by vigorous exercise. Coffee served, we rode over to the Xyloscala, and, after more coffee-and-pipe compliments, we began the descent of the new zigzag road. It was so steep that no loaded beast could mount it, and it took me two hours' walk to get to the bottom, where the road straightens and follows the river, here a dancing, gurgling stream, rushing amongst boulders and over ridges, under overhanging pines, as though there were no tropics and the land had not had rain for two months. The whole gorge was filled with the balsamic odors of firs and pine, which covered the slopes wherever the rock would give them place; and above that, bare splintery cliffs overhung the gorge, so that it seemed that a stone would fall three thousand feet if thrown from the summit. A few Turkish soldiers, lazily felling or trimming pines for the blockhouses, were the only signs of humanity we saw. Above, in the pines, we heard the partridge's note, as the mother called to her young brood to follow her. The gorge widened to a glen; the slopes receded slightly, and then, after another hour of walking, we came to a sharp turn in its course, where the high mountains walled up the glen to the east with a sheer slope of five or six thousand feet from the peaks to the brook bed, and the rocks on each side shut in like the lintels of a doorway. Here is the little village of Samaria, so long the refuge of the women and children of this section of Crete, and where, so long as arms and food lasted, a few resolute men might have defended them against all comers. I doubt if in the known world there is such another fortress. No artillery could crown those heights, no athletes descend the slopes; while the only access from below is through the river-bed, in one place only ten feet wide, and above which the cliffs rise perpendicularly over a thousand feet; the strata in some places matching each other, so that it seems to have been a cloven gorge--the yawn of some earthquake, which suggested closing again at a future day--and for two hours down from the glen there is no escaping from the river course, except by goat-paths, and these such as no goat would care needlessly to travel.

Pashley has described the village of Samaria, and its magnificent cypresses and little chapel, as they are now. No destruction, no sacrilege, has entered there; and perhaps this is the only church in Crete, outside the Turkish lines of permanent occupation, which has not been desecrated. The roof of the chapel is made of tiles, which must date from the early Byzantine Empire.

The river below here, the St. Roumeli, is a rapid perennial stream, which at times of flood shuts off all travel by the road. Lower down is a tiny village of the same name as the river, in a gorge into which only an hour's sunlight can enter during the day--damp, chilly, and aguish--the residence of a half-dozen families of goat-herds. Pashley identifies a site near the mouth of the river as that of Tarrha, the scene of Apollo's loves with Acacallis, who, if bred in this glen, must have been of that icy temperament which should have best suited the professional flirt of Olympus.

To travellers who care to visit Samaria, I would give the hint to leave their horses at Omalos, and have a boat to meet them at the mouth of the St. Roumeli, as the ascent is long and painful, even by the new road, which, since I saw it the torrents may have demolished. They may thus visit the Port Phœnix of St. Paul, which lies a few miles to the eastward, and landing at Suia, west of St. Roumeli, have their horses come down by the pass of Krustogherako, and so return by way of St. Irene--a very wild pass of the Selinos mountains--to Canéa.

We had made no such provision, and so we were obliged to toil back in the intense heat of the July sun beating down into the gorge, and, arriving past noon, to be refreshed by sherbet and coffee by the hospitable commander of the station at Xyloscala, the snow of the sherbet being brought from the opposite cliff two hundred yards away, but an hour's climb to get to it. The commander was a more intelligent man than it is usual for Turkish officers to be, and he related how during the insurrection he had led a detachment round to the top of the opposing cliffs, and how when they got there they were like the twenty thousand men of the King of France, and had to come back by the way they went.

However, they have now a blockhouse at the Xyloscala, another at Samaria in sight and signalling of it, and a third at St. Roumeli, so that, for the future, there need be no doubt as to who holds the Heart of Crete.

The night's discomforts had been too great to allow me to spend another in Omalos, so, after a slight detour to look at the immense wild pear-trees which grow on the plains, we rode directly back to Canéa, accompanied by the Pasha. Meeting the priest of Lakus by the way, I gave the village a vicarious berating for having in such an ungrateful manner refused hospitality to a man who had been their advocate and friend so long, and whom they had obliged to go back to their enemies and his for a dinner. He seemed much ashamed, and the day after I received a profound apology from the primates pleading ignorance of my personality.

I improved the acquaintance with the Pasha (Mehmet Ali, "the Prussian," so-called from his race, though he was brought up from boyhood as a Mussulman), whom I found more intelligent and liberal than any Turkish official I had met with, except A'ali and Server Effendi, to introduce the condition of the chiefs of the insurrection remaining in exile, many of them old and worn out, afflicted with the nostalgia which mountain people know so well, and ready to submit unreservedly to the government. A nominal amnesty had been granted, relieving all from any political prosecution, but not from the civil suits for damages, etc., which might be brought against the chiefs who had taken sheep or cattle or destroyed any property. Two or three of the chiefs who had returned had already been thrown into prison on suits of this kind, and as the complainants were always adherents of the government through the war, and all the minor officials were of that class whose loyalty had been beyond question from the beginning, a civil suit had pretty much the same color as a political persecution. This state of things effectually prevented the return of any of the prominent personages of the insurrection, who, living in exile, were reasons of the strongest against the restoration of tranquillity, and made a convenient appliance for agitation and renewed strife on any disturbance of the political atmosphere of Europe.

My only interest was the restoration of the island to such peace as was possible, and this Mehmet Ali comprehended, and, throwing aside all hostility, he entered into the discussion of the positions, and on a subsequent interview begged me to go to Constantinople and place the matter before A'ali Pasha, to whom he gave me a letter of introduction.

I accordingly went to Constantinople, and was received in the kindest and most considerate manner by the Grand Vizier, to whom I stated at length my ideas of the difficulties of the pacification, and at his request made a memoir of all the facts and motives involved, with a description of the class of men to whom was entrusted the carrying out of the measures by which the Porte had hoped to conciliate the Cretans, embittered political and religious adversaries, full of wrath at the losses and indignities they had suffered, and more anxious to avenge their own wrongs than to secure the true interest of the Porte. He begged me to wait until he could send to Crete and obtain a report on my memoir, and, as he found on its receipt that my assertion was just, he promised to correct the abuses of administration, and proposed to me to go to Crete to superintend the carrying out of the measures which seemed necessary to restore the confidence of the late insurgents, pledging himself to accord complete immunity to any individuals whom I should designate as possessing my confidence, and offering me a stipend more than sufficient for all my needs in the service. I knew that so long as he was Grand Vizier I could depend on the fulfilment of these promises, but, in the event of any change of administration, the understanding between us would fail as between his successor and myself. I demanded, therefore, a comprehensive measure securing all the insurgents from civil suits on account of acts of war committed during the insurrection, as a condition of my acceptance of the official position thus created for me. This the Grand Vizier declared the government could not grant without assuming all the personal liabilities thus discharged, which he was not willing to recommend, and so, after several interviews and thorough discussion, I was obliged to decline the offer made me, much to my regret, for the islanders had ever a place in my regard, which, with the interest of common suffering and loss, the years of advocacy of rights kept back and redress denied, and perhaps the personal attachment I had found for me and mine in so many of them, disposed me to make any effort in my making to secure their good. But to engage my faith and influence with them on such uncertain grounds as the continuance in power of a Grand Vizier, or the maintenance of harmony between myself and the local administration, was too great a risk for a prudent man, unwilling to engage others in a position from which he might not have the power to extricate them.

It was with such a pain as the waiting of my own sentence of exile would have given me that I went to meet the old captains on my return to Athens, and told them that there was no hope of their repatriation through my efforts at least. I never shall forget the silent despair in the face of old Costa Belondaki, tall and straight under his seventy-odd years, white-haired, and meagre, but alert as a man of forty, as he turned from me when he got his sentence. As with his elder compatriots, the mountain nostalgia fevered him and the idle exile broke his spirit, but I could give him no hope that in his day European civilization or Turkish administration would be wise enough to economize his devotion to his country, and make use of rather than crush the spirit which makes Crete rebellious while its government is criminal.

APPENDIX.

[Translation.]

PETITION FROM THE LATE CRETAN GREEK ASSEMBLY TO THE SULTAN.

TO HIS IMPERIAL AUGUST MAJESTY, OUR SOVEREIGN ABDUL AZIZ KHAN.

MAJESTY: We, the humble undersigned, having been specially delegated by the whole Christian population of Crete to avail ourselves of the benevolent and philanthropic intentions which the Imperial Government have at all times evinced towards this island, now take the liberty to lay at the feet of your Imperial Majesty the following humble prayer, in the hope that the same may be favorably acceded to:

1. And in the first place, we humbly pray to be relieved from the exorbitant duties levied on all articles of food since the year 1858 up to this day. Contrary to the concessions made to us, verbally and in writing, not only have the duties in question been increased, but new ones have been added, namely, the duties on salt, tobacco, snuff, wine, and spirits, on land rents, porterage, on sales of real and personal property, on sales of animals in general, on weighing, on stamps (which last are particularly heavy), those on dyeing, on sales of fish and meat, etc., and, finally, various others which are onerous and unjust.

We are, moreover, able to prove by statistical accounts that within the last two years we have paid what, with duties and taxes, would exceed the amount of our incomes. Above all things, then, the system of taxation requires imperial solicitude, like unto the care a father would bestow on his dutiful children. The mode of levying duties also requires reform.

The system of farming in operation is not only vexatious and perplexing to the population, but is also baneful to the Imperial Government, inasmuch as the farmers, being bound in sureties, one for the other, at the time of the sale of the articles by public auction incur greater responsibility than they are able to meet when their obligations become due. Hence they oppress the taxpayer by fraudulently exacting more than they ought, while, on the other hand, they often quit the island secretly, thus both damaging their sureties and entailing loss on the public treasury.

The unequal system of levying the taxes in all the provinces of the island, which is contrary to the spirit of the Tanzimat published by the Imperial Government, and which latter secures equal rights to all your Imperial Majesty's subjects indiscriminately, also requires amending.

We humbly pray your Imperial Majesty that the district of Sfakia, hitherto exempt from taxation owing to the barrenness and sterility of its soil, may continue to enjoy the same privilege.

2. We humbly submit, for the consideration of your Imperial Majesty, the utter want of means of communication throughout the interior of the island, and the absence of bridges, whereby the conveying of produce from one part to another is materially impeded, and many persons are annually drowned in the rivers.

3. We humbly venture to submit to your Imperial Majesty that the concessions granted to us by your illustrious predecessor in 1858, through the medium of the distinguished delegates sent hither, be put into execution.

It is true that we possess a Demogerondia, Councils, and Heads of Communities ("Ephoria"), but when we are called upon to exercise the right of election, our charter, which to all appearances exists, becomes in fact a dead letter. We venture to suggest that the last Regulation, which refers to the mode of electing the members of the Demogerondia and Councils, is defective, and therefore requires modification.

4. We beseech your Imperial Majesty graciously to consider the evils to which we are subject in consequence of the possessors of oil stores assuming to be money-lenders, but who are, indeed, monopolists, thus selling the produce of the island at half its value.

As it frequently happens that the crops fail, we are compelled to pay double the price, having under pressure already effected the sale of such produce.

We trust, therefore, that this system be abolished, and a bank duly established, for which latter the Hatti-Humayoun duly provides in its 29th paragraph.

5. We venture to submit to the paternal solicitude of your Imperial Majesty the deplorable condition of the local tribunals. Unprovided as these are with a general code, the form of procedure observed therein is necessarily irregular. In corroboration of this allegation, we assert that many have been persecuted, while no redress has been granted to those who have so suffered. We are enabled to enumerate various abuses which have occurred in every province. Hence, every branch of these law-courts requires amendment, so that on a sentence being awarded no undue favor shall be shown to the stronger party, or the creed of the individual be made to serve as a bias, as happened to some of the inhabitants of Kritza, Lasithe, and others. In that affair the Khaniollis family, having at one time held the produce of "malikianeh" or the tithes, presumed to consider themselves sole proprietors of that privilege, and went so far as to take possession of half of the property of Kritza, and nearly the whole of that of Lasithe, and some other. In consequence of such a proceeding, the inhabitants of the last-quoted village incurred considerable expense in the defence of their rights, and otherwise suffered grievously. Examples of this kind are not wanting in the Provinces of Retimo and Canéa.

Moreover, the sentences of the local tribunals used formerly to be drawn up in Turkish and Greek; but nowadays, although the vernacular be modern Greek throughout the island, no judicial award, or any other official document, must be written out in Greek, but merely in Turkish; a fact at once perplexing to both parties at suit, as also to the judicial and other administrative offices.

We consequently entreat of your Imperial Majesty that the use of the modern Greek and Turkish languages be freely permitted to all classes.

At the Mekhemeh the testimony of a Christian is held invalid against that of a Mohammedan. This is contrary to the letter and spirit of the Hatti-Humayoun, which removes all legal disabilities from the non-Mussulman subjects of your Imperial Majesty.

6. From your Imperial Majesty we look forward with hope and confidence to obtain our personal liberties. At present, this depends entirely upon the discretion of the Honorable Governors and officers charged with the Imperial Government. A simple pretext is sufficient to cause the imprisonment of the most respectable man, and without sentence being awarded to him he may be detained there for an indefinite period.

7. We humbly request the attention of your Imperial Majesty to the want of schools in the villages belonging to the three provinces, and we pray that any teacher, irrespective of his nationality, be allowed to exercise his profession in the provinces as well as in the towns, and that the hospitals may be properly looked after.

8. Another drawback which impedes the prosperity of our island is the closing of the numerous ports with which Nature has so bountifully supplied it; and while in all countries of the world commerce has been materially developed by the reduction of duties, we are obliged, after long journeys, and after being exposed to the inclemency of the seasons, to convey our produce to one of the three principal fortresses of the island. The opening, therefore, of all the ports for the free importation and exportation of produce and general merchandise would greatly contribute to our well-being.

9. The liberty of worship, in virtue of the provisions of the Hatti-Humayoun, exists only by name in Crete, since, on a Greek becoming Mussulman, he is allowed to remain in the island, and inherit property; whereas if a Turk be converted to Christianity, he must forthwith quit the island, and forfeit all his rights.

10. Majesty! Similar griefs we, two years ago, took the liberty of submitting to the clemency of your Imperial Majesty, when were added such disproportionate duties and taxes on food, and when the privileges conceded to us in 1858 were violated; but unfortunately, and contrary to every hope, we were not listened to, and although even to-day we may have been obliged from higher motives to assemble, in order to give utterance to our grievances, we hope that for such reason we shall not be considered disturbers of the public peace, such imputation the local Governor-General, in his Excellency's proclamation of the 28th of April last, having ascribed to us.

On the other hand, perceiving as we do warlike preparations, while our gathering has altogether been a peaceful one, and presuming that the same has been misrepresented to the Imperial Government, we entreat of your Imperial Majesty a general pardon for all those who may have taken part in the present popular movement.

With a view to an impartial investigation of all the above-stated grievances on the part of your Imperial Majesty's faithful subjects in this island, we venture to submit that an upright person be sent hither for the purpose.

We beg leave to express a hope that your Imperial Majesty may take pity on this poor people, who suffers so unjustly, and who implores that its prayer may be soon transmitted to your Imperial Majesty.

From this day we raise our voices for the long life and happiness of your Imperial Majesty, and we shall never cease to hope for an improvement in our condition under the powerful ægis of the Imperial Government.

CANEA, May 14 (26), 1866.

The most obedient and humble subjects representing the Christian population of Crete. (Here follow signatures.)

[Translation.]

TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN.

MADAM: The undersigned representatives of the Province of the Island of Candia venture to place the present petition at the feet of your Majesty, addressing at the same time a similar one to the sovereigns of the two other protecting powers of the Hellenes.

The inhabitants of Candia, having taken an active part with the whole Greek race in the bloody war of independence, which, begun in 1821, has continued through many years, succeeded, at great sacrifice, in making themselves masters of the island and of Grambousse, one of its principal fortresses.

Consequently, they hoped that, enjoying the same rights as their brethren of the Continent of Greece, their efforts would have been crowned by the consecration of their independence, but the three Great Powers in their wisdom decided otherwise. The Cretans, heartbroken, submitted to this decision, and since then have dragged on their existence, at one time under the sovereignty of the Pasha of Egypt, at another under that of his Majesty the Sultan.

In recommending to us to submit to this decision of Europe, the President of Greece, the late Count Capodistria, who was greatly interested in us, led us to hope that this great misfortune would be of short duration, and that in a short while our wishes would be fulfilled. On the other hand, we received solemn promises that we should be governed in a kindly manner.

Thirty-five years have elapsed since then, and during this long period our existence has not ceased to be exposed to every kind of oppressive injustice and misfortune. Not a traveller has visited our beautiful but unfortunate country without being touched by our sufferings.

We pay enormous taxes, which are increased each year, without enjoying any of the advantages which all nations receive in return for such taxation. Justice is a thing unheard of. We have no tribunals worthy of that name; nor have we any laws. Our government depends on the arbitrary will of the representative of the Sublime Porte. Our children, from want of public instruction, wallow in ignorance; the few schools we have are maintained at our own small means. The clergy are even paid by us. We are not admitted into the public service. We have no roads or bridges. Our evidence is of no avail against that of a Mussulman. The excesses committed by the Turks are rarely punished. We have never experienced any of the advantages enjoyed by the poorest subjects of civilized nations. We are the slaves of another race.

The population of this unfortunate country, being unable to bend itself to this state of things, has several times since 1830 found itself forced in its despair to have recourse to arms to recover its rights. At this present time it has again risen, and in abstaining from all acts of violence, it peaceably asks for justice from his Majesty the Sultan, the reduction of taxes, and an improvement in the administration. And if we, the most prudent, had not restrained its impetuosity, the population would have flown to arms, to engage in its despair in an unequal and sanguinary contest.

Madam, one of the reasons of state policy which led the great Powers to replace us under the dominion of Turkey, was no doubt the amount of the Mussulman population in our island, which was considered higher than that of the Christian population.

But now the Turks compose but one-fourth of the whole population, which amounts to 300,000 souls. It is unjust that the most numerous should suffer on account of the lesser number, whereas if we were under a Christian government our Turkish brethren would enjoy the same happiness and the same advantages as ourselves.

Moreover, in order to keep the country in subjection, Turkey is obliged to keep up an army and a fleet, and to spend enormous sums of money, without its being of much service to her, whereas Crete, if united to Greece, would confer great advantages on the whole Greek race, and would be able to embark on a system of civilization. If the creation of an Hellenic kingdom has for its object the regeneration of this people, Crete, which is purely Hellenic country, would become one of its foundation stones.

Madam, long experience has proved that, from the manner in which our island is governed, all improvement and all advancement are impossible for this wretched country.

We consequently entreat your Majesty and their Majesties the Sovereigns of the two other Protecting Powers of the Greek nation, to deign to excuse our one wish, viz., union with our brethren of Greece.

It is only under this condition that we can be happy, and contribute to the advancement of our race.

Should that, however, be impossible at present, we beg your Majesty, in your infinite goodness, to endeavor to obtain for us a political organization, under which there may be laws and regular tribunals, less grievous and better imposed taxes, by which the morality of the people may become possible, that at least one part of the revenues of the country should be expended on its improvement, and generally that our just grievances may be redressed by a Christian and paternal administration.

This is what, in imploring the magnanimous interposition of your Majesty, we venture to ask of the powerful monarchs of the three Great Powers.

We sign ourselves, etc.

The Deputies of the Section of Canéa, Heraclim, Rethymne, etc.

CANEA, May 15, 1866.

[Translation.]

OFFICIAL INSTRUCTION TO THE GOVERNOR OF THE ISLAND OF CRETE, DATED 2 REBI-UL-EVEL, 1283 (JULY 15, 1866).

Your Excellency's despatches, with their enclosures, forwarded through Kadri Bey on his return from an official mission to Crete, have arrived, and his report on the state of affairs, as witnessed by him in that island, has been thoroughly understood.

It was hoped and expected that the non-Mussulman inhabitants, who had assembled together in several districts of the province, would have listened to the benignant and paternal exhortations of the Imperial Government; that they would have broken up these assemblies, and, showing obedience and submission to authority, have returned to their own homes. And the reluctance of the Porte up to the present moment to inflict the punishment due to their offences has been based upon this expectation. But it appears, on the contrary, that although these persons have made a show of breaking up their meetings, yet they have not abandoned their religious proceedings; and it is evident that at the present time they are still continuing in the course of excitement and commotion. Now, according to the sense of the petitions which have reached the Porte on the part of these persons, both at the commencement of the affair and subsequently, the object of these assemblies was to obtain the abolition of certain duties on such articles as tobacco, snuff, salt, and stamps; the facilitating of the means of communication in the island; reform in the election of the Medjliss or Demogerondia; the prevention of the evil practice of wearing arms; the formation of schools, hospitals, and such like institutions.

But besides all these things, they have got certain ideas into their heads, to which they also now give expression.

Now, from first to last, as is most manifest and natural, the principal wish of the Imperial Government is to secure the tranquillity and welfare of all classes of its subjects; and the inhabitants of Crete especially, and in many instances, have been the object of concessions and peculiar favor; above all, in the matter of the property tax ("virgu"), the sheep tax, and such like imposts which are levied in all other parts of the Ottoman dominions, the inhabitants of this island have alone been exempted. And up to the present day the Porte has never entertained the idea of depriving them of this indulgence. But the inhabitants of Crete now put forward a claim for the abolition of taxes which belong to a different category. For, as every one knows, the Porte some years ago, solely with the view of increasing the exports from its dominions, and in order to encourage and facilitate commercial enterprise, agreed to the abolition of the tax of 12 per cent. on exports to foreign countries; and owing to the tax being diminished at the rate of 1 per cent. annually, it will be reduced in the course of a few years to only 1 per cent. for a permanence.

In consequence of this measure, the loss to the Imperial treasury amounts to more than 300,000 purses a year.[L] The abolition of this tax on exports being of immense benefit to the people of this empire, in order in some slight degree to compensate for the loss thus entailed, certain new taxes of universal application to all parts of the country were imposed; and as the people of the Island of Crete are amongst those most benefited by the abolition of the duty on exports, it is only just and natural that they should pay their share of the new imposts which were intended to make up the loss to the treasury. For, whilst the inhabitants of other places have had 50,000 purses added to their property tax ("verghi"), in consequence of no such tax existing in Crete, no part in the payment of this augmentation falls to their lot. Crete, then, enjoying as she does this exceptional favor and advantage, cannot with right and justice pretend to be exempted from the imposts mentioned above. As regards the matter of the construction of roads, bridges, hospitals, etc., it is true that such wishes are amongst the requirements of the age, and the Porte is exceedingly anxious for the carrying out of such useful projects. It is clear, moreover, that all countries and governments stand in need of improvements of this kind. But their execution can only be effected by degrees, and according to convenience and opportunities. If the inhabitants of Crete required such public works and improvements, then it behooved them to make application to the Government at Constantinople, and in a manner consistent with their allegiance. But the essentially illegal and irregular demand for the abolition of taxes, the mixing up with this demand of other matters which might possibly be conceded, and their proceedings in assembling together for the promotion of these objects, can only be regarded by intelligent persons as acts of rebellion which cannot be tolerated, and they have now incurred the extreme reprobation of the Imperial Government.

[L] A purse is 500 piastres.

In short, from the misconduct of this people up to the present time in declining to listen to advice, in imputing probably to erroneous motives the gracious clemency of his Imperial Majesty, who has hitherto delayed to visit their offences with punishment, and in preferring to follow the suggestions of seditious intrigues rather than the tranquillity and welfare of their families, it has become manifest that they will not be guided by prudential motives. Henceforth, then, the Imperial Government is compelled to perform its duty. A military force will at once be despatched to a convenient locality, and in the first instance the orders and resolutions of the Porte will once more be made known to the inhabitants of Crete, viz., that in obedience to orders the assemblies should disperse, and each individual return to his own home and ordinary occupation, under the protection of the Sultan; and, if they have any demands to prefer, let them make them in a wise and decorous manner to the Government. But if they continue in the course explained above, this will be regarded as a grave offence by the Government, and they will be dispersed by force and visited with severe chastisement. Let them understand this and take warning. Let them break up their assemblies, and give assurances and obligations in writing to the effect that they will no more act in contravention of the principle of submission to authority.

If after this they immediately return to their homes and occupations, well and good. But if, on the contrary, they persist in their misconduct, the troops will be sent against them, and the ringleaders of the sedition will be arrested and imprisoned in the Sultan's fortresses, while the rest of the people will be dispersed by force; and, in the event of their presuming to have recourse to arms, they will meet with reprisals in kind and be severely chastised. Should these persons dare to resist to arms, it will also be necessary to disarm them.

Your Excellency is instructed to execute the measures necessary in accordance with what is stated above.

[Translation.]

REPLY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE CRETANS TO THE ANSWER OF THE GRAND VIZIER TO THEIR PETITION.

TO HIS HIGHNESS THE GRAND VIZIER:

YOUR HIGHNESS: We, the Undersigned, the Representatives of the Christian population of the Island of Crete, received yesterday (July 19), after a delay of three months, the answer of the Imperial Government to the humble petition we addressed to His Majesty the Sultan, which answer has been transmitted to us through his Excellency the Governor-General of Candia.

It is with great pain that we remark the silence kept in this answer in regard to the chief complaints in our petition--that is to say, on what concerns the tribunals, freedom of worship, personal liberty, the municipal elections, the use of the Greek language, etc.

It is also with pain and astonishment that we have learnt by this answer that not only we have no right to complain of direct and indirect taxes which weigh so heavily upon us, but that we are in a privileged position, in so far as regards other subjects of the empire, in reference to the direct taxes--viz., the one under the denomination of "verghi" and that on sheep.

Highness, we take the liberty to again call your kind attention to the following points:

First. It is all the Christians of Candia, and not some, as it pleases your Highness to say, who think that they cannot in any way be compared to other subjects of the Porte in what concerns the taxes since the period when, by the advice and under the guarantee of the great Christian Powers, the Cretans submitted themselves to the Sublime Porte; and it is notorious that since that period up to a few years ago they have not paid other taxes, direct or indirect, beyond tithes and the military tax, in conformity with the law and decrees. It is true that the duties on exportation diminish gradually from one per cent., as is stated in the answer of the Porte. Nevertheless, in a country like Crete, where there is no industry, the import duties, which still remain the same, neutralize the advantages arising out of the lowering of the export duties. Such being the case, we not only do not enjoy the benefits which your Highness is pleased to mention, but we are still crushed by the exorbitant taxes, which are far above our means, as is evident from the financial report of the last two years, during which time we have paid almost as much in taxes as the amount of our incomes, without enjoying in return any material advantage.

Secondly. In what concerns roads, schools, and hospitals, we do not doubt the benevolent intentions of His Majesty; but the unfortunate inhabitants of Candia see with sorrow that the execution of these generous intentions is indefinitely postponed, notwithstanding the oft-repeated promises of the Sublime Porte.

Thirdly. It is, nevertheless, our sacred duty to protest openly against the reproach addressed to us by your Highness, namely, that we had not made known our complaints to the Imperial Government in a respectful manner; that we had mixed up claims altogether inadmissible with those which might be entertained; and that we had held meetings and made demonstrations which could not be considered otherwise than treasonable by all conscientious and impartial persons. To these reproaches we take the liberty to reply respectfully that in a country like Crete, where there is no press or parliament, and that experience has shown that, whenever and in whatever manner the Christians have sought to obtain justice from the Sublime Porte, their mouths have been shut by intimidation and by low intrigues, we had no other means of bringing our grievances to the knowledge of our Sovereign, and of acquainting him with the real state of the country, beyond a recourse to a peaceable meeting without arms. It is also our bounden duty--we think so, at least--to repeat here that all the Christians in Candia, without exception, took part in this manifestation, and not merely some of the inhabitants, as was said by the Governor-General, and which is believed by your Highness.

It would be absurd, your Highness, almost childish, to assume that the Representatives of the Christian population of Candia have obeyed or obey the suggestions of foreigners, and that the Central Committee is exciting the people and acting in a seditious spirit. Such allegations are only put forward by those impostors and wicked men who, whether Mohammedans or Christians, are imbued with the most hostile feelings towards the Imperial Government and towards the Candiotes, and are only interested in imposing upon the goodness of our gracious Sovereign. It is notorious that the demonstration of the Candiote people is quite spontaneous, and that the assemblage of Cretans, far from compromising public tranquillity, was to upset the projects of such wicked people who seek for any pretext for calumny.

Finally, we, the undersigned, the Representatives of the Candiote people, not considering ourselves as rebels, cannot answer for the future by solemn declarations ("senets") in the name of a people which has only confided to us expressly and in writing a limited authority, namely, to forward its petition and to receive the answer which may be returned thereto.

It is this answer alone which we have in consequence bound ourselves to bring to the knowledge of the people, with the fullest confidence in the promises of the Imperial Government, which has declared that the persons fulfilling this sacred duty need not fear the threats made to them. It is for your Highness to arrive at such a decision as may be dictated by a sense of justice and conscientious feeling.

Done at Prosnero, July 20, 1866.

We have, etc., The Members of the Central Committee. (Here follow the signatures.)

TRANSLATION OF AN ADDRESS TO THE EUROPEAN CONSULS OF THE CHRISTIAN DEPUTIES, ASSEMBLED UNDER THE NAME OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF CRETANS, SITTING AT PROSNERO, CANTON OF APOCORONA.

MM. LES CONSULS: The Representatives of the Christian people of the Isle of Crete, respectfully undersigned, assembled under the title of the Assembly General of the Cretans, feel it our imperative duty to call you to bear witness to the violence which obliges us, in spite of our wishes to the contrary, to take up arms by right of lawful defence.

Greeks by origin and by tongue, having taken part in the struggle borne by our brothers in 1821 for our national independence, but yet not having profited by the advantages of that war, our only object in assembling here is to claim the enjoyment of the rights which were guaranteed to us by the three Protecting Powers by Treaties and Protocols, and of those which His Imperial Majesty the Sultan deigned spontaneously to decree to us by a Hatti-Humayoun.

But the Governor-General, changing the meaning and the point of our humble petition, by which we claimed pacifically, and without resorting to arms, the execution of written promises, after leaving us for three months in a state of uncertainty, finally incited the Porte to return an unfavorable and menacing answer, and, opposing violence to right, he appeared before us in arms.

Calling the Representatives of the protecting and guaranteeing Powers to bear witness to this, we take up arms for our defence and safety, and we make the Turkish Government responsible before the civilized world for all the consequences of the struggle which is about to break out.

Done at Prosneron, July 20-21, 1866.

The humble Representatives of the Christian People of the Isle of Crete. (Here follow the signatures of 46 Deputies.)

[Extract.]

LORD LYONS TO LORD STANLEY.--(Received September 7.)

CONSTANTINOPLE, August 28, 1866.

I had, on the 25th instant, the honor to receive your Lordship's despatches respecting the affairs of Crete, of the 13th instant.

Yesterday, in obedience to your Lordship's instructions, I informed A'ali Pasha that Her Majesty's Government strongly advise the Porte to deal with the Cretans with the utmost forbearance and in a conciliatory spirit, to redress any grievances of which they may have cause to complain, to relieve them from any exceptional treatment which bears hard upon them, and generally to study to reconcile them to the Sultan's Government. I added, that Her Majesty's Government conceive that in the present state of the Continent of Europe, it would be a great misfortune to Turkey if any question were to arise which should excite the sympathies of Europe in favor of the resistance of Christian subjects of the Sultan to the Ottoman Government, and that it is manifestly most important to the interests of the Porte that the Provincial authorities should be enjoined to act justly and in a kindly spirit towards the Christians.

A'ali Pasha said that he entirely concurred in the views of Her Majesty's Government. He told me that it had been definitively settled that Mustapha Kiritli Pasha should be sent to Crete with large powers; that this measure would show the Cretans that their petition had been seriously taken into consideration by the Sultan; and that he had reason to hope that order would very soon be restored.

I said that I hoped that Mustapha Pasha's powers were not merely conferred with a view to quelling the present resistance of the Christian Cretans, but that they were to be exerted for the purpose of removing causes of complaint and placing matters in the island on a footing likely to be permanently satisfactory.

A'ali Pasha said that Mustapha Pasha would be empowered to take into consideration all reasonable complaints, which were brought before him in a loyal and dutiful spirit, but, of course, he would not listen to men unlawfully assembled in defiance of the Government, and would repress revolt and treasonable attempts to change the relation of the island to the Porte. On being further pressed by me, A'ali Pasha said that no Christian blood had been shed; that he was confident none would be shed; and that it was the earnest desire of the Porte to avoid, if possible, a collision between the troops and the Christians. He added that he was convinced that the movement was due to foreign instigation, and that, if that instigation ceased, it would rapidly subside.

INDEX.

A'ali Pasha arrives in Crete, 143, 148; rebuilds church at Lakus, 157

_Abdou_, 128

Abdul Aziz, Sultan, accession, 36; rage over Crete, 111

Abdul Medjid, Sultan, deceased, 36

Afendallos, a Moreote chieftain, 30

_Agios Basilios_, 126, 131, 135

_Agios Roumeli_, 133

_Alikianu_, plain of, 88, 107; town, 156

Ali Riza Pasha, movement against Omalos, 105; rescued, 106; beaten at Topolia, 120

_Amari_, 106, 135

American Secretary of Legation at Constantinople, 116; intrigue against Consul Stillman, 118

_Anopolis_, 132, 133

_Apokorona_ district, 54, 58; Egyptians surrender, 66; movement against, 74, 89

_Aradena_, 133

"Arethusa" man-of-war, 61

_Arkadi_, convent of, 83; bombardment of, 84; butchery at, 86; effect on European opinion, 90

"Arkadi," blockade-runner, 114

_Asfendu_, 132

_Askyphó_(Askyfó), 71, 82, 102, 132

Assembly at Murnies (1833), 33; at Nerokouro (1858), 35, (1864), 36; at Omalo, gathers April 12, 1865, moves to Boutzounaria and Nerokouro, 41; games at Boutzounaria, 42; sends a deputation of captains with a petition to the Porte, refuses to adjourn when ordered by Ismael Pasha, 43; insists on a promise of immunity, dissolution urged by all friendly consuls, 47; decided by Parthenius Kelaïdes and Joannides, 48; committee retreat to the mountains, 48; counter-proclamation to Mustapha's, 68; provisional government, headed by Mavrocordato, 123; appeals for Coroneos to become commander-in-chief, 151

"Assurance" sloop-of-war, 91

Baleste, a French Philhellene, 30

Barron, Mr., English chargé at Constantinople, 141

Bishop of Canéa threatened with burning, 29; (another), heroic end, 35

_Bondapoulo_, 78

Boniface, Duke of Montserrat, possesses Crete, 20

Borthwick, Col., adventure at Meskla, 162

Boutakoff, commander of "Grand Admiral," 76, 96; ordered to the Sphakian coast, 98

_Boutzounaria_, seat of the Assembly, 41, 42; source of water supply of Canéa, 42; attack on aqueduct, 121

Bulgaris, evil genius of Greece, 145; tool of Russia, 146; withdraws all support from Crete, 152

_Campos_, 78

"Canandaigua," American ship-of-war, 117

_Candanos_, fortress, refuge of Mussulmans, 66; expedition for relief of, 67, 69

_Candia_, 106, 125

Cave-stifling at Kephalá, 79; in Mylopotamos, 128, 137

Christians persecuted in Crete, 27, 29; panic and exodus, 51, 52, 57; massacres, 64, 65; stifled in caves, 79, 128, 137

Colucci, Italian consul, advises giving an assurance to the Assembly, 45; wins the Pasha's ill-will, 47

_Comitades_, pass, 102

Comoundouros, premier at Athens, 114; prepares insurrection in Turkey, 116; dismissal effected by Russia, 145

Consular corps summoned by Ismael Pasha, 44; refuse him support, 46; protest against calling in the Mussulmans, 50; unite in preventing a Mussulman outbreak, protect Christian refugees, 57; fortify the consulates, 59; side with Schahin Pasha against Ismael, 62

Coroneos, Col., timely arrival, 83; headquarters at Arkadi, 83; unites with Zimbrakakis to defend Omalos, 89; moves eastward, 95; operations on Mt. Ida, 99; at Kallikrati, 123; attacks Omar at Margaritas, 125; at Kallikrati, 131; falls back on Askyfó, holds Muri, 132; drives Reschid, 133, 135; wanted for commander-in-chief, 151

Cretans, the best types of ancient Greeks, 13; ancestors, 14; present characteristics, 16, 19

_Crete_, climate and products, 13; antiquities, 14, 16; present inhabitants, 16; language, 17, 18; literature, 18; music, 19; conquered by Saracens, 19; recovered by Byzantine emperors, 20; transferred to Boniface, and sold to Venetian Republic, 20; cruel government, 20-26; conquest by Turks favored, 26; Turkish rule, 26-37; Sphakiote insurrection of 1770, 27; of 1821, 29-31; united by the allied powers to government of Mehemet Ali, Egyptian régime, 32-34; assembly at Murnies in 1833, repression by Mustapha Pasha, 33; insurrection of 1840, 34; Assembly of 1858, 34; of 1864, 36; hardships preceding the insurrection of 1866, 36

Criaris, a Cretan chief, 105

_Damasta_, 127, 128

Dante's description of Crete, 26

Dendrino, Russian consul, sincere in advising against insurrection, but probably strengthened Parthenius, 48; character, 96; orders a frigate to the Sphakian coast, 98

Deportations, 92, 99, 140, 142

Derché, French consul, supports Ismael Pasha in everything, 44; urges violent dispersal of the Assembly, 45; confirms the Pasha against consular protests, 46; labors to provoke a collision, 52; intrigue with Schahin Pasha, 54; refuses to ask for a man-of-war, 57; recalled, 122

_Dibaki_, port, 130, 135

Dickson, English consul, humane and honest, ordered to co-operate with his French colleague, 44; supports Ismael Pasha against the Assembly, 45; declares an assurance unnecessary, 46; refuses to ask for a man-of-war, 57; reports the atrocities at Arkadi, 90; proposes to send a ship to pick up Cretan families, 92; dispatch on the affair at Krapi, 104; captured by Cretans near Canéa, 150

Dimitrikarakos, an Hellenic chief, 125

Diodorus Siculus, on the first inhabitants of Crete, 14

Egyptian régime in Crete, 32; troops in Crete, 30, 31; under Schahin Pasha, 53; at Vrvsis, 63, 64, 66; as found by Mustapha, 68; beaten at Stylos, 78; driven to the assault of Arkadi, 85; sufferings in the mountains, 90; slaughter at Krapi, 104; recalled home, 122; losses at Sime, 130

"Ennosis" blockaded at Syra, 152

_Episkopi_, 84, 123; surprised, 99

Erskine, English minister at Athens, 107

Fair at Omalo, April, 1865, 38; turned into an Assembly, 41

_Foligniaco_, Venetian raid on, 25

_Franco Castelli_ port, 102, 130

_Gaiduropolis_, 132

Geissler (Dilaver Pasha), Turkish chief of Artillery, 124; death, 134

_Gnossus_, 128

Goldsborough, Rear-Admiral, 101, 116

_Grabusa_, captured by Kalergis, 32

"Grand Admiral," Russian frigate, 76; ordered to assist in deportation, 96

Greek Government and the insurrection, 63, 112, 114; under Russian influence, 145; ostentatious pretence of aiding the revolt, 151

_Halará_, 135

Hobart Pasha blockades the "Ennosis" at Syra, 152

Homer, account of Ancient Crete, 14, 15

_Hostí_, 105

Hussein Avni replaces Mustapha, 118; locum tenens of Omar Pasha, ravages plains of Kissamos, 120; block-house plan, 148

_Ida_, Mt., 83, 99

Ignatieff, Gen., Russian minister, 96, 99; prevents Mr. Stillman's recall, 120

Insurrection of 1866, preparation, 42-52; first bloodshed, 52; overtures from Schahin Pasha, 54; first Mussulman blood, 56; collision at Selinos, 63, 64; general outbreak of hostilities, 65; Vrysis taken, 66; engagement at Kakopetra, 70; at Malaxa, 72; Lakus abandoned, Zurba held, 73; Theriso lost, 73; stand at Stylos, 78; Campos abandoned, 78; Vafé lost; retreat to Askyfó; loss of confidence in Greek volunteers, 82; revived by Coroneos, 83; Arkadi lost, 84-87; Kissamos besieged, Omalos defended, 89; shut up in Sphakian Mountains, collapse imminent, 94; revival in Eastern Sphakia, 99; Turks shut up in Retimo, 100; affair at Krapi, 103; defeat of Ali Riza Pasha, 105; of Reschid Effendi, 106; aid from the Greek Government, 115; defeat of Ali Riza Pasha at Topolia, 120; of Mehmet Pasha at Krapi, and Omar Pasha at Kallikrati, 123; reinforcements in the east, 125; Omar shut up at Margaritas, 126; Reschid beaten at Lasithe, 129; Omar attacked at Kallikrati, 131; at Aradena, 133; checked at Agios Roumeli, 133; retreat to Canéa, 135; Reschid killed, 135; armistice, 142; pusillanimous surrender of volunteers, 151; collapse, 152

Ismael Gibraltar, 31; killed, 78

Ismael Pasha, appointed governor, outwits the Assembly of 1864, 36; hated for his extortions and cruelty, 37; quarrels with Consul Stillman, 38; shirks the apology ordered by the Porte, 39; makes a present of a paste intaglio, 40; orders the Assembly at Boutzounaria to disperse, 43; calls a conference of the consular corps, 44; threatens to disperse the Assembly by force, 45; fails to get the support of the consular corps, 46; calls in the Mussulmans to the walled cities, 50; attacked with fever, 55; arms his co-religionaries, 57; superseded by Mustapha Kiritli, 58; quarrel with Schahin Pasha, 62; withdraws Turkish supports from him, demands a battalion of Egyptians, 63; unnerved at Cretan successes, 66; packed off to Constantinople, 67

Italian words in Cretan speech, 18

Janissary sway in Crete, 28

Joannides, a Greek physician, decides the Assembly not to disperse, 48

_Kakopetra_, ravine of, 70

Kaìergis, a Greek chief, 31

_Kallikrati_, pass, 123, 130

_Kalyves_, 78

_Kares_, 132

_Kephalá_, cave-stifling, 79

_Keramia_, movement against, 72, 73

_Khalepa_, 57

_Kissamos_, captured by Kalergis, 32; besieged by volunteers, 89; plain districts ravaged, 120

Korakas a Cretan chieftain, 99

_Krapi_, 78, 88, 99; passage by the Turks, 103; attack of Mehmet Pasha, 123

_Krustogherako_, pass, 90

_Lakus_, movement against, 72, 73, 157; reoccupied by Cretans, 83; abandoned, 89: situation, 157; church-bell strife, 158

_Lasithe_, 125; attacked, 128

_Lasithe Effendi_ mountain, 129

_Lasithri_ district, 83

Levantine, a person of foreign ancestry, born and bred in Turkey, 44

_Loutro_, a port of Sphakia, 94

Lyons, Lord, 56, 97, 113

McDonald, Capt., 61

Mainote irregulars, 95, 99

_Malavisi_, 127

_Malaxa_, block-house attacked, 72

Manosouyanaki, a Cretan captain, 73

_Margaritas_, 126

_Mathea_, 129

Mavrocordato appointed president by the Cretans, 123

Mehemet Ali, awarded Crete by the allies, 32; oppression, 33

Mehmet Ali, "the Prussian," 174

Mehmet Pasha guards Krapi, 88; out-flanks Theriso, 89; attack on Krapi, 123; shut up at Kares, 132; driven back to Vryses, 133

_Melambos_, 135

Melidoni, Antoni, a Cretan captain, 29; assassinated, 30

_Meskla_, 159

_Messara_, 106, 129, 130

Mikhali, Hadji, of Lakus, 81; reoccupies Lakus and Theriso, 83; successes near Canéa, 83; fights Ali Riza Pasha, 105; character, 106, 163, 168

Morris, Hon. E. Joy, U. S. Minister at Constantinople, 97, 101, 119

Moustier, Marquis de, plan to transfer Crete to Viceroy of Egypt, 53

_Murnies_, 25; Assembly at, in 1833, 33; executions at, 34

Murray, commander of "Wizard," 62, 91; letter to Minister Erskine, 107; visit to Omar, 137

Music of the Cretans, 19

Mustapha Pasha (Kiritli), the "Albanian butcher," 33, 34; made Imperial Commissioner, 58; arrival, 67; summons insurgents to submit, 68; relieves Candanos, 69; retreat harassed, 70; return to Canéa, 71; moves against Lakus, Theriso, and Keramia, relieves Malaxa, 72; attacks Zurba, occupies Theriso, 73; march on Krapi, opposed at Stylos, takes Campos, 78; carries Vafé, 81; tarries at Prosnero, takes Arkadi, 82-87; return to Canéa, prepares for Theriso campaign, 88; moves through the passes of Kissamos, 89; ravages the valleys of Selinos, 90; permits Dickson to ship off Cretan families, 92; embarks at Suia, repulsed at St. Rumséli and Tripiti, returns to Selinos, 95; removes to Askyfó, 102; losses at Krapi, 104; orders an attack on Omalos, 105; slights Capt. Strong, 117; replaced by Hussein Avni, 118

_Mylopotamo_, 125, 127

_Navarino_, result of battle on Cretan insurrection, 31

_Nerokouro_, seat of the Assembly of 1858, 35

Nicolaïdes, an Hellenic chief, 133

Nikephoras Phocas drives the Saracens from Crete, 20

_Omalos_, annual fair at, April, 1865, 38; turned into an Assembly, 41; situation, 74, 89, 90, 105, 165; concentration of insurgents and volunteers at, 89; attacked by Ali Riza Pasha, 105; expedition against, 135

Omar Pasha arrives, 121; moves on Sphakia, 122; attacks Kallikrati, 123; faithlessness, lust, and cruelty, 124; sets out for Candia, 125; bottled up at Margaritas, 126; rescued by Reschid Effendi, 127; orders an attack on Lasithe, 128; prepares for Sphakian campaign, 130; attacked at Kallikrati, 131; at Aradena, 133; transports his troops to Agios Roumeli and to Canea, 133; losses, 134; gets the ill-will of French consul, 138; proclamation of amnesty, 142; return in disgrace 148

Osman Pasha, 52

Outrey, French minister at Constantinople, 141

Paget, Lord Clarence, arrives in the "Psyche," 61

"Panhellenion" blockade-runner, 74, 114

Pappadakis, Dr., see _Joannides_

Parthenius Kelaïdes, priest, decides the Assembly not to disperse, 48

Pashley, on the Venetian rule in Crete, 20-26; on the rule of Mustapha Kiritli, 34

_Pediada_, 128, 130, 134

_Pergamos_, 156

_Perivoglia_, 42

Petropoulaki, Mainote chieftain, 99; jealousy, 127, 133; made head of Greek Government's expedition, 156

Platanos (Iardanos) river, 156

Porte, change of policy, 109; proclamation, 110; threatens to revoke Consul Stillman's exequatur, 119

_Prosnero_, 82

"Psyche" despatch-boat, 61

Pym, commander of "Assurance," 91; carries Cretan families to the Peiræus, 92; act disapproved by government, 93

Reign of terror, 57-60

Reschid Effendi drives back the insurgents, 100; moves on Amari, 106; ordered to join Omar, 125; rescues him, 127; attacks Lasithe, 128, 129; marches from Dibaki, 131; to Askyfó, 132; rescues Mehmet, 132; driven back to Kallikrati, 133; fatally wounded at Melambos, 135

_Retimo_, 83, 84, 99, 100

_Rhizo_, 74

_Rhizo Castron_, 129

Rogers, E. T., Acting English Consul-General at Beyrout, 142

Romaic and Cretan speech compared, 17, 18

Russia's relations to the insurrection, 76, 77; Russian minister at Constantinople sends a ship to aid in deportation, 96, 99; intrigues with the Viceroy, 122; agreement with France, 137; encouragement to the revolt, 143; overthrows Comoundouros ministry, 145

Russos, a Sphakiote chief, 30

Sacopoulos, Greek consul, 91

_Samariá_, impenetrable fortress, 27, 95, 133; glen of, 166; chapel, 172

Saracen conquest of Crete, 19

Sarpi, Fra Paolo, advice to Venetian senate, 23

Schahin Pasha, general-in-chief of Egyptians, 53; intrigue with the French consul, 54; fruitless mission to the Apokorona, 54; approaches Consul Stillman, 55; difference with Ismael, 62; refuses him troops, 64

Scylax on the settlement of Crete, 14

Seliniotes, 16

_Selinos_ shut in by insurgents, 63; second sortie, 64; third sortie, 66; entered by Mustapha, 90, 135

Server Effendi sent to Crete, 109; character, 111; compels delegates to go to Constantinople, 113

Seward, Hon. Wm. H., instructions to Consul Stillman, 101; despatch to Minister Morris, 119; decides to recall Stillman, 120, 144

_Sime_, 130

Simon, French Admiral, ordered to Cretan coast, 141

_Sitia_, 143

Skoulas, a Cretan chieftain, 106, 127

Smolenski, an Hellenic chief, 133

Soliotis, an Hellenic officer, 89; at Krapi, 123, 132

Sphakian mountains, 73

Sphakiotes, 16; insurrection of 1770, 27

Spratt, on the geology of Crete, 14

_St. Irene_ pass surprised, 90

_St. Roumeli_ river, 172

_St. Rumséli_, entrance to Samariá, 95

ST. THOMAS, 107, 130

Stanley, Lord, 141, 142

Steedman, Commodore, 62

Stillman, William J., U. S. consul, arrives in Crete in summer of 1865, 36; plans a journey to Sphakia _via_ Omalos, opposed by Ismael Pasha, consulate violated, broil with the Pasha, 38; checkmates him at Constantinople, 39; and in Canéa, 40; returns a spurious gem, 40; abandons the journey to Sphakia, 41; protests against using violence towards the Assembly, 46; remonstrates against the conduct of a dervish, 52; approached by Schahin Pasha, 55; besieged in his home, 59; advises Schahin Pasha to disobey Ismael, 63; warns Mustapha of the result of his successes, 75; hopes after Arkadi, 88; urges European intervention, Turkish espionage, 97; news agency, pressure on the Russian Consul, 98; asks for an American ship-of-war, 101; rude treatment from officers of the "Canandaigua," 117; sends his family to Syra, lives on yacht "Kestrel," 118; anxious to leave the island, 119; recall determined on at Washington, trip to Cerigotto, 120; to Candia, 129; sends first news to Constantinople, 130; excites Tricou against Omar, 138; favors acceptance of A'ali Pasha's terms, 144; scorbutic illness, 149; witnesses a skirmish between Zurba and Lakus, 159; leaves Crete under medical orders, 150; death of Mrs. Stillman, 154; deposed by Secretary Fish, revisits Crete after the war, 154; trip to Omalos, 155; mission to Constantinople, 175

Strong, captain of ship "Canandaigua," 117

_Stylos_, 78

_Suda Bay_, 61

_Suia_, of Selinos, 92, 95

_Temenos_, 127

_Theriso_, movement against, 72, 73; occupied, 74; reoccupied by Cretans, 83, 83, 89

"Ticonderoga," corvette, 61

Tombasis, a Hydriote chief, 31

_Topolia_, 120

Tricou, French consul, succeeds Derché 122; refused permission to accompany Omar Pasha, 125; makes a list of atrocities, 137; despatch, 138

_Tripiti_, 95

Turkish rule in Crete, 26-37

Turkish words in Cretan speech, 17, 18

_Vafé_ 78; attacked, 81

Veloudaki, Costa, of Sphakia, 81; surprises Episkopí, 99; at Krapi, 123

Venetian Republic purchases Crete, 20; barbarous régime, 20-25

Volunteers distrusted, 82; behave badly, and are carried home, 94; Mainote reinforcements, 95; surrender, 151

_Vrysis_, 55, 123, 132, 133; held by Egyptians, 63; threatened by Cretans, 64; taken, 66; effect on Greek Government, 68

White Mountains, 73

"Wizard" gunboat, 62, 66; ordered to Malta, 91

_Xyloscala_, 166

Yennissarli, a Greek chief, 95

_Yerakari_, 106

Zebeques, dance of, 168

Zimbrakaki, commander of volunteers, 81; joins Coroneos, 89; attacked by Ali Riza Pasha, 105; inertness, 106, 133; at Krapi, 123; pursued by Omar, 132

_Zurba_, attacked, 73, 149

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected, but variations in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation and accents have been retained.

In the discussion of language in the Introduction the non standard use of ς within the words ἑςπέρα, τςιμπούχι, and βίςτατο has been normalised.

In the Introduction the sentence: The Venetians seem to have regarded the Cretans much in the same light as the English colonists of America did the Indians, and, when their wretched state came to the knowledge of the Senate, they sent commissioners to examine into it, from whose reports I translate some extracts (quoted in Italian by Pashley), who took them from the original documents in the public library of Venice.

has ben amended from:

.....from whose reports I translate some extracts (quoted in Italian by Pashley), who, from the original documents in the public library of Venice.

The section "THE YEAR AFTER THE WAR." had no heading within the text. This has been added.

Index _Askyphó_(Askyfó), 71, 82, 102, 132 the variant spelling has been added.

Bondapoulo 78 was Condapoulo in the text. The text has been changed to correspond to the index.

Italics are represented thus _italic_.