CHAPTER XVI--THE GLORY OF ATHENS.--ITS SIGHTS, SCENES, RUINS, AND RELICS.

_The Opera at Athens--Handsome Greeks?--The King and Queen--A Lovely Trio--Losing a Heart--Byron’s “Maid of Athens”--How She Looked--Her House and History--The Acropolis by Moonlight--Waking the Guard--A Sham Permit--“Backsheesh”--The Parthenon by Night--Greek Gypsies--Among the Curiosity Shops--Dr. Schliemann and his Trojan Discoveries--The Gold and Silver Vases of King Priam--Where They Were Found--Relics of the Sack of Troy--Curious Workmanship--Some Account of the Excavations--We Leave Athens--A Queer Steamer--“Pay or Go to Prison”--End of Our Steamship Adventure._

THE Opera was in fashion at Athens, at the time of our visit, and all went there on the second evening of our stay in the city. The theatre is rather small and the company not first-class, but on the whole the house and the performance were quite as good as one could expect for a city of the population of the Greek capital. Both chorus and orchestra were small, and not very well trained, and the scenery was evidently made to do duty in a great many ways.

In my eyes the chief attractions were the people in the audience, and I did not pay very close attention to the performance. Here and there you could see the national costume, but the great majority of those present were attired _a la Paris_, or rather in the French costumes of fashions a year or two old. The national costume is worn only by the _pallicares_, who claim to be the descendants of the original Greeks, and they show a great deal of pride of descent. Here is a description of the dress of a _pallicare_ of Athens.

A muslin shirt with a broad collar, but without a cravat; {226}stockings of goodly length and gaiters buttoned up to the knee, not unlike the shooting gaiters of England and America. Then comes a full skirt, generally of some white material, gathered in plaits at the waist, and reaching to the knee or just below it; then a small vest without sleeves, and another richly embroidered and with open sleeves.

There are garters of colored silk, and a belt of the same material, but the latter is generally concealed by a broad belt of leather, which sustains a tobacco pouch, a handkerchief, a purse, and, according to the old custom, a pair of pistols, though the latter are usually left at home. On the head is worn a red cap, something after the Turkish pattern, but larger at the top, and having a blue tassel. The women of the same class wear a long skirt of silk, or some cheaper material, according to their financial ability, with a velvet jacket open in front; and for a headdress they wear a red cap like that of the men, but with a larger top. It bends over to the ear, and appears as if it were ready to fall off. Sometimes they omit the cap, and wear a large braid of hair twisted around the head. It is not the natural growth, but of the kind known in America as “store hair;” it belongs to the wearer either by inheritance or purchase.

I looked among the audience for pretty faces, but saw only a few. One box contained three women who would be called handsome in any part of the world, but they turned out to be Albanians, and not of the true Greek race. The other pretty ones were few and far between, and on the whole I was fully prepared to endorse the assertion of Edmond About, that the Greek men are much handsomer than the women.

In the afternoon promenades, when the band played in the public square, I had no better luck in my search for beauty than in the opera house. The prettiest women are oftener seen in the rural districts and in the islands than at Athens, and the peninsula of the Morea is said to contain the best specimens of feminine beauty.

The king and queen were in their box; they are regular attendants upon the opera, and the king is said to pay a portion of the subsidy out of his private purse.

They are a young and not ill-looking couple, and were dressed in ordinary evening costume, as if out for a dinner or a party. {227}He is tall and thin, and she has a tendency to stoutness, and both are blondes, the king being Danish (son of the King of Denmark), and the queen being Russian (daughter of the Grand Duke Constantine, and niece of the Emperor Alexander II). They present a marked contrast in physiognomy to the darkskinned and black-haired Greeks, and the most unobservant stranger would never take them for natives of the country.

The succession to the throne appears to be well secured, as the royal pair have three children, and are yet very far from old age.

And while on this subject, let me say that in Egypt, a few months later, I saw three sisters that were the perfection of beauty, the admiration of the foreign men in Cairo, and the envy of all foreign women. They were daughters of a Greek merchant living at Alexandria, and were the belles of the foreign population of that city. I could have lost my heart to any one of the trio, but no favorable opportunity offered, and consequently I left the Orient heart whole.

Now, for a little information about the population and government. Those who do not wish it, may go on till they find something more interesting. The population of the kingdom, including the Ionian and other islands, is less than a million and a half, according to the last census. The government is a constitutional and hereditary monarchy, and the constitution guarantees to the citizens equality before the law, personal and religious liberty, freedom of the press, public instruction, and the abolition of confiscation and the penalty of death for political offenders. For purposes of government, the country is divided into thirteen departments, fifty-nine districts, and three hundred and fifty-two communes. The _prefets_ of the departments, and _sous-prefets_ of districts, are nominated by the king, subject to approval by the chamber of deputies. The communal chiefs and councils are elected by the people over whom they are to preside.

The system of justice is based on the _Code Napoleon_, and the code of commerce is likewise on the French plan.

Criminal matters are subject to trial by jury, and the same is the case with certain civil affairs. In general, the courts appear to be well organized, but the judges are so badly paid that some {228}of them cannot support their families and be respectable without taking an occasional bribe.

The religion of Greece is of the kind known as the Greek Church, and almost identical with that of Russia. In Syra and other islands of the Archipelago, there are many Catholics.

There is only one completed railway in all Greece, and it has the enormous length of four miles.

Carriage roads are not numerous, and most of them are bad; consequently it is hardly necessary to say that the interior of the country is not much developed.

Agriculture is in a primitive stage, and the soil, which does not lack fertility, has very little opportunity to show what it can do. Commerce is more prosperous than agriculture, and most of the wealth of Greece is engaged in it. Most of the commerce of the Levant is in the hands of Greeks, and there are many merchants of that nationality established in other countries. Most of them have an affectionate remembrance for their native land, and frequently make heavy donations in its behalf.

Of course the country must have an army and navy. The former includes about fifteen thousand soldiers of all arms and an enormous number of officers; there are seventy generals in the army, and a proportionate number of other grades.

The navy has an equally large staff of officers; it has about thirty-five ships, mounting one hundred and ninety guns.

The finances are in that deplorable condition described by Mr. Micawber, when he alluded to the practice of allowing expenditures to exceed the income. The annual revenue of Greece is about a million of francs less than the expenses. A minister of finance of ability would be a great blessing to the country.

I could give a few more solid chunks of wisdom, but I forbear out of pity for the reader.

My head is an ant-hill of figures, but I shall proceed to seal up the outlets, and keep the units and tens in their place.

I can tell you the number of square miles in Greece, the height of her mountains, and depth of her rivers, the age of the youngest child in the country, and what the king had for dinner one day; I could even give the number of hairs on the back of a sea turtle, and the price of a bottle of wine, for which you pay ten francs, but I forbear. {229}One afternoon, while we were wandering about Athens and its suburbs, our guide pointed to a low house of most unpretending appearance, and enjoined us to “look at ze house.”

We looked, and asked if there was anything remarkable about it.

“That is ze house of ze ‘Maid of Athens’ of ze Lord Byron.”

Of course we took a second look at the house, and as we did so, we saw at one of the windows the face of an old, very old woman.

“Ah, zere is ze Maid of Athens herself. She look out and see us. You will go in ze house?”

We held a short consultation and decided that we, a party of strangers without introductions in any form, had no right to thrust ourselves into her house and presence.

The “Doubter” was the only one who thought it would be the proper thing to rap at the door and say we wanted to see the lady. We walked on, and he followed us protesting that he wanted to see her, but we paid no heed to his words. While walking sidewise with his eyes fixed upon the house he slipped and fell into a large pool of mud, and the incident changed the currents of his thoughts so that he said no more about the woman whom Byron has made famous throughout the English reading world.

The Maid of Athens of the well known poem,--“_Zoe mou sas agapo_”--was twice married, and, at the time of my visit to Athens, was far advanced in her second widowhood. I was told that her second husband was an Englishman, a Mr. Black, and that she was left at his death with very slender means of support. A sub{230}scription was raised for her in England so that the last years of her life were passed in tolerable comfort. I heard in London, just previous to my return to America, that she died in the summer of 1874, and that the little house where she lived is now occupied by her sister.

Whether the Maid of Athens was ever as beautiful as Byron represented her, I am unable to say. When I saw her it was more than fifty years after the penning of the poem, and fifty years, you know, will make great changes in the features and forms of the best of us. The face I saw at the window was old, withered, and wrinkled; it was not an unpleasant face, but age and sorrow had obliterated all the beauty which may have shone there half a century ago.

The moon reached the full while we were in Athens, and we embraced the opportunity to see the Acropolis by moonlight.

In theory it is necessary to have a permit from the authorities to go there at night, but a friend hinted to us that nothing of the kind was necessary. We followed his directions and this was the result.

It was nine o’clock and later when we went there and rapped at the gate. We rapped loudly, waited awhile and then rapped again.

The whole establishment of guards was evidently sound asleep, as all our rapping brought no response.

Then we rattled the gate, threw stones on the roof of the hut, shouted and made a noise generally.

No response.

Then more rattling and rapping,--more stone throwing and shouting and with the same result as before.

Finally I put my face to the bars of the gate and at the very tip-top and summit of my voice shouted the magic word,

“_BACKSHEESH!!_”

Instantly there was a sound of feet and voices in the hut, and half a minute later a guard came to the gate and said something in Greek which I did not understand. Then I passed him a franc which his fingers closed upon, and I showed him another with an intimation that he would receive it after we had seen the Acropolis. {231}That guard wasn’t an idiot; money he understood, but it was also necessary that we should have a written permit, and he so insinuated.

I gave him the first piece of paper I could find in my pocket--I think it was my wine bill on the steamer from Constantinople; he looked at it by the moonlight, nodded, said “bono,” and opened the gate without further delay.

It is impossible to describe the Acropolis by moonlight, just as impossible as it is to forget it. I never attempt what I know I cannot do and therefore I leave the picture to the reader’s imagination. And I would say to anybody who is going to Athens, be sure and time your visit so as to be there near the full moon, and on no account fail to spend an hour or two of a clear night in the Parthenon and among the temples that surround it. I think the grandeur and majesty of the place are better felt at that time than in the broad light of day. The softening effects of the rays of the moon are nowhere more perfectly shown than in the ruins of the Parthenon. I have seen the Coliseum at Rome, and the temple of Karnak in Egypt by moonlight, and must give the palm of merit to the Acropolis. These are built of {232}grey or yellowish stone which absorbs some of the rays and gives a certain somberness to the picture. But the Parthenon is of white marble, so that the moonbeams light up the entire scene with a warmth and distinctness that almost rival the effect of the morning sun.

One day just outside of Athens we saw a small caravan of Greek gypsies. They were not a large party, some twenty persons in all, of both sexes, and the usual variety of ages. They were dressed in a costume that seemed a compromise between the Greek and Turkish, and some of their garments were in rags. The men had a proud, haughty air, as if the country belonged to them and they carried nothing but their rifles and other weapons. The women were not so fortunate, as all of them had burdens; the foremost person in the caravan was a woman who bore on: her back a cask that might hold eight or ten gallons, and, by the way she bent forward I judged that the cask was pretty well filled. She was leading a string of ponies and each pony had a good supply of baggage on his back; behind this group there was another woman leading another lot of beasts of burden.

Some of the women and two of the men were mounted on horses; the women seemed to be stowed with other baggage because they were too weak to walk, but the men were riding for the sake of personal comfort and not from necessity. A dozen sheep were in the rear of the ponies, and were kept from straying by some of the men and by two or three wolfish looking dogs. Some of the pack horses had coops of chickens among their loads, and on one of the packs a couple of hens were standing erect and appearing to enjoy their afternoon ride. Altogether the cavalcade was quite picturesque and I regretted that I had no time! to make a sketch of it.

We devoted an afternoon to the old curiosity shops of Athens, of which there is a goodly number. Vases, coins, statuettes and all sorts of antiquities--many of them modern--were shown to us and we made a few purchases. Some of the jewelry was exquisite and showed that the gold workers of ancient times were quite as skillful as their modern brethren.

Dr. Schliemann, who has made himself famous by excavations on the site of ancient Troy, was then in Athens, and through the {233}influence of a friend I obtained an opportunity to examine his very interesting collection. He had a great number of vases and other specimens of pottery which he obtained at Troy from excavations at depths varying from twenty to a hundred and fifty feet. A few of the vases bear inscriptions, but thus far no one has been able to decipher them, and the forms of most of the articles discovered, show that they belong to a very remote period.

There is a difference of opinion among the _savans_ concerning the antiquity of the articles discovered by Dr. Schliemann, and as I know a great deal less about the subject than they do I do not propose to take sides.

The enterprising explorer was full of courtesy and left his desk to accompany me for an hour or more through his collection. He reserved the greatest curiosities till the last.

After showing me many vases, cinerary urns, weapons, and implements of stone and copper, sculptures on granite, and other things which were stored in a shed adjoining his house, he led me to his study to inspect a collection of photographs which he made at Troy. While I was looking at these he unlocked a cabinet and brought out a number of gold dishes, vases, necklaces, and rings, and placed them on the table.

“Here,” said the Doctor, his eye kindling with delight as he spoke, “here is the treasure from the palace of King Priam. In my excavations, I came upon the foundations of the palace, and one morning my wife and I, while my workmen were at breakfast, managed to hit upon the locality of the treasure chest. You observe that some of these things appear to have been subjected to great heat, &c., and partially melted. This was done, I presume, at the burning of the palace, after its capture by the Greeks, and these articles had escaped discovery at the time the place was sacked. The heavy masses of _debris_ that fell upon them served as their protection, and they lay undiscovered through the thousands of years that have passed since the siege of Troy.

“Some of the scientists dispute my claim that these things belonged to Priam, but for myself I have no doubt of it. I think you can be entirely confident that you are examining and handling dishes that have been touched by that celebrated king.”

{234}I need not say that I was greatly interested in the collection, and that I lingered over it as long as politeness would allow me to do so.

One of the most interesting things I saw was a necklace and head-dress of pure gold--the workmanship was exquisite, and there were upwards of five hundred separate pieces in the two articles. The style of the head-dress and necklace was like that we see on pictures of Assyrian kings, and the ornaments were, doubtless, the property of some high personage. The pieces had been carefully put together by the doctor, and he showed me photographs of them, taken before his laborious task began and after it was finished.

I should add that the excavations at Troy were made by Dr. Schliemann, at his own expense and under his personal supervision. He had many difficulties to contend with, including the opposition of the Turkish government and the thievish propensities of his workmen. They robbed him at all opportunities, and it was recently ascertained that by far the larger part of the gold vases and other valuables from the ruins of the palace were concealed by the workmen, and their discovery was quite unknown to him. The Doctor was accompanied by his wife, who assisted him in every way in her power; but it was impossible for them to be everywhere at once, and to supervise excavations going on in half a dozen places simultaneously.

When we were ready for departure we packed our baggage and drove to the Piraeus, where we had a choice of two steamers to Syra. One was the _Stamboul,_ our old acquaintance, on which we had passed a very rough night; the other was a Greek steamer, and we determined to inspect her.

A very brief inspection of her cabin was enough for us. The captain looked as if he hadn’t washed himself since he was born, and the steward appeared never to have been guilty of such an act.

The rooms had very little bedding, and the little that they possessed was so dirty that it had evidently been used for the door-matting of a well-patronized bar room in muddy weather, and had afterwards served as the flooring of a pig-pen. {235}The steward spoke nothing but Greek, and he had no assistant; as near as we could make out, he was steward, head-waiter, chambermaid, assistant-waiter, cabin boy, cook, and forecastle attendant--anything you might happen to want. We were not long in deciding how we should travel. The _Stamboul_ was not all that fancy paints a passenger ship, but she was infinitely preferable to the _Mavrocoupolo_, or whatever her outlandish name was.

This Greek steamer had the monopoly of the passenger trade between Syra and the Piraeus, and the other lines were not allowed to sell tickets for that route. When we came to Greece, we bought tickets from Constantinople to the Piraeus, and had no trouble; we now wanted to buy one to Syra by the Austrian Lloyd line, where we were to change to a ship of the _Messageries Maritimes_ (French). But we couldn’t do anything of the kind, and the only way we could get around it was to buy third-class tickets to Chio (the first port beyond Syra), and then pay to the steward on board the _Stamboul_ the difference between first and third-class prices.

Was there ever a law so carefully drawn that somebody could not devise a plan to get around it?

The company bit us pretty badly--the fleas helped them a little--as we found that we had to pay very dearly for our connivance at violation of the Greek law. This was the way of it.

We bought third-class tickets to Chio and went on board, where we paid the steward the difference between first and third-class. In first-class fare, where tickets are bought at the agencies, meals and rooms are included. But after paying full rates, we were told that we had only secured the privileges of the cabin, and must pay extra for meals and berths.

We called for the captain, and protested that it was a swindle. He shrugged his shoulders, showed us the regulations, and said we must pay. If we didn’t he must put us in prison at Syra.

We thought the prison might be something like the cabin of the Greek steamer, and we paid the bill with the rapidity of a well-trained flash of lightning. But we didn’t change our opinion on the subject, and to this hour we think that the directors of the Austrian Lloyds are------

I pause, as there may be an international law of libel.

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