New York Daily Tribune

Bayard Taylor in Southern Europe

NO. LVIII.

FOUR DAYS AMONG THE MODERN SPARTANS.

Correspondence of The N. Y. Tribune.

KALAMATA, Southern Greece,
March 26, 1858.

I have nothing to add to the descriptions of the ruined fortresses of Argos, given by previous travelers. Of course, we sat in the Gate of Lions, at Mycenae, and, as in duty bound, thought of Agamemnon, Orestes, Electra, and all the other renowned old creatures who either were or were not (see Grote's History), admired the grand Pelasgic masonry of Tiryns, and climbed the seventy-two rows of rock-hewn seats in the theater of Argos. To one who has seen Egypt, Baalbec and Elephanta, these ruins, apart from their historical interest, are not very impressive. Athens, Sunium, Aegina and Phigalia, comprise all that is left of the architectural splendors of Greece: the rest is walls, foundations, scattered stones, and a few very dilapidated theaters. The traveler must bring the magic of immortal associations with him, or he will be disappointed.

I found the "thirsty Argos" a rich, well-watered plain—at least at present. The Inachus rolled a full, swift stream to the Gulf, and the lush grain was shooting up so vigorously that two or three weeks more would see it in head. Argos is a mean, filthy town, with a most indolent population, if the crowds of loafers at all the coffee houses might be taken as a specimen. The country people were pitching quoits in the streets, and at a cafe where we stopped to rest, twenty-five men were playing cards. A Greek officer, who spoke some French, accosted us. I learned afterward that he had been banished from Athens on account of his peculations being discovered. The richness of the soil, he said to me, makes the people idle: they raise two crops a year, have amply sufficient for all their wants, and work no more than they can help. "You want a Governor despotic enough," I said to him, "to take all these able-bodied idlers and make them clean the Augean stable in which they live." In fact, all the labors of Hercules need doing over again in Greece. The Hydra inhabits the Lernean marsh; the lion crouches in the valley of Nemea, and there is more than one wild boar in the forests of Erymanthus. Fever, flood, drouth and fire are at their old ravages, and they are doubly ferocious when they have reconquered a territory once wrested from them.

We spent a night in Nauplia, and climbed the embattled rock of the Palamidi. The town is small, being squeezed into a narrow space between the lower fortress and the water. The houses are lofty, well built and dirty, as in Italian sea-ports, and there are two diminutive squares, one of which has a monument in honor of Demetrius Ypsilanti. It has been decreed to erect another to Capo d'Istria—the only efficient ruler Greece has had—but some years have passed, and the first block of marble is not yet cut. In place of it, we found triumphal arches of calico commemorating the recent festival, and an Ionic pillar with an astonishing capital supporting a pasteboard figure of the King. Workmen were just taking to pieces the Doric columns of lath and muslin which had been erected in the principal streets. Outside the gate there was another triumphal arch, the supports of which had given way, so that it leaned at an angle of forty-five degrees, threatening to fall and block up the road. I cannot see these monstrous decorations without intense disgust. One does not expect Greece to build new Parthenons all at once, but such pitiful gimcrackery is worthy only of Ashantee or Timbuctoo.

We were two days in riding from Nauplia to Tripolitza, diverging from the direct route in order to visit the field of Mantinea, where Epaminondas died in breaking the power of Sparta. There is a carriage-road the whole way, a distance of nearly forty miles, the construction of which is due to local enterprise, 300,000 drachmas having been subscribed in Tripolitza alone. The only fault in the work is that it is too well done for the needs of the country. It is carried over two branches of the Parthenian Mountains by zigzags of so easy a grade that the actual distance is trebled, and horsemen stick to the old road in preference. The workmanship is good, although a little ragged in places, and the bridges are admirable. The Government newspaper, the Elpis, recently stated, in its summing up of the benefits which Greece has derived from the reign of Otho, the amount of the roads which have been made. I find the total length of the roads to be less than 120 miles; while, if we subtract those which have been constructed simply for the convenience of the Court, and not for the good of the country, there will remain barely fifty miles. The Greeks say, and their friends say: "Don't ask too much of us; we are young and poor; we have not the means to accomplish more." Yes; but you build a palace for two millions of dollars; you support a useless army of military and naval leeches; you give to the Court whenever the Court asks, and you give nothing to the people. You adopt the policy of Venice, the Eastern Empire, Turkey even, instead of looking for example and guidance to the countries which now had the van of civilization.

On approaching Tripolitza, we came upon the great central plain of Arcadia, which is between two and three thousand feet above the level of the sea. Here the season was nearly a month later than on the plain of Argos, and the country had a gray, wintry look. There is no sufficient drainage for this plain, and hence parts of it are marshy and miasmatic. One to whom poetry has made the name of Arcadia a golden sound, the key to landscapes of ideal loveliness, skies of perpetual Spring, and a pure and happy race of men, will be bitterly disappointed as he descends from the gusty Parthenian Hills. In this bleak region, surrounded by cold, naked mountains, with its rough barbaric Slavonian population, and its filthy den of a capital, he will not recognize one feature of the Arcadia of his dreams. But so it is: the "bella eta dell oro" of Tasso and Hesiod never existed, and Arcadia, which is for us the musical name of a beautiful impossibility, signifies never can exist, and Arcadia, which is no more to the modern Greek than Swampscott or Sheboygan.

The next day, however, we crossed these cold oplands, and in the afternoon saw far below us, warm in the sunshine, and spreading away to the blue Lycaean Mountains, which girdled it with a splendid belt, the valley of the Alpheus. Dense copses of shrubbery, studded with gnarled oak trees, covered the mountain sides; the blue crocus brightened the immense valley, and the red roofs of towns, with cypresses rising from their midst, dotted it here and there. Away to the right was Karytena, the rock-fortress of Colocotroni; in front, Sloan, on the site of ancient Megalopolis, and to the left, at the entrance of a defile commanding the road to Sparta, Leondari. Descending to the floor of the valley, we rode over the oozy turf to Sinanu, a scattering town, with broad, grassy streets. We met many shepherds in shaggy sheepskin capotes and with long crooks in their hands. The people came in a body to the dirty little cafe where we halted, in order to stare at us. Three or four spruce young palikares offered to accompany us to the theater of Megalopolis, which is about half a mile to the north of the town. As Francois had told them that I spoke both ancient and modern Greek, they plied me with questions the whole way, and I was sorely troubled to keep up my reputation for scholarship. These people were almost entirely of Slavonic blood, which is no doubt the predominant element in Greece. Groups of villagers sat in the sun—happy Arcadians!—and skillfully explored each other's heads. Both Sinanu and Leondari were very rich places under the Turks, but are now miserably poor, or seem to be so. The country Greeks hide their money, and are therefore often richer than they appear.

Leondari, where we passed the night, is on the frontier of Sparta, but still in Arcadia. Here Alpheus, from his "glacier cold" on Taygetus, rushes down the hills in pursuit of his Dorian Arethusa. Here is still the rural paradise of ancient Greece, with its pure air, its sweet waters, its seclusion and peace—but alas! the people. We overlooked long tracts of oak forests—nothing but oak—some ancient trunks, gnarled and hoary with a thousand years, and younger woods covering the gently-rounded knolls. The morning was divinely clear and brilliant, but cold, with a thin sheet of ice on standing water. In an hour and a half, after threading scattering groves of oak and ilex, we passed a low bar connecting Taygetus with Parnon on the north, and this, as I rightly guessed, was the watershed between the Alpheus and the Eurotas—the boundary of Sparta. In the splendor of the day, every feature of the landscape had its clearest form and its richest coloring, and from the beds of daisy and crocus at our feet to the snowy pyramids of Taygetus, high above us, everything spoke of life and of Spring. There is a village called Longaniko, in a very wild position, high up under the very crest of the mountain, which supplies the Morea with physicians. The boys are even sent to France and Germany to complete their studies. During the day we met with numbers of peasants, driving asses laden with bundles of young mulberry and olive trees, from the nurseries of Sparta. There was refreshing evidence of improvement, in the amount of new ground brought under cultivation. As we approached Sparta, the road descended to the banks of the Eurotas. Traces of the ancient walls which restrained the river still remain in places, but in his shifting course he has swept the most of them away and spread his gravelly deposits freely over the bottoms enclosed between the spurs of the hills. The clumps of poplar, willow and sycamore which lined the stream, and the thickets of blackberry, mastic, ilex and arbutus through which our road wound, gave the scenery a charmingly wild and rural aspect. The hills—deposits of alluvium left by the pre-Adamite floods—took the most remarkable forms, showing regular terraces, cones, pyramids and bastions, as they fell off toward the river. Toward evening we saw, at a distance, the white houses of ancient Sparta, and presently some indications of the ancient city. At first, the remains of terraces and ramparts, then the unmistakable Hellenic walls, and as the superb plain of the Eurotas burst upon us, stretching in garden-like beauty to the foot of the abrupt hills, over which towered the sun-touched snows of Taygetus, we saw, close on our right, almost the only relic of the lost ages—the theater. Riding across a field of wheat, which extended all over the scene of the Spartan gymnastic exhibitions, we stood on the proscenium and contemplated these silent ruins, and the broad, beautiful landscape. It is one of the finest views in Greece—not so crowded with striking points, not so splendid in associations, as that of Athens, but larger, grander, richer in coloring. The plain, watered by the unfailing Eurotas, is covered with luxuriant vegetation, and opens its fruitful lap to the noonday sun. In warm countries, water is the great fertilizer, and no part of Greece is so well supplied in this respect as Sparta.

Beside the theater, the only remains are some masses of Roman brickwork, and the massive substructions of a small temple which the natives call the tomb of Leonidas. I walked over the shapeless rubbish which covers the five hills, without a single feeling of regret. There were great fighters before Agamemnon, and there are as brave men as Leonidas to-day. As for the race of military savages whom Lycurgus—the man of ice and iron—educated here, who would wish to restore them? The one virtue of the Spartans—bravery—is always exaggerated, because it is their only noble trait. They were coarse, cruel, treacherous and dishonest, and while they acted in two or three instances as a shield to Greece, they dealt the perfidious stabs through which she perished at last. In art, literature, science and philosophy, we owe nothing to Sparta. She has bequeathed to us only a few personal examples of splendid patriotism, and a code which, God be thanked, can never be put in practice again.

I determined to make an excursion to the mountain district of Maina, which comprises the range of Taygetus, and the promontory of Tenarus between the Laconian and Messenian Gulfs. This is a region rarely visited by travelers, who are generally frightened off by the reputation of its inhabitants, who are considered by the Greeks to be bandits and cut-throats, to a man. The Mainotes are for the most part lineal descendants of the ancient Spartans, and from the decline of the Roman power up to the present century have preserved a virtual independence in their mountain fastnesses. The worship of the pagan deities existed among them as late as the eighth century. They were never conquered by the Turks, and it required considerable management to bring them under the rule of Otho. A Greek poet, fifty years ago, writes of them: "Let all honest men fly from them, as from a serpent. May the plague and the drought blast them!" Dr. Kalopothakes, a born Mainote, who received his medical education in Philadelphia, assured me, however, that I should not meet with the least difficulty in traveling through the country. My principal object was to ascertain whether the ancient Greek face and form still exist among those whose blood may be presumed to be purest of all the fragments of the ancient stock. A thorough investigation of the character and habits of the people necessarily requires a familiar knowledge of the language.

Starting at noon, we passed through the modern Sparta, which is well laid out, with broad streets. The site is superb, and in the course of time the new town will take the place of Misitra. We rode southward, down the valley of the Eurotas, through orchards of olive and mulberry. In one place thirty men were at work, digging up the plain with large hoes, in order to plant a vineyard. The proprietor, a handsomely dressed palikar, with pistol in his belt, was directing the labor. We now entered a tangled maze of rough alluvial hills, threaded by frequent streams which came down from Taygetus. Here we met a procession of ragged but very good-humored young fellows, the last of whom carried a cross decorated with gilt paper and laurel leaves. A Spartan, who was riding with us, said they had been celebrating the festival of St. Lazarus. There was the greatest diversity of character in the faces we saw. A very few were of the antique type, some Turkish, many Albanian or Slavonic, and some actually Irish in every respect. Our palikares are accustomed to call the Irish Greeks, and the term is more than a mere chance. There are very striking points of resemblance in character—the same vanity, talent for repartee, tenacity of religious faith, and happy lack of forethought. If the Greeks, on one hand, are more temperate, the Irish on the other, are more hospitable; if the former blunder less, the latter cheat less.

We stopped for the night at the little khan of Levetzava. When Francois last visited this place fourteen years ago, he found the khanji lying dead upon the floor, having just been murdered. It was a case of blood revenge, and the assassin came all the way from Smyrna to effect his purpose. I asked the present khanji whether the country was quiet. "Here it is very quiet," said he, "but as for foreign parts, I don't know how it is." I saw some cows pasturing here—quite a rare sight in Greece, where genuine butter is unknown. That which is made from the milk of sheep and goats is no better than mild tallow. The people informed me, however, that they make cheese from cow's milk, but not during Lent. They are now occupied with rearing Paschal lambs, a quarter of a million of which will be slaughtered in Greece on Easter Day.

The next morning we rode over hills covered with real turf, a little thin, perhaps, but still a rare sight in southern lands. The red anemone mantled the slopes as with a sheet of fire: the furze bushes shone with a shower of golden blossoms, which wholly concealed their prickly stems, and on the moist banks the daisy, violet, buttercup, crocus and starwort formed mosaics of Spring bloom. The hills were dotted with groves of the oak which produces valonia or nut-galls. But for the mastic and oleander, and the carob-trees, with their dark, glossy foliage, I could have believed myself among the German hills at the end of May. In two hours we entered the territory of Maina, on the crest of a hill, where we saw Marathonisi (the ancient Gythium), lying warm upon the Laconian Gulf. The town is a steep, dirty, labyrinthine place, and so rarely visited by strangers that our appearance created quite a sensation. François, as usual, was furious at being catechised, and snubbed the highest officials in the most despotic manner. When I remonstrated, he replied, "What can one do? If I ask, 'Where is the khan?' instead of answering, they cry out, 'Where do you come from? where are you going to? who are the strangers? what are their names? how old are they? what do they travel for?' Diable! If it was a Turkish country I should not be bothered in this way. We should be entertained, we should eat, drink and smoke, before we heard a question; but good manners among the Turks and Christians are two different things!"

We took refuge in a cafe, and ate our ham and eggs in public, to the horror of the orthodox spectators. I made acquaintance with the teacher of the Government school, who gave the people an excellent character, but lamented their slowness in learning. Francois also found an old acquaintance, a former fellow-soldier in Fabvier's expedition against Scio, who took us to his house and regaled us with coffee and preserved quinces. His daughter, a slender, handsome girl of sixteen, waited upon us. The father complained that he had not yet saved enough for her dowry, as he could not expect to get her married for less than two thousand drachmas ($333). For this reason sons are more profitable than daughters to Greek parents, and of course much more welcome.

As the road beyond Marathonisi is impracticable for laden horses, we engaged two mules, and set out for Tzimova, on the western side of the Mainote peninsula. This is the only road across Taygetus which is passable in Winter, as there is a very sudden and singular break in the high sunny range between the two ports. After leaving Marathonisi and the barren little isle (50 by 200 yards in extent) where Paris and Helen passed the first night after their elopement, the scenery suddenly changed. A broad, rich valley opened before us, crossed by belts of poplar and willow trees, and enclosed by a semicircle of hills, most of which were crowned with the lofty towers of the Mainotes. In Maina almost every house is a fortress. The law of blood revenge, the right of which is transmitted from father to son, draws the whole population under its bloody sway in the course of a few generations. Life is a running fight, and every foe slain entails on the slayer a new penalty of retribution for himself and his descendants forever. Previous to the Revolution most of the Mainote families lived in a state of alternate attack and siege. Their houses are square towers, forty or fifty feet high, with massive walls, and windows so narrow that they may be used as loopholes for musketry. The first story is at a considerable distance from the ground, and reached by a long ladder, which can be drawn up so as to cut off all communication. Some of the towers are farther strengthened by a semicircular bastion, projecting from the side most liable to attack. The families supplied themselves with telescopes, to look out for enemies in the distance, and always had a store of provisions on hand, in case of a siege. Although this private warfare has been suppressed, the law of revenge exists.

From the summit of the first range we overlooked a wild, glorious landscape. The sun, wooded with oak, and swimming in soft blue vapor, interlocked far before us, enclosing the loveliest green dells in their embraces, and melting away to the break in Taygetus, which yawned in the distance. On the right towered the square, embrazured castle of Passava, on the summit of an almost inaccessible hill—the site of the ancient Las. Far and near, the lower heights were crowned with tall white towers. The men were all in the fields plowing. They were healthy, tough, symmetrical fellows, and—there was old Hellenic blood in their veins. They greeted us in a friendly way, and one whom I questioned concerning the road to Tzimova, answered: "It is four hours yet, but I pray you to forgive me, for the road is very bad." For two or three hours we threaded a terrific gorge, through scenery as rugged and grand as that of Norway. On every side were unparalleled evidences of industry—enormous heaps of stone removed to make room for little arab plots, barren steep slopes reclaimed by arduous toil, ruined water courses and terraces of abandoned toil. The mountaineers until the tiniest strips of green seemed to be stuck against the sheer walls of rock. On expressing my delight at seeing such signs of patient labor, François, who shares the usual Greek prejudice against the Mainotes, answered: "But all this is the work of the women. The men are lazy vagabonds, who sit all day in the villages, and smoke paper cigars. The country is too poor to support its population, and you will find Syros and Smyrna full of Mainote porters." There may be some truth in this accusation, but it is exaggerated.

At sunset, after climbing a rocky staircase, we reached a little platform between the opposing capes of Taygetus, whence we saw both the Laconian and Messenian Gulf. A still more dreary landscape lay before us, and there were no signs of Tzimova. The dusk fell, we dismounted and walked behind our spent horses, and so two hours passed away. François heaped anathemas upon the head of his friend in Marathonisi. "The stupid beast!" he exclaimed: "he told us it was only four hours to Tzimova, and we have already been six upon the road." I gave him a cigar, the moral effect of which was soon made manifest. "After all," he added, with a milder voice, between the whiffs, "Demetri meant well enough, and if he was mistaken about the distance, it is perhaps not his fault." "So, Francois," I remarked, "you find that smoking improves your temper?" "Ah, yes," he answered, "my body is to blame for all the sins I ever committed. I can trace every one to the fact of my having had no tobacco, or not enough to eat, or too much to drink." At last we came upon olive groves, glimmering in the moonlight like the ghosts of trees, and then the scattered towers of Tzimova. I had neglected to procure letters from Dr. Kalopothakes in Athens to his relatives here, and François had but one acquaintance, whom he had not heard of for fourteen years; so we were doubtful whether we should obtain quarters for the night. Reaching a little open place, however, where some men were assembled, we asked whether any one would receive us into his house. Thereupon stepped forth a man with instant and cordial assent—and to our wonder he proved to be, not only the old friend of François, but one of the relatives of my friend, the Doctor! In five minutes we were installed in the clean and comfortable abode of his Holiness, the Bishop, who was absent, and F., as he set about preparing one of his marvelous soups, whispered to me: "This is what the Turks call destiny, and, ma foi! they are right. An hour ago I was on the brink of despair, and now the gates of Paradise are opened."

In the morning we visited the other members of the house of Kalopothakes, and were very courteously received. The people collected to stare at us, and a pack of boys tramped at our heels, but their manners were entirely kind and friendly. Here the Slavonic element predominated, there being few Greek faces except among the women. The name of the place has recently been changed to Areopolis, though I cannot find that any ancient city of that name ever existed here. As we started in the morning on our way up the western base of the Taygetus, a fierce-looking palikar in fustanela and scarlet drawers came toward us, jumping over the stone fences of the gardens. He shook hands with us, scanned us from head to foot, and then, turning to the Tzimovites who were escorting us, asked, "Who are these?" "They are Englishmen—travelers," was the answer. "You will go to Vitylo: that is my town," said he to me—"echete egeian!" (may you have health!) and forthwith strode away. He was the chief of Vitylo, which is only about three miles north of Tzimova, although we were two hours on the way, so terrific is the mountain road.

Vitylo is built on the brow of a precipice, more than a thousand feet above the sea. Our road, winding back and forth along the face of the rock, was like a path made by the infernal powers over the mountains which guarded Eden. Far up, apparently trembling in the air, as if giddy with their position, the tower-dwellings of the town overhung us, but the sheer yellow rocks, piled upon each other like huge steps, were draped with all manner of wild vines, flowers and ivy, and every narrow shelf between was a garden of velvet soil, out of which grew olive and fig trees of enormous size. The people at work in these gardens were all armed. They wore a costume something like that of the Cretans, and the stamp of ancient Greece was upon their faces. A handsome, fierce boy, who was leaping over the edge of a rock above the road, looked me full in the face, and asked, with a sort of savage suspicion, "What you want here?" The town was crowded with idlers, with knives in their belts and cigars in their mouths. Some twenty girls, who came down from the mountains, each with a donkey-load of furze upon her back, resembled antique goddesses in a menial disguise. No dirt or labor could conceal their symmetry, and the barbarism of a thousand years had not destroyed the type of their ancient race.

There is a curious story connected with Vitylo. About a hundred and fifty years ago, say the people, emigration from Maina into Corsica was frequent; among others, the family of Kaiomiris, or Kalomeros (both names are mentioned), from Vitylo, who, soon after their settlement in Corsica, translated their name into Italian—Bonaparte. From this family came Napoleon, who was therefore of Mainote, or ancient Spartan blood. Pietro Mavromichalis, it is said, when he visited Napoleon at Trieste, claimed him as a fellow-countryman on the faith of this story. The Mainotes implicitly believe it: the emigration at the time mentioned is a matter of history, and the fact that the name of Bonaparte previously existed in Italy, is no proof that the Corsican Bonapartes may not originally have been the Kalomeros of Maina. The thing is possible enough, and somebody who is sufficiently interested in the present race of Bonapartes to make researches, would probably be able to settle the question.

Our road for the remainder of the day was indescribably bad. For several hours we traversed a stony, sloping terrace, on the side of Taygetus, 1,200 feet above the sea, and crossed by great yawning gorges, which must be doubled with much labor. The people said: "The road is very good, since our Bishop has had it mended. Formerly it was bad." What is a bad road in Maina? Mix together equal portions of limestone quarries, unmade pavements, huge boulder-stones and loose beach shingle, and you will have a mild idea of the present good one. There were many villages scattered along the terrace, frequently so close to each other as almost to form a continuous town. The clear water veins of Taygetus burst to light in spacious stone fountains, over which arose large arches of masonry, festooned with ivy. There were also a great multitude of churches, many of unmixed Byzantine style, and several centuries old. The people—true Greeks, almost to a man—accosted us with the most cordial and friendly air. Their customary salutation was "Kales orizete!" (welcome!), instead of the "Kali mera sas!" (good-day to you!) which is used in other parts of Greece.

Although many of the natives were poor and ragged, we saw but four beggars in all Maina, while on entering Kalamata, this afternoon, we encountered twelve in succession. The descent to the sea-level was by a frightful ladder, which it required all the strength and skill of our poor beasts to descend. We had dismounted long before this, as riding had become a much greater labor than walking. Pericles, one of our vayvodes, exclaimed: "I was never in this country of Maina before. If I should happen to be fettered and brought here by force, I might see it again; but of my own will, never!" We passed many traces of ancient quarries, and the sites of the Laconian towns of Thalmae and Leuctra, but a few hewn blocks are all that remain. After twelve hours of the most laborious travel, and long after night had set in, we reached the little town of Skardamena. A shepherd on his way to the mountains turned back on learning that we were strangers, and assisted us to find lodgings. But this was not difficult. Almost the first man we met took us into his lofty tower of defense, the upper room of which was vacated for us. The people were curious, but kind, and I found my liking for the Mainotes increasing with every day. François, however, would know no good of them, and the Athenians will open their eyes in astonishment when they hear me praise these savage mountaineers.

To-day we had a shorter journey of six hours through scenery as rich and magnificent as that of Italian Switzerland. The eye ranged from orange orchards and groves of cypress on the rocky terraces near the sea, to forests of fir on the higher hills, bristling with robber towers, while, far above, the sharp white cones of Taygetus flashed and glittered in the blue. While descending to the plain at the head of the Gulf, where we left the Mainote territory, I met Ariadne, carrying a load of wood on her back. Even in this position, bent under her burden, she exhibited a more perfect beauty, a more antique grace, than any woman you will see in Broadway in the course of a week. If such be the Greek race now, in its common forms, what must have been those refined Athenian women whom Phidias saw! Since I have beheld Ariadne, ancient art has become a reality.

B. T.