University of Virginia Library

82. LETTER LXXXII.

Napoli di Romania.—Went ashore with one of the
officers, to look for the fountain of Canathus. Its
waters had the property (vide Pausanias) of renewing
the infant purity of the women who bathed in them.
Juno used it once a year. We found but one natural
spring in all Napoli. It stands in a narrow street, filled
with tailors, and is adorned with a marble font bearing
a Turkish inscription. Two girls were drawing water
in skins. We drank a little of it, but found nothing
peculiar in the taste. Its virtues are confined probably
to the other sex.

The king visited the ship. As his barge left the
pier, the vessels of war in the harbor manned their
yards and fired the royal salute. He was accompanied
by young Bozzaris and the prince, his uncle, and
dressed in the same uniform in which he received us
at our presentation. As he stepped on the deck, and
was received by Commodore Patterson, I thought I
had never seen a more elegant and well-proportioned
man. The frigate was in her usual admirable order,
and the king expressed his surprise and gratification
at every turn. His questions were put with uncommon
judgment for a landsman. We had heard, indeed, on
board the English frigate which brought him from
Trieste, that he lost no opportunity of learning the
duties and management of the ship, keeping watch
with the midshipmen, and running from one deck to
the other at all hours. After going thoroughly through
the ship, the commodore presented him to his family.
He seemed very much pleased with the ease and frankness
with which he was received, and seating himself
with our fair countrywomen in the after-cabin, prolonged
his visit to a very unceremonious length, conversing
with the most unreserved gayety. The yards
were manned again, the salutes fired once more, and
the king of Greece tossed his oars for a moment under
the stern, and pulled ashore.

Had the pleasure and honor of showing Miaulis
through the ship. The old man came on board very
modestly, without even announcing himself, and as he
addressed one of the officers in Italian, I was struck
with his noble appearance, and offered my services as
interpreter. He was dressed in the Hydriote costume,
the full blue trowsers gathered at the knee, a short open
jacket worked with black braid, and a red scull-cap.
His lieutenant, dressed in the same costume, a tall,
superb-looking Greek, was his only attendant. He
was quite at home on board, comparing the “United
States” continually to the Hellas, the American-built
frigate which he commanded. Every one on board
was struck with the noble simplicity and dignity of his
address. I have seldom seen a man who impressed
me more. He requested me to express his pleasure
at his visit, and his friendly feelings to the commodore,
and invited us to his country-house, which he pointed
out from the deck, just without the city. Every officer
in the ship uncovered as he passed. The gratification
at seeing him was universal. He looks worthy to be
one of the “three” that Byron demanded, in his impassioned
verse,

Returned visits of ceremony with the commodore,
to the English and Russian vessels of war. The British
frigate Madagascar is about the size of the United
States, but not in nearly so fine a condition. The
superior cleanliness and neatness of arrangement on

board our own ship are indisputable. The cabin of
Captain Lyon (who is said to be one of the best officers
in the English service), was furnished in almost oriental
luxury, and, what I should esteem more, crowded with
the choicest books. He informed us that of his twenty-four
midshipmen, nine were sons of noblemen, and
possessed the best family influence on both father's
and mother's side, and several of the remainder had
high claims for preferment. There is small chance
there, one would think, for commoners.

Captain Lyon spoke in the highest terms of his late
passenger, King Otho, both as to disposition and talent.
Somewhere in the ægean, one of his Bavarian servants
fell overboard, and the boatswain jumped after him,
and sustained him till the boat was lowered to his relief.
On his reaching the deck, the king drew a valuable
repeater from his pocket, and presented it to him in
the presence of the crew. He certainly has caught the
“trick of royalty” in its perfection.

The guard presented, the boatswain “piped us over
the side,” and we pulled alongside the Russian. The
file of marines drawn up in honor of the commodore
on her quarterdeck, looked like so many standing bears.
Features and limbs so brutally coarse I never saw.
The officers, however, were very gentlemanly, and the
vessel was in beautiful condition. In inquiring after
the health of the ladies on board our ship, the captain
and his lieutenant rose from their seats and made a low
bow—a degree of chivalrous courtesy very uncommon,
I fancy, since the days of Sir Piercie Shafton. I left
his imperial majesty's ship with an improved impression
of him.

They are a gallant-looking people, the Greeks. Byron
says of them, “all are beautiful, very much resembling
the busts of Alcibiades.” We walked beyond
the walls of the city this evening, on the plain
of Argos. The whole population were out in their
Sunday costumes, and no theatrical ballet was ever
more showy than the scene. They are a very affectionate
people, and walk usually hand in hand, or sit
upon the rocks at the road side, with their arms over
each other's shoulders; and their picturesque attitudes
and lofty gait, combined with the flowing beauty of
their dress, give them all the appearance of heroes on
the stage. I saw literally no handsome women, but
the men were magnificent, almost without exception.
Among others, a young man passed us with whose
personal beauty the whole party were struck. As he
went by he laid his hand on his breast and bowed to
the ladies, raising his red cap, with its flowing blue
tassel, at the same time with perfect grace. It was a
young man to whom I had been introduced the day
previous, a brother of Mavromichalis, the assassin of
Capo d'Istrias. He is about seventeen, tall and straight
as an arrow, and has the eye of a falcon. His family
is one of the first in Greece; and his brother who was
a fellow of superb beauty, is said to have died in the
true heroic style, believing that he had rid his country
of a tyrant.

The view of Napoli and the Palamidi from the
plain, with its back ground of the Spartan mountains,
and the blue line of the Argolic gulf between, is very
fine. The home of the Nemean lion, the lofty hill
rising above Argos, was enveloped in a black cloud as
the sun set on our walk, the short twilight of Greece
thickened upon us, and the white, swaying juktanillas
of the Greeks striding past, had the effect of spirits
gliding by in the dark.

The king, with his guard of lancers on a hard trot,
passed us near the gate, followed close by the Misses
Armansperg, mounted on fine Hungarian horses. His
majesty rides beautifully, and the effect of the short
high-borne flag on the tips of the lances, and the tall
Polish caps with their cord and tassels, is highly picturesque.

Made an excursion with the commodore across the
gulf, to Lake Lerna, the home of the hydra. We saw
nothing save the half dozen small marshy lakes, whose
overflow devastated the country, until they were dammed
by Hercules, who is thus poetically said to have
killed a many-headed monster. We visited, near-by,
“the mills,” which were the scene of one of the most
famous battles of the late struggle. The mill is supplied
by a lovely stream, issuing from beneath a rock,
and running a short course of twenty or thirty rods to
the sea. It is difficult to believe that human blood
has ever stained its pure waters.

Left Napoli with the daylight breeze, and are now
entering the Hermionicus Sinus A more barren land
never rose upon the eye. The ancients considered
this part of Greece so near to hell, that they omitted
to put the usual obolon into the hands of those who
died here, to pay their passage across the Styx.

Off the town of Hydra. This is the birthplace of
Miaulis, and its neighbor island, Spesia, that of the sailor
heroine Bobolina. It is a heap of square stone houses
set on the side of a hill, without the slightest reference
to order. I see with the glass, an old Greek
smoking on his balcony, with his feet over the railing,
and half a dozen bare-legged women getting a boat
into the water on the beach. The whole island has
a desolate and steril aspect. Across the strait, directly
opposite the town, lies a lovely green valley, with olive
groves and pastures between, and hundreds of gray
cattle feeding in all the peace of Arcadia. I have seen
such pictures so seldom of late, that it is like a medicine
to my sight. “The sea and the sky,” after a
while, “lie like a load on the weary eye.”

In passing two small islands just now, we caught a
glimpse between them of the “John Adams,” sloop-of-war,
under full sail in the opposite direction. Five
minutes sooner or later we should have missed her.
She has been cruising in the archipelago a month or
two, waiting the commodore's arrival, and has on board,
despatches and letters, which make the meeting a very
exciting one to the officers. There is a general stir of
expectation on board, in which my only share is that
of sympathy. She brings her news from Smyrna, to
which port, though my course has been errant enough,
you will scarce have thought of directing a letter for
me.

Anchored off the island of Egina, a mile from the
town. The rocks which King æacus (since Judge
æacus of the infernal regions) raised in the harbor to
keep off the pirates, prevent our nearer approach. A
beautiful garden of oranges and figs close to our anchorage,
promises to reconcile us to our position.
The little bay is completely shut in by mountainous
islands, and the sun pours down upon us, unabated by
the “wooing Egean wind.”