Thus I felt when first I came to Crete. My life here seemed so strange, so new, that it was like a dream. But when I awoke to it morning after morning, then that brilliant sky, and the flowers that grew beneath it, the deep blue sea, down upon which I had sometimes looked through the latticed windows of the Pasha’s harem, the pretty little Circassian slaves, and the ugly black ones, in gay fantastic dress, that stood at the open doors, the strange sounds of the Turkish band playing on the old walls of the city, and the melancholy Greek songs of Leilà, the Pasha’s daughter—all became a reality that neither dazzled nor confused me any longer. But they were happy days, those days in Crete; and when I think of them, it is as if I felt again the fresh breeze of the sea, and the balmy one that blows from the south; and wafts to us the smell of orange-groves in blossom, and of all the roses that bloom in the gardens of Crete, and I see the land and the sea smiling under the bright sun of the East.
There was no hotel of any kind on the island; we had therefore, accepted the invitation of an Italian gentleman residing there, who, when apprized of our intention to visit Crete, had asked us most pressingly to stay at his house in Canea, the principal town.
He expected our arrival on the 3rd of April, and came on board our steamboat as soon as it had anchored in the harbour of Canea.
There was no difficulty in identifying us, we were the only first-class passengers on board. After exchanging some kind words with Signor A—, and seeing to our luggage, we stept into the little boat which had brought him on board, and crossed the harbour. How strange and new a world it seemed in which I was; the town, the people, the sky, the sea, the very air I breathed.
What is that large white palace on the left side of the harbour? I asked. “The Pasha’s Seraglio,”3 Sig. A— answered: “and do you see that part of it which faces the sea, and where all the windows are covered by thick lattice work, that is the Harem.” Not far from the Seraglio I noticed a row of large vaults. Sig. A— told me that they had been built by the Venetians, who used to keep their gallies in them. The fortress at the right hand of the harbour was also built by them. So were the fine strong city walls, on which I afterwards noticed in several places the sign of the Lion of St. Mark. We landed and wound our way through a crowd of strange looking people. They were Turks and Greeks in their national dresses, and Africans with not much dress of any kind. The streets were decently clean, and would have looked almost cheerful if there had not been a great number of large dogs, with a wild, hungry, wolf-like look, who were lying everywhere on the pavement. Most of the houses round the harbour were coffee houses, the doors of which were wide open. In these open places, and outside the doors too, a great number of Turks and Greeks were sitting and smoking long chiboucs and hookahs; I noticed but very few people that wore the European dress. A walk of about five minutes brought us to the house of Sig. A—, a modest dwelling, although it was perhaps the best furnished private house in Canea. But if the floors were bare, they were faultlessly clean, and the plain bed and window curtains, were of a dazzling whiteness.
Round the windows of my bedroom grew some pretty creepers, and the sky that peeped through this green frame into my room was of a brilliancy such as I had never seen before, and the air that streamed through the open window was so soft and fresh at the same time, that but to breathe was an enjoyment. Sig. A— was, as I said before, an Italian by birth. Chance had brought him, when a young naval officer, from St. Remo, near Genoa, to Crete, and fate had ordained that he should fall in love with the daughter of the Italian consul there, who made him forget his home, which he never saw again, for he gave up his profession and settled at Crete. He had been a widower now, poor man, for several years, his wife having died young, leaving him four little children and a wretched portrait of herself, which some roving dauber had made, which he however held in high estimation, and could never look at without emotion. Towards us he was the most amiable of hosts, and showed his pleasure in entertaining us in a kind and hearty manner. We found it difficult to remember under how many obligations we were to him, for he almost succeeded in persuading us that it was he who was beholden to us. His children were kind, good-natured and timid, and never more pleased than when they could be of some little service to me. The Genoese housekeeper, a tall, masculine-looking, middle-aged woman, who had a moustache many a young ensign would have coveted, did also what she could to make me comfortable, and appeared to feel over-rewarded for all her trouble by my listening now and then to her complaints against Canea and its wooden houses, the slovenly Greek servants, and the wicked Turks, the lean butcher’s meat, and the coarse flour; it was an endless catalogue of complaints, interrupted only by her praises of her Genoa, which, through the distance of time and space, appeared to her even more beautiful than it is. There all the people live in marble palaces, which have nothing of wood but the window frames and doors; the ladies wear only silk and velvet, and the large beautiful churches are covered with rich paintings. But if her praises were somewhat exaggerated, I must own that her complaints were not wholly groundless. The beef I found decidedly uneatable, as they kill only cows which are too old to give milk, and oxen too old for work. The mutton was of the very poorest quality, lamb and chicken only just eatable, but very inferior to what we are accustomed to. The people seem to eat a great deal of salted sardines, caviare, olives, and such like things. I did not care for them, and lived principally upon eggs, salad, and oranges, the latter of a size and flavour unknown in England. With Nicolo and Marico, the Greek servant boy and maid, I could however find no fault. It is true they wore no stockings, and I suppose Marietta, the housekeeper, did not accuse them without reason of having but a very slight feeling of the obligation of telling the truth, but then they were so nice looking, their dress was so picturesque, their manners so gentle and winning, that I could not help liking them.
We were a fortnight under the roof of kind Sig. A—, with the exception of the few days we spent on an excursion to Rettimo, and a pleasant, never to be forgotten time it was. I generally spent my mornings alone most quietly and happily at the little table, near my open bedroom window, reading or writing, and sometimes forgetting both, and looking dreamily into the blue sky, or at the fragrant flowers in the glass before me. For there were never wanting some flowers from garden and field to sweeten my room. The kind people with whom I lived finding that I was fond of flowers, supplied me abundantly with bouquets of such marvellous beauty, that to look at them and to breathe their fragrant odours gave me a lively pleasure, even now the recollection produces a gentle emotion, like the remembrance of some happy childhood’s Christmas, or some moonlight walk in spring time, when the heart has just learned what love is. The wild flowers I gathered myself, and that I did so much astonished my host and his family. They thought it decidedly eccentric to gather wild flowers, put them into water, and look at them with pleasure, as if they had been garden roses or orange blossoms.
In the afternoon we always went out, either for an excursion on mules or for a long walk. I was very fond of a stroll round the old fortifications of the city, from which I could see the cheerful animated looking town, with its elegant minarets, and the blue sea beyond it—the fruitful plain bordered by the glorious chain of the Sphakistiki, meaning “white mountains,” whose snowy crowns shone in the light of the declining day, and formed a picture more beautiful than anything I had ever seen or dreamt of. Here the Turkish band used to play in the evening. They sometimes performed European music, but their national marches and the hymn to the Sultan they played with more spirit and gusto, and the strange wild sounds seemed also to me more in harmony with the scene around.
3
Seraglio means a palace. Harem means sacred, and is that part of the Seraglio which is assigned to the women.