Unlike nowadays, travel in the late 1800s was expensive, and journeys to places we think of as short and close to us took a long time. The tourists in those times were the wealthy educated explorers from the most highly advanced countries, namely the United Kingdom. They travelled to exotic places that few people in thse days had the chance to visit. Many of these early tourists published detailed accounts of what they saw and did in their journeys, which were rarely called holidays - these people were traveling for long periods of time and they saw these journeys as an occupation. Colonisation had stopped by then - what was there to be taken had already been taken - so they traveled with the scope of studying the archaeology of an area and trading with the locals, among other acitivities.
James Theodore Bent was one of those early tourists. He spent a long time touring the Cycladic islands, after which he wrote the book: The Cyclades; or, Life among the insular Greeks, which was published in 1885. One of the islands he visited was Santorini: he always referred to it as 'Santorin'. As I read through his descriptions of Santorini, I was surprised to see how much they resemble closely how today's world views the island. Having spent a few days in Santorini recently, I decided to use Bent's account of the island to describe my own experiences. The blue wording below is taken directly from Bent's writings. I have added my own photos, with black italicised captions. Quotes from other authors are also italicised with quote marks, to distinguish them from Bent's writings.
Sit back and enjoy the trip!
CHAPTER VI: SANTORIN (THERA)
1. The Volcano
Before landing on Santorin and mixing ourselves with its people, we must consider for a brief space the particular feature of the island, namely, the volcano. The Hephaestus as they call it, has made of Santorin one of the most terrible spots in the world, and has had a powerful influence on the inhabitants.
... The island of Santorin proper is on the outer circle, eighteen miles from point to point, and twelve on the inner circle, and it is somewhat like a horseshoe; the remainder of the circle is made up by two islands, Therasia and Aspronisi, and three channels, by which the central basin or harbour is entered.
... the widest part of the island is scarcely three miles, the narrowest considerably under a mile at each end of the horseshoe of Santorin are the cliffs of Akroteri and Epanomeri. Epanomeri (= 'upper place') is now called Oia. Bent never calls it Oia - he uses only Epanomeri. Here is an expanation as to how it got its newer name:
... Santorin is a rich and prosperous island; nowhere in Greece do grapes grow so well as here ... Another eruption may suddenly come on, and cover Thera with feet of pumice or engulf her in the sea. And yet the inhabitants are happy, and, amass money year by year; for, as say the Greeks, 'he who has money has a tongue.' After Syra, nowhere in the Cyclades are there so many well-to-do people as there are in Santorin.
The action of this volcano must have had, in the course of ages, a powerful influence over the inhabitants; for, from their position, the towns, built on the edge of the cliff overlooking the basin, are as if placed in an amphitheatre to overlook the mysterious workings of their volcano. ... Even the inhabitants from Ios, thirty miles from Santorin, and Anaphi, twelve miles east, and Sikinos thirty-five miles north-west, were subject in a less degree to the influence of [the volcano's] gases when the wind brought them in their direction.
... Everybody we told that we were going to Santorin had some new story to tell of its horrors, and the neighbouring islanders believe firmly that the crater of Santorin is the entrance to Hades, whither, say the Naxiotes, our good bishop has driven all the vampires and ghosts, so that they are very numerous here, and roll stones down the cliffs at travellers.
.. After these few remarks on the nature of the island we were about to visit the reader will better understand the impressions created. It is a hideous island, fascinating in its hideousness...
2. The Island of Santorin or Thera
On entering the basin of Santorin one experiences directly the pleasant impression of seeing something utterly new. To the left we were swiftly borne past a white line of houses perched along the edge of blood red rocks which form the northernmost point of the island. This is Epanomeria. Further on the red promontory of Scaros juts out into the basin, and on it are the crumbling ruins of the mediaeval fortress; above this, on black rocks, is perched the white village of Meroviglia, 1,000 feet above the sea, which commences a long line of white houses, nearly two miles in extent, which blends itself with Pheri, the present capital of the island.
... Half the inhabitants of Santorin, in spite of the encouragement given by Government to the building of regular houses, prefer to live like rabbits in the ground. The capital and one or two of the principal villages now boast of handsome houses properly built, but some of the remote villages are still mere rabbit warrens excavated in the pumice-stone rocks as they have been for centuries.
The wall of rock is ascended by a newly made zigzag path, which joins Pheri and her port, 950 feet beneath her, which 950 feet are composed of countless layers of volcanic eruptions in contorted lines of black and red. Here and there a little verdure clings to the cliff; here and there the little houses peep, like owls, from out of the rocks ; and huge black boulders, which have been loosened and fallen in times of earthquake, stand ominously threatening on the next opportunity to roll down and crush the houses by the harbour.
Frequent accidents occur from the loosening and fall of these rocks, and a word peculiar to Santorin (κατράξις) has been coined, with the usual phonetic success of the Greek tongue, to express their crushing roll.
Altogether Santorin is an awe-inspiring spot, and we did not know whether to be glad or sorry when the steamer went away, and left us for a fortnight's stay in Vulcan's palace. Really if Pheri, as the capital of Thera is curiously called, on the same principle that in modern Greek Thebes is called Pheba (pron. Pheva), had but a few trees to shelter it, it would be an inviting residence in the summer, perched, as it is, high above the sea-level, and commanding views of an astonishing character over the basin, the volcanic islands, and the distance.
All the houses of the poorer class which are not made in the ground are one-storeyed, with vaulted roof of stone and covered inside with excellent cement made out of Santorin pumice stone. These houses are firm and resist earthquakes bettern than flat roofs.
... There are plenty of ships in the bays and creeks of the Burnt Islands ; for here they can get that anchorage which the steep cliffs of Santorin do not provide ; and furthermore by a ten days' stay in these waters the bottoms of the ships become clean without any effort on the part of the sailors.
... Before the last eruption there was a bath establishment here, consisting of a church and several houses, much frequented in summer time by invalids; all that is left of it is the vaulted roofs of two or three houses standing out of the water. Since that time, not a soul has ventured to sleep on this side. The aspect of everything is infernal beyond description; not a tree grows here, except a few figs, the fruit of which is considered of surpassing excellence. All is black, save a few bright coloured stones and streaks of sulphur; huge blocks of lava and broken volcanic bombs lie about everywhere.
... Pheri has many Roman Catholics in it, for in the middle ages numbers of Italian and Spanish families settled here: these families still take the lead, and possess the finest houses. There are the Dekigallas (De Cigalli) and Barozzi, of Italian origin; there are the Da Corognas and Delendas, of Spanish origin, said to be remnants of the wandering Catalans who haunted these seas in the fourteenth century, and some of whom reigned, as we have previously seen, in Siphnos. There is a convent, too, in Pheri, where the young ladies of Santorin are taught French; so the upper class inhabitants of this town consider themselves very Western indeed, and give themselves airs which are highly displeasing to the Greeks: never was there any love lost between devotees of the Eastern and Western dogmas.
... Below Meroviglia the red rock on which Scaros is built juts out into the bay; on the top of it is the castle of the mediaeval rulers, and around cluster the old houses which were abandoned only twenty years ago because they were falling into the sea ; and the last inhabitant, an old woman, had to be dragged away by main force, so attached was she to the home of her ancestors.
From one point of view the crumbling ruins of the mediaeval town are interesting, for they show the strength of the vaulted cement roofs, which only fall to pieces in huge masses, the arches being firmly wedged together and levelled with cement; some of these houses are two-storeyed, and hold together in a remarkable way...
On the following morning we set off for a long walk to explore the slopes of the island, which gently lead down to the outer sea. The aspect of the place is ugly enough in winter, and resembles a brown flat plain covered with hampers, for at Santorin they always weave the tendrils of their vines into circles, the effect in winter being that each vineyard looks as if hampers were placed all over it in rows and at intervals of every two yards. The Santoriniotes treat the vine differently to the other islanders, for here they plough their vineyards instead of digging them, and, contrary to the biblical injunction, I have often seen a bullock yoked to a mule in so doing.
For the first two or three years after planting a vine they cut off most of the shoots, leaving only a few trailing on the ground, after which they weave them into the above-mentioned baskets, which in summer are quite hidden with leaves and fruit. This hamper increases in size year by year, until after twenty years it is cut off and the vine is left with only a few branches, of which some are trailed round in circles and others left lying on the ground. This work is done yearly, and has the local name of κλάδον.
The wine of Santorin is certainly most excellent, and is drunk largely in Russia; much, too, finds its way, via France, to England under the name of claret; but a cunning wine-maker has christened a certain brand 'Bordeaux, and hopes by this artifice it may sell in England without passing through a French cellar, which entails considerable reduction in profits. But the best wine in the island is a white one called 'of the night' (νυκτέρι) because the grapes of which it is made are gathered before sunrise, and are supposed to have a better aroma from this cause. They make more wine here than anywhere else in Greece; they have seventy different kinds of grapes, the best of which are chosen.
... Without her vineyards Santorin would be a desert. There is not enough barley grown to support a quarter of the inhabitants, there is not nearly straw enough for the mules, which deficiency is supplied by giving them the soft shoots of the vines to eat, whereas the extraneous branches are given to the hens. Even the branches and old hampers which are despised by the mules and the hens are not sufficient to supply the inhabitants with wood enough for their cooking purposes.
Everywhere we passed cisterns excavated in the ground and coated with cement. Some of these are thirty to forty yards in circumference, for Santorin is almost waterless except for that collected in these cisterns. Every house has its own cistern, and public ones are kept at the expense of the community at fitting intervals along the roadsides, and provided with a pail for drawing up the water, and troughs for the mules to drink out of only three natural springs exist on the island, and are in that part which is not volcanic.
... In one of these [houses in a village], we lunched frugally enough off hard-boiled eggs and green pork sausages. They said we could get better food at the next village, but we were hungry, and, to use a Greek proverb, 'preferred our egg today to our fowl tomorrow' [Κάλλιο νά 'χω σήμερα τ' αυγό παρά αύριο την κότα]. The house was composed of two rooms, both in the rock; the outer one the family occupied by day, with a door opening into the street, a window over it and one on each side; the inner room the family occupied by night, and into this a ray of sunlight never penetrates.
These excavated houses (σκαπτά σπίτια) are the subject of special legislation in Santorin. Those dwelling in them have no actual right to the land over their heads, but then nobody can make a vineyard or a reservoir without the consent of the householder below.
... The construction is thus. The bed of the torrent forms the street ; on either side are lovely gardens, for in this sheltered spot everything flourishes; luxuriant prickly pears and geraniums flower all the year round, and vines hang from trellises; the houses on either side of the street are in the rock. Each house has been chiselled out, and presents only a front wall with doors and windows. People say they are healthy; in fact, epidemics are exceedingly rare in Santorin. They are cool in summer and warm in winter, but they are damp; and, curiously enough, though water is so scarce, the inhabitants of Santorin suffer more from damp than anything else, for the moisture created by the sea air is not absorbed by the dry earth and gets into other things. Bread becomes mouldy directly, and so do boots, salt is always damp, tools rust in twenty-four hours, and those strings of beads (κομπολόγια) with which the Greeks delight to play, get as wet as if they had been dipped in water. Books decay as if from worms, and in an empty house you see spiders' webs hanging and sparkling with moisture in the sunshine...
... we visited many of these dug-out houses, and found their inhabitants prosperous and sharp-witted. From what I saw I quite think the Santoriniotes are the sharpest Greeks I have ever met; they indulge in neat expressions, too; for example, if you try to do something they deem impossible, after the manner of English travellers they will say, 'A blind man found a needle in the straw, and a deaf man told him that he heard it fall' [a well-known proverb all over Greece: Τυφλὸς βελόνα γύρευε μέσα στὸν ἀχερῶνα κ' ἕνας κουφός του ἔλεγε: «Τὴν ἄκουσα ποὺ ἐβρόντα.»]
... Our next expedition was not so interesting; it was to the village of Pyrgos, high up on the hillside, where the coating of pumice clings to the lower spurs of Mesa Bouno and its twin peak, Mount Prophet Elias. As its name implies, Pyrgos is a fortified town or fortress much resorted to in days gone by, when pirates ventured into the basin of Santorin. It is just like all the island fortified towns, dirty and old-world, decidedly more picturesque than the long white line of Pheri, but less peculiar than Bothri. And then we toiled up the limestone mountain to the convent of the prophet, from which vantage ground a most superb view is enjoyed. Far, far away on the southern horizon are seen Mount Ida and other snow-capped peaks of Crete; to the east are the Sporades, Kos, Patmos, Ikaria, Samos, hugging f the coast of Asia Minoj whilst around us are scattered, like leaves in autumn, the many-shaped Cyclades.
... We had a biting northern blast for three whole days, accompanied by drifting small snowy weather such as we rarely have in England for misery; and when the only available fire is a brazier with charcoal ashes, which gives you a headache if you stoop over it, the only alleviation to your misery is to stay in bed or take exercise of an exceedingly active nature.
Deciding on the latter course on one of these days I set off for the northern town of Epanomeria. The snow and wind cut our faces terribly; at times it was almost impossible to struggle against the blast. Up at Meroviglia the ground was hard with frost; we felt perished, and decided to return to our brazier and our beds, but our friend the demarch put new life into us by another dose of hot tea and rum ; so we plodded on till Epanomeria was reached. The road thither is very uneven; now you climb a rock, and are perished by the wind; now you are in shelter, and the sun scorches: such is the winter climate on a volcano in the sunny south.
As we approached Epanomeria the volcanic rocks grew redder, and at the town itself all the formation of the rocks is red. This the inhabitants have utilised to make their houses gayer, and here there are many fine large houses, built of stones hewn out of these red rocks, set together firmly with cement, and into the cement are inserted little red stones by way of ornament.
It is a flourishing place, where most of the sea captains and pilots dwell ; by one of these we were hospitably entertained on fried eggs, with pork sausages cut up with them. The captain was very talkative, asking innumerable questions about England and far-off lands. He told us much, too, about the shipping of Santorin that interested us; how when they have built a new vessel they have a grand ceremony at the launching, or benediction, as they call it here, at which the priest officiates; and the crowd eagerly watch, as she glides into the water, the position she takes, for an omen is attached to this. It is customary to slaughter an ox, a lamb, or a dove on these occasions, according to the wealth of the proprietor and the size of the ship, and with the blood to make a cross on the deck. After this the captain jumps off the bows into the sea with all his clothes on, and the ceremony is followed by a banquet and much rejoicing. I must say that the aspect of Epanomeria is more cheerful than that of the other villages, for here all the houses are above the ground, and the Venetian fort on the headland forms a pleasing addition to the gay red houses.
We had heard much about weddings in Greece, strange customs having been collected by various tra-
vellers from various points of Hellas, and the union of them all had given us a confused idea of what a Greek peasant wedding in a remote island would be... what I saw at Santorin... had its own peculiarities, but many of those peculiarities which we were accustomed to associate with Greek weddings were absent.
... When the bridegroom reached the doorstep, the bridesmaid met him with a saucerful of honey and comfits, and a towel. He dipped his finger into the honey, and made three crosses with it on the door, one on the lintel, and one on each post. After this he ate a mouthful, which the bridesmaid put into his mouth with a spoon, wiped his fingers on the towel, and sank into a retired comer... The father had on a bright yellow coat and a red fez today in honour of his daughter's nuptials... He had just returned with the two priests and the best man (κουμπάρος) from his vineyard, where they had gathered the vine-tendrils, which were to make the crowns for the young couple; and now the pretty ceremony of making these crowns began.
... When the crowns were finished, and the singing over, they placed these symbols of matrimony again in the basket, and handed them to the priests, who headed the procession to the neighbouring church. It was piercingly cold when we came out of the warm cave, and snow was falling, but my neighbour pointed to it and said, * This is lucky ' with an emphasis which at first I thought to be intended for a sarcasm, but on reflection the Greek saying occurred to me, * Happy is the bride that it rains (upon,* and if the greater rarity of snow occurs it surely must indicate some great good luck. We in England have chosen the sun as indicating prosperity to the bride ; in Greece they have chosen rain, the result of difference of climate, no doubt.
... After the religious ceremony was concluded we were all invited to return to the house of the bride's father, where in the most limited space possible they danced a {yrfe.? abominably and administered refreshments: divers kinds of jam, mastic, liqueurs, and plates of honey and almond, which last delicacy had to be eaten with a knife. In Santorin they do not keep up marriage festivities so long as those we saw at Sikinos or as in Mykonos, in which island ten or fifteen days of festivity are considered usual, and at a peasant wedding, which was concluded the day we arrived, they told us that no less than twenty lambs had been slaughtered, not to mention other food But most of the quaint old customs relative to marriage in Greece have been abandoned for exactly the same reason that they are abandoning the costumes because they are too expensive to keep up...
If the sender of the offer is not * made to eat gruel,' as the Greeks neatly express a refusal, then on the fol- lowing Friday the parish priest and the two families assemble for the discussion of the settlement, which is in itself a religious ceremony, almost as impressive as the' marriage one. Greek girls are usually well endowed, for the father, if he is able, provides his daughter with a house ; sons are not supposed to want anything, and rarely inherit their father's home...
Our muleteer was ready for us next morning in his plain clothes, just as if nothing had happened the day before ; and we started on our longest expedition on the island to the south-eastern end, where on the slopes of the limestone mountain are the chief remains of Grecian antiquities. Our road led us through the large village of * great place' (fieyaXo x^/oto), with evidences of Venetian splendour, and then on to a spot called Emporion, which name testifies to the trade that was once carried on here in days now long gone by ; yet still it is a well-to-do place, and we were by no means badly housed with the demarch. At the entrance to the village is a mediaeval tower, planted against the mountain side, and near it a tall, waving palm-tree ; vineyards are all spread around, and the spot looked very picturesque as it climbed up a cleft of the mountain, down which cleft during the recent rains terrible torrents had poured, drowning men and cattle, and ruining houses and vineyards in its rush towards the sea.
The church of Empori6n is interesting : four pillars of an ancient temple stand in the courtyard οutside, and inside the pillars of the nave have belonged to a Corinthian temple which probably came from Eleusis, the city which once stood near here, but almost all the traces of which have been washed away by encroachments of the sea. The church bells were all clanging and pealing that evening, for the morrow was the day of the Epiphany, the baptism of Christ, the day on which the priest blesses water in the church and prepares his holy oil, and all good people were to be in church by 4 A.M. It was an effort, but I was very desirous of seeing this ceremony in this quaint old church, so I arose in time, and was rewarded.
Very quaint indeed it looked as we went out of the cold darkness into the brilliantly lighted church, and saw the pious populace kneeling all around as the litany was being chanted prior to the blessing of the waters. There was the font, an ancient marble altar ornamented with garlands and rams' heads, placed before the picture of the baptism of Christ ; it was full of water, and illuminated with candles stuck around the edge with their own grease, whilst pots and jugs full of water of every description covered the floor near this font.
After the litany was over the priest in his gold brocaded stole went around with his cross and a sprig of basil in his hand, accompanied by two acolytes, with censers, who assisted in groaning the responses. Everyone knelt, when the priest threw the basil into the font, read the appointed portion of the Scriptures, and signed the water in the font and in the jugs with the cross. No sooner was this ceremony over than there was a regular rush from all sides with mugs and bottles to se cure some of this consecrated water. Everybody laughed and hustled each other, even the priest with the cross in
his hand stood and watched them with a broad grin on his face ; it was a striking contrast to the solemnity which had reigned a moment before. The font was soon emptied of its contents, and an orange which had been floating in it was presented by the priest to one of his acolytes.
Before leaving the church with their bottle of water everybody went up to kiss the cross which the priest held and to be sprinkled with water from the sprig of basil, after which he dropped as his exchange gift for such favours a coin in the plate held by an acolyte Then they dispersed to their homes, carrying their bottle of water with them and a sprig of basil, which the priest had blessed, to hang up in their homes.
It was a lovely warm day, for a change, and we set out on our duties of seeing the ancient ruins of Santorin as soon as breakfast had restored us from the fatigues of the early mass. That evening found us again at Phera, after a hard day's work, amongst ruins which I will describe in a note.*
We reached our house belated and drenched with rain ; the lovely morning had been treacherous and our paths were torrents, for the paths were the beds of torrent Hitherto we had had a contempt for the dry torrent-beds, but they had at last asserted their use. Before the rush of the water the stalks of the water willows* [Xvyapta) bent and swayed. Out of these willows the Santoriniotes make capital baskets, and drive a good trade by selling them to their neighbours. Why they are more energetic than the other islanders I cannot say. Barren and dry as Santorin looks by the side of its neighbour Naxos, its inhabitants are energetic and prosperous ; whereas in Naxos, where nature, has done all for them she can, idleness and poverty prevail.
One more journey remained for us, namely, an expedition to the lost limb of Santorin, the island of
Therasiaβ€” an expedition which will be to me an ever memorable one. It was only a short sail across the harbour, an hour's run with a good breeze, but our breeze to-day was rather too good, and we were drenched to the sbn before we set foot on this inhospitable shore. Everything here is the same as at Thera, only on a smaller scale ; a few boathouses form the port, a wretched zigzag path leads up to the row of white houses eight hundred feet above, each with a vaulted roof, which form the Chora. It was St John the Baptist's Day, an universal holiday, for St. John the Baptist follows ^ next after the Epiphany in the Byzantine calendar. And, despite our drenched condition and the biting north wind, we enjoyed participating in the blessing of the sea which happened to be taking place. Down the zigzag path the procession wended its way, headed by priests carrying crosses, and two acolytes carrying lanterns ; after them came all the inhabitants of the town, a hardy seafaring race. On the seashore a litany was sung, during which all the people knelt around, and with his cross the priest blessed the waves and then threw it into the sea. There was a general scramble now to get the cross, for the man or boy who secures it gets as a reward for facing the cold and the wet some coppers from the bystanders, which later in the day will buy him enough wine to make him very drunk and drive out the chill.
With the crowd returning from their devotions we climbed the hill and went straight to the demarch's
house, where breakfast was shortly afterwards spread for us according to the abilities of our host ; hard-boiled eggs, fish, and curious cakes (^eporch) made out of flour and oil, twisted into shapes to represent flowers, baked, and then covered with honey ; this meal was quite as good as we could expect on Therasia, for the demarch himself was little better than a labourer. The landlords of Therasia are, for the most part, absentees ; that is to say, I they live over at Epanomerii or Pheri, and only their ^ inferiors remain on the spot. Whilst we sat at our meal men came round with dishes begging for a subscription for a new church. I asked them what they could want with a new church on an island which had more churches in it than houses. They smiled and said it was a vow made to St. Nicholas in time of storm ; and I thought how useful a church had been to us at Anaphi in time of need, so I gave them a trifle.
After breakfast we set off across the island to visit the mines, where the best pumice stone is found and exported, and where the prehistoric remains were unearthed two years ago. On our way we passed through Agaliel ; quite the quaintest village I ever saw, surpassing even those of Bothr6 and Goni^, for here the gulley in the volcanic rock is extremely narrow and deep, so there is no room for gardens ; in fact, it is a natural street in which every house, without one exception, is hewn out of the rock ; here even the church is cut in the rock, having only on one side a wall, and in a comer has been constructed a small bell tower, which is positively the only means by which you can identify the
existence of sacred precincts ; until you have entered the gulley and walked up it a little way there is not a vestige of anything to lead one to suspect the presence of habitations.
Therasia is more pastoral than Thera On the southern slopes a good deal of grain is grown, and women with their faces enveloped in white handkerchiefs were tending their goats, walking about with huge sacks on their backs in search of fodder for their niules. I remarked that here nearly every woman wore white, whereas in Thera black was the fashion. Beyond this point there was nothing whatsoever to lead us to believe that we were on a different island.
On our return to the Chora there was not much to detain us at Therasia β€” only the unpleasant fact that our three sailors, having been too hospitably treated by their hosts, were drunk, two of them hopelessly so, and loath to leave. In our search for the delinquents we entered into several houses, and saw the good people all giving themselves up to the delights of the table. One we entered ψonsisted of only one room with no window, no light except from the door. There was a round table in the middle of the room, at which a dozen men were singing and roaring at the top of their voices round the remains of their feast ; and as we appeared at the door the host would not hear * Nay,' we
must drink to our welcome and our happy return home.
All the women stood meekly in a comer contemplating us and their uproarious lords. These feast days in modern Greece are regular symposia: there was the board surrounded by men ; there were the women serving and shrinking from observation ; and there was the bard, who had done his duty earlier in the feast by singing and playing the syravlion until he had impressed music and hilarity into his listeners. These are lineal / descendants of the feasts of Dionysia, at which all got drunk, and were held blameless ; nay, even now it is thought a crime to remain sober at these feasts, an insult to your host As a rule, they are not a drunken race, but they have a good many exceptional days, and ' St. John the Baptist's Day is one which proves this rule...
Outside the harbour it was blowing a fearful hurricane, a regular avsjioa-rpo^dKoSy as they call it, caused by demons rushing from place to place. So associated in these islands are all horrors connected with the wind with the idea of demons that the devii is often called 6 avsfios / (the wind), and old women mutter * honey and milk ' to exorcise these demons in the air, as in ancient times they
offered honey and milk to the nymphs who were supposed to raise these storms. In other places they attribute storms to a marriage among the Nereids (Ji iroinrrj twi; ^ipatha>v\ and the attendant festivities.
As for ourselves we felt that we were in danger, not so much from the demons of the air as from the
demons of the earth ; for two of our sailors, a father and son, fought like demons in their drunken madness, biting each other on the cheeks and hands until the blood gushed out on the shore. The third sailor was not so drunk, only furiously angry with his associates ; he cursed them again and again with that effectual Greek curse, the ^aaKskovy done by shaking five fingers at the object of your imprecation and hissing vk through your teeth : it is the most deadly insult you can ofTer to a person, and if you dare not do it to his face, do it behind his back, and it will be equally effectual.
With great difficulty we got into our boat and began our homeward journey, and as we rounded the point which shelters the little bay of Therasia the demons of the air snatched our sail out of the hands of our soberest sailor and unshipped our rudder, causing us infinite trouble and danger of being driven on the rocks. The pugnacious father and son had to be held at opposite ends of the boat by our servant and myself until kindly nature closed their eyes in sleep, and thus we crossed over to Thera. It will be long before the adventures of this voyage will be effaced from our memories, and we shall in future avoid a voyage in a caXque on the occasion of a symposium in honour of St. John the Baptist
... By eleven o'clock we were ready to leave Empori6n, and went in the direction of Perissa, a spot which presumably derives its name from being the point at which people started to cross over to Anaphi. Just across on the opposite shore of Anaphi was found an inscription, from which we gather that it was a catalogue of lands given by the owners to a temple at Perissa, and now the convent of Kalamiotissa belongs to the one at Perissa. Here Ross tells us an amusing story of how a monk wished to dig for antiquities, and when Ross refused the monk had recourse to dreaming a dream about a hidden picture ; whereat the inhabitants took upon themselves to dig, and found traces of ancient worship, erected by subscription the modem church, and looked upon the monk with
veneration ever afterwards.
A hideous church and convent now occupy the spot where an iron cross was supposed to have been found during this excavation ; but the sea is rapidly encroaching, and will in all probability wash this all away before the lapse of many years. Half a century ago the sea was one hundred and seventy feet distant from this church, now it is only fifty feet off, and in calm weather from a boat you can distinctly see the remains of an old wall and the ruins of the houses of Eleusis buried in the waves.
But one little gem is still left behind the modem church, being a small circular marble heroon : it is fifty-four feet round, and is raised on a square basis. The roof was once supported by a central pillar, the base of which is still left, and round the outside ^ve of the stones are covered with inscriptions late and badly cut ; all the stones have a plain edging round two sides, but they are obviously not in their original places. Near the church we saw another stone, which evidently came from here, covered with similar inscriptions ; from these we gather that colonists from Melos, Scopelos, and other places were interested in this building, having erected it probably in honour of a departed member of their
colony by contributions from various sources thereon enumerated. Perissa is rich in remains of the past let into the walls of the church and convent cells.
On leaving the convent we ascended Mesa Boun6, and visited the ruins of an extensive town, which crowned the sununit of the promontory now known as Mount St. Stephen, which is joined to Mount Prophet Elias by the col of Mesa Boun6. Ross spent days here investigating the ruins, which he believed to be those of iΒ£a ; ' but since his day an inscription has been found which clearly points to the town being calle d Thera^ not iEa.
The little Church of St Stephen is literally built out of antiquities scraped together on his hill ; and soon after passing this you come across the walls, and enter the precincts of the old town. On the smooth cliff are many of those curious rock inscriptions, difficult to decipher and still more difficult to tell their purport. For the most part these consist of simple proper names cut in the letters of vastly different epochs, from those of early Greece to those of the Byzantine empire. Separated from these is the simple word *Avay*o7 (necessity), where probably once stood an altar to Necessity, such as we see elsewhere erected to Fear, Force, Shame, &c At Corinth, too, was a temple to Necessity, which none might enter...
On the eastern side, on the top of the hill, are the remains of the public buildings, now only a waste of pillars, bases, and architraves. Everything of value has been taken off by * foreign thieves' β€” Orloff, Farvel, Ross, and others all boast of caique-loads of treasures shipped from this mountain to Europe ; and if only the Greek Government would encourage excavation caique-loads might still be found, which could be secured for the Athenian or local museums...
NOTE II. On the Prehistoric Remains at Therasia
The mines of Therasian earth, which lay to the south of Therasia, have been worked now for several years, and when the workmen reached a depth of thirty feet from the summit, and fifty feet inwards, they came upon the foundation of buildings. First, they discovered the walls of two buildings resting on a foundation or stratum of scoriae, on which the pumice stone (acnny, as they call the Therasian earth here) had been deposited. This left no doubt that the building in question had existed prior to the eruption which had covered Thera with pumice. On further clearing they discovered that these were the walls of rooms, the floors of which consisted of the scoriae rock. The largest of the two dwellings was about twenty-four feet from the smaller one, and consisted of a space divided into five unequal chambers, four of which lay in a row to the north, whilst the fifth and largest faced south. It was
twenty-four feet from east to west, and twenty and a quaiter feet from north to south, including the hall to the east and south. The form is a parallelogram with the angles slightly curved, and the walls have apparently shelved in towards the roof. The walls consisted of volcanic stones stuck together with clay, and wooden rafters had been let in to form a flat roof, which may have been covered with mud, as those in most of the islands, for in the refuse has only been found bits of charred wood and rubble, the charred wood being so decayed that at the slightest touch it crumbled into dust The * finds ' in the houses were very interesting β€” two tools of obsidian, one having the shape of a lance the other of a savr or toothed knife, and a ring of the same material, with traces of string having been attached to it ; perhaps used in the loom, like the rings OapuSta) they attach the strings to to-day ; two basins of tufa stone β€” one round, the other elliptical β€” and two stones, evidently used for grinding com ; quantities of pottery, of different forms and shapes, so badly baked that most of it crumbled away ; but they resembled strongly those which I found in the graves at Antiparos,' having the same vertical holes for suspension, but owing to the dampness which had penetrated the pumice they were in a worse state of preservation. Most of these vases were full of edible material more or less reduced to cinders, but it was still easy to recognise barley, peas, anise, coriander, sesame, millet, and a sort of cheese, which must have closely resembled the modem island production of mysethra.^ The skeleton of a sheep, and in one of the rooms that of a man, were discovered very much charred. The remains at Akroteri are not so old β€” iron instmments were found therein, and pottery of a much more advanced age, resembling, more closely that found by Dr. Schliemann at Hirsarlih^ than those things which came from Antiparos and Therasia, for there are rude representations on them of animal and vegetable life, milk jugs with breasts, and so forth, which point to a much more recent period. Furthermore, the remains of the village of Akroteri are not so deeply buried as those at Therasia, being little more than twenty feet below the surface. It is a question of great difficulty to chronologically arrange this town-geology can speak with much greater certainty than archaeology.
CHAPTER X.
THE DEATH-WAILS OF MYKONOS.
Everywhere in the Cyclades we were told that when we came to Mykonos we should hear the best lamentations over the dead that exist in Greece: that barren Mykonos had this one unenviable speciality; nowhere else could the wailing women (μοιρολογίσται) sing over
the dead such stirring, heart-rending dirges as there. So we went to Mykonos with the firm determination of waiting there until somebody died, and in the cold changeable days of March we did not anticipate that we should be long delayed.
We crossed over from Syra in the tricandira of a Hydriote fisherman; and good cause we had to be thankful that we had chosen these sailors and their trustworthy boat, for the sea was lashed angrily by a southern gale, and unpleasant thoughts occurred to us that our purpose in going to Mykonos to hear a death-wail was an ill-omened one, and might end disastrously to ourselves. But the boats from Hydra are good; they have osier instead of canvas bulwarks - wattled osiers, the λυγαρία which grow in mountain streams, and which, I think, must have formed the bulwarks which Ulysses made for
his two-decked raft when he left the charmed island of Kalypso. Two islands in the Αegean Sea (Hydra and Psara) still have these bulwarks, and these boats are the best. We had to take down our sail half-way, and put up a smaller one, which was an unpleasant process in a pitching sea ; but we had time to admire our primitive sail-rings, which were made out of cow's horn cut into rings. Elsewhere we had seen vine-tendrils used for this purpose ; but they are not nearly so satisfactory, for whenever a good gust filled the sails one or two were sure to give way.
The view of Mykonos from the sea is attractive : it is a considerable town composed of white houses, with wooden balconies, which are built for the most part on a promontory which juts out into the sea. A regiment of windmills coming right down the hillside forms a conspicuous object from afar, and dotted about here and there are some of those quaint dovecotes of which we afterwards saw better specimens on Tenos. At the end of the promontory is all that is left of a mediaeval tower which once protected the harbour. There is a Byzantine church, buried in houses, and there is a tall, gaunt house,
of peculiar structure, built by the Russians in 1777, who intended to make Mykonos their headquarters in the Cyclades. This house has now come in very well for Government purposes; it serves as the demarcheion, and the public school is held in it. Some of the houses of Mykonos are well built and more decorative than is usual in these island towns ; many of them have quaint chimneys, with brick patterns, and a dove at the top; something quite original in house architecture.
In the middle of the harbour, joined to the quay by an arched bridge; recalling a Venetian canal bridge to one's mind and built on a rock, is a little white church, with vaulted roof, dedicated to the modern Poseidon, St. Nicholas. Here the sailors worship their patron saint, and at Mykonos nearly every household possesses a sailor amongst its number ; consequently St. Nicholas and his feast are in high repute. In our bedroom was an eikon of St. Nicholas painted on the inside of a crab's shell, the back of which was gilded ; and the sailors here have many songs about their patron saint : how he has saved them in the hour of need ; how he invented the rudder ; and how he sits at the helm, whilst
Christ is in the bows, and the Virgin in the middle of his boat.
Our first friend in Mykonos bore the high-sounding name of Paleologos ; it is a common one in the islands. Once we had a muleteer who bore the name of the last line of Emperors of the East. He gave us coffee, and was very specious ; but our second and staunchest friend was Demarch Kalogeras, which being translated means Monk. The Monks have quite a mansion by the shore, and a pleasure garden on the hillside ; they live in European style, and Demarch Monk, as the sovereign lord of Mykonos and the adjacent Delian isles, has somewhat to say to excavation, and jealously guards |
the treasures which have come from Delos in a dingy museum in a back street, of which more anon. Everybody in Mykonos has a little museum : scraps of marble let into their houses, a few lamps, coins, and other treasures which have come from the neighbouring mine of antiquities.
It cost me much trouble and thought to introduce the subject I had at heart. I spoke of the changeableness of the weather, the prevalence of pulmonary diseases at this season of the year, and so forth ; if it had been a wedding, or a christening, or a dance I had wished to study, there would have been no difficulty about it ; but to have to admit that my cherished wish was to attend a Mykoniote funeral was a very delicate subject ; I never felt a more heartless wretch.
After a little manoeuvring I learnt that two or three Mykoniotes were in extremis ; that a young Mykoniote had lately died at Athens, and that the family were determined to have the customary lamentation for one who had died abroad ('ξόδι or εξοδιός θρήνος). Nobody could be kinder than Mrs. Monk when she had once warmed to the subject, evincing considerable pride in describing what I was pleased to call the speciality of her island ; and from my conversation with her I learnt much about a Greek's conception of death...
On the second morning after our arrival at Mykonos we heard that young Parodos was no more ; that he had left a wife and several small children. A very sad case it was, carried off, as he had been, in the prime of life by a consumption, of some years' standing, which had been brought to a climax by this damp and windy winter. Mrs. Monk, with feminine minuteness, entered into details of his last hours. He had received the prayer oil (ευχέλαιον), she said, in the middle of the night, with the
customary attendance of seven priests to bless it. Very early in the morning, feeling that he was sinking, he summoned his family around him and sprinkled them, as is their wont in Mykonos, with water in which salt had been cast, saying, 'As the salt has melted so may my curses melt'.
The agonies of death were short ; he passed away as a burnt-out candle/ said Mrs. Monk with a contented sigh ;' so we have no fear of his dying unpardoned.* * Why so ? ' I asked ; and she spoke disdainfully of a religion which does not teach that, if the agony of death is prolonged, all know that the sufferer has been unpardoned for some injustice, in which case, if possible, the injured man, if alive, must be summoned to forgive, or if dead, the man in the death agony must be fumigated with the smoke made by burning a portion of the other's shroud.
The bells of Mykonos were tolling mournfully, to tell of the death of the young man ; and I shuddered involuntarily now that I knew that my desire was to be realised. I was to be present at a merologia over the dead.
* The women are preparing the corpse now ; by ten
o'clock all will be ready,' Mrs. Monk gaily suggested
as we were discussing some eggs and boiled milk for
breakfast *The moerologista Zachara is engaged to
sing, and no one is better suited than she for her occu-
pation.*
We then talked about these women : how they practise
their dirges when working in the fields ; how they have
certain verses and certain stock ideas for nearly every
emergency ; and how by constant practice it comes quite
easily to them to make impromptu verses about the
special case in question. A few years ago they used to
send to Mykonos from all the islands round when a death
occurred at which a special honour was desired to be
shown to some deceased magnate ; but lately this custom
has been abandoned. It must have been a weird sight
to see the woman dressed in the peculiar costume of
Mykonos, the tall makramades head-dress, on her way
to a neighbouring island to sing her wail.
The makramades when black is a peculiarly hideous
2i6 THE CYCLADES,
and forbidding headgear, being a tall block of wood
or stiff canvas, which is placed on the top of the head
and bound round with a towel ; round the forehead is
wound another towel ^ or handkerchief, which secures
the head-dress firmly, and the ends of which stick out
curiously on either side of the face. Two curls ap-
pear on the cheeks from under this. Of course, as suited
to her calling, the mcerologista has to wear this black ;
other women have coloured and embroidered ones,
which are by no means so repulsive, especially when
worn with the dress to match it. They have blue jackets
edged with ermine, a red handkerchief round the neck,
a gold triangular stomacher, and yellow wristbands, a
common cotton petticoat and velvet shoes with white
lace edges. This costume is, alas ! now a rarity ; we saw
just a few old women wearing it, but when they are
dead there will be no one to take thefr place. In a few
years the makramades of Mykonos, the tourlos of
Amorgos, the pina of Siphnos — the last relics of those
costumes which were different in every island — will be
swept away and forgotten.
* We Mykoniotes are deeply attached to our mosro-
logicel remarked Mrs. Monk with pride. * My uncle, who
was a merchant at Marseilles, and who died there, was
determined to have one at his death, and he asked his
wife to sing one over his corpse. She, poor woman !
pleaded that she had been so many years in a foreign
country that she had quite forgotten what to say and
do. " Go fetch my ledger," said the dying man sternly ;
** there you will find put down all I have earned. Sing
that ! " '
In answer to my enquiries Mrs. Monk told me how
they treated a corpse in Mykonos: the funeral takes
* Italian, macrame.
THE DEATH-WAILS OF MYKONOS, 217
place as soon as possible after death — generally within a
few hours — the dead body is washed in water and wine,
then the deceased is wrapped either in a shroud or
dressed in his best clothes and placed, on a bier in the
middle of the outer or reception room of the house, his
face is turned towards the east, his hands across his
breast, and his feet are bound together with black bands ;
and at his head and feet stand two lamps adorned with
coloured ribands. The bier is covered with flowers, out
of which the wax-like face of death peers in hideous
contrast.
When everything was prepared the kinsmen and
friends of the deceased man were summoned to attend
the lamentation by the bellman, and amongst the others
I wended my way to the house of mourning, feeling
heartily ashamed of myself for intruding on their grief ;
but at the same time I was fortified by a consciousness
that the Mykoniotes were flattered at the notice taken
of their custom.
The mcerologista Zachara came in shortly after we
arrived ; the kinswomen were all seated around the
corpse ; the afflicted widow and her children were groan-
ing audibly on the divan, and had their hair down ready
for the customary tearing and shaking. The entrance of .
Zachara was the signal for the commencement of that [
demonstrative grief in which the Greeks love to indulge :
they all set to work to sing in mournful cadence about
the merits of the deceased, keeping time with their feet
and beating their knees with their hands ; then suddenly,
with a fearful shriek, the widow went off into an ecstasy
of grief. She tore her hair, she lacerated her cheek, she
beat her breast, she scratched her bare arms, until at
length two or three women rushed forward to restrain
her in her extravagant grief; her poor little children lay
2i8 THE CYCLADES:
crouching in a corner, terrified beyond measure at what
was going on and screaming with all their might
At length Zachara, who hitherto had taken no part
in the proceedings, but had stood in a statuesque attitude
with a well-feigned face of poignant grief, as if contem-
plating the misery before her to inspire her muse, now
rushed forward, fell on the corpse, kissed it, and rose to
commence her dirge in that harsh and grating voice which
the Greeks love, but which is so distasteful to Western
ears. Thus she began : —
I yearn to mourn for the dead one
Whose name I dare not say,
For as soon as I speak of the lost one
My heart and my voice give way.
As she reached .the end of this stanza her voice
trembled, she paused for a moment, as if to regain her
composure, during which time nothing was heard but
stifled sobs.
Who hath seen the sun at midnight ?
Who hath seen a midday star ?
Who hath seen a bride without a crown
Go forth from her father's door ?
There was a dead silence now, the widow's groans were
hushed, the beating of the feet was stopped, the pause
was one of half-curiosity, half-suspense, for all knew that
the terrible climax was coming as Zachara lifted up her
voice again and wailed : —
Who hath seen the dead returning,
Be he king or warrior brave ?
They are planted in Charon's vineyard,
There is no return from the grave.
This was Zachara's prologue, and after it the grief
and lamentations were renewed with fresh vigour. So far
THE DEATH-WAILS OF MYKONOS. 219
doubtless, many of the mourners had heard before on
similar occasions, for it was one of her stock pieces ;
after this she had to deal with the special case of the
deceased. She sang of the loneliness of the living, of the
horrors of death, and in that strange language of hyper-
bole she wondered how the sun could venture to shine
on so lamentable a scene as the present During all
this time the widow, the kinswomen, and the children
were wild with grief. Nature at length asserted herself
and demanded a pause, during which the company
refreshed themselves with raki^ biscuits, figs, and other
small refections which had been laid out on a table in
the comer of the room.
Then the tide of grief flowed on again ; in fact, a Greek
lament is one of the most heart-rending scenes that can
be witnessed if one were not somewhat fortified all the
while by an inward consciousness that much of it had
been got up for the occasion, and that mourning such as
this, which is repugnant to our stolid northern nations, is
usually as evanescent as it is intense.
Presently another well-known moerologista dropped
in, who, we learnt, was a relative of the deceased ; but
why she had not joined the company previously remained
a mystery. She and Zachara then sang verses alternately,
and together they reminded one forcibly of the Carian
women of antiquity who were hired for the same purpose ;
and one's mind wandered back to a Greek chorus — that
of iEschylus especially — where the virgins at the gate of
Agamemnon indulge in all the most poignant manifes-
tations of grief, beating their breasts, lacerating their
cheeks, and rending their garments ; and I could not but
admire the prudence of Solon, who forbade the excessive
lamentations of women (Plut. * Sol.' xii. and xxi.)
This prolonged agony of mourning continued for
220 ^ THE CYCLADES.
two long hours ; occasionally to relieve the paid lament-
ers, some of the kinswomen would take up their parable
and sing a verse or two, sending messages of love and
remembrances to friends who had gone before to the
shades of Hades ; and great was my relief when the priests
arrived with their acolytes bearing the cross and the
lanterns to convey the corpse to the grave.
Before leaving the house it is customary to break a
jug of water on the threshold : they spill water when any-
one goes for a journey as an earnest of success ; now
the traveller had gone on his long journey, and the jug
was broken.
It was not far to the church, so that the funeral pro-
cession did not take long. The bier, with the corpse ex-
posed, was carried by four bearers ; the priests chanted
the offices as they went ; and occasionally the lamenters,
who headed the procession, broke forth into their hideous
wails. And as it passed by women came forth from
their houses to groan in chorus with the others. It was,
indeed, a painful sight to witness.
On reaching the church the corpse on the bier was
laid just inside the porch ; and when the priests b^an
the liturgy the mourners ceased to wail for a time.
Then came the impressive and very solemn stichera of
the last kiss, which was chanted by all the priests toge-
ther — * Blessed is the way thou shalt go to-day, &c.'—
whereat each mourner advanced and gave the last kiss
to the cold face of the corpse, after which all with one
accord burst forth again into extravagant demonstra-
tions of grief. Finally, the corpse was lowered, with-
out a coffin, into its shallow gra.ve, and each bystander
cast a little soil into the tomb. Only the rich have
coffins ; in fact, the poor have a prejudice against them,
for three years after interment the bones are dug up
THE DEATH-WAILS OF MYKONOS, 221
again, washed, and cleaned, and put into the charnel
house ; and if by any chance the flesh is not decayed off
them the people think it a terrible proof that the owner
of the bones has not been allowed to rest in peace — he
is still a poor wandering ghost.
When a death has occurred in a house they thoroughly ,
purify the place, and on the return of the mourners from
the funeral they wash their hands. Many superstitions
concerning death still exist, but they are becoming fewer
year by year ; for example, the dying must not have a
goat's hair coverlet over the bed — it will impede his de-
parture — and a child should not sneeze whilst a lamen-
tation is being sung, for it is considered as a portent of
its approaching death ; only by tearing off a portion
of its dress can this disaster be averted.
In most places it is considered wrong to cook or
perform household offices in the house of mourning, so
friends and relatives come laden with food and lay the
' * bitter table,' as they call it (just like the vsKpoSsiirva of
ancient days) ; and for three nights after a death, on the
pillow which the departed used they burn a dim lamp,
because it is thought that for three days after burial the
soul loves to revisit those in his old home, and busies
himself with his usual avocations.
On the day following the burial they prepare the
KoWvlSa at Mykonos ; that is to say, boiled wheat
adorned with sugar plums, honey, sesame, basil, or what-
ever other delicacy may suggest itself to the survivors.
Sometimes they call these * blessed cakes ' (fiaKdpia) — out
of euphony, no doubt — ^^and on the third day the friends
and relatives reassemble, again being summoned by the
bellman, fresh mcerologice are sung, the grief scenes are
re-enacted around the delicacies they have prepared,
and after a sufficiency of lamentation they repair to the
222 THE CYCLADES.
tomb, put the icoXKv^a upon it, lament a little more, and
finally distribute the eatables to the poor at the church
door.
The same ceremony is gone through again on the
ninth and fortieth days after death, and again also on
the memorial festivals at the expiration of six and twelve
months, and rarely, too, on the second anniversary ; in
some places I have often seen tall pots like chimneys
dotted about in churchyards where incense is burnt in
honour of the departed on stated occasions. These and
other ceremonies, recalling the ancient feasts to the dead,
are still extant in the islands. At Thermii, after a
funeral at the tomb, they distribute sweetmeats and raki,
and again they do the same after the distribution of the
KoXKv^a : this they call truyxcopt'Ov, or * pardon.* Some-
times, also, on the Saturday after the death, when the
bread-baking takes place, warm bread with cheese or oil
is distributed to poor women at the ovens in memory of
the departed, and if the death has occurred during Lent
or Easter Day flesh of lambs and wine are given in
charity by wealthy mourners.
Such was the death and burial that I witnessed at
Mykonos ; a scene which, for its intense painfulness, will
never be effaced from my memory. For days after the
cries of grief rang in my ears and haunted my dreams,
but Mrs. Monk, in her matter-of-fact way, said, * Every-
one must die, and everyone at Mykonos, when he or
she dies in the prime of life, must have a mcerologia
sung over the corpse. It is different when a worn-out
old man or woman dies ; nobody thinks it worth while to
mourn for them. You must go to-morrow and hear the
other lamentation over the poor young fellow who died
at Athens.'
I rather demurred ; one moerologia will last a long
THE DEATH-WAILS OF MYKONOS. 223
time, I thought ; but Mrs. Monk persuaded me by saying
that when anyone dies in foreign parts, unaccompanied
to his tomb by his relatives, it is a solemn duty to show
extra attention to his manes at home. Formerly a
lamentation such as this could last forty days, but now
it \s limited ; they wail and cry for a few days, and when
they are exhausted they give it up like sensible people,
and do not wear themselves to death with grief, as once
they used to do.
It was to a little back street of Mykonos to which I
was conducted next morning, and long before reaching
the house we heard their wails and lamentations ; and as
I entered my breath was almost taken away by a young
girl, with her black hair streaming over her back, her face
distraught with grief, rushing violently at me, screaming,
••Bring me back my brother ! ' With difficulty her kins-
folk persuaded her to leave me alone and to resume her
seat, and as soon as I recovered composure after this
rather embarrassing adventure I recognised that she was
the chief mourner, whose duty it was to exhibit every
possible excess of woe. She screamed at the top of her
voice, she gave violent tugs at her hair, she beat her
breast with crossed hands, she stamped her feet, she
scratched her arms until they bled ; and all the while her
kinswomen sat around her singing dirges in a low, mono-
tonous voice, as if they had to squeeze them out by press-
ing their hands to their sides and beating their knees
vigorously, and then pausing every now and again for a
good, honest cry. When the poor sister's grief was too
violent, when she bade fair to do herself some serious
bodily harm, the others rushed forward to soothe and
restrain her ; and a poor little girl of about ten, a younger
sister of the deceased, would rush up from time to time
and clutch at her dress in a terrified manner, asking her
224 THE CYCLADES.
if she did not love her just a h'ttle, if all her affections
had been centred on the departed. '
Now and again the grief would subside, and then it
was the mcerologista! s turn to do her part to rouse up
fresh anguish in their breasts.
My eyes to-day are streaming,
My grief is bitter and sore.
For he^s gone his long, dark journey ;
His home shall know him no more.
The one redeeming feature in this scene was the
absence of the corpse ; the women were just seated round
the room on chairs, with an empty space in the middle
where the bier would have stood. There were no men
there, and some few I spoke to outside seemed, I thought,
to sneer a little at this lamentation for a dead man who
had died away from home. And I do not think Demardi
Monk was pleased with his wife for inciting me to go.
Now for a few words about Mykonos. In itself
it is one of the least interesting islands of the archi-
pelago. * Lowly Mykonos,' as Pliny described it, is a fair
description still. There are next to no remains of anti-
quity upon it, and now it is scarcely possible to maJK
out where the two cities mentioned by Skylax stood.
One must have been where the present town now stands,
judging from the slight traces of walls and graves; and
the other very likely was near the harbour of Panormos,
a bay which runs right into the centre of the island, and
near which there was a necropolis. Beside these insig-
nificant traces, and the remains of a watchtower, all the
glory of Mykonos is reflected. Every possible piece of
antiquity comes from Delos, even the pillars down by
the harbour to which the sailors moor their boats are
from a temple at Delos.
Like all other travellers who have visited Mykonos,
THE DEATH-WAILS OF MYKOMOS, 22c
one of our objects was Deles. I should think that it has
hitherto been the traveller's only object ; consequently,
as Demarch Monk argued, it is only right that antiqui-
ties dug up at Delos should be kept for inspection at
Mykonos, the nearest town, and the only one in the f
demarchy in which Delos is situated, and not be removed
to Athens, as archaeologists wish. This system of treat-
ing antiquities, now general in Greece, must be looked
at from both points of view : it is charming to see local
antiquities in local museums, where the associations are
so much keener, and travellers are thereby attracted
to a spot they would otherwise not visit, and spend
money which would otherwise not find its way there.
This system may prove excellent in Western Europe,
but in Greece, where accommodation is outrageously
bad outside Athens, the case is different. How can
people come to Mykonos ? Unless you are armed with
a letter of introduction, there is no possible means of
obtaining a night's lodging. The steamer comes only
once a week, when the weather is fine, so a traveller who
visits Mykonos, and would not stay a week on this un-
interesting island, must depend on the precarious passage
by calfque.
Furthermore, the pleasure felt by the people of My-
konos in possessing the valuable remains of Delos is
only that of a satiated dog with a bone ; they do not
want them or understand them themselves, so they try
to prevent anyone else from reaping the good that
would ensue from their being properly looked after and
opportunity given for a more thorough study of them.
I append a note to this chapter on the museum at
Mykonos.
We only made one expedition in Mykonos, and that
was to a convent in the southern part of the island. It
Q
:26 THE CYCLADES,
is four miles distant from the Chora, and at first the
ground traversed is excessively wild, being covered with
huge blocks of granite, which easily account for the
legends of antiquity which relate that here Hercules
and the giants fought, and that here they lie buried. It
is an exceedingly wild, dreary spot, capable of suggest-
ing any horror. But the southern part of the island, in
the district called * the upper part,' presents an unusually
' prosperous aspect. It is all studded with homesteads
in the midst of fertile fields, and there each husbandman
lives at the scene of his work ; so different to other
islands, where the tiller of the soil lives in the town,
and may have several miles to traverse every morn-
ing before reaching his daily labour. In the centre of
this fertile spot is a prosperous monastery called Tour-
liani, or * the little towers,' because hard by, on a rocky
summit, was the mediaeval fortress of Mykonos, of which
now only the outer walls can be seen. It is a rich
monastery, but possesses nothing old or remarkable save
the miraculous eikon, said to be the work of St Luke,
and to have been found by some divers at the bottom of
the sea. You can see nothing of it but a black mass,
and a few years ago Archbishop Lycurgus, of Syra,
wished to send it to an artist, so that it might be
restored, and some expression given to it ; but the
people would not hear of it, and it was left as it is.
On the top of a fine wooden throne, in Florentine
carving, the man who founded the monastery three hun-
dred years ago had himself placed ; beyond this there
is nothing of interest.
Close to this convent was a nunnery, now disestab-
lished. * In former years,' said an irreverent peasant
who showed us the way, * the convent and the nunnery
were the only houses existing in this part of the
THE DEATH-WAILS OF MYKONOS, 227
island ; and a fine time they had of it, you may be
sure/
Our excellent quarters with Demarch Monk and the
charming society of his family made our evenings at
Mykonos pass very pleasantly. Mrs. Monk produced
all her treasures for our inspection — glorious old Greek
lace enough to constitute a small fortune in England,
jewellery of Venetian date, quilts made out of lovely
brocades, and a square embroidered piece of old chenille,
which was used as the family pall to place the coffin on ;
for the Monks are rich, and, when they die, they go in
for this luxury. The daughters in their room upstairs
/had an enviable little museum of treasures from Delos.
Altogether we had much to see and envy, and felt
grateful to Mrs. Monk when she gave us the eikon of
St Nicholas inside a gilded crabshell, adding gracefully,
as she did so, that she hoped it might secure us a safe
voyage to our country.
The night before we left, an old woman, called
Marousa, was summoned to the demarches house. She
was a great hand at magic art, and told us wonderful
stories, with the aid of a pack of cards, about ourselves ;
stories which, beyond a doubt, she had culled from the
gossip, which convulsed Mykonos just then, about the
English who had attended moerologice and had visited
Tourliani. * Marousa knows how to mix infallible love
potions,' said Mrs. Monk when she had gone ; * but she
would not tell you, however much you asked her.' But
Mrs. Monk herself was more kindly disposed, and told
us how a love-sick girl could win the object of her affec-
tions. * She must get the milk of forty mothers and of
forty of their married daughters ; if she can do this, and
if she can succeed in getting her young man to taste
just a drop of this mixture, he is hers for life.'
Q2
228 THE CYC LADES.
We were on the very best of terms with Mrs. Monk,
and her tongue flowed freely about her native isle ; it
was with grief that we tore ourselves away next day on
our way to Tenos.
NOTE I.
On the Museutns of Mykonos.
There are two dark places in Mykonos devoted to the storage
of curiosities, in one of which, little better than a cellar, are
kept inscriptions of every sort ; in the other, which is lighted by
two doors and two windows looking into a gloomy arcade, are
kept the statues and sculptures. I will just mention a few of
the objects therein because there is no printed catalogue, only an
imperfect manuscript one, in modem Greek, which debars its use
to many. There are numerous rude statues of Artemis, one of
which M. Homolle dates at the sixth century B.c. It is a little less
than life size, with the body enveloped in a long tunic, no sleeves,
and fastened by a zone. She is crowned with a diadem, in which
are nail-holes pointing to some decorations having been affixed;
there are wings on the shoulders and heels, long pendants from the
ears and hair hanging over the shoulders. There is evidently a
desire to represent rapid motion, for the left knee, though to all
appearances on the ground, does not touch it, and the wings are
open. The face is full, but the legs are en profile. This valuable
1| piece of archaic work stands in a dark recess, whilst the pedestal,
with an inscription, on which the statue formerly stood, is placed
at the other end of the room. Then there are five beautiftil but
much damaged metopes representing Hades carrying off Proser-
pine, all of the same character, and foimd near the same spot on
Delos. These are said to be the work of the school of Praxiteles.
Then there are those wonderfully large inscriptions from Delos, the
largest known — eighty-eight inches long by forty-four — and covered
with writing on both sides, detailing the wealth and possessions
and the expenses attending the maintenance of the great temple of
Apollo at Delos. Then we have a curious syren, of ancient work-
manship, without a head, but with the long conventional curls
still adhering to the back and chest. There is a very curious
stele of Hermes, the head of which is gone, but all the pedestal
is covered with every description of rude drawing, done at
THE DEATH-WAILS OF MYKONOS, 229
different periods ; there are easily discernible on it dogs, fish,
people, and a capitally executed goat, and a representation of the
stele itself, so that we can tell what the head was like before it was
broken off. Propped up against a pedestal in an awkward fashion
is the somewhat destroyed figure of a warrior, the work of
Agasius, of Ephesus, as we learn from the base on which it was
found, and which is still on Delos ; it was in the agora down by
the sacred harbour, and is a finely executed statue of a barbarian,
not of a Greek, as is easily seen from the helmet by his side. There
is the headless body of Apollo, which the inhabitants of Tenea
Orchomeno presented to the temple of Delos ; there are the lion-
headed water-spouts from the great temple of Apollo ; and in a dark
inner room are baskets full of lamps, jar handles, and treasures,
which any other museum would prize, lying huddled together in
perilous confusion. The bottom of a plate, with the heads in relief
of two Moenads kissing, is one of the most exquisite examples
of Greek pottery I have seen. Besides these things there are lots
of smaller treasures in glass cases, the wheels of a toy chariot, a
toy helmet — doubtless for votive offerings to the god — locks,
utensils for domestic and temple use, all of which require far more
attentive study than they are ever likely to get at Mykonos.
When you visit Delos and see the vast acres of unexcavated ground,
and know that the results of any enterprise must be deposited
here, it is not encouraging.
NOTE II.
The Excavations at Delos.
It is a curious irony of fate that in a work on the Cyclades one
is almost tempted to leave Delos out altogether. This islet, the
centre, not only of the encircling Cyclades, but of the ancient
religious world, has nothing whatsoever to do with the life of to-
day, except that the harbour between it and Rhenaea has been
constituted a quarantine station. Delos and Rhenaea, now called
' the Deloi,' exist only as fossils, and any knowledge concerning
them belongs almost exclusively to the French, whose active
excavations, and the results thereof, have been so exhaustively
treated by M. Leb^gue, in his work, and by M. Homolle, in his
articles in the * Bulletin de Correspondance Helldnique,' that no
comment is necessary.
230 THE CYC LADES,
A visit to the excavated ruins with these works in one's hand is
truly delightful ; with their aid we were able to place all the
buildings which have been alluded to by ancient writers, and we
were furthermore able to picture to ourselves the scenes of bygone
ages : the procession of white-clad maidens, which wound up
Mount Cynthos to the temple of Jupiter and Minerva ; the magnifi-
cent approach of the * theories ' from Athens to worship at Apollo's
shrine : and as we sat amongst the ruins excavated by the
French we thought much of these things, for around us reigned a
desolation and destruction perhaps more complete than that of
Nineveh.
Mount Cynthos is an ugly, bare, sugar-loaf mound, rising about
three hundred and fifty feet above the sea-level in the centre of
the island, affording a scanty pasturage for goats ; the rest of the
island is tolerably fertile, and is let to a few shepherds for — what
seemed to us a large sum in these parts — two hundred and forty
pounds per annum. There are a few huts scattered about and a
wooden shanty, where two old men live to guard the ruins fi-om the
descent of European pirates, who will go there in yachts and steal
what they can find. All around stretches a vast sea of ruins,
recalling Pompeii in extent and complete annihilation ; you wander
through houses with mosaic pavements, pillared halls with cisterns
below, and the richness of marble wherever you turn is Ynost
striking, and in the brilliant sunlight almost dazzling. Much of the
lychnites vein from Mount Marpessa of Paros has found its way here.
There is still a vast amount of work to be done on Delos if the
Greek Government would only encourage enterprise in excavation.
James Theodore Bent was one of those early tourists. He spent a long time touring the Cycladic islands, after which he wrote the book: The Cyclades; or, Life among the insular Greeks, which was published in 1885. One of the islands he visited was Santorini: he always referred to it as 'Santorin'. As I read through his descriptions of Santorini, I was surprised to see how much they resemble closely how today's world views the island. Having spent a few days in Santorini recently, I decided to use Bent's account of the island to describe my own experiences. The blue wording below is taken directly from Bent's writings. I have added my own photos, with black italicised captions. Quotes from other authors are also italicised with quote marks, to distinguish them from Bent's writings.
Sit back and enjoy the trip!
CHAPTER VI: SANTORIN (THERA)
1. The Volcano
Before landing on Santorin and mixing ourselves with its people, we must consider for a brief space the particular feature of the island, namely, the volcano. The Hephaestus as they call it, has made of Santorin one of the most terrible spots in the world, and has had a powerful influence on the inhabitants.
The volcano island (Nea Kammeni), as viewed from the road approaching Foinikia
Aspronisi (= 'white island') is the large white land mass, as viewed from the ferry boat as we approached Santorini
... The depth of the water in this central basin is immense; the cliffs go down straight into it, so that there is no possible anchorage, and vessels have to be tethered, so to speak, to the shore.
Ferry boats dock in a different port from yachts and cruise ships which cannot dock near the land. Passengers must be taken to shore via smaller boats.
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| Santorini's extremities: Oia is located on the top left-hand side of the 'horseshoe' while Akrotiri is on the bottom left hand side. The volcano in the middle, Thirassia east of Oia, and the tiny white rock called Aspronisi are also part of Santorini |
"It is paradoxical that few know that the well-known name Oia no longer has any relation to that particular region. This name was obtained by King Otto's Decree, which was published in the Official Gazette on January 11, 1834, apparently in the spirit of certain scholars. Until then, from the documents and maps, we know that it was called Eponomeria (upper places) or the Castle of Agios Nikolaos, and its inhabitants were Epanomerites. Ancient Oia, which is placed by historians at the edge of the present settlement of Kamari, had no connection with the present region ... If Oia has to justify its present name, this could be constituted by the Homeric Oia which means "distant", and in this sense indeed Oia is the most distant point of Santorini..." https://www.ayiaekaterinaoias.gr/santorini/oia.html
There is only another feature which has to be considered at the south-east corner of the island of Santorin. There rises a mountain, Mesa Bouno by name, about 1,500 feet above the sea. This mountain and its spurs are not of the volcanic formation of the rest of the island, but consist of a rock formation common to most of the Cyclades. It is evident that this Mesa Bouno was an island, around which the crater has shed its shower of pumice.
Mesa Vouno, as viewed from Perissa (we stayed in this area).
... The soil is very light and thin, consisting chiefly of crumbled pumice: it seems favourable for the growth of nothing save the grape; in fact, the slopes of Santorin form one vast vine-yard. The roads are horribly disagreeable to walk on, being like the sand on the shore which the tide does not regularly reach.
Santorini soil is very good for growing almosg anything, but little is grown due to water shortages. Most agriculture consists of non-irrigated crops: cherry tomatoes, white eggplant, round zucchini, short woody cucumber, yellow split pea (fava) and some varieties of grape are the main products grown on Santorini.
It's believed that Santorini became a wealthy island due to modern-day tourism, but according to Bent's account, we understand that Sanotirni has always been a wealthy island
The islands of Sikinos and Ios, as viewed from Finikia, near Oia
Nea Kammeni, the volcanic island in the midst of the caldera
... After these few remarks on the nature of the island we were about to visit the reader will better understand the impressions created. It is a hideous island, fascinating in its hideousness...
2. The Island of Santorin or Thera
On entering the basin of Santorin one experiences directly the pleasant impression of seeing something utterly new. To the left we were swiftly borne past a white line of houses perched along the edge of blood red rocks which form the northernmost point of the island. This is Epanomeria. Further on the red promontory of Scaros juts out into the basin, and on it are the crumbling ruins of the mediaeval fortress; above this, on black rocks, is perched the white village of Meroviglia, 1,000 feet above the sea, which commences a long line of white houses, nearly two miles in extent, which blends itself with Pheri, the present capital of the island.
Thirassia behind the volcano in front, the whilte village of Oia in the back right (Bent refers to it as Epanomeria), Scaros Rock (with the 'crown' on top), and Imerovigli on the right (Fira is hidden from view)
... Half the inhabitants of Santorin, in spite of the encouragement given by Government to the building of regular houses, prefer to live like rabbits in the ground. The capital and one or two of the principal villages now boast of handsome houses properly built, but some of the remote villages are still mere rabbit warrens excavated in the pumice-stone rocks as they have been for centuries.
Sighted on our walk from Fira to Oia (before we reached Finikia): a new hotel, perhaps?
The zigzag path is now a staircase, and it has been joined by a cable car.
Frequent accidents occur from the loosening and fall of these rocks, and a word peculiar to Santorin (κατράξις) has been coined, with the usual phonetic success of the Greek tongue, to express their crushing roll.
This made an impression on us was we drove up the mountain on our arrival
Altogether Santorin is an awe-inspiring spot, and we did not know whether to be glad or sorry when the steamer went away, and left us for a fortnight's stay in Vulcan's palace. Really if Pheri, as the capital of Thera is curiously called, on the same principle that in modern Greek Thebes is called Pheba (pron. Pheva), had but a few trees to shelter it, it would be an inviting residence in the summer, perched, as it is, high above the sea-level, and commanding views of an astonishing character over the basin, the volcanic islands, and the distance.
If there were just a few more trees...
A vaulted roof
... There are plenty of ships in the bays and creeks of the Burnt Islands ; for here they can get that anchorage which the steep cliffs of Santorin do not provide ; and furthermore by a ten days' stay in these waters the bottoms of the ships become clean without any effort on the part of the sailors.
The sulphuric waters surrounding the volcano islands are visible from a distance
... Pheri has many Roman Catholics in it, for in the middle ages numbers of Italian and Spanish families settled here: these families still take the lead, and possess the finest houses. There are the Dekigallas (De Cigalli) and Barozzi, of Italian origin; there are the Da Corognas and Delendas, of Spanish origin, said to be remnants of the wandering Catalans who haunted these seas in the fourteenth century, and some of whom reigned, as we have previously seen, in Siphnos. There is a convent, too, in Pheri, where the young ladies of Santorin are taught French; so the upper class inhabitants of this town consider themselves very Western indeed, and give themselves airs which are highly displeasing to the Greeks: never was there any love lost between devotees of the Eastern and Western dogmas.
The Catholic Cathedral Church of Saint John The Baptist, Fira
... Below Meroviglia the red rock on which Scaros is built juts out into the bay; on the top of it is the castle of the mediaeval rulers, and around cluster the old houses which were abandoned only twenty years ago because they were falling into the sea ; and the last inhabitant, an old woman, had to be dragged away by main force, so attached was she to the home of her ancestors.
Skaros Rock, over the centuries
On the following morning we set off for a long walk to explore the slopes of the island, which gently lead down to the outer sea. The aspect of the place is ugly enough in winter, and resembles a brown flat plain covered with hampers, for at Santorin they always weave the tendrils of their vines into circles, the effect in winter being that each vineyard looks as if hampers were placed all over it in rows and at intervals of every two yards. The Santoriniotes treat the vine differently to the other islanders, for here they plough their vineyards instead of digging them, and, contrary to the biblical injunction, I have often seen a bullock yoked to a mule in so doing.
A Santorini vineyard in Megalochori, and a 'hamper'-shaped vine.
The wine of Santorin is certainly most excellent, and is drunk largely in Russia; much, too, finds its way, via France, to England under the name of claret; but a cunning wine-maker has christened a certain brand 'Bordeaux, and hopes by this artifice it may sell in England without passing through a French cellar, which entails considerable reduction in profits. But the best wine in the island is a white one called 'of the night' (νυκτέρι) because the grapes of which it is made are gathered before sunrise, and are supposed to have a better aroma from this cause. They make more wine here than anywhere else in Greece; they have seventy different kinds of grapes, the best of which are chosen.
Our wine purchases from a local products store in Akrotiri
The hamper-shaped vine trunks are used ornamentally.
Every article of clothing and every household utensil come from without; even water in years of drought has to be fetched from the neighbouring islands; and as we toiled through the basket-covered fields, the thin light soil of which made walking such an exertion, we regretted that it was January, and not July, when all those baskets would be green and the grapes would hang temptingly around.
Two triaxial truckloads of bottled water from Crete were parked next t our car in the garage of the ferry boat from Iraklio. Santorini suffers from a severe water shortage. We showered with salty water at the hotel and tap water was not potable. Oia has a desalination unit (pictured below).
An old well in Perissa - this part of the island is not volcanic.
... In one of these [houses in a village], we lunched frugally enough off hard-boiled eggs and green pork sausages. They said we could get better food at the next village, but we were hungry, and, to use a Greek proverb, 'preferred our egg today to our fowl tomorrow' [Κάλλιο νά 'χω σήμερα τ' αυγό παρά αύριο την κότα]. The house was composed of two rooms, both in the rock; the outer one the family occupied by day, with a door opening into the street, a window over it and one on each side; the inner room the family occupied by night, and into this a ray of sunlight never penetrates.
A glimpse of something that looked like a dugout room in Fira: these rooms are nowadays often converted into 'cave pools'.
These excavated houses (σκαπτά σπίτια) are the subject of special legislation in Santorin. Those dwelling in them have no actual right to the land over their heads, but then nobody can make a vineyard or a reservoir without the consent of the householder below.
In essence, one man's ceiling forms another man's terrace...
 |
| On our morning walk, we found these walls dripping with moisture. |
... we visited many of these dug-out houses, and found their inhabitants prosperous and sharp-witted. From what I saw I quite think the Santoriniotes are the sharpest Greeks I have ever met; they indulge in neat expressions, too; for example, if you try to do something they deem impossible, after the manner of English travellers they will say, 'A blind man found a needle in the straw, and a deaf man told him that he heard it fall' [a well-known proverb all over Greece: Τυφλὸς βελόνα γύρευε μέσα στὸν ἀχερῶνα κ' ἕνας κουφός του ἔλεγε: «Τὴν ἄκουσα ποὺ ἐβρόντα.»]
... Our next expedition was not so interesting; it was to the village of Pyrgos, high up on the hillside, where the coating of pumice clings to the lower spurs of Mesa Bouno and its twin peak, Mount Prophet Elias. As its name implies, Pyrgos is a fortified town or fortress much resorted to in days gone by, when pirates ventured into the basin of Santorin. It is just like all the island fortified towns, dirty and old-world, decidedly more picturesque than the long white line of Pheri, but less peculiar than Bothri. And then we toiled up the limestone mountain to the convent of the prophet, from which vantage ground a most superb view is enjoyed. Far, far away on the southern horizon are seen Mount Ida and other snow-capped peaks of Crete; to the east are the Sporades, Kos, Patmos, Ikaria, Samos, hugging f the coast of Asia Minoj whilst around us are scattered, like leaves in autumn, the many-shaped Cyclades.
We chose the highest village of Santorini to view the sunset: from Pyrgos, we caught a glimpse of Psiloritis in Crete (look closely next to the bell tower).
... The inhabitants of Akroteri were very busy visiting today; each housewife had put on her best, and had adorned her table with glasses and delicious sweets. I should be ashamed to say how many spoonfuls of rose leaf or orange flower jam, or how many glasses of liqueur we swallowed that day, being careful to remember to wish 'many years ' (Χρόνια Πολλά) to all around us before touching the beverage with our lips. Amongst other delicacies peculiar to Santorin is tyropita which, literally translated, means cheesecake. It is a curious composition, the first ingredient being a curd of sheep's milk (χλωρό), then some eggs, cheese, barley, cinnamon, mastic, and saffron.
Yes, it DOES snow in Santorini! (This is clearly NOT my photo!)
As we approached Epanomeria the volcanic rocks grew redder, and at the town itself all the formation of the rocks is red. This the inhabitants have utilised to make their houses gayer, and here there are many fine large houses, built of stones hewn out of these red rocks, set together firmly with cement, and into the cement are inserted little red stones by way of ornament.
It is a flourishing place, where most of the sea captains and pilots dwell ; by one of these we were hospitably entertained on fried eggs, with pork sausages cut up with them. The captain was very talkative, asking innumerable questions about England and far-off lands. He told us much, too, about the shipping of Santorin that interested us; how when they have built a new vessel they have a grand ceremony at the launching, or benediction, as they call it here, at which the priest officiates; and the crowd eagerly watch, as she glides into the water, the position she takes, for an omen is attached to this. It is customary to slaughter an ox, a lamb, or a dove on these occasions, according to the wealth of the proprietor and the size of the ship, and with the blood to make a cross on the deck. After this the captain jumps off the bows into the sea with all his clothes on, and the ceremony is followed by a banquet and much rejoicing. I must say that the aspect of Epanomeria is more cheerful than that of the other villages, for here all the houses are above the ground, and the Venetian fort on the headland forms a pleasing addition to the gay red houses.
We had heard much about weddings in Greece, strange customs having been collected by various tra-
vellers from various points of Hellas, and the union of them all had given us a confused idea of what a Greek peasant wedding in a remote island would be... what I saw at Santorin... had its own peculiarities, but many of those peculiarities which we were accustomed to associate with Greek weddings were absent.
... When the bridegroom reached the doorstep, the bridesmaid met him with a saucerful of honey and comfits, and a towel. He dipped his finger into the honey, and made three crosses with it on the door, one on the lintel, and one on each post. After this he ate a mouthful, which the bridesmaid put into his mouth with a spoon, wiped his fingers on the towel, and sank into a retired comer... The father had on a bright yellow coat and a red fez today in honour of his daughter's nuptials... He had just returned with the two priests and the best man (κουμπάρος) from his vineyard, where they had gathered the vine-tendrils, which were to make the crowns for the young couple; and now the pretty ceremony of making these crowns began.
... When the crowns were finished, and the singing over, they placed these symbols of matrimony again in the basket, and handed them to the priests, who headed the procession to the neighbouring church. It was piercingly cold when we came out of the warm cave, and snow was falling, but my neighbour pointed to it and said, * This is lucky ' with an emphasis which at first I thought to be intended for a sarcasm, but on reflection the Greek saying occurred to me, * Happy is the bride that it rains (upon,* and if the greater rarity of snow occurs it surely must indicate some great good luck. We in England have chosen the sun as indicating prosperity to the bride ; in Greece they have chosen rain, the result of difference of climate, no doubt.
... After the religious ceremony was concluded we were all invited to return to the house of the bride's father, where in the most limited space possible they danced a {yrfe.? abominably and administered refreshments: divers kinds of jam, mastic, liqueurs, and plates of honey and almond, which last delicacy had to be eaten with a knife. In Santorin they do not keep up marriage festivities so long as those we saw at Sikinos or as in Mykonos, in which island ten or fifteen days of festivity are considered usual, and at a peasant wedding, which was concluded the day we arrived, they told us that no less than twenty lambs had been slaughtered, not to mention other food But most of the quaint old customs relative to marriage in Greece have been abandoned for exactly the same reason that they are abandoning the costumes because they are too expensive to keep up...
If the sender of the offer is not * made to eat gruel,' as the Greeks neatly express a refusal, then on the fol- lowing Friday the parish priest and the two families assemble for the discussion of the settlement, which is in itself a religious ceremony, almost as impressive as the' marriage one. Greek girls are usually well endowed, for the father, if he is able, provides his daughter with a house ; sons are not supposed to want anything, and rarely inherit their father's home...
Our muleteer was ready for us next morning in his plain clothes, just as if nothing had happened the day before ; and we started on our longest expedition on the island to the south-eastern end, where on the slopes of the limestone mountain are the chief remains of Grecian antiquities. Our road led us through the large village of * great place' (fieyaXo x^/oto), with evidences of Venetian splendour, and then on to a spot called Emporion, which name testifies to the trade that was once carried on here in days now long gone by ; yet still it is a well-to-do place, and we were by no means badly housed with the demarch. At the entrance to the village is a mediaeval tower, planted against the mountain side, and near it a tall, waving palm-tree ; vineyards are all spread around, and the spot looked very picturesque as it climbed up a cleft of the mountain, down which cleft during the recent rains terrible torrents had poured, drowning men and cattle, and ruining houses and vineyards in its rush towards the sea.
The church of Empori6n is interesting : four pillars of an ancient temple stand in the courtyard οutside, and inside the pillars of the nave have belonged to a Corinthian temple which probably came from Eleusis, the city which once stood near here, but almost all the traces of which have been washed away by encroachments of the sea. The church bells were all clanging and pealing that evening, for the morrow was the day of the Epiphany, the baptism of Christ, the day on which the priest blesses water in the church and prepares his holy oil, and all good people were to be in church by 4 A.M. It was an effort, but I was very desirous of seeing this ceremony in this quaint old church, so I arose in time, and was rewarded.
Very quaint indeed it looked as we went out of the cold darkness into the brilliantly lighted church, and saw the pious populace kneeling all around as the litany was being chanted prior to the blessing of the waters. There was the font, an ancient marble altar ornamented with garlands and rams' heads, placed before the picture of the baptism of Christ ; it was full of water, and illuminated with candles stuck around the edge with their own grease, whilst pots and jugs full of water of every description covered the floor near this font.
After the litany was over the priest in his gold brocaded stole went around with his cross and a sprig of basil in his hand, accompanied by two acolytes, with censers, who assisted in groaning the responses. Everyone knelt, when the priest threw the basil into the font, read the appointed portion of the Scriptures, and signed the water in the font and in the jugs with the cross. No sooner was this ceremony over than there was a regular rush from all sides with mugs and bottles to se cure some of this consecrated water. Everybody laughed and hustled each other, even the priest with the cross in
his hand stood and watched them with a broad grin on his face ; it was a striking contrast to the solemnity which had reigned a moment before. The font was soon emptied of its contents, and an orange which had been floating in it was presented by the priest to one of his acolytes.
Before leaving the church with their bottle of water everybody went up to kiss the cross which the priest held and to be sprinkled with water from the sprig of basil, after which he dropped as his exchange gift for such favours a coin in the plate held by an acolyte Then they dispersed to their homes, carrying their bottle of water with them and a sprig of basil, which the priest had blessed, to hang up in their homes.
It was a lovely warm day, for a change, and we set out on our duties of seeing the ancient ruins of Santorin as soon as breakfast had restored us from the fatigues of the early mass. That evening found us again at Phera, after a hard day's work, amongst ruins which I will describe in a note.*
We reached our house belated and drenched with rain ; the lovely morning had been treacherous and our paths were torrents, for the paths were the beds of torrent Hitherto we had had a contempt for the dry torrent-beds, but they had at last asserted their use. Before the rush of the water the stalks of the water willows* [Xvyapta) bent and swayed. Out of these willows the Santoriniotes make capital baskets, and drive a good trade by selling them to their neighbours. Why they are more energetic than the other islanders I cannot say. Barren and dry as Santorin looks by the side of its neighbour Naxos, its inhabitants are energetic and prosperous ; whereas in Naxos, where nature, has done all for them she can, idleness and poverty prevail.
One more journey remained for us, namely, an expedition to the lost limb of Santorin, the island of
Therasiaβ€” an expedition which will be to me an ever memorable one. It was only a short sail across the harbour, an hour's run with a good breeze, but our breeze to-day was rather too good, and we were drenched to the sbn before we set foot on this inhospitable shore. Everything here is the same as at Thera, only on a smaller scale ; a few boathouses form the port, a wretched zigzag path leads up to the row of white houses eight hundred feet above, each with a vaulted roof, which form the Chora. It was St John the Baptist's Day, an universal holiday, for St. John the Baptist follows ^ next after the Epiphany in the Byzantine calendar. And, despite our drenched condition and the biting north wind, we enjoyed participating in the blessing of the sea which happened to be taking place. Down the zigzag path the procession wended its way, headed by priests carrying crosses, and two acolytes carrying lanterns ; after them came all the inhabitants of the town, a hardy seafaring race. On the seashore a litany was sung, during which all the people knelt around, and with his cross the priest blessed the waves and then threw it into the sea. There was a general scramble now to get the cross, for the man or boy who secures it gets as a reward for facing the cold and the wet some coppers from the bystanders, which later in the day will buy him enough wine to make him very drunk and drive out the chill.
With the crowd returning from their devotions we climbed the hill and went straight to the demarch's
house, where breakfast was shortly afterwards spread for us according to the abilities of our host ; hard-boiled eggs, fish, and curious cakes (^eporch) made out of flour and oil, twisted into shapes to represent flowers, baked, and then covered with honey ; this meal was quite as good as we could expect on Therasia, for the demarch himself was little better than a labourer. The landlords of Therasia are, for the most part, absentees ; that is to say, I they live over at Epanomerii or Pheri, and only their ^ inferiors remain on the spot. Whilst we sat at our meal men came round with dishes begging for a subscription for a new church. I asked them what they could want with a new church on an island which had more churches in it than houses. They smiled and said it was a vow made to St. Nicholas in time of storm ; and I thought how useful a church had been to us at Anaphi in time of need, so I gave them a trifle.
After breakfast we set off across the island to visit the mines, where the best pumice stone is found and exported, and where the prehistoric remains were unearthed two years ago. On our way we passed through Agaliel ; quite the quaintest village I ever saw, surpassing even those of Bothr6 and Goni^, for here the gulley in the volcanic rock is extremely narrow and deep, so there is no room for gardens ; in fact, it is a natural street in which every house, without one exception, is hewn out of the rock ; here even the church is cut in the rock, having only on one side a wall, and in a comer has been constructed a small bell tower, which is positively the only means by which you can identify the
existence of sacred precincts ; until you have entered the gulley and walked up it a little way there is not a vestige of anything to lead one to suspect the presence of habitations.
Therasia is more pastoral than Thera On the southern slopes a good deal of grain is grown, and women with their faces enveloped in white handkerchiefs were tending their goats, walking about with huge sacks on their backs in search of fodder for their niules. I remarked that here nearly every woman wore white, whereas in Thera black was the fashion. Beyond this point there was nothing whatsoever to lead us to believe that we were on a different island.
On our return to the Chora there was not much to detain us at Therasia β€” only the unpleasant fact that our three sailors, having been too hospitably treated by their hosts, were drunk, two of them hopelessly so, and loath to leave. In our search for the delinquents we entered into several houses, and saw the good people all giving themselves up to the delights of the table. One we entered ψonsisted of only one room with no window, no light except from the door. There was a round table in the middle of the room, at which a dozen men were singing and roaring at the top of their voices round the remains of their feast ; and as we appeared at the door the host would not hear * Nay,' we
must drink to our welcome and our happy return home.
All the women stood meekly in a comer contemplating us and their uproarious lords. These feast days in modern Greece are regular symposia: there was the board surrounded by men ; there were the women serving and shrinking from observation ; and there was the bard, who had done his duty earlier in the feast by singing and playing the syravlion until he had impressed music and hilarity into his listeners. These are lineal / descendants of the feasts of Dionysia, at which all got drunk, and were held blameless ; nay, even now it is thought a crime to remain sober at these feasts, an insult to your host As a rule, they are not a drunken race, but they have a good many exceptional days, and ' St. John the Baptist's Day is one which proves this rule...
Outside the harbour it was blowing a fearful hurricane, a regular avsjioa-rpo^dKoSy as they call it, caused by demons rushing from place to place. So associated in these islands are all horrors connected with the wind with the idea of demons that the devii is often called 6 avsfios / (the wind), and old women mutter * honey and milk ' to exorcise these demons in the air, as in ancient times they
offered honey and milk to the nymphs who were supposed to raise these storms. In other places they attribute storms to a marriage among the Nereids (Ji iroinrrj twi; ^ipatha>v\ and the attendant festivities.
As for ourselves we felt that we were in danger, not so much from the demons of the air as from the
demons of the earth ; for two of our sailors, a father and son, fought like demons in their drunken madness, biting each other on the cheeks and hands until the blood gushed out on the shore. The third sailor was not so drunk, only furiously angry with his associates ; he cursed them again and again with that effectual Greek curse, the ^aaKskovy done by shaking five fingers at the object of your imprecation and hissing vk through your teeth : it is the most deadly insult you can ofTer to a person, and if you dare not do it to his face, do it behind his back, and it will be equally effectual.
With great difficulty we got into our boat and began our homeward journey, and as we rounded the point which shelters the little bay of Therasia the demons of the air snatched our sail out of the hands of our soberest sailor and unshipped our rudder, causing us infinite trouble and danger of being driven on the rocks. The pugnacious father and son had to be held at opposite ends of the boat by our servant and myself until kindly nature closed their eyes in sleep, and thus we crossed over to Thera. It will be long before the adventures of this voyage will be effaced from our memories, and we shall in future avoid a voyage in a caXque on the occasion of a symposium in honour of St. John the Baptist
... By eleven o'clock we were ready to leave Empori6n, and went in the direction of Perissa, a spot which presumably derives its name from being the point at which people started to cross over to Anaphi. Just across on the opposite shore of Anaphi was found an inscription, from which we gather that it was a catalogue of lands given by the owners to a temple at Perissa, and now the convent of Kalamiotissa belongs to the one at Perissa. Here Ross tells us an amusing story of how a monk wished to dig for antiquities, and when Ross refused the monk had recourse to dreaming a dream about a hidden picture ; whereat the inhabitants took upon themselves to dig, and found traces of ancient worship, erected by subscription the modem church, and looked upon the monk with
veneration ever afterwards.
A hideous church and convent now occupy the spot where an iron cross was supposed to have been found during this excavation ; but the sea is rapidly encroaching, and will in all probability wash this all away before the lapse of many years. Half a century ago the sea was one hundred and seventy feet distant from this church, now it is only fifty feet off, and in calm weather from a boat you can distinctly see the remains of an old wall and the ruins of the houses of Eleusis buried in the waves.
But one little gem is still left behind the modem church, being a small circular marble heroon : it is fifty-four feet round, and is raised on a square basis. The roof was once supported by a central pillar, the base of which is still left, and round the outside ^ve of the stones are covered with inscriptions late and badly cut ; all the stones have a plain edging round two sides, but they are obviously not in their original places. Near the church we saw another stone, which evidently came from here, covered with similar inscriptions ; from these we gather that colonists from Melos, Scopelos, and other places were interested in this building, having erected it probably in honour of a departed member of their
colony by contributions from various sources thereon enumerated. Perissa is rich in remains of the past let into the walls of the church and convent cells.
On leaving the convent we ascended Mesa Boun6, and visited the ruins of an extensive town, which crowned the sununit of the promontory now known as Mount St. Stephen, which is joined to Mount Prophet Elias by the col of Mesa Boun6. Ross spent days here investigating the ruins, which he believed to be those of iΒ£a ; ' but since his day an inscription has been found which clearly points to the town being calle d Thera^ not iEa.
The little Church of St Stephen is literally built out of antiquities scraped together on his hill ; and soon after passing this you come across the walls, and enter the precincts of the old town. On the smooth cliff are many of those curious rock inscriptions, difficult to decipher and still more difficult to tell their purport. For the most part these consist of simple proper names cut in the letters of vastly different epochs, from those of early Greece to those of the Byzantine empire. Separated from these is the simple word *Avay*o7 (necessity), where probably once stood an altar to Necessity, such as we see elsewhere erected to Fear, Force, Shame, &c At Corinth, too, was a temple to Necessity, which none might enter...
On the eastern side, on the top of the hill, are the remains of the public buildings, now only a waste of pillars, bases, and architraves. Everything of value has been taken off by * foreign thieves' β€” Orloff, Farvel, Ross, and others all boast of caique-loads of treasures shipped from this mountain to Europe ; and if only the Greek Government would encourage excavation caique-loads might still be found, which could be secured for the Athenian or local museums...
NOTE II. On the Prehistoric Remains at Therasia
The mines of Therasian earth, which lay to the south of Therasia, have been worked now for several years, and when the workmen reached a depth of thirty feet from the summit, and fifty feet inwards, they came upon the foundation of buildings. First, they discovered the walls of two buildings resting on a foundation or stratum of scoriae, on which the pumice stone (acnny, as they call the Therasian earth here) had been deposited. This left no doubt that the building in question had existed prior to the eruption which had covered Thera with pumice. On further clearing they discovered that these were the walls of rooms, the floors of which consisted of the scoriae rock. The largest of the two dwellings was about twenty-four feet from the smaller one, and consisted of a space divided into five unequal chambers, four of which lay in a row to the north, whilst the fifth and largest faced south. It was
twenty-four feet from east to west, and twenty and a quaiter feet from north to south, including the hall to the east and south. The form is a parallelogram with the angles slightly curved, and the walls have apparently shelved in towards the roof. The walls consisted of volcanic stones stuck together with clay, and wooden rafters had been let in to form a flat roof, which may have been covered with mud, as those in most of the islands, for in the refuse has only been found bits of charred wood and rubble, the charred wood being so decayed that at the slightest touch it crumbled into dust The * finds ' in the houses were very interesting β€” two tools of obsidian, one having the shape of a lance the other of a savr or toothed knife, and a ring of the same material, with traces of string having been attached to it ; perhaps used in the loom, like the rings OapuSta) they attach the strings to to-day ; two basins of tufa stone β€” one round, the other elliptical β€” and two stones, evidently used for grinding com ; quantities of pottery, of different forms and shapes, so badly baked that most of it crumbled away ; but they resembled strongly those which I found in the graves at Antiparos,' having the same vertical holes for suspension, but owing to the dampness which had penetrated the pumice they were in a worse state of preservation. Most of these vases were full of edible material more or less reduced to cinders, but it was still easy to recognise barley, peas, anise, coriander, sesame, millet, and a sort of cheese, which must have closely resembled the modem island production of mysethra.^ The skeleton of a sheep, and in one of the rooms that of a man, were discovered very much charred. The remains at Akroteri are not so old β€” iron instmments were found therein, and pottery of a much more advanced age, resembling, more closely that found by Dr. Schliemann at Hirsarlih^ than those things which came from Antiparos and Therasia, for there are rude representations on them of animal and vegetable life, milk jugs with breasts, and so forth, which point to a much more recent period. Furthermore, the remains of the village of Akroteri are not so deeply buried as those at Therasia, being little more than twenty feet below the surface. It is a question of great difficulty to chronologically arrange this town-geology can speak with much greater certainty than archaeology.
CHAPTER X.
THE DEATH-WAILS OF MYKONOS.
Everywhere in the Cyclades we were told that when we came to Mykonos we should hear the best lamentations over the dead that exist in Greece: that barren Mykonos had this one unenviable speciality; nowhere else could the wailing women (μοιρολογίσται) sing over
the dead such stirring, heart-rending dirges as there. So we went to Mykonos with the firm determination of waiting there until somebody died, and in the cold changeable days of March we did not anticipate that we should be long delayed.
We crossed over from Syra in the tricandira of a Hydriote fisherman; and good cause we had to be thankful that we had chosen these sailors and their trustworthy boat, for the sea was lashed angrily by a southern gale, and unpleasant thoughts occurred to us that our purpose in going to Mykonos to hear a death-wail was an ill-omened one, and might end disastrously to ourselves. But the boats from Hydra are good; they have osier instead of canvas bulwarks - wattled osiers, the λυγαρία which grow in mountain streams, and which, I think, must have formed the bulwarks which Ulysses made for
his two-decked raft when he left the charmed island of Kalypso. Two islands in the Αegean Sea (Hydra and Psara) still have these bulwarks, and these boats are the best. We had to take down our sail half-way, and put up a smaller one, which was an unpleasant process in a pitching sea ; but we had time to admire our primitive sail-rings, which were made out of cow's horn cut into rings. Elsewhere we had seen vine-tendrils used for this purpose ; but they are not nearly so satisfactory, for whenever a good gust filled the sails one or two were sure to give way.
The view of Mykonos from the sea is attractive : it is a considerable town composed of white houses, with wooden balconies, which are built for the most part on a promontory which juts out into the sea. A regiment of windmills coming right down the hillside forms a conspicuous object from afar, and dotted about here and there are some of those quaint dovecotes of which we afterwards saw better specimens on Tenos. At the end of the promontory is all that is left of a mediaeval tower which once protected the harbour. There is a Byzantine church, buried in houses, and there is a tall, gaunt house,
of peculiar structure, built by the Russians in 1777, who intended to make Mykonos their headquarters in the Cyclades. This house has now come in very well for Government purposes; it serves as the demarcheion, and the public school is held in it. Some of the houses of Mykonos are well built and more decorative than is usual in these island towns ; many of them have quaint chimneys, with brick patterns, and a dove at the top; something quite original in house architecture.
In the middle of the harbour, joined to the quay by an arched bridge; recalling a Venetian canal bridge to one's mind and built on a rock, is a little white church, with vaulted roof, dedicated to the modern Poseidon, St. Nicholas. Here the sailors worship their patron saint, and at Mykonos nearly every household possesses a sailor amongst its number ; consequently St. Nicholas and his feast are in high repute. In our bedroom was an eikon of St. Nicholas painted on the inside of a crab's shell, the back of which was gilded ; and the sailors here have many songs about their patron saint : how he has saved them in the hour of need ; how he invented the rudder ; and how he sits at the helm, whilst
Christ is in the bows, and the Virgin in the middle of his boat.
Our first friend in Mykonos bore the high-sounding name of Paleologos ; it is a common one in the islands. Once we had a muleteer who bore the name of the last line of Emperors of the East. He gave us coffee, and was very specious ; but our second and staunchest friend was Demarch Kalogeras, which being translated means Monk. The Monks have quite a mansion by the shore, and a pleasure garden on the hillside ; they live in European style, and Demarch Monk, as the sovereign lord of Mykonos and the adjacent Delian isles, has somewhat to say to excavation, and jealously guards |
the treasures which have come from Delos in a dingy museum in a back street, of which more anon. Everybody in Mykonos has a little museum : scraps of marble let into their houses, a few lamps, coins, and other treasures which have come from the neighbouring mine of antiquities.
It cost me much trouble and thought to introduce the subject I had at heart. I spoke of the changeableness of the weather, the prevalence of pulmonary diseases at this season of the year, and so forth ; if it had been a wedding, or a christening, or a dance I had wished to study, there would have been no difficulty about it ; but to have to admit that my cherished wish was to attend a Mykoniote funeral was a very delicate subject ; I never felt a more heartless wretch.
After a little manoeuvring I learnt that two or three Mykoniotes were in extremis ; that a young Mykoniote had lately died at Athens, and that the family were determined to have the customary lamentation for one who had died abroad ('ξόδι or εξοδιός θρήνος). Nobody could be kinder than Mrs. Monk when she had once warmed to the subject, evincing considerable pride in describing what I was pleased to call the speciality of her island ; and from my conversation with her I learnt much about a Greek's conception of death...
On the second morning after our arrival at Mykonos we heard that young Parodos was no more ; that he had left a wife and several small children. A very sad case it was, carried off, as he had been, in the prime of life by a consumption, of some years' standing, which had been brought to a climax by this damp and windy winter. Mrs. Monk, with feminine minuteness, entered into details of his last hours. He had received the prayer oil (ευχέλαιον), she said, in the middle of the night, with the
customary attendance of seven priests to bless it. Very early in the morning, feeling that he was sinking, he summoned his family around him and sprinkled them, as is their wont in Mykonos, with water in which salt had been cast, saying, 'As the salt has melted so may my curses melt'.
The agonies of death were short ; he passed away as a burnt-out candle/ said Mrs. Monk with a contented sigh ;' so we have no fear of his dying unpardoned.* * Why so ? ' I asked ; and she spoke disdainfully of a religion which does not teach that, if the agony of death is prolonged, all know that the sufferer has been unpardoned for some injustice, in which case, if possible, the injured man, if alive, must be summoned to forgive, or if dead, the man in the death agony must be fumigated with the smoke made by burning a portion of the other's shroud.
The bells of Mykonos were tolling mournfully, to tell of the death of the young man ; and I shuddered involuntarily now that I knew that my desire was to be realised. I was to be present at a merologia over the dead.
* The women are preparing the corpse now ; by ten
o'clock all will be ready,' Mrs. Monk gaily suggested
as we were discussing some eggs and boiled milk for
breakfast *The moerologista Zachara is engaged to
sing, and no one is better suited than she for her occu-
pation.*
We then talked about these women : how they practise
their dirges when working in the fields ; how they have
certain verses and certain stock ideas for nearly every
emergency ; and how by constant practice it comes quite
easily to them to make impromptu verses about the
special case in question. A few years ago they used to
send to Mykonos from all the islands round when a death
occurred at which a special honour was desired to be
shown to some deceased magnate ; but lately this custom
has been abandoned. It must have been a weird sight
to see the woman dressed in the peculiar costume of
Mykonos, the tall makramades head-dress, on her way
to a neighbouring island to sing her wail.
The makramades when black is a peculiarly hideous
2i6 THE CYCLADES,
and forbidding headgear, being a tall block of wood
or stiff canvas, which is placed on the top of the head
and bound round with a towel ; round the forehead is
wound another towel ^ or handkerchief, which secures
the head-dress firmly, and the ends of which stick out
curiously on either side of the face. Two curls ap-
pear on the cheeks from under this. Of course, as suited
to her calling, the mcerologista has to wear this black ;
other women have coloured and embroidered ones,
which are by no means so repulsive, especially when
worn with the dress to match it. They have blue jackets
edged with ermine, a red handkerchief round the neck,
a gold triangular stomacher, and yellow wristbands, a
common cotton petticoat and velvet shoes with white
lace edges. This costume is, alas ! now a rarity ; we saw
just a few old women wearing it, but when they are
dead there will be no one to take thefr place. In a few
years the makramades of Mykonos, the tourlos of
Amorgos, the pina of Siphnos — the last relics of those
costumes which were different in every island — will be
swept away and forgotten.
* We Mykoniotes are deeply attached to our mosro-
logicel remarked Mrs. Monk with pride. * My uncle, who
was a merchant at Marseilles, and who died there, was
determined to have one at his death, and he asked his
wife to sing one over his corpse. She, poor woman !
pleaded that she had been so many years in a foreign
country that she had quite forgotten what to say and
do. " Go fetch my ledger," said the dying man sternly ;
** there you will find put down all I have earned. Sing
that ! " '
In answer to my enquiries Mrs. Monk told me how
they treated a corpse in Mykonos: the funeral takes
* Italian, macrame.
THE DEATH-WAILS OF MYKONOS, 217
place as soon as possible after death — generally within a
few hours — the dead body is washed in water and wine,
then the deceased is wrapped either in a shroud or
dressed in his best clothes and placed, on a bier in the
middle of the outer or reception room of the house, his
face is turned towards the east, his hands across his
breast, and his feet are bound together with black bands ;
and at his head and feet stand two lamps adorned with
coloured ribands. The bier is covered with flowers, out
of which the wax-like face of death peers in hideous
contrast.
When everything was prepared the kinsmen and
friends of the deceased man were summoned to attend
the lamentation by the bellman, and amongst the others
I wended my way to the house of mourning, feeling
heartily ashamed of myself for intruding on their grief ;
but at the same time I was fortified by a consciousness
that the Mykoniotes were flattered at the notice taken
of their custom.
The mcerologista Zachara came in shortly after we
arrived ; the kinswomen were all seated around the
corpse ; the afflicted widow and her children were groan-
ing audibly on the divan, and had their hair down ready
for the customary tearing and shaking. The entrance of .
Zachara was the signal for the commencement of that [
demonstrative grief in which the Greeks love to indulge :
they all set to work to sing in mournful cadence about
the merits of the deceased, keeping time with their feet
and beating their knees with their hands ; then suddenly,
with a fearful shriek, the widow went off into an ecstasy
of grief. She tore her hair, she lacerated her cheek, she
beat her breast, she scratched her bare arms, until at
length two or three women rushed forward to restrain
her in her extravagant grief; her poor little children lay
2i8 THE CYCLADES:
crouching in a corner, terrified beyond measure at what
was going on and screaming with all their might
At length Zachara, who hitherto had taken no part
in the proceedings, but had stood in a statuesque attitude
with a well-feigned face of poignant grief, as if contem-
plating the misery before her to inspire her muse, now
rushed forward, fell on the corpse, kissed it, and rose to
commence her dirge in that harsh and grating voice which
the Greeks love, but which is so distasteful to Western
ears. Thus she began : —
I yearn to mourn for the dead one
Whose name I dare not say,
For as soon as I speak of the lost one
My heart and my voice give way.
As she reached .the end of this stanza her voice
trembled, she paused for a moment, as if to regain her
composure, during which time nothing was heard but
stifled sobs.
Who hath seen the sun at midnight ?
Who hath seen a midday star ?
Who hath seen a bride without a crown
Go forth from her father's door ?
There was a dead silence now, the widow's groans were
hushed, the beating of the feet was stopped, the pause
was one of half-curiosity, half-suspense, for all knew that
the terrible climax was coming as Zachara lifted up her
voice again and wailed : —
Who hath seen the dead returning,
Be he king or warrior brave ?
They are planted in Charon's vineyard,
There is no return from the grave.
This was Zachara's prologue, and after it the grief
and lamentations were renewed with fresh vigour. So far
THE DEATH-WAILS OF MYKONOS. 219
doubtless, many of the mourners had heard before on
similar occasions, for it was one of her stock pieces ;
after this she had to deal with the special case of the
deceased. She sang of the loneliness of the living, of the
horrors of death, and in that strange language of hyper-
bole she wondered how the sun could venture to shine
on so lamentable a scene as the present During all
this time the widow, the kinswomen, and the children
were wild with grief. Nature at length asserted herself
and demanded a pause, during which the company
refreshed themselves with raki^ biscuits, figs, and other
small refections which had been laid out on a table in
the comer of the room.
Then the tide of grief flowed on again ; in fact, a Greek
lament is one of the most heart-rending scenes that can
be witnessed if one were not somewhat fortified all the
while by an inward consciousness that much of it had
been got up for the occasion, and that mourning such as
this, which is repugnant to our stolid northern nations, is
usually as evanescent as it is intense.
Presently another well-known moerologista dropped
in, who, we learnt, was a relative of the deceased ; but
why she had not joined the company previously remained
a mystery. She and Zachara then sang verses alternately,
and together they reminded one forcibly of the Carian
women of antiquity who were hired for the same purpose ;
and one's mind wandered back to a Greek chorus — that
of iEschylus especially — where the virgins at the gate of
Agamemnon indulge in all the most poignant manifes-
tations of grief, beating their breasts, lacerating their
cheeks, and rending their garments ; and I could not but
admire the prudence of Solon, who forbade the excessive
lamentations of women (Plut. * Sol.' xii. and xxi.)
This prolonged agony of mourning continued for
220 ^ THE CYCLADES.
two long hours ; occasionally to relieve the paid lament-
ers, some of the kinswomen would take up their parable
and sing a verse or two, sending messages of love and
remembrances to friends who had gone before to the
shades of Hades ; and great was my relief when the priests
arrived with their acolytes bearing the cross and the
lanterns to convey the corpse to the grave.
Before leaving the house it is customary to break a
jug of water on the threshold : they spill water when any-
one goes for a journey as an earnest of success ; now
the traveller had gone on his long journey, and the jug
was broken.
It was not far to the church, so that the funeral pro-
cession did not take long. The bier, with the corpse ex-
posed, was carried by four bearers ; the priests chanted
the offices as they went ; and occasionally the lamenters,
who headed the procession, broke forth into their hideous
wails. And as it passed by women came forth from
their houses to groan in chorus with the others. It was,
indeed, a painful sight to witness.
On reaching the church the corpse on the bier was
laid just inside the porch ; and when the priests b^an
the liturgy the mourners ceased to wail for a time.
Then came the impressive and very solemn stichera of
the last kiss, which was chanted by all the priests toge-
ther — * Blessed is the way thou shalt go to-day, &c.'—
whereat each mourner advanced and gave the last kiss
to the cold face of the corpse, after which all with one
accord burst forth again into extravagant demonstra-
tions of grief. Finally, the corpse was lowered, with-
out a coffin, into its shallow gra.ve, and each bystander
cast a little soil into the tomb. Only the rich have
coffins ; in fact, the poor have a prejudice against them,
for three years after interment the bones are dug up
THE DEATH-WAILS OF MYKONOS, 221
again, washed, and cleaned, and put into the charnel
house ; and if by any chance the flesh is not decayed off
them the people think it a terrible proof that the owner
of the bones has not been allowed to rest in peace — he
is still a poor wandering ghost.
When a death has occurred in a house they thoroughly ,
purify the place, and on the return of the mourners from
the funeral they wash their hands. Many superstitions
concerning death still exist, but they are becoming fewer
year by year ; for example, the dying must not have a
goat's hair coverlet over the bed — it will impede his de-
parture — and a child should not sneeze whilst a lamen-
tation is being sung, for it is considered as a portent of
its approaching death ; only by tearing off a portion
of its dress can this disaster be averted.
In most places it is considered wrong to cook or
perform household offices in the house of mourning, so
friends and relatives come laden with food and lay the
' * bitter table,' as they call it (just like the vsKpoSsiirva of
ancient days) ; and for three nights after a death, on the
pillow which the departed used they burn a dim lamp,
because it is thought that for three days after burial the
soul loves to revisit those in his old home, and busies
himself with his usual avocations.
On the day following the burial they prepare the
KoWvlSa at Mykonos ; that is to say, boiled wheat
adorned with sugar plums, honey, sesame, basil, or what-
ever other delicacy may suggest itself to the survivors.
Sometimes they call these * blessed cakes ' (fiaKdpia) — out
of euphony, no doubt — ^^and on the third day the friends
and relatives reassemble, again being summoned by the
bellman, fresh mcerologice are sung, the grief scenes are
re-enacted around the delicacies they have prepared,
and after a sufficiency of lamentation they repair to the
222 THE CYCLADES.
tomb, put the icoXKv^a upon it, lament a little more, and
finally distribute the eatables to the poor at the church
door.
The same ceremony is gone through again on the
ninth and fortieth days after death, and again also on
the memorial festivals at the expiration of six and twelve
months, and rarely, too, on the second anniversary ; in
some places I have often seen tall pots like chimneys
dotted about in churchyards where incense is burnt in
honour of the departed on stated occasions. These and
other ceremonies, recalling the ancient feasts to the dead,
are still extant in the islands. At Thermii, after a
funeral at the tomb, they distribute sweetmeats and raki,
and again they do the same after the distribution of the
KoXKv^a : this they call truyxcopt'Ov, or * pardon.* Some-
times, also, on the Saturday after the death, when the
bread-baking takes place, warm bread with cheese or oil
is distributed to poor women at the ovens in memory of
the departed, and if the death has occurred during Lent
or Easter Day flesh of lambs and wine are given in
charity by wealthy mourners.
Such was the death and burial that I witnessed at
Mykonos ; a scene which, for its intense painfulness, will
never be effaced from my memory. For days after the
cries of grief rang in my ears and haunted my dreams,
but Mrs. Monk, in her matter-of-fact way, said, * Every-
one must die, and everyone at Mykonos, when he or
she dies in the prime of life, must have a mcerologia
sung over the corpse. It is different when a worn-out
old man or woman dies ; nobody thinks it worth while to
mourn for them. You must go to-morrow and hear the
other lamentation over the poor young fellow who died
at Athens.'
I rather demurred ; one moerologia will last a long
THE DEATH-WAILS OF MYKONOS. 223
time, I thought ; but Mrs. Monk persuaded me by saying
that when anyone dies in foreign parts, unaccompanied
to his tomb by his relatives, it is a solemn duty to show
extra attention to his manes at home. Formerly a
lamentation such as this could last forty days, but now
it \s limited ; they wail and cry for a few days, and when
they are exhausted they give it up like sensible people,
and do not wear themselves to death with grief, as once
they used to do.
It was to a little back street of Mykonos to which I
was conducted next morning, and long before reaching
the house we heard their wails and lamentations ; and as
I entered my breath was almost taken away by a young
girl, with her black hair streaming over her back, her face
distraught with grief, rushing violently at me, screaming,
••Bring me back my brother ! ' With difficulty her kins-
folk persuaded her to leave me alone and to resume her
seat, and as soon as I recovered composure after this
rather embarrassing adventure I recognised that she was
the chief mourner, whose duty it was to exhibit every
possible excess of woe. She screamed at the top of her
voice, she gave violent tugs at her hair, she beat her
breast with crossed hands, she stamped her feet, she
scratched her arms until they bled ; and all the while her
kinswomen sat around her singing dirges in a low, mono-
tonous voice, as if they had to squeeze them out by press-
ing their hands to their sides and beating their knees
vigorously, and then pausing every now and again for a
good, honest cry. When the poor sister's grief was too
violent, when she bade fair to do herself some serious
bodily harm, the others rushed forward to soothe and
restrain her ; and a poor little girl of about ten, a younger
sister of the deceased, would rush up from time to time
and clutch at her dress in a terrified manner, asking her
224 THE CYCLADES.
if she did not love her just a h'ttle, if all her affections
had been centred on the departed. '
Now and again the grief would subside, and then it
was the mcerologista! s turn to do her part to rouse up
fresh anguish in their breasts.
My eyes to-day are streaming,
My grief is bitter and sore.
For he^s gone his long, dark journey ;
His home shall know him no more.
The one redeeming feature in this scene was the
absence of the corpse ; the women were just seated round
the room on chairs, with an empty space in the middle
where the bier would have stood. There were no men
there, and some few I spoke to outside seemed, I thought,
to sneer a little at this lamentation for a dead man who
had died away from home. And I do not think Demardi
Monk was pleased with his wife for inciting me to go.
Now for a few words about Mykonos. In itself
it is one of the least interesting islands of the archi-
pelago. * Lowly Mykonos,' as Pliny described it, is a fair
description still. There are next to no remains of anti-
quity upon it, and now it is scarcely possible to maJK
out where the two cities mentioned by Skylax stood.
One must have been where the present town now stands,
judging from the slight traces of walls and graves; and
the other very likely was near the harbour of Panormos,
a bay which runs right into the centre of the island, and
near which there was a necropolis. Beside these insig-
nificant traces, and the remains of a watchtower, all the
glory of Mykonos is reflected. Every possible piece of
antiquity comes from Delos, even the pillars down by
the harbour to which the sailors moor their boats are
from a temple at Delos.
Like all other travellers who have visited Mykonos,
THE DEATH-WAILS OF MYKOMOS, 22c
one of our objects was Deles. I should think that it has
hitherto been the traveller's only object ; consequently,
as Demarch Monk argued, it is only right that antiqui-
ties dug up at Delos should be kept for inspection at
Mykonos, the nearest town, and the only one in the f
demarchy in which Delos is situated, and not be removed
to Athens, as archaeologists wish. This system of treat-
ing antiquities, now general in Greece, must be looked
at from both points of view : it is charming to see local
antiquities in local museums, where the associations are
so much keener, and travellers are thereby attracted
to a spot they would otherwise not visit, and spend
money which would otherwise not find its way there.
This system may prove excellent in Western Europe,
but in Greece, where accommodation is outrageously
bad outside Athens, the case is different. How can
people come to Mykonos ? Unless you are armed with
a letter of introduction, there is no possible means of
obtaining a night's lodging. The steamer comes only
once a week, when the weather is fine, so a traveller who
visits Mykonos, and would not stay a week on this un-
interesting island, must depend on the precarious passage
by calfque.
Furthermore, the pleasure felt by the people of My-
konos in possessing the valuable remains of Delos is
only that of a satiated dog with a bone ; they do not
want them or understand them themselves, so they try
to prevent anyone else from reaping the good that
would ensue from their being properly looked after and
opportunity given for a more thorough study of them.
I append a note to this chapter on the museum at
Mykonos.
We only made one expedition in Mykonos, and that
was to a convent in the southern part of the island. It
Q
:26 THE CYCLADES,
is four miles distant from the Chora, and at first the
ground traversed is excessively wild, being covered with
huge blocks of granite, which easily account for the
legends of antiquity which relate that here Hercules
and the giants fought, and that here they lie buried. It
is an exceedingly wild, dreary spot, capable of suggest-
ing any horror. But the southern part of the island, in
the district called * the upper part,' presents an unusually
' prosperous aspect. It is all studded with homesteads
in the midst of fertile fields, and there each husbandman
lives at the scene of his work ; so different to other
islands, where the tiller of the soil lives in the town,
and may have several miles to traverse every morn-
ing before reaching his daily labour. In the centre of
this fertile spot is a prosperous monastery called Tour-
liani, or * the little towers,' because hard by, on a rocky
summit, was the mediaeval fortress of Mykonos, of which
now only the outer walls can be seen. It is a rich
monastery, but possesses nothing old or remarkable save
the miraculous eikon, said to be the work of St Luke,
and to have been found by some divers at the bottom of
the sea. You can see nothing of it but a black mass,
and a few years ago Archbishop Lycurgus, of Syra,
wished to send it to an artist, so that it might be
restored, and some expression given to it ; but the
people would not hear of it, and it was left as it is.
On the top of a fine wooden throne, in Florentine
carving, the man who founded the monastery three hun-
dred years ago had himself placed ; beyond this there
is nothing of interest.
Close to this convent was a nunnery, now disestab-
lished. * In former years,' said an irreverent peasant
who showed us the way, * the convent and the nunnery
were the only houses existing in this part of the
THE DEATH-WAILS OF MYKONOS, 227
island ; and a fine time they had of it, you may be
sure/
Our excellent quarters with Demarch Monk and the
charming society of his family made our evenings at
Mykonos pass very pleasantly. Mrs. Monk produced
all her treasures for our inspection — glorious old Greek
lace enough to constitute a small fortune in England,
jewellery of Venetian date, quilts made out of lovely
brocades, and a square embroidered piece of old chenille,
which was used as the family pall to place the coffin on ;
for the Monks are rich, and, when they die, they go in
for this luxury. The daughters in their room upstairs
/had an enviable little museum of treasures from Delos.
Altogether we had much to see and envy, and felt
grateful to Mrs. Monk when she gave us the eikon of
St Nicholas inside a gilded crabshell, adding gracefully,
as she did so, that she hoped it might secure us a safe
voyage to our country.
The night before we left, an old woman, called
Marousa, was summoned to the demarches house. She
was a great hand at magic art, and told us wonderful
stories, with the aid of a pack of cards, about ourselves ;
stories which, beyond a doubt, she had culled from the
gossip, which convulsed Mykonos just then, about the
English who had attended moerologice and had visited
Tourliani. * Marousa knows how to mix infallible love
potions,' said Mrs. Monk when she had gone ; * but she
would not tell you, however much you asked her.' But
Mrs. Monk herself was more kindly disposed, and told
us how a love-sick girl could win the object of her affec-
tions. * She must get the milk of forty mothers and of
forty of their married daughters ; if she can do this, and
if she can succeed in getting her young man to taste
just a drop of this mixture, he is hers for life.'
Q2
228 THE CYC LADES.
We were on the very best of terms with Mrs. Monk,
and her tongue flowed freely about her native isle ; it
was with grief that we tore ourselves away next day on
our way to Tenos.
NOTE I.
On the Museutns of Mykonos.
There are two dark places in Mykonos devoted to the storage
of curiosities, in one of which, little better than a cellar, are
kept inscriptions of every sort ; in the other, which is lighted by
two doors and two windows looking into a gloomy arcade, are
kept the statues and sculptures. I will just mention a few of
the objects therein because there is no printed catalogue, only an
imperfect manuscript one, in modem Greek, which debars its use
to many. There are numerous rude statues of Artemis, one of
which M. Homolle dates at the sixth century B.c. It is a little less
than life size, with the body enveloped in a long tunic, no sleeves,
and fastened by a zone. She is crowned with a diadem, in which
are nail-holes pointing to some decorations having been affixed;
there are wings on the shoulders and heels, long pendants from the
ears and hair hanging over the shoulders. There is evidently a
desire to represent rapid motion, for the left knee, though to all
appearances on the ground, does not touch it, and the wings are
open. The face is full, but the legs are en profile. This valuable
1| piece of archaic work stands in a dark recess, whilst the pedestal,
with an inscription, on which the statue formerly stood, is placed
at the other end of the room. Then there are five beautiftil but
much damaged metopes representing Hades carrying off Proser-
pine, all of the same character, and foimd near the same spot on
Delos. These are said to be the work of the school of Praxiteles.
Then there are those wonderfully large inscriptions from Delos, the
largest known — eighty-eight inches long by forty-four — and covered
with writing on both sides, detailing the wealth and possessions
and the expenses attending the maintenance of the great temple of
Apollo at Delos. Then we have a curious syren, of ancient work-
manship, without a head, but with the long conventional curls
still adhering to the back and chest. There is a very curious
stele of Hermes, the head of which is gone, but all the pedestal
is covered with every description of rude drawing, done at
THE DEATH-WAILS OF MYKONOS, 229
different periods ; there are easily discernible on it dogs, fish,
people, and a capitally executed goat, and a representation of the
stele itself, so that we can tell what the head was like before it was
broken off. Propped up against a pedestal in an awkward fashion
is the somewhat destroyed figure of a warrior, the work of
Agasius, of Ephesus, as we learn from the base on which it was
found, and which is still on Delos ; it was in the agora down by
the sacred harbour, and is a finely executed statue of a barbarian,
not of a Greek, as is easily seen from the helmet by his side. There
is the headless body of Apollo, which the inhabitants of Tenea
Orchomeno presented to the temple of Delos ; there are the lion-
headed water-spouts from the great temple of Apollo ; and in a dark
inner room are baskets full of lamps, jar handles, and treasures,
which any other museum would prize, lying huddled together in
perilous confusion. The bottom of a plate, with the heads in relief
of two Moenads kissing, is one of the most exquisite examples
of Greek pottery I have seen. Besides these things there are lots
of smaller treasures in glass cases, the wheels of a toy chariot, a
toy helmet — doubtless for votive offerings to the god — locks,
utensils for domestic and temple use, all of which require far more
attentive study than they are ever likely to get at Mykonos.
When you visit Delos and see the vast acres of unexcavated ground,
and know that the results of any enterprise must be deposited
here, it is not encouraging.
NOTE II.
The Excavations at Delos.
It is a curious irony of fate that in a work on the Cyclades one
is almost tempted to leave Delos out altogether. This islet, the
centre, not only of the encircling Cyclades, but of the ancient
religious world, has nothing whatsoever to do with the life of to-
day, except that the harbour between it and Rhenaea has been
constituted a quarantine station. Delos and Rhenaea, now called
' the Deloi,' exist only as fossils, and any knowledge concerning
them belongs almost exclusively to the French, whose active
excavations, and the results thereof, have been so exhaustively
treated by M. Leb^gue, in his work, and by M. Homolle, in his
articles in the * Bulletin de Correspondance Helldnique,' that no
comment is necessary.
230 THE CYC LADES,
A visit to the excavated ruins with these works in one's hand is
truly delightful ; with their aid we were able to place all the
buildings which have been alluded to by ancient writers, and we
were furthermore able to picture to ourselves the scenes of bygone
ages : the procession of white-clad maidens, which wound up
Mount Cynthos to the temple of Jupiter and Minerva ; the magnifi-
cent approach of the * theories ' from Athens to worship at Apollo's
shrine : and as we sat amongst the ruins excavated by the
French we thought much of these things, for around us reigned a
desolation and destruction perhaps more complete than that of
Nineveh.
Mount Cynthos is an ugly, bare, sugar-loaf mound, rising about
three hundred and fifty feet above the sea-level in the centre of
the island, affording a scanty pasturage for goats ; the rest of the
island is tolerably fertile, and is let to a few shepherds for — what
seemed to us a large sum in these parts — two hundred and forty
pounds per annum. There are a few huts scattered about and a
wooden shanty, where two old men live to guard the ruins fi-om the
descent of European pirates, who will go there in yachts and steal
what they can find. All around stretches a vast sea of ruins,
recalling Pompeii in extent and complete annihilation ; you wander
through houses with mosaic pavements, pillared halls with cisterns
below, and the richness of marble wherever you turn is Ynost
striking, and in the brilliant sunlight almost dazzling. Much of the
lychnites vein from Mount Marpessa of Paros has found its way here.
There is still a vast amount of work to be done on Delos if the
Greek Government would only encourage enterprise in excavation.
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