SOME years ago a British man-of-war dnote visited Astypalaea; notes were taken respecting its splendid harbour; an engineer considered the facilities of bringing water down from a mountain source: it was in actual contemplation at that time to make the island a part of the British Empire by purchase from Turkey. Its position is excellent, being almost exactly in the middle of the Cretan Sea, a considerable distance from everywhere, just one of those convenient halting-places that commercial England loves to possess herself of. As it is, Astypalaea is one of the most quaint old-world spots to be found in Greek or Turkish waters. Quaint costumes and still quainter customs still reign supreme, as they always will, under the banner of the Crescent; it is the Union Jack dnote which scatters these things to the winds: great though our love is for antiquity, we English have dealt more harshly than any other people with the fashions of the old world. If England had bought Astypalaea neither custom or costume would now remain, for the inhabitants still remember how the British sailors gave fabulous prices for their dresses and laughed at their customs.
It is necessary to hire a caïque to reach Astypalaea, for it is far out of the path of steamers, and to spend the night on board if the wind is not favourable. Our caïque was a fairly clean specimen of its kind, with two masts and new canvas bulwarks to keep off the wash of the waves; the small hatch in which we slept only smelt of island bread, an odour which reminds one at the same time of a fox and a mouse, and had no vermin to speak of in it, save regiments of earwigs. In the hold were several old women, some of whom always turn up at the last moment with their boxes, and clamour for a passage every time we voyage from one island to the other; we have found it impossible to refuse to convey them, though we object strongly to them for two reasons — firstly, if they are well they get frightened and give constant directions to the sailors, and if they are not well they know not how to suffer quietly. Another passenger, too, turned up, whom we soon learnt to be a little red-haired Jew from a bazaar in Constantinople, who took this opportunity to make a descent on Astypalaea for embroideries and plates; he was our bête noire in the island: whenever we tried to effect a bargain he was always to be seen hovering around, ready to offer more if our price was low, and to chuckle if we gave too much.
We reached our destination early one fine spring morning, and landed at a tiny harbour just below the one village of the island; this village is different to any that it has ever been my lot to see, being constructed inside a massive fortress on the top of a hill; this fortress has only one gateway, and the walls are built out of Hellenic and mediaeval remains. On one stone you read an inscription of the time of Pericles, on another you find the name of some Venetian count who occupied this fortress.
We asked where lived Logothetes, to whom we had a letter, and who, we were told, was the chief man of the island. “Within,” was the reply. “Within what?” we asked, and after staring at us for a while in mute astonishment at our ignorance, the peasant added, “Within, not without.” So we proceeded on our way perplexed up the hill, and soon saw what he meant, for a new village has sprung up outside the fortress in these later years, when pirates have been scarcer; but all the grandees of Astypalaea live “within,” and have a sort of contempt for those who live “without.”
Logothetes received us very kindly, and gave us the loan of an empty house which he possessed “without,” close to a long regiment of windmills, and as a keen north wind blew for a week during our stay in this rickety edifice, we lived as in a perpetual earthquake. The great man was dressed in island costume, that is to say, in cotton knickerbockers, loose between the legs for luggage, which when packed flop about like the stomach of a goose. On his head he wore a fez, and his mien was decidedly dignified, as it well might be, for does he not own all the flocks and herds on the island, as well as most of the houses and most of the best land? We had not been acquainted with him for half an hour before he told us that the Turkish moudir dnote could do nothing without consulting him, and that he had a thousand pounds deposited for safety in a church, though he asked many questions concerning banks and investments. I don’t think he ever thoroughly got to understand the system. He furthermore told us that he had been once to Athens, and contemplated visiting that city again when his grandchildren were old enough for education; so it was clear to us that he at least knew “civilization,” as the saying is, and yet his sister Lettuce (Maroulia) and her daughter Emerald dnote, in their quaint red costume, who lived next door to us, and who spent many hours with us every day, are little better than uncultured savages.
A most curious feature in Astypalaea, which was immediately brought before our notice by our intercourse with Mrs. Lettuce, is that the women speak quite a different language to the men, or rather their pronunciation is so entirely different that it amounts to a different language. It was some days before we could properly understand our female friends, and question them concerning their curious custom; all we could learn was this, that it was not considered proper for women to speak like men. Their l’s are converted into lt’s, their r’s disappear altogether; “the sun,” for example, which a Greek man, like his ancestors, will call o ílios gr, the females of Astypalaea choose to call o íltsos gr. It is quite clear that the men do not speak better by reason of better education and more intercourse with the outer world, for the young shepherds on the hills, who have never left their island, and have never had a lesson in their lives, speak Greek like the neighbouring islanders; but a woman, even if she has been years away and can speak Greek properly, would never think of doing so in Astypalaea; it is some quaint relic of the respect in which females once held the lords of creation, which has quite disappeared in other communities. There is also another custom in Astypalaea which might be said to tell in the other direction, for here it is customary for the eldest daughter to inherit her parents’ house and lands, to the exclusion of her brothers and younger sisters; this savours strongly of a survival of the matriarchal system, when the woman was considered as the safest medium for the handing down of property and family honours. Logothetes has only one daughter, by name Peace dnote, and she is married to the meekest of men, whom we only heard named as Peace’s husband, or Mr. John’s son-in-law; his identity had been quite merged in that of his portly wife, and she herself with remarkable candour told us that her husband was “a soft man, and only entitled to respect as the father of the future owner of one-fourth of Astypalaea.” Of her father, however, she spoke with the greatest devotion and respect, but as we grew better acquainted with the people, we found that all did not love and respect the great man as his daughter did. “He is a hard man,” said one; “he would not give a crust to a starving beggar,” said another; we gathered from various sources that he was unjust, and that he used his financial power to grind down his fellow islanders. But no matter, they all feared him, and all claimed relationship with him in some degree or another. Ties of kinship are not of great weight in a small society like this, when all are relations and intermarry; whereas elsewhere in Greece the ties of relationship are observed with the greatest respect, here, where the society is but one large family, the case is altered. There are no actually poor people as far as we could see on the island, and none actually rich except Logothetes, and there are no distinctions of rank whatsoever; it forms, in fact, an interesting example of the family as the basis of society.
Though the Turks have two representatives on the island, namely, the governor and the tax-collector, they trouble themselves in no way whatsoever about the government. So long as the taxes are duly paid the inhabitants are permitted to govern themselves. A council of “old men of the people” (dhimogérontes gr) is annually elected, and these councillors are elected not by vote but by voice, in a general assembly held in the great porch of the fortress. A name is proposed by the town crier, and the question is put, “Is he good?” And the people shout “Yes, he is,” “No, he is not,” according to their wishes. What a glimpse of old-world custom is this in the midst of ballots and scrutinies in which we live! In Astypalaea the church, which is just over the porch, and which is dedicated to the Madonna of the Gate, is the parliament house, and hither the councillors are conducted after their election to swear before the Madonna’s picture to be just and true dispensers of the law.
Amongst the women of Astypalaea we soon made for ourselves delightful acquaintances, and thoroughly enjoyed their quaint perpetuation of many a classical custom. In the evening they will wish you “a good dawn”; in the morning they will wish you “a good evening.” They are truly Conservative in every branch of life; and as we watched day by day Mrs. Lettuce and her daughter spinning at their cottage door, we felt as though we were living centuries before our time. Rightly to picture these good folks their dress must be described: a long yellow scarf is wound round and round their heads, the ends of which hang down in loops on their back; from beneath this scarf, over the forehead, peeps a red velvet cap, jauntily worn on one side, and covered with beads and spangles. Very large silver earrings adorn or rather distort their ears. Their dress is like a long shirt, with richly embroidered sleeves, which they tuck up carefully whilst at work, and with inferior embroidery at the bottom of the skirt. Over this shirt, so that no embroidery is hidden, they wear a scarlet garment, the skirt of which on week-days is turned inside out for economy, so that only on Sundays and feast days do they appear in all their scarlet magnificence. The jacket is of the same red material, square backed to the waist, when it branches out into two points, adorned with three big silver buttons. In front a sort of bib is worn down to the waist, embroidered and bespangled, and sometimes covered with gold coins. At the end of this is sewn a bit of white calico, which looks as if it was intended to tuck in, but it never is.
Nowhere in the islands is the old costume so general as it is in Astypalaea, and the time to see the women to advantage is in the evening, as they trudge along the hillside to the wells for water with huge amphorae on their heads, some green, some yellow, and some plain unglazed pottery; or on Saturday afternoons at the ovens, for Saturday is the only day on which bread is baked at Astypalaea, and the women are to be seen hurrying to and fro with long boards bearing the week’s baking on their heads. On either of these occasions the scene is highly picturesque, and preferable to that exhibited on a feast day, for when busy the women are less conscious, and like the rest of their sex all over the world the good ladies of Astypalaea are fully aware what gay figures they present when dressed in all their finery.
We were lucky enough to see a bride during our stay at Astypalaea, and her wedding garments were extravagantly rich. When new, they told us, a bridal dress costs a hundred pounds, but in their present impoverished state the brides have to be content with imitation jewellery and Roman pearls, unless they are lucky enough to have inherited a costume from their ancestors, which has probably done service for generations of brides. Our bride had for her headdress a sort of mitre of gold, covered with an elaborate pattern in seed pearls. Her dress was made like those the women wear every day, only it was of velvet instead of red cloth, and her jacket was fringed with an endless number of silver ornaments, which jangled together when she moved. The Astypalaeotes manage their wedding festivities more quietly than they do in other islands. The ceremony of fetching the vine tendrils for the wedding wreaths is a pretty one: the fathers of the young couple, attended by priests and a large retinue of young men playing the lyre and the bagpipe, go down to the meadow where the vineyards are. As they are gathered the priests bless the tendrils, and the party return to make merry in the bride’s house. When the bridegroom comes to claim his bride before the ceremony in church, he is met by a bridesmaid on the threshold, who gives him honey with which to make a cross on the lintel, and a pomegranate which he breaks and scatters outside, and in the evening the young people indulge in some curious local dances, in which the bride and bridegroom are expected to take an energetic part.
We never tired of paying visits in the fortress, with its labyrinth of narrow streets, some only sixteen inches wide, and its century-old houses packed like sardines in a box. The doctor soon became a great friend. He is a recent importation into Astypalaea. Five years ago no doctor had ever set his foot on the island, and the inhabitants lived and died without physic; but for some cause or another fevers became common, and the “old men of the people,” in council assembled, decided to send for a permanent physician. He is a queer little man, with a bald head, and a large wart on the top of it. He wears “scissor-made” trousers, as they call our European gear, to distinguish them from the baggy inexpressibles of the islanders, which are made out of one large piece of cotton. He is blessed with a stout European-dressed wife, and he never grew tired of relating to me the difficulties he has had, and has still, in stemming the ignorance of the people, who cling to their charms and incantations as far more efficacious than the physician’s nostrums. He has a pretty house “within”, with a superb view over the sea and the rocky island, but his neighbour Georgiades has a prettier one, and a prettier wife to boot, dressed in the old costume.
This house consisted only of one large room, profusely decorated. The wooden ceiling was painted in little squares, with a yellow and red rose in each square. The walls were adorned with carved ledges for the family crockery. One wall was hung entirely with plates in wild confusion, some modern, some old Rhodian, some Italian, which we coveted, but Georgiades was a well-to-do man, and cared not to sell. Around the room were many gaudily-coloured chests for clothes, and a great settee ran along the whole of one side. The bed, however, in an Astypalaeote house is the greatest curiosity; it occupies one entire side, and is raised six feet from the ground. To approach it you have to climb a ladder of boxes, and when you are in it you feel in a separate apartment altogether. There is a tiny window to light it, and all around are cupboards containing articles of household use. It is necessarily a very large one, for all the family sleep together, and on my remarking that I should prefer an inside place for fear of a fall, they laughed and told stories of a sponge fisherman who once dreamt that he was going to take a dive into the sea, and found himself on the floor instead; and of a priest, who rolled out of bed when drunk and broke his neck. Underneath this bed, concealed from view by boards and a valance, is the kitchen in the better-class houses, when they do not cook in the sitting-room; but in inferior establishments the space beneath the bed is used as a storeroom for all imaginable filth.
Georgiades, his house, his wife and his baby all interested us immensely, and when we had exhausted the interests of the former possessions, we devoted our inquiries to the latter, a dear little chubby fellow, whose cap and neck were hung with many ornaments, the explanation for which custom is as follows: when a child is born into the world, especially if it be a first-born, after the lapse of a month its mother takes it to visit all its relatives, which means in Astypalaea a visit to nearly every house. Each relative is expected to give it something; a rich one, presumably Logothetes, gives it a gold coin, which is forthwith tied to its cap, that it may be rich; another, presumably a priest, presents it with a tiny cross, that it may be good, which is affixed to the same garment. Poorer relations are only called upon to present it with trifles: glass beads, cotton, that its beard may grow if it is a boy, that it may be industrious at the loom if a girl, and sugar that it may be sweet. Georgiades’ baby was a mass of these things — several coins, silver trinkets, glass beads, and charms. Around its tiny arm was tightly bound the red and white string, or “March charm,” which is always tied on the first of that month, and is not removed till Easter time, when they tie it to the leg of the Easter lamb before it is roasted in the oven. This is considered most efficacious in warding off fevers. A year after birth they tell its future prospects with a florin and an egg. The father holds one in each hand, and whichever baby touches first indicates whether it will be rich or poor.
Whilst we chatted with Georgiades and his wife we learnt a good many curious things concerning babyhood in Astypalaea. Their child, they proudly told us, had been born in “a good hour,” it will grow up in consequence of this healthy, wealthy, and wise, but a poor woman “within” had given birth to a child in “an evil hour,” and her unfortunate infant had a black mark on its forehead. This, we were informed, was a sure proof of a terrible calamity called “brother bann” dnote (adelfodioktís gr), and indicates evil or death to the children which are yet unborn, unless by charms the bann can be removed. To effect this a priest is summoned, whose first care is to burn out the black mark and then to curse the bann; having done this, they take the child and place it either on an oven or on a dung-heap, and whilst it is there a perfect stranger, if such an individual can be found, must go through the formality of purchasing the child from its mother with a small silver coin, and thus the stranger is supposed to change its luck and to avert the future influence of the bann.
As soon as the poor child can speak it is taken to a lighted oven, and the mother threatens to throw it into the flames unless it says which it prefers, “brother bann” or “dolls.” If it speaks at all, it of course says “dolls,” but if by any chance it says “brother bann,” or is so terrified that it does nothing but cry, then it is a clear proof that the bann is still existing, and it is necessary to collect small silver coins from forty once married women, out of which a cross is hammered. This cross must be blessed at forty separate liturgies, and must be worn as a phylactery dnote. When a mother loses several children in succession, she knows that it is this fatal and mystic “brother bann” which is pursuing her.
The reverend priests of Astypalaea are a more than ordinary uncultured set, deeply superstitious, and living by superstition, the avowed and open enemies of anyone who wears “scissor-made attire.” Their stipends are nothing; their living is made by what they can collect at the liturgies, their food is supplied by the offerings of bread on saints’ days, and cakes at funerals, and as the doctor interferes with their sale of charms and incantations they must naturally dislike him as bitterly as our parsons dislike marriage licenses.
A glance at Astypalaea is sufficient to prove how piously inclined its inhabitants are, for never in my life have I seen so many tiny vaulted churches as there are clustered together between the harbour and the town. One cluster of churches alone consists of ten, each dedicated to a different saint, and constructed out of old Hellenic and Byzantine remains. I entered on the arduous task of trying to count all the churches in and around the village, but gave them up in despair, and contented myself with counting the windmills, of which there are fourteen. Anyone who only saw Astypalaea from the harbour would go away with the impression that the island was devoted entirely to the production of churches and windmills; they told me that there were considerably more churches than houses on the island. This statement I was willing to accept as true without taking the trouble of counting either, but to the question I put why there were so many near the town I got only conflicting answers; one said, “because our ancestors were so pious;” another said, “because everyone who has committed a sin has to atone for it by building a church.” I am inclined to accept the latter theory, knowing that the last generation, before steamers had made the trade both dangerous and unprofitable, had lived by marauding.
Concerning the churches, which are scattered over the whole of the island, I got a much more satisfactory explanation; they are built for two purposes, namely, to drive away the Nereids and other phantoms which haunt the streams and cliffs, and to afford a refuge for the peasants in case of storm. I have spent nights in these churches myself when on journeys in the island, and consider them admirable institutions. As there is only one village in Astypalaea, and as it is an exceedingly widespread island with tiny oases of fertility here and there, the men who cultivate the soil are naturally much away from home. Each man possesses a goat’s skin knapsack (boúria gr), horribly life-like looking things when full; to the four legs of the animal are attached leather thongs by which the knapsack is slung to the shoulders; the back is frequently adorned with a fringe and with the bones of a hare’s leg and other well-known charms, and with these filled with a sufficiency of bread and olives to last for several days, the labourers will start off on Monday morning and spend the days of work from home; if there is no church near they will sleep on a bed of brushwood in the open, always careful before lying down to say the prayer against scorpions which their mothers have taught them in infancy. It runs as follows: “The earth sleeps, the earth sleeps, may the creeping things of the earth, the scorpion and the serpent, sleep too.” When this has been said and the sign of the cross made three times, no one fears to be bitten in the night.
The priests are all of them labourers. Papa Demetrios has his vineyard and his garden down on the little meadow, where he may be seen most days digging and delving, an extraordinary and unreverend-looking object, with his cassock off, his sleeves tucked up, and his tall hat bobbing up and down. Papa Andreas is a fisherman, a genuine descendant of the apostle whose name he bears: he is the priest of the sailors’ church down by the shore, which of course is dedicated to St. Nicholas, the mariner’s friend, the modern Poseidon, the saint who is said to have invented the rudder, and whose picture is to be found in every caïque and in every fisherman’s house, sometimes painted in the inside of a gilded crab-shell.
I went down to see Papa Andreas on a Saturday evening in Lent, when he was busy selling to numerous customers octopodia, cuttle fish, and limpets; his cassock was turned up, revealing a dirty pair of drawers beneath. He was too busy to pay any heed to me at the time, so I waited patiently till his sale was over, when as a preface to conversation I in my ignorance asked him if he had caught many fish lately? “Fish,” he replied with supreme contempt, “of course not in Lent.” “Is not this a fish?” asked I wonderingly, as I pointed to a wriggling octopus, which had obviously been caught since the austerities of the Lenten fast began. “Oh dear no,” he replied with something of a smile, “it has no blood in it.” So I stood corrected, and gained a clearer understanding concerning the principles of fasting as inculcated by the Eastern Church.
Papa Andreas then took me into his house, where his wife was employing herself in mending the old nets which I was told would not be wanted till after Easter; around the room was the tackle which present necessities required, the tin can with a glass bottom with which the fishermen inspect the bottom of the sea when in search of sponges or shell-fish, the iron rake which they drag along the rocks to loosen the same from their holdings, and the block of wood with bits of looking-glass on one side and a rude representation of a cuttle fish on the other, which they drag slowly through the water to attract the cuttle-fish from its lair. Papa Andreas was very proud of his church. It is a building of comparatively modern date, and boasts of an elegant three-storeyed bell tower; inside this church is hung with every imaginable form of nautical offering, miniature silver boats and oars, pictures of escape from shipwreck with the Madonna hastening in a cloud to the rescue. Before the high altar were enough sponges to have stocked a barber’s shop, presented by grateful sponge fishermen to St. Nicholas. I fancy the temples of ancient days must have offered much the same appearance as this, and I am sure Demetrius the silversmith made many similar silver objects to be hung up in the great temple of Diana at Ephesus.
Having inspected the church of St. Nicholas, Papa Andreas volunteered to conduct me to a breezy height above, where stands a small vaulted church dedicated to the Prophet Elias, whose jurisdiction over storm and rain is held supreme. It was altogether bare of offerings, and contained only three sacred pictures, one of the Virgin and Child, one of Christ, and one of the Prophet, which last, by way of distinction, was decorated with a frame composed of yellow chintz. When drought falls upon Astypalaea the people go in a body to this mountain church to pray for rain. Archaeologists assert that wheresoever in ancient days stood a temple to the god Aeolus, now stands one to Prophet Elias; the names are similar, and during the transition from heathendom to Christianity the early divines doubtless availed themselves of this similarity. When we were at Astypalaea the inhabitants were complaining of drought, and said that unless rain came the grain could not grow; consequently a pilgrimage to the mountain church was in contemplation, but rather to our regret the north wind changed, and with a southern breeze came the longed for rain, and the prayers to Prophet Elias were never said. Prophet Elias in Greece is something like our St. Swithin: if it is cloudless on the prophet’s day, a mild winter and a fruitful season are foretold — for, as the saying goes, “Prophet Elias puts the oil into the olive.”
Drought is not the only difficulty with which the Astypalaeote farmer has to contend. In spring-time flocks of small birds alight on this island on their northward passage; these they call indiscriminately “grain-eaters,” and on their arrival the priests are despatched to various points in the island to make a sacred anointing of the crops by sprinkling them with holy oil and water. When this is done they believe the voracity of the “grain-eaters” is checked. Thus do the priests gain money, but this is nothing to the solemnity connected with the priestly charm which arrests the ghostly wanderings of those who have died in their sins; the remains of such an individual are deemed altogether unhallowed, the spirit cannot rest in the grave, it returns to its whilom home and haunts the abode of friends of former days. These much dreaded ghostly wanderers are called in Astypalaea katachanádes gr, and a priest alone can cause these evil spirits to rest. He sprinkles the grave with holy oil and water. He offers up a long prayer thereon, and if this is not sufficient he will remove the bones away in a sack to some rocky uninhabited islet, for ghosts they say cannot cross water. The superstition under different names is common all over Greece, and the privilege of becoming a katachanás gr belongs solely to those who have received Christian baptism. A Turk, if he dies in his sins, is condemned to wander about as a black dog, which howls dismally all night.
Of all our friends at Astypalaea we liked none better than Mrs. Lettuce. She was with us for hours together and always brought her work with her, for she was busy at the time embroidering a new dress for her daughter Emerald to wear at Easter; and I think we liked Mrs. Lettuce all the better because she embroiders still in the good old patterns, and does not affect anything European, which has been the ruin of Eastern embroideries of late years. She would ask us questions innumerable and very puzzling concerning our country; for example, her curiosity was great to know all about “land-steamers.” She had seen steamers on the sea, but how they could be made to go on land puzzled her exceedingly, and I doubt whether our explanations concerning the working of railroads threw much light on the subject. Having patiently waited until the thirst for knowledge was somewhat satisfied, we felt emboldened in our turn to put many questions to her, and good Mrs. Lettuce took a delight in telling us everything we asked. She knew many charms, indeed she did; she could tell any girl how to win a husband, if she was in love. “Get a scrap of his clothes, tie it to your spindle, and whirl it round, saying as you do so, ‘May the love of my man turn to me.’” “Had Emerald tried this plan?” “No; Emerald had never been in love,” and so we went on. As this was the first Greek love charm I had heard, which was capable of being repeated, I entered it in my note-book with a degree of pleasure which vastly amused Mrs. Lettuce. Then she told us of a certain plant Bromos, which she knew well, and which grows up in the mountains; if you put it into the hair of a woman without her knowing it she will see visions of the future. But one of the head-bones of the scaros fish is one of Mrs. Lettuce’s favourite divining rods; when any friend of hers is going to have a baby, she goes to call upon her and secretes the bone surreptitiously in the patient’s hair. Then she waits to hear whether the woman will first mention the name of a man or a woman, and whichever sex is first alluded to will be the sex of the expected infant.
Mrs. Lettuce was kindness itself. She gave me her handsomely-carved distaff, to which I had taken a fancy; she brought us salads and trifles to eat, about which we did not always care so very much. One day I was watching her grinding peas with her stone hand-mill just like a quern. “Do you have peas in England,” she asked. “Oh, yes!” and I foolishly added, “we eat a great many of them.” So that evening, when we had despatched a partridge and were about to turn our attention to some curds and honey, in walked Mrs. Lettuce with a dish of boiled peas swimming in oil and flavoured with the coarsest pepper, nor would she take her departure until we had done ample justice to her present.
As for Mrs. Lettuce and her family — husband, two daughters, and three sons — their evening meal always consisted of peas thus cooked, and nothing else. A large bowl full was regularly placed on the mud floor in their midst; the family squatted on the ground, the father and mother each had wooden spoons, but the youngsters went at their meal with their fingers only; these they sucked and dipped in again, this primitive process having one advantage, that previously dirty hands were after dinner always clean. We watched them thus feeding evening after evening by the light of the brushwood fire on which the peas had been boiled, and they reminded us of a Dutch interior in Greek garb.
Mrs. Lettuce we soon found did not like the doctor, and always left us if he came to pay us a visit; she was in fact a leading member of the party of obstruction. “How Mr. John,” she would say, alluding to her brother the great Logothetes, “can believe in his physic, I cannot think.” And after a moment’s reflection she looked up triumphantly and said “But he cannot cure drymes, and says that those who suffer from them in Lent should not fast; he is a wicked man, and will become a katachanás gr.”
Now drymes are sores and abscesses which are very commonly seen on the bare feet and legs of the islanders. The doctor says they come from poverty of blood and poor living; but they say they come from washing on the three first days of August. Linen, if washed on these days, gets holes in it, and legs get drymes. This is their theory, and some go so far as to call them “devil’s touches;” but no matter how they come, every old woman knows how to cure them by putting their hands on them and muttering certain words as they do so. Mrs. Lettuce was very shy about telling me these words, for she imagined, and with a certain degree of correctness, that I only wanted to laugh at her. Eventually, the day before we quitted Astypalaea, I grew desperate and offered her in exchange for the words a packet of English needles; the needles gained me my point, but I am inclined to think that Mrs. Lettuce got the best of the bargain As the aged female physician touches her patient’s wounds, she crosses herself and says: “In the name of God, my master Christ, and Holy Panteleomon, first physician of the world; down on the sea-shore St. John is baptising and teaching thousands of heathen. On Friday the Jews crucified Christ; on Sunday He rose whole without spot, and without blood. Thus may the leg of thy servant be healed.” In obstinate cases these words must be written down and tied to the wound with a handkerchief, and then the dryme is sure to disappear.
Those who go to Astypalaea must be people of a patient disposition. We packed our things to leave on a Wednesday morning, the caïque was in readiness and so were the old women with their boxes, but the wind was unfavourable, and it was not until that day week that we could start. Mrs. Lettuce rejoiced in our delay, she told us, and when we did start I am sure she was genuinely sorry, for we saw two scarlet figures, which we knew to be Mrs. Lettuce and her daughter, standing waving farewells on the hill side long after any demonstration of that kind was necessary.