On a Far-off Island

WE arrived at Karpathos a wreck – that is to say, a gust of wind from the mountains struck us when sailing on an almost glassy sea, carried away our sail and our mast, and reduced us to our oars. Where is Karpathos? and why did we go there? are always questions put to us; and we reply that it is one of the most lost islands of the Aegean Sea, lying between Crete and Rhodes, where no steamer touches, and that my wife and I spent some months on it last winter with a view to studying the customs of the 9000 Greeks who inhabit it, and who in their mountain villages have preserved through long ages many of the customs of the Greeks of old. ⌂

Our island delighted us immensely for its own exceeding loveliness: sharp-peaked mountains rise 4000 feet out of the sea, deep clefts lined with fir-trees run down to the water's edge. Near one of these, where nestled a tiny fishing hamlet, to the north of the island, we deserted our wreck, and hired a boat manned by four wild-looking Karpathiote oarsmen to row us along the coast for seven hours to the chief village. Their oars were like great branches, and with each stroke they pulled they rose from their seat, jumped on the seat in front of them, and kept time by repeating in a shrill voice little rhyming distiches, commenced by stroke and carried on by the others. These sailors know hundreds of these rhymes, which have been handed down from father to son. As a specimen I will give this one: Stroke commences by shouting, "Everything from God;" number two, "assistance;" number three, "and supervision;" bow concludes the couplet by, "and our bark shall proceed well." When not singing, the sailors were chiding and chaffing one another, so that for the whole of the seven hours they were scarcely silent for a moment – not even stroke, a grey-haired man, who will not see sixty again. ⌂

The Governor of Karpathos is a Turk, his treasurer is a Turk, the custom-house officer is a Turk, and there are five Turkish soldiers on Karpathos to uphold the Government of the Porte. Except these, all the inhabitants are Greek, and the villages up in the mountains are allowed almost complete self-government, provided their annual tribute is paid. It is absurd to see how keen party spirit is in these tiny village communities over the election of the demarch, or mayor of the place. We attended one of their annual Parliaments, at which the election takes place. Eighty members of the village were assembled and seated cross-legged in the church, wild unkempt shepherds, with rough goatskin cloaks, and priests with long hair flowing loosely over their shoulders. Suddenly would arise a perfect pandemonium of voices in eager dispute, and as quickly would it be hushed, when the oldest man of the village arose, Deacon Saint George as he is called – Deacon, because he can read and write, and Saint, because his grandfather once had been a pilgrim to the Holy Tomb. "He is the most honourable man of all Karpathos," they whispered to me in mute admiration; but a few days after this I had an opportunity of testing his honour, for he always tottered after us on his stick, with his long tasselled fez and long blue coat. One day my wife dropped a trifling ornament, value sixpence, which our old friend saw fall. He picked it up, looked at it, looked to see if my wife noticed her loss, held it in his hand for some time, and eventually consigned it to his pocket. Thus for this trifling loss we gauged the standard of honour of the most honourable councillor, the Nestor of Karpathos, at the sound of whose voice the hubbub of the village Parliament was for the moment lulled, though only to break forth again with redoubled vigour when Deacon Saint George sat down, until weary of dispute another lull ensued, during which the village schoolmaster was called upon, as the only decent scribe of the place, to write down the minutes of the meeting. A psalter was fetched from a stand in the church, pen and ink were produced, and, amidst a torrent of advice from all sides, the schoolmaster wrote down – well, I expect, pretty nearly what he pleased. Such is home rule amongst the mountains of Karpathos. ⌂

After our long and lovely row, we landed in the most populous corner of the island, where a group of villages run up a fertile gorge far into the mountains, down which a stream dashes, called the Chaos, leaping and boiling through chasms scarcely two yards wide. It is considered a most uncanny stream, which no man durst approach at night for fear of Nereids and other water-sprites. In the chief village the Turkish governor lives, – the Kaimakam, "the superior lord" – kaimak being the word for anything superior. Cream, of which we got an endless supply in Karpathos, is called kaimak; so, for the sake of simplicity, we soon took to calling the governor "the Cream." ⌂

With a view to a prolonged stay in one of these villages, we tried to secure for ourselves a house, but experienced much difficulty; for we had three introductions with us, and soon we discovered that three families were quarrelling amongst themselves for our possession. Old Koubís was a very talkative, desponding member of society, who came to visit us later than the others, apologising for his delay by saying that his "bride" was ill. We could not imagine what so old a man could be doing with a bride, until we learned that his son had lately taken a wife, who was for the time being the family bride. ⌂

We spent the two first nights in the house of the Greek interpreter to the governor; and here we might have continued to dwell had not our third friend made us feel uncomfortable by privately insinuating that we were making ourselves inconvenient to "the interpreter," and that he could secure for us an empty house up in the village of Volá. By this plan he got us out of the interpreter's house. Not till later did we discover that our third friend had lately been studying Turkish hard, and aspired to the post of interpreter himself; so that a few weeks later he actually attempted the life of our first host. ⌂

Housekeeping at Volá was difficult. We had to send to the mountains for meat and milk whenever we wanted it; for the good Karpathiotes are most abstemious, rarely eating anything but bread and olives. As for groceries, save coffee and sugar, they were not to be had for love or money; and no vegetables, except onions, existed in the island. Our house consisted of one large room. Half of it had a mud floor; half was a raised wooden platform for our beds, below which were store cupboards for oil and wine. The windows had no glass in them; and some days, when the mountain mist came down upon us, we crouched over our charcoal brazier and shivered again. Our servant dwelt in a tiny kitchen adjoining, where his struggles to light a fire with damp wood, and to cook without utensils, used to call for our keenest pity. Every evening a party of old women would come to keep us company, with their faces enveloped in handkerchiefs. They told us local customs and beliefs of an extraordinary nature. One evening I tried to sketch these old crones, and was discovered so doing. I thought my eyes would have been scratched out and my handiwork destroyed for my impudence, so infuriated were they; for they believe that if their portraits are taken they will waste away and die. ⌂

Six months before our arrival, the owner of our house had died, and the sister, Sebastá by name, had inherited it; but she had kept it closed ever since, until our third friend, a relative of hers, had persuaded her to open it for us, on the condition that we should not sing or hold festival therein. We were not informed on taking possession of the delicate nature of our tenure, and in an unlucky moment we invited "the Cream," his interpreter, his treasurer, and our two other friends to a meal, and were prepared to put forth all our limited resources to do credit to our nation on the occasion.

The evening before our party Sebastá rushed in, in great distress. "You are going to give a table in this house of mourning," she cried. "You will sing, you will get drunk, and the neighbours will sneer and say how soon has the memory of the dead been forgotten." Our position was an awkward one, for it was too late to make other arrangements. In our extremity we protested that we would not sing, nor would we get drunk, though I felt inward misgivings on this latter point with regard to one or two of our guests. Sebastá wept and stamped with rage alternately. The old grandmother expostulated, and our third friend, who came in to our assistance, argued. The point was not settled when we retired to rest that night, nor did we obtain leave to hold our party until a short time before the guests were due. Then arose another difficulty. Our kid and our milk, for which we had despatched a special messenger to the mountains, did not reach us until two hours before the time appointed for "the table," and an agonising two hours we spent, literally tearing our kid limb from limb to prepare it for the pot. Of course the milk got smoked, and our English pudding was a disgrace to the nation. And then, to our horror, an hour before they were invited our guests arrived, bringing with them two others for whom we were not prepared. No party that we shall ever be called upon to give in civilised regions will appear formidable after this, and it really passed oft' remarkably well, with the assistance of a bottle of brandy for the Turks, who get over their vow not to drink wine by this subterfuge, and plenty of wine for the Greeks. We did not sing, and I don't think any one got drunk: at all events, Sebastá came in afterwards to thank us for having thus far respected the memory of her departed sister. ⌂

Only a few weeks later our third friend attempted the life of the interpreter; but when sitting at our table, no one would have guessed their animosity. They related how once they had together, at one sitting, eaten seventeen new-born lambs, so plentiful are they in Karpathos, after which they had consumed forty sardines apiece, and got drunk by going round from house to house asking for wine. When they came to the doctor's house, he gave them some wine, but placed in it a drug which was very beneficial to them after their debauch. Our third friend, the would-be interpreter, is very poor, and glories in his poverty, for it has come to pass as follows: he gave his eldest daughter so large a dower, that she was enabled to marry the schoolmaster of a neighbouring island. It is a curious feature in Karpathos, where romance is unknown, and, as our friend the interpreter said, "All our marriages are for substance." Firstborn sons inherit their father's property, firstborn daughters their mother's, and no girl can marry without she can provide her husband with a house. The result is excellent in checking the population, and in producing old maids; but we could not help thinking it was a little hard on the second daughter of our third friend, a plain girl, who went about without shoes and stockings, and was ready to earn a trifle by carrying our luggage on her head. ⌂

As a return for our "table", "the Cream" and our other friends arranged a sort of picnic for us, to a lovely spot called Mrs Madonna (Kera Panagiá), where a church contains a miraculous picture, and is looked after by a well-known old hermit-monk called Vasili. The church is at the foot of a narrow gorge down by the sea, amidst tree-clad heights, which culminate in Mount Lastos, the highest peak in Karpathos, 4000 feet above the sea-level. Close to this church there is a water source, which springs right out of a rock: it is icy cold and clear, and all around its egress the rock is garlanded with maidenhair; mastic, myrtle, and daphne almost conceal it from view. To this spot, the most favoured one in the island, our friends took us. In 1821 a Cretan refugee, whose flocks and possessions had been destroyed by the Turks, vowed a church to the Panagiá if she would lead him to a place of safety. So, says the legend, she conducted his boat here, where he found water, fertility, and seclusion, and here he built the church he had vowed. Once a year, on the day of the Assumption, the Karpathiotes make a pilgrimage to this spot; for the rest of the year it is left to the charge of poor old Vasili, who told us the very sad story which had driven him to adopt this hermit life. A few years ago he lived in the village, with his two sons and one daughter. She married a sea-captain, a well-to-do sponge-fisher, who owned a boat and much money, he said. On one of his voyages, the sponge-fisher took with him Vasili's two sons, and on their way they fell across a boat manned by pirates from Amorgos. The pirates shot the captain, boarded the caïque, and strapped the two brothers to the mast. After they had cleared the boat of all they could find, they sank it, and shortly afterwards some other sponge-fishers found the two brothers fastened to the mast at the bottom of the sea. They gave notice to the Government, and a steamer was despatched from Chios in pursuit of the pirates, and the bodies were brought home and buried. It was but poor satisfaction to old Vasili to hear of the capture of the murderers. His daughter shortly afterwards married again, and left Karpathos, and he, with his broken heart and tottering step, donned the garb of a monk, and came to end his days at Kera Panagiá, where he lives in a little stone hut alongside the church, and tills the ground, lights the lamps before the sacred pictures, and rings the church bell.

Our picnic meal was the greatest possible success, for "the Cream" brought with him one of his soldiers, an Albanian, who spoke no language but his own. This man was despatched to the mountain for a lamb, which he cooked for us after the fashion of the Albanian "klephtes." A wooden skewer was passed through the body, and it was roasted whole before a smouldering fire of brushwood, and basted with cream and salt. When ready, it was served on a table of sweet-smelling herbs – mastic, rosemary, &c. We all squatted around on the ground, and the lamb was rent in pieces, and to each guest was handed a bone, which we picked with more or less dexterity, according as we were accustomed to such procedure. We were very jovial over our meal, and our friends foretold pleasant things for us from the shoulder-bone of the lamb, according to their custom; and then we drank a large bowl of cream, "the flower of milk," as they call it, which, with native honey, is truly delicious, and afforded us the opportunity we wished of making a complimentary pun, by comparing the governor to the beverage before us. After our meal, we smoked cigarettes under the shade of a carob-tree – the tree which the peasants tell you was the only one which the devil forgot to spoil, for all others shed their leaves and fruit, but the carob-tree is for ever green and fructifying. It is better known to us as the locust-tree, the pods of which are sweet and like honey to eat, and made us not pity St John the Baptist so much for his desert fare. Late in the evening we returned to our home at Volá, on excellent terms with our friends. ⌂

A young married woman of our acquaintance died when we were at Volá, and the melancholy ceremonies attending her death will remain fixed on our memories until our turn comes to die. A few hours after her death the corpse had been washed in wine and water, when it was dressed in a richly embroidered robe, and placed on a bier like a low table, with handles for carrying, in the one-roomed house. Around stood the family groaning and screaming and lacerating themselves in their demonstrative grief, awaiting the arrival of the hired mourner, a woman of commanding but repulsive mien. Her first action was to fall upon the corpse and weep; then she stood erect at the foot of the bier and lifted up her voice to sing her dirge in a shrill, heartrending key. "How can the sun dare to shine on a scene of grief like this?" she began, "where the children are deprived of their mother's care, where the hearth is left desolate for the husband on his return from toiling in the fields. Would that I could descend to Hades, and see my darling once more, to give her a parting kiss from her dear ones, whose minds are troubled like the sea, when it rolls in after a mighty storm on to the shore."

These pathetic strains drove the relatives into an agony of grief, which continued with more or less vehemence for two hours, until the priest and his acolytes came to convey the corpse to the tomb. Before the procession left the house, a jug full of water was broken on the threshold: it is customary here to spill water at the door when any one starts on a journey, as an earnest of success. To-day the traveller had gone on her last long journey, so the jug was broken. The family tomb was at some little distance from the village, and on their way thither the priests chanted offices, interrupted frequently by hideous wails from the lamenters who headed the procession; and as the mournful company passed, women came forth from their houses to howl in concert.

Every Karpathiote family has its tomb on the hillside, with a tiny chapel attached, in which the corpse is placed before interment. Here the final offices for the dead were chanted, and the mourners ceased to wail, until the very solemn stichera of the last kiss came, which begins, "Blessed is the way thou shalt go to-day," whereat each in turn advanced to give their last kiss to the cold face of the corpse, and then, with one accord, they burst forth again into loud and uncontrolled grief.

They never put the body into a coffin in Karpathos, for there is a popular impression that a spirit enclosed in wood cannot escape. One year after the death the bones are taken out, placed in an embroidered bag, and thrown into a charnel-house below the chapel. They believe that if the flesh is not decayed altogether off the bones, the spirit does not rest in peace; consequently this ceremony of opening the grave is a very anxious one for the survivors, who consider that they can thereby tell the destination of their lost friend's soul. When there is any suspicion that the defunct is not at peace in Hades, the name is without delay entered on the "soul paper," or the priest's memorandum-list of the souls for which he has to pray during the divine mystery.

Many superstitious practices are carried on in connection with the inquietude of souls. Sometimes the ashes are removed to an island rock, for ghosts cannot cross water; sometimes they are burnt and scattered to the winds; and a dying man must never be covered with any material made of goat's hair, for it will detain the spirit, neither must anything be handed across a corpse for the same reason; and they never button the clothes they put on after death: finally, they remove all rings, for the spirit, they say, can even be detained in the little finger, and cannot rest.

The tomb was a plain square building of stone: into it the corpse was laid, a few handfuls of earth were thrown on by the relatives, and here the body was left to decay, and to pollute the vicinity with a terrible stench during the summer heat. When closed, they placed on the grave the axe and the spade which had been used in opening it, in the shape of a cross, for twenty-four hours.

It was truly heartrending to hear the wails of the relatives all that evening by the grave. The old mother of the deceased, with dishevelled grey locks, knelt there for hours with her other daughters, working themselves from one paroxysm to another, with short intervals to gain breath; and then next day, and on stated days afterwards, they brought the boiled wheat adorned with raisins to place on the tomb, and each time their wailings were renewed. Yet with all this excessive grief, it is surprising to see how evanescent is the respect paid to properly denuded bones. Many of the family charnel-houses have fallen into ruins through neglect, and the embroidered bags, which I was almost tempted to steal, were scattered about, with the bones peeping out. One particular instance struck us forcibly: it was the charnel-house belonging to the chief priest of the village, which had been almost washed away by the winter's rain. All around lay the skulls and bones, in hideous confusion, of his deceased relatives, amongst which of an evening old witch-like crones would wander to collect such bones as they deemed of use for incantations. For example, a skull set upon a post facing the direction they wish the wind to blow from, is considered efficacious in producing the desired current of air, and it does not strike them as a hideous notion that the skull of some dear departed one should be used for this purpose. ⌂

The Karpathiotes live in the depths of superstition, with their soothsayings and incantations. A doctor does exist in the chief village; but he told me that his practice was almost entirely confined to the Turks and a few of the more enlightened Greeks. In the mountain villages they never think of calling in anybody to the sick but the old witches, who mutter incantations and wave a mysterious sickle with weird gestures over their patient; or sometimes a priest is called in, for they profess to be able to bind diseases, especially fevers, to trees by writing on a scrap of paper the mystic words, "Divinity of God, divine mystery." This they tie with a red thread round the neck of the sufferer; next morning they remove it, and go out on the hillside, where they tie it to a tree, and imagine that they thus transfer the fever from the patient to the branch.

At Volá we witnessed several of those curious customs by which the priests manage to extract money from these benighted people. They exorcise rats and mice by sprinkling holy water and by saying a prayer under the tree or barn which the vermin frequent. At Easter they sell candles from the church, by burning which and saying some mystic words in their houses, they think they will drive away beetles from their dwellings.

At the neighbouring village of Othos there lives a portly and well-to-do prophet, who has grown rich and very sleek on his soothsayings, for seldom do marriages or voyages take place without consulting him, and he does not give his advice for nothing. We visited him one day, and heard him prophesy as he lay in bed with a many-coloured coverlet over his inspired limbs. It was a cheery little house, the walls of which were hung with holy pictures, sacred olive twigs to keep off the evil eye, a vial of sacred oil from Easter, and scraps of meat preserved from the last Easter lamb, now nearly one year old. There were crowds of people in the room, including a priest, who joined devoutly in the prayer to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, before the soothsaying began. From beneath his pillow the prophet produced his books of magic art, out of which he professes to expound the future: one of these is an ordinary psalter, which he opens, and from the first line on which the eye falls he reads his divination. Again, he has a list of numbers, one of which you select at haphazard with a pointed bit of wood: this number corresponds to a prophecy in his book of magic, which he reads to you as the decree of fate. People come from all parts of Karpathos to consult this strange man, and, said the priest, "the utterings of this oracle are seldom at fault." We clearly ascertained by experience that the priests, the prophet, and the old crones who cure diseases have it all their own way, and play into one another's hands in the game of extortion. ⌂

I think the time we enjoyed most during our stay in Karpathos was Easter, and the opportunity it afforded us of seeing the amusements of these primitive islanders. By that time we felt quite at home amongst them, and were welcome visitors in most houses. Furthermore, the uncertain spring had settled down into delicious summer weather, and the slopes at a stone's throw from our house were carpeted with lovely flowers.

Amusements in Karpathos certainly are not numerous, and may be summed up as consisting of music and dancing in a variety of forms. In every occupation they sing: the very washerwoman, as she kneels at the brook, is practising death-wails for the next funeral. It is a curious sight to see women treading their homespun flannel to get out of it the long hairs. Two of them sit at either end of a sort of trough, with their legs bare, and leaning their backs against the wall: here they tread wearily away from sunrise to sunset, singing as they do so little idyls, the poetry of which is peculiarly quaint and pretty – mantinada they call these idyls in Karpathos; and sometimes, to assist them in their drudgery, a man will come and play the lyre, – just one of those lyres which their ancestors played, a pretty little instrument about half a yard long, with silver beads which jangle attached to the bow. Besides this they have the syravlion, a sort of pan-pipe made of two reeds hollowed out, with blow-holes and straws up the middle, and placed side by side in a larger reed. A third instrument is the sabouna, a species of bagpipe, being a goatskin with the hairs left on, which palpitates like a living body when filled with air. These instruments are romantic enough when played by shepherds on the hillside or in the village square as an accompaniment to the dance, but they are intolerable in the tiny cottages where women tread their flannel.

Singing is the accompaniment and conclusion to every feast, for the feasts in Karpathos are merely the symposia of ancient days, in which men only take a part, and are attended upon by women. Cooperation in labour is customary here. If a man plants a vineyard, builds a house, or ploughs a field, he has but to call upon his friends and relatives to assist him, and the only payment expected is a handsome meal, after which the men sing mantinada with their arms around each other's necks, and reel home dead-drunk at night. Many of these took place during our stay at Volá; and when we learned that the giver of the feast looks upon it as a positive insult if his guests do not get drunk, we ceased to feel shocked when our slumbers were disturbed by the shouts of the revellers on their homeward way. Our third friend gave one to the men who had assisted him in tilling his fields, and he invited me to it. I fear I insulted him by leaving before the entertainment had reached its height, for we saw little of him after that; and we did not regret this when we learned about the desperate attempt that had been made on the life of our friend the "interpreter." All Volá affirmed that our third friend had hired the assassin, for was he not a relative of his, and was it not to his interest to remove the object of his dislike? At all events, the wrong man got killed in the fray, and our third friend was present at the funeral; the murderer escaped, and the interpreter never went out without a soldier with a crazy old musket to attend upon him. Such was the "murder at Volá," in which we shall always feel that we were more or less implicated. ⌂

During the Sundays of Lent at Volá the people got very much excited over the game of swing, which took place in the afternoon in a narrow street. Damsels hung from one wall to the other a rope, and on this they put rugs to form a swing. Two of them generally sat together, and sang mantinada, and took a toll from each man who passed by, the fine being a penny, a swing, and a song. Some of the young men came primed with ditties, which looked as if romance was not so wholly unknown to them as the "interpreter" had told us.

Whilst another favourite ditty is,

But here the flirtation ended; the young men kept together, and the young women kept together. We never saw a case of "keeping company" whilst we were there. ⌂

Before Easter we went up to a mountain village called Olympus, whether from its exalted position or not I cannot say, where customs of an exceedingly quaint nature existed, and where we tarried in the house of the schoolmaster. They began their preparations on Palm Sunday; and at four o'clock on that morning our slumbers were disturbed by a herald, who went round to summon every one to church. In his hand he carried a reed called the nartheka, and in this he had a light, for the morning was windy; and, like Prometheus of old, who thus brought down fire from heaven, he went to the houses of all the priests to light their candles, they having for this purpose left their doors open the night before. Then he lighted the candles of the chief inhabitants, after which he shouted from a commanding height his summons to worship; and as a reward for his services he was presented with a loaf of holy bread. The church was very crowded at this early service, the women remaining outside in the proavlion, where they could get a glimpse at the performance through the door. They have no pews to sit in, but each mother of a family possesses one of the stone slabs which form the pavement: on this she performs her devotions, and brooks no encroachment. This slab she leaves, together with her jewellery and her embroidered dresses, to her eldest daughter. ⌂

That afternoon every household was busy making "the candles of the resurrection;" and very quaint they looked, squatting on the floor close to a fire of embers, with lumps of honeycomb, which they were moulding into candles on the low wooden tables used for making macaroni. During the next few days everybody went about with exceeding gay fingers, as each household had been dyeing their Easter eggs, some purple, some golden, some green; for eggs have been forbidden by the Lenten fast, and every egg that has been laid during Lent in Olympus has been hard boiled for Easter, and was now being coloured with dyes made from their mountain herbs. ⌂

Every house and church had to be whitewashed, inside and out; and every evening the labourers returned from their work groaning under bundles of brushwood, for Thursday was the great baking-day, when every oven was heated, and nothing was seen at Olympus but women running about with long boards on their heads, carrying twisted cakes covered with sesame seed and a coloured egg in each; also pasties of green herbs – horrible things, which we were frequently offered, and had a difficulty in disposing of. The baking day was a very gay scene. When the ovens were sufficiently heated with burning brushwood, and the embers had been swept out, these boards were shoved in; and after seeing a baking such as this, it was easy to realise the popular enigma which asks you what a black-faced heifer is which consumes brushwood, and without hesitation you answer, an oven. ⌂

On Saturday before Easter all the shepherds come into Olympus from their mountain dairies – in most cases mere caves in the rocks – where many of them pass the entire year. On their backs they carry goatskins full of cheese and milk and cream, which they distribute as presents to each householder, receiving in return a sufficiency of bread to last them many a month, – for most of this Easter bread is not consumed till it has acquired the consistency of biscuit. On Easter eve we looked out upon householders rushing hither and thither with bowls of cream and milk, whilst we poor strangers could buy none at all, so intent was everybody in providing for the morrow's feast. ⌂

We did not attend the Easter-night service at Olympus, nor did we receive the kisses of peace which are distributed broadcast on such occasions, for having experienced the sensation before, we did not wish to repeat it; but we arose early enough to see the women roasting their lambs in their ovens. In one oven we counted as many as twelve lambs roasting and stuffed with rice, – unpalatable things enough, with distorted limbs, looking as if they had been thrust in alive and died in agony; and at each house we visited that day, we were presented with a most embarrassing limb of lamb.

We did attend the afternoon service, and got our clothes well covered with wax for so doing. Every worshipper carried a lighted candle, and ignored the angle at which it was held. We assisted at the merriment in the churchyard after service was over, when the young men shoot a Guy Fawkes erected on the wall, popularly believed to resemble Judas Iscariot. ⌂

On Monday the good folks of Olympus danced in the space before the church, resplendent with barbarous jewellery and quaint costumes. These dances interested us much, as being genuinely archaic in character. A circle was formed, in the midst of which we and the sober-minded who did not dance sat like sardines in a box, everybody eating something, and everybody asking his neighbour to have a bite at the delicacy which he was consuming. Mothers had their babies strung like bundles on their backs. Every child had a gorgeous Easter egg, with which it was dyeing its cheeks and lips; and here we sat, whilst the dancers never ceased to revolve in the weary circle of alternate men and women with arms intertwined, so that each alternate dancer held the hand of the next but one. Sometimes it was fast, and the leader performed feats of agility; sometimes it was slow, when the men smoked cigarettes, and the women sang ditties; but the dancing never stopped for a single moment, nor did the grinding of the lyre, or the girgle of the bagpipe, till darkness drove them to drink and to dance in their stifling houses. ⌂

Early on Tuesday morning the head of each family solemnly repaired to his tomb with his offering of bread for the dead: this he placed on the stone pedestal in the midst of every chapel, and about nine o'clock the priests went round with acolytes and large baskets to collect the same for their own consumption. At eleven commenced the annual procession to the tombs, which wended its way up and down rugged paths along the mountain side, and was composed of the most energetic inhabitants, carrying the sacred pictures from the Church and the banners: at each tomb they passed on their route guns were let off, and prayers were said. We were content to watch them from a distance, as they wended their way like a gigantic caterpillar along the hills for many a mile. Finally they descended to the stream, into which was put the most revered of their pictures, that the Madonna might bless the waters. In the afternoon they returned to Olympus, where the priests blessed the multitude before the church, and the bearers of the pictures and banners grew exceeding wroth with the priests for not giving them as much money as they considered their labour deserved. ⌂

On Thursday we went down to the tiny port of Diaphane, where the men of Olympus own a few cottages and a few crafts, and where a church is built, containing a miracle-working picture, to worship which the Olympites make a private pilgrimage once a year on the evening of the Thursday after Easter. I have attended pilgrimages before in Greece, but none so quaint and simple as this.

We started before the pilgrims down a lovely gorge clad with fir-trees, down a road which was a succession of tiny waterfalls, the worst of the many bad roads of Karpathos, and we found the few inhabitants of Diaphane busily engaged in preparing for the feast, cutting up lambs and kids into hunks, decorating the church floor with myrtle, and opening barrels of wine for the night's debauch. We found quarters with the priest, and from his roof had an excellent view of the proceedings. Towards evening the pilgrims, with their mules and their baggage, came down, letting off guns to announce their arrival, and greeting every one they met with "Christ is risen!" which they continue to do in Karpathos for forty days after Easter is past; and at sundown they tinkled a goat's bell as a summons to the evening liturgy.

It was a pretty sight to see the pilgrims squatted in merry little groups along the shore, "breaking their bread," and refreshing themselves for the dance, which commenced at ten. Such a night of revelry I have seldom heard: dancing and singing went on without cessation out in the courtyards, and sometimes inside, so that whatever rest we got was haunted by the heavy tramp of the dancers, and the piercing voices of the singers. The sun was high in the heavens before the sound of the lyre and the bagpipe ceased, and the goat's bell once more tinkled to summon the revellers to their devotions. I went to the liturgy, and found but few inside the church, for the male pilgrims, wearied with their nocturnal orgies, were either washing in the sea or stretched on the shore to secure a few moments of repose; and the women have no place allotted to them inside this edifice, so that they have to crowd at the door and hear what they can of the sacred mystery.

Meanwhile the hunks of lambs and kids were boiling in a huge caldron outside a house where planks on boxes had been improvised as tables for the pilgrims' meal, and the savoury smell of the stew must have been keenly appetising to their nostrils. When the liturgy was over, an old man with a large wooden ladle took up his position by the caldron, ready to fill the bowl each pilgrim had brought with him and to receive the coppers; and as each was supplied, he retired into the house to consume his portion, and washed it down with wine, which now flowed freely. Seldom have I seen a merrier company or a nastier meal more thoroughly enjoyed; and then they fell to dancing again in an open space by the sea, not a few by their antics demonstrating the potency of the beverage they had imbibed. It was a curious scene, – the women in their gay festival garb, the men in their embroidered waistcoats, red fezes, blue baggy trousers, and gaudy stockings. The steps of the women were now more active; and as for the male leader of the circle, his acrobatic feats were of extraordinary vigour: and as they danced their local dances and sang their local songs by the side of the waves, under the shadow of the mountains, accompanied by a blind old bard who played the lyre in their midst and sang songs to infuse them with merriment, I thought that dancing like this could not have altered much since Homeric days. ⌂

The last act in this pilgrimage was to us an interesting one. The chief priest of Olympus had just built a large caïque down at Diaphane, which he had settled to launch this afternoon, and to christen her the Madonna of Diaphane. He was wise in thus doing, for the crowd of pilgrims assisted nobly in the weary process of dragging her to the sea; and as she glided into the water, all stood eagerly to watch the manner in which she righted herself, for in this they see an omen as to the future of the craft's career. Then came the benediction by the chief priest and his colleagues: with the blood of a slaughtered lamb a cross was made on the deck, and the chanting of the service sounded quaintly over the waves. We looked to obtaining a passage for ourselves on the Madonna of Diaphane when we left Karpathos, so we joined heartily in the wishes for success; and when all was over the captain-elect jumped off the bows into the sea, with all his clothes on, and came dripping to shore amidst the laughter of the lookers-on. The priest gave the pilgrims a farewell repast after the ceremony was concluded; and ere the day was very old, we were left in quiet enjoyment of Diaphane, a very paradise, for a few days of repose amongst the pine-trees and craggy heights overhanging the azure sea. ⌂