OF the smaller islands of the Cycladic group Keos has played the most important rôle: its ancient name was Keos, its mediaeval one Izia, and now the inhabitants call it Kéos, or Zeá, as fancy takes them ^dnote. It is blessed with a fine harbour, and is the nearest of the Cyclades to Athens, consequently in ancient days it was in constant communication with the centre of learning. It produced the red earth (míltos ^gr) from which the Athenians made paint; it had four considerable cities; it was the birthplace of Simonides, the poet, and Aristotle wrote a book on its constitution, which has unfortunately been lost. Here, too, all old people who reached the age of seventy quietly took a dose of hemlock, and did away with themselves, thereby relieving the State and their relations of any further trouble. So no wonder Keos won for itself a name in ancient times.

In later times Keos was a well-known place. When the Piraeus was nothing but a heap of ruins all the Turkish Government ships, and merchant ships which had to do with Greece, harboured in Keos; and when a ship was wanted at Athens they lighted a beacon on the spurs of Hymettus, and she came up the Saronic Gulf; all nations consequently had consuls there. Before steam was invented, and Syra sprang up, Keos was the emporium of the Cyclades. Catherine of Russia recognised its importance when she put Katzoni of Keos at the head of the Greek corsairs who ravaged Turkey at the close of last century, and made Keos their trysting place; but when the Chiote refugees would have made their home at Keos, the Keotes refused the offer, and the commercial centre was transferred to Syra — not that the Keotes are much to be pitied for this loss of fortune: they have a very beautiful island, productive of far more than is needed for home consumption, and they are not an ambitious race. With complacency they watch from their town the steamers plying east and west without a regret that they do not stop at Keos; they cultivate their oaks and their fields, and retain far more of the old world life than the busy Syriotes, for only a weekly steamer touches here and a few caïques which traffic in acorns.

Scarcely had we landed, and realised that we were on the island, than we were introduced to a pleasant old man, a celebrity in Keos, for he knows every inch thereof: he rejoices in the name of Barba ^note Manthos.

Barba Manthos, if he had lived in ancient days, would have taken the necessary dose of hemlock some years before; and I must say I am glad he was spared, for a more able or intelligent cicerone could not be found. And when he is numbered with his fathers there is no one in Keos to take his place, no one who knows one stone from another. The Custom House officer sent for us before we had been ten minutes on shore, and it was with some trepidation that we went to his house, for our caïque had dropped us on Keos and set sail again without the necessary papers — and who was to know from what country we had come? — however, it was only to beg us to share with him his midday meal, which was highly acceptable, seeing that we had left Thermiá at 5 A.M., and had breakfasted off water, bacon, and stale bread.

The port of Keos, Livadhi by name, is a busy little place, and larger than most island ports, for here the richer inhabitants have houses where they reside in summer for sea-bathing; and the whole place was full of sacks of acorns when we arrived, so that we were made acquainted at once with the staple trade of the island, which boasts of a million and a half oak trees growing over all but the northern slopes ^dnote. The poorest Keote possesses a few oak trees, and from August to October the oak harvest keeps them all employed. The acorns are huge things, as big as eggs, astonishing to our eyes; but it is the cup only that they export, the acorns are, as with us, eaten by the pigs. Many of the oaks of Keos are centuries old — great, gnarled things that remind one of the pride of English parks — but why Keos should be the only one of the Cyclades where they grow and are looked upon as an industry I could not discover. The abundance of oaks has caused an absence of olives in Keos, so the people eat more meat than elsewhere and are consequently a braver, hardier race than their neighbours — at least they say so themselves, and add, with pride, that Keos was the first island to assist Athens in the Median Wars, and was the first of the Cyclades to send troops to assist in the revolution in 1821. I did not like to suggest that their proximity to the mainland might have something to say to this.

Barba Manthos, stick in hand, at once took possession of us. ‘You must come with me over the ruins of Koressia first,’ he said, and as Koressia was situated on a spur of hills just over the port I deemed his advice seasonable, and we went ^note.

With the exception of the roads in Syra, no ascent is so good as the one which joins the town of Keos to its port. You proceed for about a mile along the dry bed of a torrent, the ancient Eliskos, very pleasant to walk upon, when there has been no rain for some days, but after a heavy downpour it is often impassable; then you commence the ascent along a well-paved road which is built on the ancient foundation, I was told, for Keos is full of traces of ancient roadways. Barba Manthos said he remembered when the ancient fortifications along this road were visible, but forty years ago the Keotes became energetic, made themselves a new road, and obliterated all traces of the old one.

After winding up the hillside for about half an hour the curious town of Keos burst on our view: it is like a white and yellow plaister on the side of the lofty mountain which encircles it; the houses climbing one above another like the steps of a gigantic ladder. On a spur which sticks out from the mountain in the middle of the town, and which is connected with the mountain by a col covered with cottages, are built some of the finest houses; and here was the ancient Greek town of Ioulis as well as the mediaeval town.

The Chora of Keos commands a most enchanting view, being high up and facing the north; to the northeast is the snowy range of Euboea, with Mounts Ocha and Delphis, which seem to belong to the mainland and to join with the range of Parnassos, which forms a background to the more humble mountains of Attica, Pentelicus, and Hymettus. To this spot fled the high priest of Athens, Michael Akominatos, when Athens fell into the hands of the Franks, for there was a monastery here, where the public school now is, for here he could live in peace and still look upon his beloved Athens though banished from it for ever.

Our letter of introduction here was for the eparch; this caused some little jealousy between him and the demarch; consequently between the two we nearly came to grief. But we eventually found ourselves in possession of a little house belonging to the muleteer who had brought up our luggage from the harbour; and really we preferred it, for the man and his wife were simple-minded, pleasant folk, and we had not constantly to be on our best behaviour and taxing our conversational powers.

Keos is the queerest place imaginable: the flat roof of the house beneath us fitted close up to ours, and this seemed to be almost the universal custom, so that most of the houses are entered by the roof of the house in front. Everybody walks on the roofs as being preferable to the dirty, dark alleys, arched over for the most part, which are given up to pigs. That evening I went for quite a long walk and never left the roofs, going from one to another by little staircases or little bridges as the case might be; but next morning when we found our neighbours staring in at our window we thought the advantages were rather counteracted by publicity.

Close to their town the Keotes have one of the most charming promenades in the world — a broadish level walk skirting the hillside and leading to the celebrated lion. The outline of the white and yellow town against the blue sea and distant mountains is perfectly enchanting, and there are a few trees which relieve the monotony so common among the Cyclades. Windmills are dotted along the heights; above and beneath your feet is a rich gorge, bright with the tender green of almond trees.

The lion of Keos is the most interesting sight on the island. It reposes on the hillside, propped up by stones to prevent its further slipping. It is made of grey granite, and from nose to tail is nine yards and a half long. It is in an attitude of repose, and though much worn by age the features are all distinct — eyes, mouth, and mane. Owing to recent excavations we now know that it has slipped from its original position at one end of a stadium — a plateau supported by an old Hellenic wall one hundred and twelve paces long by fourteen wide, some of the rows of seats in which are still visible. It is impossible to fix a date or assign a cause for the construction of the Keote lion; one thing is certain, that it is of very archaic work, more so than the lions at the gate of Mycene; and there was an old legend which stated that Keos was once inhabited by nymphs, who fled from thence to Karystos, fearing a great lion which lived there. It is quite probable that the existence of this granite lion gave rise to this myth, and that it is distinctly belonging to a prehistoric and mythical age — perhaps adorning one end of a Pelasgic stadium. As it reposes now under the shadow of two olive trees, looking down over one of the most magnificent views of Greece, the lion of Keos is an impressive object.

Our home at Keos, though humble, was pleasant. Barba Manthos was our constant companion, and in course of conversation he let us into more secrets connected with the inner life of the Keotes than ever we should have got from eparch or demarch.

Curiously enough, in spite of the size of the town and the communication with Athens, Keos has retained more ancient customs than most of the islands, and it is to be accounted for in this way. The island is large, and there is only one recognised town in it where there is a school. Consequently the distant parts of the island are dotted over with tiny cottages called stables (stávloi ^gr) — where many families live entirely — consequently the children remain uneducated, and the parents teach them their superstitions. Some of these ‘stables’ are congregated together and form hamlets nearly large enough to be provided with a Government school, when matters will be changed; but, as it is, the inhabitants of these outlying hamlets learn nothing, and, perhaps, only visit the town once or twice a year — generally if they can on September 11, the day of the raising of the cross — and then they bring with them a bundle tied up in a white handkerchief. This they hang on the tripod, on which the tray for holding the cross is put, and they do not take it off again until the cross is raised. This handkerchief contains corn, barley, beans, two roses, figs, garlic, cotton, cocoons, flax, and a little bees’ wax. When the time for sowing seed has come they yoke their oxen, and rub a bit of the garlic on their foreheads, and, as they do so, say, ‘May you, my oxen, and may you, my family, be strong! May the fruits of the earth be blessed!’ After this they throw all that the handkerchief contained into the earth, being careful to observe a strict fast on this day.

On September 1 the owner of one of these ‘stables’ (rightly, indeed, so called, for they are more fitted for beast than man) has a duty to perform: as soon as he wakes in the morning he must go out of his house and fetch a stone. This he throws into the house, saying, at the same time, ‘May my family be healthful, and may money, like this stone, be thrown into my house.’

A Keote farmer has a curious way of preserving his grain — on our expeditions we frequently saw empty round holes in the ground. ‘These are called lakkoi,’ said Barba Manthos, ‘in which our farmers, who have no granaries, store their grain. The holes are dug near a threshing floor, and when the grain is ready they put it in, having first been careful to cover the inside with straw. When sufficient grain has been piled up to form a sort of cone-shaped mound they cover the whole with straw, and put on the top of this some of the stiff native brushwood, and then they cover their mound with earth. Rain never penetrates these storehouses, and if it does it is sucked up by the brushwood and the straw before reaching the grain. This is, of course, a very ancient method of storing grain. It is used in none of the Cyclades except Keos now, where, by the side of every threshing floor, we saw two or three lakkoi which the ancient husbandmen of Greece called siroí ^gr.

Another curious custom still in vogue amongst the husbandmen of Keos carries us back to remote antiquity. St. Anarguris, whose little white church is at the distant hamlet known as sto makrinó ^gr, is the patron saint of flocks and herds in Keos — the Pan, in fact, of modern days. In Thermiá, just over the cavern of Sílakka, is built a church in honour of the same saint, recalling forcibly the god of grottoes of ancient days. But this example of Pan worship at Keos is still more marked: whenever an ox is ailing they take it to this church and pray for its recovery. If the cock crows when they start, or they hear the voice of a man, or the grunt of a pig there is every hope that the animal will be cured; but, on the contrary, if they hear a cat, a dog, or a woman it is looked upon as an evil omen. When at the Church of St. Anarguris they solemnly register a vow that if the ox recovers they will present it to the saint when its days of work are over; accordingly every year on July 1, the day on which they celebrate the feast of this saint, numbers of aged oxen may be seen on the road to this church, where they are slaughtered on the threshold, and the flesh distributed amongst the poor.

Barba Manthos was with us betimes on the following morning, for we were to make a long expedition that day to the ruins of the old town of Karthaia, at the southern end of the island, quite three hours’ mule ride from our house. The sun had not risen yet, and a thin mist hung over everything when we started; an atmospheric condition which the Keotes express, as Homer did, by the words kythnáei, kythos ^gr — ‘a mist,’ said our guide, ‘which comes in early spring and is very beneficial to the development of our oak trees.’

When this cleared away we had a glorious day, and we simply revelled in the lovely scenery of Keos after bare, ugly Thermiá. The road winds along very high ground; on either side are deep, dark valleys leading down towards the sea, with fantastic rocks and full of oak trees; in the dim morning these great oaks, with their huge stems and stretching arms, looked weird enough. No wonder the superstitious Keotes people them and their cliffs with Nereids; somehow in Keos these mystic beings seem to be brought into closer union with humanity than elsewhere. ‘They often,’ says the housewife, ‘steal her clothes, her sheets, and bed linen, but they nearly always return them.’ Very often the Nereids have children by human men, for the most part malicious, evil-disposed children. ‘Charon must have been your sponsor and a Nereid your dam.’ is a frequent expression of abuse to naughty children. For those who are supposed to have been struck by the Nereids when sleeping under a tree the following cure is much in vogue. A white cloth is spread on the spot, and on it is put a plate with bread, honey, and other sweets, a bottle of good wine, a knife, a fork, an empty glass, an unburnt candle, and a censer. These things must be brought by an old woman, who utters mystic words and then goes away, that the Nereids may eat, undisturbed, and that in their good humour they may allow the sufferer to regain his health.

More interesting even than this relic of the offerings the Athenians once made to the Eumenides on the slopes of Areopagus is another custom the Keotes have of treating children who are supposed to have been struck by these Nereids. In Keos St. Artemidos is the patron of these weaklings, and the church dedicated to him is some little way from the town on the hillslopes; thither a mother will take a child afflicted by any mysterious wasting, ‘struck by the Nereids,’ as they say. She then strips off its clothes and puts on new ones, blessed by the priest, leaving the old ones as a perquisite to the Church; and then if perchance the child grows strong she will thank St. Artemidos for the blessing he has vouchsafed, unconscious that by so doing she is perpetuating the archaic worship of Artemis, to whom in classical times were attached the epithets paidótrophos, kourótrophos, philomeírax ^gr; and now the Ionian idea of the fructifying and nourishing properties of the Ephesian Artemis has been transferred to her Christian namesake. We found traces of the worship of Artemis having existed in Keos along with that of Apollo in ancient times, for Barba Manthos had a little image of the Ephesian Artemis in his collection, which he had found in a temple at Karthaia.

There is yet another remedy for a sickly boy, peculiar as far as I know, to Keos, but probably a branch of the same system to which I have alluded at Melos and elsewhere. The parents carry the child out into the country and the father selects a young oak; this they split up from the root, then the father is assisted by another man in holding the tree open whilst the mother passes the child three times through, and then they bind up the tree well, cover it all over with manure, and carefully water it for forty days. In the same fashion they bind up the child for a like period, and after the lapse of this time they expect that it will be quite well.

We reached Karthaia before midday. ‘The city,’ as it is vaguely called by the Keotes, in point of choice of site is without a rival; the spot is sheltered from every breeze except the south by a lofty semicircle of mountains, and all around the vegetation is most luxuriant — magnificent oak trees and yellow spurge in flower, almost shrubs in the luxuriance of their growth. As you descend the hill you traverse the old road, which led from Ioulis to Karthaia, which was protected at frequent intervals by towers.

We spent several hours at Karthaia; the results of my observations I append in the note. Few Hellenic cities can be more clearly mapped out than Karthaia, and the excavation which Bronsted carried out with so much good result at the beginning of this century could be conducted easily and with every hope of success if an opportunity were to be given by the Government, for the whole site of the town remains uncultivated, and is only used as a pasturage for flocks by a shepherd, who has a little ‘stable’ down in the valley, and who refreshed us with some excellent wine. This shepherd rents the whole of the land on which the city stood, and more besides, for the annual sum of two pounds. Sic transit gloria mundi! ^note

It was a gloriously warm day; not a breath of wind disturbed us as we lunched on the shore. It was the middle of March according to our style, and the oak trees here were in full leaf. Certainly the Greeks of old were exceedingly happy in the choice of the sites for their towns. The wine of Keos is still of great repute, even the shepherd in his ‘stable’ had an excellent draught to give us out of his gourd. In the middle ages Keote wine was much sought after at Constantinople, and the following advice given by that quaint describer of Byzantine customs, Michael Psello, shows the value in which it was held. ‘Chiote wine is beneficial to the eyes; Pramneion to the cheek-bones, and the bouquet thereof to the channels of the eyebrows; Keote wine, on the other hand, my father, is beneficial to the lips and mouth, sweet to the scent, and black in colour.’

On our return journey we passed by the hamlet of Helleniká, which is certainly growing in size, and ought soon to be recognised as a centre for education and modern life. Here are extensive ruins of an ancient Greek village; walls and the foundations of houses are still to be seen, for besides the four chief towns on Keos there are traces all over the island of village life and the foundations of numerous watchtowers — everything, in short, proves the once populous state of the island, which must in ancient days have had far more inhabitants than any other island in the Aegean Sea, except Paros, in comparison to its size.

On the following day we were to go to Poiessa, the fourth of the towns of Keos, and to take on our way the convent of Hagia Marina, which contains one of the most perfect Hellenic watchtowers in existence. It has taken a rich yellow colour with age, and, on account of its being useful to the monks, it has been preserved from destruction, and is still in a very fair state of preservation. When the convent was at its best they used the tower for cells, and in times of trouble and piratage it stood them in good stead as a means of defence; but now it is rapidly falling into disrepair. When King Otho and his queen visited it, accompanied by Ross, the staircase inside was almost intact, so that the royal pair could ascend it and write their names at the top; now you can only get half-way up, and the old man who lives in charge of the ruins and church told us how the king had had a stone taken down, with carving on it, which had loosened the walls, and that soon after part of the tower had given way; so the accusation of robbery and destruction should not entirely be laid on English shoulders. Even now they are contemplating pulling down one of the projecting stones of a balcony, as the old man’s granddaughters fear it may fall on their stove and do some considerable damage.

The tower is square, being eleven yards and a half on either side, it is four-storeyed, and has evidently been crowned with battlements, and surrounded on its four sides by projecting blocks of stones, which carried an open gallery, the perídromos ^gr of ancient fortification. As in the tower of Andros, the stones at the base are huge, but as the tower grows higher they become smaller. There has been a well of water inside the tower, and an underground passage leading from this well to another outside, perhaps used for the double purpose of a channel for water and a secret egress in case of need; all along this passage are niches for putting jars in, but unfortunately it is now too full of stones to go the whole length. Along the road to Poiessa we passed by the ruins of two other towers, but none so perfect as this; and this one of Hagia Marina is as nothing compared to those of Andros and Amorgos in the preservation of its detail.

The people at the convent, the old man and his granddaughters, who till the ground around and look after the church, were most hospitably inclined, and provided us with an excellent mysethra, hot and fresh, for our midday meal, and we had the further charm of watching it made. They poured fresh goats’ milk into boiling whey and then squeezed it and compressed it into a wicker basket until it was compact and beautifully white, and then the honey of Hagia Marina was most excellent, so much so that it caused almost a quarrel between our servant, a native of Anaphi, and the Keotes, which made us, with our peculiar notions of rudeness, feel most awkward. There is simply nothing that is not made the subject for interinsular jealousy — wine, cheese, honey, hospitality, ruins, and ghost stories; all these things afforded subjects for animated discussion wherever we went.

As the wine flowed freely the old man became exceedingly talkative, and Barba Manthos for our benefit drew him out to tell us the adventures of his long life, some of which were calculated to make the females present awkward if it ever entered into their minds to feel shy.

‘And then I became a monk,’ said the old man at the conclusion of his narratives, ‘that is to say, I light the lamps of the church, sweep it out when it is dirty, and live in a cell.’

‘Are not you afraid of living here all alone in this remote corner of the world?’ I asked.

‘Nothing would harm an old man like me,’ was his reply; but Barba Manthos privately told me that nobody in the whole island had seen such wonderful hobgoblins as he, for he it was that had made them open old Manetas’ grave two years after his death by saying that he had met him in the road, and, sure enough, they found no body in the tomb, so they got the priest in hot haste, who poured oil into it and set fire to the oil. At this ceremony the old man declared he saw a blue flame go straight up to heaven, and that he had never seen old Manetas since.

‘I heard strange music in my stable the other day,’ said the old man musingly, ‘and, sure enough, next day my little granddaughter fell ill; I knew it was the Nereids who did it. Not long after, whilst digging in my field, I found a stick like a cross; this I put upon her bed at night, and, sure enough, next day she was well.’ He then told us his firm belief in the evil eye (vaskaneía ^gr) affecting cattle and trees; for had not three of his healthiest goats sickened and died last year just because a man with the evil eye had admired them? ‘The best thing possible for the evil eye,’ he said in conclusion, ‘is to throw salt into the fire, and let an old woman say some magic words, whilst all gape over the fire with open mouths; and then the priest can do a good deal by reading the proper liturgy for the evil eye, only they have in their ignorance and folly abandoned this good practice of late years.’

Our old friend tottered about with us on his stick, jabbering the while, only too glad to get someone to listen to his stories. He is a type of the Greek of the old régime, a character that will not be found in another generation in all the realm of Hellas.

The valley which leads down to the little plain of Poiessa is exceedingly lovely: it is all dotted with the hovels of the landowners, and most of them have large white crosses in whitewash over the doorways to save them, they say, from robbers, who haunt these remote places during the sponge-fishing season; but in spite of the crosses not unfrequently their gardens and their stores are rifled. Each cottage was redolent with large bunches of pink stocks and other flowers for the benefit of the Keote bees; and as we passed by the kindly inhabitants ran forward with bouquets of them to give us. The fantastic rocks and deep ravines of this valley, called Kradra ^gr, made us imagine we were in the Alps.

After our two long rides over Keos a day of rest in the town was enjoyable, but Barba Manthos had no intention of allowing us to be idle; he insisted on taking us up to his little house right at the top of the town, to show us the collection of curiosities he had amassed during his archaeological wanderings. A wonderful medley it was — curious old plummet lines for fishing, instruments for polishing and grinding, those little bowls, one inside another, which they used to put in tombs with cotton in them, old weights and measures, a terra cotta Artemis, many lovely specimens of the so-called Tanagra figures, lots of lamps, and lovely scraps of pottery — quite an Hellenic museum, chiefly collected from the ruins of Karthaia, which speak for the former opulence of the town. And when we had seen all this he took us for an exhaustive walk over the ruins of Ioulis.

Next day we left our quarters with regret, for the peasantry of the island afford a more than usually instructive study of the past; they are thrifty and homely: the women make every scrap of household linen themselves, and before a girl marries she likes to have made on her loom all the necessary sheets and towels for her household. From the hair of the goats they make excellent cloaks for the men, which keep off the rain better than any waterproof, and from the cotton grown in their fields the women manufacture articles of clothing, rugs, &c.; and some Cretan refugees who came to Keos in 1866 taught them how to dye their handiwork and make lovely rugs in stripes of red, yellow, and green.

As we rode along in the direction of the ancient miltos mines Barba Manthos told us how in his day the sea had made many encroachments on the northern coast, and how the land was constantly slipping in this part. Curiously enough Pliny tells us that a great piece of the island once fell into the sea, swallowing up men, villages, and all, and Barba Manthos pointed out as we went along a spot where thirty years ago a field with some oak trees had slipped down to a much lower level. It is the same story over again; motions of the crust, upheavals, and subsidences are common in every island, and in former days they must have been more frequent and more tremendous than now, for the evidences of earthquakes, which now are seldom felt in the Cyclades, are numerous, whilst at Chios, and in the Sporades generally, earthquakes are of annual occurrence; and mythology, with wonderful tales of the appearance of islands and the disappearance of towns according to the caprice of the gods, corroborates the evidence of nature.

The miltos mines are deep holes chiselled in the side of a mountain, about an hour’s ride from the town, to the north of the island, and are known as the ‘caveholes’ by the inhabitants. The chiselled rock has a very bright, rich colour and is strongly impregnated with iron; the marks of the ancient tools are still plain, and numerous lamps have been found inside. It appears that the Athenians produced their much-prized dye by subjecting the stones to heat. About half an hour’s ride below the mines is the harbour of Otzia, where there are traces of an ancient mole and of ancient buildings. Doubtless the miltos was shipped from here, and probably many a boat in ancient days here painted its bows and became, as Homer expresses it, ‘a red-cheeked ship (miltopários naus ^gr).’

Our last ride in Keos was a deliciously warm and pleasant one down the bed of a torrent full of tall, waving oleanders and carpeted with many-coloured anemones. We passed by the harbour of Otzia and soon reached the primitive harbour, where we met the steamer and bid farewell to Barba Manthos, whose intelligent guidance for five days had contributed so much to the pleasure of our stay in Keos.