Another village close to the Kastro is called Plaka, and here is a church dedicated to the ‘Virgin of the Rushes,’ for a black picture of her was found amongst some reeds not far from this spot. They took it to the then capital of the island, Zephyria, but a pestilence broke out, and they were obliged to bring it back and build a church for it here. A short distance beyond Plaka is a tiny little church dedicated to the manifestation of the Virgin, where a very curious custom is still observed, not, however, so frequently as it used to be, for it is against the law. When a child becomes emaciated they say it is struck by the Nereids, who dance in the dry bed of a river close to this church. If no physic benefits the little sufferer it is an obvious case of Nereid disease, and the only cure for this is to take it, strip it naked, and leave it on the cold marble altar of this little church for a season. To effect a radical cure the child should remain there all night, but the mother is afraid of detection, so dare not leave it there so long. If the babe survives this treatment it is not struck by the Nereids, and the parents’ peace of mind is restored; but if, on the contrary, as often happens, this treatment is fatal, the parents are content to think that God has willed that their darling should fall a victim to those evil spirits. The little church is a quaint spot. The high altar on which they place the children rests on a fluted pillar of ancient date, for the spot is just over the ruins of the old town and the vale of Klima, which we decided to visit at the end of our stay in Melos; for, as the weather looked favourable again, we thought it best to take advantage of it to visit the deserted western horn of the island.

Accordingly next morning we set off in a boat to cross the harbour. As we went we had a better opportunity of realising its beauty and extent: it could hold all the navies of the world within it, and it is protected by an island at its mouth. On the western point is a mountain called the Vanis, a wild, bleak spot, on which our boatman told us that it was the custom to throw bread when they sailed out, that Vanis might eat and send them fish in return.

On the opposite side are two or three houses used by wealthy Meliotes as summer resorts; one of them belonged to Mr. Photopoulos, who gave the key of it to our escort, the soldier, and bade him make us as comfortable as he could. But what a place it was! The walls were run-down with damp, not a dry rag could be found to put upon the bed, no means of warmth whatsoever. So we gladly took refuge in a neighbouring cottage, where a farmer lived, who cooked us a trifle whilst our mules were being captured and got ready.

Few expeditions in the Cyclades are more repaying than this one to the Convent of the Iron St. John (Sidirogiánni ^gr), on the western horn of Melos. The path takes you in and out of wild valleys at the foot of Mount Prophet Elias. Scarcely a house is passed on the road — only a mandra ^dnote or two, and goatherds near them tending their flocks. For a second time in Melos we had a female muleteer, an intelligent girl of about ten, who busied herself in gathering for us the red arbutus berries (still called komároi ^gr), which were just now ripe, and the gorges were lovely with them. We passed by cleft after cleft full of oleander, and locust trees, wild olives, cedars, and wild mastic, the black berries of which our damsel made us taste: they are simply horrid, and taste of varnish, but the peasants about here are very fond of them, and put them instead of anise seed into their rye bread. In this dense jungle on the slopes of the mountain we turned up lots of woodcock and coveys of red-legged partridges, and came across two or three sportsmen from the Kastro with their dogs.

Our girl muleteer was quite a botanist in her way. She first picked us a sprig of a sort of thyme (thymeion ^gr) with long spikes, which she told us was reckoned exceedingly warming and genial to an aching stomach, and then a bunch of an exceedingly sweet aromatic herb, which she said they bruised and put into nuptial couches. Then she knew the different plants that were used as salads — the wild cabbage and so forth — and those that they only give to cattle; but she had an utter contempt for flowers — cyclamens, anemones, daisies. Whatever we asked the name of, her reply was always the same, ‘Bah! Those are only loulouthia ^dnote, not good for anything.’

On the slopes of Mount Prophet Elias we were told that wild goats are found; we only saw tame ones, and they were plentiful enough; and in the mandras ^dnote we passed we saw heaps of kids with scarecrows near them to frighten away the eagles. The Mount of the Prophet is a fine conical one, on the summit of which, as a matter of course, there is a church dedicated to the modern sun god: the slopes are of a reddish rock, with streaks of red earth here and there, which is used for making roofs to houses. And through the bright green carob trees the views of the red mountain and blue sea were exquisite.

About midday we reached the convent; not a soul was there; the church was open, and so was the courtyard, and the sheds around where people pass the night who go to the two yearly pilgrimages. Before reaching the building we passed through a wild waste of rock, and on each rock the pilgrims with pious intent place little cairns to indicate to the saint that if they are well they will return next year. With each stone they wish a wish, and if every wish were answered, thought we, what a happy people those of Melos would be! They do this still in the East — a relic doubtless of the old custom of raising menhirs — and along all the main routes stone monuments are erected by Moslem pilgrims at the point where a shrine first becomes visible.

There is a curious legend attached to this desolate spot. Years ago, when a festival was being held here, pirates were seen to be approaching, and the people crowded for safety into the church, the doors of which shut of their own accord, and were immediately barred with iron by the kindly interposition of St. John. One daring robber climbed upon the dome, and tried to fire down on those inside, but his hand withered, and the pistol fell from it. The pistol is still preserved and much thought of by the pious; close to it were preserved some other relics — stirrups, &c. — the value of which I could not learn. The spot is an enchanting one, and the view from the courtyard, with its spreading locust tree, under which the pilgrims erect booths at the time of the feast, is well worth the pilgrimage thither. A few miles out to sea is the island of ‘Desert Melos’ (Erimomelos, or Antimelos), which rises sheer out of the sea, and from a distance looks as if it would be impossible to land thereon, I rather wanted to visit it during my stay in Melos, but learning that there was not a house on it, and that in winter I might be detained there for days, I was forced to give up the idea, and be content with what the Meliote sportsmen told me about the curious species of deer which lived there, and which from the description I fancied must resemble the mouflon of Corsica, and about the ancient cistern there which is never dry in summer, and which has steps into it so that the animals can go down to drink as the water recedes. If this account be true it is evident that Erimomelos in ancient days must have been used as a sporting ground for the Meliotes.

After a wretched night in Mr. Photopoulos’ summer residence we set off early, breakfastless and cross, on our ride home round by the centre of the island, not over-grateful to our friend who had promised us we should find every luxury and convenience over here.

An hour’s ride brought us to the Convent of St Marina, now nearly in ruins, but which was once the richest convent in Melos. Here we were told that we should get our breakfast, but it consisted only of rye bread, with black mastic berries in it, coffee, and a pull at a public raki bottle. In the church there were evidences of former grandeur — rich carvings and frescoes — rapidly falling into decay; for the few peasants who now live in the cells, and have made a hamlet out of the remains of the convent, do not interest themselves much in their church beyond sweeping it out in turn and keeping the lamp burning before the altar.

After leaving this spot we entered upon the low central part of the island, where the soil is perfectly alive with volcanic matter. On a slight eminence about halfway between the two seas is what one might call a natural Turkish bath, much frequented by Meliote invalids. It is doubtless a volcanic crater, on the top of which a rude shed has been built. On entering you descend a gentle slope, which leads into a small hole with three stone stools in the bowels of the earth, where the temperature is steaming hot — hotter than the hottest room in any Turkish bath I ever knew. Here in summer time rheumatic patients come, and after the operation of sweating is over they recline on beds made of straw and olive twigs in the shed above to accomplish the cooling process.

All around the country is covered with vineyards, which at one time must have been fertile enough, but now for want of men to look after them they are fast becoming wastes of stone; a few variegated cedars grow about here, otherwise it is a bare, uncanny spot — a great contrast to the verdant slopes of Mount Prophet Elias that we had passed through the day before.

And now we were approaching the ill-fated town of Zephyria, until fifty years ago the recognised capital of the island, and bearing the very ancient name by which Melos was once known. It is built at the end of a plain, along which a stagnant stream spreads itself out in winter, but which is in summer a waste of salt and pestilential exhalations. No wonder Zephyria was unhealthy, a perfect hotbed of pestilence. The town must have been well and substantially built; some good stone houses and several churches are still standing, but all untenanted and empty. Here was the palace where the dukes of the Crispi family held their court, and now the outer streets are mere masses of ruins with the roofs tumbled in, a home for ravens and bats. A few houses are used as stores for those who farm the neighbouring fields and olive gardens. Only thirty years ago Ross found some miserable people dwelling here. A few years before that Gouffier tells us how ‘these wretched inhabitants are yellow and swollen, their bellies enormous, their legs horribly swollen, permitting them with difficulty to drag themselves about amidst the ruins of their town.’

In the centre still stands the Church of St. Charálambos, the saint whose special office it was to ward off the plague; and he still can be seen therein on a crumbling fresco in the form of a hideous wizard trampling disease under foot, with smoke issuing out of its mouth. It is rather a handsome Romanesque building, with two domes, in many parts roofless, and with long shreds of canvas hanging therefrom, on which once pictures had been painted. A tree is growing in the middle of the porch, a few tall palms, lots of olives and fig-trees mingle well with the ruins, and make them look highly picturesque. There is another church, that of the Virgin of the Basket, so called because tradition says a picture of the Virgin was found in a basket on the sea, which was being carried by the waves in the direction of Zephyria; from this church all the ornaments have been taken to adorn a like-named church which they have built down by the harbour of Adamanta, where many of the fugitives from Zephyria have established themselves.

Luckily for us, there were lots of people over in Zephyria that day who had come to pluck their olives; so we were able to get some wine from them and make friends with an old man, Peter Kromidonis, who remembered Zephyria as far back as 1821, when there were 1,500 families living here, twenty-four churches, and no thought of abandoning the place. We sat down in an open space in front of the Church of St. Charálambos to refresh ourselves.

‘This,’ said the old man, ‘was the agora of our town. Yonder corner house was the café which I kept, and where my wife and nine children all died of the pestilence.’ Poor old man! he seemed broken down with cares and ague, but it seemed a pleasure to him to tell us his reminiscences, so we encouraged him to go on.

‘I was almost the last person to leave this town,’ he continued. ‘Up to ten years ago I kept on at the old café, but at last no one came near me. All my belongings were dead, so I thought I, too, would go, though I wished to leave my bones here;’ and he looked round affectionately at the deserted spot, and shortly afterwards, pointing to a piece of a Corinthian column in the middle of the square, he said, ‘That was where criminals were executed, and where innocent folks were stripped naked and flogged in the times of the Turkish Aga.’

‘How was it the pestilence of Zephyria could not be checked?’ we asked.

‘It all arose from the curse of a priest,’ was his reply, as he solemnly crossed himself; and knowing the current belief in modern Greece that by his curse a priest can inflict any evil on the object of his denunciation, and that this belief gives them their firmest hold on the minds of the people, we asked for further particulars.

‘The priest was really a bad man,’ he said, crossing himself again, ‘and was proved to have led an immoral life; so one day the people stoned him so that he had to hurry out of the town for his life in the direction of Kimolos. When still in sight of the city he took off his hat, lifted up his hands, and cursed it, praying that no stone should be left on the other. Shortly afterwards a plague broke out, and other diseases in turn, until the wretched survivors finally abandoned it altogether.’ And as we heard this tale we thought of Chryses, the priest of Apollo at Tenedos praying for the pest to be used as an instrument for the recovery of his daughter.

‘What happened to the priest?’ I asked.

‘We don't know,’ replied the old man, ‘except from what the muleteer who accompanied him told us. He, when he saw the priest cursing, fell on his knees in terror, kissed the priest’s feet, and implored not to be included in the curse, and the man, old Photis by name, died only four years ago at a ripe old age.’

Such is the belief in the power of a priest over disease. Likewise also, by the reading of prayers and exorcisms, they can check an epidemic just as easily as they can produce one; and this power, the people say, is delegated to them by the saints. St. Charálambos and St. Besarion give to the priests of their altar power over the plague; St. Mavra and St. Barbara do likewise to their priests during an epidemic of small-pox. And very often the derived power originates in the saint’s name; for instance, St. Jacob (Agios Akouphos ^gr ) heals deafness (kouphos ^gr : deaf), St. Eleutherios gives relief to women in childbirth (eleuthería ^gr : freedom), St. Therapon of Lesbos cures (therapeúei ^gr) all manner of diseases. In this manner it will be easily realised how, in the Greek Church, different saints are considered as useful in different circumstances. A Greek becomes confidential to his saint, especially his name saint, whose picture is hung in the sanctuary in his bedroom. God to him is a mystery unapproachable; the saint it is who is supposed to act as mediator between God and man.

Curious beliefs about diseases are wildly current nowadays. Many believe that all maladies which attack the human frame are worms created by the wrath of God — a simple way of explaining the bacilli theory — or else they are devils which get into the body, and can only be cured by holy offices. Warts, for example, which some say have come from counting the stars, can be removed by a prayer to the Virgin in church and by rubbing them on the glass of the church windows.

As may naturally be supposed, unhealthy Melos is still full of people who are supposed to know charms for producing cures (giteutaí ^gr). Knowing this, we put a question to our old friend as to what means they took to check the noisome pestilence which ruined Zephyria, and he told us some curious accounts of what they did here not so many years ago; and if they do not do these things now it is not for want of belief, but from the discouragement superstitions are now meeting with from the higher clergy.

About the time the pestilence was at its worst a cow had twin calves; this was looked upon as an omen not to be lightly passed over. So after forty days they yoked the calves and ploughed a portion of ground, in the middle of which they slaughtered the twins and distributed their flesh to the poor. But this sacrifice had no avail against the priestly imprecation. Then they decided on February 10, the day of St. Charálambos, to ‘boil the diseases,’ that is to say, forty once married women wrote the names of a lot of illnesses on scraps of paper: these were boiled in a caldron with some money and a cock, but all of no avail. Yet another plan was resorted to: the forty women made a garment in one day, which they hung up in St. Charálambos’ Church, and next day they cut it into bits, and distributed them to the poor; but the result was the same — the imprecation was triumphant.

Public charms and ceremonies such as these will probably never happen in Greece again, but private acts of superstition are still numerous. We have seen how they exposed children supposed to be smitten by the Nereids on the altar of the Virgin’s Church; they do exactly the same thing at the entrance of some catacombs which we were to visit presently in the vale of Klima, and with their incantations they believe that they can drive diseases into animals, trees, and cliffs; for example, they believe that by leaving bits of the clothes of sick persons near stones the disease will be drawn into the stone. Round the neck of a fever-stricken patient they bind a string and then remove it and bind it round a tree, muttering mystic words at the same time, and suppose that they are binding the fever to the tree.

Euphemisms for diseases are as common in modern Greece as they were in ancient days. The small-pox is called eulogia ^gr; epilepsy, glikí ^gr, or to kaló ^gr, for epilepsy, above all diseases, is looked upon as a mysterious sacred malady curable only by the priests. ‘Is it not a devil,’ they will say, ‘which possesses the man? What can drugs avail in this case?’ And in this belief we are carried back to the days of Hippocrates (‘De Morbo Sacro,’ tom. 2), who laughed at the charlatans and magicians who pretended that epilepsy was a sacred malady curable only by priestcraft. Child’s colic, again, they call to glikí tou ^gr; abscesses on the hand, kalankáthi ^gr; the plague was known as the ‘pardoned disease’ (i synchoreméni nósos ^gr); whilst other ailments of minor importance are known as the ‘unintentional’ (ta amelétita ^gr). Our old friend, as we talked over the ills of Zephyria, grew warm on the subject of curses. ‘Never shall I forget,’ he said, ‘the wretched Koubelos, who cursed himself whilst dying. His brother went to bed well, and next morning was found strangled, with black finger-marks on his neck. Even the prayers of the priests availed nothing in this case; everyone was in despair. At length an old man learned in magic advised them to open Koubelos’ tomb, cut out his heart, burn it, and scatter the ashes to the winds, and then, after tying up the rest of the body in a sack, to sink it in the sea. Terrible was the sight on opening the grave: the corpse was black in the face, the finger-nails had grown a span long and were bathed in the blood of his victims! His hair was long, his eyes wild, and when they sank the body in the sea the disturbance was such that boats were nearly swamped. The plan adopted, however, was successful; Koubelos never came again; but to this day Meliote mothers threaten their naughty children with a visit from Koubelos.’

It was quite time now to leave Zephyria, about which old Kromidonis had conjured up such horrible reminiscences. Though haunted by no vague dreads, yet I felt that this city of the dead, with its ruined houses and tottering churches, was about the last place in which I should care to spend the night; so we mounted our mules, and proceeded down the plain, full of stagnant water, to the seashore, visiting by the way a small house which is used as a salt factory, and a deep hole on the slope of a gentle eminence, where is an alum bath, and where, we were told, people go to cure the itch. ^note The cave was very warm inside, and the recollection of the disease that here was cured made us as chary of stopping long as we once were in a church of St. Barbara where small-pox patients were said to be brought. Close to the sea are some singular caves; one in the shape of a large round room supported by a central column bears evidence of having been used as a church: a narrow passage inside connects it with the other side of the rock, and all about are evidences of tombs.

Melos is an island productive of curiosities in nature. We have but to turn to the pages of Pliny to learn how esteemed all these things were in ancient times. There was the Meliote earth used for drawing, the pumice-stone used for polishing leather, and the above-mentioned alum.

That evening we slept at Adamantas, the village down by the port, about half an hour’s ride from the Kastro, where all the business, little though it is, of modern Melos is carried on; and here has been erected a new church to the honour of our lady of the basket, and from Zephyria they have brought a tempelon, five hundred years old, covered with lovely carving and symbolistic figures and all the sacred treasures, one of which is curious enough, being a piece of plank with a hole in it, and a picture painted on it to explain its meaning. A huge swordfish pierced a ship and dragged it all on one side, and in their extremity and dismay the sailors called on our lady of the basket for help, and she removed the obnoxious swordfish, and on their return to Melos they hung up the plank that the fish had pierced, thus painted, as an offering of thanks.

Adamantas is an exceedingly uninteresting place to be obliged to stay at for three days whilst waiting for one of those wretched Greek steamers which ply between Crete and Syra, and stop at Melos on the way; and our discomfort was increased by the fact that the English squadron had touched at Melos only a few days before, and had seized upon all the provisions in the place; yet whilst waiting many points of interest offered themselves. We frequently visited Consul Brest, and had interesting conversations on Melos. Moreover he gave us an excellent pot of vegetable-marrow and almond jam to help us in our evil day; but we looked grudgingly at some woodcock on his stairs, which we longed for, and could not get, as they were to be sent to Syra by the steamer; and it was our one consolation in the eventual delay to learn that all these woodcock went bad and had to be thrown away.

We visited a collection of objects of antiquity which were for sale — not retail, but wholesale — a hopeless state of affairs with the lynx-eyed Greek Government officials to get past; we visited a priest who had brought his family from Crete; consisting of a fat wife and sixteen children, for poor Greek Papas, like poor English parsons, are a prolific race. ^note He was anxious to sell some of the Church lace, of which we bought a little, doubting when he told us that it was for the benefit of the saint. We visited a washerwoman who was bleaching her clothes in a big basket by putting ashes from her wood fire on them as they soaked; and we visited two old women who were very busy preparing cotton for their loom.