WE had our misgivings when the caïque which had brought us from Ios left us alone on the shores of Sikinos, some two hours’ distance from the town.

‘There is no harbour in Sikinos,’ said our captain when we remonstrated and wished him to stay, and when we remarked that if he did not come back for us at the appointed time we should take another caïque he only laughed at us and told us that there was only one caïque belonging to Sikinos, and this was now at Ios.

It was a fact; we found that Sikinos had only one caïque and four rotten fishing-boats which will never venture in winter time a hundred yards from the shore; it is likewise a fact that the solitary caïque and the four rotten fishing-boats have to be drawn up on the beach every night, for there is no harbour. And a proverb belonging to this island aptly describes the position, ‘If an army of rats tried to land on the north shore of Sikinos not one would be saved.’ There is an indentation called a bay on the southern coast line into which the solitary caïque can run, otherwise Sikinos is a mere rock running down sheer into the waves, about eight miles long by two wide.

When our caïque had left us we sat down on the rocks on which we had landed and ate our food, thinking kindly of the Lorenziades as we did so; then we despatched our servant to the town for mules, and sat guarding our luggage in one of the most solitary places I ever was in for four hours and a half. It was a bleak, barren, weird-looking spot, with grey marble rocks towering above us, and nothing to be heard except the cry of the red-legged partridges and the occasional shriek of a sea bird. And as the wind began to rise, and gloomy clouds appeared, we looked regretfully across the narrow and now rough strait which separated us from Ios, the steamer, and the world, and wondered whether we were quite wise in visiting Sikinos at this season of the year.

It was almost dark when, to our inexpressible delight, muleteers arrived, and soon we were on our way to the Chora, across fearfully rocky, pathless hills, and long before we reached our destination it was darkness visible. The Chora, or town of Sikinos is the only inhabited place on the island, and consists of two villages about five minutes distant from each other, which divide between them the 1,200 inhabitants of the island; consequently they have not much difficulty about nomenclature — one bears its original name of the ‘castro,’ or camp, the other is called ‘the other place’; and no further distinction is necessary.

The Sikiniotes are a very primitive race of people, pure, unadulterated Greeks, who colonised the island, which was uninhabited during the middle ages. About 300 years ago refugees came hither from Crete to get out of the way of Turkish oppression, and built themselves the Castro, high up on the mountain side, where they could be safe from pirates and Turkish supervision; and here they have lived ever since, mingling hardly at all with the outer world, and never likely to be disturbed by the advent of steamer or telegraph. Perhaps if we had previously known how quaint and primitive the Sikiniotes were we should have arranged for a longer stay amongst them; but the elements settled this question for us: a good steady northern gale set in almost immediately we arrived, which effectually prevented our caïque coming, as we had arranged, after two days to take us on to Pholygandros, and we were left storm-stayed amongst them for five whole days.

We plunged into the dirty Castro through a gateway, and in the dark sank ankle-deep in slush which in other countries would only have been encountered in a pigsty, and found ourselves housed by an exceedingly hospitable and jovial demarch, rough, indeed, and uncivilised; but what could we expect better at Sikinos? His house is one of the oldest and decidedly the most respectable in the place, having about it some rather feeble traces of architectural development, for our bedroom had two hideously grotesque animals as capitals to the door-jambs, and most of the doors boasted of some ornamental decoration more or less important according to the rooms into which they led. But a damper house I never saw in all my life; all our clothes were wet and dew stood on our boots in the morning. Some boots belonging to the family which they had left under the bed were quite green with mould, but the demarch made up for any deficiencies of climate by his joviality and good fare; he seemed to live in a perpetual state of jokes, some of them not the most choice to be sure, but then he was the demarch and an old man, and had unlimited licence. He fed us well, too, and had a sucking pig expressly killed and cooked for our benefit just twelve days old. It was according to the Greek idea then at its perfection, for they say, ‘A lamb or a kid should be three days old, a sucking pig twelve days old, and a heifer forty days old, before it is fit to eat.’

The Castro has about it all the elements of a fortified town — two entrances, one of which is a mere passage, and easily closed up in time of danger. The backs of the houses, as usual, form the wall of the town. There is the church in the middle, and in front of it the square space for dancing; it is eight hundred feet above the sea; and immediately on leaving the town, on the northern side, you descend an almost precipitous cliff to the shore, where up a little gully are drawn up the four rotten fishing-boats belonging to the island.

Every January 7, on St John the Baptist’s Day, the priests of the place, with all their sacred paraphernalia, and followed by all the people, go down this steep path to bless the waves and the four rotten fishing-boats. Of course this ceremony is usual all over the coast of Greece, but it strikes one as rather ludicrous here in Sikinos, where there is so very little to bless. After the customary prayer the priest throws a cross into the sea, with a stone attached to it, and an expert diver, with his clothes on, jumps in to get it out, receiving some coppers for his pains; when this ceremony is over, the priests and the people wend their steep way home again, and the sailors’ minds are at peace once more, for between Christmas Day and this ceremony they are very chary about trusting themselves to the mercy of the elements.

The sailors of Sikinos, too, have another curious superstition: that if they wash their feet during the first six days of August — that is to say, ‘until the candle of Christ’s transfiguration is lit,’ as the expression goes — they will get those round sores of which we saw so many on the bare legs of our sailors, and which doubtless come from poverty of blood and poor fare: these sores they call Drímes ^gr. Now in other islands there exists a kindred superstition — if linen is washed during these days it will get holes in it, also called Drímes ^gr. Theophilus Kaires, the Andriote schoolmaster, ^note had a theory about these — that during the early days of August he had often noticed a wind to blow, which brought with it microscopic animalculae, which settled on anything damp, and which produced the holes in the clothes. In a similar way I should not think it unlikely that the fast which the Church enforces at this time, coupled with the heat, would have the same effect on the blood. Schmidt goes so far as to connect the word Drímes ^gr with the Dryads of ancient days, but this appears to me a little strained.

Amongst other curious maladies known to the Sikiniotes, and which I never met elsewhere, is a disease called bird-blindness (ornithoskountoúphlas ^gr). It must be a species of ophthalmia, arising from the exposed position of the town and the great damp always prevailing here. It is quite certain, at all events, that many here suffer from their eyes, and they attribute it to the following cause — that if anyone, especially a child, drinks of water out of which a bird has previously drunk he is liable to this disease; he will become blind after sunset, and he will suffer from an unpleasant buzzing in the ears. When a child is suffering from this disease they adopt the following remedy. Several other children accompany the patient, whom the eldest and strongest carries in his arms — and as they go from house to house they sing, ‘Our little So-and-so is ill; he has bird-blindness; and whosoever refuses to tell him how to be cured God will cast out.’ But if the person be grown up the treatment is different: they take the heart of a black lamb and throw it raw to a black cock, and when he has pecked at it three times they cook it and give it to the patient to eat.

We climbed one day down the cliff to see the little cleft on the northern coast below the town which they grandly call ‘the northern harbour.’ The four rotten boats were there drawn up the gully, with their oars and gourds ready for their owners to go out fishing on the first fine day. There seems to be no fear of robbers in this island, for boathouses and stores for fishing tackle are unknown. It is very wild and beautiful, this northern coast line of Sikinos, fertile in every kind of wild herb and flower, clinging to its precipices in spite of the keenness of the north wind which blows upon them. The cliff was a perfect garden just now of narcissus, anemone, and euphorbia; the little Church of St. Nicholas, which guards the four boats, is almost buried in luxuriantly growing wild mastic. Sikinos is famed for its honey far and wide, and Tournefort in his day tells us what a valuable field it was for botanical research.

The morning after our arrival was fairly fine, with the ominous gatherings of a tempest in the air; so we decided forthwith to make our one expedition in the island to the temple of Pythian Apollo, and the ruins of the old town.

Episcopi they now call the old temple, which has been converted into a church; it is about an hour’s mule ride from the town, and the road which leads to it is high up above the sea, and lined with immense fig-trees and extensive vineyards, showing the fertility of the place. The church, as may be supposed, is now covered with whitewash, and is surrounded by ruined outhouses, where once monks used to live before the disestablishment, and where the people are put up at the annual panegyris on August 15.

Few remains in Greece are more perfect than this temple of Apollo at Sikinos. Somehow it has escaped observation, and it has been too high above the sea to make it of any use for building material; hence it escaped during the earlier years of Vandalism; and then when it was turned into a place of Christian worship a certain amount of respect was secured for it, which other ruins did not obtain until later years. The roof is of modern date, being a Byzantine cupola, and round the edge are battlements where the monks at the approach of pirates used to take refuge; there are still the remains of their kitchen where they used to cook when compelled to live on the roof, and of the loopholes out of which they used to shoot their assailants, in the memory of the man who now owns and tills the land around.

This personage received us with civility; he is quite a better sort of man, and considered himself superior to our muleteers; yet he is content to live in one of the deserted cells: though he has a house in the town he hardly ever occupies it. Certainly the Greeks of all classes are most frugally minded: here at Episcopi his bed is composed only of the staves of a broken barrel over which a coverlet (páploma ^gr) is cast; his plough, his firewood, some pots, and a helmet like a meat safe, which he calls his koráx ^gr (for collecting honey), a bright green jar for oil, with a bit of sponge stuck in as a stopper, lie in hopeless confusion about his cell. In the wall are two or three niches where his lantern, his water bottle, and cooking utensils are kept. His only chair is composed of two loose stones with a board on the top of them, yet he is a superior man and has ‘Kírie’ ^gr put before his name whenever he is addressed.

He gave us wine, water, and a horribly nasty cake, composed of pastry mixed with all sorts of grasses, and called pitta ^gr. Luckily we had provisions of our own with us, or we should have fared badly.

The demarch had a capital repast for us on our return — partridges, pilaff, and local wine of the first quality — after which the inhabitants trooped in to see us, to laugh at our host’s jokes, to drink wine, and to pick up any crumbs that might fall to them from our table. Sikinos is as celebrated for its wine as for its honey, and the demarch had the best vineyards in the island. Even as far back as the days of Pliny and Strabo there was a report that the island in former days had been called Oinoí ^gr from the wine (oinos ^gr) which it produced.

Outside the wind was howling; the storm which had been threatening all day had now burst upon us; the bottle passed freely, we began to roll our cigarettes, and everyone combined in prophesying that we should not leave Sikinos, as we intended, on the morrow. At the prospect of our detention in the island, and consequent festivities, our jocular host grew gayer and gayer, and the jokes he cracked with the women who came in would have brought a blush to the cheeks of the most barefaced Englishwoman. The result of this conversation was, that I discovered how a young Sikiniote had been born the day before, and that if we liked to witness the ceremony they would have him baptized on the day after the morrow; ‘for,’ concluded the Demarch, ‘the storm will not go down for three days and the habits of our islanders on the subject of births are well worth your study.’ We were well contented at this news, and exceedingly grateful to the good woman who had so well timed her arrangements that they would provide us with an object whilst storm-stayed at Sikinos.

The storm was raging next morning, with the fury that characterises these island hurricanes. Nowhere can more terrible northern gales be encountered than in the Aegean Sea, as they sweep over the islands and cover the sea with foam; we could scarcely stand for the violence of the gusts; but nevertheless the air was invigorating, and our quarters not too wretched despite the damp, though an earthenware pot a foot in diameter, with a handful of burning charcoal in it, is but a poor substitute for a fire on a cold day, even though bits of lemon peel are thrown in to make a pleasant odour in the room.

An old man, the former demarch, came in shortly after we were up, and begged for the privilege of taking us about the town. In many respects he seemed a man more respected and looked up to than our jocular host; for we were told that if his age and infirmities had not interfered with the fulfilment of his duties he would still have been in office. Wrapped in a shawl, and stick in hand, he seemed to despise the cold, and trudged on at a good pace to show us his garden. Every landowner in Sikinos has a garden outside the town, surrounded by a wall, in which he grows his vegetables and figs for household consumption, and containing buildings in which are his wine-press, his threshing floor, his mule stable, and his store (apothíki ^gr), where the produce of his country estate is housed, his honey, his corn, and his wine; and this is closed with a cleverly constructed wooden key. All along the hillside stretch these gardens, which have, from a distance, quite the appearance of a separate village with exceedingly mean houses.

‘We are very law-abiding, quiet people (ísichi ánthropoi ^gr) here in Sikinos,’ said our conductor with the usual insular pride which leads you to infer that this is not the case in other islands; and it was obvious to us that thieves cannot exist here, or these gardens would soon be pillaged. Kortes was the name of the old man, and after showing us his garden he conducted us to his house, a large cold place, without any glass in the windows, just over the town gateway; there he regaled us with coffee, and showed us with pride an old altar which had come from the temple in the old town, and was dedicated to Hermes.

At the top of the hill, just above the town, the wind howled and blew most terribly; in spite of it, however, we climbed up to visit a monastic institution, lately dispersed, which was dedicated to the Life-giving Stream; on one side it overhangs a yawning precipice, down which it will soon fall if means are not taken to prevent its final ruin. But it is the same with all these deserted monasteries in Greece — another generation will hardly see one stone upon another. In Sikinos, as elsewhere, churches abound; in fact, there are more churches than houses on the island!

On our descent we were glad of our midday meal, and as soon as this was over we were taken off to pay a visit to the interesting woman whose child next day was to be received into the bosom of the orthodox Church. She was the wife of a poor man, who lived in a cottage outside the town walls, consisting of but one room, at the extreme end of which was a large bed, where the mother was perched who had presented Sikinos two days before with a male child.

In all primitive societies male children are deemed a special cause for rejoicing; here in Sikinos they are very strong in this opinion, considering a daughter a curse to a house if possible to be avoided. With this view an expectant mother is sure to provide herself with a sprig of a certain flower, called ‘male-flower’ (arsenikobόtano ^gr), which is supposed to conduce to the desired result. What slaves to superstition these unfortunate women are, to be sure, before the happy event takes place! On St. Simeon’s Day no expectant mother would think of cooking or washing, or dusting, for fear the child should have ugly marks upon it. We suffered from this once in our travels, and had to be content with cold fare and male administrations for the day. When they go to the oven on Saturday — for in Sikinos bread is baked only on a Saturday — expectant mothers must use the greatest care not to tear their dress, or the child will have marks upon it called pannistaί ^gr; if, by chance, this misfortune occurs the only thing then to be done is to smack their hips, for thereby they will localise the mark on the unborn child.

The happy father of a male child, immediately the sex is announced to him by Mrs. Gamp, goes outside his house and lets off his gun several times to let the neighbours know the good fortune that has befallen his family.

On our arrival at the cottage the place was full of visitors and relatives, bringing the customary gifts. A table was spread with sweets and glasses of raki, and all were wishing the mother ‘a happy forty days,’ for according to custom for forty days after the event she does not go to church — a custom which seems to have been directly borrowed from antiquity. ^note

As soon as we arrived Mrs. Gamp, an estimable neighbour, who had come in for the occasion, put a bowl on the middle of the table, into which warm water was poured, and lemon leaves, which had previously been boiled, were thrown, and then the relatives who stood near cast in a little salt and sugar, after which the good woman set to work to wash the infant publicly, ‘My Iron,’ as his mother called him (Sidiré mou ^gr) ; for it is a custom in these parts to call a child Iron, or Dragon, or some such name, to indicate prospective strength before the christening takes place.

When Master Iron’s first ablutions were over Mrs. Gamp called a kinswoman, and bade her bring water to wash her hands, saying, as she did so, ‘Kyrie Eleison’ forty times, which is intended as a thanksgiving to the Creator that He has permitted her to receive a male child amongst the living.

Before the priest blesses the child, after this ceremony is over, no one is allowed to come in or to go out of the room; but as soon as the priest got to the liturgy of the Highest the door was thrown open, for then, say they, there is no fear of Nereids or Lamiae getting possession of the newborn infant. If the family are rich the priest receives a handsome present on this occasion; but the father to-day was but a poor man, and could only give the priest a cake, which he took gladly, and went his way, after giving the babe and mother a final blessing.

Mrs. Gamp now swaddled her charge tightly from head to foot, and the guests began to depart, dropping, as they went away, a copper into the nurse’s hands.

For many days to come no one is allowed to enter the house after sunset, and mother and babe are strictly forbidden to wear clothes which have been exposed to the stars unless they have been fumigated by a censer. There is something practical in this rule, for in damp Sikinos everything that is exposed to the night air becomes impregnated with moisture.

Anent births in general, and those at Sikinos in particular, our host, the demarch, told us many curious things that evening. Generally a babe is not christened for some days after birth, unless it is a weakling, and then if no priest is at hand any person of the orthodox persuasion can baptize it by plunging it into water and saying the necessary words, to be supplemented by the priest if the child survives.

St Eleutherios is the protector of newborn babes, and is usually called upon by the mother in her distress, as anciently was the goddess Eileithyia. Mrs. Gamp of course hurries at the first intimation that her services are required, and is sure to take with her an olive branch, which is called, from its resemblance, ‘the virgin’s hand’ (tís Panagías to chéri ^gr), which the patient is to hold in her hands to alleviate her pangs. In like manner a red straggling creeper which covers the bushes in the spring is called ‘the virgin’s hair’ (tís Panagías ta malliá ^gr), and is considered useful to hold in cases of fever.

Greek women who work for hire in the fields are very strong, and do not allow their maternal troubles to interfere with their industry; and about these things the demarch told us much that will not bear repetition here. After birth it is considered a good thing for the handsomest man to be the first to embrace the child, so as to give it a part of his beauty, and for the strongest and wisest woman to be the first to suckle the infant for the same reason. This idea of imparting beauty and strength is an ancient one, for in ‘Herodotus’ vi. 61 we have the story of an ugly child becoming the most beautiful girl in Sparta because her nurse took her to the temple of the heroine Helen, whom they met there one day; and the plot of the Aethiopians of Heliodorus turns on the belief that the queen of the Aethiopians had a white child because she had an image of Hesione before her when the child was born.

Generally the baptism is on the seventh or eighth day after birth; it was in honour of us that Master Iron was to be baptized on the third day, on the afternoon of which we and many others found ourselves gathered in the metropolitan church of Sikinos to receive Master Iron.

The font was in the middle of the nave, a large goblet-shaped one made of lead; jugs of hot and cold water were brought in, and then the priest, as he conducted the service, mingled them in the font until he thought the temperature suitable for the immersion of so frail an object. In many cases, where deep fonts are scarce, and adults have to be immersed, there is considerable difficulty attending this ceremony. An Italian miner came to work at Antiparos, and got engaged to a Greek girl, who refused to marry him unless he became a baptized orthodox. No vessel could be found large enough to immerse him in in the church, so the priest and the congregation repaired to a jetty, from which the Italian was pushed off and ducked three times in the sea.

Meanwhile Mrs. Gamp was busily engaged in removing the swaddling clothes, and as the service went on Master Iron’s clothing was reduced to a white cloth and a cap. As the priest mixed the water he continued reading the service vigorously, and constantly made a cross in the water by blowing upon it in that shape, as he likewise did to the baby which Mrs. Gamp held up, and to keep his long hair out of the water he fastened it behind his ears. Oil was then poured three times into the font in the form of a cross. On either side of the font stood the two sponsors with lighted candles. When all was ready the priest turned up his coloured silk cloak till it was nearly inside out, rolled up his sleeves, and prepared for action. Finally the godmother took Master Iron from his nurse, divested him of the white cloth and the cap, and a wee red object, like a skinned rabbit, was held up for public gaze in the hands of the priest. After oiling him in various parts the priest held him aloft, and then proceeded to plunge him over head and ears three times in the font. This ceremony over, the godmother received her charge into three white cloths with which to dry him, and after a tiny shirt and cap had been blessed the priest put them on; then Mrs. Gamp came to the fore again, seized the infant as her lawful property, swaddled him tightly once more, as she kissed him and called him ‘her little Johnny’ (Giannákki mou ^gr), which simple serviceable name had now taken the place of Iron.

Johnny was not done with yet by any means, for no sooner was he swaddled than he was held upright by his legs, his cap was taken off again, and the priest cut four locks of hair, which there was considerable difficulty in f finding, saying, ‘One for the Father, one for the Son, one for the Holy Ghost, and one for Eternity,’ as he mixed the hair with candle wax and burnt it. A blue cloak was then put on the child by the priest, likewise a hat, and a ribbon tied round his waist, which the priest dexterously crossed round at the back, brought over the shoulders, and tucked in in front. Then the godmother took her charge and carried him three times round the font, bowing as she did so to the priest, who fumigated her with incense. This dancing round the font at births, and round the altar at marriages, reminds one strongly of the amphidromia of antiquity. The priest then took poor little Johnny once more from his godmother to kiss all the holy pictures on the tempelon, and laid him on a bench alone, as if to give him time for meditation, after which he took him into the holy of holies, which was the concluding ceremony, and Master Johnny was at last properly enrolled as a member of the orthodox Church.

After leaving the church we formed a procession, headed by the priest and the baby, and accompanied by the monotonous chanting of psalms. We walked thus all round the walls of Sikinos until we came again to the mother’s cottage, and delivered her up her infant, which ceremony is called the parádosis ^gr (giving up). Great was our surprise to find her about, and bustling to do the honours of her home. She had honey cakes covered with sesame seeds and other sweets spread on a table, and lots of glasses of raki to regale us with. Again complimentary wishes were heaped upon her — a rapid recovery, a good forty days, and success to the child. Then we took our departure, promising to look in the next day to see how she and her infant were getting on.

The belief in charms for protecting newborn infants is very strong in Greece. Amulets, like those used in antiquity to avert the glance of the god Fascinus, are still hung round children’s necks to charm them from the evil eye. Here in Sikinos we found the belief in the evil eye especially strong; people who are possessed of this unfortunate glance can wither up a fruit tree by simply admiring it. Old Kortes, the ex-demarch, told me that once he had an apple tree covered with lovely fruit; some one with the evil eye went past and said, ‘Oh, what lovely apples!’ Two hours afterwards they returned that way, and found not a single apple on the tree, and basketfuls lying on the ground. The demarch showed me a charm which his son had worn: it was a round, prettily carved bit of wood, about an inch and a half in diameter; in little circles round the outer edge were eight prophets, the bottom one representing Jonah just coming out of the whale’s mouth, and in the centre was the Annunciation. Another plan for averting the evil eye is for an old woman to spit in the face of the possessor of this unfortunate attribute; for generally it only affects beauty and youth; but to secure herself from all danger she must spit three times into her own bosom, muttering, as she does so, ‘Cursed baskaneia ^gr’ (evil eye). A good thing for everybody to wear round their necks is a three-cornered amulet with salt, coal, and garlic inside, and on tying it the mother or other officiating relative should say, ‘Salt and garlic be in the eyes of our enemies.’ When a man is grown up he is often ashamed of such trivialities; so his anxious mother ties a bit of salt in the corner of his handkerchief, or else ties a knot in the tail of his shirt, which in some places is considered as an excellent safeguard against stomach-aches.

One other ceremony I must mention here, which is always carried on at Sikinos in connection with childhood, namely, the fate-telling, or moírisma ^gr of the babe; for the old Fates are thoroughly believed in still; and for three nights after a birth friends will put valuable articles and sweets in the mother’s bed to propitiate the fickle goddesses.

At Sikinos this ceremony takes place on the child’s first birthday, when all the relatives are gathered together. A tray is brought out, and on it are put various objects — a pen, money, tools, an egg, &c. — and whichever the infant first touches with its hands is held to be the indication of the Moíra ^gr, or Fate, as to the most suitable career to be chosen for it. The meaning of the first-mentioned articles is obvious. The demarch told me that his son had touched a pen; consequently he had been sent to the university at Athens, and had there made considerable progress; but the meaning of the egg is not quite so clear, and the egg is the horror of all parents, for if the child touches it he will be a good-for-nothing — a mere duck’s egg, so to speak, in society.

Some ceremony such as this must have been the one alluded to by Apolodorus when he tells us that seven days after the birth of Meleager the Fates told the horologue of the child, and the torch was lighted on the hearth. In some places still the seventh day is chosen as the one for this important ceremony, and it is called eftá ^gr. When it is dark, and the lamps are lighted, a table is put in the middle of the house, a basin full of honey in the centre of the table, and all around quantities of food. Numerous oil lamps are then lighted; one is dedicated to Christ, another to the Virgin, another to the Baptist, and so forth. A confession of faith is then read, and deep silence prevails, and the saint whose lamp is the first to go out is chosen as the protector of the infant. At this moment the Fates are said to come in and ‘kalamoirázousi ^gr’ the child, and take some of the food from the table.

The demarch of Sikinos was very communicative, too, on the subject of the Fates. He told me that they are supposed to be three in number — old women who inhabit inaccessible mountains — and none but magicians are aware of their whereabouts. Thélo na pao sto bounó tin Moírα mou na kráxo ^gr. ‘I shall go to the mountain to call on my Fate’ is a common expression of dissatisfaction with destiny.

Men who are fortunate from birth are called ‘kalopodároi ^gr,’ ‘well-legged,’ as opposed to ‘kakopodároi ^gr,’ ‘bad-legged,’ whose undertakings invariably fail. It is most unpleasant to establish a reputation for ill luck in the Greek islands; your best friend will close his doors against you on the first day of the year, month, or week. And, again, it is not an enviable post to be a noted person for good luck; you will be pestered with applications to be best man, godfather (compáros), and to be godfather to a Greek child means something, for the obligation of providing a trousseau for the child accompanies the title.

The Fates of to-day closely resemble their predecessors: they are always spinning the thread (níma ^gr), as symbolical of the life of a man. They preside over three events of life — birth, marriage, and death, “the three evils of destiny” (‘tría kaká tis moíras ^gr’) a discontented Greek will call them, who considers it a misfortune to have been born, a still greater one to be married, and the greatest of all to die.

The Fates are in some places supposed to write on the forehead of a man his destiny. Pimples on the nose and forehead are called ‘the writings of the Fates’ (tοn Moírοn ta grapsímata ^gr).The decrees of the Fates are unalterable. According to various legends attempts have been made to change them, but without avail. Only once a girl of Naxos, so I was told, up in a mountain village, who was excessively ugly, managed to learn from a magician where the Fates lived, and that, if she could get them to eat salt, they would go blind and change her fate. So she contrived to bring this about, and became exceedingly lovely, married a prince, but had no children; ‘showing,’ concluded the legend, ‘that the Fates never consent to any person being altogether happy.’

The next day was fine, and we almost thought our caïque would come, but no; the Greeks are not courageous sailors, and only gave as their excuse when they did come, that they thought the sea would have been too rough after the storm. But it is a peculiarity of these northern gales on the islands, as soon as the wind goes down the sea is calm; whereas with a southern gale the contrary is the case: so we did not believe them.