INASMUCH as the festival of Tenos is one of the greatest events occurring in modern Greek life, and since we visited the island expressly to see the festival, and not the island, on the first of our journeys there, I will here devote a separate chapter to the festival, and reserve another for the island.

Of the many existing points of connection between old and new Greece one of the greatest is the love of the panegyris: these religious festivals are still numerous in Asia Minor and in the islands as of old, and are characterised now as then by a mixture of devout earnestness and general sociability.

In every branch of life the religious susceptibility of the Greek of to-day is as it was when St. Paul wrote of them as being too superstitious, too devoted to the countless gods of their country. In short, this country, the former hotbed of polytheism, has in no way changed its character yet. They are as superstitious about the spirits that haunt caverns, forests, fountains, and cliffs as ever their ancestors were.

The Madonna of Tenos is, however, the Queen of queens, and numerous as are the pilgrim spots in Greece none can rival Tenos. The whole of the recognised Greek world is here annually represented, from the Crimea to Crete, from Corfu to the highlands of Asia Minor, where some of the purest Ionian blood still flows; and those who contend for the Slavonic origin of the modern Hellenes would do well to spend the feast week at Tenos, where they would satisfy themselves, beyond a doubt, that the Greek who goes to the island of Tenos to worship to-day is a lineal descendant of the Greek who went to the neighbouring island of Delos to worship two thousand years ago.

Whoever is distorted, withered, blind, or halt — whomsoever human art has failed to heal — all these can go to Tenos; and if the list of miracles every year is scoffed at by the sceptical, and said to be printed beforehand by the priests, yet the poor Greeks from the islands or mountains do not know this, and set off, with their hearts full of hope, their mattresses wrapped up in their carpets on their backs, and their families by their side, for a trip to Tenos.

This is only the general aspect of the pilgrimage; politically and socially the effect is wider. The birth of the panegyris at Tenos was coincident with the regeneration of Greece, and in the working of Greek politics for the last sixty years the annual excursion to Tenos has formed an important factor. Dissatisfied Cretans, oppressed Greeks from Asia Minor here meet the free sons of new Hellas on free Hellenic soil, and in this island yearly are sown seeds of revolt against Turkish rule, which the pilgrims take home and spread broadcast on fertile ground.

In the small town of St. Nicholas, at Tenos, the numerous cafés intended for the entertainment of these guests are adorned with wall paintings illustrating struggles in the war of independence, the seizing of Drakos, or the death of Markos Botzares. Then the musicians, with suitable national rhapsodies, such as ‘O my beloved sharp sword,’ &c., work upon the Greeks from the Turkish dominions in a wonderful manner.

We cannot too much admire the forethought of those who first organised this gathering of Greeks to an island in the centre of the Aegean Sea; they wisely did not choose Delos, the centre of the encircling Cyclades — it would have been too apparent an adaptation of the pagan scheme — but Tenos is only a few miles distant; hence the geographical value of the position is but slightly altered, and the idea of a religious centre in the Cyclades is still carried on.

In 1822, the first year of the Greek revolution, a nun of Tenos dreamed a dream — the story of this dream is simple and oft told — and it resulted in the production of a picture of the Madonna, an icon ^gr of miraculous powers, dug up at the spot indicated by the dream. In olden days it would have been the discovery of sacred books dexterously buried by the priests; in Western Europe it would have been some rumoured appearance of the Virgin to an ignorant peasant; in each case the result is the same. A report of miracles wrought brings countless pilgrims and money without end, a temple is erected, and at the yearly pilgrimage strange faces and strange costumes meet for once under the common name of Hellenes.

It was a cleverly conceived plan, the establishment of a miracle-working Madonna in the centre of Hellas; and insinuating rumours were spread at the same time, stating that the picture was found on the same day that the banner of the cross was unfurled for Greek independence, and at the time the war was raging the newly found icon ^gr was placed in a golden frame, a thank-offering for miracles worked.

The Greek nation of to-day owes a debt of gratitude to religion which will probably never be repaid, judging from the state of religious feeling existing now in modern Athens; yet throughout the dark ages of slavery the priests alone by their exertions kept the language, creed, and distinct nationality from becoming absorbed in the general break-up of the Greek nation. At the first echo of revolt the priests were the first to unsheathe the sword and head the rebellion. This fact the Turks recognised when they hanged the patriach of Constantinople at the outbreak of the revolution. The priests worked hard for the notion of Panhellenism, and with this view they chose Tenos as the centre of their work. Every priest throughout the Greek-speaking world tells his flock of the virtues of the shrine of Tenos, and those that go bring back to their remote villages tales of life and freedom.

The policy of the Greek Church has been to work, as nearly as possible, new theories on the old basis; this they did when Christianity was supplanting paganism. The Virgin took the attributes of most of the deities. She was ably assisted by her army of saints; the prophet Elias was no other than Phoebus Apollo (Helios); the archangels could hardly be distinguished from the Dioscouri, Hercules, &c.; whilst St. Nicholas was the sailors’ god, the modern Poseidon.

Here at Tenos, Poseidon was worshipped in olden times as a physician. Silesas the Athenian set up a statue to him, and another to Amphitrite, each nine piques ^note high; and on the ruins of the old town of Tenos, sacred to Poseidon, the modern town of St. Nicholas is built; and now instead of the temple to Poseidon stands the great white temple dedicated to the healing Madonna, to whose shrine our pilgrimage takes place.

Perhaps the scene on board the old ship ‘Theoria,’ which annually went to Delos full of pilgrims from Athens, the ship which tradition said had brought Theseus from Crete, was not so very unlike the scene on board the steamer ‘Peneios,’ which took me from the Piraeus to Tenos. There were 1,200 pilgrims on board, all in their holiday attire — women with their sack-like coats, gaudy petticoats, and coloured frontlets, that is to say, with the Athenian plait and the knotted ragged kerchief on their heads; men with their fustanella of snowy white; each and all with their beds and their carpets, which they spread for their families on deck, and prepared for an al fresco night on board. Sardines in a box are not more tightly compressed than was the cargo of human flesh on board the ‘Peneios.’ ‘Fanatical people^gr,’ sneered the captain as we looked down upon them from the bridge.

Music was played by performers on every species of rude instrument, from a syravlion^gr, the primeval panpipe, to a barrel organ with its dancing marionettes. The raki drinkers were noisy now, laughing, shouting, blaspheming; women were chatting, children playing; but before long we rounded Cape Sunium, and no more merry-making was heard; a death-like silence for a while pervaded the ship, and then groan succeeded groan in quick succession. Poseidon, the physician, was intent on a desperate cure!

‘My life^gr!’ groaned a woman close to me after each paroxysm had past. If I felt inclined to retort ‘I love it^gr,’ circumstances forbade.

‘Honey and milk!’ groaned another pilgrimess. She had evidently come from the mountains, where they still mutter these words, to exorcise the demons of the air — a remnant, doubtless, of ancient times, when they used to offer honey and milk to appease the nymphs who raised the storm.

Daylight on our arrival at Tenos attested to the fearful ravages of the night. Our steamer was by no means the first to arrive, though the great day of the feast was yet two days off; and the horizon was dotted all over with steamers, caïques, and craft of various kinds, all bound for Tenos and the little town of St. Nicholas. I luckily had a letter for Mr. Kargádes ^gr, one of the commissaries of the feast; a very necessary precaution, judging from the crowds which were turned away from every door. ‘What are we to do?’ asked eager mothers with sickly infants in their arms. ‘May the God of the ravens help you!’ was the encouraging reply. Seventeen slept on the floor of a small anteroom in the house in which we lodged, and thought themselves lucky.

According to our friend the commissary’s computation, no less than 45,000 strangers visited the island from all parts of Hellas — Egyptian, Cypriote, Cretan Greeks, Greeks who had travelled for days and weeks from the inmost recesses of Asia Minor, all were assembled here to worship — and they have not only come to pray for their sick relatives and themselves, they have come to pray for the regeneration of their sick country and that their lot may be as the Cypriotes’.

A Lesbiote argued with me one day, saying how much better it would have been for England to take Lesbos, commanding, as it does, the entrance to the Gulf of Smyrna and the approach to the Dardanelles; but unfortunately his arguments were wasted; Cyprus had been chosen. The question now was about Egypt — Lesbos must wait.

Every pilgrim brought his present along with him in money or in kind, just as in former ages offerings and sacrifices were brought to the shrine of Delos. Thucydides, when he wrote of the crowds of women and children at Delos, of the musical and gymnastic contests, described the scene I saw. Mithridates, when he made Delos ádelos ^gr, little thought that the Greek nationality which he then sought to crush would burst forth again in all its vigour so close to the sacred birthplace of Apollo.

The narrow pier, the harbour, the windows, the balconies, the roofs of the houses encircling the harbour were darkened by an endless crowd. We could not turn when once drawn into the crush; scarcely could I move my hand as we were borne involuntarily through the little agora towards the broad street which led directly to the temple. The whole scene before us was like a dazzling dream — costumes, nationalities without end. The men for the most part wore baggy, loose trousers of blue glazed calico — vrakía ^gr, as they call them — all full of luggage dangling between their legs; a red sash kept these up; a loose embroidered waistcoat covered their shirt and a fez, placed sidewise, was on their heads. Greeks always adopt the costume of the country wherever they go. There is hardly any trace of ancient dress; Turkish, Albanian, Russian costumes meet at Tenos every year with Greeks inside. Occasionally in the islands you meet with the kouloúri ^gr, or twisted turban, also the troúlos ^gr, a sort of headgear like a Macedonian helmet, such as those we see on ancient vases; but every year these are getting rarer: the old women who wear them get laughed at by their grandchildren, who affect flowers and feathers, and European trash. The kouloúri ^gr, indeed, is excessively pretty, being twisted coils of white around the head and a long streamer behind ; it is supposed to represent a serpent, and as such is emblematic of eternity.

This year the festival at Tenos fell in the Greek Lent. And the Lenten luxury of a pilgrim is also called a kouloúri ^gr, being a cake made like rings and covered with sesame seeds ^note. Eternity is likewise symbolised by these. The other Lenten luxuries of a devout Greek pilgrim are few. No meat, no eggs, on certain days no fish, and then the orthodox Church admits of no compromise, no purchase by money of absolution for indulgence. Herbs are the common food, and sweets innumerable, also cakes, called lachanopetta, composed of spinach mixed with onions and oil, fried, and then put in pastry. When Lent is over butter takes the place of oil.

Our ears were assailed by a perpetual din; not only the shops, but even many of the private houses had been turned into wine shops, and had vegetable stalls in front of them, the owners having retired into a back room and given up their best apartments to the strangers. Down by the quay most of the commodities for sale were eatables, baskets of fish, bread, olives, caviare. Then there were cookshops redolent of savoury dishes, which were being fried on charcoal fires; barbers’ shops, the haunts of perpetual gossip; and all the way up to the temple were small open air stalls, from behind which the cries were almost deafening, and containing pyramids of kouloúri ^gr, almonds, and cans of Kalvas. Next came articles of apparel, men’s hats, secondhand clothes, curious illustrations of the Russo-Turkish War, in which the Turks were invariably being severely punished, black and chestnut-coloured beads (kombológia ^gr), metal phylacteries, bone crosses, small tin phials for the holy oil, and bigger ones for the holy water. All was one prolonged din as we ascended the hill.

Then there were funny peep-shows; a mechanical hare dressed like a coachman, and moving his ears and head; and many pilgrims invested their ten lepta (one penny) to have their fortunes told by doves, which have been trained to put their beaks into a wooden box and to draw out coloured papers on which fortunes were printed, after the fashion of our crackers. I tarried some time near these winged Pythians, and one event amused me much: a middle-aged man and his wife consulted the oracle; they got a paper, but could not read it, so the proprietor of the doves volunteered to do so, and read as follows: ‘Your only fault is that you are slightly addicted to drink, and when drunk you tyrannise over your wife, who is better than you. To be happy you must abandon this vice.’ The bystanders laughed and the old man blushed and led his wife on. Perhaps the Pythian oracle had spoken true.

Further on a blind beggar was sitting and singing in a dull, melancholy dirge, and shaking his box for alms, like Homer did, I dare say. This long street is a perfect medley of chaplets, knives, games, crosses, sweets, fresh fruits, linen, holy pictures, ornaments, cooking utensils — everything, in fact, to supply the appetite, religious and carnal, of the pilgrims, many of whom bivouac on the hillside to avoid the extortion of the town. Tenos is celebrated for its rogues on these occasions; fifty of them I saw shipped off at once to Syra jail, and amongst the modern Greek islanders ‘a Teniote’ is a by-word for laziness. In this feast week money for the rest of the year must be made: they cook for their guests, they lay open their houses to them, and they extort money, just as the inhabitants of ancient Delos used to do hundreds of years ago. A proverb is well known amongst the pilgrim-goers, which runs as follows :–

The church on the hillside looked beautifully clean and fresh, being built of white marble from the quarries at the north of the island. A handsome marble staircase led up to the entrance, into which several old columns are introduced, which were brought from one of the temples on Delos again to serve for a similar purpose. Beneath the church the vaults were teaming with pilgrims, for here is the eúresis ^gr, the holy of holies, where the miracle-working picture was found. Around the courtyard, which covers above an acre, were receptacles for the human beings here assembled. Under the dome of the entrance, and about the courtyard, the goods sold were all religious, and the stalls of the icon-sellers ^gr were a perfect gallery of quaint pictures. The silversmiths here were driving a rattling trade, selling silver legs, arms, eyes, houses, hearts, steamers, cows, as tributes of thankfulness to be hung in the church by some pilgrim whose safety from disaster came under any of these heads. They sold their wares just like Demetrius the silversmith sold his to the worshippers at the temple of Diana at Ephesus. Through all this crowd the supplicants press with candles and offerings; some carry young babies, still unbaptized, that they may be expressly consecrated to the Madonna; and at the baptismal ceremony here whosoever first succeeds in snatching the baby from the priest after its immersion becomes its godfather, and it is curious to see the struggle between two or three for this honour. Not unfrequently you see a mother weigh her baby in scales, putting enough candles into the other balance to outweigh the baby, which candles are given to the Madonna during the festival.

Close to the entrance is a small well which was presented by an Ottoman Turk to the Madonna, and on my expressing surprise at seeing this I was told that many Turks believe in the efficacy of her miracles, and come to be healed.

Friday was the great day of the feast, and on the eve of the event the 45,000 pilgrims were wrought up to the highest pitch of excitement; crowds flocked to the church, which it was scarcely possible to enter. Three commissaries sat at desks dose to the door collecting the offerings of the faithful; my friend asked us to sit by his side for a time and watch the haul — jewellery, embroidery, silver ornaments, bread, cakes of beeswax, money of all nations — nothing seemed to come amiss. The money was consigned to coffers beneath the desks, and men were in attendance with baskets to carry off the bulkier articles; in return for their offerings each person received a candle, which he lighted, and during the burning of this he supposed himself more subject to receive benefit from the healing exhalations which they say rise from the vaults below by means of marble gratings.

Twenty thousand pounds, my friend told me, was considered below the average sum realised at one of these feasts, when all the cheating was done, for of course there is much of this, and the post of commissary is one keenly contested for. The priests grow rich, and so do the inhabitants of Tenos; yet after all they do a great deal of good with their 20,000l.; orphanages and charities of various sorts are maintained out of the proceeds of the panegyris at Tenos.

The shrine of Tenos is reckoned especially beneficial to the eyes. Blind men, women, and children lie for hours with their eyes fixed on the gratings through which the healing vapour is supposed to ascend. Perhaps the priests, when they concocted this programme for the sufferers, had been reading that passage in Aristophanes which recommends a plaster of Tenos garlic tor diseases of the eye; for Tenos is celebrated for the fineness of its garlic; and the exhalations from the crowded vaults were redolent with the odour of this herb.

It was a fine starry night, and the thousands of little oil lamps which decorated the church and its steeple rivalled the lights of the celestial hemisphere in their twinklings. Patience, assisted now and again by an ingenious push, enabled us to get inside and witness the weird sights in the church — men and women were there grovelling on their knees; cripples, blind and halt, were imploring the favour of the Madonna; further on, a woman, after standing ominously still for a while, as if contemplating the scene, was suddenly seized with religious frenzy. She shrieked, she threw her arms about, and was carried out in wild hysteria. This frenzy was most infectious, and presently the whole church was full of hideous yells and maddened suppliants who are supposed when in this state to be under the special influence of the Deity. There is something that carries one’s mind back to antiquity in the way these crowds are lodged. In olden days no inns existed on Delos, and at the festivals places of shelter were found near and in the temple. Now in Tenos the old custom of incubatio (enkoímisis ^gr) is continued, for when invalids aspire to a perfect cure they must sleep in the church for a night at least. In many of the temples of Aesculapius rooms were provided for the reception of invalids who wished to try this cure (Paus. ii. 27); it is the same to-day in Tenos.

Up in the gallery of the church crowds were collected, with their beds, their carpets, and their cooking utensils; for this portion of the church had been given up as a lodging house to those who were lucky enough to find room. Luckier still were those who could find a few inches of ground on which to lay their bed down in the vault beneath, for in the eúresis^gr they think they breathe sacred air. This vault or crypt is low, but little higher than a tall man’s stature, and the denseness of the atmosphere was intensely stifling. Close to us as we entered were three blind men, holding on to one another, groaning and striking their breasts; behind them was a sinister form, which barked, as it were, not able to speak, and wriggled at my feet like a fish. Further on was a poor girl, in the last stage of consumption, leaning for support on her sister. A Greek islander has a horror of this disease; he believes that four Erinyes stand at each corner of the room in which the sufferer dies ready to pounce upon a survivor. An old man on all fours hindered our progress; and close to him a madman stood, still for the time being, but ominously so. A damsel stretched on the knee of her mother was relating, like Ophelia, in subdued and mysterious voice, some secret of her distraught brain, whilst her mother offered up a never-ceasing prayer to the all-healing Madonna for the recovery of her child’s intellect.

It was piteous to look at a noble form leaning against the wall: she had a Greek type of countenance; her hair was black, and hung in rich tresses down her back; her eyes were almond-shaped, her nose straight; she seemed like a sister of the Caryatides, but, alas! like them, she was deaf. I advanced and found myself before a hole which led into an inner vault, and thence another opened out, but I could stand no more. Sick and faint, I reached the open air after a struggle with the pilgrims, who were eagerly pushing in with their little tin phials they had bought outside to fill with water from the sacred stream. Others, too, were buying consecrated oil from the priests, which they poured into the eyes of their children, and which they were going to take home in little tins to their friends who could not come.

The priests were making piles of money down here by the sale of oil and water, by the administration of the holy services of their Church, by voluntary contributions, and so forth. They were worming their way amongst the sufferers, comforting the excited, exciting the weak-minded; and here this crowd was prepared to pass the night, as it had already passed several, with their mattresses wedged tightly one against the other, regardless of the poisonous vapours around them. Several babies, I heard afterwards, were killed in this crush, and I wondered if the Madonna’s healing power could avert the sickness which must arise from the pestilential stench.

The interior of the church is not very striking except for the crowd and the colouring. Within a gilded box, on a kind of altar (proskynetérion^gr) the celebrated icon ^gr is enclosed. Its height is scarcely a foot, and its width only one and a half. The head of the Virgin and the angel Gabriel only are seen through holes, the rest is hidden with gold and precious stones.

Before this the pilgrims were bending in deep adoration and devoutly kissing the holes. They have done well to protect the picture itself from the ravages of the Greek kisses, by which they wear all their icons away, reminding us of the statue of Hercules at Agrigentum, the mouth and chin of which were worn away by the kisses of the faithful, as Cicero tells us (‘In Ver.’ ii. 443). The lamps, too, which are hung all round the church are but the successors of the lime lamp ^gr of antiquity, which they still hang not only in the temples, but in the sacraria of their own private houses. Then the procession, too, had its equivalent in the ancient cult; except in name things are in very truth but little changed.

Close to the sacred picture stood a tin erection for the yellow candles, which were being constantly put up; in a quarter of an hour I counted more than one hundred, some as thick as a man’s arm. Many leave handkerchiefs on this candlestick for hours, and then return to take them away, believing that, with the grease that has fallen on them, they have been imbued with virtue. Above the sacred picture from the roof was hanging a golden oil lamp with red lights, presented by an Athenian tobacconist. It is thought very efficacious to have bits of cotton dipped in this, and a man is employed from morning to night dipping these in and handing them to the pilgrims.

How curious is the mixture of faces — eager mothers with paralysed children; old men who have vowed to kiss this picture once before they died; robbers, too, who have escaped from justice, but not from the prickings of their own conscience!

A Greek crowd is imaginative, witty, full of fun; one party of pilgrims was jesting with another, and the greatest good-nature prevailed. A suitable enigma was asked in my hearing amidst peals of laughter. Twelve oxen, four rakes, one hundred and fifty reapers, and the crop was only three bushels of corn? The answer proved it to be a sort of religious joke, treasured doubtless for the occasion. Twelve apostles, four evangelists, and one hundred and fifty Psalms teach us about a Trinity.

Another joke which I heard on the next day, which proved to be wet, I thought decidedly better: ‘A church dome, sir, with only one pillar to support it?’ The allusion to my umbrella was obvious.

Down in the town quite another scene greeted us. Those pilgrims who had effected their cure or done their devotions were enjoying themselves vastly in the café. Dancing was the order of the night; those curious weird dances of the Greek islands, for example, the sýrtos ^gr, a wavy line of five or six women, hand in hand, and led by a pocket handkerchief by one man, whose acrobatic executions were wonderful to behold. Then there was the rapid dance performed by rows of men with their arms round each other’s shoulders, four steps backwards, four forwards, with pointed toe, first slowly, with the pace increased till I was almost dazzled by its rapidity.

A man, a noted dancer, performed for the benefit of the others who are tired: he turned somersaults in his white fustanella; he brandished knives in an alarming manner as he rushed to and fro; altogether he was a terrible performer, an Albanian Greek from the mainland mountains, they said.

Early in the morning of the great day, March 25, fresh steamers discharged crowds of sickly-looking individuals, for the night had been rough and a perfect hurricane was blowing.

Prior to the procession an interesting ceremony took place in the church, to which I gained admittance through the kindness of my friend. With doors closed and windows bolted, to exclude the common herd, the miraculous picture was taken out of its box to be washed, and when it came out of its retirement I strained my eyes to see it; certainly it looked old and black enough for anything, but it was by no means a work of art, resembling an early German painting. Some roughly carved ornaments stuck on with wax adorned the frame, many of which fell off; those that did and those that were loose the officiating priest distributed as great prizes to the eager few who by favour or payment had gained admittance. A priest then wiped the picture with cotton wool, which material was eagerly scrambled for afterwards. Then the frame was washed with water three or four times, and the water which came off was collected in cans and again distributed to those who had brought phials with them on purpose to receive it.

Three rich blind Greeks next had a special service performed for their benefit; ‘their last chance of recovery’ whispered my friend to me. How eager the poor things were! and how hard they prayed as the priest placed the picture on their heads, allowed them to kiss it, and applied it to their foreheads and their eyes! It was a melancholy sight, not easily forgotten.

Then the picture was restored to its shrine, locked up again, and the people who had been clamouring outside were re-admitted. At ten o’clock the mystic procession started on its tour round the town. Bombs (máskoula ^gr) were exploded as soon as the ‘litany’, as it is called, appeared on the threshold of the church. All the bells of Tenos pealed, salutes from ships in the harbour responded, and, amidst drizzling rain and a piercing wind, the procession set off on its way.

The sea of men rolled beneath me, for I had secured a seat for the occasion on a balcony; and as it went past it looked like a carpet sparkling with every colour — gold-embroidered tunics, snow-white fustanella, gorgeously embroidered skirts and vests from Asia sparkling with gold and silver coins, rich furs, and the more humble green and blue dresses of the islanders, mingled with a tinge of gaudy parasols and tall hats from the more civilised Athens. It was a sight to rivet and dazzle one.

Érchetai, érchetai !^gr (it comes) was heard on all sides in a dull murmur ; the procession was coming, and the crowd solemnly divided so as to make a passage for the priests. On the steps of the sanctuary the priests were marshalled, in rich vestments, carrying banners round the holy icon ^gr then as a breath of wind disturbs a pool so did the advent of the procession disturb the almost breathless crowd below. Everyone made the sign of the cross and lowered his head in silence as it passed; and then when it was gone the murmur and the noise again increased — the sacred ceremony was over.

Down by the harbour, in the agora, a prayer was held; the crowd shouted zéto ^gr (‘Let her live!’ i.e. the Madonna), and the picture was taken back to its home. Scarcely had the ‘litany’ returned to the church than the town was alive with a din of another sort; namely, that made by the criers and steamer agents announcing their immediate departure. But first of all a large crowd was assembled round the peristyle of the church to get portions of sacred bread which was being doled out by servitors. Kyrios Kargades gave us a huge piece and a picture of the eikon, which had occupied our attention so much.

After midday the steamers sailed away, crowded with eager, struggling pilgrims — hungry, sleepy, worn-out, wretched, for the most part, after the week’s dissipation; but first of all the wide-winged report of miracles was let out amongst them. They did not see the happy cured ones; these were kept back wisely, no doubt under the excuse that the excitement of being exposed to the admiration and wonder of so great a crowd might be too much for their nerves; but printed accounts of miracles wrought were handed to each pilgrim as he went — no matter if it were the same list that was given to him the year before — he takes it home to read to his friends, who will then be eager to visit so marvellous a shrine in the following year.

The widespread honour paid to the Madonna of Tenos throughout Greece is wonderful. If a peasant girl is ill she vows what she likes best to the Queen of queens; on recovery she reflects that it is her hair. Accordingly, next year she takes or sends her long tresses as a present to the shrine, reminding one of what Pausanias saw at Titane, in Sicyonia, for he could not see plainly a statue of Hygeia for the quantity of hair and silk stuff which women had hung up as a sacrifice to it. A mother perhaps vows her sick daughter, when on the point of death, to the Madonna; the daughter recovers, and does not fall in with her mother’s wishes, so the mother has to make a pilgrimage to Tenos to appease the Madonna’s wrath, and does not escape without making a handsome present to the shrine.

A year later, whcn I reached St. Nicholas one sunny afternoon in March by steamer from Mykonos, the vast difference in the appearance of the island was something indescribable. We skirted the green tufa rocks on the south side, and put into the open roadstead of St. Nicholas, with no other vessel in it but our own, one tiny boat sufficed to remove all that was to be deposited at Tenos this time. The green pier was all our own this time, and into the little agora chairs were brought for us to sit upon and wait for the eparch, to whom we had a letter. The stillness of death seemed to reign over the place that we had left in such a hurricane of excitement. But now we could study the spot and its inhabitants at our leisure, and notice things which in the bustle had escaped us.

The town looked especially white and clean, this whiteness being relieved only by occasional coloured carpets and rugs hung over the balconies, and yellow Venetian blinds, for the most part closed. They are a better class of house than you find in most islands, many having two storeys and slated roofs, whilst others are buried peacefully in olive gardens, with a few palms here and there. The churches, too, are white, and have curious three-storeyed minarets. The population just now looked sleepy and civilised; indeed, as regards dress they were thoroughly European, being in constant communication with Syra, and at the festival time they have an opportunity of learning the fashions from Athenian Greeks.

It was not our purpose to tarry long in the town on this visit, and at break of day mules were ready to take us into the interior, to explore those round hills above, for Tenos is an extensive island, being an eparchy to itself and having a population of 30,000 souls, of whom many are Roman Catholics; for, next to Syra, Tenos has perhaps of all the islands in the archipelago been most in communication with the West. It is only 160 years since the last Proveditore of Venice left Tenos, and the last stronghold of Christendom in the archipelago definitely became Turkish.

That evening was the last but one of Carnival, an evening when masqueraders (koukouiéroi ^gr) parade the streets, pay hurried visits to their friends, and disturb the quiet of the evening with uncouth yells. This fell rather flat upon us, but served to remind us that it would be necessary to provide for the morrow; and a lamb was purchased to fortify us against the austerities of the Lenten fast.

We took a quiet stroll that evening up to the Church of the Evangelistria, and wandered through the corridors which in another three weeks would be peopled, as we saw them, with pilgrims. In one of these corridors we saw some remains of antiquity — a statue of the Roman period. Antiquities in Tenos are rather meagre. Strabo, the traveller’s vade mecum in these parts, tells us that Tenos had only one town, and that that was small; but by certain inscriptions we find that the island was divided into demes, the names of which bear no relation to the present nomenclature.

It is easy to see that the old town existed where now St Nicholas stands, for just outside the town, on the hill slope, are traces of ancient walls, nearly six feet thick, by the side of which the present mule-track goes, until they end in a sort of acropolis or two watchtowers about forty feet apart, and of which walls twenty feet high are still left standing. In the town itself several recent discoveries have led to the identification of various buildings. There was a jetty, which is still visible, in the water, and where the main street, leading to the Evangelistria, turns out of the agora, was once the gymnasium, the portico of which was found in a garden opposite; and probably seventeen small pillars standing four feet apart belonged to this building.

But there is no trace whatsoever of that renowned temple of Poseidon, where, as we learn from the Elgin Marbles, tablets were put up to the victors in the great singing contests held here. The temple was erected to Poseidon, so runs the legend told us by Pliny, because he cast the vipers (Ténia échidna ^gr) out of the island. Nor is there a trace of the temple of Dionysos mentioned by Strabo. All over the island, as elsewhere amongst the Cyclades, there are traces of watchtowers. One at Ando, near Cardiani, is in a good state of preservation, but inferior to those in Andros, Amorgos, and Keos. Archaeologists have not gained much out of Tenos, though Ross tells us he was well pleased with a statue of Hermes he secured here.

At eight o’clock the following morning we were in the saddle, and the peculiar Teniote mule-cry ‘óxo ntes’ ^gr rang pleasantly in our ears as we climbed the hillsides, bare and bleak as they are, except for the large low fig-trees which spread their branches far and wide. Immediately our eyes were caught by the great characteristic of Tenos, namely, the dovecotes. Every field has one, and curious objects they are, with bricks placed crisscross for holes, and quaint imitations of doves on the eaves. Below each is a room for the agricultural implements of the husbandmen who own the field, and the birds swarm around.

Is Tenos sacred to Venus? I thought, and then a strange parallel occurred to me. Surely Delos was celebrated for its doves in ancient days, and Délios kolymbídιs ^gr was a well-known proverb in ancient Hellas. And here they are again, a speciality of the Panhellenic shrine. Some of these dovecotes are excessively pretty, when the clay soil which is placed on their roofs has streaked them with orange and yellow, and when the little chapel, with perhaps ancient pillars at its entrance, is joined to them; for every proprietor in Tenos possesses a chapel as well as a dovecote on his holding, and these are often side by side. Here the farmer has his warehouse (apothíki ^gr) where he keeps his honey, his wine, his distillery for making raki, and other produce of his soil. In former years a great trade in doves went on in Tenos, but latterly very few more than are used for home consumption are kept, and many dovecotes are empty and crumbling into ruins. Wherever you go in Tenos these yellow crumbling ruins of a bygone industry form a pleasant object in the landscape, and I could not help wondering whether the Venetians got their taste for doves from their island dependency.

Crowning the loftiest summit of Tenos is the old Venetian town and fortress of Exóburgo covered with ruins around the rock which is bright with an orange-coloured lichen; and two ruined churches with curious towers, half Oriental, half Italian, recall memories of the Queen of the Adriatic. Everything is now delivered up to the jackals and the ravens; not a house has a roof on, the cellars are full of water and lovely maidenhair; but the streets can still be traced, and the importance of this Venetian colony is attested by its ruins.

A superb view on the summit amply repaid the climb. Every one of the Cyclades is spread out as though on a map at one’s feet. With a clear sky even the Sporades may be seen; and scarcely any distance off lies Delos, the sacred speck of ancient worship; and to the north the snowy mountain peaks of Euboea, hugging the mainland of Greece, fill up the horizon.

From this rock of Exóburgo it is interesting to look back on the mediaeval fortunes of this island. In 1678, when Spon and Wheeler visited it, there were only three or four houses down by the quay amongst the ruins of the old town where St. Nicholas now stands, and on this rock of Exóburgo the inhabitants of the whole island could take refuge in case of danger. Even the terrible Barbarossa, who carried devastation far and wide in the Cyclades, could not take this fortress, and when it was surrendered to the Turks in 1714 it was only owing to the pusillanimity of the then Venetian governor. Ross when he came in 1835 found two convents still inhabited up here, but now it is nothing but a deserted eyrie, like all its comrades in the Aegean Sea.

Tenos, owing to this fortress, has always been a strong place; it offered a long resistance to the Venetians in the first instance, but eventually became a fief of the Ghisi family, until it was regularly governed by a Proveditore from Venice. Barbarossa besieged it in vain, and in 1570 a renegade Hungarian, Piali Pasha, made a descent on the island, spent ten days in ravaging it, but failed to take it, owing to Exóburgo; three years later a Venetian governor, Proveditore Moro, repulsed the Turks again, so they gave up the attempt as hopeless. Tournefort in 1700 found it in a state of great dilapidation: ‘Fourteen badly dressed soldiers formed the garrison, seven of whom are French deserters. The Proveditore’s post does not bring him in two thousand crowns, and therefore at Venice they look upon it as a place of mortification.’

No wonder fourteen years later we learn that Proveditore Balbi, not caring about his post, in spite of the supplications of the Roman Catholic families, who came in a body to implore him to stay, delivered it up to the Turks, and left it with full military honours. On reaching Venice Balbi was put in prison for life, but the deed was done, and the last stronghold of Christendom was lost to Venice, and two hundred Roman Catholic families were transported to the shores of Africa.

Exóburgo must have been inaccessible; indeed, it was all we could do, scrambling amongst ruins of houses and walls, to get down. It must have been a wretchedly cold spot, too, and I do not wonder at Proveditore Balbi being desirous to quit it. Luckily for us it was a fine, warm day, but for most of the time we had it in sight it was enveloped in a misty cloud, and when the north wind blows it must be simply intolerable.

Another striking characteristic of Tenos are the cowsheds (voïdispítia ^gr ) erected in fields out of the stone peculiar to Tenos and Andros, being large slabs which they easily break off out of the quarries. The result is that these cowsheds immediately strike the traveller as ancient Hellenic remains of the Pelasgic period, for in these cowsheds you might almost picture yourself in the gallery of Tiryns. I must confess to feeling doubtful about the first I saw, but when they were frequently repeated — and, moreover, I saw terraces for holding up earth, made of the same stone, and the ceilings of churches and houses, too, where in other islands they use canes — the truth became obvious.

Tenos is very Roman Catholic still. At the time of Tournefort we learn that in processions Latin ecclesiastics actually took precedence of Greek, and in every Greek church was an altar reserved exclusively for the Latins.

On leaving Exóburgo we wended our way northwards through villages, bearing evidence of the Latin rule, entered by narrow gateways and containing narrow streets, with houses overhanging the footways; so that mules have to be unloaded at one end of the village, and the baggage carried through and put on again at the other end. Over the doors were lots of escutcheons of the Latin families, and at the village of Loutrá, so called from some baths which were there, we found several objects of interest; principal amongst them perhaps was the nunnery, presided over by an English lady, Miss Leeves, who has established herself in this remote corner of the earth. She once lived in Euboea with her brother and his wife, but in 1856 Mr. and Mrs. Leeves and their child were murdered, and the sister removed to Tenos; and here in this quiet valley Miss Leeves has assembled thirty-three nuns, and fifty-five young Greek ladies are educated under her roof.

Again Loutrá deserves a visit from an architectural point of view. The streets are narrow and quaint, and over the door of each house there is a curiously carved fanlight, semicircular and in marble; in different compartments of these are represented doves, horses, ships, palm trees, according to the taste or occupation of the owner. Now and again, too, you can see the escutcheon of a Venetian family which once occupied the house, whilst on the doorstep may be sitting now a Greek mother spinning away as she sings her nanárisma ^gr or lullaby, to her child, which she rocks with one foot in its cradle, improvised out of a kneading trough.

Loutrá is a very picturesque spot indeed, worthy of being visited by an artist. Below lies the only fertile strip of flat country in Tenos, for from the sea the island looks like a huge ball rising out of the waves. Instances of the religious tendency of the inhabitants met us at every turn. We never passed a well without seeing in its vaulted roof a frescoed picture of the Madonna or a marble relief of some saint, wreathed now, through neglect, with maidenhair, but none the less pretty for that. That evening we returned late to St. Nicholas, and actually passed the night at an inn; it was delightful both to mind and body once more ‘to take mine ease at mine inn’ after months of travel amongst hospitable, but occasionally rather boring, families, whose idea of hospitality was never to leave us alone, for fear we should be dull.

The following day was ‘clean Monday’ (kathará devtéra ^gr) in the Greek Church, the first day of Lent, on which the pious eat only clean food, and do not cook, so as not to have to dirty their saucepans. It is curious that custom has converted this day into one of the most festive of carnival feasts, for they dance, they drink, and otherwise amuse themselves; in fact, most of the men make a sort of Bacchic orgy of the day, cleaning out their internals with wine, so as to be prepared for the Lenten fast; only they scrupulously abstain from flesh or fish.

Our programme for this day was first to visit a famous nunnery on the slopes of the mountain called Kaikrovounó ^gr, which overshadows St. Nicholas. This is the only extensive nunnery left in the Cyclades; the others are either closed or on the point of being so at the expiration of a few aged lives. But this nunnery owes its existence to its connection with the Church of Evangelistria, and is supported out of the pilgrims’ pence. We rode along the dry bed of a torrent for some time before beginning our ascent; from a distance, and even when you are close to it, the nunnery looks like a considerable-sized fortified village perched on the mountain side; it has a wall all round it, and a gateway, just outside which is an inn for friends who come to visit the inmates. There are 110 nuns in all, and each nun has her separate little house; the church rises in the midst, consequently they have streets, or rather alleys radiating from this to where the nuns dwell, in which streets pigs, poultry, and filth abound, as in any other Greek community.

We entered the gateway under the image of our Lady of the Assumption, who presides over the place, and were looked upon with wondering eyes by some nuns, whose infirmities would not admit of their attending the service which was going on just then, so they were sitting and basking in the sunshine instead. These Greek nuns do not look at all like their Western sisters: they tie a black handkerchief under their chin to the top of their heads, like a bib, and another over their heads; on ordinary occasions they wear a black gown and shawl, but in church they have cassock-like coats, after the fashion of the priests.

We asked for the lady superior (igouméni ^gr), but were told that she was in church, and that the ‘hours’ were going on, but if we liked we could go and join the worshippers. The sight was curious as we entered the church, thickly tenanted with nuns, young and old, withered and pretty, mumbling, chanting, and bowing. It was to us a weary ‘hour,’ standing in a stall, whilst the nuns went through their service, which consists in reading the Psalter with a ‘Gloria Patri.’ Then they have the metaniae, that is to say, bowing and kissing the ground three times after every fourth Psalm, and four times at the end of every tenth Psalm. The proper number of these metaniae in twenty-four hours is 300, I was told, but they are not obligatory; it was certainly wonderful to see how active some of the decrepid old nuns were in performing their metaniae and their perpetual prostrations must have an excellent effect on limbs that otherwise would be stiffened with years of inactivity.

Then how rapidly the officiating nun said her Kyrie Eleisons! which words have to be repeated a certain number of times at every service. On a day like ‘clean Monday’ everybody is supposed to attend all the ‘hours.’ In former days, before the Eastern Church got slovenly, there used to be nine ‘hours,’ but now they are done by ‘aggregation,’ that is to say, into Matins can be run Lauds and Primes; into the Liturgy can be run Tierces and Sexts; and into Vespers, Nones and Complines. Through the services the nuns wade all by themselves, chanting and singing everything; only a special priest is kept to perform the incensing and the mysteries behind the screen. The church is covered with wall paintings. How terrified these poor women must be if they believe all the horrors depicted on the walls of their church by the conventional art of the Byzantine School!

After the service we were guided by a troop of nuns to the guest chamber. The lady superior, Païsia by name, received us cordially in their plain room, furnished with the usual divan, sacred pictures, and a curious clock. Several sisters, with hypocritical faces, sat around us, talking for a long time about their ‘lovely, unworldly life,’ and then proceeded to tell us how poor they were, and produced home-made objects for sale — netted silk mittens, handkerchiefs, &c. some of which we had to buy. Their poverty is evident, for many of them have not a penny of their own, and are dependent solely on the eight or ten francs largess given monthly by the Church of Evangelistria for clothing and food.

Païsia told us much about the working of her nunnery: how every five years a superior is chosen by the votes of all the nuns; she is assisted in her duties by a council of four, chosen in the same manner, one out of each of the four degrees, namely, novices, hooded nuns, crossbearers, and those of the highest order (megaloschímoi ^gr). She told us, too, how many of her children, as she called them, had really never seen anything of the outer world, and how sweet to them from the cradle, when deserted by parents and friends, had become the austerity of their secluded life. Now that Lent has begun, the nuns who are strong enough eat absolutely nothing for the first three days, drinking only a little water. After that, rice boiled in water is to be their daily food except on Saturdays, when they may put a little oil in. This is their Lenten fare; when fasting time is over they sometimes eat fish and drink a little wine, but never does meat pollute their mouths. It is almost impossible to believe in the atomic diet on which a Greek can subsist until you have been days with a muleteer, whose only food is olives and a crust of bread; and yet he never gets tired.

Païsia, luckily for us, was not so strict a disciplinarian as some we met, and we were allowed to eat some of our lamb that we had brought with us; nay, even she went so far as to supply us with figs and wine out of their own storeroom, though it was the first day of Lent. After our meal was over a rather pretty sister was told off to conduct us round the place: we wandered into the houses, chatted with the nuns, saw their handiwork, and made some more purchases. Then our friend took us to the cemetery. What a horrible place that was! just a small chapel surrounded by a few tombs, marked by nothing but sticks, with no other epitaph on than a number. The chapel was bare and unadorned inside, except for a terrifying wall painting representing the archangel Gabriel, sword in hand, as if ready to annihilate the beholder; and then our guide opened a door to the left, out of which a dank, fetid smell issued.

‘Come in and see the charnel-house (chonevtérion ^gr),’ said she cheerily. As we entered by the dim light we saw rows of female skulls, which seemed to glare at us with indignation for disturbing their repose. To our left was hanging what looked in the uncertain light to be spiders’ webs covered with dust. Our guide said:—

‘Whenever a novice comes her hair is cut off and hung up here. Let me see,’ she said, pausing and shaking a grimy tangled mass, ‘this is mine, number 1003: when I die I shall be buried for three years, dug up again, my skull put up on that shelf, my bones packed in yonder cupboard, and I shall be entered in the deadbook as number 1003.’

We were not sorry to bid adieu to this strange monastic village, and to enter the world again. Our path led us through two villages on the hillside; at one of these, Arnades, celebrated for its lambs, and called therefrom, I bought a pretty little ancient lamp, which a cottager had in use in his house; further on I picked up on the roadside one of those basalt stones, with grooves in it, used in ancient times for polishing marble; so Tenos, even in its hill country, is not without evidences of antiquity.

These hill-set villages of Tenos are particularly dark and gloomy. You can go from house to house by the roofs without troubling the dingy streets; they have steps by which you can ascend from one roof to the other; and the inhabitants seem chiefly to live on their roofs, abandoning the filth below to traffic and pigs.

Close to Arnades are two villages, called dio choriá ^gr, or the two places, being quite close together; and here we came in for some of the gaiety incident on the first day of Lent; the sound of music and revelry filled the valley, and from afar off we descried the cause. All the villagers had turned out on the roofs, and on this flat surface were dancing away vigorously. As no other flat space occurs in or near the village they are driven to make a ballroom of their roof. In Tenos they mend their mud roofs with brick dust ground in a mortar and made into a paste; this strengthens them and makes them very pliable.

The dancers had put a flag up, and spread a white cloth on the roof for their repast, which consisted of olives, onions, bread, and wine in a large amphora. They were dancing to the tune of a sabouna, and what to us was a new instrument, called a monosampilos, and consisting of a small gourd fixed at one end of two reeds and a cow’s horn at the other. The music produced by this instrument was quaint and shrill, like that of a bagpipe or the sabouna, which in this case was made of the skin of a goat, with all the hair left on, so that when the musician put it down it looked quite alive, and palpitated visibly.

For a long time they continued to dance the inevitable syrtos, until they had had lusty and long pulls at their amphora of wine — and the wine of Tenos is by no means light, for here they made, and make still, the far-famed Malvasianor, or, as we know it better, Malmsey wine. And in ancient times, on the reverse of a Teniote coin, we see a bunch of grapes, with Poseidon on the obverse, pointing to the same reputation. Then they started a dance called by them ‘the carnival dance’ (apokreotikós chorós ^gr), which they said they were privileged to dance on the first day of Lent. It was a very amusing one: eight men took part in it with arms crossed, and moved slowly in a semicircle, with a sort of bounding step, resembling a mazurka. Occasionally the leader took a long stride, by way of adding point to the dance, but they never indulged in the acrobatic features of the syrtos, and never went so very fast; the singing as they danced was the chief feature and fascination of this carnival dance, and their voices, as they moved round and round, to the shrill accompanying music, had a remarkable effect. The words of their song, which I took down afterwards, formed a sort of rhyming alphabetical love song. It is needless to say that A stood for love (agapi ^gr). Θ spoke of the death (thánatos ^gr) which would be courted if that M or apple (milos ^gr) of Paradise was obdurate. P stood for ródon ^gr, the rose, like which she smelt. Ψ was the lucky flea (psíllos ^gr) which could crawl over her adorable frame, and so on, till Ω closed the song and the dance with great emphasis, imploring for a favourable answer to the suit.

It was now time for us to bid farewell, as the shades of evening were drawing on, and we were some miles from St. Nicholas. We passed other revellers on our road, but stopped to look at none, save a party of small children who had got a flag, a small bottle of wine, olives and bread, and were imitating the revelry of their elders on a threshing floor by the roadside.

Next morning early we left St. Nicholas, doubtless for ever, and wound our way on muleback along the western coast of Tenos on our way to the northernmost demarchy, Panormos by name. Well for us that the Teniote mules were trustworthy, for we had to pass along one of the worst paths we had yet seen in the Cyclades — more like a series of little precipices than a road. ‘Our mules are better than those of any other island,’ remarked our muleteer with the usual insular conceit. And to prove it he told me a story of how an old blind man came this way regularly on his mule on his way to St Nicholas; and not only did he implicitly trust to his mule down these precipitous paths, but he left it to the mule to choose the house where he should stay when he got to St Nicholas. ‘This mule is very fond of change,’ he added, ‘consequently no one knows when the mule may not stop at their door, and they may have the old blind man as their guest.’

Near the little harbour of Stavros we passed by what our guide pointed out to us as the site of the ruins of the temple of Poseidon, but I could see no grounds for such an assertion on his part — only a few foundations of walls and the traces of an old watchtower.

Up in the mountains all was mist to-day; we rode past a hamlet composed of mandras of nothing but Teniote slabs, which looked quite archaic through the mist that encircled them, and midday found us at Kardiané, a pretty place climbing up the mountain side, and overhanging the sea, like a Riviera village, with a tall white church tower and pretty balconies to each house. We lunched in one of these festooned with vines, and having large earthenware amphorae picturesquely stuck about at haphazard; also lovely gourds which were drying a rich orange colour, plants of geranium in full bloom; and through olive trees we peeped down at the sea beneath us as we consumed our meal.

Nothing can be more trying than the sudden changes of temperature in these islands. At Kardiané we basked in the sunshine; half an hour later, on ascending the mountain, we were cut to pieces by a biting north wind; and when we reached a cleft in the mountain full of windmills, before reaching which I knew what our fate would be, we encountered one of the most biting blasts I ever felt.

Tenos is especially noted for its winds. A legend here still tells you that the winds live in caves at the north of the island; they tell you, too, that Michael, the archangel, once slew here two refractory north winds, and placed pillars on their tombs, one of which rocks when the north wind blows. What a curious survival this is of the legend of Hercules, who slew Zetes and Kalais, sons of Boreas, near this island with arrows, over whose tombs two sepulchral stelae rocked when Boreas blew!

There are many legends about the winds, which have survived the lapse of ages. Kír Boréas ^gr, Mr. Northwind, as they call him, is always a dreaded visitor. He lives, they say, ‘somewhere up there,’ pointing vaguely towards Thrace, in a palace of ice and snow; but Mr. Southwind chose to blow one day and melted it all, so that nothing was left save the tears, which flowed riverwards. On the feast day at Tenos they say that the wind which blows has conquered the other winds and will prevail for the rest of the year; when we were there it was one of the most biting north winds I ever experienced, and it was most probable that Kír Boréas ^gr would prevail for the rest of the year, for in these islands the north wind blows incessantly in summer, making them cool and refreshing even in July and August.

We reached Hysternia after an hour’s ride — a dark, gloomy place, with brown houses and brown pig-dirtied streets, with nothing of interest save the elegant fanlights over the doors and windows, differing considerably from those of Loutrá, as they represented stars, the sun, &c.; so after a short rest we pushed on to Pyrgos, which is the chief village of this northern deme, where the demarch lives, to whom we had a letter. It is a very flourishing place, and the centre of the marble district, from whence have come all those marble window-tops we had admired elsewhere; and in the centre of the village they have erected an elaborate marble well, and a marble cage in which the washerwomen work, in the middle of the agora. The villagers were seated under a wide-spreading plane-tree as we approached, from amongst whom the demarch emerged to give us greeting.

Pyrgos is one of the prettiest villages of the islands, being quite Alpine in character, situated, as it is, in a hollow basin surrounded by lofty mountains. A river leaping from rock to rock runs down the central street, and is spanned by pretty wooden bridges. From the demarch’s house, which is higher than its neighbour, we had a lovely view over almond trees, now in blossom, cypresses, mingled with the yellow and white houses, with the rugged peaks of the Mount Prophet Elias of Tenos as a background. Most of these houses have productive gardens. The demarch took us to his, where he complained that his neighbours’ hens were wont to trespass; and he laughingly told me that here at Pyrgos the women had a charm for keeping their hens from trespassing, which he intended to make his neighbours use: it is as follows:—

‘When you see the first stars of an evening, sing this song, “O star, first star, I have three basins — one of silver, one of gold, and one of lead. I want neither the silver one nor the gold, but spare me the lead, that I may prevent my hens from eating the crops.” If you sing this song with implicit faith your hens will never trespass.’

Curious and meaningless as these incantations sound, nevertheless the women still believe in them. Later on at dinner we opened the subject again, and the demarch’s daughter, who stood in the background ready to attend to our wants, was constantly referred to as an authority on this subject. She told us a most efficacious one against the bite of the very poisonous serpents which, in spite of what Poseidon may once have done towards ridding the island from them, are still very numerous, and account for the name of Ophiousa, by which Tenos was once known, and the name of ‘Teniote evils’ which was commonly applied to vipers.

‘Spit first on your wound and say, “Elle, Elle agra!” three times, spitting before each time, and then say, “Pedé” without spitting, repeating these magic words nine times to effect a perfect cure.’

‘What do those words mean?’ I enquired of our host.

‘Nothing,’ was his reply; ‘we generally believe them to be Arabic; all I know is that they are most efficacious,’ and then he paused as if another idea had struck him which might interest us and continued: ‘Here at Pyrgos we never begin any new work on a Tuesday, for it was on that day that Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turks. Yet at Pyrgos we are reckoned more industrious than elsewhere in Tenos; we employ many hands in our marble quarries, we ship caïque-loads of marble from the port of Panormos, and no island has such good marble as ours.’ The old demarch spoke with great contentment and pride of his home, and we could not help wondering what the men of Paros would say if they heard this assertion about the value of the Teniote marble.

They are very primitive, these men of Pyrgos. In spite of their good opinion of themselves, even our host the demarch had but sorry fare and a still sorrier bedroom to offer us, with an ill shut door out into the open air and a blindless window into the common sitting-room. There were heaps of eikons, old chests, and censers, but not a luxury in this den.

Next morning we left Pyrgos early and returned to Hysternia by the temple of Aeolus, where the windmills were, and the customary doubt occurred as to whether the steamer which was to take us to Andros would come or not. After an hour’s delay we saw her steam out of the harbour of Syra, which gave us ample time to collect our traps and scramble down the hill to the port, or rather little open roadstead, before she arrived.

We crossed in safety the narrow strait between Tenos and Andros, justly feared now as in ancient days for its treacherous waves, being so near that dreaded and mythical spot Isiknia, where, mariners tell you, is the very home of the winds; after which we had time to enjoy an excellent meal provided for us by the steward of the ‘Elpis,’ and to turn over a new page in our diary.