GHOST STORIES AND TRAVELS IN GREECE

To go a little back in recollections of the eighties one of our friends was Lord Cairns, Lord Chancellor in 1868 and again from 1874 till, I believe, his death. Once when I was sitting near him at dinner, we were discussing ghost stories. He said that without giving them general credence he was impressed by one which had been told him by the wife of the Prussian Minister, Madame Bernstorff. (I think, though am not sure, that Bernstorff was Minister before there was a German Embassy.) The story was, briefly, that a man in Berlin had a dream, thrice repeated, in which a comrade appeared to him and said that he had been murdered, and that his dead body was being carried out of the city, covered with straw, by a certain gate. The man roused himself, told the police, the body was duly found and the murderers arrested. “Well,” said I, “I think I have read that story in Dryden, and believe he took it from Chaucer.” Sure enough I found the tale in “The Cock and the Fox,” Dryden’s modernised version of Chaucer’s “Tale of the Nun’s Priest”—but the amusing thing is that Dryden says,

“An ancient author, equal with the best,
Relates this tale of dreams among the rest”—

and a note explains that the “ancient author” was Cicero, from whose treatise, De Divinatione, the story was taken. I sent the book to Lord Cairns, who answered (June 25th, 1883): “It is Madame Bernstorff’s story to the letter! It was most kind of you to send it to me, and it is a fresh proof that there is nothing new under the sun! The ‘catena’ of Cicero—Chaucer—Dryden—Bernstorff is very amusing.”

Being a Lord Chancellor does not render a man immune from belief in ghosts. I have more than once heard the late Lord Halsbury relate his adventure in this line. As a young man he went to stay with a friend, who put him up for the night. After he had gone to bed, a figure entered his room, and taking it to be his host he spoke to it, but it made no reply and left as silently as it entered. At breakfast next morning he said to the master of the house—I suppose jokingly—“If you did come in my room last night I think you might have answered when I spoke to you.” Both his hosts looked embarrassed, and then his friend said, “Well, to tell you the truth, that room is considered to be haunted; but it is our best room, and my wife thought that a hard-headed lawyer would not be liable to be disturbed, so we put you there.” Mr. Giffard, as, Lord Halsbury then was, left without further incident, but some time after, meeting his friend again, he said, “Well, how’s your ghost getting on?” “Oh, my dear fellow,” was the reply, “don’t talk of my ghost. My aunt came to stay with me and we put her into that room. The ghost came in and tried to get into her bed, and she will never speak to me again!”

Lord Halsbury also had a story about a ghost who haunted his brother’s house in London. I think it was a little old woman, I cannot remember the details, but he certainly seemed to believe in it.

Talking of dreams and apparitions, though I cannot remember the year—probably in the early nineties—I recollect a rather amusing instance of the explosion of one of such stories when thoroughly sifted. Mr. (afterwards Sir James) Knowles told me one day that the great object of Myers and Gurney and the founders of the Psychical Society was to obtain evidence of a genuine apparition seen by two witnesses who would both bear such testimony as would stand cross-examination by a barrister. This was most sensible, as one person may honestly believe in an appearance, which may be an hallucination caused by circumstances, and affected by his own mental or bodily condition, but it is hardly possible that such conditions will enable two people to see the same spirit at the same moment unless it should actually appear. Mr. Knowles said that at last the Psychical Society had found a well-authenticated story in which two thoroughly credible witnesses had seen the ghost, and this was to come out in the forthcoming number of The Nineteenth Century.

The witnesses were an English judge and his wife; to the best of my recollection they were Sir Edmund and Lady Hornby, and the scene of the apparition Shanghai. Anyhow, I perfectly recollect the story, which was as follows. The judge had been trying a case during the day, and he and his wife had retired to bed when a man (European, not native) entered their bedroom. They were much annoyed by this intrusion and asked what he wanted. He replied that he was a reporter who had been in court, but had been obliged to leave before the conclusion of the trial, and was extremely anxious that the judge should tell him what the verdict was that he might complete the report for his paper. The judge, to get rid of him, gave some answer that satisfied him, and the man departed. Next day the judge learnt that a reporter had been present who was taken ill and died before the conclusion of the trial, and he was convinced that this was his ghostly visitor. The weak point, said Mr. Knowles, was that the narrators would not allow themselves to be cross-examined by a barrister. They were very old, and nervous about the publication of the story in print, and the thought of cross-examination was quite too much for them. However, Mr. Knowles and the other investigators were fully satisfied as to their bona fides, and the tale duly appeared in an article in the Review. No sooner was it published than various people wrote pointing out that it was all a misapprehension. There had been no reporter who had suddenly died on the occasion specified, and various other details were disproved by officials and others who had been at the place at the time when the judge was by way of having presided over the trial and seen the ghost. (Sir Edmund was a judge of the Supreme Court of China and Japan.) Mr. Knowles came again and said, “There you see!” The story when subjected to the light of publicity fell to the ground. No doubt something had put the germ into the old people’s heads and it had blossomed in the course of years.

To return for a minute to the year 1887. In that year my husband was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire—an appointment which he held until his death. This is referred to in the following verses by Mr. Lionel Ashley, younger son of the great Lord Shaftesbury and a friend of my husband’s and mine of long standing. Lady Galloway and I used to call him “the Bard,” as he was fond of making verses about us. I insert these because they give such a happy idea of one of Osterley Saturday-to-Monday parties. They are dated June 19th, 1887, which I see by our Visitors’ List was the Sunday.

“In a cot may be found, I have heard the remark,
More delight than in Castles with pillars.
But we find in the Palace of Osterley Park,
All the charms of suburban Villiers.
“A Sunday in Osterley Gardens and Halls,
That’s a day to look on to and after.
Its pleasures my memory fondly recalls,
And the talk, with its wisdom and laughter.
“In a nice little church a grave sermon we heard,
Which reproved Christianity flabby,
And urged that in heaven a place be preferred
To a Jubilee seat in the Abbey.
·····
“The Irish question, in masterly way,
Mr. Lowell made easy and clear.
We must make them content, without further delay,
But the method was not his affair.
·····
“Of the Queen’s new Lieutenant, with pleasure we hail
The appointment, for now ’tis a mercy,
From cold shoulders in Oxfordshire never will fail
To protect her a glorious Jersey.
····
“Then may everyone of th’ illustrious Brood
Learn to make the same excellent stand his own,
That not only the names, but the qualities good
May descend to each ‘Child’ and each ‘Grandison.’”

The last line was rather prophetic, as there was no “Grandison” apart from the family’s Irish title at the time of writing. My husband, as already mentioned, bore the name for the three weeks between his grandfather’s and father’s death, but our elder son was always Villiers. Now his son is Grandison and I think bids fair to inherit the “qualities good” of his grandfather—he could not do better.

The “nice little church” was that at Norwood Green, and the sermon, preached by a rather eccentric Irish clergyman, informed us that he had been studying history and found that in the days of George III’s Jubilee “there was an old king and a ma-ad king. How would you have liked that?” And he continued to tell us of the death at that period of Sir John Moore commemorated by an Irish clergyman who “two years later was translated to the Kingdom of Heaven, for which his Irish curacy had so well prepared him.”

In addition to those above named by Mr. Ashley, we had staying with us Lord Rowton, Lord and Lady Galloway, Lady Lytton and her daughter Betty, Col. Charles Edgcumbe, my sister Cordelia, and my brother-in-law Reginald Villiers, to whom my husband was greatly attached. It is very pleasant to recall those happy days, but sad to think how few that shared them are left!

I turn from our Osterley parties for the time being to record a most amusing journey which Lady Galloway and I made to Greece in 1888. Lord Jersey could not make up his mind to start with us, though we had hopes (which proved vain) that he might join us later. Our families were somewhat excited on learning our intention, as the recollection of the Marathon brigands who captured poor Mr. Vyner and the Muncasters still coloured the popular ideas of Greece.

Our husbands, however, were—fortunately—confident in our own powers of taking care of ourselves. Lord Jersey calmly remarked, “If you are captured Galloway and I will come with an army to rescue you.” Mr. Ashley, less trustful of the future, insisted on presenting each of us with a small revolver and box of cartridges. I forget what Mary did with hers, but my one object was to conceal the weapon from possible brigands. I regarded them rather like wasps, who are supposed not to sting if you let them alone, but I was certain that if I tried to shoot I should miss, and then they might be annoyed and I should suffer. I had to take the revolver, but I hid the cartridges in my luggage and put the weapon where it would not be seen.

We were not absolutely certain till we reached Marseilles whether we should go to Greece after all, or to Algeria or elsewhere, but finding that we could get berths on a Messageries boat we ultimately carried out our original intention though we did not really mean to stay long in Athens or its neighbourhood, and imagined Marathon (the scene of the Vyner tragedy) to be quite “out of bounds.”

However, when on March 31st we reached the PirÆus early in the morning we soon found that we were in the happiest possible abode. Our constant friend and protector Sir Thomas (now Lord) Sanderson had written from the Foreign Office to Mr. William Haggard, the British ChargÉ d’Affaires, to look after us in the absence of the Minister, and it is impossible to speak too highly of his kindness. The Greek Ministers were deeply impressed by the fact that Lady Galloway was (half) sister to the English Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, and laid themselves out to make everything pleasant and delightful. Greece was still almost unknown to Cook’s tourists. I think there was a Cook’s Office, but I do not recall seeing any of his clients about the place—anyhow, not outside Athens itself. Mr. Haggard met us with a boat belonging to the Harbour Master’s Office, and as soon as we had settled ourselves in the HÔtel d’Angleterre at Athens (a very good hotel) he began to make all sorts of arrangements for us—so that instead of three days we stayed some three weeks in Athens and about a month altogether in Greece.

We told Mr. Haggard that our friends were very much afraid of our finding brigands at Marathon, or rather at their finding us. He assured us that after the tragedy—seventeen years previously—all the brigands had been killed and it was perfectly safe; anyhow, he took us to Marathon next day, and we were delighted with the scenery through which we passed and with the silent, desolate field where the battle had been waged, with wild flowers growing on the hillock pointed out as the soldiers’ grave. Whether it still keeps its impressive solitude I know not. It is useless to attempt description of Greece, so well known to all either from personal experience or from hundreds of accounts both in prose and poetry, but I may just say that as my mother (who saw it as a girl) told me, the colours of the mountains were like those of a dove’s neck, and the clearness of the atmosphere such that one felt as if one could see through the hills.

An evening or two later we dined with Mr. Haggard and his wife, and we were soon introduced to the various notabilities, who from the King and Queen downwards were most kind and hospitable. To begin with their Majesties, who entertained us at breakfast at the Royal Kiosk at the PirÆus, and on more than one subsequent occasion at dinner, and whom we met on various other occasions: King George had much of the charm of his sister Queen Alexandra and was a distinctly astute monarch. As far as one could judge, he really liked his quaint little kingdom, and I remember his asserting with energy that they were a good people. The Queen, a Russian, was a kindly, pious woman and apparently happy with her children, to whom she was devoted. She then had six, but there were only three at home at the time—Princess Alexandra, a pretty, merry girl just grown-up, and two younger children, Marie and Andrew. Andrew was a dear little boy about six or seven years old. When I asked Princess Marie about his birthday she gravely replied that he was too young to have a birthday!

Greece struck me as a singularly “democratic” country in the sense that there was really no “aristocracy” between the Sovereign and the people. What in other countries is commonly called “Society” was in Athens mainly composed of the Ministers, the Corps Diplomatique, and one or two rich merchants—particularly one called Syngros, who spent large sums on public works. One of these was the Academy, a large building with, as far as we could ascertain, nothing as yet inside it.

The MykenÆ Museum, which contained many of Schliemann’s antiquities, discovered at Argos and elsewhere, was specially interesting; but the Greek newspaper which followed our movements and formulated our opinions for us said that when we visited the Academy “both ladies were enthusiastic at the sight of the building. They confessed that they never expected to find in Athens such a beautiful building; they speak with enthusiasm of Athens in general”—but evidently the Academy (of which I do not think we saw the inside) was “It.”

M. Tricoupi was then Prime Minister, Minister of War, and practically Dictator. He was undoubtedly a man of great ability and judgment, and was devoted to England. We saw him constantly and also his sister Miss Tricoupi, a wonderful old lady.

She gave up her life to promoting her brother’s interests in all respects. She appeared to me like a link with the past, as she had been with her brother in England early in the century, and then had taken to Sarah, Lady Jersey, as a present from King Otho, a water-colour drawing of a room in his Palace which always hung in my bedroom at Middleton. She also knew my grandmother and my mother’s elder sisters. Whenever Parliament was sitting she sat at home from one o’clock in the afternoon till any hour of the night to which the debates happened to continue. Any of her brother’s supporters, no matter of what rank, could come into the large room at one end of which she was seated. It did not appear to be necessary that she should speak to them, much less offer them refreshments. I saw some men who appeared to be sailors or fishermen enter and seat themselves at the far end of the room without speaking or apparently attracting any particular notice.

When we went to see her she gave us tea and delicious little rolled-up pieces of bread-and-butter—this we were assured was an especial favour. Naturally she could not have fed the whole of Athens daily! Poor woman—I saw her again on our subsequent visit to Athens, and after that used to correspond for nearly thirty years. She wrote most interesting letters, though after her brother’s death she lived mainly in retirement. During the war, however, her feelings became somewhat embittered towards the Allies; she ultimately died seated on her sofa—she never would give in to incapacity, though she must have been very old.

One of the most amusing members of the Ministry was Theotoki, Minister of Marine, who went with us on more than one excursion and was most kind in providing gunboats for any destination which had to be reached by sea. I rather think that he was of Venetian descent—he had a nice, lively wife, and I should say that he was not averse to a little innocent flirtation. The bachelor Tricoupi embodied all his ideals of woman in his capable and devoted sister, and had very advanced Woman Suffrage views, more uncommon then than a quarter of a century later. He was all in favour of the appointment of women not only as Members of Parliament, but also as Ministers of the Crown. One day he and Theotoki were taking us somewhere by sea when a discussion arose on this point. Either Lady Galloway or I wickedly suggested that women, admitted to the Cabinet, might exercise undue influence on the minds of the male members. Tricoupi in perfect innocence thereupon replied that it might be arranged that only married men should hold such office, apparently convinced that matrimony would make them woman-proof! I shall never forget Theotoki’s expressive glance.

Dragoumi, Minister of Foreign Affairs, was one of those who gave a dinner-party in our honour, on which occasion he and M. Tricoupi and one of the other Ministers concocted an excellent programme to enable us to visit Nauplia and Argos and MykenÆ. I wrote an account of this to my mother which she kept, so I may as well transcribe it, as it gives an account of places which have probably been much altered and brought up to date in the present day under the auspices of “Cook’s Tours.” I told my mother:

I continue in this letter to explain how much of all this Dr. Schliemann and his wife did and did not find, and also to describe the “Lion Gate” and the “Agora”—but all that is well-known and doubtless has been further explored since our visit.

Among other dissipations at Athens we attended two balls—one at M. Syngros’, the other at the Austrian Legation. After the former a correspondent of one of the Greek papers wrote:

M. BakhmÉteff, who was one of our companions to Nauplia, was a typical Russian—very clever, knowing some eight or nine languages and all about Greece ancient and modern. We used to call him the “Courier,” as he was invaluable on our various expeditions, and he seemed to enjoy his honorary post. Like many of his compatriots he had no real religious belief, but regarded religious observance as quite a good thing for women; he told me that a man looked rather ridiculous kneeling, but it was a becoming attitude for women—the folds of her dress fell so nicely! But he assured me that if I saw him on duty in Russia I should see him kissing the ikons with all reverence. Poor man! If still alive, I wonder what has happened to him. He lent me a capital Japanese costume for the ball at the Austrian Legation. Lady Galloway went as “Dresden china” or a “bouquetiÈre.”

We made a very interesting expedition to the Laurium mines, of which I subsequently ventured to give an account in The National Review, but again I think it unnecessary here to describe a well-known enterprise—the revival in modern days of lead mines worked in classical times. We stayed the night at the house of the manager, M. Cordella. He and his wife were most kindly hosts, and everyone contributed to our enjoyment. One little domestic detail amused us. As we entered the substantial and comfortable house one of us exclaimed to the other, “Oh, there is a bath!”—a luxury not always found in our wanderings—but a second glance showed us that we should have to wait till our return to the hotel next day, as the bath was fixed in the well of the staircase!As for our sentiments about the mines I cannot do better than quote the words of the N ea Ephemeris, one of the papers which knew so well what we thought on each occasion:

This, the Hora, and the Acropolis, seem to have been the chief Government papers, and occasionally one of them would hold up to contempt a wretched Delyannis organ which basely ignored the presence of the English Prime Minister’s sister!

I cannot record all our excursions to Eleusis, Ægina, and elsewhere, but I will add a few lines describing the general appearance of the people at that time, also written to my mother, as probably they have greatly changed in over thirty years:

One rather interesting character was the Lord Chamberlain, an old gentleman called Hadji Petros, son of the original brigand who was one of the husbands of Lady Ellenborough, and is the thinly disguised “Hadji Stavros” of About’s novel Le Roi des Montagnes. Hadji Petros was supposed to be quite illiterate, but he could sign his name, as he did so on a case of chocolate which he gave me. Anyway, “by royal permission” he took us over the Palace and down into the kitchens, where he showed us the correct method of making Turkish coffee. His son, we were told, was a very smart young officer who led cotillons at the Athenian balls—two generations from the original brigand.

We left Athens on February 22nd, and were taken by ship from a port near Patras at the end of the Gulf of Corinth to Pyrgos. We went in a Government boat (the Salaminia, I believe), and it was arranged that we should stay with the Demarch (Mayor) and drive thence to see Olympia.

Fortunately for us M. BakhmÉteff accompanied us, and the whole thing was very entertaining. The officers on the ship thought it too absurd that we should want to take off even hand luggage for the night, as they said we should find everything we wanted at the Demarch’s. Sure enough we found three elaborate sitting-rooms adorned with photographs and chairs tied up with ribbons, a bedroom with two comfortable beds and plenty of pin-cushions, and a dressing-room provided with tooth-brushes, sponges, and dentifrice water, but as means of washing one small green glass jug and basin between us. However, we managed to borrow two large, red earthenware pans from the kitchen and got on nicely. The Demarch was more than kind and hospitable, but as he knew no language save his native Greek it was lucky that BakhmÉteff was there to interpret. We landed too late for Olympia that evening, so we were taken down to a most romantic and desolate spot, where Alpheus runs into the sea in full view of the Acroceraunian mountains where “Arethusa arose from her couch of snows.” In addition to one or two officials we were guarded by a delightful gendarme and were introduced to a bare-legged giant in an oil-skin coat whose duty was to look after the fish in a kind of stew or watercourse running out of a lake. Whether the poachers had been busy lately I know not, but the efforts of the custodian, the gendarme, and the rest of the party to give us a fishing entertainment were singularly abortive. Their object appeared to be to capture a mullet, and at length a dead one was landed by the joint throwing of a small net and poking with Lady Galloway’s parasol. With dauntless courage they returned to the charge, and when another small fish was seen the gendarme drew his sword and vainly tried to stab it. Ultimately the professional fishermen did catch it and gave it to the gendarme, who skipped about with glee. He had seen me put some shells in my pocket, and apparently thought we should like to do the same with the fish, so proceeded to wash it—and naturally let it escape. Next day the Demarch told M. BakhmÉteff that he had ordered an open carriage for the ladies (knowing our lunatic tendencies) and that he would take him (BakhmÉteff) in a shut one. BakhmÉteff came to us in a frantic state of mind and begged our authority to say that English ladies could not possibly go in a carriage alone—so ultimately we three proceeded in the open carriage with our gendarme on the box, and the Demarch followed with his servant. All went well till it began to rain, when our gallant defender jumped off the box and into the shut carriage with the Demarch and the other man. They put up both windows and I believe smoked, only leaving a little breathing-hole in front. Doubtless they enjoyed themselves immensely—so did we.

As with other well-known places, I omit all description of Olympia, reached by a road concerning which we decided that it would be a compliment to compare it to a ploughed field. The drive took four hours each way. I dare say there are hotels and chars-À-bancs if not trams now, but I am very glad to recall Olympia, as we saw it in the wilds with ruins of temples and the newly excavated Gymnasium undisturbed by eager tourists. The Museum, containing the beautiful statue of Hermes with the Infant Bacchus, had not long been erected on the lines of a Greek temple. By way of an additional treat our hosts had roasted a lamb whole and brought it into the outer hall of the Museum on a stick regardless of the mess which it made. We made futile efforts to protect the floor with newspapers, but were obliged to eat some of the meat.

From Pyrgos we went to the Island of Zante, where we spent Sunday. I wrote to my mother that it was a most lovely place—and told her:

Of Cephalonia, where we spent a few hours on our way to Corfu, my chief recollection is of wild mountainous country. The Consul (or Vice-Consul) who took us for a drive told us a thrilling tale—as yet unconcluded—of two rival families. The father of one married his daughter to a young man, whereas the other family wanted her and attacked the bridal party on the wedding day. I forget exactly how many people they killed, but I think the bridegroom was among the victims, and anyhow they carried off the young lady to the mountains, and she was still there at the time of our visit.

Corfu was very delightful—but I recall no particular incident. There seemed to be a good many people who still regretted that Mr. Gladstone had handed it over to Greece.

Our gunboat and M. BakhmÉteff had left us at Zante, and from Corfu we went by an Austrian Lloyd steamer to Brindisi; thence by train to Naples. There we found Lord Rowton and dined with him and one or two friends. We also spent a day with him in Rome, where he was a good deal amused by our evident feeling that Roman were not to be compared to Greek antiquities.