A student of classical ethnology, curious to restore the antique man, can do no better, so far as the Greek variety is concerned, than to go to Crete and study its people. The Cretan of to-day preserves probably the character of antiquity, and holds to his ancient ways of feeling and believing, and, within the new conditions, as far as possible of acting, more nearly than would be believed possible, and affords a better field of investigation into the nature of the classical man than any existing records.

The island is one of those paradisiacal isolations which facilitate civilization in its early stages, and preserve it from the encroachments of progress in the later. Its low latitude secures it against cold in winter, and its insular position against extreme heat, while the range of high mountains running longitudinally through it gives its climate a salubrity possessed by no section of the world's surface so near the sun. The standard summer temperature is from 82° to 86° Fahr., and once only in a residence of nearly four years I saw it as high as 92°. The minimum was 52°. Wild flowers never are wanting except in midsummer. The almond blooms in February (I have seen it in blossom on Christmas), and all the known fruits follow it in succession, each finding some locality and climate suited to it.

The fertility of the plains, and the inaccessibility of its mountain fastnesses, made prosperity easy and conquest difficult, while its remoteness from the shore of either continent made ancient invasion not easy, and preserved the type of the composite Greek race from the barbaric innovations of Greece proper, so that we have the Greek race of B.C. 700 undoubtedly more purely preserved than anywhere else.

Only in prosperity and weight in mundane matters, in comparative consideration, they have passed to the other end of the scale from that in which Homer could say of their land: "There is a country, Crete, in the midst of the black sea, beautiful and fertile, wave-washed roundabout, with a population infinite in number, and ninety cities. The races are different, and with different languages—there are AchÆans, there are the huger Eteocretans,[A] the Cydonians, the crest-waving Dorians, and the divine Pelasgi. Theirs is Gnossus, a great city, and theirs is King Minos, who talked nine years with great Jove."

This enumeration has evidently no relation to chronological order, and unfortunately we have no intelligible traditions as to the order of settlement in Crete. Diodorus Siculus says that "the first inhabitants of Crete dwelt in the neighborhood of Mount Ida, and were called the IdÆan Dactyls." But Scylax says that, according to early Greek tradition, Cydonia (in the western end of the island) was known as "the mother of cities." Its position and character of site indicate rather a settlement of Pelasgi coming from the west.

Spratt finds in the geological record clear evidence of the Greek Archipelago having been formerly a fresh-water lake or series of lakes, and, if this be true, Crete must have been connected with the main lands of Europe and Asia Minor, in which case the aboriginal inhabitants would be a land migration, probably from Aryan sources. That a Phrygian colony known as the IdÆan Dactyls brought here knowledge of certain arts and religious mysteries, and became to the people with whom they mingled, semi-divine, appears probable. The subsequent visit of the Tyrian Hercules, who, on his way to get the cattle of Geryon, called here as the rendezvous of his forces, and, to recompense the Cretans for their friendship, purged the island of wild beasts, may indicate a Phoenician colony or passing expedition.

But admitting, as of possibility, that the Eteocretan was a land emigration, cavern-dwelling, as the abundance of the caves in the island suggests; a collation of all the traditions makes it probable that the first important immigration was Pelasgic, and from the Italian shores, noted in many Greek traditions as the Tyrrhenian Pelasgi (Etruscans?), whose colonies came down by the Morea and the isles of Cerigo and Cerigotto by easy journeys to Crete. [The records of Karnak show that, in the reign of Thotmes III., a great migration of Cretan Pelasgi came into Egypt, and became the Philistines (Pilisti or Pilisgi); proving that at this early period the hive was so full that it had begun to swarm.]

This first immigration became, if my conjecture goes to the mark, the Cydonian stock—the subsequent one which Homer speaks of as Pelasgic, being of much later date; the Dorian, which was of the highest importance in its effect, as finally assimilating or subjecting all other races, and the AchÆan, a scarcely influential influx, coming within the recognized traditions. The author of the "Isles of Greece" supposes two aboriginal races in the island, a needless multiplication of "original Adams," though an Asiatic or Phrygian race coming in at the east, and a Pelasgic at the west, seem to have been the first recognizable elements in the population.

The myth of Jupiter and Europa is regarded as concealing the history of the introduction of the worship of the moon by a Phoenician colony, who, combining with the population of the eastern end of the island, whose peculiar deity was Jupiter, produced the race over which Minos came to rule, from this fabled to be the son of Jupiter and Europa. The journey of Europa along the river Lethe indicates the course of this colony to the capital of Minos, Gortyna, which more anciently had borne the name of Larissa, a Pelasgic name, from which we might conjecture that it was founded by the colony of Teutamos, who, with a band of Dorians, AchÆans, and Pelasgi, the builders of all the early Greek cities, is said by the early historians to have arrived in Crete three centuries before the Trojan war, and to have settled in the eastern part of the island, and given the early city its Pelasgic name.

The present inhabitants betray differences of character so great as almost to indicate difference of race. The Sphakiotes are larger of build, more restless and adventurous, thievish and inconstant, turbulent and treacherous, than the people of any other section. The Seliniotes, in the western extremity, are the bravest of the Cretans, but less turbulent or quarrelsome, not given to stealing, and of good faith. In the eastern end, especially the region of Gortyna and Gnossus, the blessings of the rule of Minos seem to rest in pacific natures. The great Dorian invasion, about 1,000 B.C., gave the island a dominant caste, uniformity of language and customs, but without complete fusion of races.

The language of Crete to-day is a Dorian dialect, and preserves many characteristics noted by the ancient authors. The use of Kappa as c is used in Italian, either hard or soft (in terminal syllables generally the latter), the use of r for l, especially with the Sphakiotes, and the presence of many words in modern Cretan which have disappeared from modern continental Greek, with a comparative rareness of Turkish words, and entire absence of Albanian and Sclavonic, show how much less the Cretans have been affected by outside influences than other parts of the Greek community. I give a few of the words which retain their ancient form more closely than on the continent:

There are few Turkish words in use, and those mainly of objects brought by the Turks: ??da??, a lubber; ts?p????, a pipe; t??f???, a gun, etc. A few Italian: ?ap?ta???, captain; et?a (vendemmia), olive crop; ?stat? (guastato); at???da, a song, and some names of implements, with idioms which cling, as the use of p??, the comparative, instead of t????.

There is a trace of genuine Cretan literature, though its chief work, the "ErotÓkritos," is by an Italian colonist, Vincenzo Cornaro. They have, however, many songs and many bards, though to any but Cretan ears the music is far from agreeable. I knew one of the popular singers, Karalambo, poet and singer at once, as most of them are (and many are improvisatori of considerable facility). He was so much in repute that no wedding or festivity was considered complete anywhere in the range of a day's ride from CanÉa unless Karalambo was there; and at other times he used to sing in the cafÉs on the Marina, screaming, to the strain of a naturally fine tenor, songs which, though to me not even music, used to melt his audiences into tears. He was a patriot as well as poet, and when the insurrection of '66 actually broke out, his songs were so seditious, and excited the Khaniote Christians so much, that he was driven into the mountains, and, joining a band of his neighbors, was one day wounded by the accidental discharge of a pistol one of his comrades was cleaning. The wound was fatal from want of surgical attendance.

The Cretan music is always of a plaintive character, and monotonous; in singing, they have a habit of incessant quavering, and this, with the drawling tone, makes it far from agreeable to an ear accustomed to cultivated music, but it has a decided character of its own.

There were in Kalepa before the insurrection two improvisatori of considerable repute, who were accustomed to carry on musical disputes, one singing a couplet, and the other replying in a similar one. Sometimes it was a match of compliments, and sometimes the reverse, but following with tolerable exactitude the metre, a four-lined stanza, the second and fourth lines rhyming. All the ballads I have seen are in this form, the music also differing but little to my ear, though possibly to a Cretan there may be wide differences.

The Cretans possess, in common with all the Greeks, the avidity for instruction and quickness of intellect which make of this race the dominant element in the Levant. They are tenaciously devoted to their religion and to their traditions, which have kept them up and preserved the national character against such a continuation of hostile influences as probably no other people ever lived through. The history of Crete is a series of obstinate rebellions and barbarous repressions, since the first conquest by the Saracens in A.D. 820, a conquest which was followed by an almost complete apostasy from Christianity—sword-conversion, and by persistent attempts on the part of the Byzantine emperors to reconquer it, until 961, when Nikephoras Phocas succeeded in driving the Saracens out. They seem to have made no considerable addition to the Cretan stock, since the population rapidly returned to Christianity, to which, judging from the known and more recent past, they had always probably remained devoted at heart. At the division of the Byzantine empire, Crete passed to Boniface, Duke of Montserrat, and from him was purchased by the Venetian Republic, 1204, from which time till its conquest by the Turks, completed in 1669, the Cretans were under a yoke that would probably have depopulated any other section of the Old World. The cruelties and misgovernment of the governors sent from Venice would be incredible if not recorded by Venetian historians and official records. The Venetians seem to have regarded the Cretans much in the same light as the English colonists of America did the Indians, and, when their wretched state came to the knowledge of the Senate, they sent commissioners to examine into it, from whose reports I translate some extracts (quoted in Italian by Pashley), who took them from the original documents in the public library of Venice. Basadonna, the first of these officers whose reports remain, says (1566): "The tax-gatherers and others dependent on them use against these unhappy people, in one way and another, strange and horrible tyrannies. It would be a matter worthy of your clemency immediately to abolish so odious and barbarous exactions, since to maintain them is to abandon these wretched men to most cruel serpents, who lacerate and devour them entirely, or oblige the few of them who remain to escape into Turkey, following the footsteps of innumerable others who, from time to time, have gone away from this cause." Then from Garzoni (1586): "In all the villages in which I have been, I have seen the houses of the inhabitants, in the greater part of which there is not be seen any article for the uses of dress or table; and for food, they are without bread or corn; they have no wine; their women are despoiled, their children naked, the men slightly covered, and the house emptied of everything, without any sign of human habitation. And this wretched people ('quella meschinitÀ de' huomini') is compelled by established custom to give to the cavaliers two 'angarie' [twelve days' work] each per annum, and is obliged also by ancient regulation to work as much more as the cavalier may need for the pay of eight soldini a day, which amounts to a 'gazetta' [two Venetian soldi, or about one penny] and a fifteenth, introduced by them two hundred years ago, and not since increased. They are obliged to keep chickens and hens according to the number of doors [I do not feel sure of having properly translated this expression, obscure in the original], their masters having applied the term of doors to houses, which are built by the peasants themselves, and have no kind of use of doors, because the Cavaliers, industrious for their own advantage, make doors as frequently as possible to increase the number of royalties. The beasts of labor, called donnegals, are obliged to plough a certain quantity of land, for which, planted or not, the peasant must pay the third. The donnegals are also obliged to work two angarie per annum. Mules and other beasts of transport must make two voyages to the city for the master. Animals of pasture the tenth, and a thousand other inventions to absorb all the productions of the land. If the peasant has a vineyard planted (the ground always belonging to the Cavaliers) and trained by him, although on land before wild, he must pay to the master, before marking the division for the royalty (which by ancient regulation gives one-third to the Cavalier and two to the peasant), five measures, called mistaches, for each vineyard, under pretext that he has eaten part before the vintage, for the use of the pattichier [in Crete, even now, an open shallow kind of vat built in the fields, of flat stones, and cemented, in which the grapes are trampled], and under other most dishonest inventions. And to increase still more the royalty, they divide the vineyard into so many parts that few return more than fifteen mistaches, in such a way that with fraud founded on force they take two-thirds for themselves and give one to the peasant.

"There are chosen for judges of their country, as I have said, Castellans—writers who serve as secretaries (cancellieri); and 'Captains to look after the robbers,' who all set rapaciously to rob these poor people, taking what little any of them may have hidden from the Cavaliers under pretext of disobedience, in which the peasant abounds, by reason of his desperation, so that he is in every way wretched. The Castellans cannot by law judge the value of more than two sequins, although by some regulation they are allowed authority to the sum of two hundred perperi, about fourteen sequins; and because they have eight per cent. for the charges they make, all causes amount to two hundred perperi, however small it may be, in order to get their sixteen of charges, with thousand other inventions of extortion to eat up the substance of the poor. The Captains, whose name indicates their functions, have their use from robberies, and always find means to draw their advantage from the same, plundering the good and releasing the guilty, to the universal ruin.... The men chosen for the galleys are in continual terror of going, and those who have the means, with whatever difficulty, from some vineyard, or land, or animals, throw all away unhesitatingly for a trifling price to pay for their dispensation, which costs fifteen or twenty sequins—expense which they cannot support. The poorest, hopeless of their release, fly to the mountains, and thence, reassured by the Cavaliers, return to their villages, so much the more enslaved as they are fearful of justice, and by their example make the other villagers more obedient, attributing to the Cavaliers the power of saving them from the galleys.... To which, add the extortions to which they are subjected by a thousand accidental circumstances, execution of civil debts, visits of rectors and other officers, to whom they are obliged to give sustenance at miserable prices.... So that the peasantry, oppressed in this manner, and harassed in so many ways, annoyed by the reasonings of the Papists, and made enemies of the Venetian name, ... are so reduced by the influences I have enumerated, that I believe I can say with truth that, with the exception of the privileged classes, they desire a change of government, and though they know they cannot fall into other hands than those of the Turks, yet, believing they cannot make worse their condition, incline even to their tyrannical rule."

I extract from the opinion of Fra Paolo Sarpi (1615), a more Jesuitical, and, it would seem, more palatable advice to the Senate, since it was, in the end, and to the end followed: "For your Greek subjects of the island of Candia, and the other islands of the Levant, ... the surest way is to keep good garrisons to awe them, and not use them to arms or musters, in hope of being assisted by them in extremity; for they will always show ill inclination proportionably to the strength they shall be musters of.... Wine and bastinadoes ought to be their share, and keep good nature for a better occasion.... If the gentlemen of these colonies do tyrannize over the villages of their dominion, the best way is not to seem so see it, that there may be no kindness between them and their subjects; but, if they offend in anything else, it will be well to chastise them severely, etc.... And in a word, remember that all the good that can come from them is already obtained, which was to fix the Venetian dominion, and for the future there is nothing but mischief to be expected from them."

What a pity that Sarpi had not lived before Dante, that he might have been niched in the "Inferno":

"Questo É de' rei del fuoco furo."

I have only space to epitomize a passage of the history of Crete, under the Venetians, to show how utterly infamous, unjust, and devilish was their rÉgime. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the provinces of Selino, Sfakia, and Rhizo seceded, and established an independent government, which was for some time unmolested by the Venetian authorities. The governor of the seceded republic finally presuming to ask in marriage for his son the daughter of a Venetian noble, the latter, to revenge the insult, plotted with the governor of CanÉa, and, pretending to consent, lured the family of the soi-disant Greek governor, with a company of nearly 500 of his compatriots, to the marriage feast. The guests having been intoxicated and gone to sleep, and the signal given to the authorities at CanÉa, the governor came with 1,700 foot and 150 horse, took the whole prisoners, and in various ways and different places massacred them, except a few who were sent to the galleys.

This was followed up, for the better terrifying of the seditious, by a raid on the village of Foligniaco, near Murnies, and on the edge of the plain of CanÉa, in which they took the whole population prisoners asleep, burned the village, hanged twelve of the primates, ripped open three or four pregnant women, wives of the principal people, put to death and exiled the whole population remaining, except five or six who escaped. The Provveditore then called on all the Greeks of the lately revolted district to come in and surrender themselves, but, as they naturally declined, they were put under a ban which is perhaps the most horrible sentence ever given by a civilized community. No inhabitant of the proscribed district could secure his life except on condition of bringing in the "head of his father, brother, cousin, or nephew."

"At length a priest of the family of the Pateri-Zapa entered the city, accompanied by his two sons and by two of his brothers, each of the mournful party carrying in his hand a human head. (Of the five heads, the first belonged to the son of the priest, the second to one of his brothers, the third to his son-in-law, and the fourth and fifth to sons of one of his brothers.) The wretched men placed their bleeding offerings before the Signor Cavalli and the other representatives of Venice, and with the bitterest tears stated whose heads they were. The facts were duly established by witnesses; even the governor who had been sent to Crete to extirpate the seditious Greeks was moved, and the law was at length abolished."

This was under the auspices of Christianity. Under the Crescent, things were at first better, but finally such as to cause wonder how there is still a Cretan people, considering that even Dante could say:

The Venetian rule had reduced the population of the island to about 160,000, the tenth of its probable number under the Byzantine emperors. The anticipations of Garzoni were to the full realized, for the Cretan, favoring the Turkish conquest, made it possible, and avenged himself in the way of the weak. The Turks, in recompense for the important assistance rendered them by the Cretans, exempted them from conscription or military tax, but learned no lesson from their conquered enemies, and, until the cession of the island to Egypt in 1830, Crete was the scene of the most unbridled license of individuals and fanaticism of sects.

In passing from the Venetian to the Turkish despotism the Cretans had exchanged bad for worse. The Venetian was oppressive to the last degree in pecuniary extortions, but the Turk brought in slavery of another form—the harem and all its horrors to a captive people, even then celebrated for the beauty of its women. The Turkish rule has never been, and probably never will be, anything but piracy—the rule of the strong hand. The great object of government was to wring from the governed the largest possible amount of plunder; it is so still. No motive of civilized government has ever yet entered into the head of the Ottoman. The development of a country's resources, even to increase its revenues, has never been thought of. A race of nomad conquerors, holding the land as if it waited the trumpet that should expel it, and could only reap where its predecessors had planted, but never from its own sowing, it has extorted, butchered, and enslaved, without leaving behind it more than its bones to fertilize the soil. The noble public works which marked the Venetian rÉgime in Crete were allowed to fall into decay, the walls of the cities show the shot-holes made by the siege-guns, only filled up when it was necessary to keep the wall from falling.

Of the early period of Turkish rule in Crete we know little. Pirates keep no record; and the only insurrection of any note we hear of was that of 1770, which seems to have been mainly a Sphakiote affair, and to have resulted, on the whole, favorably for the mountaineers, from their having been allowed to maintain a virtual independence, as up to 1860 no Turkish garrison was ever permitted in Sphakia. The fortress of Samaria has not been, in the records of modern history, penetrated by an enemy in arms.

From 1770 to 1821, the condition of Crete was that of a man on the rack. The conquests and the advantages of apostasy had induced many Christians to become Mussulmans; others followed from the bitter persecutions which began soon after the insurrection of 1770, and made the life of the Christian in the plains utterly intolerable. The former class generally became, ipso facto, fanatical persecutors of their late fellow-Christians, and the children or grandchildren of the converts became oblivious of their ancestors' creed and relations, and as, under the Koran, they lapsed into a more complete ignorance than the Christians, they soon became as fanatic as any. The influx of Turks was never considerable, but the Cretan Mussulmans, becoming the governing class, disposed of the lives and properties of their Christian fellow-countrymen entirely at their will. Their agas, or chiefs, by force of character became captains of bands of these Janissaries, as they were called, and established a sway beside which the Venetian was a bed of feathers. The Venetian was inhuman; the Janissary was devilish. I have known several men who lived in the island while the Janissary government was in full force, and who have testified to me of the occurrence of such horrors as no system of slavery known since the establishment of Christianity can show. Every rayah (beast or domesticated animal) was utterly at the mercy of his aga, who could kill, rob, or torture him at will, without responsibility before any law, or any obligation towards him. If the aga wanted money, he went to any rayah he suspected of being possessed of any, and ordered him to hand it over. If he wanted work done, he ordered the rayah to do it. If he fancied the rayah's wife or daughter, he went to his house, and ordered the man out of it until his lust was satisfied, and if any resisted he was killed like a dog. If a Christian celebrated his nuptials with a girl of great beauty, he received from the aga a handkerchief with a bullet tied in the corner of it, and if he did not at once send his bride to the aga he paid the penalty with his life. The only resource was to fly to the mountains before the aga had time to send his men to seize him. Most of the beautiful girls and women were sent to the mountains as a precaution, which is probably one reason why the women of the higher mountain districts are so much more beautiful than those of the lowlands.

The Janissaries even ruled the governors sent by the Sultan, and deposed or assassinated them when they did not please. Needless to say that the poor islanders had no hope of justice as against their tyrants. It was forbidden to any Christian except the archbishop to enter the city gates on horseback, and, the Bishop of CanÉa having transgressed this law, the Janissaries took him prisoner, and determined to burn him and all his priests. About to carry out this decision, the Pasha intervened, and to pacify them issued an order that no Christian man should sleep in the walls of CanÉa, and accordingly the whole adult male population was mustered out every night, leaving their wives and children in the city. There is hardly room to wonder that the Cretan is still a liar, rather wonder that he is still a man, with courage to revolt and die, considering that only one generation has intervened between him and a slavery more abject than any domestic servitude the civilized world knows of.

The oppression became more and more brutal and blind, and the Cretans, crushed and stupefied, thought of nothing but saving life by the most abject submission. Even when the agitation which led to the Greek war of independence began, the Cretans were not moved; but in June of 1821, the Mussulmans massacred a large number of Christians, some thousands, in the three principal cities. This was followed up by a demand that all the Christians should give up their arms, a demand which was followed by the revolt of Sphakia, the mountaineers having never consented to this degradation. The rising of the district about Ida followed, and the war was so vigorously carried on that in a month the open country was almost entirely cleared of Mussulmans.

This stage of the war developed a man whose name has become one of the historical in Crete, Antoni Melidoni. Collecting a small band of bold men, he swept from one end of the island to the other, falling on the negligently guarded posts, and taking them by storm in rapid succession. His hardihood knew no impossibilities, disparity of numbers made no difference in his calculations, he measured moral forces alone, and flung his sword and name into the scale against any opposing numerical force. Surrounded at night by superior forces, he led a charge sword in hand on the hostile circle, broke it, and drove the Pasha's army from the field, not permitting its disordered masses to re-form until the walls of Candia sheltered them. A detachment that made a sortie to attack him was destroyed, and another victory following this, the Pasha of Candia, expressing admiration of his prowess, begged to be favored with an interview. The Cretan hero, trusting himself to no temptation, treachery, or delay, replied that the Pasha would soon be his prisoner, and that then he might look at him as much as he liked. And the prophet fulfilled the prediction to the letter.

So far, however, Christian and Turk fought on equal terms. No discipline entered on either side—the Janissary fought the partisan, and the superior enthusiasm of liberty turned the scale in favor of the Christian. They had yet to meet their strongest foes—internal dissension and disciplined force. The first did its work quickly, and Melidoni was assassinated by Russos, the Sphakiote chief, in jealousy of his dominant influence. A Moreote chieftain, Afendallos, was sent from Greece to replace him, but, incapable and without control of the Cretans, his command was in every way unfortunate, and he was superseded by a French Philhellene of ability, Baleste, who for a moment restored the fortunes of Crete, but, deserted by the wretched Afendallos in the heat of battle, and the Cretans being carried away in panic by the example, Baleste was surrounded by the Turks and killed. At the same time, an Egyptian army coming in to reinforce the exhausted and demoralized Janissaries, the war became for the Christians a series of disasters, relieved for a time by the management of Tombasis, a Hydriote chief, who again cleared the open country of the Turks, and laid siege to CanÉa. The arrival of new forces from Constantinople obliged him to retire to the highlands, and an Egyptian fleet arriving debarked a fresh army, which, marching into the interior, surprised a great number of villages, and in a single raid put to the sword nearly 20,000 men, women, and children. Tombasis, watching his opportunity, fell on a small detachment of Egyptians, and cut them to pieces. The Christians rallied, and, swarming down from the mountains, assailed the retiring army with such fury that they killed 7,000 men.

A new Egyptian expedition of 10,000 troops with a large squadron reinforced the Ottoman army, and the commander, Ismail Gibraltar, so-called from having been the first Turk to sail beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, an able, adroit, and comparatively humane man, began to assail the Sphakiotes on their weak side, and induced them by bribery to withdraw from the hostilities. The other districts, many times decimated, had not the force to maintain the struggle, and Tombasis, after making a vain effort to rally the elements of another struggle, abandoned the island, which submitted almost entirely. Thousands of the most devoted and patriotic Cretans went to Greece, where they fought bravely for the common nationality. We see still on the plains of Athens the tomb of the corps that perished there to a man refusing to turn their backs to the Turk.

After the battle of Navarino, the insurrection broke out anew; an expedition from Greece under Kalergis captured Grabusa by stratagem, Kissamos was taken by siege; soon the Cretan Mussulmans (the regular Egyptian forces being engaged in the Morea) were shut up again in the three fortresses of CanÉa, Retimo, and Candia, and would soon, in all probability, either have abandoned the island or have perished in it, had not the three allied powers decided that Crete should be united to the government of Mehemet Ali, and notified their decree to the Christian population. (Pashley, "Historical Introduction to Travels in Crete.")

The establishment of the Egyptian rÉgime was at first productive of great relief to the Christian population, as Mehemet Ali had shrewdness enough to comprehend that their oppression would be the disfavor of the Christian powers, now for the first time clearly recognized to be mistresses of the fortunes of the Ottoman Empire, and to perceive that for material prosperity the Christian element was far more available than the Mussulman, corrupted and degraded by long unchecked and unmeasured abuse of power, and dependence on servitude of others, the most hopeless of all slavery. Order was re-established, and political organization, which Crete had never known, was introduced, exiles began to return, and all promised a better rÉgime than any Cretan could have hoped for under foreign rule.

The Pasha, in his designs of obtaining complete independence, saw also that he must some day count the Turkish population of Crete as his enemies; all these causes combined gave the Christians an advantage over the Mussulman element. After a time, however, the pirate's instincts took the predominance, and Mehemet Ali, well assured of his possession, began to measure the capacity of the island for extortion of taxes. The promises made at the time of pacification were unheeded, imposts succeeded each other, until the population, alarmed, had recourse to their immemorial expedient of an assembly, and, several thousand strong, Christian and Mussulman alike, they met at Murnies, unarmed and accompanied by their families. This habit of so assembling has from ancient times played an important part in the history of Crete, and was known as Syncretism. To this day, every crisis and every important measure referring to the general welfare is discussed in a full assembly of deputies of the whole population.

The assembly of Murnies was peaceful; no one brought his arms, no violence of any kind was perpetrated on any interest or person. The assembly petitioned the protecting powers for redress and the fulfilment of the promises made at their submission, but the indifference of the soi-disant Christian powers to everything that implied the rights of the subject had already descended on the Greeks, so lately emancipated by the "untoward event;" and the French and English residents at Alexandria, more charmed by Egyptian music than the claims of justice, heard what was agreeable to the Viceroy, and the English agent even advised him to make an example of insubordination which should save him any future trouble. So encouraged, the arbiter of life or death to this brave people sent orders to execute a number of persons, both Christian and Mussulman. The Governor, Mustapha Pasha, now known as Mustapha Kiritli (Cretan), a hard and barbarous Albanian, bred in the brutalities of the long wars with the Christians, readily complied, and seized a number of persons at CanÉa indifferently. At the same time, the same orders were sent to other provinces, and a general and simultaneous execution took place. Many of the victims had no connection with the assembly, nor does the number or quality seem to have been fixed. The Albanian butcher caught the spirit of his master's order, and hanged at random. Pashley says that thirty-three were hanged, but perhaps he had a desire to diminish the enormity of the deed for which he declares the English agent at Alexandria to have been largely responsible. Residents at CanÉa at that time have assured me that over eighty were hanged at Murnies, and the then Austrian consul at CanÉa has repeatedly declared to me that there were several hundred victims, and that he himself had seen the bodies hanging on the trees of Murnies, until the whole air round was infected by them. This was in 1833, and until 1840 the Butcher held the island tranquil under the rod of his menace.

In 1840, insurrectionary movements took place, which were attributed to English influence, and said to be encouraged by the English admiral at Suda. I have heard from residents at CanÉa[B] (non-Cretan) that the admiral facilitated the introduction of muskets and ammunition, and advised the chiefs to ask for an English protection. This proposition was favored at the assembly of that occasion, but the Turkish authorities secured its rejection by persuading secretly the chiefs that their choice would be between annexation to Greece and English protection, and as, of course, they preferred the former, the project was unanimously rejected, having secured which, and the consequent English indifference, Mustapha, by an energetic blow, suppressed the movement.

In 1858, a similar crisis was made use of by the French government, whose agent openly took the part of the insurgents, bullied the authorities, and encouraged the Cretans to look for French support. The assembly was held at Nerokouro, and petitioned the Sultan for relief from the most weighty grievances of the population. It was at once determined to suppress the movement, like the former, by force, but disturbances breaking out in the Christian provinces of Turkey, and the attitude of France causing distrust, the Porte finally yielded, made the concessions demanded, and the assembly broke up. This outbreak was remarkable for one incident which may have had much to do with the solution arrived at. The government had determined to obtain from its adherents an address in opposition to that of the assembly, and it was considered needful to have the signature of the Bishop of CanÉa.

This prelate, one of the most worthy and pious bishops Crete has had in modern times, refused to sign, and compulsion was applied, the Bishop being shut up in a room with the council, and a pen put into his hand and applied to the paper by force. But he resisted all pressure, declaring that, if they killed him, he would not sign what he knew to be a falsehood. This contest of will lasted hours, when the physique of the Bishop gave way, and he fainted, not having yielded. He was carried to his house in great excitement, which rapidly spread and increased, until he died in the course of the day. The Cretans regarded him as a martyr, and his death fired them with still greater enthusiasm.

Never was moment more favorable for insurrection; and that the Cretans contented themselves with such moderate demands as the relief of some of the newest and most oppressive taxes, and yielded on the promise only of redress, dispersing quietly to their homes, shows that they were not, as they were represented by unfriendly writers, disposed to factiousness and insurrection.

The promises made in 1858 were never fulfilled—if there is honor amongst thieves, there is none amongst Turks; and when, at the death of Abdul Medjid, his successor, Abdul Aziz, was reminded of the promises made to the Cretans, he replied that he was not bound by the engagements of his predecessors, and Cretan reforms lapsed into the abyss of good (and bad) intentions. From that time the island was moved by discontent. The next governor, Ismail, a clever, cunning Greek renegade, charlatan in everything but intrigue, of the worst possible faith and honesty, avaricious, mendacious, and cruel, but plausible and persuasive, succeeded in delaying agitation by promises and bribes, by dividing the chiefs one against the other, till 1864, when another assembly was held, and another petition drawn up and delivered to the governor to be forwarded to Constantinople, when the assembly dispersed. Ismail immediately convoked an assemblage of his adherents, and had a counter-petition forwarded, assuring the Porte of the perfect content of the Cretans with their governor and their state. The true petition was never heard of again, but the bearers of the false one received the Medjidieh, and Ismail the thanks of the Sultan, with presents which he valued much more.

The ensuing winter was one of great distress, and the spring passed without renewal of the disturbances or petitions, but in the autumn of that year, after my arrival in the island, I heard that there would be an assembly the following spring, 1866. The discontent was very great. New taxes on straw, on the sale of wine, on all beasts of burden, oppressive collection of the tithes, together with short crops for two years in succession, had produced very great distress, and the Governor added to these grievances his own extortions, with the most shameful venality in the distribution of justice, and disregard of such laws of procedure and punishment as existed. The councils were absolute mockeries, and the councillors his most servile tools. The summer of my arrival, I was told by the surgeon of the civil hospital of a death that had just occurred under his care, in prison, of an old man, arrested for an offence which his son had committed, and because the son could not be found.

Men accused of offences by Ismael's partisans were thrown into prison, and kept indefinite periods without trial until some friend went to bribe his accuser. Ismael never went out into the island for fear of assassination, so well did he know the hatred borne him. This was the state of the island when I arrived in 1865.