Few of the events of our life afford us greater pride than revisiting a well-known and celebrated city after many years’ absence. The pleasure derived from the hope of enjoyment, the self-satisfaction flowing from the presumption of our profound knowledge of the place, and the feeling of mental superiority attached to our discernment in returning to the spot, which, at the moment, appears to us the particular region of the earth peculiarly worthy of a second visit—or a third, as the case may be—all combine to stuff the lining of the diligence, the packsaddle of the Turkish post-horse, or the encumbrance on the back of the camel which may happen to convey us, with something softer than swandown. Time soon brings the demon of discontent to our society. The city and its inhabitants appear changed—rarely for the better, always less to our taste. Ameliorations and improvements seem to us positive evils; we sigh for the good old times, for the dirty streets of Paris, the villanous odours of Rome, the banditti of Naples, the obsequiousness of Greece, and the contempt, with the casual satisfaction of being spit upon, of Turkey. In short, we feel the want of our youth every where.

I enjoyed all the delights and regrets which mere local associations can call up, a few months ago, on revisiting Athens after many years’ absence. On the 6th of May 1827, I had witnessed the complete defeat of the Greek army. I had beheld the delhis of Kutayia sabring the flying troops of Lord Cochrane and General Church, and seen 1500 men slain by the sword in less than half an hour, amidst the roll of an ill-sustained and scattered fire of musketry. The sight was heartbreaking, but grand. The Turkish cavalry came sweeping down to the beach, until arrested by the fire of the ships. Lord Cochrane and his aide-de-camp, Dr Goss, themselves had been compelled to plunge more than knee-deep in the Ægean ere they could gain their boat. On the hill of the Phalerum I had heard General Gueheneuc criticise the manoeuvres of the commander-in-chief, and General Heideck disparage the quality of his coffee. As the Austrian steamer which conveyed me entered the PirÆus, my mind reverted to the innumerable events which had been crowded into my life in Greece. A new town rose out of the water before my eyes as if by enchantment; but I felt indignant that the lines of Colonel Gordon, and the tambouria of Karaiskaki, should be effaced by modern houses and a dusty road. As soon as I landed, I resolved to climb the Phalerum, and brood over visions of the past. But I had not proceeded many steps from the quay, lost in my sentimental reverie, ere I found that reflection ought not to begin too soon at the PirÆus. I was suddenly surrounded by about a dozen individuals who seemed determined to prevent me from continuing my walk. On surveying them, they appeared dressed for a costume ball of ragamuffins. Europe, Asia, and Africa had furnished their wardrobe. The most prominent figure among them was a tall Arab, in the nizam of Mehemet Ali, terminated with a Maltese straw hat. His companions exhibited as singular a taste in dress as himself. Some wore sallow Albanian petticoats, carelessly tied over the wide and dusky nether garments of Hydriots, their upper man adorned by sailors’ jackets and glazed hats; others were tightly buttoned up in European garments, with their heads lost in the enormous fez of Constantinople. This antiquarian society of garments, fit representatives to a stranger of the Bavaro-Hellenic kingdom of Otho the gleaner, and the three donative powers, informed me that it consisted of charioteers. Each member of the society speaking on his own account, and all at the same time—a circumstance I afterwards found not uncommon in other antiquarian and literary societies at Athens—asked me if I was going to Athens: e?? ????a? was the phrase. The Arab and a couple of Maltese alone said “Ees teen Atheena.” Entrapped into a reply by the classic sound, I unwittingly exclaimed “Malista—Verily I am.”

The shouts my new friends uttered on hearing me speak Greek cannot be described. Their volubility was suddenly increased a hundredfold; and had all the various owners of the multitudinous garments before me arisen to reclaim their respective habiliments, it could hardly have been greater. I could not have believed it possible that nine Greeks, aided by two Maltese and a single Arab, could have created such a din. The speakers soon perceived that it was utterly impossible for me to hear their eloquent addresses, as they could no longer distinguish the sounds of their own voices; so with one accord they disappeared, and ere I had proceeded many steps again surrounded me, rushing forward with their respective vehicles, into which they eagerly invited me to mount. If their habiliments consisted of costumes run mad, their chariots were not less varied, and afforded an historical study in locomotion. Distant capitals and a portion of the last century must have contributed their representatives to the motley assemblage. The tall Arab drove a superb fiacre of the days of hoops, a vehicle for six insides; phaetons, chariots, droschkies, and britskas, Strong’s omnibus, and Rudhart’s stuhlwagen, gigs, cars, tilburies, cabriolets, and dogcarts, were all there, and each pushing to get exactly before me. Lord Palmerston’s kingdom is doubtless a Whig satire on monarchy; the scene before me appeared a Romaic satire on the Olympic games. I forgot my melancholy sentiment, and resolved to join the fun, by attempting to dodge my persecutors round the corners of the isolated houses and deep lime-pits which King Otho courteously terms streets. I forgot that barbarians were excluded from the Olympic games, not on account of the jealousy of the Greeks, but because no barbarian could display the requisite skill. The charioteers and their horses knew the ground so much better than I did, that they blockaded me at every turn; so, in order to gain the rocky ground, I started off towards the hill of the Phalerum pursued by the pancosmium of vehicles. On the first precipitous elevation I turned to laugh at my pursuers, when, to my horror, I saw Strong’s omnibus lumbering along in the distance, surrounded by a considerable crowd, and I distinguished the loud shouts of the mob:—??? e??a? ? t?e??? ? ??????; “Where is the mad Englishman?” So my melancholy was conducting me to madness.

My alarm dispelled all my reminiscences of Lord Cochrane, and my visions of the Olympic games. I sprang into the droschky of a Greek sailor, who drove over the rocks as if he only expected his new profession to endure for a single day. We were soon on the PirÆus road, which I well knew runs along the foundations of one of the long walls; but I was too glad to escape, like Lord Palmerston and M. Thiers, unscathed from the imbroglio I had created, to honour even Themistocles with a single thought. My charioteer was a far better specimen of the present, than foundations of long walls, ruined temples, and statues without noses, can possibly be of the past. He informed me he was a sailor: by so doing, he did not prove to me that he estimated my discernment very highly, for that fact required no announcement. He added, however, what was more instructive; to wit, that he had received the droschky with the horses, that morning, from a Russian captain, in payment of a bad debt. He had resolved to improviso the coachman, though he had never driven a horse before in his life—e?????? e??a?—“it is an easy matter;” and he drove like Jehu, shouted like Stentor, and laughed like the Afrite of Caliph Vathek. He ran over nobody, in spite of his vehemence. Perhaps his horses were wiser than himself: indeed I have remarked, that the populace of Greece is universally more sagacious than its rulers. In taking leave of this worthy tar at the Hotel de Londres, I asked him gravely if he thought that, in case Russia, England, or France should one day take Greece in payment of a bad debt, they would act wisely to drive her as hard as he drove his horses? He opened his eyes at me as if he was about to unskin his head, and began to reflect in silence; so, perceiving that he entertained a very high opinion of my wisdom, I availed myself of the opportunity to advise him to moderate his pace a little in future, if he wished his horses to survive the week.

During my stay at Athens, King Otho was absent from his capital; so that, though I lost the pleasure of beholding the beautiful and graceful queen, I escaped the misfortune of being dishonoured by receiving the cross of an officer of the order of the Redeemer. His Hellenic majesty takes a peculiar satisfaction in hanging this decoration at the buttonholes of those who served Greece during the revolutionary war; while he suspends the cross of Commander round the necks, or ornaments with the star of the order the breasts, of all the Bavarians who have assisted him in relieving Greece of the Palmerstonian plethora of cash gleaned from the three powers. For my own part, I am not sure but that I should have made up my mind to return the cross, with a letter full of polite expressions of contempt for the supposed honour, and a few hints of pity for the donor; as a very able and distinguished friend of Greece, whose services authorized him so to act, did a few days before my arrival.

On attempting to find my way through Bavarian Athens, I was as much at a loss as Lady Francis Egerton, and could not help exclaiming, “Voila des rues qui ont bien peu de logique!” After returning two or three times to the church Kamkarea, against whose walls half the leading streets of the new city appear to run bolt up, I was compelled to seek the assistance of a guide. At length I found out the dwelling once inhabited by my friend Michael Kalliphournas. A neat white villa, with green Venetian blinds, smiling in a court full of ruins and rubbish, had replaced the picturesque but rickety old Turkish kouak of my former recollections. I enquired for the owner in vain; the property, it was said, belonged to his sister; of the brother nobody had heard, and I was referred for information to the patriotic and enterprising Demarch, or mayor, who bears the same name.

In the end my enquiries were successful, and their result seemed miraculous. To my utter astonishment I learned that Michael had become a monk, and dwelt in the monastery of Pentelicus; but I could obtain no explanation of the mystery. His relations referred me to the monk himself—strangers had never heard of his existence. How often does a revolution like that of Greece, when the very organization of society is shaken, compress the progress of a century within a few years! There remained nothing for me but to visit the monastery, and seek a solution of the singular enigma from my friend’s own mouth; so, joining a party of travellers who were about to visit the marble quarries of Pentelicus, and continue their excursion to the plain of Marathon, I set out on such a morning as can only be witnessed under the pure sky of Attica.

The scenery of our ride is now familiar to tourists. Parnes or Parnethus with its double top,A Brilessus or Pentelicus with its numerous rills and fountains, and Hymettus with its balmy odours, have been “hymned by loftier harps than mine.” My companions proved gay and agreeable young men. They knew every body at Athens, and every thing, and willingly communicated their stores of knowledge. I cannot resist recounting some of the anecdotes I heard, as they do no discredit to the noble princes to whom they relate.

When an English prince visited Athens, King Otho, who it seems is his own minister, and conducts business quite in a royal way, learned that he was no Whig, and instantly conceived the sublime idea of making use of his royal highness’s services to obtain Lord Palmerston’s dismissal from office. The monarch himself arranged the plan of his campaign. The prince was invited to a fÊte champÊtre at Phyle, and when the party was distributed in the various carriages, he found himself planted in a large barouche opposite the king and queen. King Otho then opened his intrigue; he told the prince of the notes in favour of constitutional government and economical administration which Lord Palmerston had written, and Sir Edmund Lyons had presented; and he exclaimed, “I assure you, my dear prince, all this is done merely to vex me, because I would not keep that speculating charlatan Armansperg! Lord Palmerston cares no more about a constitution, nor about economy, than Queen Victoria, or you and I. When the Duc de Broglie, who has really more conscience than our friend the Viscount, proposed that Greece should be pestered with a constitution and such stuff, Palmerston answered very judiciously, ‘Greece—bah!—Greece is not fit for a constitution, nor indeed for any other government but that of my nabob!’ Now, my dear prince, Queen Victoria can never mean to offend me, the sovereign of Greece, when the Ottoman empire is so evidently on the eve of dismemberment; and,” quoth Otho the gleaner, “I am deeply offended, at which her British majesty must feel grievously distressed.” The prince doubtless thought her majesty’s distress was not inconsolable; but he only assured his Hellenic majesty that he could be of no possible use to him in his delicate intrigue at the court of St James’s. He tried to get a view of the scenery, and to turn the conversation on the state of the country; but Otho was not so easily repulsed. He insisted that the prince should communicate his sentiments to Queen Victoria; and, in spite of all the assurances he received of the impossibility of meddling with diplomatic business in such a way, his Hellenic majesty, to this very day, feels satisfied that Lord Palmerston was sent to the right-about for offending him; and he is firmly persuaded that, unless Lord Aberdeen furnish him with as many millions as he demands to secure his opposition to Russia, the noble earl will not have a long tenor of office.

A young Austrian of our party shouted, “Ah, it requires to be truly bon garÇon, like the English prince, to submit to be so bored, even by a king! But,” added he, “our gallant Fritz managed matters much better. The Archduke Frederick, who behaved so bravely at Acre, and so amiably lately in London, heard, it seems, of the treatment the prince had met with, and resolved to cure his majesty of using his guests in such style. Being invited to a party at Pentelicus, he was aware that he would be placed alone on the seat, with his back to the horses, and deprived of every chance of seeing the country, if it were only that the diplomatic intrigue at the court of Queen Victoria might remain concealed from the lynx-eyed suspicion of the corps diplomatique of Athens; for King Otho fancies his intrigues always remain the profoundest secrets. When the archduke handed the lovely queen into the carriage, politeness compelled King Otho to make a cold offer to the young sailor to follow; the archduke bowed profoundly, sprang into the carriage, and seated himself beside her majesty. The successor of Agamemnon followed, looking more grim than Hercules Furens: he stood for a moment bolt upright in the carriage, hoping his guest would rise and vacate his seat; but the young man was already actively engaged in conversation. The Emperor of the East—in expectancy—was compelled to sit down with his back to the horses, and study the landscape in that engaging manner of viewing scenery. Never was a fÊte given by a sulkier host than King Otho that day proved to be. In returning, the archduke had a carriage to himself. When questioned on the subject of his ride, he only remarked that he always suffered dreadfully from sickness when he rode with his back to the horses. He was sure, therefore, that King Otho had placed him beside the queen to avoid that horrible inconvenience.”

Other anecdotes were recounted during our ride, and our opinion of his Hellenic majesty’s tact and taste did not become more favourable, when it was discovered that his proceedings had utterly ruined the immense quarries of Pentelicus—

can now only be said of the ruins, not of the quarries. In order to obtain the few thousand blocks required for the royal palace at Athens, millions of square feet of the purest statuary marble have been shivered to atoms by the random process of springing mines with gunpowder. If King Otho had done nothing worse in Greece than converting the marble quarries of Pentelicus into a chaos of rubbish, when he found them capable of supplying all Europe for ages with the most beautiful material for the sculptor, he would have merited the reputation he so justly bears, of caring as little about the real welfare of Greece as Lord Palmerston himself. My companions quitted me at the quarries, making pasquinades on the royal palace and its royal master; while I put up my horse and walked slowly on to the ancient monastery of Pentele, not Mendele, as Lord Byron has it.

I was soon sitting alone in the cell of Michael, and shall now recount his history as I had it from his own mouth. Michael Kalliphournas was left an orphan the year the Greek revolution broke out. He was hardly fourteen years old, and yet he had to act as the guardian and protector of a sister four years younger than himself. The storm of war soon compelled him to fly to Ægina with the little Euphrosyne. The trinkets and gold which his relations had taught him to conceal, enabled him to place his sister in a Catholic monastery at Naxos, where she received the education of a European lady. Michael himself served under Colonel Gordon and General Fabvier with great distinction. In 1831, when the Turks were about to cede Attica to Greece, Michael and Euphrosyne returned to Athens, to take possession of their family property, which promised to become of very great value. At that time I had very often seen PhrÓssa, as she was generally called; indeed, from my intimacy with her brother, I was a constant visitor in the house. Her appearance is deeply impressed on my memory. I have rarely beheld greater beauty, never a more elegant figure, nor a more graceful and dignified manner. She was regarded as a fortune, and began to be sought in marriage by all the young aristocracy of Greece. It was at last conjectured that a young Athenian, named Nerio, the last descendant of the Frank dukes of Athens, had made some impression on her heart. He was a gay and spirited young man, who had behaved very bravely when shut up with the troops in the Acropolis during the last siege of Athens, and he was an intimate friend of her brother. I had left Athens about this time, and my travels in the East had prevented my hearing any thing of my friends in Greece for years.

There is a good deal of society among the Greek families at Athens for a few weeks before the Carnival. They meet together in the evenings, and amuse themselves in a very agreeable way. At one of these parties the discourse fell on the existence of ghosts and spirits; Michael, who was present, declared that he had no faith in their existence. With what groans did he assure me his opinion was changed, and conjured me never to express a doubt on the subject. All the party present exclaimed against what they called his free-masonry; and even his sister, who was not given to superstition, begged him to be silent lest he should offend the neraiÏdhes, who might punish him when he least expected it. He laughed and ridiculed PhrÓssa, offering to do any thing to dare those redoubted spirits which the company could suggest. Nerio, a far greater sceptic than Michael, suddenly affected great respect for the invisible world, and by exciting Michael, gradually engaged him, amidst the laughing of his companions, to undertake to fry a dozen of eggs on the tomb of a Turkish santon, a short distance beyond the Patissia gate—to leave a pot of charcoal, to be seen next morning, as a proof of his valour, and return to the party with the dish of eggs.

The expedition was arranged, in spite of the opposition of the ladies; four or five of the young men promised to follow at a little distance, unknown to Michael, to be ready lest any thing should happen. Michael himself, with a zembil containing a pot of charcoal, a few eggs and a flask of oil in one hand, and a frying-pan and small lantern in the other, closely enveloped in his dusky capote, proceeded smiling to his task. The tomb of the Turk consisted of a marble cover taken from some ancient sarcophagus, and sustained at the corners by four small pillars of masonry—the top was not higher than an ordinary table, and below the marble slab there was an empty space between the columns. It has long since disappeared; but that is not wonderful, since King Otho and his subjects have contrived to destroy almost every picturesque monument of the past in the new kingdom. The thousands of Turkish tombs which not many years ago gave a historic character to the desert environs of Negrepont, and the splendid sÉrail of Zeitouni, with its magnificent marble fountains and baths, have almost disappeared—the storks have bid adieu to Greece—nightly bonfires, caused by absurd laws, destroy the few trees that remain; and in short, unless travellers make haste and visit Greece quickly, they will see nothing but the ruins which King Otho cannot destroy nor Pittaki deface, and the curiosities which Ross cannot give to Prince PÜckler, added to the pleasure they will derive from beholding King Otho’s own face and the faÇade of his new palace.

The night was extremely dark and cold, so that the friends of Michael, familiar as they were with their native city, found some difficulty in following him without a lantern through the mass of ruins Athens then presented. As they approached the tomb, they perceived that he had already lighted his charcoal, and was engaged in blowing it vigorously, as much to warm his hands as to prepare for his cooking operations. Creeping as near to him as possible without risking a discovery, they heard, to their amazement, a deep voice apparently proceeding from the tomb, which exclaimed, “Bou gedje kek sohuk der adamlera.—It must be a cold night for mankind.” “To pisevo effendi,” said Michael in a careless tone, but nervously proceeded to pour a whole bottle of oil into the frying-pan. As soon as the oil was boiling and bubbling, the voice from the tomb again exclaimed, “Gaiour ne apayorsun, mangama pisheriorsun—yuckle buradam—aiyer yiklemassun ben seni kibab ederem, tahamun yerine seni yerim,” signifying pretty nearly, “Infidel, what are you doing here? You appear to be cooking; fly hence, or I will eat my supper of thy carrion.” And at the instant a head covered by an enormous white turban protruded itself from under the tombstone with open mouth. Michael, either alarmed at the words and the apparition, or angry at the suspicion of a premeditated trick on the part of his companions, seized the panful of boiling oil, and poured the whole contents into the gaping mouth of the spectre, exclaiming, “An echeis toson orexin, na to ladhi, Scheitan oglou!—If you are so hungry, take the oil, son of Satan!” A shriek which might have awakened the dead proceeded from the figure, followed by a succession of hideous groans. The friends of Michael rushed forward, but the lamp had fallen to the ground and was extinguished in the confusion. Some time elapsed ere it was found and lighted. The unfortunate figure was dragged from the tomb, suffocated by the oil, and evidently in a dying state, if indeed life was not already extinct. Slowly the horrible truth became apparent. Nerio had separated himself from the rest of the party unperceived, disguised himself, and gained the tomb before the arrival of Michael, who thus became the murderer of his sister’s lover. I shall not attempt to describe the feelings of Michael in recounting this dreadful scene.

The affair never made much noise. The Turks did not consider themselves authorized to meddle in the affairs of the Greeks. Indeed, the infamous murder of the Greek bakalbashi, a short time before by Jussuf-bey, with his own hand, had so compromised their authority, that they were in fear of a revolution. The truth was slowly communicated to Euphrosyne by Michael himself—she bore it better than he had anticipated. She consoled her brother and herself by devoting her life to religious and charitable exercises; but she never entered a monastery nor publicly took the veil. She still lives at Athens, where her charity is experienced by many, though few ever see her. When I left Greece on a visit to Mount Athos, my friend Michael insisted on accompanying me; and, after our arrival on the holy mountain, he exacted from me a promise that I would never discover to any one the monastery into which he had retired, nor even should we by chance meet again, address him as an acquaintance, unless he should speak to me. His sister alone is entrusted with his secret.