A Trip to the Orient Part 6

From the parapets of this place a magnificent and interesting view of the harbor was obtained. Not far away, but hundreds of feet below us, the Moltke lay, encircled by the white awning-covered boats. Eight large battleships and a dozen cruisers and gunboats, all painted black, were lying peacefully at anchor. Steamships and sailing vessels at the docks were discharging cargoes, or were lying in the bay awaiting their turn to unload. Steam launches were busily flying from one point to another, and little ferry boats were constantly crossing and re-crossing the bay.

The harbor was surrounded by high cliffs and old gray fortifications.

At the entrance to the bay stood a tall lighthouse and a frowning fortress, the one for guidance, the other for protection. Through the entrance a ship with spread sails was entering, and beyond, the sunlight shone on the beautiful blue waters of the Mediterranean.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ATTRACTIVE STORES LINE THE "STRADA REALE."]

The streets of Valetta were full of life that day. In reply to inquiries we were informed that on the following day, the Sunday preceding Lent, a festa, or carnival, lasting three days, would begin. During the festa, business would be suspended, and the people, disguised in masks and fanciful costumes, would engage in most ludicrous and extraordinary antics and play all manner of practical jokes on one another, showering the pa.s.sers-by gently with confetti and flowers, or pelting them stingingly with dried peas and beans. Many children, impatient for the morrow to come, were already parading the streets arrayed in their costumes.

Attractive stores line the "Strada Reale," the main shopping street. In these stores laces, gold and silver filagree work, jewelry, and embroidered muslins were the princ.i.p.al wares sought by the tourists. The ladies of our party were particularly anxious to secure pieces of Maltese lace, a special hand-made product noted for the excellence of its quality, the making of which gives employment to thousands of the inhabitants. In trading with the Maltese merchants, we soon found that the prices asked by the dealers were about twice the amount the customer was expected to pay, and that bargaining was as necessary in Malta as in Algiers.

Almost all the costumes we saw on the streets were of the English style, but the varied uniforms of soldiers and the distinctive garments of Greeks, Turks, Spaniards, and Arabs added color and interest to the scene. The Maltese women wear immense bonnets, called faldettas. These peculiar bonnets have long skirts which reach to the waist and are totally black without color or ornament. As the majority of the inhabitants are Roman Catholics, we saw many priests and monks who wore black robes and very broad-brimmed black hats turned up at the sides.

The Maltese are lovers of flowers, which are raised in profusion. At the corners of the princ.i.p.al streets were small fanciful buildings, a few feet in diameter, in which dark eyed brunettes offered flowers and bonbons for sale. The people also love music. In the Opera House, an elaborate structure, which, we were told, cost a quarter of a million dollars, Grand Opera is given three times a week for six months in the year.

We visited the old church of St. John, which was built three centuries ago and lavishly adorned out of the proceeds of plunder that had been taken from infidels and pirates. The tower above the church contains a chime of ten bells, and the clock on the tower has a triple face, one face showing the hour of the day, one showing the day of the week, and the third, the day of the month. The heavy doors were open, but a curtain of matting hung over the entrance. A ragged, barefoot boy ran before us, and, drawing aside the matting that we might enter, extended his hand for a penny. We walked over the beautiful inlaid mosaic marble floor, and beheld handsomely painted ceilings with life-size figures overhead, and richly decorated walls and pillars around us. A priest with pride pointed out the famous paintings on the walls, the bronze and the marble statues around the sides, and, in the various chapels, the three huge iron keys which opened the gates of Jerusalem, Acre, and Rhodes, and the gates of solid silver in front of the richly decorated altar. As we stood before the silver gates our guide told us his little story:

"When the French captured Malta in 1798 they carried away as booty the most valuable possessions of the church in the form of precious jewels, silver statues, golden vessels, valuable vestments, and works of art.

The Emperor Napoleon with his own hand took a most valuable diamond from the finger of the jeweled glove which covered the sacred relic, the hand of St. John, and placed it on his own finger. The Emperor also took the diamond mounted sword, which had been carried by Valette, and buckled it to his side. These silver gates, too, would have been carried away but for the forethought of a priest who painted them black and so concealed their value."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STREETS OF VALETTA WERE FULL OF LIFE THAT DAY PRECEDING THE FESTA.]

In the nave of this church we tramped over hundreds of marble slabs which have been placed among the mosaics in the floor as memorials of the knights and n.o.bles who are buried underneath. These flat tombstones are adorned with representations of coats-of-arms, musical instruments, angels, crowns, palms, skeletons, and other odd devices. But in the crypt underneath, whither we were next conducted, majestic monuments of elaborate design mark the resting places of the most noted Grand Masters of the Order, the tomb of Grand Master Cottoner being one of the most imposing. In the sacristy we gazed at, but were not permitted to touch, the beautifully illuminated missals, the finely woven pieces of ancient embroidery, and the splendid robes of former Grand Masters.

"The tapestry of the Lord's Supper and many other wonderful tapestries are locked in that chamber," said the priest, pointing to a closed door, "and are only exhibited in June each year."

At one of the altars in a side chapel worshipers knelt before a piece of the true cross; but the relics regarded as most precious in the custody of the Church of St. John, a thorn from the Savior's crown, portions of the bones of three apostles, one of the stones cast at St. Stephen, the right foot of Lazarus, and a fragment of the cradle of the infant Jesus, are guarded with great care and rarely exposed to the gaze of curious eyes.

In the Governor's Palace the tourists spent a short time. The walls of the Council Chamber are hung with rare tapestry which has retained its color and beauty for nearly three centuries. The dining room and corridors are decorated with paintings of grim-faced Grand Masters of the past; and the gorgeous ball room contains a throne on which these same rulers sat in state surrounded by pomp and splendor. In the great hall of the Armory are rows of figures clad in the antique armor worn by the Knights, together with steel gloves, helmets, and coats of mail, inlaid with gold and silver; and around this hall are arranged the crossbows, arquebuses, spears, pikes, swords, battle axes, and old battle flags. There with the treasures are the old silver trumpet that sounded the retreat from Rhodes, and the faded parchment ma.n.u.script, or Papal edict, which sanctioned the gift of the island by Charles V. of Germany to the Knights; and among the trophies are the jeweled coat of mail and weapons of a famous Algerine corsair, a cannon curiously constructed of a copper tube wound with tarred rope, and many torn and blood-stained, crescent-mounted standards which in the hand-to-hand conflicts had been captured from the Turks.

"What soldier of the present day could march or even ride any distance so enc.u.mbered with steel?" remarked one of the tourists as we stood before an emblazoned suit of mail that had been worn by one of the Grand Masters of the Knights. "To handle these heavy battle axes or long spears for stroke after stroke or thrust after thrust during the long hours the battle raged must have required muscles of steel and wonderful powers of endurance."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CLOCK ABOVE THE ANCIENT CHURCH HAS A TRIPLE FACE.]

"These breastplates and helmets and shields, which were worn by the Knights to protect them from the arrows and spears of their enemies,"

said one of the ladies, as she looked at the old armor, "enable me to understand better what St. Paul meant when he wrote to the Ephesians: 'Put on the whole armor of G.o.d that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil,' and 'all the fiery darts of the wicked.' The old monk-soldiers must have interpreted that command literally when they went out to fight the infidels."

After completing our sight-seeing in the city of Valetta, a little train of cars on a narrow-gauge railroad carried us a distance of six miles to the older city of Citta Vecchia. The land along the way as far as we could see was divided into small plots ranging from about half an acre to two acres in size. Each plot was surrounded by stone walls from six to ten feet in height, many of which were broken and dilapidated. We were told that, although the climate of the island is quite mild, violent winds frequently blow over it, and these walls were erected to protect the fig, orange, lemon, and other fruit trees from destruction.

Protected from the high winds, these trees yield abundantly; and, in the fertile soil of these plots, two or three crops of vegetables are raised each year. Much of the land was rocky and uncultivated. Very few trees were seen and those were dwarfed. One species of evergreen tree, called the Carob, grew only ten feet in height, but spread to three times that in breadth. In some neglected spots the p.r.i.c.kly pear grew in rank ma.s.ses. The houses along the way, built of yellow or gray stone, had a weather-beaten look, and the yards around them were enclosed with high walls. The small square windows in the houses and the flat stone roofs with enclosing parapets reminded us of pictures of the houses in Bible stories.

In Citta Vecchia the two princ.i.p.al attractions were the Cathedral of St.

Paul and the Grotto of St. Paul. The Cathedral is said to be built on the site of the house of Publius, the governor of the island, who entertained and lodged St. Paul for three days after he was ship-wrecked on this island, which in the Bible is called Melita. The Grotto is said to have been occupied by St. Paul during his three months' stay on the island. About four miles from the Cathedral is the bay of St. Paul, where the apostle was wrecked while on his way to Rome. There is the little creek in which the sailors tried to guide the storm-tossed vessel and the sh.o.r.e to which they escaped "on boards and on broken pieces of the ship."

In Citta Vecchia we were shown the mosaic pavement and the decorated frieze of an old Roman house supposed to be over two thousand years old, which had been uncovered at a considerable distance below the surface while an excavation was being made. Notwithstanding their age the old mosaic pavement and frieze were in good condition.

An interesting day of sight-seeing closed with a drive in Valetta through the humbler part of the city and down a long inclined street which led to the docks. At nightfall as our steamship moved eastward the lights of Malta's stronghold gradually faded from our sight, but the gleam of its lighthouse followed us for many a mile.

CHAPTER VII

ATHENS AND THE ACROPOLIS.

The sun was just appearing in the east as we approached the seaport of the Grecian capital.

Through the mists of the dawning day we could make out dimly, ahead of us, only bleak bare hills. As the Moltke steamed through the straits we saw a lighthouse and a few buildings on the sh.o.r.e and over the low hill on our right the tops of masts; but when the vessel had entered through a narrow pa.s.sage between the moles extending from either side, and had anch.o.r.ed in the centre of the well protected and commodious harbor of Piraeus, we gazed on a scene of animation and activity. The bay was filled with shipping and the sh.o.r.e lined with warehouses where the stevedores were already busily engaged in lading or discharging cargoes.

On each side of the Moltke, little more than a stone's throw away, lay gray battleships, cruisers, torpedo boats, destroyers, and other naval craft.

"What war vessels are those?" was the question asked eagerly by many pa.s.sengers.

"The white flag with the blue St. Andrew's cross floating over that warship is the Russian national emblem," patiently replied one of the officers of our steamer, "and so I conclude that these vessels compose the Russian Mediterranean squadron."

A band on the flagship began to play and the Russian sailors in clean white suits were seen forming in lines on the decks of the vessels, evidently for inspection or morning roll-call. On the rigging above the sailors' heads, swaying in the breeze, were hundreds of white suits, washed and hung out to dry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HUNDREDS OF WHITE SUITS HUNG OUT TO DRY.]

Soon fifty or more large row boats were plying around our steamer in readiness to convey us to the railroad station at the upper end of the harbor about a mile away. As we approached the sh.o.r.e in these boats we saw on the wharf at Piraeus a motley crowd of dirty-handed, bare-footed, ill-clothed men and boys. It seemed as if all the idle and vagabond population of the city had a.s.sembled to lounge lazily in the sun, hoping, perhaps, to obtain some small coins from the tourists during the transfer from boat to cars. If this was their hope they were disappointed. All arrangements for the welfare of the Moltke tourists had been carefully made in advance, and, as there was no baggage to be carried, the services of the dirty-handed men were not required.

"Are these vagabonds and tramps the descendants of the n.o.ble Greeks whom we have honored all our lives?" sadly remarked a minister in our boat.

"Can these be the offspring of the great orators who electrified their hearers, or of the famous architects and artists whose names are immortal? Are these swarthy-faced, plain-featured idlers the representatives of the Greek beauty of form and feature?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: STRENGTH AND SIMPLICITY RATHER THAN BEAUTY.]

In preparation for a visit to these historic sh.o.r.es we had filled our minds with tales of heroism and visions of the beautiful; now the sight of this bare-footed throng, so different from the pictures we had formed in our minds, was a severe shock to our imagination.

"These vagabonds do not represent the Greek race," responded another who had traveled in that country before; "they are merely the dregs of the people, a cla.s.s that may be found in any large city and especially in the seaports."

The distance from Piraeus to the city of Athens is but five miles. From the windows of the little cars we could see that the valley through which we pa.s.sed was a succession of well cultivated fields, vineyards, and gardens. A white road, almost parallel to the railroad, traversed the valley. Gray-green trees in the distance indicated a district of olive orchards.

At a station on the outskirts of the city we left the train and followed an old guide to visit the Theseum, or Temple of Theseus, a large edifice built in simple Doric style. The plain columns and unadorned pediments express strength and simplicity rather than beauty. Notwithstanding the fact that twenty-four centuries have pa.s.sed since its erection, this temple is noted as being the best preserved of all the ancient buildings of Greece. A short time, however, sufficed for a view of the plain exterior and an entrance into the gloomy interior.

[Ill.u.s.tration: I. OVER THE RUINS OF THE ANCIENT CITY.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: II. "THIS IS MARS HILL," SAID THE GUIDE.]

Then proceeding along a fine modern road, built over the ruins of the ancient city, traces of which were seen in adjacent excavations, we pa.s.sed, on our right, an open plateau on the rocks where an audience of eight or ten thousand might a.s.semble. This was the Pynx of ancient times, a gathering place of the people. A flight of steps hewn in the stone at one side of this plateau leads up to a platform cut in the rock. From this rock, named the Platform of Demosthenes, great orators addressed the mult.i.tude, stirring their countrymen to deeds of valor.

Beyond the Pynx, a cave with gates of rusty grated iron was pointed out as the prison in which the n.o.ble Socrates was incarcerated before being condemned to drink the fatal hemlock.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ONCE THE MAGNIFICENT MARBLE STAIRCASE.]

Farther up the slope the guide pointed to a small rock elevation on our left and said: "That is the Areopagus, or Mars Hill, from which the Apostle Paul made his appeal to the idolatrous Athenians. He probably ascended those sixteen steps that you see hewn in the rock. Where we are standing now, the people stood to listen. From that elevation Paul could view the avenues leading to the Acropolis, avenues adorned with statues in honor of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses and famous heroes."

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN HONOR OF NIKE, THE G.o.dDESS OF VICTORY.]

As we stood there, we could almost hear Paul's words:

"Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superst.i.tious. For as I pa.s.sed by, and beheld the G.o.ds that ye worship, I found an altar with this inscription, 'To the Unknown G.o.d.'--G.o.d dwelleth not in temples made with hands.--We ought not to think that the G.o.dhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." The altar to the unknown G.o.d to which Paul referred may have been one of the many altars within sight of the elevation on which he stood.

After we left Mars Hill a few minutes' walk brought us to the foot of a long flight of ruined steps, at the top of which stood broken marble columns. Before us was the Acropolis, the highest point of the city, a rocky eminence with inaccessible cliffs on three sides. The only approach to its summit, which is about two hundred feet above the level of the modern city, is on the southwest side, being reached by the avenues we had followed up the gradual slope past Mars Hill.