Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

may each have our own opinion: but for 900 years, at all events, this treasure has a plausible history. It is kept usually not here, but in the parent monastery of Cicco, far among the mountains; and it was brought down, last year, during a drought, to its present station among the plains in order to procure rain for the neighborhood, which was specially in need of it.

Such is a Cyprian monastery, which is in many ways typical. Outside is a farm-yard, swimming with puddles; inside, hidden with gold and jewels, is one of the chief objects of the faith and the devotion of millions. But in Cyprus that faith and devotion have peculiar characteristics of their own. Though the Hellenic temples have fallen, and the earth covers their columns, the Hellenic religion still lives to-day-persistent through all these ages-in the religion of the Christian peasantry. The birth of Venus from the foam of the Cyprian sea is celebrated annually at Larnaka, under a thin disguise, by a marine festival, half fair and half regatta; and one favorite name of the Madonna is Aphroditíssa.

But space will not permit me to linger over the Greeks. I can introduce the reader to but one scene more, and that scene will be essentially Western. To me it was the most impressive and interesting thing in Cyprus. I am speaking of the city of Famagosta. Famagosta to most people is hardly so much as a name: to very few is it more. Those whose attention has been turned to these localities are aware that it was a place of importance from the days of the Ptolemies and of Augustus; that it subsequently rose to a fresh importance under the Lusignans; that under the Genoese it was one of the richest trading towns in the world; that the Venetians recognized and treated it as the key to Cyprus; that against it was directed the first Turkish attack, and that here the Turks encountered the most desperate and heroic resistance.

It is situated on the sea, on the eastern coast of the island, at one end of the great central plain. The harbor, which is now nearly filled up, was in former days capacious; and by the ex

penditure of no exorbitant sum it might be made capable of holding the entire Channel fleet. To the north and west it is surrounded by sand-swept wolds, which are bounded far off by a line of purple mountains. To the south the ground is more fertile. Approached from the land, it looks less like a town than like one enormous fort. Here and there at a distance we see a tower or an elevated battery; but the long lines of the walls, brown and melancholy, only just peer over the slope that swells toward them. It is from the south side that one enters. My first visit was in the morning, and the day was soft and blue, with a beauty passing even that of the Riviera. The road ran through a deep-green meadow of asphodel, across which was moving a bevy of Turkish women, who, in their white yashmaks, shone like a bed of lilies. Before me the asphodel rose toward the length of the fortification, while the road lost itself in a cutting under a dark cluster of towers. Arrived at this cutting, one realized the character of the place better. One saw that it was surrounded by an enormous moat or trench cut in the solid rock; and that the walls were really some fifty feet in height. The road crossed the ditch on a causeway of nine arches and entered a gate, before which a drawbridge once descended. What struck me most, at first, was the wonderful preservation of the masonry. The stains of the weather left a frown upon everything; but there was no decay or crumbling. On entering, this impression deepened. Dark, unbroken arches were sharp and solid over my head, and the passage ended with an open vaulted space that seemed like a baron's hall. Close behind it, yawning and shadowy in the sunshine, was another open vault similar to it, facing the interior, and hollowed in the thickness of the ramparts; and in the shadow of this were other vaulted openings leading away into black, mysterious passages.

And what of the town? I had heard that it was ruinous, but I was quite unprepared for the peculiar aspect of its desolation. Immediately facing one on entering, was a dilapidated Turkish café, built against the fortifications; to the left was a roofless Turkish hut,

and to the right a lane of cottages wan- a lion's skin; and instead of its two dered away fortuitously; but through a towers it is spiked now with a tall wide gap was visible an open space be- minaret. I entered the garden. This, yond, and making my way to this, the over half its little area, was rank with whole of Famagosta burst upon me. I luxuriant green-stuff: but half was bare, was in the midst of a desert. The great for the simple reason that half was ocwalls ran on unbroken on one side of cupied by the stones of ruined meme, but on the other were grassy ex- diæval buildings. In one corner of it panses littered with huge heaps of stones was a dilapidated Persian water-wheel, and crowded with ancient churches. for a wall on one side it had the ruin Many of them stood within fifty yards of a small church; the path at my of one another, and my eye and my feet was strewn with fragments of arithmetic were quite bewildered by pottery; and above all these, itself no their number. I made my way toward longer Christian, the forlorn cathedral one, across a small field, climbing over lifted its English outlines. Before me, a rude enclosure and stumbling now visibly and materially, were the very and again over some broken pieces of images that were in the mind of the carving. I entered the door, and found preacher when he wrote the verses by myself in the hollow gloom of those which so many best remember him. vaulted isles, with sand and refuse strew- The pitcher was broken at the fountain, ing the uneven floor and everywhere on and the wheel was broken at the cistern, the walls around me the remains of gor- and everything in the stillness seemed geous frescoes. I mounted the ram- to be saying of man that he was gone parts to obtain a wider view; and a to his long home. The sentiment was wide desolation was before me with in the air; it breathed like "an unheard more churches standing in it. melody;" it was drawn out and repeated on all sides as if by some soundless orchestra.

The Turkish cottages, with their flat mud roofs, and one or two larger buildings used for government purposes hardly broke the impression of perfect solitude. The few figures to be seen and the few sounds to be heard only added to it. Here and there a shepherd was sitting under a palm tree; a group of children played on a ruined wall; sometimes a voice called; sometimes a sheep-bell tinkled; and ever and again over the heaps that once were palaces, faint yet crisp, came the long plash of the sea. As I examined the scene, three objects struck me specially. One was a cluster of low towers, at an angle of the town toward the sea. Another was a ruined chancel, whose tall, slender arches showed like a skeleton in the sky. The third was a church larger than all the others. I at once recognized it as the cathedral, which I knew existed there. I made my way toward this last through a network of sunken lanes, along which were built some of the poor habitations I have mentioned: and my first near view of it was through the wicket of an old woman's garden. In many ways it is like the cathedral of Lichfield, only more florid in carving; the stone is of a peculiar tawny color, something like

I could not, however, remain there listening to this indefinitely; so presently made my way to the ruined chancel, through whose arches the brilliant sea was glimmering, and under whose shadow some Turkish children played. Thence across a perfect waste I passed to the solemn-looking castle, which stood like a bastion at the northeast angle of the walls, and projected partly into the sea. There was nothing beautiful in its appearance, but it was impressive for its antiquity, its preservation, and its forbidding strength. Externally there was not a single window-nothing but blind walls and huge bulging towers. But, for all that, it was in many ways interesting. Over the gate, let into the ancient stonework, was the lion of the Venetian Republic; and mounting to the battlements by an external stair, I saw, standing in the sea and approached by a neck of masonry, a circular building which is named Torre del Moro. There tradition says were the quarters of a Venetian governor, Christoforo Moro; and he was none other than the prototype of Othello. This made the remote and rarely visited walls at once seem

familiar, and peopled them with wellknown figures; and I pleased myself by fancying that, in a sombre Gothic hall, with heavy pillars and vaulting of enormous thickness, I had discovered the place where Iago made the " cannakin clink."

And here I am compelled to end. Those who are acquainted with the writings and the discoveries of Di Cesnola will of course be aware that there are aspects of Cyprus and its history on

which I have not even glanced. I have written-if I may so express myself— as an impressionist, not as an antiquarian. The scenes and impressions I have described are few; but so far as they go they are typical: and if anyone finds a charm in remote and neglected beauty, and cares to bend over the face of the past rather than dissect its body, I hope I may have conveyed to him some idea of the charm which is still to be found in this famous but neglected island.

[blocks in formation]

By Hugh McCulloch.

[graphic]

IN April, 1833, I left my New England home to make my start in life in the West. Fifty-four years are a long time to look forward to, but a short time to look back upon. Crowded as these years have been, in the United States, with events of surpassing interest and importance, they seem too wonderful to be real. What advances have they recorded in the extent of our cultivated lands, in manufactures, in mining, in facilities of social and commercial intercourse! What changes have they witnessed in our domestic institutions, in the character and in the political and religious sentiment of the people!

A reference to events that have left a lasting impression upon my mind, and to a few of the persons whom I have known in the course of a long life, and to others whom I did not know personally but who were conspicuous in my early days, may be interesting, and perhaps of some value as the recollections of a contemporary of many notable men in a critical period of our history.

I started for the great and (compared with what it is now) unsettled West, by railroad from Boston to Providence, thence by steamboat to New York, where I remained a couple of days to see something of what was rapidly becoming the great commercial city of the Union. Here I renewed my acquaintance with William Emerson, brother of Ralph Waldo, who, some years before, had been my teacher in Kennebunk. With him I went to the Battery, then in its old-time beauty, in the neighborhood of which were the fine residences of the aristocracy of the city; the City Hall, which still remains unchanged, and which in architectural design has not been surpassed by any public building in the country; St. Paul's, which had been built in the style of the Wren

churches of England, and was regarded by many as not being inferior to the finest of them in symmetry and grace. The long row of dwelling-houses in what was then upper New York, Lafayette Place, had just been completed. They were the show houses of the city; I was taken to them that I might see what elegant, commodious, and expensive houses the New Yorkers were building. My visit to New York was very agreeable-made so chiefly by the kindness of Mr. Emerson, who, less distinguished than his brother Ralph Waldo, possessed many of his admirable qualities, with simple manners and ripe scholarship. From New York I went by steamboat to Amboy, by railroad to Bordentown, and from Bordentown to Philadelphia by steamboat. The only thing in this part of my journey that I especially recollect was the beauty of the Delaware. The journey from Philadelphia to Baltimore was made by railroad and steamboat. I spent but a single day in either city, but long enough to see the charming parks in the former, and the monuments-the finest I had ever seen- -in the latter. From Baltimore I went by rail to Frederick, in Maryland, and thence by stage-coach, two days and one night, over the Cumberland (National) road to Wheeling.

The Ohio was in good boating condition, and the journey down the river was charming. It then deserved the reputation it had, of being one of the most beautiful rivers in the world. There was nothing but a few straggling villages to mar its original beauty. The magnificent forest through which it flowed had been quite untouched by the great destroyer, the woodman's axe. The banks of the river had not then been stripped of their beauty, as they have been since, by the destruction of the magnificent trees that covered them, and disfigured by the inroads which, in consequence thereof, the waters have made upon them. For miles upon

miles nothing could be seen but the sky and the river and the grand old forest through which it ran. Occasionally we overtook flatboats loaded with coal or lumber, or met a high-pressure sternwheel steamboat, making slow progress against the stream. There was little else than these and the puffing of our own steamer to break the pervading solitude. On my way down the river I read with great interest a number of letters, just published in pamphlet form, by Thomas F. Marshall in advocacy of the gradual abolition of slavery in Kentucky. The injurious effects of slavery upon the industrial condition of the State were illustrated by comparison of the rapid growth of Ohio on the one side of the river with the slow growth of Kentucky on the other, and its injustice to the slave, and its depressing influence upon enterprise were presented with great independence and force.

I never saw Mr. Marshall but twice: once when he was in the meridian of his intellectual strength-the accomplished and magnetic orator; and again when he had fallen from his high estate to be the slave of intemperance-an object of painful commiseration. A few days after the unsuccessful efforts made in the House in 1837 to pass a resolution of censure against John Quincy Adams for his temerity in presenting a petition from slaves, in which effort Mr. Marshall took a leading part, I happened to be seated with some Southern members of Congress at the dinner-table of one of the Washington hotels, when Mr. Marshall came in. It seemed that Mr. Adams had said or done something that day which had irritated these gentlemen, and as Mr. Marshall was taking his seat at the table one of them exclaimed, "Well, Marshall, the old devil has been at work again; you must take him in hand." "Not I," replied Mr. Marshall, with a decisive shake of his head; "I have been gored once by the damned old bull, and have had enough of him. If there is to be any more of this kind of work it must be undertaken by somebody else. The old devil, as you call him, is a match for a score of such fellows as you and I.”

Many years after I saw Mr. Marshall in Washington he was pointed out to

His

me in the Lake House, in Chicago, sitting upon a bench with the messenger boys, and talking to them incoherently -a mental and physical wreck. He had joined temperance societies, and made temperance speeches equal to the best of Gough's, for, like Gough, he spoke from his own experience. description of the terrible next morning following the night's debauch was as truthful and touching as it was graphic. For months together he seemed to have conquered his enemy, a thirst for intoxicating drink, but its hold had become too strong to be overcome. He resolved, and re-resolved, and died the victim of alcohol. I have known many victims of intemperance, but none who have fallen from so distinguished a position, whose ruin was so lamentable and complete.

Soon after I reached Indiana I heard a good deal about Thomas Corwin, then a prominent Whig member of Congress from Ohio. Of Mr. Corwin it is not too much to say that in wit, in humor, and general knowledge; in a ready command of language; in voice, in mobility and expressiveness of features; in all the requisites for fascinating and effective stump oratory, he was without an equal. Men would travel twenty or thirty miles to listen to the matchless orator, and even his political opponents could not help joining in the applause which his speeches never failed to call forth. His memory was not only a perfect storehouse of historical facts, but also of anecdotes and stories. It was worth a "Sabbath day's journey" to hear "Tom" Corwin (as he was familiarly called) tell a story.

No matter how frequently heard, it was always made fresh and racy by his variable and inimitable manner of telling it. While the attractiveness of his speeches was in no small degree attributable to his extraordinary control of the muscles of his face, which were always in accord with the sentiments he was expressing and the anecdotes he was relating, and to his charming voice, they were never lacking in eloquence or force. He had always something good to say, and he never failed to be instructive as well as fascinating. His power over popular and promiscuous assemblies was immense.

« AnkstesnisTęsti »