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 AEgean
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 Piraeus, 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 Piraeus. 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 o
|