Touring in 1600. Bates Ernest Stuart
borne Christ to show him all the kingdoms of the earth. Then there were all the natural curiosities which the tourist might see in the Levant and nowhere else; asbestos at Cyprus, likewise ladanum "generated by the dew," and at Lemnos the "terra sigillata" famed throughout Europe for its healing properties, an interesting example of an ancient superstition taken over by Christianity; for the priestess of Artemis who had the charge of the sacred earth in Pliny's time had been succeeded by the Christian priest whom the Turkish officials watched at work without interfering, in case there might be some rite which they did not know of and on the use of which the efficacy of the earth depended.
So also, with volcanoes; it was only he who went by sea who saw any other than Vesuvius; and in addition to their scientific, they had also a theological, attraction, being generally considered as mouths of hell, Stromboli, in particular, more continually active than the rest. Concerning Stromboli there is a curious tale which is worth borrowing from Sandys, how one Gresham, a London merchant, ascended the volcano one day, at noon, when the flames were wont to slacken, and heard a voice call out that the rich Antonio was coming. On returning to Palermo where there was a rich Antonio, well known, he learnt that the latter had died at the hour the voice had been heard, and the fact and hour were confirmed by the sailors who had accompanied Gresham, to Henry VIII, who questioned them. Gresham himself retired from business and gave away his property.
Another Levant incident, characteristic, mysterious, and one of Sandys' telling, moreover, is this. He was at Malta one day, alone on the seashore, and what he saw seemed like a part of a masque. A boat arrived; in it, two old women. Out they stepped with grotesque gestures, and spread a Turkey carpet, on that a table-cloth, and on that victuals of the best. Then came another boat which set "a Gallant ashore with his two Amorosaes, attired like nymphs, with Lutes in their hands." But the "gallant" turned out to be a French captain and the nymphs far from spiritual.
Or again; once, on the way to Constantinople, they were near land and he made a day's excursion. Returning at evening, he found the captain lying dripping wet, struggling, it seemed, with death. The crew were all quarrelling, some on board, some on shore. "Amongst the rest there was a blind man who had married a young wife that would not let him lie with her and thereupon had undertaken this journey to complain unto the Patriarch. He, hearing his brother cry out at the receipt of a blow, guided to the place by the noise and thinking with his staff to have struck the striker, laid it on with such force that, meeting with nothing but air, he fell into the sea, and was with difficulty preserved from drowning. The clamour increased; and anon the captain, starting up as if of a sudden restored to life, like a madman skips into the boat, and drawing a Turkish scimitar, beginneth to lay about him (thinking that his vessel had been surprised by pirates): whereupon they all leaped into the sea, and diving under the water ascended outside the reach of his fury. Leaping ashore, he pursues my Greek guide, whom fear made too nimble for him, mounting a steep cliff which at another time he could have hardly ascended. Then turning upon me (who was only armed with stones) as God would have it, he stumbled, and there lay like a stone for two hours, that which had made them so quarrelsome being now the peace-maker. For it being proclaimed death to bring wine into Constantinople and they loath to pour such good liquor into the sea, had made their bellies their overcharged vessels."
But it would be doing the Levant injustice to let the last word on it be an explained miracle, and therefore you may be informed on the testimony of John Newberie, citizen and merchant of London, who, "being desirous to see the world," has become enrolled in the band of Purchas, His Pilgrims, that there was a small isle near Melos, to wit, the Isola de' Diavoli, uninhabited but by devils; and if any vessels are moored thereto, as may be done, the water being deep by the shore, the ropes loose their hold unless the sailors make a cross with every two cables. And once upon a time, when a Florentine galley was moored there without a cross, a loud voice was heard warning the sailors to row away.
And lastly, this is what happened when a funeral had to take place at sea; an inventory of the deceased's goods was made, the ship's bell was rung twice, a fire-brand thrown into the sea, and the announcement made: "Gentlemen mariners, pray for the soul of poor – whereby, through God's mercy, he may rest with the souls of the faithful." But it is pleasant to say that on the only occasion this form of burial is recorded the deceased was alive, if not kicking; he was at his post, the "look out," curled up asleep, as he had been for forty-eight hours previously, sleeping off the effects of Greek wine.
The amount of attention given to the other islands of the Mediterranean, Sicily, which may be considered part of Italy, excepted, might well be represented by saying nothing about them, but Cardinal de Retz's remark about Port Mahon, Minorca, is too characteristic of his age to be passed over; he praises it as the most beautiful haven of the Mediterranean, so beautiful that its scenery surpassed even that employed at Paris for the opera!
CHAPTER IV
CHRISTIAN EUROPE
PART I
EUROPEAN EUROPE
From the report of divers curious and experienced persons I had been assured there was little more to be seen in the rest of the civil world after Italy, France and the Low Countries, but plain and prodigious barbarism.
The route of the Average Tourist being determined by the considerations above-mentioned, he was naturally directed to those countries whose situation enabled them to influence the course of events in his fatherland, whose development and conditions contained the most pertinent lessons for him as a man and as a statesman, and whose climate, accessibility, and inhabitants were such as hindered travellers least. These countries were: Italy, France, the United Provinces (i. e., Holland), the Empire, the Spanish Netherlands (corresponding to Belgium), England, Poland. This order is that in which they would probably have appeared to arrange themselves according to their importance for the purposes under consideration. The omission of England in the chapter heading is due, of course, to Evelyn having started thence; of the Empire and Poland, to the date at which he is writing, near the close of the Thirty Years' War; a date which, while within the period with which this book has to deal, is later by nearly half a century than the central date, 1600, to which all its undated statements should be taken as referring.
Whatever criticism might have been passed on this order of importance by this or that adviser, not one would have been found to dispute the preëminence of Italy. Whereas now there is no form of human effort in which the inhabitants of Italy have not been equalled or surpassed, it seemed then as if there had never been any in which they had been surpassed and very few in which they had been equalled. So far as Art and antiquities go, there will be no need to persuade anybody of the likelihood of that; nor probably, with regard to venerableness of religion or romance of history. But the very easiness of imagining the supremacy which would have been conceded Italy on these points tends to close the enquiry into the causes of its hold on men in times gone by, and consequently to obscure the fact that Italy then not only stood for all that Italy stands for now, but also in the place, or rather, places, now occupied by the most advanced States in their most advanced aspects; for everything, in fact, that made for progress on the lines considered most feasible or probable at the moment; for progress, not only in culture, but in commerce and commercial methods, in politics, in the science of war, in up-to-date handicraft, and, especially, in worldly wisdom. Even a baby-food was assured of greater respect if made from an Italian recipe, such as the paste made of bread-crumbs, wheat-meal, and olive-oil, of which De Thou nearly died. In short, if the value of Italy as the colonizer of Europe in regard to mental development belonged by this time to the past rather than to the present, its reputation as such must not be ante-dated, as is generally done, and ascribed to the age when it most thoroughly deserved that reputation. Here, on the contrary, as usually, merit and credit are not contemporary.
And there was plenty to deceive those who did not look far below the surface. In discussing politics the newest set-phrases would be those brought into use by Italian writers; "balance of power," "reason of state," etc.; the word "status" itself, as a substitute for "Respublica," was both a sign of the times and of Italian influence.39 So with commercial terms, we find, for instance, the word "provvisione" (commission) being used as late as 1648,40 by an Englishman
J. N. Figgis,
Brit. Mus. MS. Harleian, 943, fol. 33.