To Group The Couched Camels Under The Plane-
Trees; The Little Crowd Of Wandering Ragged Heathens Come Down To
The Calm Water, To Behold The Nearing Steamer; To Fancy A Mountain,
In The Sides Of Which Some Scores Of Tombs Are Rudely Carved;
Pillars And Porticos, And Doric Entablatures.
But it is of the
little theatre that he must make the most beautiful picture - a
charming little place of festival, lying out on the shore, and
looking over the sweet bay and the swelling purple islands.
No
theatre-goer ever looked out on a fairer scene. It encourages
poetry, idleness, delicious sensual reverie. O Jones! friend of my
heart! would you not like to be a white-robed Greek, lolling
languidly, on the cool benches here, and pouring compliments (in
the Ionic dialect) into the rosy ears of Neaera? Instead of Jones,
your name should be Ionides; instead of a silk hat, you should wear
a chaplet of roses in your hair: you would not listen to the
choruses they were singing on the stage, for the voice of the fair
one would be whispering a rendezvous for the mesonuktiais horais,
and my Ionides would have no ear for aught beside. Yonder, in the
mountain, they would carve a Doric cave temple, to receive your urn
when all was done; and you would be accompanied thither by a dirge
of the surviving Ionidae. The caves of the dead are empty now,
however, and their place knows them not any more among the festal
haunts of the living. But, by way of supplying the choric melodies
sung here in old time, one of our companions mounted on the scene
and spouted,
"My name is Norval."
On the same day we lay to for a while at another ruined theatre,
that of Antiphilos. The Oxford men, fresh with recollections of
the little-go, bounded away up the hill on which it lies to the
ruin, measured the steps of the theatre, and calculated the width
of the scene; while others, less active, watched them with
telescopes from the ship's sides, as they plunged in and out of the
stones and hollows.
Two days after the scene was quite changed. We were out of sight
of the classical country, and lay in St. George's Bay, behind a
huge mountain, upon which St. George fought the dragon, and rescued
the lovely Lady Sabra, the King of Babylon's daughter. The Turkish
fleet was lying about us, commanded by that Halil Pasha whose two
children the two last Sultans murdered. The crimson flag, with the
star and crescent, floated at the stern of his ship. Our
diplomatist put on his uniform and cordons, and paid his Excellency
a visit. He spoke in rapture, when he returned, of the beauty and
order of the ship, and the urbanity of the infidel Admiral. He
sent us bottles of ancient Cyprus wine to drink: and the captain
of Her Majesty's ship "Trump," alongside which we were lying,
confirmed that good opinion of the Capitan Pasha which the
reception of the above present led us to entertain, by relating
many instances of his friendliness and hospitalities.
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