Upon My Arrival At The Camping-Place I Found My Wife Surrounded By A
Large Crowd Of Women And Children Beneath A Shady Tree, All Of Whom Had
Brought Presents Of Eggs And Bouquets Of Wild Flowers.
It was difficult
to persuade these good simple people that we did not require presents as
an etiquette of introduction; they would insist upon placing their
little offerings upon the ground, and leaving them if we declined to
accept them.
The principal wild flowers were cyclamen, narcissus, and
anemone. The cyclamen completely covered the ground throughout all the
low woods and thickets. I could only find two varieties, the snow-white,
with claret-coloured centre, and the rose-colour; but the blossoms were
quite equal in size to those usually grown in our glass-houses in
England. We had passed through several hundred acres of open ground that
were as white from the abundance of narcissus as an English meadow might
be yellow from the presence of buttercups.
Our camp was pitched upon a small level plateau of rock, in the centre
of which was a well, cut completely through the stone from top to
bottom. It appeared to be about twenty-five feet deep, but was devoid of
water and contained a considerable amount of rubbish. The people assured
me that a dead Greek lay beneath, as a few years ago some Turks had
killed one of their people and thrown him into the well; they had
concealed the body by stones and rubbish, and no further steps had been
taken in the matter.
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