A very little sentiment of this kind goes a long way on a rolling
sea, and, despite the celebrity of our craft, we were thankful to
leave her when she entered the capacious harbour of Ios, 'Little
Malta,' as the Turks used to call it, from its affording an
excellent refuge to corsairs. After the gloomy blackness of the
volcanic rocks of Santorini, and the unnatural aspect of the place,
Ios seemed a perfect paradise of verdure. There is nothing of any
extraordinary beauty to be seen down by the quay, but the rocks
are bold, the harbour fine, and the lower plain bright, where flocks
abound; and the aspect is as green as in an English valley.
Moreover, the inhabitants of Ios seem to partake of the genial nature
of their soil, for never in all our wanderings did we meet with
a family so genial and gay as the Lorenziades. One brother was demarch,
another ex-demarch, and a third the schoolmaster; and the ex-demarch
had three charming daughters—Marousa, Ekaterina, and Callirhoe—who
administered tenderly to our wants, and saw to the fitting up of
an empty house where we were to sleep during our stay, whilst meals
were provided for us at the ex-demarch's house.
We got some refreshments down at the quay, hardboiled eggs and cold
eel, whilst we awaited the arrival of the demarch, to whom we had
forwarded our letter of introduction, and we thought much about
Homer, and wondered if he really did die here. The town, as usual,
is distant about twenty minutes from the harbour on the hillside,
so the demarch brought with him muleteers to convey us thither,
whose costume was very picturesque: rough home-spun coats and baggy
trousers, which were dyed a sort of tawny colour, a white knitted
cap on their heads, and on their feet sandals of undressed ox hide—just
a flat piece of leather fastened by thongs to the foot—most
comfortable for long mountain journeys; doubtless the same that
Homer describes.
In their hands they carried long sticks with iron prods at the end
with which to drive their mules. The effect of this costume is very
good; in fact, the prevailing colour in Ios is tawny brown for women
and men alike, and it is procured by dyeing the home-spun material
in the refuse left in the winepress after all the wine has been
pressed out.
Ios is, as other island towns, full of pigs, though of late a sumptuary
law has limited each householder to the maintenance of one; and
here perhaps more than in other islands we were struck by the multiplicity
of churches—pigs and churches confronted us at every turn.
Ios, with scarcely 3,000 inhabitants, boasts of 360 churches, thirty
of which are in the village, which is called the capital; the rest
are dotted over the island. At Sifnos they accounted for the number
of churches by asserting the piety of their ancestors; here in Ios
they told us that when anybody had sinned greatly, and wished to
propitiate the deity, he built a church, and that all these churches
dated from those piratical days when Ios was 'Little Malta.'
Three gaunt, ungainly pigs ruled supreme in the alley in which our
house was situated, and looked upon our arrival as an evident intrusion;
and as we watched them from our balcony, and witnessed their choice
of food, our appetite for Greek bacon was not increased; just at
the bottom of the alley stood two churches, the bell of which clanged
perpetually in chorus with the gruntings of the pigs. Some of these
churches are curiously built, consisting almost entirely of a vaulted
dome over the body of the church, to which scarcely perceptible
transepts were added, and a narrow porch over which is perched a
thin, attenuated bell-tower. Each church has a courtyard in front
of it, not unfrequently sunk in the ground, and approached by three
steps, where after festival services the priests and people sit
for gossip and the distribution of 'kollussa'.
The three daughters of our host looked well after the arrangement
of our house: the bed had a valance formed of two rows of rich Greek
lace, each row being six inches deep; the eikons in the sacred corner
were dusted, and before them placed an incense vase, which we were
invited to burn if we wished: the marriage crowns in their round
gilded case looked most imposing, but the basin and jug were the
most diminutive I ever saw. As soon as we were supposed to have
rested Demarch Lorenziades and his niece Marousa called to see if
we should like to go for a walk of inspection; so accordingly we
set off, and visited all the points of interest—first of all
the acropolis, under which the town nestles, and which was the site
of the old Hellenic town, as is evinced by the Cyclopean walls and
cisterns; but the ruins of ancient Ios do not lead one to imagine
that it was a place of great importance. There are few traces of
marble remains, and the stone, being for the most part sandstone,
has crumbled away and left but little to point out what the buildings
once were. Also down by the harbour are traces of towers and other
walls. In the various churches that we visited numerous inscriptions
have been collected; in one of them the altar rested on a pillar,
turned upside down, on which was inscribed the particulars about
a musical contest, and evidently once supported a choragic monument.
Another church is constructed out of the remains of a temple of
Apollo, the god of ancient worship here.
The demarch was proud of his town, and would not allow anything
to escape our notice. We were taken to the spot where fourteen windmills
run up the hillside, from which the best view was to be obtained;
we were taken to the cafe and regaled with coffee and 'loukoum';
we were taken to the school and introduced to the younger brother,
the schoolmaster, whom was deep in the intricacies of a geographical
lesson, and made his pupils point out for our benefit the boundaries,
seas, mountains, and provinces of Greece, which they did with unerring
precision.
That evening, after a sociable dinner, at which fowls did duty in
every form, a lovely surprise was prepared for us: a woman of surpassing
beauty entered in the costume of Ios; a costume which is, alas!
rare nowadays. The headgear was a veil bespattered with gold, with
streamers which hung down behind; in front of it was a sort of crown
('courli'); the dress was of green and gold brocade.
Over her heart was what we should call a stomacher, but the Greeks,
in more polite parlance, an 'esokardia'; her feet were
in dainty little shoes ('kountoures'). Nothing could
look more glorious than this woman, with perfect features, brilliant
complexion, and rich dark hair. We stared at her in mute admiration
for some time, but it was not till next morning that we identified
our host's daughter Ekaterina as the original of this beautiful
apparition. During dinner she had heard us talk of the lovely costumes
we had seen in other islands, and she had been determined that her
native place should not be behindhand. The effect of dress was never
more marked than in her case; in her everyday dress she resembled
a good-looking red-faced housemaid, in her festival costume she
would have graced a palace.
Ios is celebrated for its flocks and herds, and of all islands Ios
is the most celebrated for its 'mysethra', 'food
for the gods,' as they call it. It is simply a curd made of
boiled sheep's milk, strained and pressed into a wicker basket
called 'tyrobolon', just as they are spoken of in the
'Odyssey'; from this basket it gets a pretty pattern
before being turned out on to a plate. When eaten with honey it
is truly delicious. I have tasted the same in Corsica called 'broccio',
but not so good as those of Ios; in fact, the mysethra of the neighbouring
islands does not approach that of Ios—there is something in
the pasturage which produces the proper flavour. They make 'mysethra'
cakes, but they are inferior to the original thing, and the peasants
most frequently salt them, in which condition they are perfectly
horrid.
Some of this excellent 'mysethra' we had for our breakfast
next morning, and some of it, together with cold fish and plenty
of wine, the demarch put into a basket for us to take with us on
an expedition; he was determined to accompany us himself, for he
said he had never been in that part of the island to which we were
going, and he was a very considerable weight for a mule.
We were bound for no less a place than the reputed tomb of Homer,
situated on a distant promontory to the north of the island, three
hours' ride from the capital, and on our way we had ample
opportunity for enjoying the beauties of Ios, and as we passed through
a rich gorge full of olives, oleanders, and lemons, the ground studded
with anemones, and distinguished from afar by a huge umbrella pine,
we thought the lot of the Iotes was preferable to that of the inhabitants
of volcanic Santorini. They recognise the merits of this spot by
calling it 'the garden,' and there are one or two little
villas hidden away in the vegetation which must be delicious retreats
in the summer heats. It was a lovely day, and when we reached the
wretched hamlet of Plaketos, close to which Homer's grave
is said to be, the midday sun was almost too hot.
I always shall envy the imagination of Count Pasch van Krienen,
who took upon himself the glory of having opened the tomb of the
immortal poet, and of having looked upon his mortal remains as they
crumbled into dust on exposure to the air. Before this imagination
pales every other, even that which proposes to have opened the grave
of Agamemnon, and disclosed the halls of Ilium. Count Pasch had,
however, a great deal to go upon; he had read his Herodotus, and
believed that Homer, on his way from Samos to Athens, died at Ios,
and must necessarily have been buried. Furthermore, ships bound
from Samos to Athens do still pass along the north coast of Ios,
and if there is a southern gale they will shelter for days in the
little harbour below Plaketos. There are traces of a round Hellenic
watchtower, in the vicinity of which are scattered many graves.
Several of these Count Pasch opened, and one he decided to be the
grave of Homer because he found a coin in it with something like
'OMEROS' upon it. Perhaps the next grave which is just
like it—a long ordinary tomb—he considered as the resting
place of Homer's mother. Who knows?
Tradition from earliest times has honoured Ios as the burial-place
of Homer. Pliny calls Ios 'Homeri sepulchro veneranda,'
and there exists still a modern legend, which looks as if it owed
its origin to Homer's story:— 'Once upon a time
there lived at Plaketos an old woman and her son in a little cottage;
robbers penetrated one night into it, strangled the mother and gouged
out the eyes of her son. When they had gone the son buried his mother,
and set off to wander through the archipelago, singing songs to
earn his bread as he travelled—songs which were even better
than those of Riga, and which gained for him great fame. Eventually
he returned to Ios to die, and was buried near his mother.'
I wonder whether Count Pasch ever heard this legend? He would have
been delighted with it if he had; at any rate, he got hold of a
marble slab which was before the Church of St. Catharine, and which
tradition said came from the grave of Homer. On this he though he
detected letters which looked suspiciously like Homer's name,
and on these grounds he started to dig, and astonished the literary
world a hundred years ago by his reported discovery.
We did not stay very long at the tower or the tombs, but returned
to Plaketos, where some twenty hovels form a little colony celebrated
for its honey productions. Several of the houses are storehouses
full of the productions of the soil, and large jars ('pselloi')
in which the bees have made their honey. Hardly anyone lives here
in winter, except an old man, who said he was eighty, but did not
look or act as if he was sixty. He boasted of having shown King
Otho and Queen Amalia the tomb of Homer, and the demarch invited
him to join our repast, constantly filled his gourd with wine, and
made him very merry. The poor old man sang with wonderful vigour
for his years, and on rising to go came down with such a crack on
a stone with his skull that we thought he must be killed, but he
was up again in no time, sobered somewhat, and not so gay. I never
saw a mere miserable hovel than his house: it was exceedingly low,
so that a tall person could not stand upright; the window was merely
the absence of a stone in the wall; the door four feet high; the
bed simply a collection of stones on which were placed boards and
dried grass, and twigs on the top of that. Implements of husbandry
impeded progress at every step; the only seats were stones; people
who can live to be eighty in places like this must indeed be hardy.
As for our old friend, they told us he was so devoted to the spot
that he could never be persuaded to join his family in their winter
migration to a more comfortable house in the Chora.
Under the influence of the wine we had brought with us everybody
grew gay—the muleteers, the old man, and the demarch—and
on a little open space outside the hovel they began to play some
of their wild island games, which interested us exceedingly, and
in which they were joined by field labourers from Plaketos.
'Wine' ('krasi', as they call it) is a really
savage game: one man sits in the middle of his fellow-players with
a long rope in his hand, the other end of which is held by another
player; the game is for the rest to try to smack the man who is
sitting down as hard as they can with their hands, and say 'krasi',
whilst the other man runs about and protects the sitter, giving
his assailants sharp cuts with the rope if he can get at them. In
this game really serious blows were given and received with great
good-humour.
They next played a game called 'first and second olive,'
being an intricate and acrobatical from of leapfrog: one man knelt
on the ground, two others leant against him for support, and then
the players followed in succession; including the old man and demarch,
there were seven. 'First olive' simply sang out his
name, bounded forward, rested his hands on the shoulder of the frog,
or rather beast of burden ('zoon', as they call him
here), turned a somersault, and lighted on his feet on the other
side. The demarch was second olive, and shouted, 'Second olive
with its branches,' before modestly leaping after our fashion,
for he was too bulky for the somersault. 'Third olive is in
the air,' shouted the old man who came next, and followed
the demarch's modest example. Fourth olive was an active muleteer;
his password was, 'The fourth who misses falls;' and
he did the correct somersault, as did also fifth, sixth, and seventh
olive, who shouted before leaping respectively, 'To the good
ass who is behind;' 'Let us put on the saddle, let us
fetch wood;' 'That we may roast the lamb on Easter day.'
When there are more players on a feast day they have more sayings,
which each man has to say before leaping. Even when there are twenty,
each man knows his place and his password.
'The priest' ('ho papas') is another rough
game of the same nature, which was next played. Four men stood with
their arms linked together, and moved round and round; whilst they
moved thus the others tried to jump on their backs. He who succeeded
took the place of one of the four, he who did not had to receive
a cut on his back from a rope which 'the priest,' a
sort of umpire, held in his hand for administering justice.
After amusing themselves for some time with these games it was suggested
that a start homewards had better be made, as the days were not
too long; and on our way we passed through what is called the upper
plain of Ios, which is a fertile plateau, some 300 feet above the
lower plain by the sea-level, and in the centre of which is the
foundation of a fine square Hellenic watch-tower, nine yards and
three quarters long by nine, built with very long narrow stones—one
of which I measured was three yards seven inches long and only eight
and a half thick. This tower is now used as a stable, and on the
top of it has been built a cottage; the old doorway is still there,
and the holes visible into which the bolts once fitted. All the
stones are rounded at the edge, and the place is substantially and
well built; evidently for the purpose of protecting this fertile
plain.
We were on most friendly terms this second evening with our hosts,
whose object seemed to be to do everything to make us comfortable.
At our meal a luscious kid took the place of the fowls, and during
dinner our conversation turned on local customs, which interested
us exceedingly. The fair young ladies of the house knew a great
deal about certain ceremonies annually performed on the eve of June
23, the vigil of St. John the Baptist's nativity, and commonly
known by the name of 'akledones'. They were rather shy
at telling their secrets at first, but Marousa was not a girl to
remain shy long; and, seeing the interest we expressed in the subject,
she soon consented to disclose the divinations which she and her
sisters used to foretell the husbands that will fall to their lot.
Marousa and her sisters were such comely damsels that I expressed
surprise that they should ever have had occasion to consult the
oracle about their future lot, whereat they laughed and explained
that in Ios there were so few young men, but Marousa prophesied
great things from a prospective visit to Athens, which had been
promised her. She really was a pattern of life and spirits in this
far-off island, where life not gifted with natural buoyancy must
be fearfully dreary, for unless you can, as the Greeks say, 'skip
with the lambs and play with the kids,' your chance of amusement
is small.
Marousa began her story:
'First of all you must take an unused jar, and you must send
a girl to fill it at the well, with strict injunctions not to speak
to anyone she meets. Into this jar we sisters and our friends each
put something ('akledona')—an apple, a ring, a
pin, and so forth—each being careful to remember the article
that she has put in. Then we cover up the jar with a red cloak,
and leave it out in the air all night, that it may see the stars,
as the saying goes.
'Often,' and here Marousa and her sisters roared with
laughter, 'the young men watch where we put our jar, and steal
the contents, so that we lose our trinkets and our chance of recognising
our husband both at the same time, and we daren't tell for
fear of being laughed at.'
'But when no one finds our jar we girls bring it in next morning,
put it on a table, and sing the following song as we crowd round
it:
'O holy John! the forerunner, the baptizer of our Lord,
Guard my love from every woe, and let his name be known.
O holy John! disclose to-day, whoever he may be,
Who loves me, who will come for me, and take me to his home.'
After singing this we remove the red cloth, and a child draws out
the things one by one which we have deposited in the jar, and between
each drawing we sing again, promising to adorn the church of St.
John with a votive offering and so forth if he tells us true. When
the vase is emptied of these things each of us girls pours a little
of the water into her shoe, and goes out into the street, and the
first name she hears called by a child or anyone, such as Andronico,
Themistocles, and so forth, is to be the name of her future husband.
'Then we have another plan: we pour the remainder of the water
into glass phials, and cast into it the white of an egg, which forthwith
forms different sorts of clouds in the water. These clouds, according
to the fancy of each of us, take the form of the man who is to be
our husband. If he is to be an educated man he will have a book
or letter near him, if he is to be a sailor he will resemble a man
holding a helm or an anchor, and if a shepherd he will be playing
the 'sabouna' or 'syravlion', and so on.'
Here Marousa paused, and Ekaterina took up her parable:—'But
we are not only content with knowing the name of our future husband,
and what his occupation is, but we want to know the date of our
wedding, and to do this we take an acanthus branch, burn it in the
candle, and expose it to the dew of the night; if it blossoms forth
again in one night, as it sometimes, though rarely, does, the happy
girl will be married before the year is out, and by the number of
nights it takes to blossom we count the number of years that will
elapse before our marriage. Sometimes here in Ios it never blossoms
at all,' she added coyly, 'for there are so few young
men in the place.' So we wound up this interesting conversation
by promising to let their distress be known in England, and recommending
them to wear the lovely costume which we had seen the night before
if they wished to captivate, like the maid of Athens, susceptible
travellers from the north.
It is curious that this day of St. John, the summer solstice, should
be treated similarly by devotees of both the Eastern and Western
Churches. Everywhere they light the fires of St. John, round which
Greeks, as well as Norwegians, dance and amuse themselves. In Ireland
the girls make dumb cakes, that is to say, without speaking, and
sleep on them when they wish to dream of their lovers: this is closely
akin to an Eastern 'akledona'.
On the following morning we had another expedition to make, and
the demarch, who had work to do, could not accompany us, and accordingly
made his niece Marousa mount her mule to do the honours of her island.
We were to visit the old Frankish town Palaeocastro, as it is called,
and our road led along rugged mountain sides and up steep cliffs;
these Marousa preferred to ascend on foot, for she remembered a
priest whose mule had slipped, and given him an awkward fall as
he was returning from the annual feast.
The fortress and the ruined town are built on the summit of a white
marble mountain, which commands the north-west passage between Ios
and Naxos; and the houses of the town and the walls are all built
of this marble—loose, unshaped stones stuck together with
a strong cement of lime and sand—so that many roofless houses
were still standing, and the brilliant whiteness of the place was
quite dazzling in the bright sunshine.
In the middle of the ruins was constructed a small white church,
which is the special property of the Lorenziades family; and here
on September 4, the Virgin's birthday, they have a family
panegyris. Each member of this family—cousins, uncles, aunts—all
who can manage a six hours' mule ride go and worship here
on that day, on which the population of Ios go to the Church of
the Holy Theodote, in the valley below, to celebrate their festival.
We entered the family church with Marousa, who did her pious duty
of incensing the pictures and lighting a lamp, chatting to us and
crossing herself as she did so, in anything but what we should call
a solemn frame of mind; finally she made us scribble our names on
the wall and on the 'tempelon' in Greek and English,
which appeared to us both irreverent and vulgar; but we thought
what a pleasure it would be to the family next feast day to see
these scribblings of ours, so we did as we were bid.
Close to this old town is a marble quarry lately started by a modest
but impecunious Greek company; the marble is inferior to that of
Paros and Pentelicus, and it seems doubtful if it will answer as
a marketable commodity in a country where marble is so common.
We ate our midday meal under a wide-spreading plane tree down in
the valley, and then went to visit some tombs and vaulted chambers,
evincing the existence of a considerable Roman colony here in former
years; and then Marousa took us to see the church of the Holy Theodote,
the scene of the great annual gathering of the inhabitants of Ios.
The building is a large Byzantine church, with a great dome over
the body of the church and a smaller one over the apse. There are
two narrow transepts on the north and south, and inside the northern
one was a low stone bench, with seats on either sides, at which
on the feast days the worshippers have their common meal under the
very eyes of their patron saint. When hearing of these island festivals
one's thoughts involuntarily travel back to remote antiquity.
There are some half-dozen cauldrons piled in one corner of the church,
and large wooden spoons with which to stir the contents. Every pilgrim
to the festival produces something towards this meal: the well-to-do
will bring a lamb or a goat; the poor, rice, olives, and wine. Everything
is then common property, and in picturesque groups outside the church
they cook their food; into one cauldron is cast the lamb, into another
the goat, into another the rice, and the fragrance of the meal ascends
in wreaths of smoke towards the blue heavens. There is something
patriarchal in a scene like this.
The men, whilst their wives are engaged in tending the pots, indulge
their rough games on the little platform before the church—those
rough games which we had seen our muleteers play the day before.
All is conviviality and joy. It makes no difference to their mirth
at table that they are taking their food inside a sacred edifice;
they laugh, sing, and chat, and then, when they have eaten their
fill, they play milder games, in which the women can take a part,
within the church.
'We always come round here in the afternoon,' said Marousa
Lorenziades, 'when we have had our own family panegyris, and
play games with the people.' They are simple-minded folks,
the men of Ios, with no class distinctions. Marousa laughed and
chatted with her muleteer all the way, regardless of the fact that
hers was the first family of Ios and he was an unkempt yokel.
As evening comes on, after these festivals at the Church of the
Holy Theodote, they dance and play in front of the church, and do
not return home till well on in the night, wearied with their gaiety,
and saying, 'Till next year' to one another as they
part.
After dinner that evening the Lorenziades had invited a large party
of Iotes to meet and entertain us. So after the meal was cleared
away, which to-night consisted only of different kinds of fish and
'mysethra', the guests trooped in and were formally
introduced to us. Marousa and her sister had arranged everything
for our benefit to-night. Instead of dancing, the usual amusement
at these gatherings, they were to play games such as they usually
play on the annual feast-day at the Church of the Holy Theodote;
and before the evening was over we saw at least a dozen of them,
many of them easily learnt, and in which we could take a part without
conspicuously disgracing ourselves.
'You see,' said the demarch apologetically, 'we
have no theatres here, no amusements, such as you are accustomed
to; so in winter evenings and festival days we play the old games
which we have learnt from our fathers.' And he assured me
that every game we saw that night had been played by the Iotes from
generation to generation; none of them had been borrowed from abroad;
for from the similarity of some of them to our own homely games
I almost felt as if they had been transplanted from English soil.
The first game they played was a species of blind man's buff
('tuphlomia'). A victim was selected, blindfolded, and
given a stick to hold in his hand. Then the players joined hands
and danced round him, singing as they went. At last the blind man
touched one of them on the shoulder with his stick, and put one
end of the stick to his ear; then the individual thus called upon
whistled at the other end of the stick, and from this whistle the
blind man had to divine whom he had touched.
Then we had hunt the ring and puss in the corner, both vastly improved
by the singing, which is a necessary adjunct to all these games
in Greece. They all seem to know part-songs, suited to each occasion,
and verses answering one another, which they sing with considerable
pathos, and thereby elevate the game from a mere romp to a musical
entertainment.
The demarch was expressly fetched now to take part in a game of
a more imposing character called the confessional ('exomolouesis').
An Eastern carpet was laid on the floor, and a pillow was placed
upon it, on which Demarch Lorenziades solemnly knelt down; then
a large sheet was put over his head, and the confession began. The
first confessor was his niece Marousa, who knelt before him, and
the sheet was thrown over her head, too. From under the sheet we
heard the demarch's stentorian voice say, 'What have
you to confess, my child?' In reply she mentioned some trivial
offence, and the demarch gave her as penance to kneel for five minutes
in a corner. Two or three other then followed. At length an unsuspecting
damsel came to confess. 'What have you done wrong?'
asked the demarch. 'Nothing!' was the reply; when suddenly
the demarch glided backwards from off the carpet, and from under
the sheet, and four men rushed forward, seized the four ends of
the carpet, and mercilessly tossed the poor girl, still enveloped
in the sheet, to the exceeding delight of all around.
'This is one of our favourite games at the panegyris,'
said Marousa; and I could not held thinking that if games must be
played at a church this was a very suitable one, having a moral
attached.
After this we had a vindictive game called 'the president'
('ho proedros'). A chosen one was placed in the middle
of the room on a chair, holding in her hand a knotted handkerchief.
All the players were seated around, pretending to be busily engaged;
one said she was busy knitting, another she was grinding coffee,
and so on, and all imitating the motions. At length one jumped up,
walked to the president, and, with an obsequious bow, said, 'Mr.
President, Miss Ekaterina is idle; she is not grinding coffee.'
If the president considered the plaint a just one the handkerchief
was given to the plaintiff, with orders to administer to the culprit
a verdict of stripes; if, on the contrary, she deemed it frivolous
the plaintiff received stripes from the president, and returned
crestfallen to his seat. The success of this game depended entirely
on the genius of the players; some of them invented ridiculous complaints,
which convulsed the whole company with laughter, and many of the
personal hits were lost upon us, not knowing the secrets of the
inner circle; yet it gave us a good insight into Greek character,
which in many cases was marked by great originality and wit, excessive
good humour, and quickness of repartee.
A wilder game, and one which we thought more suitable for the male
sex, next took place. It was called the 'bad companions'
('oi kakoi suntrophoi'). The Eastern carpet was again
spread, and two pillows were put upon it, and two females laid down,
as if in bed, with their faces on the pillow, and the sheet cast
over them, heads and all. The players, each armed with a knotted
handkerchief, danced and sang around the reposers, and in turns
caught them severe cuts on the back with the knotted handkerchief,
saying, 'Who has hit you?' and in reply came a groan
from under the sheet, 'Companion So-and-so,' until the
right name was guessed.
Several other games of a like nature were played before we retired
to rest. Whilst on the subject of games I will just allude here
to another island game I once saw, called 'sphaira',
or ball which bears a closer relationship to cricket than anything
I ever saw out of England. Instead of a bat the hand is used, and
instead of wickets a stone is set up. There are five on each side;
one is at the stone, four are doing nothing, the remaining five
are fielding. If the player hits the ball to a certain distance
he counts one, but does not run; if the ball is caught or if it
hits the stone his innings are over. This game, I was assured, has
been played in Greece as far back as the memory of the oldest inhabitant
can go, and, no doubt, much longer; it is obvious that it was not
borrowed from us. Did we take our idea from them; or will the minds
of men intent on sport produce the same results in different parts
of the globe?
Next morning our stay at Ios came to a close. The Lorenziades pressed
us to remain for a wedding, but the wind was favourable for Sikinos,
so we regretfully bade them farewell. Marousa came with a lovely
piece of red Cretan embroidery as a present, and her handkerchief
full of pine nuts, that we might never forget her; Callirhoe
gave us her pocket handkerchief full of sesame seeds; and Ekaterina
wrote a touching little poem with the same intent. The three brothers
and the three girls went down with us to the harbour, where our
boat was waiting, bringing with them a fresh 'mysethra',
wine, and figs for our journey. They taught us to improve the wretched
little wizen figs of the islands by the introduction of sesame seeds,
for which plan we were grateful; for you might as well eat shoe
leather as the figs they give you in the Cyclades. After many shakings
of handkerchiefs and much tacking we eventually got out of Ios harbour,
and sped quickly in our caique for Sikinos.
