The Greek Islands (26 page)

In a sense, Samothrace, which remains so obstinately difficult to land on for lack of a harbour, is the most mysterious of the northern group. Its great fang, Mount Fengari (Mount Moon), rides the sky in a manner worthy of its name – rising out of a lunar landscape of white marble. How to get ashore and how to get away again are the sole preoccupations of the people who travel to this surly and ungiving place. Fengari, over 5000 feet (1520 m) high, is the highest mountain hereabouts, and only
equalled by the ragged heights and promontories of secret Athos, which bounds the Thracian Sea on the western arm. Apart from its physical inaccessibility and its impression of withdrawn taciturnity, the place is rendered all the more
mysterious
by the obscure cult of the Cabeiri which once
flourished
here, and about which we know hardly anything except that its provenance was Phrygian or Phoenician. Their name (they were a group of interlinked deities, a family) is presumed to come from Phoenician and to mean ‘The Mighty Ones'. They were fertility gods, their chief symbol being the phallus, and their rites of initiation kept strictly secret. On account of these gods, the island has always had a reputation for secrecy and mysterious rites which might have involved human
sacrifice
(as in Rhodes and in Sicily). I have never managed to get ashore, but even from the sea Samothrace gives an impression of hulking, sulky indifference to visitors. It's gloomy, it's
barbaric
; I didn't like it one little bit; I felt the cannibals warming up the cooking pots, and opted to stay aboard.

My choice was a wise one, for the wind changed abruptly in the night and there was that wild scramble to get aboard again which characterizes negligent yachtsmen. No one had a chance to get a sample of the marble and reflect on whether it was exportable – the concern of my companions – or to brood on the secret rites of the Cabeiri. Among the more celebrated
historical
initiates of the so-called ‘Samothracian gods' were Philip of Macedon and Olympias his consort. Arsinoe, sister and wife to a Ptolemy, took refuge here as well. The word ‘refuge' is relevant for, owing to its damnable, harbourless condition, the island remained always separate (and therefore free) during the long inter-island struggles which decimated whole populations, razed the richest towns and spread death and slavery in every corner of the Mediterranean. Physical and geographical factors joined hands with psychological to keep the island in peace
through the centuries. But people came in pilgrimage to the shrines of the gods, and retired with purple amulets round their necks which denoted successful initiation into the cult. The Cabeiri were particularly fond of seafarers, if I remember rightly, and their shrines must have been hung with ex-votos almost as profuse in their graphic gratitude as those which modern Greek island churches enjoy – in honour of some patron saint.

The actual sanctuary of the Cabeiric gods has been found and excavated in a narrow ravine, stony and grim – so I was told – near the township called Palaeopolis. It was in a rock niche somewhere thereabouts that the French discovered the famous Winged Victory of Samothrace which now graces the Louvre. I would like to know how they got it off the island – for this was before the age of helicopters. Incidentally, here once more we come upon our fine-feathered friend Demetrius
Polyorcetes
(who caused the Colossus of Rhodes) for it was he who, in fine feckless style, had the Winged Victory commissioned and set up to celebrate his victory over Ptolemy II in 305
BC
. I wonder that there is not a popular biography of this uncouth but endearing fellow, for his sieges were on a Cecil B. De Mille scale, his defeats were resounding, and he always celebrated a defeat by setting up, or causing to be set up, a masterpiece.

The Cabeiri were adopted by the ancient Greeks and rebaptized as Castor and Polydeuces; the Romans followed suit, changing the name once more, but leaving the functions of the gods undisturbed. Pilgrimages continued. I am told that there is nothing very much to see – the shattered remains of a theatre and a fine, solitary Genoese castle; but it is on the eminence of Mount Fengari that Poseidon sat to watch the progress of the Trojan War. If there are no harbours, there are plenty of white marble beaches for the curious. But the sea is lonely hereabouts.

None of this is true of Thasos, which is one of those delights
among islands, reserved for travellers who are not afraid to make an effort to seek out the calm green places – so rare in the Aegean – where one can hear the splash of fresh springs on every hand. Thasos is a handsome, romantic little island, named after a grandson of Poseidon, with an atmosphere of calm beatitude which makes one's sleep most deep and
refreshing
, the nights being blanket-cool, and the days, though
windless
, not too hot. In ancient times the wines and nuts were known, and even today they exist in a world which has
outstripped
the good but modest table-reds of the place; there are two. What one inhales here with dilated nostrils and heart is the scent of pine and lilac. The richness and shadow are balm after you have shed a dozen skins in Delos or Rhodes. In these
lowland
strips of forest, you can walk on coarse grass and see cattle pastured.

You can get here from Kavalla – the usual route – but it is a long pull. The island is almost attached to the mainland. What we used to do in the old days, and there is no reason why one should not do the same today, is push up to Keramoti by car. Thence there is a steamer (or
caique
) run of only about an hour and a half, depending on the mood Poseidon happens to be in. One feels he might be more indulgent to those who wish to visit an island named after his grandson – but he isn't always. All I can say is that I had no trouble. Of course you would have a more impressive journey if you shipped from Salonika, because the bigger vessels make a wider sweep and usually carry you along the Athos peninsula, which has a weird array of
monasteries
– so thin and tapering that you are reminded of pictures of the Potala in Lhasa, and are surprised not to see their canted roofs covered with snow. But it is a good deal longer. The direct trip is more intimate because more amateurish, and you will make the acquaintance of village folk coming back from
mainland
trips to visit relatives, suitably loaded with wine, eggs and
various other comestibles which they will not be able to resist opening on board. Burned in my memory is the vision of a fat elderly man with a razor in one hand handing round slices of cold pork to a group of pallid, shivering, village women holding slices of lemon to their noses. He said, in the most definite tone: ‘If anyone is sick I shall cut his or her legs off above the waist and throw him or her into the sea, so help me.' And this threat had a miraculous effect for, retch as we might, nobody was sick until the little
Stavros
sailed into the harbour, and delivered us to the tender mercies of the local grog-shop and restaurant – where all inequalities of balance and temper were restored by short swift touches of a marvellous
mastika
which I found nowhere else.

If the little capital charms, it is not because it has any very striking antiquities to show, but because the general
arrangement
is homogeneous – all epochs are simultaneously
represented
. While the town goes by the official name of Limena, or Limin Panaghias (Virgin's Harbour) I met nobody who did not refer to it as Theases. It is pitched square upon the site of the ancient town, facing the narrow strait, and profits from what wind the sullen mainland sends it – in summer not enough perhaps. The remains of the Heracleion and the triumphal arch of Caracalla are set a little back from the waterfront. The old walls girdle the ensemble of buildings. There are different layers of its cultures co-existing happily with its horrid modern barns and rabbit hutches – what
has
happened to Greek taste? It is a pleasant place to stroll about in, despite the ferocity of the modern buildings; but it is regrettable that, in an island of marble, only reinforced concrete seems to be used for building. There is enough marble in Thasos to pave all the capitals of Europe – yet the harbour is paved with cement blocks. The only use I saw of the local product was the crushed marble chips that were mixed with clay to surface village roads.

Never mind. For keen bathers, there are fine beaches like Makri Ammos (Long Sands), while walkers use the efficient local bus system to visit some of the pretty inland villages – which form good take-off points for serious walking, as opposed to just mooching and brooding. The latter can best be done in a town with well-distributed cafés and enough relics of the past to please the more discerning. The Acropolis is
pleasant
, but in such a state of smithereens that a
Guide Bleu
will have to be used. Alternatively there is a highly bibulous local guide, whom we christened the
Guide Rose
, and who was vague, rhapsodic and threw his arms about, speaking what he took to be French. There is a pleasant satyr sculptured over the gate of Silenus – hats should be tipped to him. The guide (
Rose
) insisted that if you winked at it it winked back – not always, but mostly. We all tried winks of different shapes and sizes, and some even tried a leer or two; but the thing did not stir, and we were forced to abandon this promising ESP experience,
persuading
the guide back to the tavern, where already a dance to celebrate a wedding was in progress. Before leaving this
somewhat
immodest relief, the guide pointed out that Silenus's enormous organs of generation had been hammered away by puritans, whereas, on a postcard of 1935, which he produced, they were in full flower. What to us is obscene was probably holy for the Greeks, as it was for the Indians. St Paul passed Thasos with those three gloomy dicks Timothy, Silas and Luke. Looking at the poor Silenus on the gate, one reflects on the power of paranoiacs and the sadness of monotheism.

In the calm vernal glades of Thasos you feel that the ancients had a simpler, better way of living than we have. But perhaps this is romancing. 

The next three islands are not only similar geographically but give the impression of being a mini-group of scallywags (they all begin with the letters SK), lolling along the coast of Euboea, loitering with intent, so to speak. Three maiden aunts turned pirates. A lack of notable antiquities has shielded them from the worst indignities to be suffered from people; they lack, for the most part, the amenities which tourists are persuaded they need. However, they are perfect places to build that secluded island house, in order that you may live the good life which is always somehow connected in your mind with beauty and solitude.

The recent history of these three places has been somewhat mixed up and thrown about by the extensive Greco-Turkish exchange of populations in the twenties; but if there is little that is ancient for you to see, you can admire the beauty and style of the Greek island face and form – specially among the old people, calm as sea-shells, sitting in church porches gossiping, or upon pavements made of black-and-white sea-pebbles. But a sense of remoteness and estrangement is theirs. They are off the main track of tourism, which is the only summer life for these Aegean Islands. Remember, too, that the Greek ferries close down in October and, if you live on an island, you only get mail once or twice a week in winter, not more. If you want to motor back to Europe you must make the long haul via Yugoslavia with its snowy mountains. But in these moments, with their long sunny siesta silences, broken only by the drunken braying
of mules in the olive glades, you can muse upon the island face of the modern Greek, with all its classical qualities still intact. Faces honed by privation to a beauty which only the austerity of death will qualify, by adding immobility, and by freezing them.

The islands themselves seem somewhat like orphans – say the orphans of Byronic corsairs; but well-nourished and well-
to-do
orphans, for they are surprisingly green, all three of them. Clearly their geological history is different from that of the marble islands we have just left. A geologist's diagnosis would be: metamorphic, laminated rock, with quite extensive pockets of limestone, and lots of fresh springs.

Even if the tourists don't flock here, the islanders know them. They receive many visitors from the mainland, who take ship at Volos to come here for the summer, to spend a modest
villegiature
. It is easy to forget that the average Greek today, even a highly placed functionary, is poorer than the average tourist who visits Greece. The doctor, dentist, professor tend to steer clear of fashionable islands because of the inflated prices. They do quite as well in places like Skopelos, lunching on a piece of fish with a glimpse of salad, followed by a smidgeon of cheese and a bowl of peaches. They also pay one-third of what we are charged for the same meal.

Tourists, despite the vigilance of the Tourist Police, are regarded by the island villagers as fair game, because it is
understood
that they are all millionaires with extensive steel factories in Pittsburgh. The remoter the island, of course, the firmer this conviction is, and the harder it is to correct, unless one speaks Greek and reacts forcibly.

The coast along which the three corsairs skulk is a thankless and profitless one, the coast of Euboea; there are few harbours and fewer lighthouses, and the channel is as full of wind as a big drum. You will not meet too many sailors pleasure-cruising
among the three; the currents and winds are somewhat tricky. But occasionally you will see some great foreigner – an
oceangoing
yacht from far away, spreading its white canvas wings like palms as it tests the pulse of the wind's eye, and probes softly north, whispering; taking its passengers to where they can glimpse the steep, star-crowned cliffs of the Holy Mountain, womanless Athos.

Skopelos means ‘reef' or ‘rock' – I looked it up once in a dictionary. But I think the ‘skop' part of the word (like that in our own ‘telescope') tends to mean vantage-point, perhaps something like the Italian ‘belvedere'. This is the middle island of the group and thus best calculated to keep its eye on what happens in the spacious channels between. I make no mention of Alonnessus, which spoils the euphony of my theme, without adding anything at all in the way of grace or history. As for Skiathos and Skyros, I would like to derive them from echoes of the word for shade – ‘skia'; both are green, something almost beyond belief for a mariner who has just left the central Cyclades, where the wind crackles in the dry grasses of Delos as if it travelled across some ancient parchment. Here water and cypresses and shade give one back a sense of plentitude and peace – particularly on Skiathos, the beauty of the group, whose perched capital neatly divides a harbour like a
mons veneris
; its dazzling white houses built as if from lump sugar, its labyrinth of quizzical churches.

The Greek motto must be: ‘If time hangs heavy, why not build a church?' The size doesn't matter; it can be tiny, and adapted from a hole in a rock, or as big and barn-like as a ship's chandler's religious aspirations. All these Greek islands are riddled with tiny churches – some of them quite bizarre in their wriggly contorted Byzantinism. Moreover, the locals have also done their own thing, making their interiors celebrated in terms of old furniture and wall panels and decorative
sideboards. A Sicilian exuberance reigns, and it is customary to leave the courtyard door ajar so that strangers can peek in and admire what they see. This is also a way of getting into a free chat and gossip, which is so very dear to the Greek heart, particularly on the remoter islands.

The capitals of Skyros and Skiathos are the most populous of the group – some four thousand souls – which gives an
indication
of their intellectual magnitude; if one lived here, one would live a little like a beachcomber, waiting for the next boat, depending on the radio. Most people are no longer equipped for a life of real solitude; the city with its stresses has
conditioned
them. Once I went for two years without reading a newspaper or listening to a radio, and I was surprised on
emerging
from this long abstinence to find that nothing seemed to have happened in the interval. There was, it seemed, no really new news. The headlines in the newspapers had the same deadly banality, and described identical situations to those which had existed on the day I gave up reading them. It was rather a jolt. Is there, then, no such thing as real news – is the whole idea of news an illusion? On small remote islands one is apt to think so.

You experience something similar, but more deeply, if you go on a long fishing expedition where you do not have occasion to speak for as much as ten days. You can feel your thoughts rusting quietly away, until they drop into that blessed limbo of nescience which is the very beginning of another kind of
wisdom
– a wisdom which people must secretly seek without always being conscious of the fact. Here, sitting under a tree, staring at the thick oily meniscus of a hazy midday sea with Euboea etched upon it, you hover between sleep and waking and feel rather like Crusoe. On this deceptively beautiful coast, the winds and waters did for Xerxes and his gigantic fleet of four hundred vessels. They were grounded by gales and
munched to pieces by the jagged cliffs of Euboea – a fitting end to the hubristic Persian expedition. When Athens received the news, great was the rejoicing, and a temple to the north-east wind was erected on the banks of the Illysos. What cads!

For my money, Skiathos, with its sweet geometry and
homogeneous
layout, is the best looker of the three capitals. But I may have been influenced by the fact that the beach of
Koukounaries
is by common consent the finest in Greece, and that really does mean something in a country with so many wonderful beaches. ‘Pinecones', it is called, and I had the luck to see it before someone gave the show away. Nowadays it has a small hotel pitched on it. In old times, during the sunny season, little temporary shelters, roughly arranged as taverns or
eating-houses
, came into being and provided music and
mastika
of a delightful village kind – innocent and unsophisticated.
Whoever
wished could tread a measure in the evenings, to the jerk of a drum and violin, while the moon rose over the still waters. Obviously, there have been changes – though I was delighted to hear this wonderful place praised by some young visitors who had recently spent a summer in the island. So perhaps all is not yet lost.

It was in Skiathos, too, that I had one of many long and instructive conversations with a lunatic; this one swept out the church. It made me realize how humane the Greek
islanders
are in the face of such afflictions – much more so than we are, for Greece has retained a bit of the reverence and
superstition
which used to be attached to the idea of madness, treating it as a privileged state. This reverence probably dates back to ancient times, when the soothsayer or sage was not quite the best-balanced member of the community – he saw visions, heard voices. Harmless lunatics in Greece are regarded today as lucky people to have around, and there is always plenty of work for such mascots. Instead of being
locked away from the community they play an active and valuable role in its affairs. Every business tries to co-opt a nut if possible, for he brings good luck. When I first reached Greece ten thousand light-years ago, every garage had one, and he was so terribly helpful – I am thinking specially of one named Kostas in Corfu – that there were sometimes dire results – even an accident.

Kostas, after a long career of usefulness, made one bad slip while investigating a car whose petrol-gauge had broken. He hit upon the ingenious idea of ascertaining the petrol level in the tank with the help of a lighted candle. Mercifully the tank was almost empty, but the ensuing explosion was enough to send Kostas flying into the surrounding décor. He was badly burned and spent a long time in hospital – so long that he quite
disappeared
from circulation. When he emerged, he had changed his job. The newly born Greek dictatorship of Metaxas had decreed that all the youth of Greece must join the National Youth – a paramilitary organization – for training. It was
modelled
upon Italian and German equivalents. Judge the amazed delight of everyone when Kostas, clad in uniform, led the first parade, bearing a banner aloft, and goose-stepping fit to kill. All felt that the incident illustrated the mental level of the dictatorship.

In Skiathos, the patient, pale young man was a failed priest, who had remained as a sort of honorary sacristan to the church of St Michael. My Greek was bad, and his hardly better, since he stammered. After a bit of relentless intellectual sparring, a sort of despair seized him and, mounting his broomstick like a hobby horse, he galloped off into the sky – or so at first it seemed. Actually he had fallen over the terrace into a flower bed. It seemed useless to prolong such an inconsequential
relationship
, so I merely observed that in my country only witches rode broomsticks, and left it at that. I remember walks with him
in the blazing heat, among the vines. Someone claimed that the plums of the island were world-renowned, but I could find none either on trees or on tavern menus, so I concluded that they had all been exported to Athens. On the other hand, there were fine olives and marvellous almonds in quantity. There is no ancient history worth recording, and the odd monastery or two lie empty and mouldering among the cypresses. They had once been rich dependencies of Athos, I was told, and I repeat this piece of possible misinformation for what it may be worth. I know that the monasteries do own a lot of secular land in the nearest islands.

In Skyros, two unlikely shadows frequent the plane-shaded glades and whispering springs – Theseus and Rupert Brooke. Just what the former is doing here would be difficult to divine; he retired here in old age, sad and disabused by life, and worn down by all the adventures he had lived through. King Lycomedes agreed to put him up, but was manifestly jealous of his guest's celebrity. After all, apart from the exploit with the Minotaur, and the disgraceful abandonment of the loving Ariadne in Naxos, the hero had been pretty steadily in action throughout a long life, abducting one pretty female after another. There were no bounds to his cupidity – Helen herself was one of his victims; he also organized the abduction of Persephone and actually managed to get into the Underworld with this praiseworthy object in view; he was always
accompanied
by his faithful friend Pirithous on these expeditions. Although they got into the Underworld, they could not get out again, and had to invoke the help of a fellow-hero – Heracles, no less. Theseus's great succession of love-adventures would be enough to make anyone jealous, and Lycomedes grew so tired of listening to the hero's reminiscences that he finally set upon him and had him thrown into the sea. His remains were buried in Skyros, whence the pious general Cimon had them brought
back to Athens and placed in the sacred enclosure of the Theseum.

My favourite among the abductions of Theseus has always been the rape of Antiope – for he did not hesitate to attack even the feared Amazons and carry one off. She later bore him a son, Hippolytus. Being utterly fickle, he repudiated her and took up with Phaedra. This so enraged the Amazons that they invaded Greece and, after a series of smashing victories, found
themselves
actually contesting the Acropolis with the armed forces of Attica. Theseus had carried off the sister of the Amazon Queen, Hippolyta, and this base desertion of Antiope caused such anger among the Amazons that they planned this avenging expedition against the Greeks. Amazon forces landed even in Attica. Nothing could stop this army of tall ash-blonde
warriors
, whose origins are supposed to have been Caucasian. They had settled centuries before in Cappadocia and their capital, which was ruled over by a queen, was called Themiscyra. On all their frontiers there was a ‘No Men Allowed' sign; but these blonde terrors were no lesbians, they simply did not want to be subject to the masculine whim. They were keen on hunting, shooting and fishing, like the British Royal Family today, and took a slightly dazed view of art. But they were a good deal more honest than a lot of our own liberated ladies, for they acknowledged the basic need for union with men, and every year at mating time – or ‘lilac time' as Ivor Novello used to call it – they gathered on the frontiers which they shared with the nervous Gargarensians and sought a temporary union with a man. When this bore fruit, they handed back the boys but kept the girls to swell their numbers, and these were trained in war and in the chase. Artemis was their patron saint.