_We_ could do nothing in Crete. We were closely bound down by orders, and sympathies had no play. Hundreds of women and children, the families of the insurgents, were interned at Retimo in an old fort and in other similar strongholds. Some were hovering about the south coast, not far from St. Paul's Fair Havens, in hopes of being taken off from there. The condition of these people was very pitiable. The Russian frigate General Admiral had taken one load of them to Greece, but the pacha in command, Mustapha Kiritli, positively refused to allow us or the Russians to take any more. The blockade-runners (one of which, at least, had distinguished herself in our own then recent war) took off a few, but could not, of course, stay on the coast long enough to accomplish much without having a Turkish cruiser down upon them. As a war-measure the refusal of the pacha was right, for the possession of the women and children gave the Turks a certain hold upon the Cretans who were bushwhacking in the mountains. The pacha did give us permission to go down to Retimo to see for ourselves the condition of the families detained there. They were not so badly off, according to Levantine notions. They had lentils, oil, flour and firewood, a shelter for their heads, and their rugs and rags to sleep under. The Turkish officers asked, What more could people want? What they wanted was the Turks out of the island for ever, but it was of no use to say that. Such a remark on our part might have been thought personal. Sometimes during our stay we went over to the town of Canea, where the only things of interest were--first, a red-hot consul, who sympathized so violently with the Cretans that he had lost all his influence with the Turks, to whom, of course, he was accredited; and, secondly, the fine old Venetian slips and galley-houses, in such preservation as almost to make one fancy that the days of Francesco Prioli, the admiral, had not yet departed. At Suda Bay there was a large Turkish camp, which was interesting for an hour or two. About its outskirts it had a curious collection of half-savage camp-followers and hangers-on, the close inspection of whom on their own ground, with their queer ways of butchering and cooking and what not, was interesting, but not altogether unattended with a spice of danger to a solitary _Giaour_. We had visited and entertained the Russians and the Austrians, and they had returned our civilities and tried to make things cheerful; but we were very weary of Suda Bay long before orders came permitting us to go over to Smyrna; which place, when we got there, seemed a very Naples by comparison with Canea.