Touring in 1600: A Study in the Development of Travel as a Means of EducationBates, E. S. (Ernest Stuart)
History
Touring in 1600: A Study in the Development of Travel as a Means of Education
Bates, E. S. (Ernest Stuart)
Europe -- Description and travel; Europe -- Social life and customs; Travel -- History
Chios was under Turkish rule; so was Coos, the next
happiest place, very rarely visited, but well worth it, partly for what
Della Valle calls the "Amorevolezza" of that generation, partly because
there were still to be seen the houses of Hippocrates, Hercules, and
Peleus, Achilles' father. At Corfu was the house of Judas; also his
descendants, however much the latter denied their ancestry; and near
Lesbos, the islet called Monte Sancto because it was thither that the
Devil had borne Christ to show him all the kingdoms of the earth. Then
there were all the natural curiosities which the tourist might see
in the Levant and nowhere else; asbestos at Cyprus, likewise ladanum
"generated by the dew," and at Lemnos the "terra sigillata" famed
throughout Europe for its healing properties, an interesting example of
an ancient superstition taken over by Christianity; for the priestess
of Artemis who had the charge of the sacred earth in Pliny's time had
been succeeded by the Christian priest whom the Turkish officials
watched at work without interfering, in case there might be some rite
which they did not know of and on the use of which the efficacy of the
earth depended.
So also, with volcanoes; it was only he who went by sea who saw any
other than Vesuvius; and in addition to their scientific, they had
also a theological, attraction, being generally considered as mouths
of hell, Stromboli, in particular, more continually active than the
rest. Concerning Stromboli there is a curious tale which is worth
borrowing from Sandys, how one Gresham, a London merchant, ascended the
volcano one day, at noon, when the flames were wont to slacken, and
heard a voice call out that the rich Antonio was coming. On returning
to Palermo where there was a rich Antonio, well known, he learnt that
the latter had died at the hour the voice had been heard, and the fact
and hour were confirmed by the sailors who had accompanied Gresham, to
Henry VIII, who questioned them. Gresham himself retired from business
and gave away his property.
Another Levant incident, characteristic, mysterious, and one of
Sandys' telling, moreover, is this. He was at Malta one day, alone
on the seashore, and what he saw seemed like a part of a masque. A
boat arrived; in it, two old women. Out they stepped with grotesque
gestures, and spread a Turkey carpet, on that a table-cloth, and on
that victuals of the best. Then came another boat which set "a Gallant
ashore with his two Amorosaes, attired like nymphs, with Lutes in their
hands." But the "gallant" turned out to be a French captain and the
nymphs far from spiritual.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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