Travels in Southern Europe and the Levant, 1810-1817: The Journal of C. R. Cockerell, R.A.Cockerell, C. R. (Charles Robert)
History
Travels in Southern Europe and the Levant, 1810-1817: The Journal of C. R. Cockerell, R.A.
Cockerell, C. R. (Charles Robert)
Cockerell, C. R. (Charles Robert), 1788-1863; Europe -- Description and travel; Middle East -- Description and travel
On January 15 we went to call on Mukhtar Pasha. We found him rough,
open, and goodhumoured, without any of the inimitable grace of his
father, which makes everything Ali says agreeable, however trivial the
subject may be. Mukhtar's talk was flat. He was very fond of sport--were
we? It was very hot in summer at Trikhala. He had killed so and so many
birds; there were loose women at Dramishush; it was a small place, but
he would send a man to see that we were properly accommodated; and so
on--very civil and rather dull. He smoked a Persian pipe brought him by
a beautiful boy very richly dressed, with his hair carefully combed, and
another brought him coffee; while coffee and pipes were brought to us by
particularly ugly ones. On the sofa beside him were laid out a number of
snuff-boxes, mechanical singing birds, and things of that sort. The
serai itself was handsome in point of expense, but in the miserable
taste now in vogue in Constantinople. The decoration represented painted
battle-pieces, sieges, fights between Turks and Cossacks, wild men, and
abominations of that sort; while in the centre of the pediment is a
pasha surrounded by his guard, and in front of them a couple of Greeks
just hanged, as a suitable ornament for the palace of a despot.
On the 16th we set out early for an excursion to Cassiopeia and Suli,
across the fine open field behind Janina, past the village of Kapshisda,
over a low chain of hills south-west of Janina. Then, after a climb of
over an hour, we entered a pass, and presently saw Dramishush in front,
on the side of a high mountain.
Cassiopeia is on a gentle height in the middle of a valley. The
situation is beautiful, and the theatre the largest and best preserved I
have seen in Greece.
Next morning we dismissed Mukhtar Pasha's man who had escorted us so
far, and went on south-westwards along the edge of the valley of
Cassiopeia. As it grew narrower we climbed a ridge which overhung an
awful depth, went over a high mountain, and reached Bareatis, a small
village in a pass with a serai of Ali Pasha's, in which he lived for a
length of time during the war of Suli. Three and a half hours further on
we came to Terbisena, the first village of Suli. It had been pouring all
day, and we were not only wet and cold when we arrived but the hovel we
got as a lodging let in the water everywhere, and here, huddled in the
driest corner we could find, we had to sleep and spend the next day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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