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
The wind falling light, we anchored in a small bay and landed, and
there we made fire in a cave and cooked our dinner. It was most
romantic. After touching at Scyros, we put into Andros. While our ship
was lying here in the port our sailors became mutinous. They began by
stealing a pig from the land, and then went on to ransack our baggage
and steal from it knives, clothes, and other things. All this happened
while we ourselves were on shore, but our servants remonstrated,
whereupon the scoundrels threatened to throw them overboard. There was
nothing for us to do but apply to the English consul for protection. He
sent for the chief instigator of the troubles, but he, as soon as he got
ashore, ran away and was lost sight of. Under the circumstances, what we
did was to deduct from the captain's pay the value of our losses and
shift our goods from on board his vessel into another boat, a small one,
in which we set sail for the island of Tinos.
We slept at San Nicolo on the bare ground, having made ourselves a fire
in a tiny chapel. Fop, my dog, fell into a well and was rescued with
great difficulty. One of the peasants, who had never seen anything like
a Skye terrier before, when he saw him pulled out took him for a fiend
or a goblin, and crossed himself devoutly.
We sailed in the open boat all through a very stormy day, and arrived at
last at Tinos (the town), thoroughly chilled and wet. The island, once
highly prosperous, is now poor and depopulated.
From Tinos we sailed across to Great Delos (Rhenea), slept in a hut, and
next day went on to Little Delos. Here there was nothing to sleep in but
the sail of the boat, and nothing to eat at all. Everything on the
island had been bought up by an English frigate a few days before. We
were obliged to send across to Great Delos for a kid, which was killed
and roasted by us in the Temple of Apollo. I spent my time sketching and
measuring everything I could see in the way of architectural remains,
and copying every inscription. I had to work hard, but without house or
food we could not stop where we were, and in the evening we sailed to
Mycone.
Next day I went back to Delos, and after much consideration resolved to
try to dig there. I had to sleep in the open air, for the company of the
diggers in the hut was too much for me. First I made out the columns of
the temple and drew a restoration of the plan. Then we went on digging,
but discovered next to nothing--a beautiful fragment of a hand, a dial,
some glass, copper, lead, &c., and vast masses of marble chips, as
though it had once been a marble-mason's shop. At last it seemed to
promise so little that I gave it up and went back to Mycone; but on the
28th, not liking to be beaten, I went back alone to have a last look.
But I could discover no indications to make further digging hopeful, so
I came away."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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