To the Gold Coast for Gold | Page 4

between the diaphanous azure of the zenith and the faintest
rainbow green, a border-land where blue and yellow met and parted.
The air felt soft and balmy; a holy calm was on the face of creation; all
looked delicious after the rude north, and we acknowledged once more
that life was worth living.
Patras also has greatly improved since I last saw her in 1872. The
malaria-swamps to the north and south of the town have been drained
and are being warped up: the 'never-failing succession of aguish fevers'
will presently fade out of the guide-books. A macadamised boulevard
has been built, and a breakwater is building. The once desert square,
'Georgios A',' has been planted with trees, which should be Eucalyptus;
and adorned with two French statues of bronze which harmonise

admirably with the surroundings. The thoroughfares are still Sloughs of
Despond after rain, and gridirons of St. Laurence in dusty summer; but
there are incipient symptoms of trottoirs. And throughout there is a
disappearance of the hovels which resembled Port Sa'id in her younger
day, and a notable substitution of tall solid houses.
All this has been brought about by 'fruit,' which in Patras means
currants; that is, 'Corinthian grapes.' The export this year is unusual,
110,000 tons, including the Morea and the Islands; and of this total
only 20,000 go to France for wine-making. It gives a surprising idea of
the Christmas plum-pudding manufacture. Patras also imports for all
the small adjacent places, inhabited by 'shaggy capotes.' And she will
have a fine time when that talented and energetic soldier, General Türr,
whom we last met at Venice, begins the 'piercing of the Isthmus.' À
propos of which, one might suggest to Patras, with due respect, that
(politically speaking) 'honesty is the best policy.'
Being at Patras on St. Andrew's Day, with a Scotch demoiselle on
board, we could hardly but pilgrimage to the place of the Apostle's
martyrdom. Mrs. Wood kindly sent her daughters to do the honours.
Aghyos Andreas lies at the extreme south of the town on the system of
ruts, called a road, which conducts down-coast. The church is a long
yellow barn, fronting a cypress-grown cemetery, whose contents are
being transferred to the new extramural. A little finger of the holy man
reposes under a dwarf canopy in the south-eastern angle: his left arm is
preserved at Mount Athos in a silver reliquary, set with gems. Outside,
near the south-western corner, is the old well of Demeter (Ceres),
which has not lost its curative virtues by being baptised. You descend a
dwarf flight of brick steps to a mean shrine and portrait of the saint, and
remark the solid bases and the rude rubble arch of the pagan temple. A
fig-tree, under which the martyrdom took place, grew in the adjacent
court; it has long been cut down, probably for fuel.
The population of Patras still affords a fine study of the 'dirty
picturesque,' with clothes mostly home-made; sheepskin cloaks;
fustanellas or kilts, which contain a whole piece of calico; red leggings,
and the rudest of sandals; Turkish caps, and an occasional pistol-belt.

The Palikar still struts about in all his old bravery; and the bourgeois
humbly imitates the dingy garb of Southern Italy. The people have no
taste for music, no regard for art, no respect for antiquities, except for
just as much as these will bring. They own two, and only two, objects
in life: firstly, to make money, and secondly, to keep and not to spend it.
But this dark picture has a bright side. No race that I know is so greedy
of education; the small boys, instead of wending unwillingly to school,
crowd the doors before they are opened. Where this exceptional feeling
is universal we may hope for much.
The last evening at Patras showed us a beautiful view of what is here
called Parnassus (Parnassó), the tall bluff mountain up the Gulf, whose
snows at sunset glowed like a balass ruby. We left the Morea at 2 A.M.
(December 2), and covered the fifty-two miles to Zante before
breakfast. There is, and ever has been, something peculiarly
sympathetic to me in the 'flower of the Levant.' 'Eh! 'tis a bonny, bonny
place,' repeatedly ejaculated our demoiselle. The city lies at the foot of
the grey cliffs, whose northern prolongation extends to the Akroteri, or
Lighthouse Point. A fine quay, the Strada Marina, has been opened
during the last six years along the northern sea-front, where the arcades
suggest those of Chester. It is being prolonged southwards to the old
quarantine-ground and the modern prison, which rests upon the skirts
of the remarkable Skopo, the Prospect Mountain, 1,489 feet high. This
feature, which first shows itself to mariners approaching Zakynthos
from north or from south, has a saddle-back