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"I spent the day at the little station where the cable was landed, which has apparently been first a Venetian monastery and then a Turkish mosque. A handsome young Bashi-bazouk guards it, and a still handsomer mountaineer is the servant; so I draw them and the monastery and the hill, till I'm black in the face with heat, and come on board to hear the Canea cable is still bad. "May 23.
Not long after my arrival at Canea, the hospital physician, a humane Frenchman, informed me that an old Sphakiot had just died in the prison, where he had been confined for a long time in place of his son, who had been guilty of a vendetta homicide and had escaped to the Greek islands. According to a common Turkish custom, the pasha had ordered his nearest relative to be arrested in his place.
They held the hills above Canea, whence all their movements were visible, and the next operation of Mustapha was to clear the road to their headquarters at Theriso, a very strong position in the foothills of the Sphakian mountains, from which the insurgents raided the plain.
We were soon joined by Hafir Aga, a stout good-natured Turk who, after giving us a good luncheon, accompanied us on our journey to Canea where in about three hours we arrived sending a courier to the camp. In one hour more found myself in the tent of Mustapha Pacha, and was addressed with "Asseyez-vous je vous prie" by Osman Bey.
I had known the old man from the beginning of the troubles, for he was the chief of the mountain country above Canea, and had been the spokesman of the committee when they came to see the consuls, a noble, honest, and truly patriotic man, and a hero of all the movements since 1827.
The secretary told me of a fanatic of Canea who had volunteered in the hope of being killed in a war with the infidel, and who had been in all the fights of the insurrection, and, escaping from Arkadi unhurt, went home and hung up his sword, saying that Kismet was against him and he was not permitted to die for the faith.
In the evening I tried one more walk in Syra with A , but in vain endeavoured to amuse myself or to spend money; the first effort resulting in singing 'Doodah' to a passing Greek or two, the second in spending, no, in making A spend, threepence on coffee for three. "May 16. "On coming on deck, I found we were at anchor in Canea bay, and saw one of the most lovely sights man could witness.
For months my children had not gone beyond the threshold, and I myself was openly threatened with assassination; the butchers in the market were forbidden to serve me with meat, and I got supplies only indirectly. Canea was so well beleaguered by land by the insurgents that we had scanty provision of produce at the best, nothing being obtainable from the territory beyond the Turkish outposts.
The public slaughterhouses were midway between Canea and Kalepa, and there were always large flocks of ravens battening on the offal which was thrown out on the ground; but for weeks the ravens abandoned the place entirely, and the flocks were seen only hovering over certain localities on the great plain between Canea and the nearest hills.
Mustapha immediately returned to Canea, but having sworn not to enter the city till he had conquered the island, he camped outside. He called a council to devise some means of subduing the insurrection before the effect of the siege of Arkadi should provoke intervention, for he saw that that had been a mistake.
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