Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/115

Rh twisted into a thousand fantastic forms. Here we sat for a while, and dipped our crusts in the fountain, and thought what a blessed thing it was that this place was far beyond the reach of cockneys, and that its silence was never profaned by the sound of champagne-corks and the din of knives and forks rattling against the sides of the pigeon-pie of European pic-nics.

We arrived at Ayasso just after sunset. It is a large Greek village, planted in a hollow, with hills all round. The streets are narrow, precipitous, dark, with a gutter of very black mud in the middle, and a small causeway for foot-passengers on each side. Overhanging wooden houses nod at each other across the way, and intercept all the blue sky except a narrow strip. Hence, the place has something of the character of a European town in the Middle Ages, only without the rich carving on the wood- work. We asked for the konak, or official residence of the Aga, and after mounting a narrow stair- case, the steps of which were covered with the slippers of his retainers, entered the presence- chamber of that great functionary. The village Aga is a sort of reduced copy of the great Pasha of his island, and his konak is a rude imitation of the konak of the capital. The salle de réception is a large square room with no furniture in it; chairs and tables are Frank innovations, only to be met with in towns like Mytilene. Along one side rims a divan, above which the whole wall is full of windows. In the corner of this divan sat the Aga, a keen, shrewd, good-looking man, of about fifty, with a