Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/136

108 our route was in a caique. The day was lovely, the sea perfectly calm. I saw an immense fish shaped like a carp leap twice right out of the water, glitter- ing in the sun like a mass of gold. We rowed to a place called Yeni Liman, "new haven," on the N. side of the island. It was the first time I had made an expedition in a caique. The scenery was so lovely, and the weather so agreeable, that I could think of nothing but that famous cruise of the god Bacchus, described in the Metamorphoses of Ovid, and sculptured on the frieze of the Choragic monument of Lysikrates; how he put to sea in a boat manned by Tyrrhenian pirates; how they tried to throw him overboard; and how he then revealed himself as a god, turned the mast into a vine, and transformed the pirates into tunny-fishes.$45$ It is in such a climate and on such a coast as that of Mytilene that these old myths can be most thoroughly enjoyed.

We slept the first night at the village of Mandamatha, near Yeni Liman. I had a letter of introduction to a very respectable old Greek gentleman, at whose door we knocked at about 8.30 p.m. He answered not; so we went elsewhere for lodging. The next day he called upon me, and embracing us all very tenderly with a salute on the cheek, apologized for not letting us in: he was so afraid of pirates. Probably this was a polite manner of declining the duties of hospitality.

About half an hour from Mandamatha is the monastery of Taxiarches (the Archangel Michael). The walls inside were covered with all manner of paintings on tablets representing the patron saint