Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/271

Rh. I inquired how they came there, and was told that there had once been a great trade between Venice and Patmos. The Archbishop received me with open arms, and pronounced a magnificent éloge, in classical well-rounded phrases, on my philanthropy, my knowledge of ancient Greek, my love for archeology, and a variety of other merits, till, at last overcome by his honeyed words, I began to say to myself, "What a nice old gentleman this archbishop is; after all, perhaps, he is not quite as bad as Mr. Kerr described him to be. Perhaps my predecessor was somewhat too severe when he told him to his face that he and all the other bishops were a disgrace to the Greek Church; it requires to study the manners of these people." Alas for my prepossession in his favour of this venerable hierarch. I did not then know, what I was told shortly afterwards at Calymnos, that the captain I was in quest of was at the moment of my visit hiding in the Archbishop's house.

When I left Patmos, I wrote to the Governor-General, reporting all that I had seen and heard, and telling him, at the same time, that the people of Patmos set his authority at defiance, and that I hoped and expected that he would put it to rights. If he is really in earnest, he will forthwith send a ship of war to bring away all the Demarchia to Rhodes, and will keep them prisoners there till the concealed captain is found; but as the Patmiotes are rich, there is still a chance for them. They can buy the captain of the ship of war, who will then go back to Rhodes, with some lame story explaining why