Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/328

278 pushing the poor old Archbishop into the grave, just as lie was pouring a vial of holy oil on the coffin; however, we managed to finish the ceremony, and the crowd dispersed. Before we separated, a man came round and divested everybody of the scarfs, gloves, &c. Your Greek, though he loves display, has "a frugal mind," like Mrs. Gilpin; so I sup- pose all these trappings were let out for the day. It is believed that the funeral cost £100. It was not much to my taste; for, considering the excessive dearness of bread, and the real suffering of the poor of Mytilene at this moment, it would have been much more in accordance with the occasion to have spent more on alms, and less on archbishops, priests, and preachers, all of whom lengthen or shorten the service in exact proportion to the sum they receive. If the funeral had been that of a poor man, he would have been thrust into his grave with a few half-articulated prayers, a handful of dust, and no holy oil; no archbishop, priests, and deacons; no public orators, no consular pall-bearers, no procession, no rose-water and flowers flung from the windows, no attendant rabble;—in short, none of the glories of a Greek funeral. When it was all over, I told my dragoman the story of the recent funeral of the Duke of Portland by way of contrast.

Coming as it did on the same day as the great Mussulman festival, this Greek pageant made all the deeper impression on me from the abruptness of the transition. The two ceremonies clashed in a curious way; for the consular flags having been hoisted in honour of the Bairam,