Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/372

322 two of the passengers were drowned; the rest, who happened to be Franks, were fished out of the water and brought more dead than alive on shore into the house of a rich Greek merchant. It was bitterly cold December weather, and the Italian doctor, on being called in to restore the half-drowned survivors, immediately ordered some substantial food to be prepared for them. Their host then observed that, as it was one of the most strict fasts in the whole year, he had the greatest scruple in allowing animal food to be cooked in his house; but that, as a great favour, he would allow them a broth made of butter stirred round in hot water.

The feeling that one is alone in a Greek community, who look upon us as heretics, is more depressing even than absolute solitude. The sympathy with which certain people in England regard the Eastern Christians is by no means reciprocated by the Greeks, who, if led on by Russia, would be capable of a crusade against Western Europe. So far as I have observed, wherever Roman Catholics are found isolated in Greek communities, they are more or less exposed to insults and annoyances, as non- conformists to the religious discipline of the place. The Italian doctor here during the last great fast ventured to eat meat every day. This was an offence not to be forgiven. Stones and pieces of iron were thrown over the wall of his courtyard, with the remark that he might as well eat them as meat in Lent. One of these pieces of iron struck, his wife on the breast; and the family were kept in such constant fear that the doctor, being the