Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/92

64 such as Rembrandt would have studied in painting a Jewish rabbi. His manners are dignified and courteous. He brought with him to my house several attendant priests: one of them was his painter, or, whose vocation it is to paint pictures of the Virgin (called by the Greeks Panagia) and of the Saints. This gentleman was not quite so courteous as his chief. Seeing a few scraps of marble lying about my room, "Are you come," said he, in an angry tone, "like another Curzon, to rob us of our antiquities?"

He had read a Greek translation of Mr. Curzon's book on the Eastern Monasteries, and the idea seemed to possess his mind that every Englishman who came to the East was a Curzon in disguise. The Archbishop, perhaps from policy, gave no sign of such hostile sentiments.

Among the Greeks an archbishop still retains the old Byzantine title, or the "Master;" and shortly after my visit, a case came before me officially, which showed me how great is the influence exercised by the Greek hierarchy over their flocks. An Ionian, who had been beaten and maltreated by some of the inhabitants of his village, sued them before the Mejlis, but could not get any of the Mytileniotes to come forward as witnesses; Ionians being here regarded almost as foreign settlers. He applied to me as his consul for redress, and at his suggestion I represented the case to my new friend the Archbishop, making an appeal to his sense of justice. He at once promised to excommimicate the whole village, if the required evidence was not forthcoming, and