The Leuca-Ori, or “White Mountains,” in the western extremity of the island, are thus called on account of the snow which covers their summits, or because {92} of their white limestone cliffs. They are exceedingly steep, and perfectly bare, hardly any verdure being met with even in the valleys at their foot. They are known, also, as the Mountains of the Sphakiotes, the descendants of the ancient Dorians, who have retired into their fastnesses, where they are protected by nature against every attack. Some of their villages are accessible only by following the stony bed of mountain torrents leaping down from the heights in small cascades. During the rains the water rushes down these ravines in mighty torrents. The “gates are closed” then, as it is said. One of these gates, or pharynghi, is that of Hagio Rumeli, on the southern slope of the Leuca-Ori. When rain threatens it is dangerous to enter these gorges, for the waters rush down and carry everything before them. During the war of independence the Turks vainly endeavoured to force this “gate” of the strong mountain citadel. The level pieces of ground on these heights are sufficiently extensive to support a considerable population, if it were not for the cold. The villages of Askyfo occupy one of these plains, which is surrounded on all sides by an amphitheatre of mountains. In former times this cavity was occupied by a lake. This is proved by ancient beaches and by other evidence. But the waters of the lake found an outlet through some katavothras (khonos, “sinks”) and discharged themselves into the sea.

The remaining mountains of the island are less elevated and far less sterile than the White Mountains. The most remarkable amongst them are the Lasithi, and, still farther west, those of Dicte, or Sitia, a sort of pendant to the Mountains of the Sphakiotes. Raised sea-beaches have been traced along their northern slopes, covered with shells of living species, and they prove that that portion of the island has been upheaved more than sixty feet during a recent geological epoch. The northern coast, between the White Mountains and Mount Dicte, offers a greater variety of contour than does the south coast. Its capes, or acroteria, project far into the sea, and thence are gulfs, bays, and secure anchorages. For these reasons most commercial cities have been built upon that side of the island, which faces the Archipelago and presents a picture of life, whilst the south coast, facing Africa, is comparatively deserted. All the modern cities on the northern coasts have been built upon the sites of ancient ones. Megalokastron, better known by its Italian name of Candia, is the Heracleum of the ancients, the famous haven of Cnossus. Retimo, on the western front of Mount Ida, is easily identified with the ancient Rithymna; whilst Khanea (Canea), whose white houses are almost confounded with the arid slopes of the White Mountains, represents the Cydonia of the Greeks, famous for its forests of quince-trees. Canea is the actual capital, and although not the most populous, it is nevertheless the most important and the busiest city of the island. It has a second haven to the east, Azizirge, on Suda Bay, one of the best sheltered on the island, and promises to become one of the principal maritime stations on the Me­di­ter­ra­nean.25 {93}

Crete has certainly lost much in population and wealth, and the epithet of the “isle of a hundred cities,” which it received from the ancient Greeks, no longer applies to it. Miserable villages occupy the sites of the ancient cities, their houses built from the materials of a single ruined wall, whilst immense quarries had to be opened in order to supply the building materials required in former times. The famous “labyrinth” is one of the most considerable of these ancient quarries. Crete, in spite of its great fertility, exports merely a few agricultural products, and nothing now reminds us of the fruitful island upon which Ceres gave birth to Plutus. The peasants are the reputed owners of the land, but they take little heed of its cultivation. Their olives yield only an inferior oil, and though the wine they make is good in spite of them, it is no longer the Malvoisie so highly prized by the Venetians. The cultivation of cotton, tobacco, and of fruit of all sorts is neglected. The only progress in agriculture which can be recorded during the present century consists in the introduction of orange-trees, whose delicious fruit is highly appreciated throughout the East. M. Georges Perrot has drawn attention to the singular fact that, with the exception of the olive-trees and the vine, the cultivated trees of the island are confined to particular localities. Thus chestnuts are met with only at the western extremity of the island; vigorous oaks and cypresses are confined to the elevated valleys of the Sphakiotes; the valonia oaks are met with only in the province of Retimo; Mount Dicte alone supports stone-pines and carob-trees; and a promontory in South-eastern Crete, jutting out towards Africa, is surmounted by a grove of date-trees—the finest throughout the Archipelago.

The inhabitants of Crete and the neighbouring islets are still Greek, in spite of successive invasions, and they still speak a Greek dialect, recognised as a corrupted Dorian. The Slavs, who invaded the island during the Middle Ages, have left no trace except the names of a few villages. The Arabs and Venetians, too, have been assimilated by the aboriginal Cretans; but there still exist a considerable {94} number of Albanians, the descendants of soldiers, who have retained their language and their customs. As to the Mo­ham­me­dans or pretended Turks, who constitute about one-fifth of the total population, they are, for the most part, the descendants of Cretans who embraced Islamism in order to escape persecution. They are the only Hellenes throughout the East who have embraced, in a body, the religion of their conquerors; but since religious persecution has subsided several of those Mo­ham­me­dan Greeks have returned to the religion of their ancestors. The Greeks of Crete are thus not only vastly in the majority, but they hold the first place also in industry, commerce, and wealth; it is they who buy up the land, and the Mo­ham­me­dan gradually retires before them. All Cretans, with the exception of the Albanians, speak Greek, and only in the capital and in a portion of Messara, where the Mo­ham­me­dans live in compact masses, has the Turkish language made any progress.

We need not be surprised, therefore, if the Greeks lay claim to a country in which their preponderance is so marked. But, in spite of their valour, they were no match against the Turkish and Egyptian armies which were brought against them.

The Cretans are said to resemble their ancestors in the eagerness with which they do business, and in their disregard of truth. They may possibly be “Greeks amongst Greeks—liars amongst liars;” but they certainly cannot be reproached with being bad patriots. On the contrary, they have suffered much for the sake of their fatherland, and during the war of independence their blood was shed in torrents on many a battle-field. The vast cavern of Melidhoni, on the western slope of Mount Ida, was the scene of one of the terrible events of this war. In 1822 more than three hundred Hellenes, most of them women, children, and old men, had sought refuge in this cavern. The Turks lit a fire at its mouth, and the smoke, penetrating to its farthest extremity, suffocated the unfortunate beings who had hoped to find shelter there.

The profound “Sea of Minos,” to the north of Crete, separates that island from the Archipelago. All the islands of the latter have been assigned to the kingdom of Greece—Astypalæa, vulgarly called Astropalæa or Stampalia, alone excepted, which still belongs to the Turks. The ancients called this island the “Table of the Gods,” although it is only a barren rock. It clearly belongs to the eastern chain of the Cyclades, as far as geological formation and the configuration of the sea-bottom go; but the diplomats allowed its fifteen hundred inhabitants to remain under the dominion of Turkey.

Amongst the other islands inhabited by Greeks, but belonging to Turkey, Thasos is that which lies nearest to the coast of Europe. The strait which separates it from Macedonia is hardly four miles across, and in its centre there is an island (Thasopulo), as well as several sand-banks, which interfere much with navigation. Though a natural dependency of Macedonia, this island is governed by a mudir of the Viceroy of Egypt, to whom the Porte made a present of it. When Mohammed II. put an end to the Byzantine empire, Thasos and the {95} neighbouring islands formed a principality, the property of the Italian family of the Gateluzzi.