Calamari Ferrari Pt.2

August 17th 1844. Lord Roberts, being an excellent engineer, soon set the feckless Greek locals to building a pontoon bridge in order to ease our passing between points of strategic import. The Greek is a feckless worker, he is prone to bouts of inactivity which he calls 'Siesta'. These occur, in the main, between two and six bells. Being of stout English stock, I was most distressed to see these daily occurrences and bid Lord Roberts to quicken the pace of the labour. The Turk is almost equally feckless, but the fighting spirit of Pasha's soldiers is indomitable and he is quick to gain advantage, so we had to work fast if we were to give him a thorough drubbing. Lord Roberts used his usual form of coercion upon the Greek, that is, with the stout end of his billy-club. The labour was quickly completed, a d--n good thing too, as the heat was playing havoc with my distemper, and we were able to leave the isle of Santorini. To Naxos we were bound.

Farewell, Isle of Disrepute...

Naxos; the birth place of that most heathen of Greek deities; Dionysus. A man I would have no truck with, a licentious beast given to the baser of humanities depravities. So it was with a wary eye I travelled to Naxos. During the crossing Lord Roberts and I made the acquaintance of a middle aged travelling lady from the Atlantic colonies. She was engrossed in a tour of sites of antiquity and spoke eloquently of history and conjured up wonderful images of the graceful ancients. Lord Roberts fell into a deep slumber upon such utterances, but I was enraptured. I have often wondered why it is that well-to-do ladies of a certain age are enthralled by the Ancient Hellenistic Culture. One hopes it is nothing to do with the large amounts of phalluses that are on display.

All the girls like a Greek

As we set about our stabilising the defences of Naxos I took the chance to commandeer a schooner out to the ancient island of Delos. I brought Lord Roberts along in a vain attempt to distil some culture upon his persona. Upon dispatch from the great Motherland I had also been instructed that this was not a purely military expedition and we were to return to London with treasures of the ancients. The Greek has left his past to go to rack and ruin and as Europe's retainers the English were in the perfect position to corral and protect his treasures. Lord Elgin had already done marvellous work at the Parthenon and we were not about to be over-shadowed by his achievements. We brought several strong-arm boys with to help in the task (these boys seemed to follow Lord Roberts wherever he went; when I pressed him on their presence he always muttered ‘women for dynasties, boys for pleasure’ I was always at a loss to fathom his words). We arrived at Delos and immediately set about our task with gusto. The statues offended my eyes with their nakedness and I instructed the boys to remove the offending articles with chisel and hammer. The ladies of London would no longer have to suffer fainting fits when gazing upon such marvels of the ancient epoch.

The scaffolding isn't original...

We left Delos empty of treasure and set sail for the island of Mykonos. The poverty and desperation we saw there made us flee almost as quick as we had arrived and I for one was glad to not have to stayed another moment in that G-d forgotten land.

What a dump

For those with an interest in that sort of thing, I prepared several Lithographs during my time in Greece, they hang in a public gallery which may be seen here: TRAVELS AMONGST THE ANCIENTS