DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9840#0050
2
VIEW OF KHANIA.
[chap.
in persuading my companions that the majestic forms
before us were not those of the loftiest and most cele-
brated mountain in the island1.
At daybreak this morning, we could only just dis-
cern the distant outline of the Taenarian promontory :
now, we rapidly approached the city of Khania2; the
minarets of which, towering above its other buildings,
and conspicuous from afar, were the first sensible object
that reminded me of the wide difference between the
social scenes which I had left, and those by which I
should soon be surrounded.
As the boats of the Hind pulled into the harbour,
to land me with my companions, we were asked, in a
language the sounds of which I had not heard for
1 From the neighbourhood even of Gape Matapan it may be possible to
see Ida, when the atmosphere is very clear; but many travellers make the
mistake of my companions. As Monsieur de Lamartine rounded the Laco-
nian cape, on sailing towards Nauplia, these White Mountains, on which there
was undoubtedly no snow when he saw them early iu August, drew from him
the poetical apostrophe : " Voici les sommets lointains de Tile de Crete, qui
s'e'levent a notre droite, voici Plda, convert de neiges qui parait d'ici comme
les hautes voiles d'un vaisseau sur la mer." Voyage en Orient, par M.
Alphonse de Lamartine, Tom. i. p. 124. Solinus, in speaking of
Crete, c. xvi. says: "Albet jugis montium—qui ita excandescunt ut eminus
navigantes magis putent nubila."
2 Td XavLa. It is usually called La Canea by the Italians, who began by
calling it Cania, and La Cane'e by the French. English and German travel-
lers and writers, who have mostly been ignorant of the language spoken in
the island, have naturally adopted the Italian name. The old traveller
Thevet, Cosmographie de Levant, fol. 28. ed. Anvers, 1556, calls the city
Alquenee, a name derived from the sound of alia Canea, which he may have
heard uttered by Venetians. A very general corruption of the same kind
has been produced, in the names of many ancient places, by the Italians,
during the middle ages. Thus eh t-fju Ata has become Standia; eh TtjV
Km, Stanchio; eh Ttjv Ati/jlvo, Stalimene ; and so forth. The ancient appel-
lations of these places are alone those by which they have ever been known
to their inhabitants. An origin of the European barbarism, Stalimene, was
suggested, nearly three centuries ago, by Belon, Observations de plusieurs
Singularitez etc. fol. 25. Ch. xxv. " Nous trouvons que Lemnos est nommee
en Italien Stalimene, de nom corrompu de deux dictions Greques vulgaires,
Sto, et Limni: Sto est a dire A, et Limni Lemnos." It is not the words 2to
Afiiivi, but ~2m)u Atj/xvo, that contain the elements of the corruption. Stan-
limene was naturally converted into Stalimene. Constantinople also is still
called ij rioXis, or ets t?;V T16\lv, by the Greeks, although the Turks have
corrupted the latter expression into the single word Istambdl.
VIEW OF KHANIA.
[chap.
in persuading my companions that the majestic forms
before us were not those of the loftiest and most cele-
brated mountain in the island1.
At daybreak this morning, we could only just dis-
cern the distant outline of the Taenarian promontory :
now, we rapidly approached the city of Khania2; the
minarets of which, towering above its other buildings,
and conspicuous from afar, were the first sensible object
that reminded me of the wide difference between the
social scenes which I had left, and those by which I
should soon be surrounded.
As the boats of the Hind pulled into the harbour,
to land me with my companions, we were asked, in a
language the sounds of which I had not heard for
1 From the neighbourhood even of Gape Matapan it may be possible to
see Ida, when the atmosphere is very clear; but many travellers make the
mistake of my companions. As Monsieur de Lamartine rounded the Laco-
nian cape, on sailing towards Nauplia, these White Mountains, on which there
was undoubtedly no snow when he saw them early iu August, drew from him
the poetical apostrophe : " Voici les sommets lointains de Tile de Crete, qui
s'e'levent a notre droite, voici Plda, convert de neiges qui parait d'ici comme
les hautes voiles d'un vaisseau sur la mer." Voyage en Orient, par M.
Alphonse de Lamartine, Tom. i. p. 124. Solinus, in speaking of
Crete, c. xvi. says: "Albet jugis montium—qui ita excandescunt ut eminus
navigantes magis putent nubila."
2 Td XavLa. It is usually called La Canea by the Italians, who began by
calling it Cania, and La Cane'e by the French. English and German travel-
lers and writers, who have mostly been ignorant of the language spoken in
the island, have naturally adopted the Italian name. The old traveller
Thevet, Cosmographie de Levant, fol. 28. ed. Anvers, 1556, calls the city
Alquenee, a name derived from the sound of alia Canea, which he may have
heard uttered by Venetians. A very general corruption of the same kind
has been produced, in the names of many ancient places, by the Italians,
during the middle ages. Thus eh t-fju Ata has become Standia; eh TtjV
Km, Stanchio; eh Ttjv Ati/jlvo, Stalimene ; and so forth. The ancient appel-
lations of these places are alone those by which they have ever been known
to their inhabitants. An origin of the European barbarism, Stalimene, was
suggested, nearly three centuries ago, by Belon, Observations de plusieurs
Singularitez etc. fol. 25. Ch. xxv. " Nous trouvons que Lemnos est nommee
en Italien Stalimene, de nom corrompu de deux dictions Greques vulgaires,
Sto, et Limni: Sto est a dire A, et Limni Lemnos." It is not the words 2to
Afiiivi, but ~2m)u Atj/xvo, that contain the elements of the corruption. Stan-
limene was naturally converted into Stalimene. Constantinople also is still
called ij rioXis, or ets t?;V T16\lv, by the Greeks, although the Turks have
corrupted the latter expression into the single word Istambdl.