DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9840#0051
i.] mohammedan fast. christian festival. 3
several months, whether we had come from a Turkish
port; and thus learnt that Mehmet-Ali has bestowed
on Crete a sanitary establishment. Coming as we did
from Malta, we landed immediately, as, in all likelihood,
we should have done, even if we had been from Con-
stantinople3. I delivered to the British Consul, Signor
Capo Grosso, a native of Spalatro who has resided
more than half a century in the Levant, a letter of
introduction from the Admiral, Sir Pulteney Malcolm :
and I was received by him with even greater demon-
strations of hospitality than I could have wished; for
he would not hear of my hiring apartments in the
city, but insisted on my becoming his own guest.
At sunset a salute was fired from the guns of the
fortress, and the minarets of the different mosques in
the city were illuminated with numberless lamps.
Just at this season Ramazani's fast
Through the long day its penance did maintain ;
But, when the lingering twilight hour was past,
Revel and feast assumed the rule again.
Similar nightly festivity and revelry were likewise in-
dulged in, during the first days of our stay in Khania,
by the families of all the Consuls. This year the
Carnival of the Catholics, and the Ramazan of the
Mohammedans, happen at the same time.
The uniform tranquillity, which now reigns within
the walls of this fortified city, is very diffei'ent from
the habitual violence, in which the Mohammedan Kha-
nidtes used to indulge before the Greek revolution. The
population is nearly six thousand souls, of whom the
Christians and Jews amount to about the seventh part.
The Venetian city dates from a.d. 1252, when a colony
was sent to occupy it. The object of the foundation
was to keep down the Greeks, who had been in arms,
and at open war with their Italian lords, almost without
3 In Crete a slight quarantine is now imposed on ships of war, but only
when from a place where the plague is actually raging.
a 2
several months, whether we had come from a Turkish
port; and thus learnt that Mehmet-Ali has bestowed
on Crete a sanitary establishment. Coming as we did
from Malta, we landed immediately, as, in all likelihood,
we should have done, even if we had been from Con-
stantinople3. I delivered to the British Consul, Signor
Capo Grosso, a native of Spalatro who has resided
more than half a century in the Levant, a letter of
introduction from the Admiral, Sir Pulteney Malcolm :
and I was received by him with even greater demon-
strations of hospitality than I could have wished; for
he would not hear of my hiring apartments in the
city, but insisted on my becoming his own guest.
At sunset a salute was fired from the guns of the
fortress, and the minarets of the different mosques in
the city were illuminated with numberless lamps.
Just at this season Ramazani's fast
Through the long day its penance did maintain ;
But, when the lingering twilight hour was past,
Revel and feast assumed the rule again.
Similar nightly festivity and revelry were likewise in-
dulged in, during the first days of our stay in Khania,
by the families of all the Consuls. This year the
Carnival of the Catholics, and the Ramazan of the
Mohammedans, happen at the same time.
The uniform tranquillity, which now reigns within
the walls of this fortified city, is very diffei'ent from
the habitual violence, in which the Mohammedan Kha-
nidtes used to indulge before the Greek revolution. The
population is nearly six thousand souls, of whom the
Christians and Jews amount to about the seventh part.
The Venetian city dates from a.d. 1252, when a colony
was sent to occupy it. The object of the foundation
was to keep down the Greeks, who had been in arms,
and at open war with their Italian lords, almost without
3 In Crete a slight quarantine is now imposed on ships of war, but only
when from a place where the plague is actually raging.
a 2