I suppose such beauty to be incompatible with any degree of mental activity or personal character, for the process of mental development carries with it a trace of struggle destructive to the supreme serenity and statuesque repose of the Cretan beauty.

Pashley tells of a similar experience he had in the mountains of Sphakia, and he was impressed as I was.
On our arrival at the city gates, returning to Retimo, we had an experience of the mediaeval ways of the island, finding the gates locked and no guard on duty.

We called and summoned,--for a consul had always the privilege of having the gates opened to him at any hour of day or night,--but in vain, until I devised a summons louder than our sticks on the gate, and, taking the hugest stone I could lift, threw it with all my force repeatedly at the gate, and so aroused the guard, who went to the governor and got the keys, which were kept under his pillow.

The next day we had an affair with Turkish justice which illustrates the position of the consuls in Turkey so well that I tell it fully.

The dragoman and I had gone off to shoot rock-pigeons in one of the caves by the seashore, leaving at home my breech-loading hunting rifle, then a novelty in that part of the world.