Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 153.djvu/418

It is said that during one of the later expeditions to arctic regions a discussion arose among some ice-bound explorers as to which is less endurable—excessive heat or intense cold. There was present a medical officer who had taken part the previous year in the British expedition to Ashanti: he declared that, of the two extremes, he would choose exposure to a low temperature; for whereas it is always possible, with proper appliances, to protect one's self from cold, no expedient suffices to keep one cool in the fierceness of tropical heat. This may be true enough of the grades of temperature just within either limit of human endurance; but in ordinary European experience far more discomfort is caused by low than by high readings of the thermometer. For downright, resourceless cheerlessness commend us to an Eastern town under a visitation of cold, where the chief business of architects and upholsterers has been to provide protection from heat. Such at least was the conviction forced on the minds of our party, arriving at Larissa during a memorable tempest which swept over Greece last January. The previous day had been one of delusive splendour. Basking on deck of the steamer which brought us from the Piraeus up the Ægean Sea to Volo, we had complacently compared the cloudless sky and blue sea to the leaden environment which winter wraps round angulus ille terrarum, fondly cleped by her sons the Pride of the Ocean. Four-and-twenty hours had brought about a grievous change. First, a fleecy scud had crept across the sky; then tall clouds piled themselves upon it, flashing lightning from their violet skirts; a bitter north wind swept down from the mountains; lashing rain changed hilly roads into water-courses, and level ones into sloughs of ineffable despond.

To arrive at nightfall at the capital of Thessaly—the granary of Greece—under these circumstances was somewhat depressing; still, the town looked cheerful from a distance, for it was the eve of Friday, the Moslem Sabbath, and every minaret bore its girdle of lamps, twinkling gaily against the dark sky. But worse was to come. Our hotel—the ξενοδοχείον τού Όλνμπού, or hostelry of Olympus—bore evidence of the revival of prosperity which annexation to Greece brought to Thessaly in 1881; formerly a common khan, it has been rebuilt, and outwardly, with display of broad white walls and multitudinous green shutters, promises some degree of comfort according to European notions, especially from the contrast it affords to the rest of the town, which is mostly mud-built.

Ne crede colori! A more inhospitable retreat for a bitter winter night could hardly have been devised. There was hardly any furniture except beds in the lofty rooms (beds happened to be the only furniture we had brought with us); the only carpets in the house were hung on the walls of a gaunt sittingroom, where all the servants and several idlers from the street were gathered round a small brazier of charcoal; and throughout this large house there is not a single fireplace or stove, for all cooking is done at