Show > > < > t < > > > < < < > Bli I UNCONQUERABLE GREEKS < j j Mountaineer Patriots the Turk Could Never Subdue + > k1 WJ Greece valiant to the core but hampered ham-pered for want of leaders fettered by the InfamoUs powers overcome by an antagonist vastly stronger than herself her-self has failed In her gallant enterprise enter-prise Had she had one or more of her klephts of former days to lead her ranks instead of a palace reared adolescent adole-scent whose horizon is bounded by his stomach her late campaign would have been Quite other than what It was Crushed between the upper millstone of Asiatic and the lower millstone of European despotism she retains nevertheless never-theless her tradition of freedom She has not parted with her vitality and I J may yet be heard in the further solution so-lution of the abominable eastern ques I II I tionHer I Her klephts of the seventeenth and I eighteenth centuries were the guard dians during the subjugation of the traditions cherished from the ancient era These sons of the mountains notably the men of the Pindus and grapha ranges of Pelion and Olympus Olym-pus refused to acknowledge that sub jugation and harrassed the pashas by maintaining an incessant guerilla warfare war-fare Proving themselves unconquerable unconquer-able they were at last treated with By the payment of an inconsiderable tribute they were granted a virtual independence in-dependence each village to maintain its own government under the direction direc-tion of its own demogerontes or elders Th villages were grouped in districts superintended by armed natives arma toli who had charge of the highways and were answerable each for the good order of his armatolik Many of the mountaineers consented to this form of submission but some there were iso latfd dwellers on heights hardly acces Php who refused ai terms disdaining any show of all giame to the sultan Ther were the wild klephts as distinguished dis-tinguished I from the tame ones the armatr And it is to these untamed heroes of the h jpirs i that th country cfs its rHttosiion In th Mainote rCJ ug near l V Captain Hamilton SiiJ to thf icii mutable klejht Theo auv Kt > iofctii > ns You icks must lavr a treaty and England ill act as J 1 Mlr Thai wiI 1 ivi I HP report KolnKo t > v Wit u it Is i freed < IT ur death 111 we ha never mad a treaty v ui the TihJ Smo of us han been fI imed li > hN i snord soiie if us he J t klllll m cthors inary othrs of I > ie icd fr from g neajon to j Ilion I oar king was killed He I 1 nauf no hood < < compact and his c irit has 1fndpJ his right in a i > rind il 1 iat against his slayers V have rhiee forts that have never i vndered h3ie < s his i royal garrison Which a < iur three forts ur garism is the hand of klephts fur forts arc Maui Souii and the hills > < ni i is the southwest province pf 1L Morea a poi tim of an lent Lace u nnm Sub is in Epirus north ofl oinina KLEPHTS STILL IX ARMS Thf Klephis were first and fore iv in the rising They began it and arried it through to the victorious c ud Botzaris a Klepht of Souli del de-l 11 < Misolongdi and fell in the fii I > s assault at Kerpenisi immortalized immor-talized by our Halleck whose ode tuated jnll srs the blood of the herVs compatriot Theodore Koloko trinp a Klepht and descendant of Kltphts enfranchised the Morea after CO years of uninterrupted fighting The heroes WIKI Klephts were characteristically costumed and acC ac-C A small saucershaped fez crowned locks which fell on their sturdy smoulders a short Greek jacket dee > orated or-ated with rows of silver buttons and broadly girdled was overhung save in front with a shaggy sheepskin capote j Over the girdle was wound a rope wherewith to bind the Turkish captive The hilts of a brace of pistols appeared at one side above the girdle on the other side was a yatagan At the back was hung a long inusket a inilonl No Klepht could gather a company of pal likari or braves if he could not shatter at first shot and at 200 paces an egg suspended from a branch He must also be able to send a bullet at the same i It distance through a ring of the bullets j r diameter He must have the vision of an eagle by day and of an owl by night He must give fire for fire that is he must return a deadly fire by the light of the enemys musket flash He must be tall and slim and strong adept In athletic and martial performances When no other way of escape was possible I I pos-sible he must make the ghioroussi that i is he must cleave a path through the I I hostile force with his saber j I Niko Tsaras hero of the bridge of Pravi dressed and armed could leap I over seven horses ranged abreast He j could outrun the fleetest horse and i when at the end of the race the horse j Was panting and flecked with foam i Uiho fresh and breathing evenly would I I call Now for another hcrse Of an i other Klepht is written that dressed ann accoutred he could leap over three wagons set side by Ride and heaped with thorn branches Katanoter a shep herd Klepht of Syrafa being on a height with his company and hemmed jn at each side by Albanian troops cutoff cut-off a stout well follaged fir branch with his saber bestrode the branch and launched himself from the cliff His Inen followed suit to the rage and despair de-spair of the bathed enemy As were their skill and agility such also was their enduraice Tsaras at the bridge fought on his fet without eat ing or sleeping for above three da sand s-and three nights 72 hours and more Skyros Skyllodlmos being tan tap tive by Ali Bey a Turk of the Tusks 1S06 was thrust into a diuSra at Tanini where he gropcd about in the darkness water and mud ry means of a file his ample girlie and h ai J i ity he made an escape and rea h di 1 r the reedbordered niarxin f ilu lake where he remained three day avl tJre i nights without food or POJ ui t the chin in water while aii thc ti is in search of him On the fourth day ha discovered a skiff and made his av Ito ito i-to Acarnania i EIGHT DAY WITHOUT FCOD 1 I 1 I Androutzors of Levadia informed of the rising in the Morea ITTOi made his j way thither with his pallikari to haw I i a hand in the fray Arrived at Tripol i Htza he was tod that the Kusfian who had inrited the > irr had disap 1 peared and t1K the Morpr had dr ban gp He and his ZOO COO or at most 500 mfcii wtl get upon m thousands of Alienans < who had been sent to quell j J the revolt Fighting by day and matching match-ing toy night he mark hs way tj the I isthmus there to meet with fresh troops to the number of 000 < or 1 10000 of the enemy lie turned asiio 1 the gulf C of Lepant hoping to reach Pairas and embark for one of the Ionian isles Freight Fr-eight perhaps fr ten days the little I I band continued this desperate struggle g I ivtxnout food or sleep At Vostitsa in theV ulf of Patras all his men gave I I jjW I out i except one unconquerable who I placed himself before them o Will you disperse You must first step over my dead body I A fourth more nearly a half of the I number were already lost I I We too are lost cried the sufferers suffer-ers I I Men I will be accountable for you I called Androutzos the usual word of i the leader in the hour of desperation j The famished hUnted creatures fell on j the enemy and routed him He lied in J terror leaving his baggage and provisions pro-visions Of the latter Androutzos took enough to sustain the life of his fam I ished men some of whom had fallen in the charge from sheer hunger and not otherwise injured The company entered en-tered Vostltza and took ship for an island Thc men had been 40 days and I 40 nights with next to no food or sleep The tale of this retreat resounded throughout Greece It is comparable to I that of the 10000 A mighty nation a powerful sovereign Catherine the i Great had instigated the Moreote rising ris-ing High officials among them the i vainglorious Orloff planned great things for the expedition But a Greek mountainer was its one great hero a hero of whom the Russian annalists I ashamed make no mention Theodore Kolokotrones when he was I hunted down spent 13 consecutive days and nights without food or sleep yatagan in hand on guard on the lookout look-out lighting by day eluding the hunters hunt-ers at night A portrait taken of him at the cloae of this ordeal is pathetic in its emaciation and hunted expression j HOW THE KLEPHT MET DEATH The nerves of the klepht were of the iron of his mountains No torture could elicit a groan from him At his ban i quets his toast was For a happy bullet I bul-let for death by the bullet was truly i preferable to death by Turkish torture But when the latter was his fate hemet he-met it as only a hero could Katzanotes I while a refuge on one of the islands i i fell ill of the smallpox To recuperate i he returned tc his native air accompanied accompa-nied by his brother George Thetwo I i lodged in a cave where they were sur 1 prised by GO Albanians George shot down several of these and tied bearing I the invalid on his back but was qver I taken and the two were taken to Tan nina All decreed that their limbs I should be crushed inch by inch by a i I sledge hammer The elder brotner weakened Ijy privation and disease uttered a cry when his knees were shattered George looked at him with astonishment and pity Brother will you make a moan like a woman George himself nVjither flinched nor i i groaned under this martyrdom His body from feet to thighs was mashed to a pulp ere he expired Kostantes Kolokotrones the elder I perished under such tortures as my I 1 pen refuses to describe writes Pon i I queville Pappa Thymo Euthemius i I me younger Blachavass after many arduous achievements was carried 1 I captive to Tannina and exposed for i two days tp the insults of Uw mill in f r the square of the seragllp PtrtrqTieTtlie I writes I had met thlshero atJIillas on Mt Pindus in all the pride of his o freedom surrounded by his pallikari I i saw him for the last time bound to a stake his bronzed forehead dripping i with the sweat of agony and death I Even in that hour his eye flashed de liance and turning on me a look more serene than that of the demon who directed di-rected his tortures he seemed to call i on me to witness with what calmness a hero can die Without an utterance of i suffering he endured the blows of the executioner All had tried to extort from the sufferer some information or I confession but in vain He refused to open his lips Every species of torture i that that cruel one could suggest had been inflicted on this noble sufferer i And when all was over his limbs torn i I from their torso were tossed about the i streets of the city the remains of the last klepht of Thessaly i THE KLEPHTS NOBILITY OF j CHARACTER i The klepht was far too noble to descend de-scend to the ferocity of the Turk Slay he must but this he did with dispatch and mercy He was also chaste and devout the puritan of the cliffs A slight to a captive woman be she I whom she might was not to be tolerated toler-ated One klepht who ventured on such I an indiscretion against a Turkish lady held for ransom was immediately dispatched dis-patched by his men His religious devotion was in keeping with the rest of his character in sincerity sin-cerity and simplicity In the early period pe-riod of the Marcote rising Theodore Kolokrotones came upon a ruined monastery mon-astery in a wasted place He vowed to heaven that he would rebuild the edifice if once his country should be freed from its oppressor and when it was freed his first care was to fulfil his vow In all periods of menace of extraordinary extraordi-nary peril the power of God was the power in which he and his brother kuephts trusted Debarred from the scriptures without teachers of morality moral-ity the severe virtue of these sons of the heights seems to have proceeded I from the light which lighteth every living man Hundreds of folk songs keep green the memory of these heroes in the I hearts of those who have entered into I their labors They rest but their works follow them The powers sunk in infamy in-famy receive the contempt of the civilized civ-ilized world but the mountaineer he i roes qf Greece nay Greece herself I with the ideas she represents is honored I hon-ored by every lover of his kind hoped for and prayed for by every adherent of him who directs the visible republic of God M S ROBINSON |