The privileges attached to the vessel and her crew by virtue of the borrowed flag are so great, as to imply a liberty wider even than that which is often enjoyed in our more strictly civilised countries, so that there is no pretence for saying that the development of the true character belonging to Greek mariners is prevented by the dominion of the Ottoman.  These men are free, too, from the power of the great capitalist, whose sway is more withering than despotism itself to the enterprises of humble venturers.  The capital employed is supplied by those whose labour is to render it productive.  The crew receive no wages, but have all a share in the venture, and in general, I believe, they are the owners of the whole freight.  They choose a captain, to whom they entrust just power enough to keep the vessel on her course in fine weather, but not quite enough for a gale of wind; they also elect a cook and a mate.  The cook whom we had on board was particularly careful about the ship’s reckoning, and when under the influence of the keen sea-breezes we grew fondly expectant of an instant dinner, the great author of pilafs would be standing on deck with an ancient quadrant in his hands, calmly affecting to take an observation.  But then to make up for this the captain would be exercising a controlling influence over the soup, so that all in the end went well.  Our mate was a Hydriot, a native of that island rock which grows nothing but mariners and mariners’ wives.  His character seemed to be exactly that which is generally attributed to the Hydriot race; he was fierce, and gloomy, and lonely in his ways.  One of his principal duties seemed to be that of acting as counter-captain, or leader of the opposition, denouncing the first symptoms of tyranny, and protecting even the cabin-boy from oppression.  Besides this, when things went smoothly he would begin to prognosticate evil, in order that his more light-hearted comrades might not be puffed up with the seeming good fortune of the moment.

It seemed to me that the personal freedom of these sailors, who own no superiors except those of their own choice, is as like as may be to that of their seafaring ancestors.  And even in their mode of navigation they have admitted no such an entire change as you would suppose probable.  It is true that they have so far availed themselves of modern discoveries as to look to the compass instead of the stars, and that they have superseded the immortal gods of their forefathers by St. Nicholas in his glass case, {11} but they are not yet so confident either in their needle, or their saint, as to love an open sea, and they still hug their shores as fondly as the Argonauts of old.  Indeed, they have a most unsailor-like love for the land, and I really believe that in a gale of wind they would rather have a rock-bound coast on their lee than no coast at all.  According to the notions of an English seaman, this kind of navigation would soon bring the vessel on which it might be practised to an evil end.  The Greek, however, is unaccountably successful in escaping the consequences of being “jammed in,” as it is called, upon a lee-shore.