THE CRETAN INSURRECTION


Returned to Canea, I found that the Cretan assembly had begun its
deliberations at Omalos. The real agitation began (ten days after my
arrival) on its coming down to Boutzounaria, a little village on the
edge of the plain of Canea, where it could negotiate with the governor
and communicate with the consuls. There was a plateau from which the
plain could be overlooked, so that no surprise was possible, and on
which was the spring from which Canea got its water, an aqueduct from
the pre-Roman times bringing it to the city. It was cut by Metellus
when he besieged Canea, and at all the crises of Cretan history had
been contested by the two parties in its wars. Long deliberation was
required to formulate the petition to the Sultan, but it was finally
completed, and a solemn deputation of gray-headed captains of villages
brought to each of the consuls a copy, and consigned the original to
the governor for transmission to Constantinople. He, in accepting it,
ordered the assembly to disperse and wait at home for the answer.
He had on a previous occasion tried the same device, and when the
assembly had dispersed he had arrested the chiefs, called a counter
assemblage of his partisans, and got up a counter petition, which he
sent to the Sultan. They, therefore, refused this time to separate.
The reverence of the Cretans for their traditional procedure was such
that when the assembly had dissolved, its authority, and that of the
persons composing it, lapsed, and the deputies had no right to hope
for obedience if they called on the population to rise. The assembly
would have to be again convened, elected, and organized in order to
exercise any authority.