The Old Port of Marseilles in France, looking towards the Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde.
Part 1 of 2
IN the port of Marseilles lived a poor Greek named Demetrius Omeros, who scraped together a living by diving for stray francs and copper sous. He had appeared in the city shortly after the massacre of Chios, but except for this and for living frugally on melon, bread and sour wine, little else was known of him.
In 1824, the Turks decided to strengthen their navy, and commissioned the shipwrights of Marseilles to build a warship. Other Greek expatriates gathered to heckle the perfidious French workmen, but Demetrius just watched them lazily.
It was very different when the Sultani Bahri slid into the waters on launch day. Demetrius dived in ahead of her, and even as she bore down on him, raised his arms in melodramatic defiance.
The pride of the Turkish navy promptly sank.
When the same fate befell the Achmedié, the Effendi, the Turks’ agent in Marseilles, became convinced that Demetrius was a sorcerer who had put the ‘evil eye’ on them both.*
‘Effendi’ is a not an office but simply courtesy title like ‘Sir’, derived from the Greek word for ‘boss’.
Précis
Shortly after the infamous Massacre of Chios by the Turks in 1821, Demetrius, a Greek diver living in Marseilles, made a dramatic protest against the launch of a Turkish warship from the harbour. The ship sank, and when the same thing happened again, the Turkish official in charge concluded that Demetrius had magical powers. (53 / 60 words)
Part Two
The vilage of Viki on the Greek island of Chios. The massacre of March 31st 1821 left thousands dead or enslaved, but some like Demetrius escaped. Dickens knew of a Greek priest in London whose mother had saved him by hiding him in a cave.
TORN between wrath and superstitious fear, the Effendi summoned Demetrius, cursed him roundly, and asked him what it would take to lift his spells.
Demetrius replied that he wanted his wife Katinka and three children, taken into slavery by the Turks, brought to Marseilles. Within three months Demetrius’s family was reunited, and soon after the third ship was ready for launch.
To the Effendi’s relief, everything went without a hitch. A few days later, a fourth ship followed. Jubilant but a little overawed, the Effendi asked Demetrius what potent incantations he had used.
“My father” answered the Greek “was a shipwright. I saw at once that your first two ships were unseaworthy. After my Katinka came, I just had a word with the builders. It had nothing to do” he ended contemptuously “with your ‘evil eye’.”
The Effendi waddled off muttering that Greeks were all thieves. As for the two Turkish ships, they were blown to smithereens by the British at the Battle of Navarino.*
The Battle of Navarino (modern-day Pylos) on 20th October 1827 off the western coast of the Peloponnese in Greece saw British, French and Russian ships comprehensively defeat the Ottoman fleet, paving the way for Greek independence in 1832.
Précis
The Turkish official in charge of his navy’s ship-building in Marseilles bribed Demetrius to lift his ‘spell’ over the port by reuniting him with his family, enslaved in Turkey. However, he felt deceived when Demetrius revealed there had been no magic, just a little observation, and an intimate knowledge of boat-building. (51 / 60 words)
