Castle at Tenedos’, 1799, by G. Koehler, watercolour on paper, GBR/3437/KHLR/1/2/6.
We encountered Colonel William M. Leake in this magazine last summer, sailing up the Levantine coast in Lord Elgin’s brig, the Mentor. Since then, ten intrepid Classics alumni have transcribed Leake’s notebook Cerigo to England 1802. What have we discovered in this unpublished travel journal written by an English soldier-spy at the outset of the Napoleonic Wars?
The diary records one east Mediterranean sojourn in two stages. Initially, Leake leaves Egypt (Alexandria) by sea on April 5th, 1802, with his companions Lt. John Squire and William R. Hamilton; they loop inland from Tripoli to Damascus and thence through Syria to the limestone massif north of Aleppo. Here, on June 3rd, he evocatively describes arriving at “some old Cistern near the remains of an ancient Village where we sleep belle etoile” (p. vi r.): sleeping under the stars amidst the ‘dead cities’ of Late Antiquity. They sail from Iskenderun, arriving on 30th June in Athens, the group then heading north on horseback to sites such as Delphi. Leake writes headily of the ancient sanctuary, “All its magnif burst at once on the procession already filled with divine aura”. They continue to the Corycian Cave “on a zigzag and abominable road”, although he concedes at the summit, “it is a most romantic scene” (p. xiii r.).
Left : ‘A brigantine’, 1800, by G. Koehler, pencil on paper, GBR/3437/KHLR/2/5. Right: ‘Ottoman figures’, 1800, by G. Koehler, pencil on paper, GBR/3437/KHLR/2/9.
They explore Classical landmarks in Attika and Boeotia, including “the grotto of Pan” adjacent to the Plain of Marathon (p. xvi v.) and the river Asopos. Alongside intellectual endeavour is evident delight, “the summits of Parnassus in sight around, Springs of water as cold as ice – delightful freshness of air”, the “mulberries, Bread, Cheese, Honey, all unusually good” (p. xiii v.). After the monuments of Athens (p. xvii v.) the text skips from Piraeus to Mycenae. Leake sketches measured drawings of the Treasury of Atreus, the construction of which clearly fascinated him as an engineer. Thus concludes the first, earliest half of the notebook which is then inverted. He starts anew writing in late September 1802 in Cerigo (Kithira), documenting his homeward journey as far as the northernmost Adriatic ports.
What is missing from both halves of the diary, the Levantine/Greek and Ionian/Italian portions, is any mention of Lord Elgin’s ongoing antiquities acquisitions that summer of 1802 or of the shipwreck of the earl’s brig the Mentor on 17th September at Avlemonas in Cerigo. Both Elgin’s Marbles and Leake’s manuscripts sank, although Leake does not here make mention of either catastrophe.
Leake chronicles only his onward progress. Aged twenty-seven, he is first a Captain in the Royal Artillery, and second an antiquarian. His descriptions of Cerigo are military intelligence-gathering, on population size, cannon emplacements and potential garrison provisions. He documents that Cerigo is known for its onions, red and white wines, bread, oil, game such as hares, quails, turtle doves, and honey. He concludes, “The produce is sufficient for the inhabitants, but the fasts that occupy about 150 days in the year assist greatly. Beef they hardly ever eat the oxen being kept for the plough” (p. 4r.). The political situation is complex, the Ionian Islands then being the Septinsular Republic (1800-1807) under Russian oversight. Diplomatic skirmishes between the emissaries of the Great Powers, and evidence of espionage, are frequently described - a Russian officer in Corfu is “disguised as an Italian priest” (p.15v.).
Tacking along Ionian coastlines “in the crazy little Boat we have hired” (p. 6r.), Leake carries Venetian charts which he checks and corrects. He has a keen eye for fortifications, fresh water sources and anchorages, describing the Bay of Navarino as “sheltered on all sides by the long barren island that lies before it to the Westward (Sphacteria)” (p. 7v.). Twenty-two centuries previously, in 425 BCE, it had witnessed a major battle during the Peloponnesian Wars. In 1827 CE, it would be the site of a British-led allied naval victory over the Ottomans in the Greek War of Independence. (Now, the fortress of Niokastro in Pylos exhibits excavated artefacts from the Mentor wreck, including Leake’s theodolite.)
Leake concludes the journal on 25th October 1802, having arrived in the Gulf of Trieste. He was to return to Greece in 1804, continuing to author field notebooks every subsequent expedition. All but two were published by him during his long and scholarly retirement (1815-1860). It is hoped that this diary will feature in digital format, with accompanying maps and links to all the geographical and Classical points of interest Leake observes, on the 250th anniversary of his birth in 2027.
Dr Rebecca Naylor
The Archivist thanks the following alumni for transcribing this volume:
Helen Chapman, Saskia Bennet, Alison Deveson, Nicholas Langford, Andrew Makower, Sue Palmer, David Pashley, Joseph Spooner, George Watson, Richard Woff.
