THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE 1821 TO 1833 BY W.ALISON PHILLIPS 1897

DESTRUCTION OF PSARA 159
smoke clouds cleared away,
the crescent moon floating,
the warriors of Islam saw
surrounded by glittering
stars, in the darkening vault of the sky. From twenty
thousand throats a mighty shout went up; and to the
simple faith of the Arab soldiers it seemed as though
Allah himself had set his seal upon their enterprise.
While Ibrahim was confirming the courage and
enthusiasm of his troops by this effective coup de theatre,
the Ottoman fleet, under Khosrew Pasha, had
been unusually active, and on the 2nd of July struck
a blow which at last awakened the Greeks to some
sense of their danger. Of all the /Egeart islands, none
had been more energetic and active in carrying on the
war than the little rock of Psara. The courage and,
it may be added, the cruelty of the Psariot seamen had
rendered them peculiarly obnoxious to the Turks ;
the
Mussulmans of the Asiatic seaboard especially, whose
fields they had harried, and whose towns they had
burned for years past, hating them with a perfect
hate. 1
Their Greek neighbours also had suffered not
a little from their meddlesome pride and overbearing
conduct; yet, on the whole, no Hellenic community
had deserved better of its country, or taken a bolder
part in its liberation, than Psara; and its destruction
was felt to be a national disaster of the first order.
i
Gordon, ii. 67.