Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by John L. Stephens · English · Gutenberg #37889 · 477,476 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland, Vol. 1 (of 2)

Author: John L. Stephens

Release date: October 30, 2011 [eBook #37889]
Most recently updated: January 8, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37889

Credits: Produced by Julia Miller, Eleni Christofaki and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND, VOL. 1 (OF 2) ***

Produced by Julia Miller, Eleni Christofaki and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
book was produced from scanned images of public domain
material from the Google Print project.)

Transcriber's notes:

Punctuation and hyphenation have been normalised. Variable, archaic or
unusual spelling has been retained. A list of the few corrections made
can found at the end of the book. Italics indicated by _underscores_.

[Illustration: GREECE, TURKEY, _PART OF_ RUSSIA & POLAND.]

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

"INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN EGYPT, ARABIA PETRAEA, AND THE HOLY LAND."

WITH A MAP AND ENGRAVINGS.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

SEVENTH EDITION.

NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.
329 & 331 PEARL STREET,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1853.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1838, by HARPER &
BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York.

PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.

THE fourth edition of this work was published during the author's
absence from the city. His publishers, in a preface in his behalf,
returned his acknowledgments to the public, and he can but respond to
the acknowledgments there made. He has made some alterations in the page
relating to the American phil-Hellenists; and for the rest, he concludes
as in the preface to his first edition.

The author has been induced by his publishers to put forth his
"Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland." In point of
time they precede his tour in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land.
The countries which form the subject of the following pages perhaps do
not, in themselves, possess the same interest with those in his first
work; but the author has reason to believe that part of his route,
particularly from the Black Sea to the Baltic, through the interior of
Russia, and from St. Petersburgh through the interior of Poland to
Warsaw and Cracow, is comparatively new to most of his countrymen. As in
his first work, his object has been to present a picture of the
every-day scenes which occur to the traveller in the countries referred
to, rather than any detailed description of the countries themselves.

_New York, November, 1838._

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME

CHAPTER I. Page

A Hurricane.--An Adventure.--Missilonghi.--Siege of
Missilonghi.--Byron.--Marco Bozzaris.--Visit to the Widow,
Daughters, and Brother of Bozzaris.--Halleck's "Marco Bozzaris."
13

CHAPTER II.

Choice of a Servant.--A Turnout.--An Evening Chat.--Scenery of the
Road.--Lepanto.--A projected Visit.--Change of
Purpose.--Padras.--Vostitza.--Variety and Magnificence of Scenery.
28

CHAPTER III.

Quarrel with the Landlord.--AEgina.--Sicyon.--Corinth.--A
distinguished Reception.--Desolation of Corinth.--The
Acropolis.--View from the Acropolis.--Lechaeum and Cenchreae.--Kaka
Scala.--Arrival at Athens. 46

CHAPTER IV.

American Missionary School.--Visit to the School.--Mr. Hill and the
Male Department.--Mrs. Hill and the Female Department.--Maid of
Athens.--Letter from Mr. Hill.--Revival of Athena.--Citizens of
the World. 61

CHAPTER V.

Ruins of Athens.--Hill of Mars.--Temple of the Winds.--Lantern of
Demosthenes.--Arch of Adrian.--Temple of Jupiter Olympus.--Temple
of Theseus.--The Acropolis.--The Parthenon.--Pentelican
Mountain.--Mount Hymettus.--The Piraeus.--Greek Fleas.--Napoli. 73

CHAPTER VI.

Argos.--Parting and Farewell.--Tomb of Agamemnon.--Mycenae.--Gate of
the Lions.--A Misfortune.--Meeting in the Mountains.--A Landlord's
Troubles.--A Midnight Quarrel.--One good Turn deserves
another.--Gratitude of a Greek Family.--Megara.--The Soldiers'
Revel. 99

CHAPTER VII.

A Dreary Funeral.--Marathon.--Mount Pentelicus.--A Mystery.--Woes of
a Lover.--Reveries of Glory.--Scio's Rocky Isle.--A blood-stained
Page of History.--A Greek Prelate.--Desolation.--The Exile's
Return. 118

CHAPTER VIII.

A Noble Grecian Lady.--Beauty of Scio.--An Original.--Foggi.--A
Turkish Coffee-house.--Mussulman at Prayers.--Easter Sunday.--A
Greek Priest.--A Tartar Guide.--Turkish Ladies.--Camel
Scenes.--Sight of a Harem.--Disappointed Hopes.--A rare
Concert.--Arrival at Smyrna. 149

CHAPTER IX.

First Sight of Smyrna.--Unveiled Women.--Ruins of Ephesus.--Ruin,
all Ruin.--Temple of Diana.--Encounter with a Wolf.--Love at first
Sight.--Gatherings on the Road. 173

CHAPTER X.

Position of Smyrna.--Consular Privileges.--The Case of the
Lover.--End of the Love Affair.--The Missionary's Wife.--The
Casino.--Only a Greek Row.--Rambles in Smyrna.--The
Armenians.--Domestic Enjoyments. 188

CHAPTER XI.

An American Original.--Moral Changes in Turkey.--Wonders of Steam
Navigation.--The March of Mind.--Classic Localities.--Sestos and
Abydos.--Seeds of Pestilence. 203

CHAPTER XII.

Mr. Churchill.--Commodore Porter.--Castle of the Seven Towers.--The
Sultan's Naval Architect.--Launch of the Great Ship.--Sultan
Mahmoud.--Jubilate.--A National Grievance.--Visit to a
Mosque.--The Burial-grounds. 218

CHAPTER XIII.

Visit to the Slave-market.--Horrors of Slavery.--Departure from
Stamboul.--The stormy Euxine.--Odessa.--The Lazaretto.--Russian
Civility.--Returning Good for Evil. 236

CHAPTER XIV.

The Guardiano.--One too many.--An Excess of Kindness.--The last Day
of Quarantine.--Mr. Baguet.--Rise of Odessa.--City-making.--Count
Woronzow.--A Gentleman Farmer.--An American Russian. 258

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND.

CHAPTER I.

A Hurricane.--An Adventure.--Missilonghi.--Siege of
Missilonghi.--Byron.--Marco Bozzaris.--Visit to the Widow,
Daughters, and Brother of Bozzaris.

ON the evening of the ---- February, 1835, by a bright starlight, after a
short ramble among the Ionian Islands, I sailed from Zante in a
beautiful cutter of about forty tons for Padras. My companions were
Doctor W., an old and valued friend from New-York, who was going to
Greece merely to visit the Episcopal missionary school at Athens, and a
young Scotchman, who had travelled with me through Italy, and was going
farther, like myself, he knew not exactly why. There was hardly a breath
of air when we left the harbour, but a breath was enough to fill our
little sail. The wind, though of the gentlest, was fair; and as we
crawled from under the lee of the island, in a short time it became a
fine sailing breeze. We sat on the deck till a late hour, and turned in
with every prospect of being at Padras in the morning. Before daylight,
however, the wind chopped about, and set in dead ahead, and when I went
on deck in the morning it was blowing a hurricane. We had passed the
point of Padras; the wind was driving down the Gulf of Corinth as if old
AEolus had determined on thwarting our purpose; and our little cutter,
dancing like a gull upon the angry waters, was driven into the harbour
of Missilonghi.

The town was full in sight, but at such a distance, and the waves were
running so high, that we could not reach it with our small boat. A long
flat extends several miles into the sea, making the harbour completely
inaccessible except to small Greek caiques built expressly for such
navigation. We remained on board all day; and the next morning, the gale
still continuing, made signals to a fishing boat to come off and take us
ashore. In a short time she came alongside; we bade farewell to our
captain--an Italian and a noble fellow, cradled, and, as he said, born
to die on the Adriatic--and in a few minutes struck the soil of fallen
but immortal Greece.

Our manner of striking it, however, was not such as to call forth any of
the warm emotions struggling in the breast of the scholar, for we were
literally stuck in the mud. We were yet four or five miles from the
shore, and the water was so low that the fishing-boat, with the
additional weight of four men and luggage, could not swim clear. Our
boatmen were two long, sinewy Greeks, with the red tarbouch, embroidered
jacket, sash, and large trousers, and with their long poles set us
through the water with prodigious force; but, as soon as the boat
struck, they jumped out, and, putting their brawny shoulders under her
sides, heaved her through into better water, and then resumed their
poles. In this way they propelled her two or three miles, working
alternately with their poles and shoulders, until they got her into a
channel, when they hoisted the sail, laid directly for the harbour, and
drove upon the beach with canvass all flying.

During the late Greek revolution, Missilonghi was the great
debarking-place of European adventurers; and, probably, among all the
desperadoes who ever landed there, none were more destitute and in
better condition to "go ahead" than I; for I had all that I was worth on
my back. At one of the Ionian Islands I had lost my carpet-bag,
containing my notebook and every article of wearing apparel except the
suit in which I stood. Every condition, however, has its advantages;
mine put me above porters and custom-house officers; and while my
companions were busy with these plagues of travellers, I paced with
great satisfaction the shore of Greece, though I am obliged to confess
that this satisfaction was for reasons utterly disconnected with any
recollections of her ancient glories. Business before pleasure: one of
our first inquiries was for a breakfast. Perhaps, if we had seen a
monument, or solitary column, or ruin of any kind, it would have
inspired us to better things; but there was nothing, absolutely nothing,
that could recall an image of the past. Besides, we did not expect to
land at Missilonghi, and were not bound to be inspired at a place into
which we were thrown by accident; and, more than all, a drizzling rain
was penetrating to our very bones; we were wet and cold, and what can
men do in the way of sentiment when their teeth are chattering?

The town stands upon a flat, marshy plain, which extends several miles
along the shore. The whole was a mass of new-made ruins--of houses
demolished and black with smoke--the tokens of savage and desolating
war. In front, and running directly along the shore, was a long street
of miserable one-story shantees, run up since the destruction of the old
town, and so near the shore that sometimes it is washed by the sea, and
at the time of our landing it was wet and muddy from the rain. It was a
cheerless place, and reminded me of Communipaw in bad weather. It had no
connexion with the ancient glory of Greece, no name or place on her
historic page, and no hotel where we could get a breakfast; but one of
the officers of the customs conducted us to a shantee filled with
Bavarian soldiers drinking. There was a sort of second story, accessible
only by a ladder; and one end of this was partitioned off with boards,
but had neither bench, table, nor any other article of housekeeping. We
had been on and almost _in_ the water since daylight, exposed to a keen
wind and drizzling rain, and now, at eleven o'clock, could probably have
eaten several chickens apiece; but nothing came amiss, and, as we could
not get chickens, we took eggs, which, for lack of any vessel to boil
them in, were roasted. We placed a huge loaf of bread on the middle of
the floor, and seated ourselves around it, spreading out so as to keep
the eggs from rolling away, and each hewing off bread for himself.
Fortunately, the Greeks have learned from their quondam Turkish masters
the art of making coffee, and a cup of this Eastern cordial kept our dry
bread from choking us.

When we came out again the aspect of matters was more cheerful; the long
street was swarming with Greeks, many of them armed with pistols and
yataghan, but miserably poor in appearance, and in such numbers that not
half of them could find the shelter of a roof at night. We were accosted
by one dressed in a hat and frockcoat, and who, in occasional visits to
Corfu and Trieste, had picked up some Italian and French, and a suit of
European clothes, and was rather looked up to by his untravelled
countrymen. As a man of the world, who had received civilities abroad,
he seemed to consider it incumbent upon him to reciprocate at home, and,
with the tacit consent of all around, he undertook to do the honours of
Missilonghi.

If, as a Greek, he had any national pride about him, he was imposing
upon himself a severe task; for all that he could do was to conduct us
among ruins, and, as he went along, tell us the story of the bloody
siege which had reduced the place to its present woful state. For more
than a year, under unparalleled hardships, its brave garrison resisted
the combined strength of the Turkish and Egyptian armies, and, when all
hope was gone, resolved to cut their way through the enemy or die in the
attempt. Many of the aged and sick, the wounded and the women, refused
to join in the sortie, and preferred to shut themselves up in an old
mill, with the desperate purpose of resisting until they should bring
around them a large crowd of Turks, when they would blow all up
together. An old invalid soldier seated himself in a mine under the
Bastion Bozzaris (the ruins of which we saw), the mine being charged
with thirty kegs of gunpowder; the last sacrament was administered by
the bishop and priests to the whole population and, at a signal, the
besieged made their desperate sortie. One body dashed through the
Turkish ranks, and, with many women and children, gained the mountains;
but the rest were driven back. Many of the women ran to the sea and
plunged in with their children; husbands stabbed their wives with their
own hands to save them from the Turks, and the old soldier under the
bastion set fire to the train, and the remnant of the heroic garrison
buried themselves under the ruins of Missilonghi.

Among them were thirteen foreigners, of whom only one escaped. One of
the most distinguished was Meyer, a young Swiss, who entered as a
volunteer at the beginning of the revolution, became attached to a
beautiful Missilonghiote girl, married her, and, when the final sortie
was made, his wife being sick, he remained with her, and was blown up
with the others. A letter written a few days before his death, and
brought away by one who escaped in the sortie, records the condition of
the garrison.

"A wound which I have received in my shoulder, while I am in daily
expectation of one which will be my passport to eternity, has prevented
me till now from bidding you a last adieu. We are reduced to feed upon
the most disgusting animals. We are suffering horribly with hunger and
thirst. Sickness adds much to the calamities which overwhelm us.
Seventeen hundred and forty of our brothers are dead; more than a
hundred thousand bombs and balls thrown by the enemy have destroyed our
bastions and our homes. We have been terribly distressed by the cold,
for we have suffered great want of food. Notwithstanding so many
privations, it is a great and noble spectacle to behold the ardour and
devotedness of the garrison. A few days more, and these brave men will
be angelic spirits, who will accuse before God the indifference of
Christendom. In the name of all our brave men, among whom are Notho
Bozzaris, *** I announce to you the resolution sworn to before Heaven,
to defend, foot by foot, the land of Missilonghi, and to bury ourselves,
without listening to any capitulation, under the ruins of this city. We
are drawing near our final hour. History will render us justice. I am
proud to think that the blood of a Swiss, of a child of William Tell, is
about to mingle with that of the heroes of Greece."

But Missilonghi is a subject of still greater interest than this, for
the reader will remember it as the place where Byron died. Almost the
first questions I asked were about the poet, and it added to the dreary
interest which the place inspired, to listen to the manner in which the
Greeks spoke of him. It might be thought that here, on the spot where he
breathed his last, malignity would have held her accursed tongue; but it
was not so. He had committed the fault, unpardonable in the eyes of
political opponents, of attaching himself to one of the great parties
that then divided Greece; and though he had given her all that man could
give, in his own dying words, "his time, his means, his health, and,
lastly, his life," the Greeks spoke of him with all the rancour and
bitterness of party spirit. Even death had not won oblivion for his
political offences; and I heard those who saw him die in her cause
affirm that Byron was no friend to Greece.

His body, the reader will remember, was transported to England and
interred in the family sepulchre. The church where it lay in state is a
heap of ruins, and there is no stone or monument recording his death,
but, wishing to see some memorial connected with his residence here, we
followed our guide to the house in which he died. It was a large square
building of stone, one of the walls still standing, black with smoke,
the rest a confused and shapeless mass of ruins. After his death it was
converted into a hospital and magazine; and, when the Turks entered the
city, they set fire to the powder; the sick and dying were blown into
the air, and we saw the ruins lying as they fell after the explosion. It
was a melancholy spectacle, but it seemed to have a sort of moral
fitness with the life and fortunes of the poet. It was as if the same
wild destiny, the same wreck of hopes and fortunes that attended him
through life, were hovering over his grave. Living and dead, his actions
and his character have been the subject of obloquy and reproach, perhaps
justly; but it would have softened the heart of his bitterest enemy to
see the place in which he died.

It was in this house that, on his last birthday, he came from his
bedroom and produced to his friends the last notes of his dying muse,
breathing a spirit of sad foreboding and melancholy recollections; of
devotion to the noble cause in which he had embarked, and a prophetic
consciousness of his approaching end.

"My days are in the yellow leaf,
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone.

* * * * *

"If thou regret'st thy youth, _why live?_
The land of honourable death
Is here: up to the field, and give
Away thy breath!

"Seek out--less often sought than found--
A soldier's grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest."

Moving on beyond the range of ruined houses, though still within the
line of crumbling walls, we came to a spot perhaps as interesting as any
that Greece in her best days could show. It was the tomb of Marco
Bozzaris! No monumental marble emblazoned his deeds and fame; a few
round stones piled over his head, which, but for our guide, we should
have passed without noticing, were all that marked his grave. I would
not disturb a proper reverence for the past; time covers with its dim
and twilight glories both distant scenes and the men who acted in them,
but, to my mind, Miltiades was not more of a hero at Marathon or
Leonidas at Thermopylae than Marco Bozzaris at Missilonghi. When they
went out against the hosts of Persia, Athens and Sparta were great and
free, and they had the prospect of _glory_ and the praise of men, to the
Greeks always dearer than life. But when the Suliote chief drew his
sword, his country lay bleeding at the feet of a giant, and all Europe
condemned the Greek revolution as foolhardy and desperate. For two
months, with but a few hundred men, protected only by a ditch and slight
parapet of earth, he defended the town where his body now rests against
the whole Egyptian army. In stormy weather, living upon bad and
unwholesome bread, with no covering but his cloak, he passed his days
and nights in constant vigil; in every assault his sword cut down the
foremost assailant, and his voice, rising above the din of battle,
struck terror into the hearts of the enemy. In the struggle which ended
with his life, with two thousand men he proposed to attack the whole
army of Mustapha Pacha, and called upon all who were willing to die for
their country to stand forward. The whole band advanced to a man.
Unwilling to sacrifice so many brave men in a death-struggle, he chose
three hundred, the sacred number of the Spartan band, his tried and
trusty Suliotes. At midnight he placed himself at their head, directing
that not a shot should be fired till he sounded his bugle; and his last
command was, "If you lose sight of me, seek me in the pacha's tent." In
the moment of victory he ordered the pacha to be seized, and received a
ball in the loins; his voice still rose above the din of battle,
cheering his men until he was struck by another ball in the head, and
borne dead from the field of his glory.

Not far from the grave of Bozzaris was a pyramid of sculls, of men who
had fallen in the last attack upon the city, piled up near the blackened
and battered wall which they had died in defending. In my after
wanderings I learned to look more carelessly upon these things; and,
perhaps, noticing everywhere the light estimation put upon human life in
the East, learned to think more lightly of it myself; but, then, it was
melancholy to see bleaching in the sun, under the eyes of their
countrymen, the unburied bones of men who, but a little while ago, stood
with swords in their hands, and animated by the noble resolution to free
their country or die in the attempt. Our guide told us that they had all
been collected in that place with a view to sepulture; and that King
Otho, as soon as he became of age and took the government in his own
hands, intended to erect a monument over them. In the mean time, they
are at the mercy of every passing traveller; and the only remark that
our guide made was a comment upon the force and unerring precision of
the blow of the Turkish sabre, almost every scull being laid open on the
side nearly down to the ear.

But the most interesting part of our day at Missilonghi was to come.
Returning from a ramble round the walls, we noticed a large square
house, which, our guide told us, was the residence of Constantine, the
brother of Marco Bozzaris. We were all interested in this intelligence,
and our interest was in no small degree increased when he added that the
widow and two of the children of the Suliote chief were living with his
brother. The house was surrounded by a high stone wall, a large gate
stood most invitingly wide open, and we turned toward it in the hope of
catching a glimpse of the inhabitants; but, before we reached the gate,
our interest had increased to such a point that, after consulting with
our guide, we requested him to say that, if it would not be considered
an intrusion, three travellers, two of them Americans, would feel
honoured in being permitted to pay their respects to the widow and
children of Marco Bozzaris.

We were invited in, and shown into a large room on the right, where
three Greeks were sitting cross-legged on a divan, smoking the long
Turkish chibouk. Soon after the brother entered, a man about fifty, of
middling height, spare built, and wearing a Bavarian uniform, as holding
a colonel's commission in the service of King Otho. In the dress of the
dashing Suliote he would have better looked the brother of Marco
Bozzaris, and I might then more easily have recognised the daring
warrior who, on the field of battle, in a moment of extremity, was
deemed, by universal acclamation, worthy of succeeding the fallen hero.
Now the straight military frockcoat, buttoned tight across the breast,
the stock, tight pantaloons, boots, and straps, seemed to repress the
free energies of the mountain warrior; and I could not but think how
awkward it must be for one who had spent all his life in a dress which
hardly touched him, at fifty to put on a stock, and straps to his boots.
Our guide introduced us, with an apology for our intrusion. The colonel
received us with great kindness, thanked us for the honour done his
brother's widow, and, requesting us to be seated, ordered coffee and
pipes.

And here, on the very first day of our arrival in Greece, and from a
source which made us proud, we had the first evidence of what afterward
met me at every step, the warm feeling existing in Greece toward
America; for almost the first thing that the brother of Marco Bozzaris
said was to express his gratitude as a Greek for the services rendered
his country by our own; and, after referring to the provisions sent out
for his famishing countrymen, his eyes sparkled and his cheek flushed as
he told us that, when the Greek revolutionary flag first sailed into the
port of Napoli di Romania, among hundreds of vessels of all nations, an
American captain was the first to recognise and salute it.

In a few moments the widow of Marco Bozzaris entered. I have often been
disappointed in my preconceived notions of personal appearance, but it
was not so with the lady who now stood before me; she looked the widow
of a hero; as one worthy of her Grecian mothers, who gave their hair for
bowstrings, their girdle for a sword-belt, and, while their heartstrings
were cracking, sent their young lovers from their arms to fight and
perish for their country. Perhaps it was she that led Marco Bozzaris
into the path of immortality; that roused him from the wild guerilla
warfare in which he had passed his early life, and fired him with the
high and holy ambition of freeing his country. Of one thing I am
certain, no man could look in her face without finding his wavering
purposes fixed, without treading more firmly in the path of high and
honourable enterprise. She was under forty, tall and stately in person
and habited in deep black, fit emblem of her widowed condition, with a
white handkerchief laid flat over her head, giving the Madonna cast to
her dark eyes and marble complexion. We all rose as she entered the
room; and though living secluded, and seldom seeing the face of a
stranger, she received our compliments and returned them with far less
embarrassment than we both felt and exhibited.

But our embarrassment, at least I speak for myself, was induced by an
unexpected circumstance. Much as I was interested in her appearance, I
was not insensible to the fact that she was accompanied by two young and
beautiful girls, who were introduced to us as her daughters. This
somewhat bewildered me. While waiting for their appearance, and talking
with Constantine Bozzaris, I had in some way conceived the idea that the
daughters were mere children, and had fully made up my mind to take them
both on my knee and kiss them; but the appearance of the stately mother
recalled me to the grave of Bozzaris; and the daughters would probably
have thought that I was taking liberties upon so short an acquaintance
if I had followed up my benevolent purpose in regard to them; so that,
with the long pipe in my hand, which, at that time, I did not know how
to manage well, I cannot flatter myself that I exhibited any of the
benefit of Continental travel.

The elder was about sixteen, and even in the opinion of my friend Doctor
W., a cool judge in these matters, a beautiful girl, possessing in its
fullest extent all the elements of Grecian beauty: a dark, clear
complexion, dark hair, set off by a little red cap embroidered with gold
thread, and a long blue tassel hanging down behind, and large black
eyes, expressing a melancholy quiet, but which might be excited to shoot
forth glances of fire more terrible than her father's sword. Happily,
too, for us, she talked French, having learned it from a French marquis
who had served in Greece and been domesticated with them; but young and
modest, and unused to the company of strangers, she felt the
embarrassment common to young ladies when attempting to speak a foreign
language. And we could not talk to her on common themes. Our lips were
sealed, of course, upon the subject which had brought us to her house.
We could not sound for her the praises of her gallant father. At
parting, however, I told them that the name of Marco Bozzaris was as
familiar in America as that of a hero of our own revolution, and that it
had been hallowed by the inspiration of an American poet; and I added
that, if it would not be unacceptable, on my return to my native country
I would send the tribute referred to, as an evidence of the feeling
existing in America toward the memory of Marco Bozzaris. My offer was
gratefully accepted; and afterward, while in the act of mounting my
horse to leave Missilonghi, our guide, who had remained behind, came to
me with a message from the widow and daughters reminding me of my
promise.

I do not see that there is any objection to my mentioning that I wrote
to a friend, requesting him to procure Halleck's "Marco Bozzaris," and
send it to my banker at Paris. My friend, thinking to enhance its value,
applied to Mr. Halleck for a copy in his own handwriting. Mr. Halleck,
with his characteristic modesty, evaded the application; and on my
return home I told him the story of my visit, and reiterated the same
request. He evaded me as he had done my friend, but promised me a copy
of the new edition of his poems, which he afterward gave me, and which,
I hope, is now in the hands of the widow and daughters of the Grecian
hero.

I make no apology for introducing in a book the widow and daughters of
Marco Bozzaris. True, I was received by them in private, without any
expectation, either on their part or mine, that all the particulars of
the interview would be noted and laid before the eyes of all who choose
to read. I hope it will not be considered invading the sanctity of
private life; but, at all events, I make no apology; the widow and
children of Marco Bozzaris are the property of the world.

CHAPTER II.

Choice of a Servant.--A Turnout.--An Evening Chat.--Scenery of the
Road.--Lepanto.--A projected Visit.--Change of
Purpose.--Padras.--Vostitza.--Variety and Magnificence of Scenery.

BARREN as our prospect was on landing, our first day in Greece had
already been full of interest. Supposing that we should not find
anything to engage us long, before setting out on our ramble we had
directed our servant to procure horses, and when we returned we found
all ready for our departure.

One word with regard to this same servant. We had taken him at Corfu,
much against my inclination. We had a choice between two, one a
full-blooded Greek in fustinellas, who in five minutes established
himself in my good graces, so that nothing but the democratic principle
of submitting to the will of the majority could make me give him up. He
held at that time a very good office in the police at Corfu, but the
eagerness which he showed to get out of regular business and go roving
warmed me to him irresistibly. He seemed to be distracted between two
opposing feelings; one the strong bent of his natural vagabond
disposition to be rambling, and the other a sort of tugging at his
heartstrings by wife and children, to keep him in a place where he had a
regular assured living, instead of trusting to the precarious business
of guiding travellers. He had a boldness and confidence that won me; and
when he drew on the sand with his yataghan a map of Greece, and told us
the route he would take us, zigzag across the Gulf of Corinth to Delphi
and the top of Parnassus, I wondered that my companions could resist
him.

Our alternative was an Italian from somewhere on the coast of the
Adriatic, whom I looked upon with an unfavourable eye, because he came
between me and my Greek; and on the morning of our departure I was
earnestly hoping that he had overslept himself, or got into some scrape
and been picked up by the guard; but, most provokingly, he came in time,
and with more baggage than all of us had together. Indeed, he had so
much of his own, that, in obedience to Nature's first law, he could not
attend to ours, and in putting ashore some British soldiers at
Cephalonia he contrived to let my carpet-bag go with their luggage. This
did not increase my amiable feeling toward him, and, perhaps, assisted
in making me look upon him throughout with a jaundiced eye; in fact,
before we had done with him, I regarded him as a slouch, a knave, and a
fool, and had the questionable satisfaction of finding that my
companions, though they sustained him as long as they could, had formed
very much the same opinion.

It was to him, then, that, on our return from our visit to the widow and
daughters of Marco Bozzaris, we were indebted for a turnout that seemed
to astonish even the people of Missilonghi. The horses were miserable
little animals, hidden under enormous saddles made of great clumps of
wood over an old carpet or towcloth, and covering the whole back from
the shoulders to the tail; the luggage was perched on the tops of these
saddles, and with desperate exertions and the help of the citizens of
Missilonghi we were perched on the top of the luggage. The little
animals had a knowing look as they peered from under the superincumbent
mass, and, supported on either side by the by-standers till we got a
little steady in our seats, we put forth from Missilonghi. The only
gentleman of our party was our servant, who followed on a European
saddle which he had brought for his own use, smoking his pipe with great
complacency, perfectly satisfied with our appearance and with himself.

It was four o'clock when we crossed the broken walls of Missilonghi. For
three hours our road lay over a plain extending to the sea. I have no
doubt, if my Greek had been there, he would have given an interest to
the road by referring to scenes and incidents connected with the siege
of Missilonghi; but Demetrius--as he now chose to call himself--knew
nothing of Greece, ancient or modern; he had no sympathy of feeling with
the Greeks; had never travelled on this side of the Gulf of Corinth
before; and so he lagged behind and smoked his pipe.

It was nearly dark when we reached the miserable little village of
Bokara. We had barely light enough to look around for the best khan in
which to pass the night. Any of the wretched tenants would have been
glad to receive us for the little remuneration we might leave with them
in the morning. The khans were all alike, one room, mud floor and walls,
and we selected one where the chickens had already gone to roost, and
prepared to measure off the dirt floor according to our dimensions.
Before we were arranged a Greek of a better class, followed by half a
dozen villagers, came over, and, with many regrets for the wretched
state of the country, invited us to his house. Though dressed in the
Greek costume, it was evident that he had acquired his manners in a
school beyond the bounds of his miserable little village, in which his
house now rose like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, higher than everything
else, but rather rickety. In a few minutes we heard the death notes of
some chickens, and at about nine o'clock sat down to a not unwelcome
meal. Several Greeks dropped in during the evening, and one, a
particular friend of our host's, supped with us. Both talked French, and
had that perfect ease of manner and savoir faire which I always remarked
with admiration in all Greeks who had travelled. They talked much of
their travels; of time spent in Italy and Germany, and particularly of a
long residence at Bucharest. They talked, too, of Greece; of her long
and bitter servitude, her revolution, and her independence; and from
their enthusiasm I could not but think that they had fought and bled in
her cause. I certainly was not lying in wait to entrap them, but I
afterward gathered from their conversation that they had taken occasion
to be on their travels at the time when the bravest of their countrymen
were pouring out their blood like water to emancipate their native land.
A few years before I might have felt indignation and contempt for men
who had left their country in her hour of utmost need, and returned to
enjoy the privileges purchased with other men's blood; but I had already
learned to take the world as I found it, and listened quietly while our
host told us that, confiding in the permanency of the government secured
by the three great powers, England, France, and Russia, he had returned
to Greece, and taken a lease of a large tract of land for fifty years,
paying a thousand drachms, a drachm being one sixth of a dollar, and one
tenth of the annual fruits, at the end of which time one half of the
land under cultivation was to belong to his heirs in fee.

As our host could not conveniently accommodate us all, M. and Demetrius
returned to the khan at which we had first stopped and where, to judge
from the early hour at which they came over to us the next morning, they
had not spent the night as well as we did. At daylight we took our
coffee, and again perched our luggage on the backs of the horses, and
ourselves on top of the luggage. Our host wished us to remain with him,
and promised the next day to accompany us to Padras; but this was not a
sufficient inducement; and taking leave of him, probably for ever, we
started for Lepanto.

We rode about an hour on the plain; the mountains towered on our left,
and the rich soil was broken into rough sandy gullies running down to
the sea. Our guides had some apprehensions that we should not be able to
cross the torrents that were running down from the mountain; and when we
came to the first, and had to walk up along the bank, looking out for a
place to ford, we fully participated in their apprehensions. Bridges
were a species of architecture entirely unknown in that part of modern
Greece; indeed, no bridges could have stood against the mountain
torrents. There would have been some excitement in encountering these
rapid streams if we had been well mounted; but, from the manner in which
we were hitched on our horses, we did not feel any great confidence in
our seats. Still nothing could be wilder or more picturesque than our
process in crossing them, except that it might have added somewhat to
the effect to see one of us floating down stream, clinging to the tail
of his horse. But we got over or through them all. A range of mountains
then formed on our right, cutting us off from the sea, and we entered a
valley lying between the two parallel ranges. At first the road, which
was exceedingly difficult for a man or a sure-footed horse, lay along a
beautiful stream, and the whole of the valley extending to the Gulf of
Lepanto is one of the loveliest regions of country I ever saw. The
ground was rich and verdant, and, even at that early season of the year,
blooming with wild flowers of every hue, but wholly uncultivated, the
olive-trees having all been cut down by the Turks, and without a single
habitation on the whole route. My Scotch companion, who had a good eye
for the picturesque and beautiful in natural scenery, was in raptures
with this valley. I have since travelled in Switzerland, not, however,
in all the districts frequented by tourists; but in what I saw,
beautiful as it is, I do not know a place where the wildness of mountain
scenery is so delightfully contrasted with the softness of a rich
valley.

At the end of the valley, directly opposite Padras, and on the borders
of the gulf, is a wild road called Scala Cativa, running along the sides
of a rocky, mountainous precipice overlooking the sea. It is a wild and
almost fearful road; in some places I thought it like the perpendicular
sides of the Palisades; and when the wind blows in a particular
direction it is impossible to make headway against it. Our host told us
that we should find difficulty that day; and there was just rudeness
enough to make us look well to our movements. Directly at our feet was
the Gulf of Corinth; opposite a range of mountains; and in the distance
the island of Zante. On the other side of the valley is an extraordinary
mountain, very high, and wanting a large piece in the middle, as if cut
out with a chisel, leaving two straight parallel sides, and called by
the unpoetical name of the armchair. In the wildest pan of the Scala,
where a very slight struggle would have precipitated us several hundred
feet into the sea, an enormous shepherd's dog came bounding and barking
toward us; and we were much relieved when his master, who was hanging
with his flock of goats on an almost inaccessible height, called him
away. At the foot of the mountain we entered a rich plain, where the
shepherds were pasturing their flocks down to the shore of the sea, and
in about two hours arrived at Lepanto.

After diligent search by Demetrius (the name by which we had taken him,
whose true name, however, we found to be Jerolamon), and by all the
idlers whom the arrival of strangers attracted, we procured a room near
the farthest wall; it was reached by ascending a flight of steps
outside, and boasted a floor, walls, and an apology for a roof. We piled
up our baggage in one corner, or, rather, my companions did theirs, and
went prowling about in search of something to eat. Our servant had not
fully apprized us of the extreme poverty of the country, the entire
absence of all accommodations for travellers, and the absolute necessity
of carrying with us everything requisite for comfort. He was a man of
few words, and probably thought that, as between servant and master,
example was better than precept, and that the abundant provision he had
made for himself might serve as a lesson for us; but, in our case, the
objection to this mode of teaching was, that it came too late to be
profitable. At the foot of the hill fronting the sea was an open place,
in one side of which was a little cafteria, where all the good-for-nothing
loungers of Lepanto were assembled. We bought a loaf of bread and some
eggs, and, with a cup of Turkish coffee, made our evening meal.

We had an hour before dark, and strolled along the shore. Though in a
ruinous condition, Lepanto is in itself interesting, as giving an exact
idea of an ancient Greek city, being situated in a commanding position
on the side of a mountain running down to the sea, with its citadel on
the top, and enclosed by walls and turrets. The port is shut within the
walls, which run into the sea, and are erected on the foundations of the
ancient Naupactus. At a distance was the promontory of Actium, where
Cleopatra, with her fifty ships, abandoned Antony, and left to Augustus
the empire of the world; and directly before us, its surface dotted with
a few straggling Greek caiques, was the scene of a battle which has rung
throughout the world, the great battle of the Cross against the
Crescent, where the allied forces of Spain, Venice, and the pope,
amounting to nearly three hundred sail, under the command of Don John of
Austria, humbled for ever the naval pride of the Turks. One hundred and
thirty Turkish galleys were taken and fifty-five sunk; thirty thousand
Turks were killed, ten thousand taken prisoners, fifteen thousand
Christian slaves delivered; and Pope Pius VI., with holy fervour,
exclaimed, "There was a man sent from God, and his name was John."
Cervantes lost his left hand in this battle; and it is to wounds he
received here that he makes a touching allusion when reproached by a
rival: "What I cannot help feeling deeply is, that I am stigmatized with
being old and maimed, as though it belonged to me to stay the course of
time; or as though my wounds had been received in some tavern broil,
instead of the most lofty occasion which past ages have yet seen, or
which shall ever be seen by those to come. The scars which the soldier
wears on his person, instead of badges of infamy, are stars to guide the
daring in the path of glory. As for mine, though they may not shine in
the eyes of the envious, they are at least esteemed by those who know
where they were received; and, even was it not yet too late to choose, I
would rather remain as I am, maimed and mutilated, than be now whole of
my wounds, without having taken part in so glorious an achievement."

I shall, perhaps, be reproached for mingling with the immortal names of
Don John of Austria and Cervantes those of George Wilson, of Providence,
Rhode Island, and James Williams, a black of Baltimore, cook on board
Lord Cochrane's flagship in the great battle between the Greek and
Turkish fleets. George Wilson was a gunner on board one of the Greek
ships, and conducted himself with so much gallantry, that Lord Cochrane,
at a dinner in commemoration of the event, publicly drank his health. In
the same battle James Williams, who had lost a finger in the United
States service under Decatur at Algiers, and had conducted himself with
great coolness and intrepidity in several engagements, when no Greek
could be found to take the helm, volunteered his services, and was
struck down by a splinter, which broke his legs and arms. The historian
will probably never mention these gallant fellows in his quarto volumes;
but I hope the American traveller, as he stands at sunset by the shore
of the Gulf of Lepanto, and recalls to mind the great achievements of
Don John and Cervantes, will not forget _George Wilson_ and _James
Williams_.

At evening we returned to our room, built a fire in the middle, and,
with as much dignity as we could muster, sitting on the floor, received
a number of Greek visiters. When they left us we wrapped ourselves in
our cloaks and lay down to sleep. Sleep, however, is not always won when
wooed. Sometimes it takes the perverse humour of the wild Irish boy:
"The more you call me, the more I won't come." Our room had no chimney;
and though, as I lay all night looking up at the roof, there appeared to
be apertures enough to let out the smoke, it seemed to have a loving
feeling toward us in our lowly position, and clung to us so closely that
we were obliged to let the fire go out, and lie shivering till morning.

Every schoolboy knows how hard it is to write poetry, but few know the
physical difficulties of climbing the poetical mountain itself. We had
made arrangements to sleep the next night at Castri, by the side of the
sacred oracle of Delphi, a mile up Parnassus. Our servant wanted to
cross over and go up on the other side of the gulf, and entertained us
with several stories of robberies committed on this road, to which we
paid no attention. The Greeks who visited us in the evening related,
with much detail, a story of a celebrated captain of brigands having
lately returned to his haunt on Parnassus, and attacked nine Greek
merchants, of whom he killed three; the recital of which interesting
incident we ascribed to Demetrius, and disregarded.

Early in the morning we mounted our horses and started for Parnassus. At
the gate of the town we were informed that it was necessary, before
leaving, to have a passport from the eparchos, and I returned to procure
it. The eparchos was a man about forty-five, tall and stout, with a
clear olive complexion and a sharp black eye, dressed in a rich Greek
costume, and, fortunately, able to speak French. He was sitting
cross-legged on a divan, smoking a pipe, and looking out upon the sea;
and when I told him my business, he laid down his pipe, repeated the
story of the robbery and murder that we had heard the night before, and
added that we must abandon the idea of travelling that road. He said,
farther, that the country was in a distracted state; that poverty was
driving men to desperation; and that, though they had driven out the
Turks, the Greeks were not masters of their own country. Hearing that I
was an American, and as if in want of a bosom in which to unburden
himself, and as one assured of sympathy, he told me the whole story of
their long and bloody struggle for independence, and the causes that now
made the friends of Greece tremble for her future destiny. I knew that
the seat of the muses bore a rather suspicious character, and, in fact,
that the rocks and caves about Parnassus were celebrated as the abodes
of robbers, but I was unwilling to be driven from our purpose of
ascending it. I went to the military commandant, a Bavarian officer, and
told him what I had just heard from the eparchos. He said frankly that
he did not know much of the state of the country, as he had but lately
arrived in it; but, with the true Bavarian spirit, advised me, as a
general rule, not to believe anything a Greek should tell me. I returned
to the gate, and made my double report to my companions. Dr. W. returned
with me to the eparchos, where the latter repeated, with great
earnestness, all he had told me; and when I persisted in combating his
objections, shrugged his shoulders in a manner that seemed to say, "your
blood be on your own heads;" that he had done his duty, and washed his
hands of the consequences. As we were going out he called me back, and,
recurring to our previous conversation, said that he had spoken to me as
an American more freely than he would have done to a stranger, and
begged that, as I was going to Athens, I would not repeat his words
where they could do him injury. I would not mention the circumstance
now, but that the political clouds which then hung over the horizon of
Greece have passed away; King Otho has taken his seat on the throne, and
my friend has probably long since been driven or retired from public
life. I was at that time a stranger to the internal politics of Greece,
but I afterward found that the eparchos was one of a then powerful body
of Greeks opposed to the Bavarian influence, and interested in
representing the state of the country as more unsettled than it really
was. I took leave of him, however, as one who had intended me a
kindness, and, returning to the gate, found our companion sitting on his
horse, waiting the result of our farther inquiries. Both he and my
fellow envoy were comparatively indifferent upon the subject, while I
was rather bent on drinking from the Castalian fount, and sleeping on
the top of Parnassus. Besides, I was in a beautiful condition to be
robbed. I had nothing but what I had on my back, and I felt sure that a
Greek mountain robber would scorn my stiff coat and pantaloons and black
hat. My companions, however were not so well situated, particularly M.,
who had drawn money at Corfu, and had no idea of trusting it to the
tender mercies of a Greek bandit. In the teeth of the advice we had
received, it would, perhaps, have been foolhardy to proceed; and, to my
great subsequent regret, for the first and the last time in my
ramblings, I was turned aside from my path by fear of perils on the
road. Perhaps, after all, I had a lucky escape; for, if the Greek
tradition be true, whoever sleeps on the mountain becomes an inspired
poet or a madman, either of which, for a professional man, is a
catastrophe to be avoided.

Our change of plan suited Demetrius exactly; he had never travelled on
this side of the Gulf of Corinth; and, besides that, he considered it a
great triumph that his stories of robbers were confirmed by others,
showing his superior knowledge of the state of the country; he was glad
to get on a road which he had travelled before, and on which he had a
chance of meeting some of his old travelling acquaintance. In half an
hour he had us on board a caique. We put out from the harbour of Lepanto
with a strong and favourable wind; our little boat danced lightly over
the waters of the Gulf of Corinth; and in three hours, passing between
the frowning castles of Romelia and Morea, under the shadow of the walls
of which were buried the bodies of the Christians who fell in the great
naval battle, we arrived at Padras.

The first thing we recognised was the beautiful little cutter which we
had left at Missilonghi, riding gracefully at anchor in the harbour, and
the first man we spoke to on landing was our old friend the captain. We
exchanged a cordial greeting, and he conducted us to Mr. Robertson, the
British vice-consul, who, at the moment of our entering, was in the act
of directing a letter to me at Athens. The subject was my interesting
carpet-bag. There being no American consul at Padras, I had taken the
liberty of writing to Mr. Robertson, requesting him, if my estate should
find its way into his hands, to forward it to me at Athens, and the
letter was to assure me of his attention to my wishes. It may be
considered treason against classical taste, but it consoled me somewhat
for the loss of Parnassus to find a stranger taking so warm an interest
in my fugitive habiliments.

There was something, too, in the appearance of Padras, that addressed
itself to other feelings than those connected with the indulgence of a
classical humour. Our bones were still aching with the last night's
rest, or, rather, the want of it, at Lepanto; and when we found
ourselves in a neat little locanda, and a complaisant Greek asked us
what we would have for dinner, and showed us our beds for the night, we
almost agreed that climbing Parnassus and such things were fit only for
boys just out of college.

Padras is beautifully situated at the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth, and
the windows of our locanda commanded a fine view of the bold mountains
on the opposite side of the gulf, and the parallel range forming the
valley which leads to Missilonghi. It stands on the site of the ancient
Patrae, enumerated by Herodotus among the twelve cities of Achaia. During
the intervals of peace in the Peloponnesian war, Alcibiades, about four
hundred and fifty years before Christ, persuaded its inhabitants to
build long walls down to the sea. Philip of Macedon frequently landed
there in his expeditions to Peloponnesus. Augustus Caesar, after the
battle of Actium, made it a Roman colony, and sent thither a large body
of his veteran soldiers; and, in the time of Cicero, Roman merchants
were settled there just as French and Italians are now. The modern town
has grown up since the revolution, or rather since the accession of
Otho, and bears no marks of the desolation at Missilonghi and Lepanto.
It contains a long street of shops well supplied with European goods;
the English steamers from Corfu to Malta touch here; and, besides the
little Greek caiques trading in the Gulf of Corinth, vessels from all
parts of the Adriatic are constantly in the harbour.

Among others, there was an Austrian man-of-war from Trieste, on her way
to Alexandria. By a singular fortune, the commandant had been in one of
the Austrian vessels that carried to New-York the unfortunate Poles; the
only Austrian man-of-war which had ever been to the United States. A day
or two after their arrival at New-York I had taken a boat at the Battery
and gone on board this vessel, and had met the officers at some parties
given to them at which he had been present; and though we had no actual
acquaintance with each other, these circumstances were enough to form an
immediate link between us, particularly as he was enthusiastic in his
praises of the hospitality of our citizens and the beauty of our women.
Lest, however, any of the latter should be vainglorious at hearing that
their praises were sounded so far from home, I consider it my duty to
say that the commandant was almost blind, very slovenly, always smoking
a pipe, and generally a little tipsy.

Early in the morning we started for Athens. Our turnout was rather
better than at Missilonghi, but not much. The day, however, was fine;
the cold wind which, for several days, had been blowing down the Gulf
of Corinth, had ceased, and the air was warm, and balmy, and
invigorating. We had already found that Greece had something to attract
the stranger besides the recollections of her ancient glories, and often
forgot that the ground we were travelling was consecrated by historians
and poets, in admiration of its own wild and picturesque beauty. Our
road for about three hours lay across a plain, and then close along the
gulf, sometimes winding by the foot of a wild precipitous mountain, and
then again over a plain, with the mountains rising at some distance on
our right. Sometimes we rose and crossed their rugged summits, and again
descended to the seashore. On our left we had constantly the gulf,
bordered on the opposite side by a range of mountains sometimes receding
and then rising almost out of the water, while high above the rest rose
the towering summits of Parnassus covered with snow.

It was after dark when we arrived at Vostitza, beautifully situated on
the banks of the Gulf of Corinth. This is the representative of the
ancient AEgium, one of the most celebrated cities in Greece, mentioned by
Homer as having supplied vessels for the Trojan war, and in the second
century containing sixteen sacred edifices, a theatre, a portico, and an
agora. For many ages it was the seat of the Achaian Congress. Probably
the worthy delegates who met here to deliberate upon the affairs of
Greece had better accommodations than we obtained, or they would be
likely, I should imagine, to hold but short sessions.

We stopped at a vile locanda, the only one in the place, where we found
a crowd of men in a small room, gathered around a dirty table, eating,
one of whom sprang up and claimed me as an old acquaintance. He had on
a Greek capote and a large foraging cap slouched over his eyes, so that
I had some difficulty in recognising him as an Italian who, at Padras,
had tried to persuade me to go by water up to the head of the gulf. He
had started that morning, about the same time we did, with a crowd of
passengers, half of whom were already by the ears. Fortunately, they
were obliged to return to their boats, and left all the house to us;
which, however, contained little besides a strapping Greek, who called
himself its proprietor.

Before daylight we were again in the saddle. During the whole day's ride
the scenery was magnificent. Sometimes we were hemmed in as if for ever
enclosed in an amphitheatre of wild and gigantic rocks; then from some
lofty summit we looked out upon lesser mountains, broken, and torn, and
thrown into every wild and picturesque form, as if by an earthquake; and
after riding among deep dells and craggy steeps, yawning ravines and
cloud-capped precipices, we descended to a quiet valley and the
seashore.

At about four o'clock we came down, for the last time, to the shore, and
before us, at some distance, espied a single khan, standing almost on
the edge of the water. It was a beautiful resting-place for a traveller;
the afternoon was mild, and we walked on the shore till the sun set. The
khan was sixty or seventy feet long, and contained an upper room running
the whole length of the building. This room was our bedchamber. We built
a fire at one end, made tea, and roasted some eggs, the smoke ascending
and curling around the rafters, and finally passing out of the openings
in the roof; we stretched ourselves in our cloaks and, with the murmur
of the waves in our ears, looked through the apertures in the roof upon
the stars, and fell asleep.

About the middle of the night the door opened with a rude noise, and a
tall Greek, almost filling the doorway, stood on the threshold. After
pausing a moment he walked in, followed by half a dozen gigantic
companions, their tall figures, full dresses, and the shining of their
pistols and yataghans wearing a very ugly look to a man just roused from
slumber. But they were merely Greek pedlers or travelling merchants,
and, without any more noise, kindled the fire anew, drew their capotes
around them, stretched themselves upon the floor, and were soon asleep.

CHAPTER III.

IN the morning Demetrius had a roaring quarrel with the keeper of the
locanda, in which he tried to keep back part of the money we gave him to
pay for us. He did this, however, on principle, for we had given twice
as much as our lodging was worth, and no man ought to have more. His
character was at stake in preventing any one from cheating us too much;
and, in order to do this, he stopped our funds in transitu.

We started early, and for some time our road lay along the shore. It was
not necessary, surrounded by such magnificent scenery, to draw upon
historical recollections for the sake of giving interest to the road;
still it did not diminish that interest to know that, many centuries
ago, great cities stood here, whose sites are now desolate or occupied
as the miserable gathering-places of a starving population. Directly
opposite Parnassus, and at the foot of a hill crowned with the ruins of
an acropolis, in perfect desolation now, stood the ancient AEgira; once
numbering a population of ten thousand inhabitants, and in the second
century containing three hiera, a temple, and another sacred edifice.
Farther on, and toward the head of the Gulf of Corinth, the miserable
village of Basilico stands on the site of the ancient Sicyon, boasting
as high an antiquity as any city in Greece, and long celebrated as the
first of her schools of painting. In five hours we came in sight of the
Acropolis of Corinth, and, shortly after, of Corinth itself.

The reader need not fear my plunging him deeply into antiquities. Greece
has been explored, and examined, and written upon, till the subject is
almost threadbare; and I do not flatter myself that I discovered in it
anything new. Still no man from such a distant country as mine can find
himself crossing the plain of Corinth, and ascending to the ancient
city, without a strange and indescribable feeling. We have no old
monuments, no classical associations; and our history hardly goes beyond
the memory of that venerable personage, "the oldest inhabitant." Corinth
is so old that its early records are blended with the history of the
heathen gods. The Corinthians say that it was called after the son of
Jupiter, and its early sovereigns were heroes of the Grecian mythology.
It was the friend of Sparta and the rival of Athens; the first city to
build war-galleys and send forth colonies, which became great empires.
It was the assembling-place of their delegates, who elected Philip, and
afterward Alexander the Great, to conduct the war against the Persians.
In painting, sculpture, and architecture surpassing all the achievements
of Greece, or which the genius of man has ever since accomplished.
Conquered by the then barbarous Romans, her walls were razed to the
ground, her men put to the sword, her women and children sold into
captivity, and the historian who records her fall writes that he saw the
finest pictures thrown wantonly on the ground, and Roman soldiers
playing on them at draughts and dice. For many years deserted, Corinth
was again peopled; rose rapidly from its ruins; and, when St. Paul
abode there "a year and six months"--to the Christian the most
interesting period in her history--she was again a populous city, and
the Corinthians a luxurious people.

Its situation in the early ages of the world could not fail to make it a
great commercial emporium. In the inexperienced navigation of early
times it was considered difficult and dangerous to go around the point
of the Peloponnesus, and there was a proverb, "Before the mariner
doubles Cape Malea, he should forget all he holds dearest in the world."
Standing on the isthmus commanding the Adriatic and AEgean Seas;
receiving in one hand the riches of Asia and in the other those of
Europe; distributing them to every quarter of the then known world,
wealth followed commerce, and then came luxury and extravagance to such
an extent that it became a proverb, "It is not for every man to go to
Corinth."

As travellers having regard to supper and lodging, we should have been
glad to see some vestige of its ancient luxury; but times are changed;
the ruined city stands where stood Corinth of old, but it has fallen
once more; the sailor no longer hugs the well-known coasts, but launches
fearlessly into the trackless ocean, and Corinth can never again be what
she has been.

Our servant had talked so much of the hotel at Corinth, that perhaps the
idea of bed and lodging was rather too prominent in our reveries as we
approached the fallen city. He rode on before to announce our coming,
and, working our way up the hill through narrow streets, stared at by
all the men, followed by a large representation from the juvenile
portion of the modern Corinthians, and barked at by the dogs, we turned
into a large enclosure, something like a barnyard, on which opened a
ruined balcony forming the entrance to the hotel. Demetrius was standing
before it with our host, as unpromising a looking scoundrel as ever took
a traveller in. He had been a notorious captain of brigands, and when
his lawless band was broken up and half of its number hanged, he could
not overcome his disposition to prey upon travellers, but got a couple
of mattresses and bedsteads, and set up a hotel at Corinth. Demetrius
had made a bargain for us at a price that made him hang his head when he
told it, and we were so indignant at the extortion that we at first
refused to dismount. Our host stood aloof, being used to such scenes,
and perfectly sure that, after storming a little, we should be glad to
take the only beds between Padras and Athens. In the end, however, we
got the better both of him and Demetrius; for, as he had fixed separate
prices for dinner, beds, and breakfast, we went to a little Greek
coffee-house, and raised half Corinth to get us something to eat, and
paid him only for our lodging.

We had a fine afternoon before us, and our first movement was to the
ruins of a temple, the only monument of antiquity in Corinth. The city
has been so often sacked and plundered, that not a column of the
Corinthian order exists in the place from which it derives its name.
Seven columns of the old temple are still standing, fluted and of the
Doric order, though wanting in height the usual proportion to the
diameter; built probably before that order had attained its perfection,
and long before the Corinthian order was invented; though when it was
built, by whom, or to what god it was consecrated, antiquaries cannot
agree in deciding. Contrasted with these solitary columns of an unknown
antiquity are ruins of yesterday. Houses fallen, burned, and black with
smoke, as if the wretched inmates had fled before the blaze of their
dwellings; and high above the ruined city, now as in the days when the
Persian and Roman invaded it, still towers the Acropolis, a sharp and
naked rock, rising abruptly a thousand feet from the earth, inaccessible
and impregnable under the science of ancient war; and in all times of
invasion and public distress, from her earliest history down to the
bloody days of the late revolution, the refuge of the inhabitants.

[Illustration: Corinth.]

It was late in the afternoon when we set out for the Acropolis. About a
mile from the city we came to the foot of the hill, and ascended by a
steep and difficult path, with many turnings and windings, to the first
gate. Having been in the saddle since early in the morning, we stopped
several times to rest, and each time lingered and looked out with
admiration upon the wild and beautiful scenery around us; and we thought
of the frequently recurring times when hostile armies had drawn up
before the city at our feet, and the inhabitants, in terror and
confusion, had hurried up this path and taken refuge within the gate
before us.

Inside the gate were the ruins of a city, and here, too, we saw the
tokens of ruthless war; the fire-brand was hardly yet extinguished, and
the houses were in ruins. Within a few years it has been the stronghold
and refuge of infidels and Christians, taken and retaken, destroyed,
rebuilt, and destroyed again, and the ruins of Turkish mosques and
Christian churches are mingled together in undistinguishable confusion.
This enclosure is abundantly supplied with water, issuing from the rock,
and is capable of containing several thousand people. The fountain of
Pyrene, which supplies the Acropolis, called the most salubrious in
Greece, is celebrated as that at which Pegasus was drinking when taken
by Bellerophon. Ascending among ruined and deserted habitations, we came
to a second gate flanked by towers. A wall about two miles in
circumference encloses the whole summit of the rock, including two
principal points which still rise above the rest. One is crowned with a
tower and the other with a mosque, now in ruins; probably erected where
once stood a heathen temple. Some have mistaken it for a Christian
church, but all agree that it is a place built and consecrated to divine
use, and that, for unknown ages men have gone up to this cloud-capped
point to worship their Creator. It was a sublime idea to erect on this
lofty pinnacle an altar to the Almighty. Above us were only the
unclouded heavens; the sun was setting with that brilliancy which
attends his departing glory nowhere but in the East; and the sky was
glowing with a lurid red, as of some great conflagration. The scene
around and below was wondrously beautiful. Mountains and rivers, seas
and islands, rocks, forests, and plains, thrown together in perfect
wantonness, and yet in the most perfect harmony, and every feature in
the expanded landscape consecrated by the richest associations. On one
side the Saronic Gulf, with its little islands, and AEgina and Salamis,
stretching off to "Sunium's marble height," with the ruins of its temple
looking out mournfully upon the sea; on the other, the Gulf of Corinth
or Lepanto, bounded by the dark and dreary mountains of Cytheron, where
Acteon, gazing at the goddess, was changed into a stag, and hunted to
death by his own hounds; and where Bacchus, with his train of satyrs and
frantic bacchantes, celebrated his orgies. Beyond were Helicon, sacred
to Apollo and the Muses, and Parnassus, covered with snow. Behind us
towered a range of mountains stretching away to Argos and the ancient
Sparta, and in front was the dim outline of the temple of the Acropolis
at Athens. The shades of evening gathered thick around us while we
remained on the top of the Acropolis, and it was dark long before we
reached our locanda.

The next morning we breakfasted at the coffee-house, and left Corinth
wonderfully pleased at having outwitted Demetrius and our brigand host,
who gazed after us with a surly scowl as we rode away, and probably
longed for the good old days when, at the head of his hanged companions,
he could have stopped us at the first mountain-pass and levied
contributions at his own rate. I probably condemn myself when I say that
we left this ancient city with such a trifle uppermost in our thoughts,
but so it was; we bought a loaf of bread as we passed through the
market-place, and descended to the plain of Corinth. We had still the
same horses which we rode from Padras; they were miserable animals, and
I did not mount mine the whole day. Indeed, this is the true way to
travel in Greece; the country is mountainous, and the road or narrow
horse-path so rough and precipitous that the traveller is often obliged
to dismount and walk. The exercise of clambering up the mountains and
the purity of the air brace every nerve in the body, and not a single
feature of the scenery escapes the eye.

But, as yet, there are other things beside scenery; on each side of the
road and within site of each other are the ruins of the ancient cities
of Lechaeum and Cenchreae, the ports of Corinth on the Corinthian and
Saronic Gulfs; the former once connected with it by two long walls, and
the road to the latter once lined with temples and sepulchres, the ruins
of which may still be seen. The isthmus connecting the Peloponnesus with
the continent is about six miles wide, and Corinth owed her commercial
greatness to the profits of her merchants in transporting merchandise
across it. Entire vessels were sometimes carried from one sea and
launched into the other. The project of a canal across suggested itself
both to the Greeks and Romans, and there yet exist traces of a ditch
commenced for that purpose.

On the death of Leonidas, and in apprehension of a Persian invasion, the
Peloponnesians built a wall across the isthmus from Lechaeum to Cenchreae.
This wall was at one time fortified with a hundred and fifty towers; it
was often destroyed and as often rebuilt; and in one place, about three
miles from Corinth, vestiges of it may still be seen. Here were
celebrated those Isthmian games so familiar to every tyro in Grecian
literature and history; toward Mount Oneus stands on an eminence an
ancient mound, supposed to be the tomb of Melicertes, their founder, and
near it is at this day a grove of the sacred pine, with garlands of the
leaves of which the victors were crowned.

In about three hours from Corinth we crossed the isthmus, and came to
the village of Kalamaki on the shore of the Saronic Gulf, containing a
few miserable buildings, fit only for the miserable people who occupied
them. Directly on the shore was a large coffee-house enclosed by mud
walls, and having branches of trees for a roof; and in front was a
little flotilla of Greek caiques.

Next to the Greek's love for his native mountains is his passion for the
waters that roll at their feet; and many of the proprietors of the
rakish little boats in the harbour talked to us of the superior
advantage of the sea over a mountainous road, and tried to make us
abandon our horses and go by water to Athens; but we clung to the land,
and have reason to congratulate ourselves upon having done so, for our
road was one of the most beautiful it was ever my fortune to travel
over. For some distance I walked along the shore, on the edge of a plain
running from the foot of Mount Geranion. The plain was intersected by
mountain torrents, the channel-beds of which were at that time dry. We
passed the little village of Caridi, supposed to be the Sidus of
antiquity, while a ruined church and a few old blocks of marble mark the
site of ancient Crommyon, celebrated as the haunt of a wild boar
destroyed by Theseus.

At the other end of the plain we came to the foot of Mount Geranion,
stretching out boldly to the edge of the gulf, and followed the road
along its southern side close to and sometimes overhanging the sea. From
time immemorial this has been called the Kaka Scala, or bad way. It is
narrow, steep, and rugged, and wild to sublimity. Sometimes we were
completely hemmed in by impending mountains, and then rose upon a lofty
eminence commanding an almost boundless view. On the summit of the range
the road runs directly along the mountain's brink, overhanging the sea,
and so narrow that two horsemen can scarcely pass abreast; where a
stumble would plunge the traveller several hundred yards into the waters
beneath. Indeed, the horse of one of my companions stumbled and fell,
and put him in such peril that both dismounted and accompanied me on
foot. In the olden time this wild and rugged road was famous as the
haunt of the robber Sciron, who plundered the luckless travellers, and
then threw them from this precipice. The fabulous account is, that
Theseus, three thousand years before, on his first visit to Athens,
encountered the famous robber, and tossed him from the same precipice
whence he had thrown so many better men. According to Ovid, the earth
and the sea refused to receive the bones of Sciron, which continued for
some time suspended in the open air, until they were changed into large
rocks, whose points still appear at the foot of the precipice; and to
this day, say the sailors, knock the bottoms out of the Greek vessels.
In later days this road was so infested by corsairs and pirates, that
even the Turks feared to travel on it; at one place, that looks as
though it might be intended as a jumping-off point into another world,
Ino, with her son Melicertes in her arms (so say the Greek poets), threw
herself into the sea to escape the fury of her husband; and we know
that in later days St. Paul travelled on this road to preach the gospel
to the Corinthians.

But, independently of all associations, and in spite of its difficulties
and dangers, if a man were by accident placed on the lofty height
without knowing where he was, he would be struck with the view which it
commands, as one of the most beautiful that mortal eyes ever beheld. It
was my fortune to pass over it a second time on foot, and I often seated
myself on some wild point, and waited the coming up of my muleteers,
looking out upon the sea, calm and glistening as if plated with silver,
and studded with islands in continuous clusters stretching away into the
AEgean.

During the greater part of the passage of the Kaka Scala my companions
walked with me; and, as we always kept in advance, when we seated
ourselves on some rude rock overhanging the sea to wait for our beasts
and attendants, few things could be more picturesque than their
approach.

On the summit of the pass we fell into the ancient paved way that leads
from Attica into the Peloponnesus, and walked over the same pavement
which the Greeks travelled, perhaps, three thousand years ago. A ruined
wall and gate mark the ancient boundary; and near this an early
traveller observed a large block of white marble projecting over the
precipice, and almost ready to fall into the sea, which bore an
inscription, now illegible. Here it is supposed stood the Stele erected
by Theseus, bearing on one side the inscription, "Here is Peloponnesus,
not Ionia;" and on the other the equally pithy notification, "Here is
not Peloponnesus, but Ionia." It would be a pretty place of residence
for a man in misfortune; for, besides the extraordinary beauty of the
scenery, by a single step he might avoid the service of civil process,
and set the sheriff of Attica or the Peloponnesus at defiance.
Descending, we saw before us a beautiful plain, extending from the foot
of the mountain to the sea, and afar off, on an eminence commanding the
plain, was the little town of Megara.

It is unfortunate for the reader that every ruined village on the road
stands on the site of an ancient city. The ruined town before us was the
birthplace of Euclid, and the representative of that Megara which is
distinguished in history more than two thousand years ago; which sent
forth its armies in the Persian and Peloponnesian wars; alternately the
ally and enemy of Corinth and Athens; containing numerous temples, and
the largest public houses in Greece; and though exposed, with her other
cities, to the violence of a fierce democracy, as is recorded by the
historian, "the Megareans retained their independence and lived in
peace." As a high compliment, the people offered to Alexander the Great
the freedom of their city. When we approached it its appearance was a
speaking comment upon human pride.

It had been demolished and burned by Greeks and Turks, and now presented
little more than a mass of blackened ruins. A few apartments had been
cleared out and patched up, and occasionally I saw a solitary figure
stalking amid the desolation.

I had not mounted my horse all day; had kicked out a pair of Greek shoes
on my walk, and was almost barefoot when I entered the city. A little
below the town was a large building enclosed by a high wall, with a
Bavarian soldier lounging at the gate. We entered, and found a good
coffee-room below, and a comfortable bed chamber above, where we found
good quilts and mattresses, and slept like princes.

Early in the morning we set out for Athens, our road for some time lying
along the sea. About half way to the Piraeus, a ruined village, with a
starving population, stands on the site of the ancient Eleusis, famed
throughout all Greece for the celebration of the mysterious rites of
Ceres. The magnificent temple of the goddess has disappeared, and the
colossal statue made by the immortal Phidias now adorns the vestibule of
the University at Cambridge. We lingered a little while in the village,
and soon after entered the Via Sacra, by which, centuries ago, the
priests and people moved in solemn religious processions from Athens to
the great temple of Ceres. At first we passed underneath the cliff along
the shore, then rose by a steep ascent among the mountains, barren and
stony, and wearing an aspect of desolation equal to that of the Roman
Campagna; then we passed through a long defile, upon the side of which,
deeply cut in the rock, are seen the marks of chariot-wheels; perhaps of
those used in the sacred processions. We passed the ruined monastery of
Daphne, in a beautifully picturesque situation, and in a few minutes saw
the rich plain of Attica; and our muleteers and Demetrius, with a burst
of enthusiasm, perhaps because the journey was ended, clapped their
hands and cried out, "Atinae! Atinae!"

The reader, perhaps, trembles at the name of Athens, but let him take
courage. I promise to let him off easily. A single remark, however,
before reaching it. The plain of Attica lies between two parallel ranges
of mountains, and extends from the sea many miles back into the
interior. On the border of the sea stands the Piraeus, now, as in former
times, the harbour of the city, and toward the east, on a little
eminence, Athens itself, like the other cities in Greece, presenting a
miserable appearance, the effects of protracted and relentless wars. But
high above the ruins of the modern city towers the Acropolis, holding up
to the skies the ruined temples of other days, and proclaiming what
Athens was. We wound around the temple of Theseus, the most beautiful
and perfect specimen of architecture that time has spared; and in
striking contrast with this monument of the magnificence of past days,
here, in the entrance to the city, our horses were struggling and
sinking up to their saddle-girths in the mud.

We did in Athens what we should have done in Boston or Philadelphia;
rode up to the best hotel, and, not being able to obtain accommodations
there, rode to another; where, being again refused admittance, we were
obliged to distribute ourselves into three parcels. Dr. Willet went to
Mr. Hill's (of whom more anon). M. found entrance at a new hotel in the
suburbs, and I betook myself to the Hotel de France. The garcon was
rather bothered when I threw him a pair of old boots which I had hanging
at my saddle-bow, and told him to take care of my baggage; he asked me
when the rest would come up; and hardly knew what to make of me when I
told him that was all I travelled with.

I was still standing in the court of the hotel, almost barefoot, and
thinking of the prosperous condition of the owner of a dozen shirts, and
other things conforming, when Mr. Hill came over and introduced himself;
and telling me that his house was the house of every American, asked me
to waive ceremony and bring my luggage over at once. This was again
hitting my sore point; everybody seemed to take a special interest in
my luggage, and I was obliged to tell my story more than once. I
declined Mr. Hill's kind invitation, but called upon him early the next
day, dined with him, and, during the whole of my stay in Athens, was in
the habit, to a great extent, of making his house my home; and this, I
believe, is the case with all the Americans who go there; besides which,
some borrow his money, and others his clothes.

CHAPTER IV.

THE first thing we did in Athens was to visit the American missionary
school. Among the extraordinary changes of an ever-changing world, it is
not the least that the young America is at this moment paying back the
debt which the world owes to the mother of science, and the citizen of a
country which the wisest of the Greeks never dreamed of, is teaching the
descendants of Plato and Aristotle the elements of their own tongue. I
did not expect among the ruins of Athens to find anything that would
particularly touch my national feelings, but it was a subject of deep
and interesting reflection that, in the city which surpassed all the
world in learning, where Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle taught, and
Cicero went to study, the only door of instruction was that opened by
the hands of American citizens, and an American missionary was the only
schoolmaster; and I am ashamed to say that I was not aware of the
existence of such an institution until advised of it by my friend Dr. W.

In eighteen hundred and thirty the Rev. Messrs. Hill and Robinson, with
their families, sailed from this city (New-York) as the agents of the
Episcopal missionary society, to found schools in Greece. They first
established themselves in the Island of Tenos; but, finding that it was
not the right field for their labours, employed themselves in acquiring
a knowledge of the language, and of the character and habits of the
modern Greeks. Their attention was directed to Athens, and in the spring
of eighteen hundred and thirty-one they made a visit to that city, and
were so confirmed in their impressions, that they purchased a lot of
ground on which to erect edifices for a permanent establishment, and, in
the mean time, rented a house for the immediate commencement of a
school. They returned to Tenos for their families and effects, and again
arrived at Athens about the end of June following. From the deep
interest taken in their struggle for liberty, and the timely help
furnished them in their hour of need, the Greeks were warmly
prepossessed in favour of our countrymen; and the conduct of the
missionaries themselves was so judicious, that they were received with
the greatest respect and the warmest welcome by the public authorities
and the whole population of Athens. Their furniture, printing-presses,
and other effects were admitted free of duties; and it is but justice to
them to say that, since that time, they have moved with such discretion
among an excitable and suspicious people, that, while they have advanced
in the great objects of their mission, they have grown in the esteem and
good-will of the best and most influential inhabitants of Greece; and so
great was Mr. Hill's confidence in their affections, that, though there
was at that time a great political agitation, and it was apprehended
that Athens might again become the scene of violence and bloodshed, he
told me he had no fears, and felt perfectly sure that, in any
outbreaking of popular fury, himself and family, and the property of the
mission, would be respected.[1]

In the middle of the summer of their arrival at Athens, Mrs. Hill
opened a school for girls in the magazine or cellar of the house in
which they resided; the first day she had twenty pupils, and in two
months one hundred and sixty-seven. Of the first ninety-six, not more
than six could read at all, and that very imperfectly; and not more than
ten or twelve knew a letter. At the time of our visit the school
numbered nearly five hundred; and when we entered the large room, and
the scholars all rose in a body to greet us as Americans, I felt a deep
sense of regret that, personally, I had no hand in such a work, and
almost envied the feelings of my companion, one of its patrons and
founders. Besides teaching them gratitude to those from whose country
they derived the privileges they enjoyed, Mr. Hill had wisely
endeavoured to impress upon their minds a respect for the constituted
authorities, particularly important in that agitated and unsettled
community; and on one end of the wall, directly fronting the seats of
the scholars, was printed, in large Greek characters, the text of
Scripture, "Fear God, honour the king."

It was all important for the missionaries not to offend the strong
prejudices of the Greeks by any attempt to withdraw the children from
the religion of their fathers; and the school purports to be, and is
intended for, the diffusion of elementary education only; but it is
opened in the morning with prayer, concluding with the Lord's Prayer as
read in our churches, which is repeated by the whole school aloud; and
on Sundays, besides the prayers, the creed, and sometimes the Ten
Commandments, are recited, and a chapter from the Gospels is read aloud
by one of the scholars, the missionaries deeming this more expedient
than to conduct the exercises themselves. The lesson for the day is
always the portion appointed for the gospel of the day in their own
church; and they close by singing a hymn. The room is thrown open to the
public, and is frequently resorted to by the parents of the children and
strangers; some coming, perhaps, says Mr. Hill, to "hear what these
babblers will say," and "other some" from a suspicion that "we are
setters forth of strange gods."

The boys' school is divided into three departments, the lowest under
charge of a Greek qualified on the Lancasterian system. They were of all
ages, from three to eighteen; and, as Mr. Hill told me, most of them had
been half-clad, dirty, ragged little urchins, who, before they were put
to their A, B, C, or, rather, their Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, had to be
thoroughly washed, rubbed, scrubbed, doctored, and dressed, and, but for
the school, would now, perhaps, be prowling vagabonds in the streets of
Athens, or training for robbery in the mountains. They were a body of
fine-looking boys, possessing, as Mr. Hill told me, in an extraordinary
degree, all that liveliness of imagination, that curiosity and eagerness
after knowledge, which distinguished the Greeks of old, retaining, under
centuries of dreadful oppression, the recollection of the greatness of
their fathers, and, what was particularly interesting, many of them
bearing the great names so familiar in Grecian history; I shook hands
with a little Miltiades, Leonidas, Aristides, &c., in features and
apparent intelligence worthy descendants of the immortal men whose names
they bear. And there was one who startled me, he was the son of the
Maid of Athens! To me the Maid of Athens was almost an imaginary being,
something fanciful, a creation of the brain, and not a corporeal
substance, to have a little urchin of a boy. But so it was. The Maid of
Athens is married. She had a right to marry, no doubt; and it is said
that there is poetry in married life, and, doubtless, she is a much more
interesting person now than the Maid of Athens at thirty-six could be;
but the Maid of Athens is married to a Scotchman! the Maid of Athens is
now Mrs. Black! wife of George Black. Comment is unnecessary.

But the principal and most interesting part of this missionary school
was the female department, under the direction of Mrs. Hill, the first,
and, except at Syra, the only school for females in all Greece, and
particularly interesting to me from the fact that it owed its existence
to the active benevolence of my own country-women. At the close of the
Greek revolution, female education was a thing entirely unknown in
Greece, and the women of all classes were in a most deplorable state of
ignorance. When the strong feeling that ran through our country in
favour of this struggling people had subsided, and Greece was freed from
the yoke of the Mussulman, an association of ladies in the little town
of Troy, perhaps instigated somewhat by an inherent love of power and
extended rule, and knowing the influence of their sex in a cultivated
state of society, formed the project of establishing at Athens a school
exclusively for the education of females; and, humble and unpretending
as was its commencement, it is becoming a more powerful instrument in
the civilization and moral and religious improvement of Greece, than all
that European diplomacy has ever done for her. The girls were
distributed in different classes, according to their age and
advancement; they had clean faces and hands, a rare thing with Greek
children, and were neatly dressed, many of them wearing frocks made by
ladies at home (probably at some of our sewing societies); and some of
them had attained such an age, and had such fine, dark, rolling eyes as
to make even a northern temperament feel the powerful influence they
would soon exercise over the rising, excitable generation of Greeks and
almost make him bless the hands that were directing that influence
aright.

Mr. and Mrs. Hill accompanied us through the whole establishment, and,
being Americans, we were everywhere looked upon and received by the
girls as patrons and fathers of the school, both which characters I
waived in favour of my friend; the one because he was really entitled to
it, and the other because some of the girls were so well grown that I
did not care to be regarded as standing in that venerable relationship.
The didaskalissas, or teachers, were of this description, and they spoke
English. Occasionally Mr. Hill called a little girl up to us, and told
us her history, generally a melancholy one, as, being reduced to the
extremity of want by the revolution; or an orphan, whose parents had
been murdered by the Turks; and I had a conversation with a little
Penelope, who, however, did not look as if she would play the faithful
wife of Ulysses, and, if I am a judge of physiognomy, would never endure
widowhood twenty years for any man.

Before we went away the whole school rose at once, and gave us a
glorious finale with a Greek hymn. In a short time these girls will grow
up into women and return to their several families; others will succeed
them, and again go out, and every year hundreds will distribute
themselves in the cities and among the fastnesses of the mountains, to
exercise over their fathers, and brothers, and lovers, the influence of
the education acquired here; instructed in all the arts of woman in
civilized domestic life, firmly grounded in the principles of morality,
and of religion purified from the follies, absurdities, and abominations
of the Greek faith. I have seen much of the missionary labours in the
East, but I do not know an institution which promises so surely the
happiest results. If the women are educated, the men cannot remain
ignorant; if the women are enlightened in religion, the men cannot
remain debased and degraded Christians.

The ex-secretary Rigos was greatly affected at the appearance of this
female school; and, after surveying it attentively for some moments,
pointed to the Parthenon on the summit of the Acropolis, and said to
Mrs. Hill, with deep emotion, "Lady, you are erecting in Athens a
monument more enduring and more noble than yonder temple;" and the king
was so deeply impressed with its value, that, a short time before my
arrival, he proposed to Mr. Hill to take into his house girls from
different districts and educate them as teachers, with the view of
sending them back to their districts, there to organize new schools, and
carry out the great work of female education. Mr. Hill acceded to the
proposal, and the American missionary school now stands as the nucleus
of a large and growing system of education in Greece; and, very
opportunely for my purpose, within a few days I have received a letter
from Mr. Hill, in which, in relation to the school, he says, "Our
missionary establishment is much increased since you saw it; our labours
are greatly increased, and I think I may say we have now reached the
summit of what we had proposed to ourselves. We do not think it possible
that it can be extended farther without much larger means and more
personal aid. We do not wish or intend to ask for either. We have now
nearly forty persons residing with us, of whom thirty-five are Greeks,
all of whom are brought within the influence of the gospel; the greater
part of them are young girls from different parts of Greece, and even
from Egypt and Turkey (Greeks, however), whom we are preparing to become
instructresses of youth hereafter in their various districts. We have
five hundred, besides, under daily instruction in the different schools
under our care, and we employ under us in the schools twelve native
teachers, who have themselves been instructed by us. We have provided
for three of our dear pupils (all of whom were living with us when you
were here), who are honourably and usefully settled in life. One is
married to a person every way suited to her, and both husband and wife
are in our missionary service. One has charge of the government female
school at the Piraeus, and supports her father and mother and a large
family by her salary; and the third has gone with our missionaries to
Crete, to take charge of the female schools there. We have removed into
our new house" (of which the foundation was just laid at the time of my
visit), "and, large as it is, it is not half large enough. We are trying
to raise ways and means to enlarge it considerably, that we may take
more boarders under our own roof, which we look up to as the most
important means of making sure of our labour; for every one who comes to
reside with us is taken away from the corrupt example exhibited at home,
and brought within a wholesome influence. Lady Byron has just sent us
one hundred pounds toward enlarging our house with this view, and we
have commenced the erection of three additional dormitories with the
money."

Athens is again the capital of a kingdom. Enthusiasts see in her present
condition the promise of a restoration to her ancient greatness; but
reason and observation assure us that the world is too much changed for
her ever to be what she has been. In one respect, her condition
resembles that of her best days; for, as her fame then attracted
strangers from every quarter of the world to study in her schools, so
now the capital of King Otho has become a great gathering-place of
wandering spirits from many near and distant regions. For ages difficult
and dangerous of access, the ancient capital of the arts lay shrouded in
darkness, and almost cut off from the civilized world. At long
intervals, a few solitary travellers only found their way to it; but,
since the revolution, it has again become a place of frequent resort and
intercourse. It is true that the ancient halls of learning are still
solitary and deserted, but strangers from every nation now turn hither;
the scholar to roam over her classic soil, the artist to study her
ancient monuments, and the adventurer to carve his way to fortune.

The first day I dined at the hotel I had an opportunity of seeing the
variety of material congregated in the reviving city. We had a long
table, capable of accommodating about twenty persons. The manner of
living was a la carte, each guest dining when he pleased; but, by tacit
consent, at about six o'clock all assembled at the table. We presented a
curious medley. No two were from the same country. Our discourse was in
English, French, Italian, German, Greek, Russian, Polish, and I know not
what else, as if we were the very people stricken with confusion of
tongues at the Tower of Babel. Dinner over, all fell into French, and
the conversation became general. Every man present was, in the fullest
sense of the term, a citizen of the world. It had been the fortune of
each, whether good or bad, to break the little circle in which so many
are born, revolve, and die; and the habitual mingling with people of
various nations had broken down all narrow prejudices, and given to
every one freedom of mind and force of character. All had seen much, had
much to communicate, and felt that they had much yet to learn. By some
accident, moreover, all seemed to have become particularly interested in
the East. They travelled over the whole range of Eastern politics, and,
to a certain extent, considered themselves identified with Eastern
interests. Most of the company were or had been soldiers, and several
wore uniforms and stars, or decorations of some description. They spoke
of the different campaigns in Greece in which some of them had served;
of the science of war; of Marlborough, Eugene, and more modern captains;
and I remember that they startled my feelings of classical reverence by
talking of Leonidas at Thermopylae and Miltiades at Marathon in the same
tone as of Napoleon at Leipsic and Wellington at Waterloo. One of them
constructed on the table, with the knives and forks and spoons, a map of
Marathon, and with a sheathed yataghan pointed out the position of the
Greeks and Persians, and showed where Miltiades, as a general, was
wrong. They were not blinded by the dust of antiquity. They had been
knocked about till all enthusiasm and all reverence for the past were
shaken out of them, and they had learned to give things their right
names. A French engineer showed us the skeleton of a map of Greece,
which was then preparing under the direction of the French Geographical
Society, exhibiting an excess of mountains and deficiency of plain which
surprised even those who had travelled over every part of the kingdom.
One had just come from Constantinople, where he had seen the sultan
going to mosque; another had escaped from an attack of the plague in
Egypt; a third gave the dimensions of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbeck;
and a fourth had been at Babylon, and seen the ruins of the Tower of
Babel. In short, every man had seen something which the others had not
seen, and all their knowledge was thrown into a common stock. I found
myself at once among a new class of men; and I turned from him who
sneered at Miltiades to him who had seen the sultan, or to him who had
been at Bagdad, and listened with interest, somewhat qualified by
consciousness of my own inferiority. I was lying in wait, however, and
took advantage of an opportunity to throw in something about America;
and, at the sound, all turned to me with an eagerness of curiosity that
I had not anticipated.

In Europe, and even in England, I had often found extreme ignorance of
my own country; but here I was astonished to find, among men so familiar
with all parts of the Old World, such total lack of information about
the New. A gentleman opposite me, wearing the uniform of the King of
Bavaria, asked me if I had ever been in America. I told him that I was
born, and, as they say in Kentucky, raised there. He begged my pardon,
but doubtfully _suggested_, "You are not black?" and I was obliged to
explain to him that in our section of America the Indian had almost
entirely disappeared, and that his place was occupied by the descendants
of the Gaul and the Briton. I was forthwith received into the
fraternity, for my home was farther away than any of them had ever been;
my friend opposite considered me a bijou, asked me innumerable
questions, and seemed to be constantly watching for the breaking out of
the cannibal spirit, as if expecting to see me bite my neighbour. At
first I had felt myself rather a small affair but, before separating,
_l'Americain_, or _le sauvage_, or finally, _le cannibal_ found himself
something of a lion.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Since my return home I have seen in a newspaper an account of a
popular commotion at Syra, in which the printing-presses and books at
the missionaries were destroyed, and Mr. Robinson was threatened with
personal violence.

CHAPTER V.

THE next morning I began my survey of the ruins of Athens. It was my
intention to avoid any description of these localities and monuments,
because so many have preceded me, stored with all necessary knowledge,
ripe in taste and sound in judgment, who have devoted to them all the
time and research they so richly merit; but as, in our community,
through the hurry and multiplicity of business occupations, few are able
to bestow upon these things much time or attention, and, farthermore, as
the books which treat of them are not accessible to all, I should be
doing injustice to my readers if I were to omit them altogether.
Besides, I should be doing violence to my own feelings, and cannot get
fairly started in Athens, without recurring to scenes which I regarded
at the time with extraordinary interest. I have since visited most of
the principal cities in Europe, existing as well as ruined and I hardly
know any to which I recur with more satisfaction than Athens. If the
reader tire in the brief reference I shall make, he must not impute it
to any want of interest in the subject; and as I am not in the habit of
going into heroics, he will believe me when I say that, if he have any
reverence for the men or things consecrated by the respect and
admiration of ages, he will find it called out at Athens. In the hope
that I may be the means of inducing some of my countrymen to visit that
famous city, I will add another inducement by saying that he may have,
as I had, Mr. Hill for a cicerone. This gentleman is familiar with every
locality and monument around or in the city, and, which I afterward
found to be an unusual thing with those living in places consecrated in
the minds of strangers, he retains for them all that freshness of
feeling which we possess who only know them from books and pictures.

By an arrangement made the evening before, early in the morning of my
second day in Athens Mr. Hill was at the door of my hotel to attend us.
As we descended the steps a Greek stopped him, and, bowing with his hand
on his heart, addressed him in a tone of earnestness which we could not
understand; but we were struck with the sonorous tones of his voice and
the musical cadence of his sentences; and when he had finished, Mr. Hill
told us that he had spoken in a strain which, in the original, was
poetry itself, beginning, "Americanos, I am a Stagyrite. I come from the
land of Aristotle, the disciple of Plato," &c., &c.; telling him the
whole story of his journey from the ancient Stagyra and his arrival in
Athens; and that, having understood that Mr. Hill was distributing books
among his countrymen, he begged for one to take home with him. Mr. Hill
said that this was an instance of every-day occurrence, showing the
spirit of inquiry and thirst for knowledge among the modern Greeks. This
little scene with a countryman of Aristotle was a fit prelude to our
morning ramble.

The house occupied by the American missionary as a school stands on the
site of the ancient Agora or market-place, where St. Paul "disputed
daily with the Athenians." A few columns still remain; and near them is
an inscription mentioning the price of oil. The schoolhouse is built
partly from the ruins of the Agora; and to us it was an interesting
circumstance, that a missionary from a newly-discovered world was
teaching to the modern Greeks the same saving religion which, eighteen
hundred years ago, St. Paul, on the same spot, preached to their
ancestors.

Winding around the foot of the Acropolis, within the ancient and outside
the modern wall, we came to the Areopagus or Hill of Mars, where, in the
early days of Athens, her judges sat in the open air; and, for many
ages, decided with such wisdom and impartiality, that to this day the
decisions of the court of Areopagites are regarded as models of judicial
purity. We ascended this celebrated hill, and stood on the precise spot
where St. Paul, pointing to the temples which rose from every section of
the city and towered proudly on the Acropolis, made his celebrated
address: "Ye men of Athens, I see that in all things ye are too
superstitious." The ruins of the very temples to which he pointed were
before our eyes.

Descending, and rising toward the summit of another hill, we came to the
Pnyx, where Demosthenes, in the most stirring words that ever fell from
human lips, roused his countrymen against the Macedonian invader. Above,
on the very summit of the hill, is the old Pnyx, commanding a view of
the sea of Salamis, and of the hill where Xerxes sat to behold the great
naval battle. During the reign of the thirty tyrants the Pnyx was
removed beneath the brow of the hill, excluding the view of the sea,
that the orator might not inflame the passions of the people by
directing their eyes to Salamis, the scene of their naval glory. But,
without this, the orator had material enough; for, when he stood on the
platform facing the audience, he had before him the city which the
Athenians loved and the temples in which they worshipped, and I could
well imagine the irresistible force of an appeal to these objects of
their enthusiastic devotion, their firesides and altars. The place is
admirably adapted for public speaking. The side of the hill has been
worked into a gently inclined plane, semicircular in form, and supported
in some places by a wall of immense stones. This plain is bounded above
by the brow of the hill, cut down perpendicularly. In the centre the
rock projects into a platform about eight or ten feet square, which
forms the Pnyx or pulpit for the orator. The ascent is by three steps
cut out of the rock, and in front is a place for the scribe or clerk. We
stood on this Pnyx, beyond doubt on the same spot where Demosthenes
thundered his philippics in the ears of the Athenians. On the road
leading to the Museum hill we entered a chamber excavated in the rock,
which tradition hallows as the prison of Socrates; and though the
authority for this is doubtful, it is not uninteresting to enter the
damp and gloomy cavern wherein, according to the belief of the modern
Athenians, the wisest of the Greeks drew his last breath. Farther to the
south is the hill of Philopappus, so called after a Roman governor of
that name. On the very summit, near the extreme angle of the old wall,
and one of the most conspicuous objects around Athens, is a monument
erected by the Roman governor in honour of the Emperor Trajan. The
marble is covered with the names of travellers, most of whom, like
Philopappus himself, would never have been heard of but for that
monument.

Descending toward the Acropolis, and entering the city among streets
encumbered with ruined houses, we came to the Temple of the Winds, a
marble octagonal tower, built by Andronicus. On each side is a
sculptured figure, clothed in drapery adapted to the wind he represents;
and on the top was formerly a Triton with a rod in his hand, pointing to
the figure marking the wind. The Triton is gone, and great part of the
temple buried under ruins. Part of the interior, however, has been
excavated, and probably, before long, the whole will be restored.

East of the foot of the Acropolis, and on the way to Adrian's Gate, we
came to the Lantern of Demosthenes (I eschew its new name of the
Choragic Monument of Lysichus), where, according to an absurd tradition,
the orator shut himself up to study the rhetorical art. It is considered
one of the most beautiful monuments of antiquity, and the capitals are
most elegant specimens of the Corinthian order refined by Attic taste.
It is now in a mutilated condition, and its many repairs make its
dilapidation more perceptible. Whether Demosthenes ever lived here or
not, it derives an interest from the fact that Lord Byron made it his
residence during his visit to Athens. Farther on, and forming part of
the modern wall, is the Arch of Adrian, bearing on one side an
inscription in Greek, "This is the city of Theseus;" and on the other,
"But this is the city of Adrian." On the arrival of Otho a placard was
erected, on which was inscribed, "These were the cities of Theseus and
Adrian, but now of Otho." Many of the most ancient buildings in Athens
have totally disappeared. The Turks destroyed many of them to construct
the wall around the city, and even the modern Greeks have not scrupled
to build their miserable houses with the plunder of the temples in which
their ancestors worshipped.

Passing under the Arch of Adrian, outside the gate, on the plain toward
the Ilissus, we came to the ruined Temple of Jupiter Olympus, perhaps
once the most magnificent in the world. It was built of the purest white
marble, having a front of nearly two hundred feet, and more than three
hundred and fifty in length, and contained one hundred and twenty
columns, sixteen of which are all that now remain; and these, fluted and
having rich Corinthian capitals, tower more than sixty feet above the
plain, perfect as when they were reared. I visited these ruins often,
particularly in the afternoon; they are at all times mournfully
beautiful, but I have seldom known anything more touching than, when the
sun was setting, to walk over the marble floor, and look up at the
lonely columns of this ruined temple. I cannot imagine anything more
imposing than it must have been when, with its lofty roof supported by
all its columns, it stood at the gate of the city, its doors wide open,
inviting the Greeks to worship. That such an edifice should be erected
for the worship of a heathen god! On the architrave connecting three of
the columns a hermit built his lonely cell, and passed his life in that
elevated solitude, accessible only to the crane and the eagle. The
hermit is long since dead, but his little habitation still resists the
whistling of the wind, and awakens the curiosity of the wondering
traveller.

The Temple of Theseus is the last of the principal monuments, but the
first which the traveller sees on entering Athens. It was built after
the battle of Marathon, and in commemoration of the victory which drove
the Persians from the shores of Greece. It is a small but beautiful
specimen of the pure Doric, built of Pentelican marble, centuries of
exposure to the open air giving it a yellowish tint, which softens the
brilliancy of the white. Three Englishmen have been buried within this
temple. The first time I visited it a company of Greek recruits, with
some negroes among them, was drawn up in front, going through the manual
under the direction of a German corporal; and, at the same time, workmen
were engaged in fitting it up for the coronation of King Otho!

[Illustration: Temple of Jupiter Olympus and Acropolis at Athena.]

These are the principal monuments around the city, and, except the
temples at Paestum, they are more worthy of admiration than all the ruins
in Italy; but towering above them in position, and far exceeding them in
interest, are the ruins of the Acropolis. I have since wandered among
the ruined monuments of Egypt and the desolate city of Petra, but I
look back with unabated reverence to the Athenian Acropolis. Every day I
had gazed at it from the balcony of my hotel, and from every part of the
city and suburbs. Early on my arrival I had obtained the necessary
permit, paid a hurried visit, and resolved not to go again until I had
examined all the other interesting objects. On the fourth day, with my
friend M., I went again. We ascended by a broad road paved with stone.
The summit is enclosed by a wall, of which some of the foundation
stones, very large, and bearing an appearance of great antiquity, are
pointed out as part of the wall built by Themistocles after the battle
of Salamis, four hundred and eighty years before Christ. The rest is
Venetian and Turkish, falling to decay, and marring the picturesque
effect of the ruins from below. The guard examined our permit, and we
passed under the gate. A magnificent propylon of the finest white
marble, the blocks of the largest size ever laid by human hands, and
having a wing of the same material on each side, stands at the entrance.
Though broken and ruined, the world contains nothing like it even now.
If my first impressions do not deceive me, the proudest portals of
Egyptian temples suffer in comparison. Passing this magnificent
propylon, and ascending several steps, we reached the Parthenon or
ruined Temple of Minerva; an immense white marble skeleton, the noblest
monument of architectural genius which the world ever saw. Standing on
the steps of this temple, we had around us all that is interesting in
association and all that is beautiful in art. We might well forget the
capital of King Otho, and go back in imagination to the golden age of
Athens. Pericles, with the illustrious throng of Grecian heroes,
orators, and sages, had ascended there to worship, and Cicero and the
noblest of the Romans had gone there to admire; and probably, if the
fashion of modern tourists had existed in their days, we should see
their names inscribed with their own hands on its walls. The great
temple stands on the very summit of the Acropolis, elevated far above
the Propylaea and the surrounding edifices. Its length is two hundred and
eight feet, and breadth one hundred and two. At each end were two rows
of eight Doric columns, thirty-four feet high and six feet in diameter,
and on each side were thirteen more. The whole temple within and without
was adorned with the most splendid works of art, by the first sculptors
in Greece, and Phidias himself wrought the statue of the goddess, of
ivory and gold, twenty-six cubits high, having on the top of her helmet
a sphinx, with griffins on each of the sides; on the breast a head of
Medusa wrought in ivory, and a figure of Victory about four cubits high,
holding a spear in her hand and a shield lying at her feet. Until the
latter part of the seventeenth century, this magnificent temple, with
all its ornaments, existed entire. During the siege of Athens by the
Venetians, the central part was used by the Turks as a magazine; and a
bomb, aimed with fatal precision or by a not less fatal chance, reached
the magazine, and, with a tremendous explosion, destroyed a great part
of the buildings. Subsequently the Turks used it as a quarry, and
antiquaries and travellers, foremost among whom is Lord Elgin, have
contributed to destroy "what Goth, and Turk, and Time had spared."

Around the Parthenon, and covering the whole summit of the Acropolis,
are strewed columns and blocks of polished white marble, the ruins of
ancient temples. The remains of the Temples of Erectheus and Minerva
Polias are pre-eminent in beauty; the pillars of the latter are the most
perfect specimens of the Ionic in existence, and its light and graceful
proportions are in elegant contrast with the severe and simple majesty
of the Parthenon. The capitals of the columns are wrought and ornamented
with a delicacy surpassing anything of which I could have believed
marble susceptible. Once I was tempted to knock off a corner and bring
it home, as a specimen of the exquisite skill of the Grecian artist,
which it would have illustrated better than a volume of description; but
I could not do it; it seemed nothing less than sacrilege.

Afar off, and almost lost in the distance, rises the Pentelican
Mountain, from the body of which were hewed the rough rude blocks which,
wrought and perfected by the sculptor's art, now stand the lofty and
stately columns of the ruined temple. What labour was expended upon each
single column! how many were employed in hewing it from its rocky bed,
in bearing it to the foot of the mountain, transporting it across the
plain of Attica, and raising it to the summit of the Acropolis! and then
what time, and skill, and labour, in reducing it from a rough block to a
polished shaft, in adjusting its proportions, in carving its rich
capitals, and rearing it where it now stands, a model of majestic grace
and beauty! Once, under the direction of Mr. Hill, I clambered up to the
very apex of the pediment, and, lying down at full length, leaned over
and saw under the frieze the acanthus leaf delicately and beautifully
painted on the marble, and, being protected from exposure, still
retaining its freshness of colouring. It was entirely out of sight from
below, and had been discovered, almost at the peril of his life, by the
enthusiasm of an English artist. The wind was whistling around me as I
leaned over to examine it, and, until that moment, I never appreciated
fully the immense labour employed and the exquisite finish displayed in
every portion of the temple.

The sentimental traveller must already mourn that Athens has been
selected as the capital of Greece. Already have speculators and the
whole tribe of "improvers" invaded the glorious city; and while I was
lingering on the steps of the Parthenon, a German, who was quietly
smoking among the ruins, a sort of superintendent whom I had met before,
came up, and offering me a segar, and leaning against one of the lofty
columns of the temple, opened upon me with "his plans of city
improvements;" with new streets, and projected railroads, and the rise
of lots. At first I almost thought it personal, and that he was making a
fling at me in allusion to one of the greatest hobbies of my native
city; but I soon found that he was as deeply bitten as if he had been in
Chicago or Dunkirk; and the way in which he talked of moneyed
facilities, the wants of the community, and a great French bank then
contemplated at the Piraeus, would have been no discredit to some of my
friends at home. The removal of the court has created a new era in
Athens; but, in my mind, it is deeply to be regretted that it has been
snatched from the ruin to which it was tending. Even I, deeply imbued
with the utilitarian spirit of my country, and myself a quondam
speculator in "up-town lots," would fain save Athens from the ruthless
hand of renovation; from the building mania of modern speculators. I
would have her go on till there was not a habitation among her ruins;
till she stood, like Pompeii, alone in the wilderness, a sacred desert,
where the traveller might sit down and meditate alone and undisturbed
among the relics of the past. But already Athens has become a
heterogeneous anomaly; the Greeks in their wild costume are jostled in
the streets by Englishmen, Frenchmen, Italians, Dutchmen, Spaniards, and
Bavarians, Russians, Danes, and sometimes Americans. European shops
invite purchasers by the side of Eastern bazars, coffee-houses, and
billiard-rooms, and French and German restaurants are opened all over
the city. Sir Pultney Malcolm has erected a house to hire near the site
of Plato's Academy. Lady Franklin has bought land near the foot of Mount
Hymettus for a country-seat. Several English gentlemen have done the
same. Mr. Richmond, an American clergyman, has purchased a farm in the
neighbourhood; and in a few years, if the "march of improvement"
continues, the Temple of Theseus will be enclosed in the garden of the
palace of King Otho; the Temple of the Winds will be concealed by a
German opera-house, and the Lantern of Demosthenes by a row of
"three-story houses."

I was not a sentimental traveller, but I visited all the localities
around Athens, and, therefore, briefly mention that several times I
jumped over the poetic and perennial Ilissus, trotted my horse over the
ground where Aristotle walked with his peripatetics, and got muddied up
to my knees in the garden of Plato.

One morning my Scotch friend and I set out early to ascend Mount
Hymettus. The mountain is neither high nor picturesque, but a long flat
ridge of bare rock, the sides cut up into ravines, fissures, and
gullies. There is an easy path to the summit, but we had no guide, and
about midday, after a wild scramble, were worn out, and descended
without reaching the top, which is exceedingly fortunate for the reader,
as otherwise he would be obliged to go through a description of the view
therefrom.

Returning, we met the king taking his daily walk, attended by two aids,
one of whom was young Marco Bozzaris. Otho is tall and thin, and, when I
saw him, was dressed in a German military frockcoat and cap, and
altogether, for a king, seemed to be an amiable young man enough. All
the world speaks well of him, and so do I. We touched our hats to him,
and he returned the civility; and what could he do more without inviting
us to dinner? In old times there was a divinity about a king; but now,
if a king is a gentleman, it is as much as we can expect. He has spent
his money like a gentleman, that is, he cannot tell what has become of
it. Two of the three-millions loan are gone, and there is no
colonization, no agricultural prosperity, no opening of roads, no
security in the mountains; not a town in Greece but is in ruins, and no
money to improve them. Athens, however, is to be embellished. With ten
thousand pounds in the treasury, he is building a palace of white
Pentelican marble, to cost three hundred thousand pounds.

Otho was very popular, because, not being of age, all the errors of his
administration were visited upon Count Armansbergh and the regency, who,
from all accounts, richly deserved it; and it was hoped that, on
receiving the crown, he would shake off the Bavarians who were preying
upon the vitals of Greece, and gather around him his native-born
subjects. In private life he bore a most exemplary character. He had no
circle of young companions, and passed much of his time in study, being
engaged, among other things, in acquiring the Greek and English
languages. His position is interesting, though not enviable; and if, as
the first king of emancipated Greece, he entertains recollections of her
ancient greatness, and the ambition of restoring her to her position
among the nations of the earth, he is doomed to disappointment. Otho is
since crowned and married. The pride of the Greeks was considerably
humbled by a report that their king's proposals to several daughters of
German princes had been rejected; but the king had great reason to
congratulate himself upon the spirit which induced the daughter of the
Duke of Oldenburgh to accept his hand. From her childhood she had taken
an enthusiastic interest in Greek history, and it had been her constant
wish to visit Greece; and when she heard that Otho had been called to
the throne, she naively expressed an ardent wish to share it with him.
Several years afterward, by the merest accident, she met Otho at a
German watering-place, travelling with his mother, the Queen of Bavaria,
as the Count de Missilonghi; and in February last she accompanied him to
Athens, to share the throne which had been the object of her youthful
wish.

M. dined at my hotel, and, returning to his own, he was picked up and
carried to the guardhouse. He started for his hotel without a lantern,
the requisition to carry one being imperative in all the Greek and
Turkish cities; the guard could not understand a word he said until he
showed them some money, which made his English perfectly intelligible;
and they then carried him to a Bavarian corporal, who, after two hours'
detention, escorted him to his hotel. After that we were rather careful
about staying out late at night.

"Thursday. I don't know the day of the month." I find this in my notes,
the caption of a day of business, and at this distance of time will not
undertake to correct the entry. Indeed, I am inclined to think that my
notes in those days are rather uncertain and imperfect; certainly not
taken with the precision of one who expected to publish them.
Nevertheless, the residence of the court, the diplomatic corps, and
strangers form an agreeable society at Athens. I had letters to some of
the foreign ministers, but did not present them, as I was hardly
presentable myself without my carpet-bag. On "Thursday," however, in
company with Dr. W., I called upon Mr. Dawkins, the British minister.
Mr. Dawkins went to Greece on a special mission, which he supposed would
detain him six months from home, and had remained there ten years. He is
a high tory, but retained under a whig administration, because his
services could not well be dispensed with. He gave us much interesting
information in regard to the present condition and future prospects of
Greece; and, in answer to my suggestion that the United States were not
represented at all in Greece, not even by a consul, he said, with
emphasis, "You are better represented than any power in Europe. Mr. Hill
has more influence here than any minister plenipotentiary among us." A
few days after, when confined to my room by indisposition, Mr. Dawkins
returned my visit, and again spoke in the same terms of high
commendation of Mr. Hill. It was pleasing to me, and I have no doubt it
will be so to Mr. Hill's numerous friends in this country, to know that
a private American citizen, in a position that keeps him aloof from
politics, was spoken of in such terms by the representative of one of
the great powers of Europe. I had heard it intimated that there was a
prospect of Mr. Dawkins being transferred to this country, and parted
with him in the hope at some future day of seeing him the representative
of his government here.

I might have been presented to the king, but my carpet-bag--Dr. W.
borrowed a hat, and was presented; the doctor had an old white hat,
which he had worn all the way from New-York. The tide is rolling
backward; Athens is borrowing her customs from the barbarous nations of
the north; and it is part of the etiquette to enter a drawing-room with
a hat (a black one) under the arm. The doctor, in his republican
simplicity, thought that a hat, good enough to put on his own head, was
good enough to go into the king's presence; but he was advised to the
contrary, and took one of Mr. Hill's, not very much too large for him.
He was presented by Dr. ----, a German, the king's physician, with whom
he had discoursed much of the different medical systems in Germany and
America. Dr. W. was much pleased with the king. Did ever a man talk with
a king who was not pleased with him? But the doctor was particularly
pleased with King Otho, as the latter entered largely into discourse on
the doctor's favourite theme, Mr. Hill's school, and the cause of
education in Greece. Indeed, it speaks volumes in favour of the young
king, that education is one of the things in which he takes the deepest
interest. The day the doctor was to be presented we dined at Mr. Hill's,
having made arrangements for leaving Athens that night; the doctor and
M. to return to Europe. In the afternoon, while the doctor remained to
be presented, M. and I walked down to the Piraeus, now, as in the days of
her glory, the harbour of Athens. The ancient harbour is about five
miles from Athens, and was formerly joined to it by _long walls_ built
of stone of enormous size, sixty feet high, and broad enough on the top
for two wagons to pass abreast. These have long since disappeared, and
the road is now over a plain shaded a great part of the way by groves of
olives. As usual at this time of day, we met many parties on horseback,
sometimes with ladies; and I remember particularly the beautiful and
accomplished daughters of Count Armansbergh, both of whom are since
married and dead.[2] It is a beautiful ride, in the afternoon
particularly, as then the dark outline of the mountains beyond, and the
reflections of light and shade, give a peculiarly interesting effect to
the ruins of the Acropolis. Toward the other end we paced between the
ruins of the old walls, and entered upon a scene which reminded me of
home. Eight months before there was only one house at the Piraeus; but,
as soon as the court removed to Athens, the old harbour revived; and
already we saw long ranges of stores and warehouses, and all the hurry
and bustle of one of our rising western towns. A railroad was in
contemplation, and many other improvements, which have since failed; but
an _omnibus!_ that most modern and commonplace of inventions, is now
running regularly between the Piraeus and Athens. A friend who visited
Greece six months after me brought home with him an advertisement
printed in Greek, English, French, and German, the English being in the
words and figures following, to wit:

"ADVERTISEMENT.

"The public are hereby informed, that on the nineteenth instant an
omnibus will commence running between Athena and the Piraeus, and
will continue to do so every day at the undermentioned hours until
farther notice.

_Hours of Departure._

From Athens. From Piraeus.

Half past seven o'clock A.M. Half past eight o'clock A.M.
Ten o'clock A.M. Eleven o'clock A.M.
Two o'clock P.M. Three o'clock P.M.
Half past four P.M. Half past five P.M.

"The price of a seat in the omnibus is one drachme.

"Baggage, if not too bulky and heavy, can be taken on the roof.

"Smoking cannot be allowed in the omnibus, nor can dogs be admitted.

"Small parcels and packages may be sent by this conveyance at a
moderate charge, and given to the care of the conducteur.

"The omnibus starts from the corner of the Hermes and AEolus streets
at Athens and from the bazar at the Piraeus, and will wait five
minutes at each place, during which period the conducteur will sound
his horn.

"Athens, 17th, 29th September, 1836."

Old things are passing away, and all things are becoming new. For a
little while yet we may cling to the illusions connected with the past,
but the mystery is fast dissolving, the darkness is breaking away, and
Greece, and Rome, and even Egypt herself, henceforward claim our
attention with objects and events of the present hour. Already they have
lost much of the deep and absorbing interest with which men turned to
them a generation ago. All the hallowed associations of these ancient
regions are fading away. We may regret it, we may mourn over it, but we
cannot help it. The world is marching onward; I have met parties of my
own townsmen while walking in the silent galleries of the Coliseum; I
have seen Americans drinking Champagne in an excavated dwelling of the
ancient Pompeii, and I have dined with Englishmen among the ruins of
Thebes, but, blessed be my fortune, I never rode in an omnibus from the
Piraeus to Athens.

We put our baggage on board the caique, and lounged among the little
shops till dark, when we betook ourselves to a dirty little coffee-house
filled with Greeks dozing and smoking pipes. We met there a boat's crew
of a French man-of-war, waiting for some of the officers, who were
dining with the French ambassador at Athens. One of them had been born
to a better condition than that of a common sailor. One juvenile
indiscretion after another had brought him down, and, without a single
vice, he was fairly on the road to ruin. Once he brushed a tear from his
eyes as he told us of prospects blighted by his own follies; but,
rousing himself, hurried away, and his reckless laugh soon rose above
the noise and clamour of his wild companions.

About ten o'clock the doctor came in, drenched with rain and up to his
knees in mud. We wanted to embark immediately, but the appearance of the
weather was so unfavourable that the captain preferred waiting till
after midnight. The Greeks went away from the coffee-house, the
proprietor fell asleep in his seat, and we extended ourselves on the
tables and chairs; and now the fleas, which had been distributed about
among all the loungers, made a combined onset upon us. Life has its
cares and troubles, but few know that of being given up to the tender
mercies of Greek fleas. We bore the infliction till human nature could
endure no longer; and, at about three in the morning, in the midst of
violent wind and rain, broke out of the coffee-house and went in search
of our boat. It was very dark, but we found her and got on board. She
was a caique, having an open deck with a small covering over the stern.
Under this we crept, and with our cloaks and a sailcloth spread over us,
our heated blood cooled, and we fell asleep. When we woke we were on the
way to Epidaurus. The weather was raw and cold. We passed within a
stone's throw of Salamis and AEgina, and at about three o'clock, turning
a point which completely hid it from view, entered a beautiful little
bay, on which stands the town of Epidaurus. The old city, the birthplace
of Esculapius, stands upon a hill projecting into the bay, and almost
forming an island. In the middle of the village is a wooden building
containing a large chamber, where the Greek delegates, a band of
mountain warriors, with arms in their hands, "in the name of the Greek
nation, proclaimed before gods and men its independence."

At the locanda there was by chance one bed, which not being large enough
for three, I slept on the floor. At seven o'clock, after a quarrel with
our host and paying him about half his demand, we set out for Napoli di
Romania. For about an hour we moved in the valley running off from the
beautiful shore of Epidaurus; soon the valley deepened into a glen, and
in an hour we turned off on a path that led into the mountains, and,
riding through wild and rugged ravines, fell into the dry bed of a
torrent; following which, we came to the Hieron Elios, or Sacred Grove
of Esculapius. This was the great watering-place for the invalids of
ancient Greece, the prototype of the Cheltenham and Saratoga of modern
days. It is situated in a valley surrounded by high mountains, and was
formerly enclosed by walls, within which, that the credit of the God
might not be impeached, _no man was allowed to die, and no woman to be
delivered_. Within this enclosure were temples, porticoes and fountains,
now lying in ruins hardly distinguishable. The theatre is the most
beautiful and best preserved. It is scooped out of the side of the
mountain, rather more than semicircular in form, and containing
fifty-four seats. These seats are of pink marble, about fifteen inches
high and nearly three feet wide. In the middle of each seat is a groove,
in which, probably, woodwork was constructed, to prevent the feet of
those above from incommoding them who sat below, and also to support the
backs of an invalid audience. The theatre faces the north, and is so
arranged that, with the mountain towering behind it, the audience was
shaded nearly all the day. It speaks volumes in favour of the
intellectual character of the Greeks, that it was their favourite
recreation to listen to the recitation of their poets and players. And
their superiority in refinement over the Romans is in no way manifested
more clearly than by the fact, that in the ruined cities of the former
are found the remains of theatres, and in the latter of amphitheatres,
showing the barbarous taste of the Romans for combats of gladiators and
wild beasts. It was in beautiful keeping with this intellectual taste of
the Greeks, that their places of assembling were in the open air, amid
scenery calculated to elevate the mind; and, as I sat on the marble
steps of the theatre, I could well imagine the high satisfaction with
which the Greek, under the shade of the impending mountain, himself all
enthusiasm and passion, rapt in the interest of some deep tragedy, would
hang upon the strains of Euripides or Sophocles. What deep-drawn
exclamations, what shouts of applause had rung through that solitude,
what bursts of joy and grief had echoed from those silent benches! And
then, too, what flirting and coqueting, the state of society at the
springs in the Grove of Esculapius being probably much the same as at
Saratoga in our own days. The whole grove is now a scene of desolation.
The lentisculus is growing between the crevices of the broken marble;
birds sing undisturbed among the bushes; the timid hare steals among the
ruined fragments; and sometimes the snake is seen gliding over the
marble steps.

We had expected to increase the interest of our visit by taking our
noonday refection on the steps of the theatre, but it was too cold for a
picnic _al fresco_; and, mounting our horses, about two o'clock we came
in sight of Argos, on the opposite side of the great plain; and in half
an hour more, turning the mountain, saw Napoli di Romania beautifully
situated on a gentle elevation on the shore of the gulf. The scenery in
every direction around Napoli is exceedingly beautiful; and, when we
approached it, bore no marks of the sanguinary scenes of the late
revolution. The plain was better cultivated than any part of the
adjacent country; and the city contained long ranges of houses and
streets, with German names, such as Heidecker, Maurer-street, &c., and
was seemingly better regulated than any other city in Greece. We drove
up to the Hotel des Quatre Nations, the best we had found in Greece,
dined at a restaurant with a crowd of Bavarian officers and adventurers,
and passed the evening in the streets and coffee-houses.

The appearance of Otho-street, which is the principal, is very
respectable; it runs from what was the palace to the grand square or
esplanade, on one side of which are the barracks of the Bavarian
soldiers, with a park of artillery posted so as to sweep the square and
principal streets; a speaking comment upon the liberty of the Greeks,
and the confidence reposed in them by the government.

Everything in Napoli recalls the memory of the brief and unfortunate
career of Capo d'Istria. Its recovery from the horrors of barbarian war,
and the thriving appearance of the country around, are ascribed to the
impulse given by his administration. A Greek by birth, while his country
lay groaning under the Ottoman yoke he entered the Russian service,
distinguished himself in all the diplomatic correspondence during the
French invasion, was invested with various high offices and honours, and
subscribed the treaty of Paris in 1815 as imperial Russian
plenipotentiary. He withdrew from her service because Russia disapproved
the efforts of his countrymen to free themselves from the Turkish yoke;
and, after passing five years in Germany and Switzerland, chiefly at
Geneva, in 1827 he was called to the presidency of Greece. On his
arrival at Napoli amid the miseries of war and anarchy, he was received
by the whole people as the only man capable of saving their country.
Civil war ceased on the very day of his arrival, and the traitor Grievas
placed in his hands the key of the Palimethe. I shall not enter into any
speculations upon the character of his administration. The rank he had
attained in a foreign service is conclusive evidence of his talents, and
his withdrawal from that service for the reason stated is as conclusive
of his patriotism; but from the moment he took into his hands the reins
of government, he was assailed by every so-called liberal press in
Europe with the party cry of Russian influence. The Greeks were induced
to believe that he intended to sell them to a stranger; and Capo
d'Istria, strong in his own integrity, and confidently relying on the
fidelity and gratitude of his countrymen, was assassinated in the
streets on his way to mass. Young Mauromichalis, the son of the old Bey
of Maina, struck the fatal blow, and fled for refuge to the house of
the French ambassador. A gentleman attached to the French legation told
me that he himself opened the door when the murderer rushed in with the
bloody dagger in his hand, exclaiming, "I have killed the tyrant." He
was not more than twenty-one, tall and noble in his appearance, and
animated by the enthusiastic belief that he had delivered his country.
My informant told me that he barred all the doors and windows, and went
up stairs to inform the minister, who had not yet risen. The latter was
embarrassed and in doubt what he should do. A large crowd gathered round
the house; but, as yet, they were all Mauromichalis's friends. The young
enthusiast spoke of what he had done with a high feeling of patriotism
and pride; and while the clamour out of doors was becoming outrageous,
he ate his breakfast and smoked his pipe with the utmost composure. He
remained at the embassy more than two hours, and until the regular
troops drew up before the house. The French ambassador, though he at
first refused, was obliged to deliver him up; and my informant saw him
shot under a tree outside the gate of Napoli, dying gallantly in the
firm conviction that he had played the Brutus and freed his country from
a Caesar.

The fate of Capo d'Istria again darkened the prospects of Greece, and
the throne went begging for an occupant until it was accepted by the
King of Bavaria for his second son Otho. The young monarch arrived at
Napoli in February, eighteen hundred and thirty-three. The whole
population came out to meet him, and the Grecian youth ran breast deep
in the water to touch his barge as it approached the shore. In February,
eighteen hundred and thirty-four, it was decided to establish Athens as
the capital. The propriety of this removal has been seriously
questioned, for Napoli possessed advantages in her location, harbour,
fortress and a town already built; but the King of Bavaria, a scholar
and an antiquary, was influenced more, perhaps, by classical feeling
than by regard for the best interests of Greece. Napoli has received a
severe blow from the removal of the seat of government; still it was by
far the most European in its appearance of any city I had seen in
Greece. It had several restaurants and coffee-houses, which were
thronged all the evening with Bavarian officers and broken-down European
adventurers, discussing the internal affairs of that unfortunate
country, which men of every nation seemed to think they had a right to
assist in governing. Napoli had always been the great gathering-place of
the phil-Hellenists, and many appropriating to themselves that sacred
name were hanging round it still. All over Europe thousands of men are
trained up to be shot at for so much per day; the soldier's is as
regular a business as that of the lawyer or merchant, and there is
always a large class of turbulent spirits constantly on the look-out for
opportunities, and ever ready with their swords to carve their way to
fortune. I believe that there were men who embarked in the cause of
Greece with as high and noble purposes as ever animated the warrior; but
of many, there is no lack of charity in saying that, however good they
might be as fighters, they were not much as men; and I am sorry to add
that, from the accounts I heard in Greece, some of the American
phil-Hellenists were rather shabby fellows. Mr. M., then resident in
Napoli, was accosted one day in the streets by a young man, who asked
him where he could find General Jarvis. "What do you want with him?"
said Mr. M. "I hope to obtain a commission in his army." "Do you see
that dirty fellow yonder?" said Mr. M., pointing to a ragged patriot
passing at the moment; "well, twenty such fellows compose Jarvis's army,
and Jarvis himself is no better off." "Well, then," said the young
_American_, "I believe I'll join the Turks!" Allen, another American
patriot, was hung at Constantinople. One bore the sacred name of
Washington; a brave but unprincipled man. Mr. M. had heard him say, that
if the devil himself should raise a regiment and would give him a good
commission, he would willingly march under him. He was struck by a shot
from the fortress of Napoli while directing a battery against it; was
taken on board his Britannic majesty's ship Asia, and breathed his last
uttering curses on his country.

There were others, however, who redeemed the American character. The
agents sent out by the Greek committee (among them our townsmen, Messrs.
Post and Stuyvesant), under circumstances of extraordinary difficulty
fulfilled the charitable purposes of their mission with such zeal and
discretion as to relieve the wants of a famishing people, and secure the
undying gratitude of the Greeks. Dr. Russ, another of the agents,
established an American hospital at Poros, and, under the most severe
privations, devoted himself gratuitously to attendance upon the sick and
wounded. Dr. Howe, one of the earliest American phil-Hellenists, in the
darkest hour of the revolution, and at a time when the Greeks were
entirely destitute of all medical aid, with an honourable enthusiasm,
and without any hope of pecuniary reward, entered the service as
surgeon, was the fellow-labourer of Dr. Russ in establishing the
American hospital, and, at the peril of his life, remained with them
during almost the whole of their dreadful struggle. Colonel Miller, the
principal agent, now resident in Vermont, besides faithfully performing
the duties of his trust, entered the army, and conducted himself with
such distinguished gallantry that he was called by the Greek braves the
American Delhi, or Daredevil.[3]

FOOTNOTES:

[2] They married two brothers, the young princes Cantacuzenes. Some
scruples being raised against this double alliance on the score of
consanguinity, the difficulty was removed by each couple going to
separate churches with separate priests to pronounce the mystic words at
precisely the same moment; so that neither could be said to espouse his
sister-in-law.

[3] In the previous editions of his work, the author's remarks were so
general as to reflect upon the character of individuals who stand in our
community above reproach. The author regrets that the carelessness of
his expressions should have wounded where he never intended, and hopes
the gentlemen affected will do him the justice to believe that he would
not wantonly injure any man's character or feelings.

CHAPTER VI.

Argos.--Tomb of Agamemnon.--Mycenae.--Gate of the Lions.--A
Misfortune.--A Midnight Quarrel.--Gratitude of a Greek
Family.--Megara.

IN the morning, finding a difficulty in procuring horses, some of the
loungers about the hotel told us there was a carriage in Napoli, and we
ordered it to be brought out, and soon after saw moving majestically
down the principal street a bella carozza, imported by its enterprising
proprietor from the Strada Toledo at Naples. It was painted a bright
flaring yellow, and had a big breeched Albanian for coachman. While
preparing to embark, a Greek came up with two horses, and we discharged
the bella carozza. My companion hired the horses for Padras, and I threw
my cloak on one of them and followed on foot.

The plain of Argos is one of the most beautiful I ever saw. On every
side except toward the sea it is bounded by mountains, and the contrast
between these mountains, the plain, and the sea is strikingly beautiful.
The sun was beating upon it with intense heat; the labourers were almost
naked, or in several places lying asleep on the ground, while the tops
of the mountains were covered with snow. I walked across the whole
plain, being only six miles, to Argos. This ancient city is long since
in ruins; her thirty temples, her costly sepulchres, her gymnasium, and
her numerous and magnificent monuments and statues have disappeared,
and the only traces of her former greatness are some remains of her
Cyclopean walls, and a ruined theatre cut in the rock and of magnificent
proportions. Modern Argos is nothing more than a straggling village. Mr.
Riggs, an American missionary, was stationed there, but was at that time
at Athens with an invalid wife. I was still on foot, and wandered up and
down the principal street looking for a horse. Every Greek in Argos soon
knew my business, and all kinds of four-legged animals were brought to
me at exorbitant prices. When I was poring over the Iliad I little
thought that I should ever visit Argos; still less that I should create
a sensation in the ancient city of the Danai; but man little knows for
what he is reserved.

Argos has been so often visited that Homer is out of date. Every middy
from a Mediterranean cruiser has danced on the steps of her desolate
theatre, and, instead of busying myself with her ancient glories, I
roused half the population in hiring a horse. In fact, in this ancient
city I soon became the centre of a regular horsemarket. Every rascally
jockey swore that his horse was the best, and, according to the
descendants of the respectable sons of Atreus, blindness, lameness,
spavin, and staggers were a recommendation. A Bavarian officer, whom I
had met in the bazars, came to my assistance, and stood by me while I
made my bargain. I had more regard to the guide than the horse; and
picking out one who had been particularly noisy, hired him to conduct me
to Corinth and Athens. He was a lad of about twenty, with a bright
sparkling eye, who, laughing roguishly at his unsuccessful competitors,
wanted to pitch me at once on the horse and be off. I joined my
companions, and in a few minutes we left Argos.

The plain of Argos has been immortalized by poetic genius as the great
gathering-place of the kings and armies that assembled for the siege of
Troy. To the scholar and poet few plains in the world are more
interesting. It carries him back to the heroic ages, to the history of
times bordering on the fabulous, when fact and fiction are so
beautifully blended that we would not separate them if we could. I had
but a little while longer to remain with my friends, for we were
approaching the point where our roads separated, and about eleven
o'clock we halted and exchanged our farewell greetings. We parted in the
middle of the plain, they to return to Padras and Europe, and I for the
tomb of Agamemnon, and back to Athens, and I hardly know where besides.
Dr. W. I did not meet again until my return home. About a year afterward
I arrived in Antwerp in the evening from Rotterdam. The city was filled
with strangers, and I was denied admission at a third hotel, when a
young man brushed by me in the doorway, and I recognised Maxwell. I
hailed him, but in cap and cloak, and with a large red shawl around my
neck, he did not know me. I unrolled and discovered myself, and it is
needless to say that I did not leave the hotel that night. It was his
very last day of two years' travel on the Continent; he had taken his
passage in the steamer for London, and one day later I should have
missed him altogether. I can give but a faint idea of the pleasure of
this meeting. He gave me the first information of the whereabout of Dr.
W.; we talked nearly all night, and about noon the next day I again bade
him farewell on board the steamer.

I have for some time neglected our servant. When we separated, the
question was who should _not_ keep him. We were all heartily tired of
him, and I would not have had him with me on any account. Still, at the
moment of parting in that wild and distant region, never expecting to
see him again, I felt some slight leaning toward him. Touching the
matter of shirts, it will not be surprising to a man of the world that,
at the moment of parting, I had one of M.'s on my back; and, in justice
to him, I must say it was a very good one, and lasted a long time. A
friend once wrote to me on a like occasion not to wear his out of its
turn, but M. laid no such restriction upon me. But this trifling gain
did not indemnify me for the loss of my friends. I had broken the only
link that connected me with home, and was setting out alone for I knew
not where. I felt at once the great loss I had sustained, for my young
muleteer could speak only his own language, and, as Queen Elizabeth said
to Sir Walter Raleigh of her Hebrew, we had "forgotten our" Greek.

But on that classical soil I ought not to have been lonely. I should
have conjured up the ghosts of the departed Atridae, and held converse on
their own ground with Homer's heroes. Nevertheless, I was not in the
mood; and, entirely forgetting the glories of the past, I started my
horse into a gallop. My companion followed on a full run, close at my
heels, belabouring my horse with a stick, which when he broke, he pelted
him with stones; indeed, this mode of scampering over the ground seemed
to hit his humour, for he shouted, hurraed, and whipped, and sometimes
laying hold of the tail of the beast, was dragged along several paces
with little effort of his own. I soon tired of this, and made signs to
him to stop; but it was his turn now, and I was obliged to lean back
till I reached him with my cane before I could make him let go his hold,
and then he commenced shouting and pelting again with stones.

In this way we approached the village of Krabata, about a mile below
the ruins of Mycenae, and the most miserable place I had seen in Greece.
With the fertile plain of Argos uncultivated before them, the
inhabitants exhibited a melancholy picture of the most abject poverty.
As I rode through, crowds beset me with outstretched arms imploring
charity; and a miserable old woman, darting out of a wretched hovel,
laid her gaunt and bony hand upon my leg, and attempted to stop me. I
shrunk from her grasp, and, under the effect of a sudden impulse, threw
myself off on the other side, and left my horse in her hands.

Hurrying through the village, a group of boys ran before me, crying out
"Agamemnon," "Agamemnon." I followed, and they conducted me to the tomb
of "the king of kings," a gigantic structure, still in good
preservation, of a conical form, covered with turf; the stone over the
door is twenty-seven feet long and seventeen wide, larger than any hewn
stone in the world except Pompey's Pillar. I entered, my young guides
going before with torches, and walked within and around this ancient
sepulchre. A worthy Dutchman, Herman Van Creutzer, has broached a theory
that the Trojan war is a mere allegory, and that no such person as
Agamemnon ever existed. Shame upon the cold-blooded heretic. I have my
own sins to answer for in that way, for I have laid my destroying hand
upon many cherished illusions; but I would not, if I could, destroy the
mystery that overhangs the heroic ages. The royal sepulchre was forsaken
and empty; the shepherd drives within it his flock for shelter; the
traveller sits under its shade to his noonday meal; and, at the moment,
a goat was dozing quietly in one corner. He started as I entered, and
seemed to regard me as an intruder; and when I flared before him the
light of my torch, he rose up to butt me. I turned away and left him in
quiet possession. The boys were waiting outside, and crying "Mycenae,"
"Mycenae," led me away. All was solitude, and I saw no marks of a city
until I reached the relics of her Cyclopean walls. I never felt a
greater degree of reverence than when I approached the lonely ruins of
Mycenae. At Argos I spent most of my time in the horsemarket, and I had
galloped over the great plain as carelessly as if it had been the road
to Harlem; but all the associations connected with this most interesting
ground here pressed upon me at once. Its extraordinary antiquity, its
gigantic remains, and its utter and long-continued desolation, came home
to my heart. I moved on to the Gate of the Lions, and stood before it a
long time without entering. A broad street led to it between two immense
parallel walls; and this street may, perhaps, have been a market-place.
Over the gate are two lions rampant, like the supporters of a modern
coat-of-arms, rudely carved, and supposed to be the oldest sculptured
stone in Greece. Under this very gate Agamemnon led out his forces for
the siege of Troy; three thousand years ago he saw them filing before
him, glittering in brass, in all the pomp and panoply of war; and I held
in my hand a book which told me that this city was so old that, more
than seventeen hundred years ago, travellers came as I did to visit its
ruins; and that Pausanias had found the Gate of the Lions in the same
state in which I beheld it now. A great part is buried by the rubbish of
the fallen city. I crawled under, and found myself within the walls, and
then mounted to the height on which the city stood. It was covered with
a thick soil and a rich carpet of grass. My boys left me, and I was
alone. I walked all over it, following the line of the walls. I paused
at the great blocks of stone, the remnants of Cyclopic masonry, the work
of wandering giants. The heavens were unclouded, and the sun was beaming
upon it with genial warmth. Nothing could exceed the quiet beauty of the
scene. I became entangled in the long grass, and picked up wild flowers
growing over long-buried dwellings. Under it are immense caverns, their
uses now unknown; and the earth sounded hollow under my feet, as if I
were treading on the sepulchre of a buried city. I looked across the
plain to Argos; all was as beautiful as when Homer sang its praises; the
plain, and the mountains, and the sea were the same, but the once
magnificent city, her numerous statues and gigantic temples, were gone
for ever; and but a few remains were left to tell the passing traveller
the story of her fallen greatness. I could have remained there for
hours; I could have gone again and again, for I had not found a more
interesting spot in Greece; but my reveries were disturbed by the
appearance of my muleteer and my juvenile escort. They pointed to the
sun as an intimation that the day was passing; and crying "Cavallo,"
"Cavallo," hurried me away. To them the ruined city was a playground;
they followed capering behind; and, in descending, three or four of them
rolled down upon me; they hurried me through the Gate of the Lions, and
I came out with my pantaloons, my only pantaloons, rent across the knee
almost irreparably. In an instant I was another man; I railed at the
ruins for their strain upon wearing apparel, and bemoaned my unhappy lot
in not having with me a needle and thread. I looked up to the old gate
with a sneer. This was the city that Homer had made such a noise about;
a man could stand on the citadel and almost throw a stone beyond the
boundary-line of Agamemnon's kingdom. In full sight, and just at the
other side of the plain, was the kingdom of Argos. The little state of
Rhode Island would make a bigger kingdom than both of them together.

But I had no time for deep meditation, having a long journey to Corinth
before me. Fortunately, my young Greek had no tire in him; he started me
off on a gallop, whipping and pelting my horse with stones, and would
have hurried me on, over rough and smooth, till either he, or I, or the
horse broke down, if I had not jumped off and walked. As soon as I
dismounted he mounted, and then he moved so leisurely that I had to
hurry him on in turn. In this way we approached the range of mountains
separating the plain of Argos from the Isthmus of Corinth. Entering the
pass, we rode along a mountain torrent, of which the channel-bed was
then dry, and ascended to the summit of the first range. Looking back,
the scene was magnificent. On my right and left were the ruined heights
of Argos and Mycenae; before me, the towering Acropolis of Napoli di
Romania; at my feet, the rich plain of Argos, extending to the shore of
the sea; and beyond, the island-studded AEgean. I turned away with a
feeling of regret that, in all probability, I should never see it more.

I moved on, and in a narrow pass, not wide enough to turn my horse if I
had been disposed to take to my heels, three men rose up from behind a
rock, armed to the teeth with long guns, pistols, yataghans, and
sheepskin cloaks--the dress of the klept or mountain robber--and
altogether presenting a most diabolically cutthroat appearance. If they
had asked me for my purse I should have considered it all regular, and
given up the remnant of my stock of borrowed money without a murmur;
but I was relieved from immediate apprehension by the cry of passe
porta. King Otho has begun the benefits of civilized government in
Greece by introducing passports, and mountain warriors were stationed in
the different passes to examine strangers. They acted, however, as if
they were more used to demanding purses than passports, for they sprang
into the road and rattled the butts of their guns on the rock with a
violence that was somewhat startling. Unluckily, my passport had been
made out with those of my companions, and was in their possession, and
when we parted neither thought of it; and this demand to me, who had
nothing to lose, was worse than that of my purse. A few words of
explanation might have relieved me from all difficulty, but my friends
could not understand a word I said. I was vexed at the idea of being
sent back, and thought I would try the effect of a little impudence; so,
crying out "Americanos," I attempted to pass on; but they answered me
"Nix," and turned my horse's head toward Argos. The scene, which a few
moments before had seemed so beautiful, was now perfectly detestable.
Finding that bravado had not the desired effect, I lowered my tone and
tried a bribe; this was touching the right chord; half a dollar removed
all suspicions from the minds of these trusty guardians of the pass;
and, released from their attentions, I hurried on.

The whole road across the mountain is one of the wildest in Greece. It
is cut up by numerous ravines, sufficiently deep and dangerous, which at
every step threaten destruction to the incautious traveller. During the
late revolution the soil of Greece had been drenched with blood; and my
whole journey had been through cities and over battle-fields memorable
for scenes of slaughter unparalleled in the annals of modern war. In
the narrowest pass of the mountains my guide made gestures indicating
that it had been the scene of a desperate battle. When the Turks, having
penetrated to the plain of Argos, were compelled to fall back again upon
Corinth, a small band of Greeks, under Niketas and Demetrius Ypsilanti,
waylaid them in this pass. Concealing themselves behind the rocks, and
waiting till the pass was filled, all at once they opened a tremendous
fire upon the solid column below, and the pass was instantly filled with
slain. Six thousand were cut down in a few hours. The terrified
survivers recoiled for a moment; but, as if impelled by an invisible
power, rushed on to meet their fate. "The Mussulman rode into the passes
with his sabre in his sheath and his hands before his eyes, the victim
of destiny." The Greeks again poured upon them a shower of lead, and
several thousand more were cut down before the Moslem army accomplished
the passage of this terrible defile.

It was nearly dark when we rose to the summit of the last range of
mountains, and saw, under the rich lustre of the setting sun, the
Acropolis of Corinth, with its walls and turrets, towering to the sky,
the plain forming the Isthmus of Corinth; the dark, quiet waters of the
Gulf of Lepanto; and the gloomy mountains of Cithaeron, and Helicon, and
Parnassus covered with snow. It was after dark when we passed the region
of the Nemean Grove, celebrated as the haunt of the lion and the scene
of the first of the twelve labours of Hercules. We were yet three hours
from Corinth; and, if the old lion had still been prowling in the grove,
we could not have made more haste to escape its gloomy solitude.
Reaching the plain, we heard behind us the clattering of horses' hoofs,
at first sounding in the stillness of evening as if a regiment of
cavalry or a troop of banditti was at our heels, but it proved to be
only a single traveller, belated like ourselves, and hurrying on to
Corinth. I could see through the darkness the shining butts of his
pistols and hilt of his yataghan, and took his dimensions with more
anxiety, perhaps, than exactitude. He recognised my Frank dress; and
accosted me in bad Italian, which he had picked up at Padras (being just
the Italian in which I could meet him on equal ground), and told me that
he had met a party of Franks on the road to Padras, whom, from his
description, I recognised as my friends.

It was nearly midnight when we rattled up to the gate of the old
locanda. The yard was thronged with horses and baggage, and Greek and
Bavarian soldiers. On the balcony stood my old brigand host, completely
crestfallen, and literally turned out of doors in his own house; a
detachment of Bavarian soldiers had arrived that afternoon from Padras,
and taken entire possession, giving him and his wife the freedom of the
outside. He did not recognise me, and, taking me for an Englishman,
began, "Sono Inglesi Signor" (he had lived at Corfu under the British
dominion); and, telling me the whole particulars of his unceremonious
ouster, claimed, through me, the arm of the British government to resent
the injury to a British subject; his wife was walking about in no very
gentle mood, but, in truth, very much the contrary. I did not speak to
her, and she did not trust herself to speak to me; but, addressing
myself to the husband, introduced the subject of my own immediate wants,
a supper and night's lodging. The landlord told me, however, that the
Bavarians had eaten everything in the house, and he had not a room, bed,
blanket, or coverlet to give me; that I might lie down in the hall or
the piazza, but there was no other place.

I was outrageous at the hard treatment he had received from the
Bavarians. It was too bad to turn an honest innkeeper out of his house,
and deny him the pleasure of accommodating a traveller who had toiled
hard all day, with the perfect assurance of finding a bed at night. I
saw, however, that there was no help for it; and noticing an opening at
one end of the hall, went into a sort of storeroom filled with all kinds
of rubbish, particularly old barrels. An unhinged door was leaning
against the wall, and this I laid across two of the barrels, pulled off
my coat and waistcoat, and on this extemporaneous couch went to sleep.

I was roused from my first nap by a terrible fall against my door. I
sprang up; the moon was shining through the broken casement, and,
seizing a billet of wood, I waited another attack. In the mean time I
heard the noise of a violent scuffling on the floor of the hall, and,
high above all, the voices of husband and wife, his evidently coming
from the floor in a deprecating tone, and hers in a high towering
passion, and enforced with severe blows of a stick. As soon as I was
fairly awake I saw through the thing at once. It was only a little
matrimonial _tete-a-tete_. The unamiable humour in which I had left them
against the Bavarians had ripened into a private quarrel between
themselves, and she had got him down, and was pummelling him with a
broomstick or something of that kind. It seemed natural and right
enough, and was, moreover, no business of mine; and remembering that
whoever interferes between man and wife is sure to have both against
him, I kept quiet. Others, however, were not so considerate, and the
occupants of the different rooms tumbled into the hall in every variety
of fancy night-gear, among whom was one whose only clothing was a
military coat and cap, with a sword in his hand. When the hubbub was at
its highest I looked out, and found, as I expected, the husband and wife
standing side by side, she still brandishing the stick, and both
apparently outrageous at everything and everybody around them. I
congratulated myself upon my superior knowledge of human nature, and
went back to my bed on the door.

In the morning I was greatly surprised to find that, instead of whipping
her husband, she had been taking his part. Two German soldiers, already
half intoxicated, had come into the hall, and insisted upon having more
wine; the host refused, and when they moved toward my sleeping place,
where the wine was kept, he interposed, and all came down together with
the noise which had woke me. His wife came to his aid, and the blows
which, in my simplicity, I had supposed to be falling upon him, were
bestowed on the two Bavarians. She told me the story herself; and when
she complained to the officers, they had capped the climax of her
passion by telling her that her husband deserved more than he got. She
was still in a perfect fury; and as she looked at them in the yard
arranging for their departure, she added, in broken English, with deep
and, as I thought, ominous passion, "'Twas better to be under the
Turks."

I learned all this while I was making my toilet on the piazza, that is,
while she was pouring water on my hands for me to wash; and, just as I
had finished, my eye fell upon my muleteer assisting the soldiers in
loading their horses. At first I did not notice the subdued expression
of his usually bright face, nor that he was loading my horse with some
of their camp equipage; but all at once it struck me that they were
pressing him into their service. I was already roused by what the woman
had told me, and, resolving that they should not serve me as they did
the Greeks, I sprang off the piazza, cleared my way through the crowd,
and going up to my horse, already staggering under a burden poised on
his back, but not yet fastened, put my hand under one side and tumbled
it over with a crash on the other. The soldiers cried out furiously;
and, while they were sputtering German at me, I sprang into the saddle.
I was in admirable pugilistic condition, with nothing on but pantaloons,
boots, and shirt, and just in a humour to get a whipping, if nothing
worse; but I detested the manner in which the Bavarians lorded it in
Greece; and riding up to a group of officers who were staring at me,
told them that I had just tumbled their luggage off my horse, and they
must bear in mind that they could not deal with strangers quite so
arbitrarily as they did with the Greeks. The commandant was disposed to
be indignant and very magnificent; but some of the others making
suggestions to him, he said he understood I had only hired my horse as
far as Corinth; but, if I had taken him for Athens, he would not
interfere; and, apologizing on the ground of the necessities of
government, ordered him to be released. I apologized back again,
returned the horse to my guide, whose eyes sparkled with pleasure, and
went in for my hat and coat.

I dressed myself, and, telling him to be ready when I had finished my
breakfast, went out expecting to start forthwith; but, to my surprise,
my host told me that the lad refused to go any farther without an
increase of pay; and, sure enough, there he stood, making no preparation
for moving. The cavalcade of soldiers had gone, and taken with them
every horse in Corinth, and the young rascal intended to take advantage
of my necessity. I told him that I had hired him to Athens for such a
price, and that I had saved him from impressment, and consequent loss of
wages, by the soldiers, which he admitted. I added that he was a young
rascal, which he neither admitted nor denied, but answered with a
roguish laugh. The extra price was no object compared with the vexation
of a day's detention; but a traveller is apt to think that all the world
is conspiring to impose upon him, and, at times, to be very resolute in
resisting. I was peculiarly so then, and, after a few words, set off to
complain to the head of the police. Without any ado he trotted along
with me, and we proceeded together, followed by a troup of idlers, I in
something of a passion, he perfectly cool, good-natured, and
considerate, merely keeping out of the way of my stick. Hurrying along
near the columns of the old temple, I stumbled, and he sprang forward to
assist me, his face expressing great interest, and a fear that I had
hurt myself; and when I walked toward a house which I had mistaken for
the bureau of the police department, he ran after me to direct me right.
All this mollified me considerably; and, before we reached the door, the
affair began to strike me as rather ludicrous.

I stated my case, however, to the eparchos, a Greek in Frank dress, who
spoke French with great facility, and treated me with the greatest
consideration. He was so full of professions that I felt quite sure of a
decision in my favour; but, assuming my story to be true, and without
asking the lad for his excuse, he shrugged his shoulders, and said it
would take time to examine the matter, and, if I was in a hurry, I had
better submit. To be sure, he said, the fellow was a great rogue, and he
gave his countrymen in general a character that would not tell well in
print; but added, in their justification, that they were imposed upon
and oppressed by everybody, and therefore considered that they had a
right to take their advantage whenever an opportunity offered. The young
man sat down on the floor, and looked at me with the most frank, honest,
and open expression, as if perfectly unconscious that he was doing
anything wrong. I could not but acknowledge that some excuse for him was
to be drawn from the nature of the school in which he had been brought
up, and, after a little parley, agreed to pay him the additional price,
if, at the end of the journey, I was satisfied with his conduct. This
was enough; his face brightened, he sprang up and took my hand, and we
left the house the best friends in the world. He seemed to be hurt as
well as surprised at my finding fault with him, for to him all seemed
perfectly natural; and, to seal the reconciliation, he hurried on ahead,
and had the horse ready when I reached the locanda. I took leave of my
host with a better feeling than before, and set out a second time on the
road to Athens.

At Kalamaki, while walking along the shore, a Greek who spoke the lingua
Franca came from on board one of the little caiques, and, when he
learned that I was an American, described to me the scene that had taken
place on that beach upon the arrival of provisions from America; when
thousands of miserable beings who had fled from the blaze of their
dwellings, and lived for months upon plants and roots; grayheaded men,
mothers with infants at their breasts, emaciated with hunger and almost
frantic with despair, came down from their mountain retreats to receive
the welcome relief. He might well remember the scene, for he had been
one of that starving people; and he took me to his house, and showed me
his wife and four children, now nearly all grown, telling me that they
had all been rescued from death by the generosity of my countrymen. I do
not know why, but in those countries it did not seem unmanly for a
bearded and whiskered man to weep; I felt anything but contempt for him
when, with his heart overflowing and his eyes filled with tears, he told
me, when I returned home, to say to my countrymen that I had seen and
talked with a recipient of their bounty; and though the Greeks might
never repay us, they could never forget what we had done for them. I
remembered the excitement in our country in their behalf, in colleges
and schools, from the graybearded senator to the prattling schoolboy,
and reflected that, perhaps, my mite, cast carelessly upon the waters,
had saved from the extremity of misery this grateful family. I wish that
the cold-blooded prudence which would have checked our honest enthusiasm
in favour of a people, under calamities and horrors worse than ever fell
to the lot of man struggling to be free, could have listened to the
gratitude of this Greek family. With deep interest I bade them farewell,
and, telling my guide to follow with my horse, walked over to the foot
of the mountain.

Ascending, I saw in one of the openings of the road a packhorse and a
soldier in the Bavarian uniform, and, hoping to find some one to talk
with, I hailed him. He was on the top of the mountain, so far off that
he did not hear me; and when, with the help of my Greek, I had succeeded
in gaining his attention, he looked for some time without being able to
see me. When he did, however, he waited; but, to my no small
disappointment, he answered my first question with the odious "Nix." We
tried each other in two or three dialects; but, finding it of no use, I
sat down to rest, and he, for courtesy, joined me; my young Greek, in
the spirit of good-fellowship, doing the same. He was a tall,
noble-looking fellow, and, like myself, a stranger in Greece; and,
though we could not say so, it was understood that we were glad to meet
and travel together as comrades. The tongue causes more evils than the
sword; and, as we were debarred the use of this mischievous member, and
walked all day side by side, seldom three paces apart, before night we
were sworn friends.

About five o'clock in the afternoon we arrived at Megara. A group of
Bavarian soldiers was lounging round the door of the khan, who welcomed
their expected comrade and me as his companion. My friend left me, and
soon returned with the compliments of the commandant, and an invitation
to visit him in the evening. I had, however, accepted a prior invitation
from the soldiers for a rendezvous in the locanda. I wandered till dark
among the ruined houses of the town, thought of Euclid and Alexander the
Great, and returning, went up to the same room in which I had slept with
my friends, pored over an old map of Greece hanging on the wall, made a
few notes, and throwing myself back on a sort of divan, while thinking
what I should do fell asleep.

About ten o'clock I was roused by the loud roar of a chorus, not like a
sudden burst, but a thing that seemed to have swelled up to that point
by degrees; and rubbing my eyes, and stumbling down stairs, I entered
the banqueting hall; a long, rough wooden table extended the whole
length of the room, supplied with only two articles, wine-flagons and
tobacco-pouches; forty or fifty soldiers were sitting round it, smoking
pipes and singing with all their souls, and, at the moment I entered,
waving their pipes to the dying cadence of a hunting chorus. Then
followed a long thump on the table, and they all rose; my long
travelling friend, with a young soldier who spoke a little French, came
up, and, escorting me to the head of the table, gave me a seat by the
side of the chairman. One of them attempted to administer a cup of wine,
and the other thrust at me the end of a pipe, and I should have been
obliged to kick and abscond but for the relief afforded me by the
entrance of another new-comer. This was no other than the corporal's
wife; and if I had been received warmly, she was greeted with
enthusiasm. Half the table sprang forward to escort her, two of them
collared the president and hauled him off his seat, and the whole
company, by acclamation, installed her in his place. She accepted it
without any hesitation, while two of them, with clumsy courtesy, took
off her bonnet, which I, sitting at her right hand, took charge of. All
then resumed their places, and the revel went on more gayly than ever.
The lady president was about thirty, plainly but neatly dressed, and,
though not handsome, had a frank, amiable, and good-tempered expression,
indicating that greatest of woman's attributes, a good heart. In fact,
she looked what the young man at my side told me she was, the peacemaker
of the regiment; and he added, that they always tried to have her at
their convivial meetings, for when she was among them the brawling
spirits were kept down, and every man would be ashamed to quarrel in her
presence. There was no chivalry, no heroic devotion about them, but
their manner toward her was as speaking a tribute as was ever paid to
the influence of woman; and I question whether beauty in her bower,
surrounded by belted knights and barons bold, ever exercised in her
more exalted sphere a more happy influence. I talked with her, and with
the utmost simplicity she told me that the soldiers all loved her; that
they were all kind to her, and she looked upon them all as brothers. We
broke up at about twelve o'clock with a song, requiring each person to
take the hand of his neighbour; one of her hands fell to me, and I took
it with a respect seldom surpassed in touching the hand of woman; for I
felt that she was cheering the rough path of a soldier's life, and,
among scenes calculated to harden the heart, reminding them of mothers,
and sisters, and sweethearts at home.

CHAPTER VII.

EARLY in the morning I again started. In a little khan at Eleusis I saw
three or four Bavarian soldiers drinking, and ridiculing the Greek
proprietor, calling him patrioti and capitani. The Greek bore their
gibes and sneers without a word; but there was a deadly expression in
his look, which seemed to say, "I bide my time;" and I remember then
thinking that the Bavarians were running up an account which would one
day be settled with blood. In fact, the soldiers went too far; and, as I
thought, to show off before me, one of them slapped the Greek on the
back, and made him spill a measure of wine which he was carrying to a
customer, when the latter turned upon him like lightning, threw him
down, and would have strangled him if he had not been pulled off by the
by-standers. Indeed, the Greeks had already learned both their
intellectual and physical superiority over the Bavarians; and, a short
time before, a party of soldiers sent to subdue a band of Maniote
insurgents had been captured, and, after a farce of selling them at
auction at a dollar a head, were kicked, and whipped, and sent off.

About four o'clock I arrived once more at Athens, dined at my old hotel,
and passed the evening at Mr. Hill's.

The next day I lounged about the city. I had been more than a month
without my carpet-bag, and the way in which I managed during that time
is a thing between my travelling companions and myself. A prudent
Scotchman used to boast of a careful nephew, who, in travelling, instead
of leaving some of his clothes at every hotel on the road, always
brought home _more_ than he took away with him. I was a model of this
kind of carefulness while my opportunities lasted; but my companions had
left me, and this morning I went to the bazars and bought a couple of
shirts. Dressed up in one of them, I strolled outside the walls; and,
while sitting in the shadow of a column of the Temple of Jupiter, I saw
coming from the city, through Hadrian's Gate, four men, carrying a
burden by the corners of a coverlet, followed by another having in his
hands a bottle and spade. As they approached I saw they were bearing the
dead body of a woman, whom, on joining them, I found to be the wife of
the man who followed. He was an Englishman or an American (for he called
himself either, as occasion required) whom I had seen at my hotel and at
Mr. Hill's; had been a sailor, and probably deserted from his ship, and
many years a resident of Athens, where he married a Greek woman. He was
a thriftless fellow, and, as he told me, had lived principally by the
labour of his wife, who washed for European travellers. He had been so
long in Greece, and his connexions and associations were so thoroughly
Greek, that he had lost that sacredness of feeling so powerful both in
Englishmen and Americans of every class in regard to the decent burial
of the dead, though he did say that he had expected to procure a coffin,
but the police of the city had sent officers to take her away and bury
her. There was something so forlorn in the appearance of this rude
funeral, that my first impulse was to turn away; but I checked myself
and followed. Several times the Greeks laid the corpse on the ground and
stopped to rest, chattering indifferently on various subjects. We
crossed the Ilissus, and at some distance came to a little Greek chapel
excavated in the rock. The door was so low that we were obliged to stoop
on entering, and when within we could hardly stand upright. The Greeks
laid down the body in front of the altar; the husband went for the
priest, the Greeks to select a place for a grave, and I remained alone
with the dead. I sat in the doorway, looking inside upon the corpse, and
out upon the Greeks digging the grave. In a short time the husband
returned with a priest, one of the most miserable of that class of
"blind teachers" who swarm in Greece. He immediately commenced the
funeral service, which continued nearly an hour, by which time the
Greeks returned and, taking up the body, carried it to the graveside and
laid it within. I knew the hollow sound of the first clod of earth which
falls upon the lid of a coffin, and shrunk from its leaden fall upon the
uncovered body. I turned away, and, when at some distance, looked back
and saw them packing the earth over the grave. I never saw so dreary a
burial-scene.

Returning, I passed by the ancient stadium of Herodes Atticus, once
capable of containing twenty-five thousand spectators; the whole
structure was covered with the purest white marble. All remains of its
magnificence are now gone; but I could still trace on the excavated side
of the hill its ancient form of a horseshoe, and walked through the
subterraneous passage by which the vanquished in the games retreated
from the presence of the spectators.

Returning to the city, I learned that an affray had just taken place
between some Greeks and Bavarians, and, hurrying to the place near the
bazars, found a crowd gathered round a soldier who had been stabbed by a
Greek. According to the Greeks, the affair had been caused by the
habitual insults and provocation given by the Bavarians, the soldier
having wantonly knocked a drinking-cup out of the Greek's hand while he
was drinking. In the crowd I met a lounging Italian (the same who wanted
me to come up from Padras by water), a good-natured and good-for-nothing
fellow, and skilled in tongues; and going with him into a coffee-house
thronged with Bavarians and Europeans of various nations in the service
of government, heard another story, by which it appeared that the
Greeks, as usual, were in the wrong, and that the poor Bavarian had been
stabbed without the slightest provocation, purely from the Greeks' love
of stabbing. Tired of this, I left the scene of contention, and a few
streets off met an Athenian, a friend of two or three days' standing,
and, stopping under a window illuminated by a pair of bright eyes from
above, happened to express my admiration of the lady who owned them,
when he tested the strength of my feelings on the subject by asking me
if I would like to marry her. I was not prepared at the moment to give
precisely that proof, and he followed up his blow by telling me that, if
I wished it, he would engage to secure her for me before the next
morning. The Greeks are almost universally poor. With them every
traveller is rich, and they are so thoroughly civilized as to think that
a rich man is, of course, a good match.

Toward evening I paid my last visit to the Acropolis. Solitude, silence,
and sunset are the nursery of sentiment. I sat down on a broken capital
of the Parthenon; the owl was already flitting among the ruins. I looked
up at the majestic temple and down at the ruined and newly-regenerated
city, and said to myself, "Lots must rise in Athens!" I traced the line
of the ancient walls, ran a railroad to the Piraeus, and calculated the
increase on "up-town lots" from building the king's palace near the
Garden of Plato. Shall I or shall I not "make an operation" in Athens?
The court has removed here, the country is beautiful, climate fine,
government fixed, steamboats are running, all the world is coming, and
lots must rise. I bought (in imagination) a tract of good tillable land,
laid it out in streets, had my Plato, and Homer, and Washington Places,
and Jackson Avenue, built a row of houses to improve the neighbourhood
where nobody lived, got maps lithographed, and sold off at auction. I
was in the right condition to "go in," for I had nothing to lose; but,
unfortunately, the Greeks were very far behind the spirit of the age,
knew nothing of the beauties of the credit system, and could not be
brought to dispose of their consecrated soil "on the usual terms," _ten
per cent. down, balance on bond and mortgage_, so, giving up the idea,
at dark I bade farewell to the ruins of the Acropolis, and went to my
hotel to dinner.

Early the next morning I started for the field of Marathon. I engaged a
servant at the hotel to accompany me, but he disappointed me, and I set
out alone with my muleteer. Our road lay along the base of Mount
Hymettus, on the borders of the plain of Attica, shaded by thick groves
of olives. At noon I was on the summit of a lofty mountain, at the base
of which, still and quiet as if it had never resounded with the shock of
war, the great battle-ground of the Greeks and Persians extended to the
sea. The descent was one of the finest things I met with in Greece;
wild, rugged, and, in fact, the most magnificent kind of mountain
scenery. At the foot of the mountain we came to a ruined convent,
occupied by an old white-bearded monk. I stopped there and lunched, the
old man laying before me his simple store of bread and olives, and
looking on with pleasure at my voracious appetite.

[Illustration: Mound of Marathon.]

This over, I hurried to the battle-field. Toward the centre is a large
mound of earth, erected over the Athenians who fell in the battle. I
made directly for this mound, ascended it, and threw the reins loose
over my horse's neck; and, sitting on the top, read the account of the
battle in Herodotus.

After all, is not our reverence misplaced, or, rather does not our
respect for deeds hallowed by time render us comparatively unjust? The
Greek revolution teems with instances of as desperate courage, as great
love of country, as patriotic devotion, as animated the men of Marathon,
and yet the actors in these scenes are not known beyond the boundaries
of their native land. Thousands whose names were never heard of, and
whose bones, perhaps, never received burial, were as worthy of an
eternal monument as they upon whose grave I sat. Still that mound is a
hallowed sepulchre; and the shepherd who looks at it from his mountain
home, the husbandman who drives his plough to its base, and the sailor
who hails it as a landmark from the deck of his caique, are all reminded
of the glory of their ancestors. But away with the mouldering relics of
the past. Give me the green grave of Marco Bozzaris. I put Herodotus in
my pocket, gathered a few blades of grass as a memorial, descended the
mound, betook myself to my saddle, and swept the plain on a gallop, from
the mountain to the sea.

It is about two miles in width, and bounded by rocky heights enclosing
it at either extremity. Toward the shore the ground is marshy, and at
the place where the Persians escaped to their ships are some unknown
ruins; in several places the field is cultivated, and toward evening, on
my way to the village of Marathon, I saw a Greek ploughing; and when I
told him that I was an American, he greeted me as the friend of Greece.
It is the last time I shall recur to this feeling; but it was music to
my heart to hear a ploughman on immortal Marathon sound in my ears the
praises of my country.

I intended to pass the night at the village of Marathon; but every khan
was so cluttered up with goats, chickens, and children, that I rode
back to the monastery at the foot of the mountain. It was nearly dark
when I reached it. The old monk was on a little eminence at the door of
his chapel, clapping two boards together to call his flock to vespers.
With his long white beard, his black cap and long black gown, his
picturesque position and primitive occupation, he seemed a guardian
spirit hovering on the borders of Marathon in memory of its ancient
glory. He came down to the monastery to receive me, and, giving me a
paternal welcome, and spreading a mat on the floor, returned to his
chapel. I followed, and saw his little flock assemble. The ploughman
came up from the plain and the shepherd came down from the mountain; the
old monk led the way to the altar, and all kneeled down and prostrated
themselves on the rocky floor. I looked at them with deep interest. I
had seen much of Greek devotion in cities and villages, but it was a
spectacle of extraordinary interest to see these wild and lawless men
assembled on this lonely mountain to worship in all sincerity, according
to the best light they had, the god of their fathers. I could not follow
them in their long and repeated kneelings and prostrations; but my young
Greek, as if to make amends for me, and, at the same time, to show how
they did things in Athens, led the van. The service over, several of
them descended with us to the monastery; the old monk spread his mat,
and again brought out his frugal store of bread and olives. I
contributed what I had brought from Athens, and we made our evening
meal. If I had judged from appearances, I should have felt rather uneasy
at sleeping among such companions; but the simple fact of having seen
them at their devotions gave me confidence. Though I had read and heard
that the Italian bandit went to the altar to pray forgiveness for the
crimes he intended to commit, and, before washing the stains from his
hands, hung up the bloody poniard upon a pillar of the church, and asked
pardon for murder, I always felt a certain degree of confidence in him
who practised the duties of his religion, whatever that religion might
be. I leaned on my elbow, and, by the blaze of the fire, read Herodotus,
while my muleteer, as I judged from the frequent repetition of the word
Americanos, entertained them with long stories about me. By degrees the
blaze of the fire died away, the Greeks stretched themselves out for
sleep, the old monk handed me a bench about four inches high for a
pillow, and, wrapping myself in my cloak, in a few moments I was
wandering in the land of dreams.

Before daylight my companions were in motion. I intended to return by
the marble quarries on the Pentelican Mountain; and crying "Cavallo" in
the ear of my still sleeping muleteer, in a few minutes I bade farewell
for ever to the good old monk of Marathon. Almost from the door of the
monastery we commenced ascending the mountain. It was just peep of day,
the weather raw and cold, the top of the mountain covered with clouds,
and in an hour I found myself in the midst of them. The road was so
steep and dangerous that I could not ride; a false step of my horse
might have thrown me over a precipice several

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