FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[19]Only fifteen statues were pieced together by Thorwaldsen and Wagner, but there were numerous fragments besides those used by them, which are still the subject of conjectural restorations.[20]I suppose Lusieri.â€”Ed.[21]Henry Gally-Knight (1786-1846), M.P., writer of several works on architecture.

[19]Only fifteen statues were pieced together by Thorwaldsen and Wagner, but there were numerous fragments besides those used by them, which are still the subject of conjectural restorations.

[20]I suppose Lusieri.â€”Ed.

[21]Henry Gally-Knight (1786-1846), M.P., writer of several works on architecture.

LIFE IN ATHENSâ€”ELEUSISâ€”TRANSPORTATION OF Ã†GINA MARBLES TO ZANTE.

My father was now in for a long stay in the country, and seeing something more of it than the usual tourist, even of those days. One or two entries from his diary give one a slight insight into the barbarous condition of the country at this time.

"The Pasha of Negropont has sent a demand of a certain number of purses of the people of Athens. Logotheti, Greek Archon of Athens, excited the people to go to the cadi and present a protest, which he promised he would support. The people went as far as the house, when Logotheti stepped aside into a neighbouring house, whence he could see the cadi's countenance and judge how to speak to him. He saw he took it well, and then he spoke in support of the protest. This Pasha of Negropont, however, is a redoubtable person. It was expected that he would send troops to attack Athens, but it seems that was too strong a measure even for him. Instead, he has intercepted some poor Albanian cheese merchants,and detains them until some or all of the money has been paid him.[22]

One day I went to the waiwode on business. We had a long talk consisting mainly of questions about England, in which he displayed his ignorance to great advantage. After inquiring after his great friend Elfi Bey [? Lord Elgin], he asked what on earth we came here for, so far and at so much trouble, if not for money. Did it give us a preference in obtaining public situations, or were we paid? It was useless to assure him that we considered it part of education to travel, and that Athens was a very ancient place and much revered by us. He only thought the more that our object must be one we wished to conceal. I told him of the fuss made in London over the Persian ambassador, and that if he went all the world would wonder at him. At this he got very excited, and said he wished he had a good carico of oil which he could take to England, thereby paying his journey, and that once he was there he would make everyone pay to see him. All that he knew about England was that there were beautiful gardens there, especially one named Marcellias (Marseilles)! The man's one idea was money, and he kept on repeating that he was very poor. No wonder Greece is miserable under such rulers.

Veli Pasha, Governor of the Morea, passed through Athens a short time ago in a palankin of gold, while the country is in misery.

The Greeks, cringeing blackguards as they are, have often a sort of pride of their own. One of our servants, who received a piastre a day (1s.), has just left us. His amorosa, who lived close by, saw him carrying water and performing other menial offices and chaffed him, so he said he could stand it no longer and threw up a place the like of which he will not find again in Athens.

I went into the council of the Greek primates. There I saw the French proclamation on the birth of the Roi des Romains: 'The Immortal son of Buonaparte is born! Rejoice, ye people, our wishes are accomplished!' The primates, however, soberly objected that none but God was á¼Î¸á¼Î½Î±Ï„Î¿Ï‚ [Greek: athanatos]. What took me there was to back an Englishman who had got into a quarrel with a neighbour, a Greek widow, about 'ancient lights' which were blocked by a new building he was putting up. The woman maintained her cause with much spirit and choice expressions: 'You rascal, who came to Athens with your mouth full of dung! I'll send you out without a shoe to your foot.' Our man retorted 'putana,' equally irrelevantly, and the affair ended in his favour.

One morning by agreement we rose at daybreak and walked to Eleusis, intending to dig, but we foundthe labourers very idle and insolent; and after a few days, discovering no trace of the temple, we gave it up. The better sort of Greeks have some respect for the superior knowledge of Franks as evinced in my drawings; one man, a papa or priest, asked me whether I thought the ancients, whom they revere, can have been Franks or Romaics.

An awkward incident occurred during our stay. We had in our service a handsome Greek lad to whom the cadi took a fancy and insisted on his taking service with him. The boy, much terrified, came and wept to us and Papa Nicola, with whom we lodged. We started off at once to the cadi, and gave him a piece of our mind, which considerably astonished and enraged him. He was afraid to touch us, but vowed to take it out of old Nicola, and the next day went off to Athens. One night, the last of our stay, arrived a man from the zabeti, or police, of Athens to take up Nicola to answer certain accusations brought against him by the cadi. This soldier, who was a fine type of the genuine Athenian blackguard, swaggered in and partook freely of our wine, having already got drunk at the cadi's. He offered wine to passers-by as if it was his own, boasted, called himself Ï€Î±Î»Î¹ÎºÎ±Ï [Greek: 'palikar,'] roared out songs, and generally made himself most objectionable. He began to quiz a respectable Albanian who came in; and when the latter, who was very civil and called him 'Aga,' attempted to retort, flew into a rage,said he was a palikar again, and handled his sword and shook his pistols. I could stand it no longer at last, and said this was my house and no one was aga there but myself; that I should be glad to see him put his pistols down and let me have no more of his swaggering; otherwise I had pistols too, which I showed him, and would be ready to use them. I then treated our poor Albanian with great attention and him with contumely. This finished him and reduced the brute to absolute cringeing as far as his conduct to me went. The wretched papa he bullied as before, and when he got up to go he and all the rest were up in an instant; one prepared his papouches, another supported him, a third opened the door, and a fourth held a lamp to light him out. But he had not yet finished his evening. Soon I heard a noise of singing and roaring from another house hard by, and received a message from him to beg I would sup with him, for now he had a table of his own and could invite me. The table was provided by some wretched Greek he was tyrannising over. Of course I did not go, but I moralised over the state of the country. Next day he carried off Nicola.

Another instance of the tyranny of these scoundrels was told me as having occurred only a few days before. A zabetis man had arrived and pretended to have lost on the way a purse containing 80 piastres. All the inhabitants were sent to search for it, and if they didnot find it he said it must be repaid by the townâ€”and it was.

Among the people we met at Eleusis was a Greek merchant, a great beau from Hydra, at this time the most prosperous place in Greece; but away from his own town he had to cringe to the Turks like everyone else. On our way back to Athens we overtook him carrying an umbrella to shade his face, and with an Albanian boy behind him. When he saw our janissary Mahomet the umbrella was immediately lowered.

The population of Greece is so small now[23]that large spaces are left uncultivated and rights to land are very undefined. In the neighbourhood of towns there is always a considerable amount of cultivated ground, but although the cultivator of each patch hopes to reap it, there is nothing but fear of him to prevent another's doing it, so far as I can see. A field is ploughed and sown by an undefined set of people, and an equally or even less defined set may reap it. And in point of fact people do go and cut corn where they please or dare. We met a lot of Athenians on our way back, going to cut corn at Thebes."

By the middle of July the Ã†ginetan Marbles had been thoroughly overhauled and pieced together, andit was pressing that something should be done about them. The schemes of selling them to Lord Sligo and Messrs. Knight and Fazakerly had fallen through, and it had come to be seen that the only fair way for all parties was to sell them by public auction. To do this they must first be got out of the country, and various schemes for effecting it were considered and abandoned.

As the proprietors meanwhile were in daily fear of their being pounced upon by the Turkish authorities, they agreed at length to put the whole matter into the hands of one Gropius, a common acquaintance. He was half a German, but born and bred amongst Orientals, and being conversant with their ways and languages, and a sharp fellow besides, they felt he was more likely than themselves, unassisted, to carry the business through successfully. They accordingly appointed him their agent, and settled that the collection should be got to Zante, as the nearest place of security.

Eight days were spent in packing, and on July 30 the first batch, on horses and mules, was sent off at night to a spot indicated on the Gulf of Corinth, near a town and castle [? Livadostro.â€”Ed.].

Cockerell followed two days afterwards with the rest, and sleeping two nights at Condoura, on the third day reached the rendezvous. There they found the first batch all laid out on the beach, and congratulatedthemselves on having got so far unmolested. Gropius went into the town to hire a vessel while the rest sketched and rested. The weather was furiously hot, and Cockerell, who was very fond of the water, went out for a long swim in the bay, but some fishermen he came up with frightened him back by telling him that they had seen sharks about. Gropius returned in the evening with a boat, and all set to work to get the packages aboard. It took them nearly the whole night to do it. When finally he had seen them all stowed, Cockerell, tired out, lay down to sleep. When he woke they were already gliding out of the bay.

They sailed along prosperously, and had long passed Corinth and Sicyon when, as evening came on, they heard the sound of firing ahead.

"Our first idea was pirates, and when we presently came up with a large ship, which summoned us to come to, we were rather anxious. Our felucca was sent aboard. She turned out to be a Zantiote merchantman, and had been attacked by four boats which had put out from the shore to examine the cargo in the name of Ali Pasha. She had refused to submit to overhauling, and when asked what her cargo consisted of had replied 'Bullets.' When the captain understood we had four milordi on board, he begged pardon for detaining us, and let us go on. Next day we made Patras, where we went ashore to see Strani, the consul, and get from him passports and letters forZante. In the town we fell in with Bronstedt and the rest of that party, who were, of course, much interested and astonished to hear all our news and present business, and when we set sail in the evening gave us a grand salute of pistols as we went out of port. We had a spanking breeze.

A storm was brewing behind Calydon, and when at length it came upon us it burst the sail of a boat near us. We were a lot of boats sailing together, but when the rest saw this accident they took in their sails. Our skipper, however, insisted on carrying on, so we soon parted company with the others; and after a fair wind all night we arrived in the morning at Zante."

FOOTNOTES:[22]In the end the city had to pay him 10,000 piastres, and they had spent 5,000 in putting themselves in a state of defence.[23]According to De Pouqueville, 548,940, in 1814; it is now over 2,000,000.

[22]In the end the city had to pay him 10,000 piastres, and they had spent 5,000 in putting themselves in a state of defence.

[23]According to De Pouqueville, 548,940, in 1814; it is now over 2,000,000.

ZANTEâ€”COLONEL CHURCHâ€”LEAVES ZANTE TO MAKE TOUR OF THE MOREAâ€”OLYMPIAâ€”BASSÃ†â€”DISCOVERY OF BAS-RELIEFSâ€”FORCED TO DESIST FROM EXCAVATIONS.

"Hitherto we had had an anxious time, but once they were landed we felt at ease about the marbles. Henceforth the business is in Gropius' hands. The auction has been announced in English and continental papers to take place in Zante on November 1, 1812. It took us some time to install them, and altogether we passed an odious fortnight on the island. The Zantiotes, as they have been more under Western influenceâ€”for Zante belonged to Venice for about three centuriesâ€”are detestable. They are much less ignorant than the rest of the Greeks, but their half-knowledge only makes them the more hateful. Until the island was taken in hand by the English, murder was of constant occurrence, and so long as a small sum of money was paid to the proveditor no notice was taken of it. For accomplishing it without bloodshed they had a special method of their own. It was to fill a long narrow bag with sand, with which, with a blow on the back scientifically delivered, there could be given, withoutfuss or noise, a shock certain sooner or later to prove fatal. Socially they have all the faults of the West as well as those of the East without the virtues of either. But their crowning defect in my eyes is that they have not the picturesque costumes or appearance of the mainland Greeks.

The most interesting thing in Zante for the moment is Major Church's[24]Greek contingent. He has enrolled and disciplined a number of refugee Greeks, part patriots, part criminals, and generally both, and has taken an immense deal of pains with them. He flatters them by calling them Hellenes, shows them the heads of their heroes and philosophers painted on every wall in his house, and endeavours generally to rouse their enthusiasm. He himself adopts the Albanian costume, to which he has added a helmet which he fancies is like that of the ancient Greeks, although it is certainly very unlike those of the heroes we brought into Zante. Altogether, with a great deal of good management and more fustian, he has contrived to attach to himself some thousand excellent troops which under his command would really be capable of doing great things.

[25]At last, on the evening of the 18th of August, we considered ourselves fortunate in being able to getaway, and we started to make the tour of the Morea. Gropius, Haller, Foster, Linckh, and I left Zante in a small boat and arrived next morning at Pyrgi, the port of Pyrgo, from which it is distant two hours and a half. We obtained horses at a monastery not far from where we landed, and rode through a low marshy country, well cultivated, chiefly in corn and melon grounds, and fairly well peopled up to the town.

Pyrgo itself lies just above the marshes which border the Alpheus, and, as it happened to our subsequent cost, there was a good deal of water out at this moment. We ordered horses, and while they were being brought in we entered the house of an old Greek, a primate of the place. I had been so disgusted with the thinly veneered civilisation of the Zantiotes and bored with the affectations of our garrison officers there, that I was congratulating myself on having got back to the frank barbarism of the Morea, when my admiration for it received a check. The old Greek in whose house we were waiting seemed anxious to be rid of us, and, the better to do so, assured me that Meraca, or Olympia, was only 2Â½ hours distant, equal at the ordinary rate of Turkish travelling, which is 3 miles an hour, to 7Â½ miles. The horses were so long in coming, on account of their being out among the marshes and the men having to go up to their knees to get them, that Haller andI got impatient and resolved to go on foot as the distance was so little. It turned out, however, to be 7 hours instead of 2Â½, and at nightfall we arrived dead-beat at a marsh, through which in a pitch darkness, I may thank my stars, although invisible, for having struggled safely. We wandered about, lost our way, waded in pools to our knees, and finally took 8 hours instead of 2Â½ to get to our destination.

It was two o'clock in the morning when we got to Meraca, utterly tired out, and with our lodging still to seek. We were directed to a tower in which lived an Albanian aga. The entrance was at the top of a staircase running up the side of the house and ending in a drawbridge which led to the door on the first floor. Once inside we went up two other flights of stairs to a room in which we found two Albanians, by whom we were kindly received. When they heard how tired we were they offered us some rasky. Besides that there was some miserable bread, but no coffee or meat to refresh us. We had to lie down and go to sleep without.

There are few visible remains of the once famous Olympia,[26]and not a trace of stadium or theatre that I could make out. The general opinion is that the Alpheus has silted up and buried many of the buildings to a depth of 8 or 10 feet, and our smallresearches point in the same direction. We dug in the temple, but what we could do amounted to next to nothing. To do it completely would be a work for a king. I had had some difficulty with the Greek labourers at Ã†gina, but the Turks here were much worse. In the first place, instead of one piastre apiece per day they asked 2Â½, and in the next they had no proper tools. The earth was as hard as brick, and when with extreme difficulty it had been broken up they had no proper shovels; and when the earth, which they piled along the trench as they dug it out, ran into the hole again, they scooped it out with their hands. The thing was too ludicrous. Worst of all, as soon as we turned our backs for a moment they either did nothing or went away. This happened when we left them to cross the river and try for a better view of the place. We got over in a caique, which the aga himself, from the village across the water, punted over to us; but the view over there was disappointing, and we came back to find, as I say, our workmen all idling. The long and short of our excavations was that we measured the columns of the temple to be 7 feet in diameter, and we found some attached columns and other fragments of marble from the interior, the whole of which I suppose was of marble, that of the pavement being of various colours. Such stone as is used is of a rough kind, made up entirely of small shells and covered with a very white and fine plaster.And that is about all the information we got for a largish outlay.

From Meraca we rode through romantic scenery to Andritzena, a charming village in a very beautiful and romantic situation; and next morning we settled to go on to the Temple of BassÃ¦â€”the stylÃ¦ or columns, the natives call it. But before we started the primates of Andritzena came in, and after turning over our things and examining and asking the price of our arms, they began to try and frighten us with tremendous stories of a certain Barulli, captain of a company of klephts or robbers who haunted the neighbourhood of the stylÃ¦. They begged us to come back the same evening, and to take a guard with us. As for the first, we flatly refused; and for the second, we reflected that our guards must be Greeks, while the klephts might be Turks, and if so the former would never stand against them, so it was as well for us to take the risk alone. We did, however, take one of their suggestions, and that was to take with us two men of the country who would know who was who, and act as guides and go-betweens; for they assured us that it is not only the professional klephts who rob, but that all the inhabitants of the villages thereabouts are dilettante brigands on occasion.

Our janissary Mahomet also did not at all fancy the notion of living up in the mountain, and added what he could to dissuade us. However, we turned adeaf ear to all objections and set out. Our way lay over some high ground, and rising almost all the way, for 2Â½ hours.

It is impossible to give an idea of the romantic beauty of the situation of the temple. It stands on a high ridge looking over lofty barren mountains and an extensive country below them. The ground is rocky, thinly patched with vegetation, and spotted with splendid ilexes. The view gives one Ithome, the stronghold and last defence of the Messenians against Sparta, to the south-west; Arcadia, with its many hills, to the east; and to the south the range of Taygetus, with still beyond them the sea.

Haller had engagements, which I had got him, to make four drawings for English travellers. I made some on my own account, and there were measurements to be taken and a few stones moved for the purpose, all of which took time. We spent altogether ten days there, living on sheep and butter, the only good butter I have tasted since leaving England, sold to us by the few Albanian shepherds who lived near. Of an evening we used to sit and smoke by a fire, talking to the shepherds till we were ready for sleep, when we turned into our tent, which, though not exactly comfortable, protected us from weather and from wolves. For there are wolvesâ€”one of them one night tore a sheep to pieces close to us. We pitched our tent under the north front. On thenext day after our arrival, the 25th, one of the primates of Andritzena came begging us to desist from digging or moving stones, for that it might bring harm on the town. This was very much what happened at Ã†gina. He did not specify what harm, but asked who we were. We in reply said that we had firmans, that it was not civil, therefore, to ask who we were, and that we were not going to carry away the columns. When he heard of the firmans he said he would do anything he could to help us. All the same, he seemed to have given some orders to our guide against digging; for the shepherds we engaged kept talking of the fear they were in, and at last went away, one of them saying the work was distasteful to him. They were no great loss, for they were so stupid that I was obliged to be always with them and work too, in doing which I tore my hand and got exceedingly fatigued. I was repaid by getting some important measurements.

In looking about I found two very beautiful bas-reliefs under some stones, which I took care to conceal again immediately."

This incident is described in greater detail by Stackelberg in the preface to his book.[27]The interior of the templeâ€”that is to say, the space inside the columnsâ€”was a mass of fallen blocks of somedepth. While Haller and Cockerell with the labourers were scrambling about among the ruins to get their measurements, a fox that had made its home deep down amongst the stones, disturbed by the unusual noise, got up and ran away. It is not quite a pleasant task to crawl down among such insecure and ponderous masses of stone with the possibility of finding another fox at the bottom; but Cockerell ventured in, and on scraping away the accumulations where the fox had its lair, he saw by the light which came down a crack among the stones, a bas-relief. I have heard this story also from his own lips. Stackelberg further says that the particular relief was that numbered 530 in the Phigaleian Marbles at the British Museum, and naÃ¯vely adds, "indeed one may still trace on the marble the injuries done by the fox's claws." He managed to make a rough sketch of the slab and carefully covered it over again. From the position in which it lay it was inferable that the whole frieze would probably be found under the dilapidations.

"Early one morning some armed shepherds came looking about for a lost sheep. They eventually found it dead not far from our tent, and torn to pieces by a wolfâ€”as I mentioned before. The day being Sunday we saw some grand specimens of the Arcadian shepherds. They stalk about with a gun over their shoulders and a long pistol in the waist, looking very savage and wildâ€”and so they are: but, wild as theymay be, they still retain the names which poetry has connected with all that is idyllic and peaceful. Alexis is one of the commonest.

As our labourers had left us, there was nothing for it but to work ourselves. We were doing so and had just lit upon some beautiful caissons, when a man on horseback, Greek or Turk (they dress so much alike there is no distinguishing them), rode up accompanied by four Albanians all armed. He told us he was the owner of the land, and, although he was very civil about it, he forbade our digging any more. We asked him to eat with us, but being a fast day in the Greek Church, he declined. Finally, after writing to Andritzena, he left us.

After so many objections being made to our excavations we felt it would be too dangerous to go on at present, and promised ourselves to come again next year in a stronger party and armed with more peremptory and explicit authority to dig, and in the meantime there was nothing to do but to get through our drawings and studies as quickly as we could.

The uneasiness of our janissary Mahomet, since our camping out began, gave us serious doubts of his courage, and a plan was invented for testing it. This was to raise an alarm at night that we were attacked by klephts. Our Arcadian shepherds entered into the joke with surprising alacrity and kept it up well. Just after supper a cry was heard from the mountainabove that robbers were near. In an instant we all sprang up, seized pistols and swords, and made a feint as though we would go up the hill. Our janissary, thunderstruck, was following, when we proposed that he should go on alone.

But he would not do that. In the first place he was ill; in the next place, Would it not be better to go to Andritzena? He begged we might go to Andritzena."

FOOTNOTES:[24]Afterwards Sir Richard Church, and commander-in-chief of the Greek forces up to his death in 1872.[25]An epitome of the following appears in Hughes'sTravels in Sicily, Greece, and Albania, p. 190.[26]Olympia was thoroughly excavated by the Germans in 1875-76, when the Hermes of Praxiteles and the Victory of PÃ¦onios were discovered.[27]Der Apollotempel zu Bassae.

[24]Afterwards Sir Richard Church, and commander-in-chief of the Greek forces up to his death in 1872.

[25]An epitome of the following appears in Hughes'sTravels in Sicily, Greece, and Albania, p. 190.

[26]Olympia was thoroughly excavated by the Germans in 1875-76, when the Hermes of Praxiteles and the Victory of PÃ¦onios were discovered.

[27]Der Apollotempel zu Bassae.

ANDRITZENAâ€”CARITZENAâ€”MEGALOPOLISâ€”BENIGHTEDâ€”KALAMATA.

"We left the stylÃ¦ and went down to Andritzena by a shorter road. In going up, the drivers, to be able to charge us more, had taken us round a longer way. Andritzena is not only beautiful in its situation, the people who live in it are charming. Everyone seemed to think it the proper thing to show some attention to the strangers. The girlsâ€”and some of them were very prettyâ€”brought us each as a present a fruit of some kind, pears or figs, and did it in the prettiest and most engaging manner; so that we had more than we could carry home with us. Disinterested urbanity is so unusual a feature in Greek character that we were surprised, and I must confess that it was the only time such a thing ever occurred to us in Greece.

The Turks tax these poor wretches unmercifully. To begin with, they have to pay the Government one-fourth of their produce. Then there is the karatch or poll tax, which seems to be rather variable in amount, and the chrea or local tax levied for the localgovernment, which together make up about another fourth; so that the taxes amount to half the yearly produce. Of course the people complain. I can't tell you how often I have been asked 'When will the English come and deliver us from the Turks, who eat out our souls?' 'And why do they delay?' One Greek told me he prayed daily that the Franks might come; and while I am on the subject I may as well mention here, though it was said a few weeks later, when we were near Corinth, by a shepherd, 'I pray to God I may live to see the Morea filled with such Franks.' They like us better than they do the French, because they have heard from Zante and elsewhere that we treat our dependencies more honourably than they do.

We were five days at Andritzena. Haller made drawings of the village, and I finished up my memoranda of Phigaleia. Besides that, as I thought we ought not to leave the neighbourhood without making a final effort to complete our explorations at the stylÃ¦, and that, the Pasha Veli being absent from the Morea, we might perhaps get leave from the Waiwode of Fanari, Foster and I rode over to see him. We found him exceedingly courteous, perfectly a man of the world; and although his house and the two old cushions in the corner of a dilapidated gallery on which he was propped when he received us did not bespeak great affluence, his manner was not that of a man to whom one could offer a bribe. He said he regrettedvery much having had to write the letter we had received forbidding us to go on digging, but that it was absolutely necessary that we should cease, and there was an end of the matter. At the same time he hoped there had been no expression in it to offend us. 'Veli,' said he, 'is very peremptory about no bouyuruldu or permission being given by anyone but himself; for he insists on knowing all about travellers who move about in his pashalik, and upon periodically inspecting them and their firman and approving it. The mere fact of my having allowed your party to remain ten days at Phigaleia, no matter whether you dug or not, was enough to ruin me; for these Albanians [that is, Ali Pasha and his sons] ask but few questions [listen to no excuses].' So we had to go back to Andritzena without having effected anything beyond seeing an Albanian Turkish wedding on our way. When we came upon them they were gorgeously dressed, playing the djerid and brandishing their swords. I never saw anything so picturesque. The party were on their way to fetch the bride from Fanari. They had an Albanian red and white banner, with a silk handkerchief tied to the top of it, which was the token sent by the bride to her lover as an invitation to him to come and fetch her. After sunset she is taken to his house on horseback, closely veiled.

Hearing of some columns in an old castle not far off, as the account was a tolerably rational one, Iresolved, although I ought to have had experience enough of Greek lies to warn me, to go and see them. There was the hope of making some discovery of interest; for my informant insisted that no milords had ever been there before. So I girt myself with sword and pistol, and walked 2Â½ hours to a hill or mountain called SultanÃ©. I only found a few miserable columns, a considerable fortress and cyclopean walls, and I made two sketches on the road. I was very tired when I got back. The Greek shoemaker, our landlord, came and supped with us, and got very maudlin over the wine.

We went next to Caritzena. The waiwode insisted on our putting up with him, and gave up a room to us, begging that we would order whatever best pleased us; that his servants would prepare anything, and we should purchase nothing. 'Our king at Stamboul is rich enough to receive our friends and allies, the English,' he said. We were preparing to go out and draw when a message came to say the waiwode would pay us a visit. Haller, however, would not stop for anybody. Foster had to ride back to a place where he had changed his coat and in so doing had dropped a ring he valued, and which, by the by, he managed to find. So Linckh and I, though I felt very unwell with a bilious attack, had to stop in and receive our visitor. He was very polite, and his manners really very fine. He told us he had been with theambassador at Vienna and at Berlin, and spoke a few words of German, which enchanted Linckh. He presently remarked that I seemed unwell, and I told him that I was bilious, and had a pain in my head; whereupon he took hold of my temples in his right hand, while an old Turk who sat near doubled down his little finger and repeated a charm, which he began in a whisper and finished aloud, leaning forward and pronouncing something like 'Osman Odooâ€”oâ€”o.' Then he asked me if I was better; because if I was not he would double down his next finger and the next till he came to the thumb, which he said was infallible. This prospect seemed more than I could quite bear; so I thought best to sacrifice my principles, and said 'Yes, I was,' to get rid of the matter, but I was not.

Some Greeks came and joined in our conversation. Really, if one had not some pity for their condition, one could not suffer them, their manners are so odious. Nevertheless, as they seem to have all the power here and elect their own governor and give him an allowance, the waiwode would not join me in criticising them.

The waiwode continued to be as civil as ever, but I could not help thinking he looked anxiously for presents, and we had none to give him. All I could do was to offer him one of the common little brass English boxes with a head of King George on it, filled with bark. He took it with every expression of delight, but I could see it was put on. We could onlythank him heartily, fee the servants handsomely, and bow ourselves out with the best grace we could assume. He especially coveted a miniature Foster wore of a lady, and this Foster promised to have copied for him and sent him from England; but he could not part with the original. He gave us strong letters of recommendation for Kalamata.

We left early next day. There was an awkward little episode of a box of instruments belonging to Foster, which he missed off a certain sofa. The Boluk bashi had admired them very much. Presently, when the inquiry was made, an officer of the Boluk bashi came in and searched near the sofa, and then suddenly went out. We did the same, and lo! there was the case. And the Boluk bashi looked very disconcerted as we bade him adieu.

We followed the course of the Gyrtinas. These are mountains which on all hands are celebrated among the modern Greeks for the exploits of the Colocotroni[28]and other captains who lived among the hills and maintained a sort of independence of the Turks ever since they have held the Morea. The peasants delight to sing the ballads composed on these heroes, and, exulting in their bravery, forget the horrible barbarities they committed. When Smirke was here the country must really have been in a fearful state of anarchy;and whatever we may say against him, it must be laid at any rate to the credit of Veli Pasha that he has cleared the Morea of banditti. The Colocotroni and the rest of them have had to fly the country and enlist in Church's contingent at Zante.

We spent some time at Megalopolis, and with Pausanias in our hands were able to identify remnants of almost everything he mentions, in especial the spring near the theatre, which only runs part of the year. At Lycosura the ruins are disappointingly modern, and there is not much of them; nothing left of the ancient temple at all. The situation is very fine. Two and a half hours' journey up a stream through woods brought us to Dervine, the boundary of Messenia. Then we crossed the Plain of Messenia, admiring, even in the rain, the mountains, Ithome especially, and at dusk got to a village two hours short of Kalamata. Our agroati did not know the road on, and it was too late to get a guide; but as they told us the road was quite straight we went on in the dark. At the end of an hour we had lost the track; it was pitch black, raining still, and we on the edge of a river in a marsh. There I thought we should have stayed. For four hours we groped about, looking first for the lost path, and then for any path to any shelter. First we tried giving Haller's horse, who had been to Kalamata before, a loose rein and letting him lead the way. At first it promised well, for the horse went aheadwillingly; but the agroati took upon him to change his course, and then we were as lost as ever. We could hardly see each other. Then we sent off the agroati to try and reach a light we could see. He came back with awful accounts of bogs and ditches he had met in his path. Finally, after standing still for a time in the pelting rain, we resolved to reach the light; and so we did, over hedge and ditch and through bogs, and Indian corn above our heads as we sat on horseback, and at length, wet through and wearied, reached a cottage in which were some Greeks. They, however, refused to lead us to any house; for, said they, 'we know not what men ye are.' At last one good man took us into his house and gave us a room, and figs and brandy for supper. We were thankful for anything. He was a poor peasant with a pretty wife and a perfectly lovely daughter.

We got to Kalamata next day, meeting on the way numbers of Mainiotes coming to buy figs &c. in the Messenian plain, all armed. Our baggage had arrived very late overnight. We went to the so-called consul, an agent of the consul at Patras, and sent the letter of recommendation of the Waiwode of Caritzena to the Waiwode of Kalamata; but he took no notice of it, and did nothing whatever for us, so we had to find a house for ourselves. We pitched upon a lofty Turkish tower commanding the city, with a very rotten floor which threatened at any moment to let us throughfrom the second storey to the base. The only way up to our room was by a crazy ladder. The shutters were riddled with bullets. Some time before there had been a grand engagement between this tower and the cupola of a neighbouring church, where some Mainiotes in the service of one of their great captains, a certain Benachi, had defended themselves. Kalamata seems to be a constant scene of fights between the party of the Bey appointed by the Porte, or rather the Capitan Pasha, and the party who want to appoint a Bey of their own, and this is the way they fight, each party from its own tower.

From our tower we made panoramic sketches of the city, but were much interrupted by visitors. Among them came a young Mainiote Albanian officer from Church's contingent, who was here recruiting. He was accompanied by two armed Mainiotes, and said he had twenty more concealed about the town in case of danger. He invited us to come with him into Maina as far as Dolus, where his family lived, a proposal we eagerly closed with, and appointed the next morning."

FOOTNOTE:[28]One Colocotronis, a chief of klephts, attained great influence in the War of Independence.

[28]One Colocotronis, a chief of klephts, attained great influence in the War of Independence.

TRIP TO MAINAâ€”ITS RELATIVE PROSPERITYâ€”RETURN TO KALAMATA. SECOND TRIP TO MAINAâ€”MURGINOSâ€”SPARTAâ€”NAPOLI TO ATHENS.

"The Mainiote border comes to within half a mile of Kalamata, and the neighbourhood of its ferocious population, who are as savage and even braver than the Turks, makes the latter much meeker here than in other parts of the countryâ€”that is, in a general way, for they can be very fierce still on occasions. A ghastly thing happened during our stay. We heard one evening the report of a pistol in the house of the Albanian guard which stood just under our windows. It seemed one of the brutes had shot his brother in a quarrel. Here was a gruesome example under our eyes; and besides I was told all sorts of hideous stories of Mainiote and Albanian cruelties which made my blood run cold, and still spoils all my pleasure in thinking of this barbarous region.

Early in the morning we embarked on a Zantiote felucca, lent us for the occasion, and in an hour and a half reached the opposite coast of the bay, near the ruins of a village, of which we were told that it wasdestroyed and its inhabitants carried off for slaves by the Barbary pirates. Ever since this event the villages have been built farther from the coast. The village of Dolus, to which we were going, is an hour's walk from the shore.

Our friend's brother and a number of other men, all armed to the teeth, met us on the beach and saluted us, as soon as we were recognised, with a discharge of guns and pistols. Then we landed, and set off for the village. A difference in the appearance of the country struck me at once. Instead of the deserted languid air of other parts of Greece, here was a vigorous prosperity. Not an inch of available ground but was tilled and planted with careful husbandry, poor and rocky as the soil was. The villages were neater and less poverty-stricken, and the population evidently much thicker than in the rest of Greece. The faces of the men were cheerful and open; the women handsomer, and their costume more becoming.

Liberty seemed to have changed the whole countenance and manner of the people to gaiety and happiness. Everyone saluted us as we passed along, and when we arrived at Dolus the mother of our entertainer came out with the greatest frankness to meet us. Others came, and with very engaging manners wished us many years, a rare civility in Greece. The boys crowded round, and said Englishmen were fine fellows, but why had we no arms? How could wedefend ourselves? Then they shook their fists at the Turkish shore, saying those ruffians dared not come amongst Mainiotes.

Our host's family had cooked us some chickens. While we were sitting eating them a multitude of visitors, women especially, who had never seen Franks before, came in, gazed, and asked questions. There was a great deal of laughing and talking, but every man was heavily armed. After dinner we went out for a walk and visited some remarkably pretty villages. The name of one was Malta, the others I could not make out; all more in the interior. The churches were very pretty. Each had a tall steeple in the Gothic style with bells, which a boy, proud of his freedom and anxious to show it, running on, would ring as we came up; for, as you know, neither bells nor steeples are allowed by the Turks. We saw a new tower, the tower of the beyzesday, or captain of the Mainiotes, armed with two thirty-pounders which had been given him, and though not very solidly built, standing in a fine position. We were told that all these towers are provisioned for a siege, and one of those near Kalamata has food for five yearsâ€”not that I believe it. All slept together, ten of us covering the whole floor of a tiny room.

We went back in the morning to Kalamata, leaving behind us our host. He had been warned by letter from Kalamata not to go back there, forreports had been circulated by the Turks that he was gone to Maina to raise recruits and he would probably be arrested if he landed.

We had been so interested with our glimpse of the free Greeksâ€”the Greeks who had always been free from the days of Sparta, who had maintained their independence against Rome, Byzantium, the Franks, Venetians, and Turksâ€”that we longed to see more of them; and the reports we heard of a temple near Cape Matapan gave us hopes of a return for the expense of an excursion. We therefore agreed with a certain Captain Basili of Dolus, owner of a boat, that he should take us to Cyparissa and protect us into the interior. Meanwhile we went home to get our baggage &c. As we rowed along the shore a storm hung on Mount Elias, rolling in huge coils among the high perched villages, and the awful grandeur and air of savage romance it gave to the whole country whetted our appetites to the utmost.

When we landed at Kalamata, however, a dispute about payment for the present trip led us to refer to the consul for a settlement, and incidentally to our telling him our plans. As soon as he heard them he objected vigorously. The man we had engaged was, he said, a notorious murderer; it was well known that he had assassinated a certain Greek doctor for his money when he was bringing him from Coron, and he might do the same for us on the way to Cyparissa.It would be better if we insisted on going into Maina to write to a certain Captain Murgino at Scardamula and put ourselves under his protection. As he was one of the heads of the Mainiote clans, and a man of power, he would be able to guarantee our safety.

As this advice was supported by a French gentleman of Cervu, a Monsieur Shauvere, who seemed to be reliable, we took it, and wrote that same evening to Murgino; but the first engagement had to be got rid of, and that was not so easy. Whatever his intentions had been, the boatman from Dolus thought he had made a profitable engagement, for he demanded 50 piastres indemnity, first for expenses incurred and next for the slight. He threatened to attack us on the way if we ventured to engage another boat. Finally we agreed to refer the dispute for settlement to the Albanian Mainiote, our late host.

We received an answer from Murgino to say that we should be very welcome, and that he would send a guard to meet us four hours from his house.

We accordingly set off in the evening to go by land, and arrived at night at a village called MandiniÃ©; and there we had to sleep, for the road was too breakneck for us to go on in the dark. Our host was exceedingly hospitable, and gave one a good impression of the free Greeks.

Early in the morning we went on to Malta, andmet four of Murgino's men come to meet us. We also fell in with the young captain or chieftain of Mainiotes on his way to Kalamata. He had a guard of eight or ten men, all armed and handsomely dressed, their hair trailing down their backs like true descendants of the Spartans, who combed their long hair before going into battle.

As regarding the origin of the name Malta, it may be called to mind that the Venetians during their occupation mortgaged part of the Morea to the Knights of St. John, and this may have been one of their fortresses.

Having hired mules to carry our luggage, as the road is too bad for horses, we proceeded to Scardamula, a distance of 1Â½ hour. There we were rejoined by my servant Dimitri, whom I had sent on to arrange the affair of Captain Basili, the Dolus boatman. He had found the man in a state of exasperation, refusing to accept any accommodation, saying it was an affair of honour, and vowing that we should pay in another way. The wife and mother of the Albanian officer, dreading his resentment, had hung terrified on his (Dimitri's) arm, assuring him that we should be assassinated on the road. He himself arrived hardly able to speak with terror and pale as paper.

We did all we could to inspire him with a little courage, both natural and Dutch. First we appealed to him as a man to show a good face, and for thesecond we gave him a good and ample dinner, and, relying on our guard and on ourselves, set out.

But before starting we begged our Albanian friend to come, if he could, next day to Scardamula, bringing Captain Basili with him, and the dispute should be referred to Captain Murgino for arbitration.

The path to Scardamulaâ€”for there was nothing in the shape of a roadâ€”was now so difficult that we had to get off; and, even so, it was to me perfectly wonderful how the mules ever got along. There was nothing but rock, and that all fissured and jagged limestone, but they climbed over it like goats.

The situation of Scardamula is infinitely striking. At the gate of his castle Captain Murgino waited to receive usâ€”a fat, handsome old man.

At the first our rather strange appearance seemed to put him a little out of countenance, and he received us awkwardly although kindly; but after a time he appeared to regain confidence and became very cordial. 'Eat a good supper,Ingles archi mas' ('my little Englishman'), he said to me, and gave me the example. He talked freely on the political state of Maina. He owned and regretted that the Greeks had no leader, and said he trusted that would not long be wanting, and that shortly the great object of his desires would be realised; but what that object was he would not explain. It might be an invasion of the Morea by the English, seconded by a nativeinsurrection which he would take a leading part inâ€”or what not; but he was careful to give me no hint.[29]His son was absent at a council of the [Greek] chiefs at Marathonisi.

The next morning we walked about his lands, which were indescribably picturesque. His castle stands on a rock in the bed of a river, about a quarter of a mile from the bank. It consists of a courtyard and a church surrounded by various towers. There is a stone bench at his door, where he sits surrounded by his vassals and his relations, who all stand unless invited to sit. The village people bring him presents, tribute as it were, of fruits, fowls, &c. On a lofty rock close by is a watch-tower, where watch is kept night and day. The whole gave us a picture of feudal life new and hardly credible to a nineteenth-century Englishman.

Behind the tower the mountains rise precipitously, and culminate in the Pentedactylonâ€”a prodigious mountain of the Taygetus range.

Murgino made us an estimate of his dependents. He has about 1,000 men, over whom he has absolute authority to call them out or to punish them as he thinks fit. A few days before we came he had had an obstreperous subject, who refused to obey orders,executed. Moreover, he showed a well in which he said he put those from whom he desired to extort money. When times are hard and the olives fail he makes war upon his neighbours, and either robs or blackmails them. The old man assured me that one winter they brought back from 1,000 to 1,500 piastres, from 50l.to 80l., a day.

Such was our host and his surroundings.

As I told you, our object was to examine some remains we had heard rumours of, especially of a Doric temple said to exist in the southern part of Maina, and, by all we could hear, in a tolerable state of preservation; but when we saw the tremendous preparations made by our good captain we found the enterprise beyond all our calculations or means. He declared he could not ensure our safety without his own attendance with a guard of forty men at the least. At this we thought it best, however regrettable, to retire before the expenses we should incur should embarrass us in our return to Athens. So we only stayed two days with Murgino, and then returned to Kalamata.

As you may suppose, I was very sorry to lose an opportunity of perhaps making another discovery of importance, but even as it was I did not regret to have made the visit into Maina. In no part of Europe at any rate, if indeed of the world, could one find such singular scenes or come upon a state of society soexactly like that of our ancient barons. The character of Murgino himself was a study. He was very hardy, bold, vigorous in mind and body, used from a boy to battle with all kinds of reverses.

His father was driven out of his home by the Turks, who brought several frigates and regularly laid siege to Scardamula. He escaped, but he was afterwards taken and hanged at Tripolizza. Murgino himself escaped to Coron, where, however, he was discovered and put in chains. A friendly priest brought him a file, wherewith he effected his escape to the house of the English consul, and was by him protected. He then took service on board a French privateer, and wandered into various parts of the Levant. After some time he reappeared at Scardamula, took possession of his father's castle, and became one of the captains or leaders of the Mainiotes. Then the Turks returned and surrounded him a second time. With a few followers he cut his way through and escaped to Zante. Some months later he came back once more, to find a neighbour had seized his possessions. He collected friends and laid siege to him. His rival was, fortunately for him, killed by a stroke of lightning during the siege, and Murgino came into his own again. But he did not hold it long in peace. He was again attacked by the Turks in force. This time he shut himself in the castle with 62 Greeks, who swore to die rather than yield.For forty days they held the place with muskets against artillery, till all his powder was spent and his towers in ruins. Then he sent a message to the enemy to say that if they would give him two cannon and some powder he would hold the castle a year. Having soothed his mind with this taunt, he prepared to escape to the mountains. First he sent his wife off by night, and then followed with the few survivors of his men, and contrived again to get to Zante. It is characteristic of the man that when he learnt that his son was hanged he called, as he told me, for another glass of rum, saying 'Che serve la melancolia?' Among the ruffianly crew who loafed about the place he pointed me out one or two of the poor fellows who had remained hidden in the hills when he went to Zante. Some had lost a toe or a finger in the frost; others had been maimed in the siege. One youth in particular he indicated, saying 'This fellow's father was a fine fellow; he was crushed in the falling of one of the towers!' Every one had a history.

Somehow, before we parted, I had got to feel a sort of affection for this ruthless cateran. He had an uncommonly open frank manner, he was certainly clean, and he had an air of natural superiority which it was difficult to resist.

I should not have written so much about this if I had not thought it the most interesting part of the tourâ€”butit had not, I admit, much architectural instruction to offer.

From Kalamata we went to Sparta, over a rugged and picturesque road, along the brink of precipices and over the Taygetus. Some time ago it was infested by banditti,[30]and so it still is on the borders of Maina. We arrived late at a small village near Mistra. The road, which passed among overhanging rocks and a wild and fantastic scenery, the effect of which was heightened by the moonlight, was so stony and rugged that we were obliged to walk by far the greater part of the way. Sometimes the shepherds on precipices above us would call out, 'What men are ye?' And we answered, 'Good men.' There was no step of the road that had not its annals of murder or robbery. One of our party, to cheer us, sang us the great deeds of a certain Captain Zaccani, who had been something between a highwayman and a patriot not many years back, infesting this part of the country.

Sparta, I need not tell you, was strong only in its inhabitants. It stood, as no other Greek city did, in a plain. There are no remains. Its present inhabitants, far from being independent, are the most oppressed, the meanest and the stupidest of the Greeks. We stayed only three days for Haller, who hadvarious drawings to make, and then rode from Mistra to Tripolizza in one day. Haller had had a fall from his horse on the way which had strained him a good deal, so we had to stop three days there also. It is the capital of the Morea, and has a caimacam, whom we went to call upon one evening. It chanced to be during the Ramazan. He was very civil and gave us a bouyuruldu, an order which provided us horses gratis to Athens. The details of the visit were very much the same as those of other official visits. We drank coffee and smoked large pipes surrounded by a crowd of chiouks. The large and well-lighted room was filled with Albanian soldiers lying and sitting in all positions on the floor, and we had to be careful in picking our way through them.

We did not stop longer at Argos or Tiryns than was necessary to verify Gell's description.

At Napoli di Romagna, where we were detained for want of horses, we narrowly escaped the bastinado.

Napoli is one of the chief fortresses of the Morea, and the custom on entering such places is to get off one's horse. Our servant, who knew nothing of this, was cruelly beaten by the guard. When we came up we were told of it by the grooms who looked after our luggage, and conjured by the Panagia and the Cross to dismount as we went in. We, however, thought it unbecoming our dignity, and rode boldly in. The guard, seeing so many hats, was awed and saidnothing; but we could see by the frowns of the bystanders that our presumption was disapproved, and when we complained to the pasha, the head of the janissaries, of the way our servant was mishandled, he took very little notice of us. Generally speaking the Turks in their fortresses are insufferably intolerant and insolent. Our treatment was no inducement to stay, and we made on for Athens as soon as we could. We visited the sacred grove at Epidaurus,[31]the ruins of MycenÃ¦,[32]and stayed one day in Corinth. But we were glad to get to Athens; it was like home to us. For three weeks I had slept with my clothes on, without a bed, and with only one blanket to wrap myself in."

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