Col. William Leake, Travels in Northern Greece (v. 1-4)

§ 3.034 a Hellenic fortress situated on the height already alluded to, which rises from the extremity of the Gulf of Molo, and falls on the opposite side to the channel of Kefalonia. This height is separated from Mount Merovugli by a hollow cultivated with vineyards. Here on the 16th of September, having sailed from Vathy, I pitched my tent, and remained the whole day examining the ruins, or looking over the topographical passages of the Odyssey, while a party of labourers excavated some ancient sepulchres in the valley. There is a ridge in the middle [sketch] of the hollow, which slopes to the sea on either side, terminating to the north in the extremity of the Gulf of Molo, or anchorage of Aeto, and to the south in a small cove named Exo-Aeto, almost the only shelter in the rocky coast of that side of the island; the distance from the one port to the other across the hollow, is less than a mile and a half. A church stands on the crest of the ridge, which crosses the hollow, and along the crest are

§ 3.035 traced the remains of an ancient wall, and of a tower facing towards the harbour of Aeto, or Gulf of Molo. A prolongation of this wall, but without any towers, mounts the steep hill of Aeto on the western side of the hollow, and is connected near the summit with the lower wall of the citadel of an ancient town which occupied the triangular face of this hill, extending downwards to the edge of the hollow, where its lower walls may still be traced; it was thus divided by the wall first-mentioned into two nearly equal parts. Several terrace walls and foundations of buildings are still apparent mi the side of the hill, within the ancient inclosure. On the summit, or acropolis, are the remains of an interior keep, or some other building, consisting of two parallel walls, which inclose a long narrow space containing two ancient cisterns constructed in the usual manner. The wall along the ridge of the hollow appears to hare been made for the purpose of interrupting occasionally the communication between the harbours of Aeto and Exo-Aeto, but chiefly, as appears from the facing of the tower, as a defence on the side towards the Gulf of Molo, from whence a landing was most to be feared, as being easier than on the other side. Another intention of this wall may have been that of protecting the only springs of water which the town possessed: one of these is the source of a torrent which flows to the Gulf of Molo; the other is a well lined with large blocks of stone of ancient workmanship, situated a little on the descent towards Exo-Aeto.

§ 3.036 A little above it, on the rocky aide of the height, there is a sepulchral niche excavated in the rock. The walls of the acropolis on the hill of Aeto are of the polygonal order of masonry, and in some places of a rudeness of construction approaching to the earliest kind. The remains below seem in general to be less ancient. The peasants who work in the vineyards of Aeto very often find ancient coins: generally near the well and tower. My own excavators, however, produce nothing to-day but some coarse beads, remains of pottery, and a few obliterated coins of Ithaca, of which I had already procured others from the peasants in better preservation. None of these remains appear to be earlier than the Roman empire. One of the coins has the head of Ulysses covered with the pileus; on another is the head of Minerva; and on a third, a cock with the legend Ίθακών at length. Although the ancient town which stood at Aeto was of small dimensions, not much more than a mile in circumference, the position was of great importance, as not only commanding the intercourse by land between the two peninsulas which form the island, but as having, by means of its port on either side, a ready communication by sea with both sides of Ithaca as well as with the adjacent coasts and islands. It appears accordingly to have been inhabited in very distant ages. The Cyclopian masonry of some parts of the walls indicates a date prior to the Trojan war, while some of the relics found in the sepulchres, fields, and valley, show that the place was inhabited twelve centuries later.

§ 3.037 Among those remains are two sepalchral stones with single names. The modern path, which now forms the only communication by land from the district of Vathy to the northern parts of the island, touches the shore of Port Molo, and a little beyond it, below the northern walls of the Paleokastro, divides into two, that to the right leading to the monastery of Katara and village of Anoi, the more direct crossing the isthmus of Aeto obliquely, and thence proceeding along the heights composing the western coast to Oxoi. It first passes a church of St. John, which is just below Katara, and from thence continues to the village of Lefka, which is situated among terraces of corn, overhanging the steep and abrupt shore midway between Aeto and Oxoi. Between Aeto and Ai Ianni are some vestiges of the ancient road cut in the rock, and the letters ΟΔ are distinguishable on the face of it. The learned of Ithaca suppose these letters to be remains of the name of Ulysses, and to mark the place where he was bora by the road side, from which circumstance his name is supposed to have been derived. This accident, however, according to the best authorities, happened to Anticleia not in Ithaca, but in Boeotia, and the letters on the rock are more probably part of the word οδός. Sept. 19.—Sail in a small boat from Vathy for Fiikes, the eastern port of Oxoi, but the wind promising to be a fresh maestrale, land in the gulf of Molo, at the foot of Mount Neritum, and proceed on foot to the village of Anoi, by a road deservedly called the Klimaka, or ladder, being excessively steep and rocky; for the greater part of the dis-

§ 3.038 tance it ascends the bed of a torrent, flowing from the summit of the mountain of Anoi, which remains on our left. The village of Anoi stands on the side of this great summit to the eastward, and overlooks an elevated level, if level it can be called, which consists of a labyrinth of rocks, separated by intervals of fertile soil grown with vines. Some of the rocks are needles of ten or twenty feet in height. From the further side of this plain of Anoi, the mountain falls to the sea by a rapid slope, like that by which we mounted. After dining at the village, we descend the mountain on the northern side, by a road which threads its way among the pointed rocks, and enter the territory of Oxoi, which consists of an undulated valley, together with the cultivated slopes of three surrounding mountains, inclosing a triangular space between the three ports of Polis, Frikes, and Afales. The mountain of Anoi rises on the southern side of the basin; the hill of Oxoi, which has a remarkable double summit, incloses it to the westward, and to the north that of Marmaka, which is rocky and barren, and forms a peninsula at the northern extremity of the island. In a lofty situation on the slope of the hill of Oxoi is situated the village of that name, consisting of fifty or sixty houses; and between it and the shore of Afales stands the house of Mr. Nicolas Vretto, whom I met at Vathy, and now find here ready to receive me, according to the kind invitation which he there gave me.

§ 3.039 Among other fine wines of the island my host has a delicate old malmsey, made of currants. These dwarf grapes succeed admirably in Ithaca, though the soil does not resemble that white argil of Achaia and Zante which is there so favourable to them. Here it is a loose, light mould, equally proper for grain, but much intersected with rocks, and stretra with loose stones. These in some places are so numerous as totally to hide every particle of earth, in which case, though the land is useless for corn, it is not ill adapted to vines, the stones being of service to the plant, by keeping the earth moist in summer. In fact, the vines and currants produced in that kind of soil are as good as any. The wine exported from Ithaca in the greatest quantity, is a strong, dry, red wine. The wheat grown in the district of Oxoi is of excellent quality, some particularly, of which Mr. Vretto procured the seed from Kalamo, furnishes bread as good as that made from the grain of that island. But the greater part of the bread consumed in Ithaca is made from a mixture of wheat and barley, raised from mixed seed. This bread is often recommended by the physicians of the Seven Islands to their dyspeptic patients. Sept. 20.—Mr. Vretto conducts me to the antiquities, and other objects which he considers worthy of notice in the district of Oxoi. We first visit at a quarter of a mile to the northward of his house, on the side of the northern summit of the hill of Oxoi, and about half a mile above the sea, a precipice of 25 or 30 feet in perpendicular height, called Kdraka from a little below which flows a

§ 3.040 fountain of the purest water, very cool and copious, even in this season of uncommon dryness. The same vein of water shows itself in other parts of the hill in smaller sources, and waters some gardens belonging to Mr. Vretto, which produce among other fruits, excellent lemons and oranges, sufficient not only for the consumption of the island, which possesses no other gardens, but which are even exported to Arta and Ioannina. Immediately below the gardens is a little bend of the coast, called Perivoli, where boats sometimes anchor. Mr. Vretto’s father attempted to establish a mole here for the convenience of himself and the village, but it was carried away by the sea during the first winter. In forming it, he broke down a fine cave in the cliff above, which an old man who was present at the work describes to me as having had two openings. All this of course is intended to support the pretensions of the Oxoites, to the honour of being the possessors of the rock Corax and fountain Arethusa mentioned by Homer, as well as of the port of Phorcys, on the shore of which was the cave of the Nymphs, with its double entrance. But this situation will scarcely accord with the poet, who indicates a considerable distance between Port Phorcys and the station of Eumaeus. Possibly it may be thought that Frikes is a corruption of Phorcys, and proves the situation of that harbour.

§ 3.041 In that case there would indeed have been a walk for Ulysses of three miles to the station of Eumaeus, supposing it to have been at the Kdraka of Oxoi; not over rocks and mountains, however, as Homer requires, but across the largest plain in the island. As to the name Koraka, it is one not uncommonly attached to a precipice, and I am assured that there is a much higher and more remarkable rock, also called Koraka, near the southern end of the island, and over which there is a cascade. It is said there was formerly a quarter of Oxoi, just above the cliff, named the town of the Korakini. Nothing indeed appears more likely than that Oxoi should have once stood wholly or principally in that situation, from whence it may have been removed from the fear of pirates; for the fountain is now at a very inconvenient distance from the village, and gives the women a painful ascent, after filling their hydriae and water kegs. Oxoi and the neighbouring heights, command a fine view of the southern side of Lefkadha, from the white cliffs of Kavo Dukato or Leucate, to a remarkable hill above Poro, a village so called as standing in the channel of Meganisi. This channel, which is about a mile in breadth, commences a little south of Poro, and extends about four miles to the north of that village. Leucate, upon the extremity of which stood the temple of Apollo Leucatas f, is a long promontory, consisting entirely of perpendicular cliffs to the westward, and falling

§ 3.042 steeply to the eastward, where it shelters from the west a bay named Vasiliko. This bay extends six miles inland from the Cape, and terminates in a curved, beach, where is a river and some Hellenic remains. They mark perhaps the site of Pherae, a place described by Scylax as being opposite to Ithaca. Between Vasiliko and Poro are the harbours of Syvota and Aftelia. Having returned to Mr. Vretto’s house, we proceed south-westward half a mile along the slope of the mountain of Oxoi, and arrive at a little insulated cliff, on the summit of which are the remains of a small ancient temple, now converted into a church of St. Athanasius. Its dimensions within are 21 feet 6 inches by 13 feet 6 inches, and attached to it on the eastern side are the foundations of another smaller edifice, 14 feet 6 inches by 12 feet. The larger has a foundation extending beyond the superincumbent courses, of which, where the ground is lowest, there remain two formed of very large regular blocks, above which is a wall of polygonal masonry, a few feet high, and a foot and a half in thickness. The church (if it ever was finished beyond what at present appears) was formed of rubble and mortar. The smaller ancient building has nothing but the foundation stones apparent. An old priest named Leondio Vretto, who resides in an adjoining house, remembers other remains, particularly a subterraneous apartment, which he calls a φυλακή, or prison.

§ 3.043 The walls of his house and an adjoining building are chiefly composed of ancient blocks. Along the crest of the cliff are remains of a terrace wall, almost destroyed by bushes of prinari growing between the stones; some votive niches of the usual form are seen in the face of the cliff, and at its foot are eight or ten steps cut in the rock; the natives remember the existence of many more. On the level ground beneath, are some rocks cut into the form of door-posts, probably the remains of the entrance of the sacred enclosure, and in the vineyards just below several sepulchres have been found, in one of which was the head of a spear, in another vases. Papa Leondio made me a present of a piece of calcareous stone having an ornament of oak leaves and acorns upon it, which was found in the same place, and probably was a part of the temple. It does not indicate an antiquity higher than that of the Roman empire. Not above 100 yards from this spot to the southward is a fountain called Melanydhro. In consequence of the uncommon drought of the season, it is now reduced to two or three little stagnant pools at the foot of a small cliff, which is about fifteen feet high, and crowned with bushes; in the winter the rivulet which flows from the hollow between the two summits of the mountain of Oxoi falls over the face of the cliff. The name Melanydhro has much the appearance of having been, like Koraka, a modern invention for the purpose of supporting the claim of the Oxoites to the honour of possessing the station of Eumaeus, where

§ 3.044 the μέλαν ύδορ assuaged the thirst of the godlike hog-driver’s cattle, when satiated with the sweet fruit of the oak. The Papas, however, assert that the name is derived from a black mud of a sulphureous smell, which is said constantly to collect itself here, notwithstanding any pains which may be taken to clear it away. The water is now turbid and ill-tasted, but is said to be very good in other seasons. Two or three hundred yards farther, in the same direction, I find in a corn-field a large wrought stone, precisely similar to one which I saw in the ruins of Leucas. It is pierced with two square holes, and seems to have been the architrave of a great door or gate. Just beyond, are the foundations of a large Hellenic wall in the vineyards. The situation is called Σαμικον, apparently an ancient name preserved. A little to the north of this wall a sorus, or coffin, is excavated in the summit of a great insulated rock, and another adjoining rock has two round holes, about nine inches in depth, surmounted by a square excavation of half that depth, in which are four small round holes thus, The largest is 1 foot 3 inches square:— The ancient walls at Samiko crossed the northern end of a long height which terminates to the south at Stavro, where are a few houses, just above the head of the harbour called Polis. The name Stavro is attached also to some other houses on the neighbouring ascent of Neritum. In some modern buildings on the summit of the long height just mentioned, are many ancient blocks and other remains, particularly in a ruined chapel of St.

§ 3.045 Elias, where a sepulchral stone is inscribed with the name ΔΑΜΩΣ. On the descent from the middle of this ridge towards the bay of Polis, is another fountain, now almost dry; from thence we ascend to the brow of the extremity of the mountain of Oxoi, where it overhangs the northern side of the harbour. Here is a small acropolis of the same width as that of Aeto, and about half the length. The wall, which on one side exists in part, is of the rudest kind of Greek masonry. The situation commands a view of the western coast of the island as far as Aeto, and of the channel of Kefalonia with the island of Dhaskalio, which lies immediately opposite to the harbour of Polis. Ancient sepulchres are found in several situations adjacent to Polis, particularly to the southward of the beach at the head of the port, and on the slope of Mount Neritum, beyond Stavro, where not long since a massive gold ring fitting the human finger was brought to light, which is now in the possession of the Prytano, and is engraved in intaglio with the figure of a woman holding a staff.

§ 3.046 the town which stood here was that which Scylax, and more expressly Ptolemy, mention as having borne the same name as the island. That Homer also, in the earliest times of history, had in view the position of Polis as that of the capital of Ithaca might be presumed from that passage of the Odyssey where the poet represents the suitors as lying in wait for Telemachus, on his return from the Peloponnesus at Asteris; for he describes Asteris as a small island in the channel between Ithaca and Samus, where the only island is Dhaskalio, situated exactly opposite to the entrance of port Polis, at a distance of two miles, and therefore perfectly adapted to the purpose of the suitors if the capital and royal residence were at Polis. Indeed, there is no other harbour, nor any other small island, with which the poet’s narrative can be made to accord. It is true that his description of the double port of Asteris does not so well agree with the rock of Dhaskalio, which has no port, and could only have furnished a temporary shelter on the lee side; this, however, may be considered as merely a poetical amplification, and is very different from a misrepresentation of the relative situations of places,

§ 3.047 a kind of error which can seldom or never be imputed to Homer. If the Laertian capital of Ithaca was at Polis, it will follow that the Mount Neium, below which it stood, was the mountain of Oxoi, and its southern summit the hill of Hermes, from which Eumaeus saw the ship of Telemachus entering the harbour; it becomes probable, also, that the harbour Rheithrum, which was under Neium, but not near the city, was in the bay of Afales, towards Perivolio: having derived its name perhaps from the stream which flows from the fountain of Koraka. Such a position for Rheithrum accords perfectly with the Action which the poet represents Minerva to have employed when having assumed the form of Mentes, king of the Taphii, she pretended to Telemachus that Mentes was on his passage from Taphus (now Meganisi) with a cargo of iron, to be exchanged for copper at Temese in Calabria, and that he had left his ship at Rheithrum while he came to the city. It is obvious that the bay of Afales was more in the route from Taphus to Temese than any other harbour in Ithaca.

§ 3.048 By Plutarch, Stephanus, and Istrus of Alexandria, an author cited by Plutarch, we are informed that the proper name of the capital of Ithaca was Alcomenae, or Alalcomenae; that Ulysses bestowed this name upon it from his having been bora on the road near Alalcomenae in Boeotia, and that hence he was sometimes described as Ulysses the Alcomenian. But this name is not found in Homer, and if it ever existed, was probably not so early as the Trojan war, nor lasted so long as the time when Scylax or Ptolemy wrote, but was employed in an intermediate period, beginning from the time, perhaps, when Ulysses was reestablished in his kingdom. A passage in Strabo tends to the belief, that Alcomenae was the town at Aeto, a place where Ulysses may well be supposed to have fixed his residence, for the sake of the advantages of position already noticed. At Polis I conceive to have stood the city of Ithaca, referred to by Homer, as well as by Scylax, and Ptolemy.

§ 3.049 We may readily believe that in every age, η πόλις, or the city, was among the Ithacans the most common designation of their chief town. As natural causes are likely to produce in all ages similar effects, it is probable that the peculiar conformation of Ithaca has always caused it to be divided, as it now is, into four districts; and that those which are now called Vathy, Aeto, Anoi, and Oxoi, are very nearly the same as the four divisions of the island noticed by Heracleon, an author cited by Stephanus. Three of these were named Neium, Crocyleium, and Aegireus, the fourth is lost by a defect in the text. Aegireus was probably the same as the Aegilips of Homer: Strabo, indeed, places Crocyleia and Aegilips in Leucas; but if Neritum was in Ithaca, of which Homer in several passages leaves no room to doubt, there is nothing in the poet which connects Crocyleia and Aegilips with Leucas, and the testimony of Heracleon is opposed to Strabo. In another place Stephanus favours the supposition that Crocyleia was the name of the capital of

§ 3.050 Laertes; but this is obviously inconsistent with the latter having been in the quarter of Neium. On the other hand, Heracleon is adverse to the placing of Crocyleia at Vathy, because he states the unnamed town to have been in the southern part of the island. But where a bearing is concerned, little reliance can be placed upon ancient authority, and if Crocyleia was the second town in importance, as the ancient notices of it seem to show, we cannot but believe Vathy to have been its site. The rugged Aegilips can be nowhere so well placed as at Anoi. But of all the topographical questions arising from the Odyssey, that of the site of Dulichium is the most puzzling, and the same difficulty was felt by the ancient critics. Hellanicus supposed Dulichium to have been the ancient name of the island of Cephallenia: Andron that of one of its cities, which Pherecydes conceived to have been Pale,—an opinion supported by Pausanias. But Strabo insists that Dulichium was one of the Echinades, which were occupied (together with Dulichium ) before the Trojan war by some of the Epeii of Elis, under Meges, grandson of Augeas, who led 300 ships from the Echinades to Troy.

§ 3.051 The opinion of Strabo, therefore, ie in conformity with the poet, and there seems no good reason for doubting that Dulichium was the head of an insular state, which, as well as that of the neighbouring islands of the Teleboae and Taphii, and like some of the islands of Greece in modern times, may have attained by maritime commerce, not unmixed perhaps with piracy, a degree of populousness and opulence, beyond the. proportion of its dimensions and natural resources. Petali being the largest of the Echinades, and possessing the advantage of two well sheltered harbours, seems to have the best claim to be considered the ancient Dulichium. It is indeed a mere rock, but being separated only by a strait of a few hundred yards from the fertile plains at the mouth of the Achelous and river of Oenia, its natural deficiencies may have been there supplied, and the epithets of grassy and abounding in wheat, which Homer applies to Dulichium, may be referred to that part of its territory. But in fact, there is no proof in the Iliad or Odyssey that Dulichium, although at the head of an insular confederacy, was itself an island; it may very possibly, therefore, have been a city on the coast of Acarnania, opposite to the Echinades, perhaps at Tragamesti, or more probably at the harbour named Pandeleimona, or Platya, which is separated only by a channel of a mile or two from τhe Echinades. The Oxeiae seem not to have been included in this little state, for Homer in another place alludes to them under the name of Thoae, a synonym of Oxeiae.

§ 3.052 Sept. 21.—In proceeding to the port of Frikes I observe, near a ruined church of the Panaghia, several ancient blocks of stone carved in furrows, as if for a rustic basement. Here are also two inscriptions, one of which is in Latin. Lake all those found in the district of Oxoi, they are sepulchral, and of the time of the Roman empire. At Frikes are several magazines, and here the Oxoites principally carry on their maritime trade, though the harbour is exposed to a swell when the wind is strong at east, as well as to dangerous gusts from the narrow gorge which communicates with the valley of Oxoi. It is much safer, however, than the open bays of Polis and Afales. Ships generally anchor at Mavrona, on the southern side, or at Limaii, to the north, in preference to Frikes itself. At Mavrona there is a convent of St. Nicolas, and behind it vineyards, on the ascent as far up as Anoi. Having embarked in the Manzera, we beat out of the harbour at noon, soon meet the Maestrale, and quickly pass the port of Kidni, which is at the foot of a steep descent from Anoi. Here are several houses and magazines on its shore, but the harbour, like Frikes, is exposed to danger from the eastward. Having crossed the entrance of the

§ 3.053 Gulf of Molo, we pass a small port to the north-east of Skhino, named Ghidhaki, having an islet of that name before it, then a bare coast, then Filiatro and Sarakiniko, two little bays at the foot of the ridge which separates this coast from the plain of Vathy, and reach Port Lia in time for me to land and visit the fountain, which by the learned of Vathy is supposed to be the Arethusa of the poet. The spring is in a ravine midway between the shore and a long perpendicular cliff which closes the ravine, at a distance of a mile from the sea. This precipice forms the point of junction between Mount Merovigli and a range of hills which follow the eastern and southern shore of the island. In seasons of rain a torrent falls in a cascade over the precipice, and from its foot descends rapidly between slopes covered with vines, corn, and fig trees, and leaving the pigadhi or fountain on its left, joins the sea at port Lia. The fountain is a natural and never-failing reservoir in a cavern, before which a wall has been built with a trough for the convenience of watering cattle. There is every reason to believe that this is really the fountain Arethusa intended by Homer, and that the precipice above it is the rock Corax, which the poet had in view in describing the station of the swineherd Eumaeus. Such a source of water must always have been valuable and celebrated in this thirsty land; the cliff is sufficiently remarkable to have deserved the poet’s notice, and the station of Eumaeus, as I before remarked, was evidently at the southern extremity of the island. It would even seem that the poet alluded to this precipice when

§ 3.054 he represented Ulysses as confirming the assurances which he gives to the incredulous Eumaeus of the approaching return of his master, by perr mitting the swineherd to throw him over the “great rock” if his words should prove false. Near the pigadhi is another smaller cavern, which also contains water. Below them the torrent continues its rapid course to the sea along a narrow glen, where a deep channel in the limestone rock is overhung with the trees which cover all the heights around, and which consist chiefly of lentisk, agnus-castus, myrtle, and holly-oak. The scenery of the Arethusa and Corax is very beautiful, not only in its nearer features, but as commanding a noble prospect of the sea, of the Echinades, and of the coasts of Acarnania and Aetolia, seen through the openings of the woody precipices. The port of Lia is well sheltered from the north by an island, on either side of which there is a convenient access, to the har? hour, and a considerable depth of water near the shore, as in every part of the coast of Ithaca. The island is covered with brushwood, and is upwards of a mile in circumference; it is called Parapigadhi, from its position with respect to the fountain, of which the pure and never-failing supply is as useful to ships as to shepherds. After having doubled the cape of St. John, which is the south-eastern extremity of the island, we sail close under the coast with a pleasant maestrale, and having passed the little harbour of St. Andrew under the southern termination of Mount Merovugli, stand over for Cape Khelia, in Kefalonia. The wind coming afterwards from that shore, we are obliged to beat into the anchorage of Agrili, in the south-eastern angle of the great bay of Samo.

§ 3.055 Sept. 22.—Samos, which has preserved its name ever since the first establishment of a Greek city on this spot, is now nothing more than a street of magazines, situated at the north-eastern extremity of a wide valley which, borders the bay, and which is overlooked to the southward by the great summit called Elato, and by the Italians Mon tenero. Same, or the city of the Σαμαίοι,. as we find it written on the coins of this place, stood on the north-western face of a bicipitous height, which rises from the shore at the northern end of the street of magazines. The ruins and vestiges of the ancient walls show that the city occupied the two summits, an intermediate hollow, and their slope as far as the sea. With the exception of some terraces of olive trees and corn on the northern side of the two Mils, they are entirely covered with wild shrubs, and are connected behind with higher ridges in a similar state, which follow the coast to the southward, as far as the vale of Pronos. On the northern of the two summits are the rains of an acropolis, consisting of the entire circuit of the foundations, and in some places of several courses of masonry of the most regular kind; the stones are fitted together with the greatest nicety, and some which I measured are equal to cubes of 6 or 8 feet.

§ 3.056 All the ground within the citadel, with the exception of a rocky height in the centre, is cultivated with corn, and strewn with fragments of ancient pottery. In the midst of the ploughed ground are the remains of a large cistern built of Roman bricks. On the summit of the southern height stands a monastery dedicated to the άγιοι φανίνης, on one side of which are some remains of a Hellenic wall, which appears to have encircled this summit, thus forming a second but smaller castle. This agrees with Livy, who mentions both the arx major, or greater citadel of Same, and another named Cyatis. Same was considerably smaller than Leucas, its circuit being barely two miles. The south-eastern or upper wall of the city, which united the two citadels, is still in part preserved on the side of either hill; the eastern and western faces of the town walls may also be traced in places, as well as some parts of that side which was parallel to the sea beach; one piece in particular towards the western angle, is of the most regular kind and finest workmanship, being formed of stones exactly equal, with projections in the middle of the face of each stone, and as usual in this kind of masonry, with one narrow course near the ground. In the hollow between the two hills towards the center of the site are many foundations of ancient masonry, and near the western angle of the city some remains of moles, which were probably connected with the maritime wall of the city, project from the beach into the sea; they formed an artificial shelter for vessels, which was very necessary here,

§ 3.057 as the hay, although well adapted to a large modern fleet, was too much exposed for ancient ships. Near the jetties are some shapeless ruins of Roman brick. Some other remains of the same construction, vulgarly called the zecca, or mint, are to be seen at a considerable distance to the eastward of the ancient site, near a metokhi of the monastery; and there is a third ruin of brickwork on the western side of the walls, behind the modern street, which by the apertures in its walls seems to have been a bath. These ruins of Roman construction are the more remarkable, as Strabo, who correctly describes the situation of Same, asserts that in his time there remained only a few vestiges of the city. It would seem that Same, like many other Greek cities, revived after the time of Augustus, and that the existing remains belonged to buildings of a subsequent date. Many sepulchres have been discovered in the cultivated fields adjacent to the ancient site, as well as near the Mint, where in particular an old monk of the metokhi remembers two gold coins to have been found. The solidity and finished construction of the existing specimens of the Hellenic walls of Same seem worthy of a city which stood a siege of four months against the Romans under the consul M. Fulvius Nobilior, in the year 189 B.C..

§ 3.058 I have already hinted that the northern height seems to be the major arx, or chief citadel, noticed by Livy on that occasion, and the height of the Fanendes that named Cyatis. Fulvius, after having reduced Ambracia and Aetolia, had passed over into Cephallenia, and received hostages from its four cities, when the Samaei, suddenly changing their conduct, shut their gates against the Romans. The siege was remarkable for the diligence with which the besieged retrenched their walls as quickly as they were demolished, and for the vigorous and frequent sallies by which they interrupted the operations of the enemy. In these sorties, their most effective opponents were 100 slingers of Achaia, who having been habituated from their youth to exercise, with pebbles found on the beach of Aegium, Patrae, and Dyme, had acquired a greater skill in their art, even than the slingers of the Balearic Islands. When at length the besieged had become weakened by fatigue and loss of men, the Romans scaled the Cyatis during the night, and from thence penetrated into the agora, upon which the Samaei retired into the larger citadel, and the next day surrendered and were enslaved. The ruins of Same command a good view of the western side of Ithaca, and the outline of the four natural divisions of the island, Oxoi, Anoi, Aeto, and Vathy, is particularly well marked from hence. The valley of Same is about 3 miles in width at the sea, and 5 or 6 in length from north to south.

§ 3.059 Above the latter extremity, in a lofty situation, stands the village of Kulurata, under Mount Elato, and there are several other small villages on the heights around the plain. The whole forms the district of Samos; it produces chiefly corn and olives. A brook, now dry, which rises in Mount Elato flows through the middle of the plain into the bay. According to Strabo, the ancient appellation of this great mountain, which is so lofty as to be visible at sea, together with Aetna in Sicily, was Aenus; and he adds, that upon it stood a temple of Jupiter Aenesius. A few years ago, an accidental fire, like that which happened in Mount Parnes, destroyed a great part of the woods of fir, from which Mount Elato derives its modern name. The bare stems are now conspicuous monuments of the misfortune. Having with difficulty procured a mule and two asses, I depart from Samo for Argostoli at 3.30, p.m.; we cross the plain in its widest part, and arrive in an hour at the village of Pulata, situated on the slope of the range, which is a continuation of Mount Elato, and occupies the whole length of the island, beginning southward at Cape Skala, and approaching the northern coast near Aeso; from whence it is prolonged northward in the form of a long promontory, which lies parallel to Ithaca, and terminates at Cape Viekardho, opposite to Cape Dukato in Lefkadha.

§ 3.060 After passing Pulata, we ascend the ridge slowly through bushes and rocks by a very rugged path, and arrive a little after sunset at the summit, from whence there is a fine view of both sides of the island. To the west appears the great bay and the town of Lixfiri. Argostoli and its harbour are hid by a round mountain in face of us, which forms a ridge parallel to that of Mount Elato; between them is a rugged valley poorly cultivated, with a torrent at the bottom. To the left of the round mountain, near the head of Argostoli Bay, is seen Livadho, the third town in the island, and having in its dependency 22 villages, with all the ancient plain of the Cranu, whose city occupied a site still called Krania, above the south-eastern angle of the bay of Argostoli. In the middle of the plain of Livadho rises the insulated height of St.. George, crowned with a Venetian castle, now abandoned. Strabo seems to have had a most incorrect idea of Cephallenia, for he states that its circumference was only 300 stades, instead of which it is near 800, and that at the gulf containing the cities of the Cranii and Palenses the island was divided into two parts by an isthmus, so low that it was sometimes covered by the seal. We descend on foot into the head of the valley just mentioned, and then passing over the second ridge, descend again until we arrive at the village of Faraklata, through which passes the road from Argostoli to Asso. Farther to the north, and at no great distance from Lixuri, is Deliklata,

§ 3.061 a village of 500 tufeks, and said to be the most rebellious and disorderly in the island. From Faraklata we continue to descend a road something better than before, but which required a sure-footed mule and a fine moonlight night to make it tolerably safe. On every side are bare rocks, with very little cultivation in the intervals. At length we enter a narrow rocky torrent bed, which emerges at an hour below Faraklata, on a small level on the side of the Bay of Argostoli, opposite the northern end of the town; thence proceed along the sea side to a ferry opposite the southern end, which we cross at 9. The only place of amusement either at Argostoli or Lixuri is a Casino at each of those places, where the people meet, drink coffee, and play. There is little society on account of the family enmities. The houses of Argostoli have in general only one story, on account of the earthquakes, to which this island has the reputation of being more subject than any of the surrounding countries; the lowest part of the wall is of stone, and the upper of wood, and the stone-work contains a framing of wood, in order that the house may stand even if the earthquake should throw down the stones. The town is very irregular, and in the outskirts are a great number of miserable cottages. The fences of the surrounding gardens and fields are chiefly composed of American aloes.

§ 3.062 Sept. 24.—The walls of the Crann are among the best extant specimens of the military architecture of the Greeks, and a curious example of their attention to strength of position in preference to other conveniences, for nothing can be more rugged and forbidding than the greater part of the site. The inclosure, which was of a quadrilateral form, and little, if at all, less than three miles in circumference, followed the crests of several rocky summits, surrounding an elevated hollow which fells to the south-eastern extremity of the Gulf of Argostoli. This extremity served for an harbour to the city, and may perhaps have been so narrowed by moles from either shore as to have formed a closed port. The highest of the mountains just mentioned is that which rises in fece of Argostoli to the east. There are few or no remains of the town wall along the crest of this mountain, which formed the north-western fece of the city; but from its inland extremity commences the northeastern fece, through the whole of which the lower parts of the walls and towers are extant, and in the middle the principal gate of the city in a similar state of preservation, retired within the line of the walls, and having a quadrangular dromus before it like that of Plataea, about fifteen yards square. The south-eastern and south-western fronts of the city are in some parts, particularly towards the south, equally well preserved; at the extremity of the latter the wall descends the heights abruptly, and terminates at the head of the bay of Argostoli, near a marshy piece of ground, and some copious springs there issuing from the foot of the rocks. This south-western height had a double inclosure at the summit, but which can hardly be called an acropolis, as this is the lowest of the hills. At the eastern angle there seems also to have been an inclosure or citadel.

§ 3.063 The gate in the middle of the north-eastern side led immediately into the elevated hollow already mentioned, which is grown with olives, and is watered by a torrent from the eastern summit, which, meeting another from the northern, flows to the harbour. The walls of the north-eastern front are a complete specimen of the second or polygonal species of masonry. A foundation stone in one of the towers is twelve feet long, eight feet high, and thick in proportion. On the south-eastern and south-western faces some of the masonry is more regular. On the outside of the north-eastern face, near the eastern angle, are the remains of a wall built at a right angle to the inclosure of the city, and stretching from that wall to a brook at the foot of the height, thus effectually obstructing the passage of an enemy along the foot of the walls, and obliging him to make a great circuit. At Crania, as in other Hellenic fortifications, the beautiful masonry of the walls was only a facing, all the middle of the work, amounting to a third of the thickness, having been formed of rough stones and mortar. Not a vestige of any foundations, either constructed or excavated, is to be seen among the rugged rocks within the inclosure, a remark which I have had occasion to apply to several other ancient sites of great extent, and of the same rocky kind, and which seems to show that the chief intent of these extensive inclosures was to secure the inhabitants, cattle, and property, of the whole district in moments of danger, and that they were very partially occupied in times of tranquillity. The mode of warfare of the Greeks, and the tenor of their history, support this opinion.

§ 3.064 Sept. 25.—Sail to Lixfiri in company with the commandant of the Russian garrison and our vice-consul, Mr. Victor Karydhi. Dine with the prytano, and visit the Paleo-kastro, which is now nothing but a small height rising immediately from the side of the bay, about a mile and a half to the north of the town. It is formed of the same kind of white soil as the Castle-hill of Zakytho, and is cut into gullies by the rain in the same manner. In such a soil it is not to be expected that we should find many remains of antiquity; accordingly there is nothing left but a receptacle for a single body, excavated in the upper part of a great rock on the summit of the hill, and a well or cistern, which is also cutout of a vein of rock. In the fields, however, at the foot of this height, near the sea, many ancient squared blocks are scattered about, and there is a wall which, although built of loose stones and mortar, appears once to have had a Hellenic facing. An old man whom I meet, remembers to have seen an inscription found here, with the word Παλειών on it, which was carried to Venice. At a casino several large wrought quadrangular masses have lately been dug out and carried away for use: and half-way between this place and the town are some fragments of small Doric columns and an inscribed comice, which were found in excavating the foundations of a chapel.

§ 3.065 A little nearer the town there is a catacomb, and close by it three receptacles, like the one before-mentioned, excavated in the summit of a great rock. These are now the only remains of Pale aboveground, but the name in the slightly-corrupted form of Palio still remains attached to the plain, which extends about ten miles in circumference around Paleokastro, and the whole Peninsula, as far as the western coast and Gulf of Asso, is called Paliki, which, being purely Hellenic, is sufficient with the name of Palio, and the vestiges of antiquity on and around the hill of Paleo-kastro, to fix the latter for the site. of the ancient Pale, or city of the Παλείς, or Palenses, for such appears to have been the local form of the name, which varies greatly in the printed authorities. Paliki is now divided into two districts Anoi and Katoi. The plain of Palio has a white argillaceous soil, similar to that of Zakytho, and consists chiefly of currant plantations fenced with aloes; there are several wind-mills in it. The town of Lixuri is more irregular than that of Argostoli, the streets dirtier, the houses of the rich more mean, and the poorer cottages more numerous. A muddy rivulet crossed by two small bridges, traverses the middle of the town. It is reckoned more populous than Argostoli, and the situation more healthy, which may easily be imagined as it is well ventilated, and has none of that shallow water and marshy ground which are at the head pf the Bay of Argostoli: the inhabitants are for the most part seamen.

§ 3.066 The island of Kefelonla is divided into eighteen districts. The population is about 60,000. The exports in the order of quantity are currants, wine, oil, cheese, barley, caroubs, oats, oranges and lemons, honey, melons, cibibo, madder, liquorice, squills, and aloes. Among the productions are also maize and wheat, but not more than sufficient for the consumption of two or three months; with some cotton and flax, used in the manufacture of coarse stuffs, and a small quantity of coarse blankets and capots made from the wool of the island. The seafaring population, including fishermen, amounts to near 3,000. The soil is rocky in the mountainous districts, and stony even in the plains; but the productions are generally good in their kinds, particularly the wine, of which the island would be capable of producing a great variety and quantity, if there were more care and intelligence in the cultivation and manufacture of it. Want of water is the great defect of the island. There is not a single constantly flowing stream: the sources are neither numerous nor plentiful, and many of them fail entirely in dry summers, creating sometimes a great distress. The ancient writers notice only four cities in Cephallenia, of three of which Ι have already described the sites: the fourth, Proni or Pronesus, is shown by Polybius to have been opposite to the western extremity of Peloponnesus, and small, but strongly situated. Its remains are found not far above the shore of Limenia, a harbour about three miles to the northward of Cape Kapri.

§ 3.067 But besides these four cities, all which were of sufficient importance to coin their own money, it appears, from several Hellenic names still existing, that there were some other fortresses or subordinate towns in Cephallenia. The position of Asso, on a peninsula commanding two harbours, concurs with the evidence of a piece of Hellenic wall in the modern castle, to show that here stood a fortress named Assus. On the same coast, to the southward, at the north-western extremity of the peninsula of Paliki, the harbour of Aterra indicates an ancient site by its name, which differs only by a slight dialectic variation from Atella, a known name. Farther south, on the coast of the same peninsula, Tafio, where many ancient sepulchres are found, is the site apparently of Taphus, a Cephallenian town, noticed by Stepbanus. Towards the opposite side of the island Rakli and Orisso, or Erisso, have every appearance of being aneient names. Rakli, which lies between the north-eastern side of Mount Elato and the maritime ridge, seems to indicate that there was anciently a Heraclia in that valley, and Erisso, that the long narrow peninsula so named at the northern extremity of the island, contained anciently a town of Erissus. The port of Viskardho is evidently the Panormus, which an epigram of Antipater of Thessalonica describes as being opposite to Ithaca, and which Artemidorus, by attributing

§ 3.068 to it a distance of twelve stades from that island, shows to have been in this strait. The convenience of this harbour, at the narrowest part of the entrance of the channels of Ithaca and Leucate, has in all ages rendered it valuable. On a former journey Ι observed there some remains of Roman ruins near the shore, and there would seem, from the ancient authorities which I have cited, to have been a temple of Apollo on the point which shelters the northern side of the port, corresponding to a similar temple on the summit of Leucate. In the time of Strabo, Cephallenia was inhabited by the ex-consul Caius Antonius Nepos, uncle of Marcus Antonius, when he was exiled from Italy. The whole island obeyed him as if it had been his private property, and he projected the building of a new city, but being recalled from banishment, and dying soon afterwards, his intention was never executed. Pale, Pronus, and Crania were then small, and Same a mere ruin.

§ 3.069 CHAPTER XXIII.CYTHERA, AEEAN ISLANDS SEPT. 30.—We anchor this evening at Kapsali, in Cerigo, after having encountered off the Taenarian promontory some stormy weather, which threatened to send us to the coast of Africa. It was in consequence of an adverse gale in the same place and at the same season that I had the misfortune, in company with Mr. Hamilton and the late Lieut. Col. Squire, to be shipwrecked at Avlemona, in this island.

§ 3.070 Oct. 1.—Remain at the port in my tent, and receive our vice-consul Calucci, to whose kindness on that occasion we were extremely indebted. In the evening we walk up to the town together, and attend a baptism at the house of Mr. Mormori, the Russian vice-consul, the Prytano George Arvanitaki, of Zante, standing godfather. This Prytano is well spoken of by the Cerigotes as disinterested, liberal, and impartial. The pay of Prytano is 90 dollars a month, that of Legislator 80 dollars, of a Senator 60. The Prytano keeps a table for aides-de-camp and secretaries, for which he has no allowance. The garrison of Cerigo now consists only of two Russian officers with one company, and a few Albanians, chiefly Suliotes. The obscurity of the history of Greece during the middle ages, renders it impossible to trace the modern appellation of this island to its origin. It is almost the only instance of a Sclavonic name in the Greek islands. Tzerigo was perhaps a Servian chieftain, who obtained possession of Cythera when the Σκυθαι Σκλάβοι, or barbarians of Sclavonic race settled in the Peloponnesus in such numbers that a name of Sclavonic origin has ever since remained attached to the peninsulal. Tapfyoc, in Italian Cerigo, contains about 50 villages and 7000 inhabitants: in the town there are scarcely 1000. The most fruitful parts are the plains of Mylopotamo and Livadhi; the latter, which I formerly crossed on my way from Avlemona to the town, consists of vineyards and corn fields, interspersed with olive and other fruit trees, as well as with villages, single houses, and labourers’ huts. The town of Cerigo stands on a narrow ridge 500 yards in length, terminating at the south-eastern end in a precipitous rock, crowned with a castle which is accessible only on

§ 3.071 the side towards the town, by a steep and winding path, but is commanded by a conical height at the opposite end of the ridge. The town is enfiladed by a battery of three guns in the castle, which was erected or repaired by the French when they took possession of the Venetian Islands. In the north-western height, which is composed of a bluish calcareous stone, the most common rock in the island, are some hard argillaceous veins, noted for containing numerous bones perfectly resembling the natural bone, except that the place of the marrow is filled with pellucid crystals. The people of Cerigo long believed, and most of them probably still believe, that these bones are human; but anatomists have pronounced some jaw bones and teeth which have been found among them, to have belonged to a species of deer. Another kind of limestone which is brought to Cerigo from Candia, for the purpose of being pounded and mixed with the new wine, contains petrified fish, very much resembling those of Mount Libanus. Heraclides Ponticus describes the people of Cythera as laborious, and lovers of money, and the island as productive, particularly in honey and wine. The character of the people is the necessary consequence of the rocky soil on which they dwell. Although the productions, like those of some others of the dryest islands, as Kefalonia and Zia are good in their kinds, their quantity, with the exception of honey and wine, is seldom more

§ 3.072 than sufficient for the consumption of the inhabitants. There is nothing, therefore, to attract commerce to Cerigo, and the people have very little of that carrying trade which has enriched some much more barren rocks. As in Zakytho and Kefalonia, many of the men obtain subsistence abroad as agricultural labourers, not however in general like the natives of those islands, on the neighbouring continent, but in Asia Minor, where they cultivate the Turkish lands, and gather madder in the mountains. By these means they often bring back a few purses to their native island, and are enabled to buy some land here. Beef is scarcely ever eaten, as there are no more oxen in the island than are required for the plough. Pork and mutton, hares and quails, of which there is a great quantity in the autumn, are the principal meats; the consumption of which is much economized by the 150 fast days of the Greek calendar. The island is very subject to earth-quakes; several occurred last July. The situation of the modern town of Cerigo so much resembles that of the generality of ancient sites in the islands of the Aegaean, and the harbour although not good with reference to ancient navigation, was so important by its position on the line of maritime communication between the eastern and western coasts of Greece, that one cannot but presume that the modern site was occupied by some ancient town or fortress; but there is some difficulty as to the name. We learn from Thucydides that the island contained three cities: namely, the maritime city of the Cytherii, the upper Cythera

§ 3.073 which was near it, and thirdly Scandeia, which had a harbour, and was in a part of the island distant from the two former places. In the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians undertook an expedition against this island with 60 triremes, 2000 hoplitae, some cavalry, a body of Milesii, and a few others of the Athenian allies, the whole commanded by Nicias and two other generals. While a detachment of 2000 Milesii and 10 ships captured Scandeia, the remainder proceeded to the shore opposite to Cape Malea in Peloponnesus, and having debarked, marched to the maritime city of the Cytherii, who met the invaders, but having been defeated, retired to their upper city, where they capitulated to Nicias on the sole condition that their lives should be spared. The Athenians then took possession of Scandeia, left a garrison in the city Cythera, and proceeded against Asine, Helos and other maritime places in Laconia. At Paleopoli, about three miles inland from the port of Avlemona, are the ruined walls of an ancient town, and as the situation is not far from the Cape of Cythera opposite to the promontory of Laconia, which is still named Malea, it seems evidently to have been the upper Cythera intended by Thucydides, in which case it cannot but follow that

§ 3.074 Avlemona was the site of the maritime Cythera. From Xenophon there is reason to believe that this lower town was also called Phoenicae, for in describing an expedition similar to that of Nicias, which was undertaken by Conon and Pharnabazus in the Corinthiac war, the historian relates that when the fleet anchored at Phoenicus, the Cytherii abandoned their city, and that Conon, having sent them over to Laconia, strengthened the walls of Cythera and left an Athenian garrison in it. This happened in the year B.C. 393, in the spring succeeding the naval victory of Conon at Cnidus, and the eame year in which the Long Walls of Athens were rebuilt. The name Phoenicus was obviously derived from that Phoenician colony which, according to Herodotus, imported into Cythera the worship of the Syrian Venus, by the Greeks sumamed Urania, and whose temple (described by Pausanias as the most ancient and holy of all those, dedicated in Greece to Aphrodite) stood in the city of the Cytherii. The whole circuit of Cerigo being very deficient in harbours, there is no point on the coast at which it is so probable that the Phoenicians should have landed, as in the sheltered creek of Avlemona.

§ 3.075 And the appearance of the ruins at Paleopoli, which I examined on my former journey, is equally in agreement with the remote antiquity of the town, which may be inferred from that of the temple. Every circumstance, therefore, in the transactions related by the historians favours the supposition that Paleopoli was the site of upper Cythera, and Avlemona that of Phoenicus or the lower town; and that Scandeia stood at the modern town of Cerigo. Pausanias, however, is directly opposed to this conclusion; for he describes Scandeia as the επίνειον, or harbour of the city which contained the temple of Venus, and as situated only ten stades below it, which leads directly to the conclusion that Cythera was at the modern town; that Scandeia was at Kapsali, and that it was the same place as the lower Cythera—which cannot be reconciled with the historians. The island to the south-east of Cerigo, called Cerigotto by the Italians, is named Lius by the Greeks of Cerigo and the Morea, and by the Sfakhiotes of Crete Seghilio, a corruption or dialectic variation of Αίγιλία, which, as we learn from Pliny and Stephanus, was the ancient name of the island; the former places Aegilia at 15 M.P. from Cythera, and at 25 from Phalasarna in Crete: Lycophron alludes to it under the name of Aegilus There are about 40 families in Seghilio, of whom four are from Cerigo. The island is a nominal dependence of Cerigo, and consequently belongs to the Septinsular state; but there being no garrison, it is in fact in the hands of the Sfakhiotes. It produces good wheat, of which a portion, in favourable years, is sent to Crete: the port is bad, and open to the north. The small island named Porri by the Italians, lying to the north of Cerigotto, is called Prasonisi by the Greeks.

§ 3.076 Oct. 3.—Sail in the afternoon from Kapsali: anchor at night at Furnus, and Oct. 4.—Visit this morning the cavern of Mylopotamo, two miles north of Furnus. It is winding and intricate, with many branching passages, columns of stalactites, and basins of clear water formed by droppings from the roof: in most parts it is very low, and there is no large opening or chamber in any part The village of Mylopotamo is about a mile above it, and is so called from a rivulet which rises there and turns twelve mills: in the present season the water is all consumed before it reaches the sea, but sometimes it forms a cascade through a precipitous opening in the rocks near the cavern. At noon we sail from Furnus, and pass in the evening through the passage between Elafonisi and Cape Mudhari of Cerigo. A little within the latter is Platania, on the site probably of the Platanistus of Pausanias.

§ 3.077 Oct. 5.—After having past Cape Malea, or Malia, we are driven back by a N.E. wind, which is the usual direction here, when the Maestrale blows on the western coast, and anchor in the bay of Vatika, from whence we sail. Oct. 7.—And having again passed Malea and Cape Kamili: Oct. 8.—Find ourselves this morning a little south of Ierakunia, called Falconera by the Italians. Arrowsmith has correctly marked the situation of these rocks as well as those which he calls Ananes and Paximadhi, near the southern extremity of Milo. Those names, however, are unknown to my sailors, who call them Ktinia and Prasonisi. Oct. 10.—Light adverse winds or calms, accompanied with rain having continued to prevail, it is not until this morning that we enter the port of Milo, and anchor near the head of the bay. Land, and visit the hot springs: the hottest is on the sea-beach, a mile from the old town. The ground around them is impregnated with sulphur, as appears by a yellow crust on many of the stones. In the side of a little rocky height above is another hot source in a cavern, and a vapour issuing from the fissures so hot that the water appears less so than it really is. A thick crust of salt is formed on the rocks around, and flakes of salt float on the surface. Turks from the neighbouring continent sometimes come here to take a course of bathing. To the south-east of this height are some saltpans, and a marshy level, in which, towards the hills, stands the khora, or town, once containing 16,000 inhabitants, but now not more than 200 families.

§ 3.078 There are 25 Greek and 2 Latin churches still remaining. The ruins and the naked valley surrounded by white rocky heights, and with scarcely any vegetation except a few meagre date-trees, give the place a most dismal appearance. The air is said to be very unhealthy. In the afternoon I proceed to the village called Kastro, which is situated on a peaked rocky height above the northern side of the entrance of the bay, and lodge in the house of the English vice-consul, Mr. Peter Mikhais, who with many of his relations, and all the richer Miliotes, gain their livelihood as pilots for the Aegaean sea. At the highest point of the village they have a look-out room, where some of them are always on the watch for ships making signals for pilote. They are well supplied with English telescopes, and have good boats, with which they sometimes meet vessels at a distance of 12 or 15 miles from the island. The rule is, that whoever first discovers a ship has a prior right to offer himself as pilot. Milo has now not more than between 2 and 3000 inhabitants, who, in addition to the productions consumed by themselves, raise for exportation, in tolerable years, 2000 kila politika of wheat, and 12 or 14000 of barley, 2 or 300 kantari of cotton, and 1500 barrels of wine. The island would derive also a considerable profit from its mines of alum and sulphur, if the fear of the Porte did not prevent the inhabitants from working them.

§ 3.079 The mines are on the eastern side of the island, near a height which emits smoke, and has every appearance of having been a volcano. The oil produced in the island is seldom sufficient, even in good years, for its consumption. They depend upon their neighbours for cheese, and import a few European articles of household furniture. The men are all dressed in the white cotton cloth made in the island, with the exception of a few of the more opulent, who wear striped cottons from Turkey. The dress of the women is also of Miliote cotton, generally with a red edging or fringe of flaxen lace, which is also home-made. There are a few looms in the island for the making of a coarse woollen cloth. They have few sheep, and oxen only for tillage. The soil is not in general good, the cotton pods are small, and the wheat and barley, though sometimes returning 10 to 1, supply only a dingy disagreeable bread. The island is capable of producing excellent wine, as some specimens prove, both sweet and dry, but little care is observed in the making, and water is generally mixed with the wine before it is offered for sale. The island suffers often from drought, potherbs are very scarce, and there is no fruit of any kind. At the present season grapes are brought for sale from Sifno.

§ 3.080 Oct. 11.—Between the hill of Kastro and the northern shore of the harbour are the ruins of the ancient city of Melus, which seems to have extended quite to the water side, as there are remains of walls and of a round tower on the beach. On the highest part, which is immediately overlooked by the village, are some remains of polygonal walls, and others of regular masonry with round towers. The western wall of the city is traceable all the way down the hill from the summit to the sea: on the east it followed the ridge of some cliffs, but some foundations remain only in a few places. Within the inclosure, on the slope of the hill, are many other pieces of ancient wall, faced with regular masonry, but filled within with rubble and mortar. There is, particularly, a fine angle of the most regular kind, and preserving twelve or fourteen courses, a little eastward of a pointed hill, near the middle, of the site, on the summit of which stands a church of St. Elias, and a small monastery, with a lodging for a single monk. This building occupies probably the site of a small temple, as near it lies a stone which formed one of the angles of a pediment, including part of a Corinthian cornice below it. The stone is 3 ft. 10 in. in length, the same in thickness, and 3 ft. high in the highest part. In a field immediately below this spot are other fragments of the same edifice, among which is a capital of a pilaster of the Corinthian order, 2 ft. 9 in. square at bottom. Here also formerly stood an altar, with ornaments of sculpture, which has since been transported to England. That all the architectural remains belonged to one and the same building can scarcely be doubted, as they are all of Parian marble, with blue veins, and the dimensions of the pediment and cornice correspond exactly to those of the pilaster and column.

§ 3.081 The building seems, therefore, to have been a temple in antis, with two columns in the portico, and having a total breadth in the front of from 15 to 18 feet. On the upper member of the cornice is the beginning of an inscription, showing that the building was erected by one Sabinius, son of Zopyrus. The form of the characters concurs with the Corinthian order in indicating an early period of the Roman Empire. At the foot of the same height, a little to the westward, is a quadrangular foundation of regular masonry, of which, in one part, four or five courses remain, and near it is a cistern in the usual form, lined with stucco. On several parts of the slopes are remains of walls, some of which perhaps, were interior inclosures of defence; others were evidently terraces to support buildings. On the height immediately to the eastward of the ancient city is a village named Τρυπητή, from the small catacombs with which the hill is pierced in every part. Some of these are of very irregular shapes, with narrow passages and niches on each side. They were generally made for three, five, or seven bodies. Some of them have been converted into magazines for straw and corn, and a few into dwellings. Others having passages descending from the entrance, have been converted by the inhabitants into cisterns, which are filled by the rain, or by band, in the winter, and supply water all the summer, each family keeping its cistern locked.

§ 3.082 Kastro depends also for water upon its cisterns, which are of modern construction. The only spring in the vicinity is to the westward of the ancient city, on the sea-side, where is a chapel of St. Nicolas. The water of this source is excellent, which is a great rarity in Milo. Eastward of Trypiti, a narrow valley, which is planted with olives, and gardens, and slopes to the sea, has several sepulchral excavations on its western side, most of which are composed of two chambers, having a niche on each side in the outer chamber, and five niches in the inner, two on each side and one at the end. Of one, which I measured, the outer chamber was 11 ft. Square; and the inner, 16 ft. 10 in. by 12 ft. 1 in.; 7 ft. 3 in. in perpendicular height in the centre, and 6 ft. 3 in. at the walls, the roof terminating in an angle. Another, considerably larger, is open in front; and another, very long and narrow, has only, one chamber, in which are three niches on eaeh side, and one at the end. This valley of the dead terminates at the sea, at the eastern angle of the city, where are the remains of buildings in the water, and the ancient round tower already mentioned. Here also is an ancient mole in the water, and ruins of a modern round tower, now serving for a boathouse. From thence, eastward, a cliff borders the coast, in the face of which are some catacombs near the water's edge, but they are inaccessible, except by sea in a calm, and as it blows a gale to-day, it is out of my power to examine them.

§ 3.083 The labourers in the valley eastward of Trypiti often find coins, small earthen figures, and vases, sometimes with drawings on them. [Since my visit to Milo, a theatre has been discovered, of the existence of which the Kastrites at that time were unconscious, unless for some inexplicable reason they thought proper to conceal their knowledge. But the indifference of the islanders to their antiquities is greater even than that of the continental Greeks; and I should perhaps never have known of the ruins of Melus at all, if I had not observed some indications of them from Kastri. From similar causes they were unknown to Tournefort and Choiseul: the first published account of them was by Olivier, whose work I had not seen.] The Voivoda of Milo is a Sifniote, named Constantine Bagho, who bought the place of the Kapitan Pasha; he collects for his own benefit the customs, kharatj and dhekatia. The latter is a sixth of all agricultural productions, besides which the island pays the kharatj for the ancient population of 16000 inhabitants; but as this is too glaring an injustice, it is customary for the Voivoda to make a present every year to the island of six purses. His annual payment to the Kapitan Pasha is about 25 purses, and he is supposed to gain 6 or 7, which he might greatly increase if he were such an extortioner as many of the Greek farmers of the revenue are, or if he followed the common practice of exciting and profiting by disputes among the inhabitants.

§ 3.084 Oct. 12.—In beating out of the harbour against a west-south-west wind, remains of the western extremity of the walls of the city are visible, where they terminate on the water side, immediately beyond which is the spring of good water before mentioned. At a considerable distance farther westward are some catacombs, a little westward of Turko-vuni, which forms the northern cape of the harbour. The point opposite to the rocks named Arkudhia is called Kidhari, not Lakkidi, as in Arrowsmith's chart. A light S.E. breeze in the night carries us round the north-western end of Sifno, called Sifanto by the Italians, and in the morning we are between that island and Syra. Oct. 13.—The town of Sifno is spread over a large space, or rather is divided into several villages on a mountain, above which, on the highest part of the island, appears a small church, conspicuous at a distance. The town of Syra stands on a peaked height, near the middle of the island, and has a harbour below it on the eastern coast. In steering for Paro, leaving Dhespotiko and Andiparo on the right, Naxia makes its appearance beyond Paro, which differs again from the chart. The same with northern cape of the same island 87 55 The same with the passage between the Arkudhia rocks 123 55 North Cape of Andimilo with Cape Kidhari, which is opposite to the north-easternmost of the Arkudhia. 44 5 The same with the western Cape of Serfo.... 64 46 The same with the eastern Cape of Serfo.... 80 0

§ 3.085 The same with the N.E. of Sifno 97 44 The same with the western end of Kimolo.... 112 38 The approach to Parikia, the chief town of Paro, is dangerous, there being several small rocks far out at sea, and one in particular just above water. A squall of wind with rain drives us before it into the harbour, which is capable only of receiving small vessels; ships are obliged to anchor on the outside of a chain of rocks which border the coast from Andiparo to the northern side of the bay of Parikia. Kyr Mavrogheni, in whose house I am lodged at Parikia, is nephew of a prince of Wallachia, who was beheaded by a Grand Vezir without orders from the Porte, for which his own head followed the prince’s. When interpreter of the Kapitan Pasha, Prince Mavrogheni constructed an aqueduct to supply his native city with water. The town, although not large, nor affording any great appearance of comparative opulence, has an agreeable aspect, as it consists of neat small houses with terraced roofs, surrounded by gardens of oranges and pomegranates, mixed with vines upon trellises. Though dry and well ventilated, without any impediment from neighbouring mountains, it is said to be subject to intermittents in summer. On a rocky height on the sea-side, in the middle of the town, are the ruins of a castle, constructed chiefly of marbles which belonged to some ancient buildings once standing upon the same spot. Remains of one of these are still in situ forming a part of the belfry of a small church.

§ 3.086 Half the cell of a temple remains, built of small quadrangular blocks of Parian marble, with a semicircular niche at the extremity, 10 ft. 2 in. in diameter, having an elegant Ionic frize surmounted with a cornice of eggs; the body of the cell has a cornice of very large eggs and anchors. In the wall of the tower close by some pieces are inserted of a small Doric comice having a plain metope inches broad, as well as other fragments of a Doric edifice, particularly many rows of portions of shafts placed in the wall with the ends outwards. These columns were 2 feet in the upper diameter, and unfluted but polygonal at the lower extremity. Here also are many portions of an architrave, one of which is 18 feet 8 inches long, and 3 feet high, the interval between the guttae 1 foot 8 inches. Another piece of it has an imperfect inscription, containing, together with that of the archon, the name of the person who dedicated the building. Ancient fragments and sepulchral monuments are numerous about the town. On several of the latter the deceased is represented, stretched on a couch having very high legs; underneath the couch the children are seen, and below all is the name. In the wall of a private house a very ancient bas-relief represents a procession of females, each having her hand upon the head of the preceding one; on another, in a still more archaic style, are a man and woman facing each other, and each holding a torch. In the metropolitan church of Parikia, which is a large building surrounded by a quadrangle of cells, are many fragments of ancient architecture, and among them two sepulchral stones, and two

§ 3.087 Ionic cornices. One of these has a double row of eggs and anchors. Several inscribed marbles are found at Parikia, chiefly in the castle and monastery. The island of Paro consists of a single round mountain, sloping evenly to a maritime plain which surrounds the mountain on every side. The plain is well cultivated with corn and vines, as well ae many parts of the mountain itself. The island produces no oil, and, except in a few dispersed gardens, there are no trees of any kind; the largest garden, which belongs to Mavrogheni, is on the shore opposite to Andiparo. In good years there is an exportation of ten or eleven thousand barrels of wine, twelve or fifteen thousand Constantinopolitan kila of barley, and five to seven thousand of wheat. The population is about 6000, of whom Andiparo contains 150, the remainder reside in Parikia and six villages named Aussa, Lefkes, Kosto, Marmara, Tzilidho, and Dragota. The cattle are reckoned to be 14,000 sheep and goats, 1500 oxen, and 900 asses. The annual contribution to the Voivoda is sixty purses, of whioh 1650 piastres are from Andiparo. The island possesses two excellent ports, Aussa, at the north end, and Dryo, to the south-east.

§ 3.088 Oct. 14.—A four-oared boat lands me at the northern end of Andiparo, near the kastro, or castle, which is nothing more than a quadrangle of houses with a gate. It affords, however, some degree of security against a surprise by pirates or lawless seamen, who have ever been the scourge of the Levant: times are rather improved since Malta has been English, and the Maniates have entered into a treaty with the Kapitan Pasha; but the seamen of the Ottoman navy are still very dangerous visitors. Andiparo was formerly much frequented by the Maltese and by piratical vessels, because they could always find shelter on the opposite side of the island to that on which the enemy appeared. From the kastro to the grotto is an hour and half on ass-back. The route crosses a small valley which separates the ridge of kastro from the principal mountain of the island, and which is grown with vines. This is the only produce of the island; the rest of its cultivable land being neglected, as all the working hands except thirty are employed at sea. The celebrated cavern is on the southern side of the mountain, just above a cliff which borders the coast, facing Nio and Santorfn. The entrance is extremely picturesque, but the descent into the cavern not at all agreeable; for the constant humidity renders the sloping rocks, as well as the cord by which the patient holds with both his hands, so slippery, that with all the caution possible, it is necessary for him to trust in great measure to the strength and dexterity of the conductors, who precede and are ready to catch him if he falls. The grot below presents as fine a specimen of stalactitic formation as can be imagined, but is not admirable either for its form or

§ 3.089 dimensions, the length of all that the eye can take in at once, being about 150 feet, the breadth 100, the height 50. A board preserves the names of some of the visitors, among which Lady Craven’s is conspicuous, with those of a multitude of Frenchmen. The memorial which De Nointel left of his celebration of mass on Christmas-day 1673, is not much less defaced by the rapid increase of the stalagmatic surface than the Hellenic inscription, which has been exposed on the outside of the cave for two thousand years longer to an obliterating action of a different kind. The latter memorial could not be decyphered without the assistance of Tournefort’s copy, which he made more than a century ago, with the assistance of a transcript in the possession of a native. Having returned to the village and dined with the Proestos, we row back to Parikia. Oct. 15.—Departing on horseback from the north-eastern end of Parikia at 7.15, I gradually ascend the northern slope of the mountain, through small corn-fields fenced with walls of stone and surrounded by fig-trees, at 8 leave some ancient quarries half a mile on the right in a ravine of the mountain, where great heaps of pelekismata, or chippings of stone, are lying before them,

§ 3.090 and continuing to ascend from thence by a rugged path over rocks of white marble, arrive at 8.25 at the great quarries of Mount Marpessa, which are situated a little below a convent of St. Mina. There are several excavations, from which an immense quantity of marble seems to have been extracted at different times; the largest, which is on the side of the hill below the convent, is about 100 yards long and 25 feet broad, having a branch from the middle to the right, and another from the end to the left, each leading into a chamber, from which almost as much stone has been taken as from the great gallery itself. Of the latter, one side has been excavated so as to form a regular curve, and the other has been left rugged. The marks of the wedges with which the ancients wrought are conspicuous everywhere. On the rise of the opposite hill, but very near the bottom, is another much smaller quarry, where on one side is the sculptured tablet on the face of the rock which Tournefort has described; it is very rudely wrought, though of good design, and has suffered much from time. The tablet is semi-circular, and has two compartments, of which the upper, or curved, is only half the height of the lower. In the middle of the upper is a large human head, horned and

§ 3.091 bearded, and supported upon two short legs; on one side of it is a figure with the horns of a Pan and the belly of a Silenus, sitting cross-legged; on the other are some small full-length figures. In the lower compartment a female is seated, having her hair arranged in the Egyptian or archaic Greek style, and bearing in her lap a smaller figure very indistinct; a young man stands before the chair turning his face towards the goddess, and holding up one arm; behind him are three females in procession, facing in the opposite direction, and draped from the neck to the feet. Behind the seated deity the upper parts of several figures are introduced, particularly an old bearded head; some children also appear, but this part is much injured. On the rock to the right of the tablet, immediately below the three females, and facing them, are several figures on half the scale, apparently worshippers. Below the tablet an inscription, in characters of the best times, shows that it was dedicated to the Nymphs by Adamas, a man of the Odrysae of Thrace.

§ 3.092 The worship of Pan and the Nymphs was so general in the caverns of Greece, that we can have no hesitation in recognizing Pan in the cross-legged figure of the upper compartment: the great human head with horns I take to be Bacchus Cornigerus, and the figures near him to be Silenus and his other attendants. The seated female in the lower compartment is probably Cybele, or the Earth, with her various attendants behind her, and those in front Atys and the three Horae. It is not impossible that this sculpture may have originated in an accident alluded to by Pliny, who says, “In Pariorum (lapidicinis) mirabile proditur, gleba lapidis unius cuneis dividentium soluta, imaginem Sileni extitisse.” The outline of a Silenus having accidentally appeared in the progress of quarrying, Adamas may have completed the work as a dedication to the Nymphs. There is another quarry near this, and a fourth near the great one. Everywhere the round grains by which the Parian marble is generally known is observable, and in some places they are larger than I have ever seen them in ancient monuments. From the quarries we begin, at 9.40, to cross over the ridge of the mountain, and leaving the harbour of Aussa in sight on the left, descend to Kosto, and at 10.20 pass through that village. The flies are in these islands a greater torment than I have ever witnessed on the continent of Greece. They are particularly so to the cattle in the meridian hours, and annoy them so much, that it is impossible to ride without a covering over the nose of the horse, ass, or mule. Our guide having forgot this necessary article, I am obliged to complete on foot the journey to Marmara, where we arrive at 11.30.

§ 3.093 There is a considerable plain round this place, which is reckoned unhealthy, particularly in the present season: the disorder is a severe intermittent, which is probably, as well here as at Parikia, the consequence in great measure of unwholesome diet during the long fast of August, and the total want of vegetable food, until the vintage and season of figs. Nothing is to be procured but mutton, or goat, lean and ill-tasted for want of pasture. Having crossed from Marmara to Naxia in three hours in a small boat, I procure a lodging in the house of his holiness ό Παροναξίας, as the metropolitan bishop of Paro and Naxia is designated, and to which is added the title, though not the authority, of head of all the Aegaean sea. The metropolitan church has been lately rebuilt; in digging the foundations of a small house adjoining to it, many marbles were found, and fragments of statues. At a point of land below the metropolis are the remains of a massive ancient wall, or mole, corresponding to another similar projecting from the southern side of the little island of Palati, which is separated from the main by a strait of fifty or sixty yards. This mole may have served the double purpose of a bridge to the island, and to protect the strait on the northern side of it against the sea, by which means that strait may have served as a harbour to the town, although now shallow, and useless for such a purpose. Palati received this modern name from a ruined temple which stood in the middle of it. The western portal, or door-case, still stands as Tournefort and Choiseul Gouffier

§ 3.094 have drawn it, and stands in spite of an attempt which was made (so say the Naxiotes) by the Scythian Alexis Orloff to beat it down with cannon-shot. The foundations of the temple have all been removed to serve for building materials, and it would seem from the excavation which remains, that the cella was about eighty feet in length. The door-case, and a small part of the pavement on which it stands, alone remain. The mouldings of the door seem to be of the Ionic order, and the massy proportions have an appearance of remote antiquity. It consists only of three stones; the uprights are 21 feet 6 inches high, and in thickness 4 feet 5 inches by 3 feet 5 inches; the width of the opening is 12 feet 1 inch. The rock of the island Palati is grey granite, and so are the hills around the town of Naxia, as well as the highest summits and many other parts of the island, but there were likewise quarries in the island of white marble with a very large grain, of which the portal in Palati is a specimen. Naxia, or Axia, as it is more vulgarly called, contains 42 villages besides the city; 16000 of the natives are of the Greek and 350 of the Latin church. The latter live in the castle, and are almost all under French protection. They have a convent of Capuchins, another of Lazarists, which formerly belonged to the Jesuits, and a Latin archbishop, who is metropolitan of all the Aegaean Sea. The town and neighbouring gardens are supplied with water from wells. The island contains several fertile valleys, besides the plain near the town; the latter yields corn:

§ 3.095 another which is separated from it by a range of rocky heights, and lies between them and the great central range of hills, is covered with olives. Thirty thousand Constantinopolitan kila of barley are exported, and a considerable quantity of wine, oil, honey, oranges, lemons, citrons, and emery, of which last there is a mine in Mount Zia, towards the southern end of the island. At the northern end, near a cape called Apollona, in an ancient quarry near the sea, is an unfinished colossal bearded statue, which, though the modern name of the cape would lead one to suppose it to hare been intended for an Apollo, was more probably a bearded Bacchus, such as he is represented on some beautiful small brass coins, of which great numbers have lately been found at the town near the sea side. The principal mountain is called Zia, and has probably borne that name ever since the island was named Dia. Korono, another mountain, recalls to recollection the nymph Coronis, who had care of the education of Bacchus. On one of the heights beyond the plain are some ruins, which some of the Naxiotes believe to be the ancient city; but the mole, the temple, and other remains, afford ample proof that the ancient capital of the island stood on the same spot as the modern town.

§ 3.096 Oct. 17.—Sail at 10 a.m. for the Dhiles, with a fresh breeze from the south-west, which carries us over in three hours. On entering the strait between the two islands, the first object which presents itself is a heap of squared stones on the height in Great Dhili, or Rheneia, which forms the south-eastern cape of that island. There is no appearance of sculpture. We pass between the great Rematia, or Rematiari, anciently the island of Hecate, and proceed to anchor between the small Rematiari and Delus, the shore of which is strewed with broken columns and epistylia of marble, showing that notwithstanding the spoliation of Greek masons and makers of Turkish tombstones in the time of Tournefort and Stuart, this rich mine of antiquities is far from being exhausted, and probably still contains many rare productions of art, as well as inscriptions valuable to history and philology. Having landed, I visit in succession the several objects described by Spon, Wheler, and Tournefort: the stoa of Philip, the temple of Apollo, the oval basin, and the gymnasium. Besides these, of which there are still sufficient remains to leave no doubt of their identity, the Latoum and Heracleium, which are the only other monuments mentioned by the ancients, would probably be ascertained by a diligent search. The inscription on the altar of Mithradates Euergetes, half of which had disappeared between the time of Spon and that of Tournefort, is exactly as the latter found it. That on the altar of Nicomedes I cannot find.

§ 3.097 The basis of the colossal Apollo dedicated by the Naxii, still remains. The words Ναξίοι Άπόλλωνι in front of the stone are in perfect preservation, although the form of the N and I, given accurately by Stuart, indicate considerable antiquity. The much more ancient line on the opposite side, which long ago exercised the learning of Dawes and Bentley, could hardly be decyphered without the assistance of the faithful copy in Stuart. The first letter has always been uncertain. The words, written in ordinary Hellenic characters, are as follows: O AFYTO ΛΙΘΟ EMI ΑΝΔΡΙΑΣ KAI TO ΣΦΕΛΑΣ, which in the cursive Greek, supplying the first letter, is του αυτου λίθου ειμι ανδριάς και το σφελας, meaning that the basis and statue were both parts of the same mass. The stone, nevertheless, has a great square excavation in the centre, clearly showing that the statue which stood upon it, was a separate piece of stone. A passage in Plutarch’s life of Nicias may perhaps furnish the solution of this difficulty. He relates that Nicias, having been appointed by the Athenians to conduct the Theoria to Delus, re-established the ancient ceremonies which had fallen into neglect; that he entered the island in procession from Rheneia over a bridge the materials of which he carried with him from Athens; that after having superintended the sacrifices, the games, and a feast, he made an endowment of some land for the support of an annual

§ 3.098 sacrifice and supper, and finally, that he set up a brazen palm-tree as a dedication to Apollo; which palm-tree, adds Plutarch, was afterwards thrown down by the wind, and in falling carried with it the colossal statue which had been dedicated by the Naxii. It is not improbable, therefore, that the more ancient inscription may have been coeval with the monolithal dedication, and the latter with a restoration of the statue after the accident. Of the thighs of the statue as designed by Tournefort, some fragments only remain; but a part of the shoulders, with the hair hanging over them, as Apollo is usually represented, is still conspicuous. The statue appears to have stood in front of the temple, facing the sea. Not far from it are the remains of a portico of which the columns are three feet in diameter. These are of Parian marble. The stoa of Philip, and the colossus, seem to be of Naxian. Near the former portico are the remains of pilasters, of which the capitals represent bulls’ heads in high relief, so as to include the dewlap. Behind the northern end of the portico of Philip are Ionic columns 2 feet 1 inch in diameter. The oval basin, which is about 100 yards in length, and which Spon, Wheler, Tournefort, and Choiseul all took for a naumachia, appears to me

§ 3.099 be the Limne Trochoeides of Herodotus and Theognis, and the Trochoessa of Callimachus, which contained the water required for the service of the ἱερόν, or sacred inclosure of Apollo, such tanks having been customary and necessary for the sacred offices in places distant from rivers or spring. In Egypt there are remains of several, but none of them are, to my recollection, circular, like that which Herodotus states to have existed at Sais, and to which he compares the limne of Delus. There are some remains, however, of a κρηπίς, or marginal wall, composed of small squared stones, in which particular this basin seems exactly to have resembled that of Sais. That the Trochoessa was circular or oval is sufficiently indicated by the name, and still more clearly perhaps by the epithet περιηγής, applied to it by Callimachus in the Hymn to Apollo. Near it was an altar made of the horns

§ 3.100 of stags, which was said to have been constructed by Apollo himself, and was considered so admirable and sacred that a temple was built to inclose it; some ruins which touch one side of the Trochoessa may perhaps be the remains of this temple; for Callimachus places the altar near the Trochoessa, and Plutarch, who saw and admired it, describes it as being in the hierum of Apollo. The theatre stood at the western foot of Mount Cynthus, facing Rheneia, and not far from the stoa of Philip. Its extremities were supported by walls of white marble of the finest masonry, but of a singular form, having had two projections adjacent to the orchestra, by which means the lower seats were in this part prolonged beyond the semicircle, and thus afforded additional accommodation to spectators in the situation most desirable. The diameter including only the projections is 187 feet. The marble seats have all been carried away, but many of the stones which formed their substruction remain. Immediately below the theatre, on the shore, are the ruins of a stoa, the columns of which were of granite. In a small valley which leads to the summit of Mount Cynthus, leaving the theatre on the left, many ruins of ancient houses are observable, and above them in a level, at the foot of the peak, there is a wall of white marble, which appears to have been the cell of a temple.

§ 3.101 Here lies an altar, which is inscribed with a dedication to Isis by one of her priests, Ctesippus, son of Ctesippus of Chius. Like many others, remaining both in this island and in Rheneia, it is adorned with bulls’ heads and festoons. Another fragment of an inscription mentions Sarapis, and as both these were nearly in the same place where Spon and Wheler found another in which Isis, Anubis, Harpocrates and the Dioscuri were all named, it is very probable that the remains of white marble belonged to a temple of Isis. Among them is a portion of a large shaft pierced through the middle, 4 feet 5 inches in diameter, and there is another of the same kind 5 feet 8 inches in diameter, half way up the peak of Cynthus. The latter lies just below the gate represented in the drawing of Wheler. This structure, which bears an appearance of remote antiquity, was probably the entrance of a subterraneous chamber, perhaps the treasury of Delus, which may still exist, as the passage is buried in ruins to within a few feet of the roof, and is quite obstructed at the end of 15 feet. The roof is formed of two stones rudely shaped, and resting against each other at an angle so obtuse that the rise is only 4 feet 2 inches above a breadth of 16 feet 2 inches. From this ruin, the ascent is short to the summit of Mount Cynthus, which is a mere rock of coarse granite, and seems anciently to have been inclosed by a wall.

§ 3.102 There are many architectural fragments of white marble on it. To the south of the mountain is a small plain, which seems the only cultivable part of the island. A brook from the mountain flows through it, and joins the sea at the port of Furai: being the only running stream in the island (and that only in winter) we may conclude that it is the ancient Inopus, unless we are to suppose, with Tournefort, that the Inopus was not a river but a well or fountain which exists near the northern extremity of the island. Callimachus, however, as well as Strabo, refers to Inopus as a river, and we may pardon the poet’s exaggeration in applying to it the epithet of deep, when the geographer describes Cynthus as a high mountain. Ruins of private houses surround Mount Cynthus on every side. On the heights above the Trochoessa, which form the north-western promontory of the island, are many other similar ruins of ancient houses, neatly constructed with mortar, and for the most part having niches in the walls. On the summit of the same hill, near the remains of a large house, are some shafts of white marble, a foot and a half in diameter, half polygonal and half plain. As this quarter was entirely separated from the town on Mount Cynthus by the valley containing the sacred buildings, there is great probability that it was the New Athens Hadrians, which was built at the expence of the Emperor Hadrian, in a position called Olympieium, perhaps from a temple of Jupiter Olympius, to which the shafts just mentioned may have belonged. Each of these towns had its small theatre. The great theatre, forming part of the Hierum, was reserved perhaps for the periodical festivals, which attracted visitors from every part of Greece.

§ 3.103 Oct. 18.—On the shore of Rheneia, on a small beach immediately opposite to the great Rematiari, the ground is covered on either side, for several hundred yards, with stelae, sepulchres, lids of sori, and fragments of columns. To the south, not far from the beach, lies a piece of architrave, with a metope of 10 inches; among the remains, in the opposite direction, are plain shafts, 3 ft. 4 in. in diameter. On the summit of a hill, which rises from the beach, are many other remains of ancient buildings, and among them a Doric capital, with a small portion of a shaft, 2 ft. 7 in. in diameter, formed out of a single stone. The immense number of sepulchres in this island is accounted for by its having been the cemetery of Delus, after the purification of the latter, which took place in the sixth year of the Peloponnesian war, when all the ancient coffins and bones were removed to Rheneia, and it was thenceforth forbidden, as in the Hierum of Epidauria, that any one should be born or die in the island of Delus. Besides the sepulchral monuments, Rheneia contains many ruins of private houses, similar to those of Delus. The town extended to the north-eastern angle of the bay, in

§ 3.104 which direction among the ruins are seen a prodigious number of square altars, adorned with a few mouldings, sufficient apparently to have supplied each house or family in the island with one. Rheneia has some good pasture, and in many parts, especially about the ancient town, is capable of producing corn. It is about ten miles in circumference, divided in two by a narrow isthmus at the head of a great bay, on the north-western side of the ancient town. On the promontory which forms the northernmost point of this bay stands a small monastery and church, now abandoned, the island being inhabited only by two or three men, who tend some oxen, sheep, and goats belonging to people of Mykono, of which island both the Dhiles are a dependency. In the smaller, which, according to Tournefort abounds in rabbits, I saw no quadruped but a hog, and I believe the only use which the Mykoniotes make of the island of Apollo is to pasture some of their cattle and sheep in the spring, and in the autumn to turn in their swine to gather the acorns, or other productions of the wild bushes. From the strait of Dhiles, we cross over to the harbour of Mykono, the entrance of which is distant about five miles from the little Dhili, and beating into the bay or gulf (κόρφος), as it is called, against a strong south-easter, anchor under the town at 10 a.m. This part of the bay is much exposed to the west, but round the town to the southward there is a harbour running far in to the east and south east, and sheltered from the west by a cape and island.

§ 3.105 Here ships winter in perfect safety. The island of Mykono is for the most part a miserable rock, the only cultivated or cultivable ground being a few declivities round the town, where are some corn fields and vineyards. The rest affords pasture for a few flocks, but has no habitation except a monastery to the eastward. Nevertheless, the town is one of the largest and most prosperous in the Aegaean sea, in consequence of its maritime commerce. There are twenty-five ships belonging to the islanders, and a great number of boats. The population is reckoned at 6000 souls, the produce at 500 kila of wheat, which is not sufficient for a month, 10,000 kila of barley, which suffices for home consumption, 5000 barrels of wine in good years, of which about 1000 are exported, 400 kila of φασούλια, or kidney beans, and 200 kila of figs. Some of the houses and streets are better than in most of the islands, but in general they are equally mean and dirty, and the hogs as usual have undisturbed possession of them. My Corfiote boatmen hearing rumours of war between Turkey and Russia, begin to murmur at proceeding any further, so Ι dismiss them, hire a sakoleva of the place, and Oct. 19, at 10 in the forenoon, sail from Mykono with a fresh south-east wind. At noon we are becalmed, for a short time, under the northern extremity of Tino, a high bare mountain; from thence cross the bay, which is formed by Andhro and Tino, and at sunset pass the town of Andhro, which is situated near the sea, and is crowned with a castle on the summit of a peak, about one-third of the length of the island from the northern cape.

§ 3.106 From hence we steer for Skyro, and at daybreak Oct. 20, find ourselves near the southern end of that island. Pass along the eastern side, leaving a little to the west of the southern cape the two islands which form the triple entrance of Port Τριμπούχαις, a corruption of Tre Bocche. Soon after sunrise the wind freshens, and as we pass along the coast, which is lofty, rocky, and precipitous, it increases to a gale, and descends from the hills in such squalls, that we fail in fetching Port Akhili, and anchor in a dangerous situation to the eastward of the town of St. George, which covers the northern and western sides of a high rocky peak, which to the eastward falls steeply to the sea. Having landed in the surf with some difficulty, I walk up to the town, and send from thence a pilot to conduct the boat to Puria, an anchorage for small vessels, five miles to the northward of port Akhili, where an islet shelters a low point, terminating a plain which extends southward from thence as far as the heights of the town.

§ 3.107 This plain, which is about four square miles in extent, is grown with corn, vines, and figs, and is refreshed by a small perennial stream, watering many gardens, as well in the plain, as in a little valley above it, where the oaks and planes, the walnut and other fruit trees, which shade the banks of the stream, give this little district an appearance very different from that of the dry and naked Cyclades. Akhili, the harbour which lies south-east of St. George, is evidently an ancient name, properly Άχίλλοον, and a memorial of Achilles. Skyro is divided into two parts, nearly equal, by an isthmus, which lies between Port Akhili and the great harbour called by the Greeks Kalamitza, and by the Italians Gran Spiaggia. All the southern portion is uncultivated, and consists of high mountains, which are intersected by deep gullies, and are rugged and bare, except towards the summits, where they are clothed with oaks, firs, and beeches. The northern part of the island is not so mountainous: and all the hills bear corn, vines, and ριζάρι, or madder; besides the plain adjacent to the khora or town, there are two other fertile levels, one at the northern extremity of the island, and another at Kalamitza. The wheat of Skyro is equal to the best in the Aegaean. The productions are 10,000 barrels of wine when the vintage is good, of which three fourths are exported, 16,000 kila of corn, of which 2,000 are exported, and 500 kantars of fasulia. The other exports are 2,000 okes of wax, 8,000 okes of honey, 600,000 oranges and lemons, and 400 kantars of madder, which is cultivated only upon very steep

§ 3.108 ground, and is grown from the seed, which is sown in February. The island abounds in sources of water, and affords pasture to a few oxen, and to 15,000 head of sheep and goats, of which 2,000 are annually exported. The taxes amount to 20 purses a year, paid by 500 families, all of whom have dwellings in St. George, the only other village in the island being merely an occasional residence of those who take care of the cattle. There are three kaiks belonging to the island, and many feluccas are built for sale with the fir wood of the mountains. The oaks are used only for fuel, and though many of them are of the Velanidhi kind, no use is made of the acorn. On the table summit of the rock which crowns the town, are the ruins of a castle, inclosing many houses, which are now all abandoned except the bishop’s, and some store houses where the rich inhabitants place their valuable effects whenever they are in danger from pirates or lawless Turkish seamen. The castle was the site of the acropolis of the ancient city of Scyrus, justly described by Homer as the lofty Scyrus. Remains of Hellenic walls are traced round the edge of the precipices, particularly at the northern end of the castle; others half way down the peak, just include the town in that part, and in another place a piece of wall occurs among the modern houses. But the greater part of the ancient city was to the eastward, towards the sea.

§ 3.109 In this direction there remains a large semicircular bastion almost entire, and built of horizontal courses of masonry which diminish in the height of each course towards the top. From thence the wall is traced along the slope above the sea, as far as a round tower which is still standing to half its height: about fifty yards beyond it are the remains of another, and from each of them a wall is traceable down the slope as far as the cliffs which overhang the sea. These walls were between three and four hundred yards in length, and served, like the long walls of other maritime cities, to protect the communication between the city and the shore, which was probably sheltered by a mole. Not a trace of it however now exists, which is not surprising as all this rocky coast is much exposed to the easterly winds. At the southernmost round tower the city terminated in that direction, as appears by the remains of the town walls which from thence ascend to the precipice of the castle. The circumference was barely two miles. The only other objects of antiquity are a sepulchral stone in one of the churches, and a cornice of dentils in a chapel in the gardens. Nor can I hear of the existence of any other remains in the island, except those of a large arched cistern at Kalamitza. The houses of Skyro, though flat roofed like those of the Cyclades, are in other respects very differently built, being generally of two stories, of which the lower is formed of stone and the upper of wood. The latter has projections on the outside in the Turkish fashion; the terraces of the roofs are covered with a peculiar kind of earth found on

§ 3.110 the descent towards the plain, and which is said to possess the property of resisting the most continued rain. In form the apartments resemble those of Turkish houses; but round the floor are arranged boxes of antique shape, covered with gilding and other ornamental work, and the walls are hung as thickly as it is possible to cover them with earthen jars and pots, pewter plates and dishes, merely for the sake of decoration, being in far too great a number to be of any use. The houses of the richer natives exceed the others in the dimensions of their apartments, and in the quantity of their vases and plates, but not in the quality, which is all German of the coarsest kind. In one angle of the room there is generally a very wide chimney rounding into the room, and below it a hearth a few inches above the level of the floor. This kind of chimney is also peculiar to Skyro, unless it may be found at Lemno or Thaso, the only larger islands of the Aegaean which I have not visited. The women, unlike those of the other islands, live quite retired in the houses, and hide themselves on the approach of a stranger. In the hope of being able to sail in the night, I leave St. George this evening and descend to Puria, distant three or four miles, but the weather being still unfavourable, take up my abode in a little church, of which the inner part is an ancient sepulchral excavation, in the side of a cubical rock; many of the other rocks around have been quarried, but none of them afford any appearance of that veined or spotted kind of marble, of which, according to Strabo, large quantities were sent from Scyrus to Rome. The island was famous also for its breed of goats.

§ 3.111 Oct. 21.—The gale not abating, I am detained in the catacomb until the evening, when it moderates; at 10.30 p.m. we sail, and Oct. 22, at sunrise, find ourselves near Skanghero. This is probably an ancient name. Of the islands which lie between Skanghero and the Cape of Magnesia, Scopelus and Sciathus preserve their names unchanged.

§ 3.112 Scopelus I take to be the same island as Halonesus, celebrated by means of one of the orations of Demosthenes, for Strabo, who takes no notice of Scopelus, shows Halonesus to have been one of the principal islands on the Magnesian coast, and names it together with Sciathus and Peparethus, the same two islands which Ptolemy about two centuries afterwards, and still later Hierocles, associate with Scopelus without naming Halonesus. In this case Peparethus, the importance of which may be argued as well from its history as from its name Tripolis, and its existing coins, was probably Khilidhromia, an island of about the same size as Skopelo, and which, although now little inhabited or cultivated, produces wine, which finds a good market at Saloniki. Peparethus in like manner was particularly noted for its wine. Sarakino is probably the ancient Icus, which, according to Scymnus of Chius, was near Peparethus, and was colonized at the same time by the Cnossii of Crete. Livy relates, that when the fleet of Attalus in the Macedonic war (B.C. 200) made a tour in the Aegaean, chiefly it would seem for the sake of plunder, their course from Geraestus

§ 3.113 in Euboea was past Skyrus to Icus, where they were detained by the north wind; they then sailed to Sciathus, and from thence to Mende in Pallene. Pelaghisi, which is opposite to the northern end of Khilidhromia, may perhaps be the Polyaegus which Mela mentions in conjunction with Sciathus and Halonesus. Our course carries us not far to the westward of Aistrati, which has about 30 houses, and is inhabited by cultivators and a few sailors, of whom we took two on board at Skyro. The island is low and has no port. It corresponds to the Hiera or Nea, near Lemnus, in which Philoctetes was said to have been bitten by the serpent, and which received its name from the circumstance, that when Chryse had been swallowed up by the sea, this island was reported to have made its appearance soon afterwards in a different situation. Pliny indeed describes Nea as being between Lemnus and the Hellespont, but as there are shoals only in that situation, they would rather seem to be the remains of Chryse.

§ 3.114 CHAPTER 24 MACEDONIA Oct. 22, continued. We now stand over to Mount Athos, which appears very near, though still 40 miles distant; the wind blowing down the gulf of Saloniki will but just allow us to lay our course, and it is not until sunset we are abreast of Cape St. George, anciently called Nymphaeum, from whence Mount Athos rises abruptly to the very summit. A strong current setting out of the Singitic gulf is a further impediment. The first monastery that appears is Aghia Anna, surrounded by many small houses, and situated in a beautiful hollow of the rocks at some distance above the sea, just such a place as we may suppose to have been a Nymphaeum.

§ 3.115 St. Anna is not considered one of the twenty monasteries of Athos, but only a μονίδιον and an ασκητήριον, that is to say, a subordinate monastery and place of ascetic retreat, dependent upon Lavra, which possesses all this end of the peninsula. The houses around the monastery of St. Anne, called cells (κελλεια), are inhabited by ascetics chiefly employed in handicrafts. St. Anna was greatly augmented by a patriarch of Constantinople, a native of the isle of Andhro, who improved the roads around it, and built many cells, towers, and chapels, as well here as at Lavra, Iviron, and in other parts of the Aion Oros, or holy mountain, which name is not confined to Mount Athos, but comprehends the entire peninsula, anciently called Acte. The church of Ai Anna is noted for possessing the left foot of the saint, a most miraculous and odoriferous relic. We afterwards pass in succession St. Paul, St. Dionysius, and St. Gregory, all near the shore, and all situated under the great ridge which advances from the peak of Athos and extends to the isthmus of the Holy Peninsula. St. Paul is a monastery of Servians and Bulgarians, and is said to take its name from the founder, who was an eunuch, son of the emperor Maurice. The church was constructed at the expence of a lord of Semendra in Servia,

§ 3.116 but the towers, cells, and all the more modern parts, by one of the family of Vassarava, Waiwode of Wallachia. St. Dionysius was built in the year 1380, by Alexius Comnenus, king of Trapezus, in honour of a saint of Korysso, near Kastoria, who was brother of the bishop of Trapezus, and became a hermit in this place. The Waiwodes of Wallachia and their families have greatly contributed to the buildings of this monastery, which is rich in relics, such as a piece of the cross, the crania of St. John the Baptist and of St. Thomais, the lower jaw of St. Stephen, and a part of the hand of St. John Chrysostom. The monastery of St. Gregory was named after the founder, St. Gregory the younger, but the present building was erected by a hospodar of Moldavia. Next to St. Gregory, at a distance of two miles from the sea-coast, is Simopetra, situated on a lofty precipitous rock in the midst of the forest. Its name, properly ή Σίμωνος Πέτρα, or the rock of Simon, is derived from a hermit of that name who founded the church, but the present building was chiefly the work of John Ungles, king of Servia and Romania, who retired hither from his kingdom and became a monk. This monastery possesses the right hand of St. Mary Magdalen, entire, and diffusing in abundance an agreeable odour. At 10 p.m. we arrive at Xeropotami, the only good anchorage on the southern side of the peninsula, and so called from a torrent which here flows from Mount Athos into the sea. A little above it is the monastery of the Forty Saints, more commonly known as that of Xiropotamu, or the dry river.

§ 3.117 Oct. 23.—This building was founded by the Emperor Romanus, and is one of the largest on the mountain. It is an irregular quadrangle, flanked by towers having pointed roofs covered with lead, in the style of the Heptapyrgium, or Seven Towers of Constantinople, and other works of that time. Within, in the midst of the inclosed court, stands the church; in many parts of the building wooden kiosks project from the walls, which are posterior additions. The monastery was once abandoned in consequence of the attacks of pirates, but was afterwards restored and enlarged by a hospodar of Wallachia. Like the other religious establishments of the peninsula, it possesses some much esteemed relics, such as a piece of the cross, and various fragments of the Forty Martyrs, to whom it is dedicated. In one part of the interior of the quadrangle two ancient sculptures in low relief are inserted in the wall, one representing a woman seated in an antique chair, with a table before her and a mirror behind the chair; the other seems to have been part of a frize representing wrestlers, but being high in the wall, and in a corner difficult of access, there is some difficulty in distinguishing the figures.

§ 3.118 The walls are in part constructed of Roman tiles, and contain many small fragments of antiquity besides those already noticed. At the harbour I observed an ancient altar or pedestal on the beach, and two or three granite columns in the adjoining valley. These remains, together with the convenience of the anchorage, warrant the belief that here stood one of the ancient cities of Acte. The port or landing-place is known by the name of ά Άρσανάς, or the Arsenal, whence it may be inferred that some buildings once existed there, for purposes of naval commerce and defence. All the larger monasteries are said to have had similar establishments on the adjoining shore, where small vessels were formerly built; they were fortified with walls and towers, some of which still remain, but at present the peninsula possesses only a few fishing boats, or such as serve for communication along the shore in fine weather, and which chiefly belong to the monasteries on the northern coast. The situation of the Forty Saints is extremely beautiful. Hills covered with a thick forest of oak, beech, and chestnut, in which are intervals cultivated with the vine and olive, surround it towards the land, while in front it commands a noble view of the Singitic Gulf, bounded by the peninsula of Sithonia, above which rises Mount Olympus. This peninsula is now called Longos, from its being principally a forest. The only inhabited places in it are Sykia, in a good harbour on the eastern side towards the southern extremity, another small village or two, and three Άγιορίτικα μετόχια, or farms, belonging to monasteries of Athos, cultivated by the Caloyers, who have a church and dwellings at each metokhi.

§ 3.119 Longos does not possess such good timber as the Aion Oros, and is not so well watered, but affords excellent pasture for cattle and for bees, which are carried over in the spring from the Oros to swarm and make honey. The extreme cape seen from Xeropotami is named Kartali, it is situated five miles beyond port Sykia, and hides another cape called Dhrepano at the entrance of the Gulf of Kassandhra: a little to the north of which is Kufo, a land-locked harbour, and then the ruins of Torone, still preserving the ancient name. Kufo also is ancient, being the ordinary Romaic form of Κοφος (deaf), which gave rise to the Greek proverb κωφότερος του Τορωναίου λιμένος, the harbour having been so called, according to Zenobius, because, being separated from the outer sea by two narrow passages, the noise of the waves was not heard in it. It was perhaps the same mentioned by Thucydides as the harbour of the Colophonii. Capes Kartali and Dhrepano are evidently the ancient Derrhis and Ampelus. The latter is shown to be the nearer to Torone by Herodotus, who describes it as the Toronaean promontory, and as opposite to Canastraeum of Pallene.

§ 3.120 The epitomizer of Strabo might indeed induce the belief, that Derrhis and Ampelus were the same, since he describes Derrhis as a promontory opposite to Canastrum and near port Cophus; but Ptolemy expressly distinguishes them, though he is opposed both to other authorities and to actual appearances in placing Torone between the two capes. Besides the monasteries of the western side of the peninsula of Aion Oros already mentioned, there are five others to the northward of Xeropotami. Their names and order are Russiko, Xenofu, Dhokiariu, Kastamonitu, and Zografu. Russikon is a monastery of Russians, situated on an elevated well-watered level just above the sea. It was founded by a Knez of Servia named Lazarus; who retired here and became a monk. Xenofu is near the sea, and well fortified against pirates. Its name is derived from Saint Xenophon the founder, but the chief constructors of the present building were several Wallachians, one of whom was a hospodar of the family of Vassarava. It is inhabited by Servians and Bulgarians. Beyond it is Dhokiariu, which was founded by a Saint Euthymius, in the reign of Nicephorus Botoniates, and was augmented by successive benefactors. The present church was entirely built by a hospodar of Wallachia in the year 1578. Kastamonitu is situated in a rocky romantic wilderness, and is said to have derived its name, properly Konstamonitu, from its founder Constantine the Great. That it was renewed and augmented by Manuel Palaeologus is better authenticated. Zografu is a convent of Servians and Bulgarians, founded in the reign of the emperor Leo, the philosopher, by three brothers of Akhridha, of the family of the emperor Justinian, who became monks here. It is noted for two wonderful pictures of St. George, one of which conveyed itself without human means from Palestine, the other from Arabia: the former is said also to have been painted by Divine will, and not by the hands of men, whence the monastery was called Ζωγράφου, or that of the painter.

§ 3.121 Oct. 24.—From Xeropotami to Kares, or Karyes, a beautiful ride of an hour and a half across the ridge of the peninsula, leaving the Athona, as the peak of Athos is called, five miles in a direct line on the right: the ridge branches immediately from the foot of the great peak, and descends steeply to a high point above Iviron, from whence the fall is more gradual to the line of our road to Karyes, where the ridge is lower than on either side of that line. The great peak by its height, its abruptness, and conical form, crowns the landscape in the most imposing manner, and consisting towards the summit of a white rock broken with precipices, offers a striking contrast to the rich unbroken forests of the lower ridge. We pass through woods of oak and chestnut, in the thickest parts of which are openings where verdant lawns covered with cattle, or slopes cultivated with vines, are

§ 3.122 interspersed with καλύβια, or cottages, inhabited by monks who have charge of the vineyards, or cattle. In the highest part of the ridge the wood is entirely of chestnut. As we descend the northern or eastern slope, the town of Karyes presents itself, covering a large space in the midst of woody declivities, where the houses are dispersed among gardens and vineyards. Immediately around the town the most common tree is the ληττοκαρυα, οι hazel, from which the town has perhaps taken its name: the trees are cultivated for the sake of the nuts; which, with planks of deal and scantlings of oak or chestnut, are the only productions of the soil exported from the peninsula. At Karyes resides the Turkish governor of the Holy Mountain: a bostanji of Constantinople, who is supported, together with a guard of Albanians, at the expence of the holy community; but without having any authority except for the general police of the mountain, and for its protection against thieves and pirates. Towards the centre of the town the houses are more closely built, and there is a sort of bazar containing shops of grocery, with those of a few artisans, among whom black-smiths and locksmiths are the most numerous. On Saturdays there is an agora, or market, to which the manufactures of the mountain are brought for sale. Karyes is the residence also of the Archons or Epistatae. These are Caloyers deputed from the twenty monasteries to superintend the civil

§ 3.123 affairs of the mountain, to take cognizance of any matters in which the whole community is interested, to assign to each monastery its portion of the payments to the Turks, and to enforce the collection of it. The revenue and internal govern-ment of each convent is its own concern. The Epistatae are four in number, and are changed every year; each monastery sending one deputy in its turn, but in such manner that one of the four is always from one of the five great monasteries, Lavra, Vatopedhi, Iviron, Khilandari, and Dhionysiu. Besides these principal officers the community have an agent at Saloniki and another at Constantinople. Ecclesiastically the Oros depends immediately on the patriarch of Constantinople. The archons are competent to punish small offences, and to determine such differences between the monasteries as are not sufficiently important to be decided at Constantinople, where, however, the monks are too apt to carry their causes and to spend money in litigation for the benefit only of the Turks. In the time of the Greek Empire the mountain was under the direction of a great ecclesiastic styled ό πρώτος του Αγίου Ορους, whence the name Protato still attached to the church at Karyes where he resided. This church is supposed to be the most ancient on the peninsula, and to have been built by Constantine the Great. It is celebrated on the mountain for a miraculous picture which once called out to the officiating priest to read his liturgy quicker, in order that he

§ 3.124 might administer the communion to a dying monk. Near Karyes to the southward is Kutlumusi situated in one of the most cultivable parts of the peninsula, amidst gardens, vineyards, olive plantations, and corn-fields. It was founded by the Emperor Alexius Comnenus, but partook of the fate of all the early buildings in being destroyed by plunderers. It was afterwards renewed and enlarged by several successive Waiwodes of Wallachia. Kutlumusi boasts of possessing the other foot of St. Anne among its relics. Like the other monasteries it has a port, which is below Karyes, not far to the north-west of the Arsanas of Iviron. After dining at Karyes, I proceed in two hours to Iviron, situated near the northern shore of the peninsula, in a small bend of the coast, midway between the other two principal monasteries of this shore, Lavra and Vatopedhi. The road descends the hills obliquely by a rugged path through vineyards, and amidst a great diversity of hilly ground covered with wood. Iviron, or the monastery of the Georgians, (τύν Ίβηρων,) was so called as having been founded by four pious and wealthy men of that nation, of whom three were brothers, and the fourth was Tornicius, a general officer of the Emperor Romanus, who, having been recalled from his retreat by the widow of Romanus, to defend the frontiers of the empire against the Persians, received from the empress, on his successful return to Constantinople, the means of building

§ 3.125 the present church, which is the largest on the peninsula next to that of Lavra. It stands in the midst of an irregular quadrangle, comprehending also a church of the Panaghia surnamed Portaitissa. This church is renowned for a picture which was thrown into the sea in the reign of the iconoclast Theophilus, and some years afterwards made its appearance again on the neighbouring shore. Besides several valuable Metokhia in the adjacent parts of Macedonia, it has a large dependent monastery at Moscow, and another in Wallachia, and it has always been the favourite and most protected monastery of the Russians. No convent on the Oros is so rich in relics. There are 300 monks belonging to the house, but a third of them are either absent on eleemosynary missions, or dwelling on the metokhia and kellia of the monastery. The library, which is kept in tolerable order by an old Didascalus, consists chiefly, as he observes, of the fathers, or books appertaining to the church service; but it contains also several Greek and Latin classics, a recent gift of a Mavromati of Arta, who was bishop of that see, and whose nephew I met there last year. None of the Latin books have been touched, because nobody can read them: indeed, the whole library is nearly useless, such is the extreme ignorance of the monks. The house has the reputation of being the best ordered on the mountain. Like all the monasteries, or at least the larger, Iviron has an hospital for the sick, presses for wine and oil, and among the monks some tailors and shoemakers, who make all the clothes of the inmates. It is often the residence of retired Greeks. The Patriarch of Constantinople, who was deposed eight years ago, and who has lived here ever since, has just been recalled to the capital, on the change of the Turkish ministry to resume the patriarchal throne.

§ 3.126 Oct. 25.—In the afternoon I proceed to the convent of Filotheu, in the way to Lavra: the road follows the slope of the mountain through a thick forest of chestnuts, oaks, and elms, mixed with a great variety of shrubs, particularly the arbutus, now covered with ripe fruit. The oaks are small, but many of the chestnuts are fine trees: a small portion of the fruit is consumed on the mountain, or exported in the boats which come to load firewood; the remainder perishes on the ground, or is washed into the sea by the torrents. The mo-nasteries levy a small contribution upon the woodcutters. In a green valley near the sea, between Iviron and Filotheu, stand the ruined monidhi, or subordinate monastery of Mylopotamo, and a tower belonging to Lavra. Filotheu, though one of the smaller establishments of the peninsula, is among the most ancient; it was founded by one Philotheus, in company with two other Greek saints named Arsenius and Dionysius, the last of whom was founder of the great monastery of St. Dionysius on Mount Olympus. Filotheu was enlarged by a prince of Kaket in Georgia in 1492.

§ 3.127 Oct. 26.—Being detained at Filotheu by a violent gale of wind from the north, I look over the books of the monastery, which are laid aside as useless lumber in a corner above the church, more for amusement than with the hope of finding anything valuable, as they have been lately examined by much more competent persons. Among them are a few fragments of MSS. of the classics, but the far greater part are volumes of the Fathers of the Church, which are all in good condition on handsome parchment. In the afternoon I return on foot to Iviron, disappointed to find that the season for ascending the Athona is considered to be past. But when the autumnal tempests have begun in this the stormiest quarter of a sea in all parts fickle and subject to gales, weeks may pass away before such a day occurs as would secure a perfect view of distant objects from the summit. The

§ 3.128 monks are in the habit of repeating that Constantinople may be seen from thence, but this is undoubtedly a vulgar error; for though very high land might in a peculiarly favourable state of the atmosphere be visible at the distance of Constantinople, so low a situation as that of the capital cannot possibly be above the horizon. But undoubtedly with a clear sky the angular intervals might be measured from thence between many of the most remarkable points of Asia, the islands, and Greece. The principal Macedonian and Thracian summits, Mount Ida, the islands Lemnus and Scyrus, the Euboean mountains Ocha, Dirphe, and Telethrium, and the Thessalian summits Othrys, Pelion, and Ossa, might all be connected by the sextant, and possibly the Bithynian with the Macedonian Olympus. The ordinary route from Filotheu to Lavra is by land to Karakalo, and by sea from the port of the latter to the Arsana of Lavra, the route by land being a rugged path, best travelled on foot. The monastery Lavra, originally the retreat of Athanasius, a hermit of Athos, was named ή μονη τών μελανών perhaps because the monks-were clothed in black, until it was enlarged by the emperors Nicephorus Phocas, and John Tzimisces, and enriched by the munificence of many subsequent benefactors of lower rank. It is an irregular quadrangle, standing in a situation similar to that of St Anna, that is to say, exactly at the foot of the peak of Athos, above a neighbouring cape, the

§ 3.129 ancient Acrathos, now Kavo Zmyrna. At a small harbour below it is the Arsanas, and a tower for its protection. The monastery generally contains 200 caloyers, besides whom there are as many more travelling to collect charity, or in the cells and hermitages of the mountain, employed in handicrafts, or in taking care of the vineyards and olive plantations. Besides these there is a great number of κοσμικοί, or laymen. The objects for which Lavra is most celebrated among the Greeks are its refectory in the form of a cross, containing 24 marble tables, a great vase of marble and bronze adorned with figures, 6 palms high and 17 in circumference, into which a perpetual stream of water is conveyed by a canal; the tomb and iron staff of the founder Athanasius, with which he drove away the demonsl, and many holy relics, among which are the crania of several saints, the hand of St. Chrysostom, and the foot of St. Cerycus, who died a martyr at three years of age. Midway between Lavra and its askiti of St. Anna is another named Kapsokalyvia, similarly placed at the foot of the peak of Athos above the sea, and where is a church with numerous ascetic cells. Kerasla, St. Antony, St. Demetrius, and St. Paul, are similar dependencies, but not so large; at the two latter are the principal vineyards of Lavra. In the territory of this monastery, which comprehends the entire peak of Athos, are more than 20 solitary chapels, one of which is on the summit, and in all the paths about the mountain there are seats for resting. The monastery of Karakalo received its name from the founder, Antonio Caracalo, a Roman, but the principal part of the present structure was built at the expence of a hospodar of Moldavia.

§ 3.130 Oct. 27.—The stormy weather still continues. At a kelli above Iviron I find some monks employed in building a boat on the side of the mountain, a mile from the sea, and learn from them that boats are sometimes built in much higher situations, as they find it easier to convey the boat to the sea side than the timber for budding it. Oct. 28.—From Iviron to Vatopedhi in three hours: first crossing a projection of the mountain, on which to the right stands the monastery of Stavronikita, and then descending to Pandokratora, which is midway to Vatopedhi. Stavronikita was founded by a Patriarch of Constantinople named Jeremiah. It is agreeably situated just above the shore, in the midst of gardens and orange groves, and contains a celebrated picture of St. Nicolas of Myra, to whom the church is dedicated. This picture is called the Stridhasa, because it has an oyster upon it, which is supposed to prove the tale related of it, namely, that it was thrown into the sea in the time of the iconoclast contestc, and long afterwards found its way again to the shore.

§ 3.131 Pandokratora was built in the 13th century by two brothers, one of whom was Alexius, the general of Michael Palaeologus, who recovered Constantinople from the Franks. On a summit to the left is St. Elias, a large askitiri, occupied entirely by Russians. From Pandokratora we cross another ridge, passing constantly through woods to Vatopedhi. This monastery, which, with its lofty walls flanked by towers mounted with cannon, looks more like a fortress than a religious house, is beautifully situated on a commanding height, separated from the shore of a little bay by slopes covered with plantations of olives and oranges. The bay is the termination of a small valley, surrounded by steep woody heights, and watered by a torrent. These heights are separated by the vale of Karyes from the hills which lie between the latter and Xeropotami, so that the longitudinal ridge of the peninsula here becomes double. Vatopedhi is larger than any of the monasteries except Lavra, and is the most ancient of all, its first foundation having been by Constantine the Great. It was augmented by Arcadius, and after having been ruined by the Saracens in the 9th century, was renewed by three citizens of Adrianople, who here adopted the monastic life. Its principal benefactors after that time, were Manuel Comnenus, Andronicus Palaeologus, and John Cantacuzenus, the last of whom, under the name of Ioasaph, passed a great part of his days here after his retirement from the throne. No monastery has larger possessions of olive plantations, vineyards, and foreign metokhia, the best

§ 3.132 of which are in Moldavia, and none is better provided with all sorts of internal conveniences. The treasury nevertheless is now poor, in consequence of a cause which the monastery has lately gained against Zografu, concerning the property of a metokhi, and in which they prevailed, not so much by the evidence of their ancient charters, as by the expenditure of 200 purses at Constantinople; the Grand Vezir, before whom the cause was heard, took occasion at the conclusion to give the parties a good lecture on their folly. The ordinary annual expences of the house are 200 purses, including all the imposts which they pay to the Turks. Three hundred monks are attached to the establishment, but more than half of them are absent in the Metokhia or in eleemosynary missions; besides these, are a great number of cosmics, both in the house and the kellia. The affairs of the monastery are directed by twelve ἡγουμενοι, among whom the chief dignities are the σκευοφύλακας or sacristan, the ἐπίτροπος or inspector, the δικαῖος, who has the care of the stores, mules and lodgings, and the γραμματικός or secretary. One of the oldest residents, but who has no direction of affairs, is the Bishop of Moskopoli, whose fears of Aly Pasha drove him from that place 12 or 15 years ago. On a hill adjoining the monastery is the school of Vatopedhi, now empty, but which for a short time, under the learned Eugenius Bulgari, of Corfu, attained such reputation, that he had more scholars than the building could well lodge, although it contains 170 cells for students.

§ 3.133 But notwithstanding the advantages which the healthy situation, beautiful scenery, and seclusion, seem to promise in Mount Athos, as a place of education, the friends of learning among the Greeks have been compelled to apply their exertions elsewhere. The ignorant are generally persecutors of knowledge: the school was viewed with jealous eyes by all the vulgar herd of caloyers, and there were other objections to the Holy Peninsula which, combined with the former, proved at last the ruin of the school. The monks at the head of the monasteries of Mount Athos are generally those who have brought some money to the treasury; sometimes those who have travelled to collect charity, and who, by retaining a part of the produce, acquire thereby the means of influencing the Patriarch, who has always some weight in the election of the Igumeni, though nominally they are annually elective, wherever the monks are ιδιόριθμοι, as they are at Vatopedhi, and in the greater part of the monasteries of the Oros. When so denominated, they contribute something to the treasury on entering the society, receive a cell and a ration of bread and wine, but provide every thing else themselves. The κοινοβιακοί, on the other hand, are headed by a single ηγούμενος, appointed by the Patriarch. They dress and live uniformly, receive raiment as well as food from the house, and are in everything more despotically governed. Seven only of the twenty monasteries of the Oros are κοινόβια, namely, Karakalo and Simenu, on the northern coast, and on the southern, Dhionysiu, Simopetra, Russiko, Xenofu, and Konstamonitu.