FOOTNOTE:
[1] Since my return home I have seen in a newspaper an account of a popular commotion at Syra, in which the printing-presses and books at the missionaries were destroyed, and Mr. Robinson was threatened with personal violence.
CHAPTER V.
Ruins of Athens.—Hill of Mars.—Temple of the Winds.—Lantern of Demosthenes.—Arch of Adrian.—Temple of Jupiter Olympus.—Temple of Theseus.—The Acropolis.—The Parthenon.—Pentelican Mountain.—Mount Hymettus.—The Piræus.—Greek Fleas.—Napoli.
The next morning I began my survey of the ruins of Athens. It was my intention to avoid any description of these localities and monuments, because so many have preceded me, stored with all necessary knowledge, ripe in taste and sound in judgment, who have devoted to them all the time and research they so richly merit; but as, in our community, through the hurry and multiplicity of business occupations, few are able to bestow upon these things much time or attention, and, farthermore, as the books which treat of them are not accessible to all, I should be doing injustice to my readers if I were to omit them altogether. Besides, I should be doing violence to my own feelings, and cannot get fairly started in Athens, without recurring to scenes which I regarded at the time with extraordinary interest. I have since visited most of the principal cities in Europe, existing as well as ruined and I hardly know any to which I recur with more satisfaction than Athens. If the reader tire in the brief reference I shall make, he must not impute it to any want of interest in the subject; and as I am not in the habit of going into heroics, he will believe me when I say that, if he have any reverence for the men or things consecrated by the respect and admiration of ages, he will find it called out at Athens. In the hope that I may be the means of inducing some of my countrymen to visit that famous city, I will add another inducement by saying that he may have, as I had, Mr. Hill for a cicerone. This gentleman is familiar with every locality and monument around or in the city, and, which I afterward found to be an unusual thing with those living in places consecrated in the minds of strangers, he retains for them all that freshness of feeling which we possess who only know them from books and pictures.
By an arrangement made the evening before, early in the morning of my second day in Athens Mr. Hill was at the door of my hotel to attend us. As we descended the steps a Greek stopped him, and, bowing with his hand on his heart, addressed him in a tone of earnestness which we could not understand; but we were struck with the sonorous tones of his voice and the musical cadence of his sentences; and when he had finished, Mr. Hill told us that he had spoken in a strain which, in the original, was poetry itself, beginning, "Americanos, I am a Stagyrite. I come from the land of Aristotle, the disciple of Plato," &c., &c.; telling him the whole story of his journey from the ancient Stagyra and his arrival in Athens; and that, having understood that Mr. Hill was distributing books among his countrymen, he begged for one to take home with him. Mr. Hill said that this was an instance of every-day occurrence, showing the spirit of inquiry and thirst for knowledge among the modern Greeks. This little scene with a countryman of Aristotle was a fit prelude to our morning ramble.
The house occupied by the American missionary as a school stands on the site of the ancient Agora or market-place, where St. Paul "disputed daily with the Athenians." A few columns still remain; and near them is an inscription mentioning the price of oil. The schoolhouse is built partly from the ruins of the Agora; and to us it was an interesting circumstance, that a missionary from a newly-discovered world was teaching to the modern Greeks the same saving religion which, eighteen hundred years ago, St. Paul, on the same spot, preached to their ancestors.
Winding around the foot of the Acropolis, within the ancient and outside the modern wall, we came to the Areopagus or Hill of Mars, where, in the early days of Athens, her judges sat in the open air; and, for many ages, decided with such wisdom and impartiality, that to this day the decisions of the court of Areopagites are regarded as models of judicial purity. We ascended this celebrated hill, and stood on the precise spot where St. Paul, pointing to the temples which rose from every section of the city and towered proudly on the Acropolis, made his celebrated address: "Ye men of Athens, I see that in all things ye are too superstitious." The ruins of the very temples to which he pointed were before our eyes.
Descending, and rising toward the summit of another hill, we came to the Pnyx, where Demosthenes, in the most stirring words that ever fell from human lips, roused his countrymen against the Macedonian invader. Above, on the very summit of the hill, is the old Pnyx, commanding a view of the sea of Salamis, and of the hill where Xerxes sat to behold the great naval battle. During the reign of the thirty tyrants the Pnyx was removed beneath the brow of the hill, excluding the view of the sea, that the orator might not inflame the passions of the people by directing their eyes to Salamis, the scene of their naval glory. But, without this, the orator had material enough; for, when he stood on the platform facing the audience, he had before him the city which the Athenians loved and the temples in which they worshipped, and I could well imagine the irresistible force of an appeal to these objects of their enthusiastic devotion, their firesides and altars. The place is admirably adapted for public speaking. The side of the hill has been worked into a gently inclined plane, semicircular in form, and supported in some places by a wall of immense stones. This plain is bounded above by the brow of the hill, cut down perpendicularly. In the centre the rock projects into a platform about eight or ten feet square, which forms the Pnyx or pulpit for the orator. The ascent is by three steps cut out of the rock, and in front is a place for the scribe or clerk. We stood on this Pnyx, beyond doubt on the same spot where Demosthenes thundered his philippics in the ears of the Athenians. On the road leading to the Museum hill we entered a chamber excavated in the rock, which tradition hallows as the prison of Socrates; and though the authority for this is doubtful, it is not uninteresting to enter the damp and gloomy cavern wherein, according to the belief of the modern Athenians, the wisest of the Greeks drew his last breath. Farther to the south is the hill of Philopappus, so called after a Roman governor of that name. On the very summit, near the extreme angle of the old wall, and one of the most conspicuous objects around Athens, is a monument erected by the Roman governor in honour of the Emperor Trajan. The marble is covered with the names of travellers, most of whom, like Philopappus himself, would never have been heard of but for that monument.
Descending toward the Acropolis, and entering the city among streets encumbered with ruined houses, we came to the Temple of the Winds, a marble octagonal tower, built by Andronicus. On each side is a sculptured figure, clothed in drapery adapted to the wind he represents; and on the top was formerly a Triton with a rod in his hand, pointing to the figure marking the wind. The Triton is gone, and great part of the temple buried under ruins. Part of the interior, however, has been excavated, and probably, before long, the whole will be restored.
East of the foot of the Acropolis, and on the way to Adrian's Gate, we came to the Lantern of Demosthenes (I eschew its new name of the Choragic Monument of Lysichus), where, according to an absurd tradition, the orator shut himself up to study the rhetorical art. It is considered one of the most beautiful monuments of antiquity, and the capitals are most elegant specimens of the Corinthian order refined by Attic taste. It is now in a mutilated condition, and its many repairs make its dilapidation more perceptible. Whether Demosthenes ever lived here or not, it derives an interest from the fact that Lord Byron made it his residence during his visit to Athens. Farther on, and forming part of the modern wall, is the Arch of Adrian, bearing on one side an inscription in Greek, "This is the city of Theseus;" and on the other, "But this is the city of Adrian." On the arrival of Otho a placard was erected, on which was inscribed, "These were the cities of Theseus and Adrian, but now of Otho." Many of the most ancient buildings in Athens have totally disappeared. The Turks destroyed many of them to construct the wall around the city, and even the modern Greeks have not scrupled to build their miserable houses with the plunder of the temples in which their ancestors worshipped.
Passing under the Arch of Adrian, outside the gate, on the plain toward the Ilissus, we came to the ruined Temple of Jupiter Olympus, perhaps once the most magnificent in the world. It was built of the purest white marble, having a front of nearly two hundred feet, and more than three hundred and fifty in length, and contained one hundred and twenty columns, sixteen of which are all that now remain; and these, fluted and having rich Corinthian capitals, tower more than sixty feet above the plain, perfect as when they were reared. I visited these ruins often, particularly in the afternoon; they are at all times mournfully beautiful, but I have seldom known anything more touching than, when the sun was setting, to walk over the marble floor, and look up at the lonely columns of this ruined temple. I cannot imagine anything more imposing than it must have been when, with its lofty roof supported by all its columns, it stood at the gate of the city, its doors wide open, inviting the Greeks to worship. That such an edifice should be erected for the worship of a heathen god! On the architrave connecting three of the columns a hermit built his lonely cell, and passed his life in that elevated solitude, accessible only to the crane and the eagle. The hermit is long since dead, but his little habitation still resists the whistling of the wind, and awakens the curiosity of the wondering traveller.
The Temple of Theseus is the last of the principal monuments, but the first which the traveller sees on entering Athens. It was built after the battle of Marathon, and in commemoration of the victory which drove the Persians from the shores of Greece. It is a small but beautiful specimen of the pure Doric, built of Pentelican marble, centuries of exposure to the open air giving it a yellowish tint, which softens the brilliancy of the white. Three Englishmen have been buried within this temple. The first time I visited it a company of Greek recruits, with some negroes among them, was drawn up in front, going through the manual under the direction of a German corporal; and, at the same time, workmen were engaged in fitting it up for the coronation of King Otho!
Temple of Jupiter Olympus and Acropolis at Athena.
These are the principal monuments around the city, and, except the temples at Pæstum, they are more worthy of admiration than all the ruins in Italy; but towering above them in position, and far exceeding them in interest, are the ruins of the Acropolis. I have since wandered among the ruined monuments of Egypt and the desolate city of Petra, but I look back with unabated reverence to the Athenian Acropolis. Every day I had gazed at it from the balcony of my hotel, and from every part of the city and suburbs. Early on my arrival I had obtained the necessary permit, paid a hurried visit, and resolved not to go again until I had examined all the other interesting objects. On the fourth day, with my friend M., I went again. We ascended by a broad road paved with stone. The summit is enclosed by a wall, of which some of the foundation stones, very large, and bearing an appearance of great antiquity, are pointed out as part of the wall built by Themistocles after the battle of Salamis, four hundred and eighty years before Christ. The rest is Venetian and Turkish, falling to decay, and marring the picturesque effect of the ruins from below. The guard examined our permit, and we passed under the gate. A magnificent propylon of the finest white marble, the blocks of the largest size ever laid by human hands, and having a wing of the same material on each side, stands at the entrance. Though broken and ruined, the world contains nothing like it even now. If my first impressions do not deceive me, the proudest portals of Egyptian temples suffer in comparison. Passing this magnificent propylon, and ascending several steps, we reached the Parthenon or ruined Temple of Minerva; an immense white marble skeleton, the noblest monument of architectural genius which the world ever saw. Standing on the steps of this temple, we had around us all that is interesting in association and all that is beautiful in art. We might well forget the capital of King Otho, and go back in imagination to the golden age of Athens. Pericles, with the illustrious throng of Grecian heroes, orators, and sages, had ascended there to worship, and Cicero and the noblest of the Romans had gone there to admire; and probably, if the fashion of modern tourists had existed in their days, we should see their names inscribed with their own hands on its walls. The great temple stands on the very summit of the Acropolis, elevated far above the Propylæa and the surrounding edifices. Its length is two hundred and eight feet, and breadth one hundred and two. At each end were two rows of eight Doric columns, thirty-four feet high and six feet in diameter, and on each side were thirteen more. The whole temple within and without was adorned with the most splendid works of art, by the first sculptors in Greece, and Phidias himself wrought the statue of the goddess, of ivory and gold, twenty-six cubits high, having on the top of her helmet a sphinx, with griffins on each of the sides; on the breast a head of Medusa wrought in ivory, and a figure of Victory about four cubits high, holding a spear in her hand and a shield lying at her feet. Until the latter part of the seventeenth century, this magnificent temple, with all its ornaments, existed entire. During the siege of Athens by the Venetians, the central part was used by the Turks as a magazine; and a bomb, aimed with fatal precision or by a not less fatal chance, reached the magazine, and, with a tremendous explosion, destroyed a great part of the buildings. Subsequently the Turks used it as a quarry, and antiquaries and travellers, foremost among whom is Lord Elgin, have contributed to destroy "what Goth, and Turk, and Time had spared."
Around the Parthenon, and covering the whole summit of the Acropolis, are strewed columns and blocks of polished white marble, the ruins of ancient temples. The remains of the Temples of Erectheus and Minerva Polias are pre-eminent in beauty; the pillars of the latter are the most perfect specimens of the Ionic in existence, and its light and graceful proportions are in elegant contrast with the severe and simple majesty of the Parthenon. The capitals of the columns are wrought and ornamented with a delicacy surpassing anything of which I could have believed marble susceptible. Once I was tempted to knock off a corner and bring it home, as a specimen of the exquisite skill of the Grecian artist, which it would have illustrated better than a volume of description; but I could not do it; it seemed nothing less than sacrilege.
Afar off, and almost lost in the distance, rises the Pentelican Mountain, from the body of which were hewed the rough rude blocks which, wrought and perfected by the sculptor's art, now stand the lofty and stately columns of the ruined temple. What labour was expended upon each single column! how many were employed in hewing it from its rocky bed, in bearing it to the foot of the mountain, transporting it across the plain of Attica, and raising it to the summit of the Acropolis! and then what time, and skill, and labour, in reducing it from a rough block to a polished shaft, in adjusting its proportions, in carving its rich capitals, and rearing it where it now stands, a model of majestic grace and beauty! Once, under the direction of Mr. Hill, I clambered up to the very apex of the pediment, and, lying down at full length, leaned over and saw under the frieze the acanthus leaf delicately and beautifully painted on the marble, and, being protected from exposure, still retaining its freshness of colouring. It was entirely out of sight from below, and had been discovered, almost at the peril of his life, by the enthusiasm of an English artist. The wind was whistling around me as I leaned over to examine it, and, until that moment, I never appreciated fully the immense labour employed and the exquisite finish displayed in every portion of the temple.
The sentimental traveller must already mourn that Athens has been selected as the capital of Greece. Already have speculators and the whole tribe of "improvers" invaded the glorious city; and while I was lingering on the steps of the Parthenon, a German, who was quietly smoking among the ruins, a sort of superintendent whom I had met before, came up, and offering me a segar, and leaning against one of the lofty columns of the temple, opened upon me with "his plans of city improvements;" with new streets, and projected railroads, and the rise of lots. At first I almost thought it personal, and that he was making a fling at me in allusion to one of the greatest hobbies of my native city; but I soon found that he was as deeply bitten as if he had been in Chicago or Dunkirk; and the way in which he talked of moneyed facilities, the wants of the community, and a great French bank then contemplated at the Piræus, would have been no discredit to some of my friends at home. The removal of the court has created a new era in Athens; but, in my mind, it is deeply to be regretted that it has been snatched from the ruin to which it was tending. Even I, deeply imbued with the utilitarian spirit of my country, and myself a quondam speculator in "up-town lots," would fain save Athens from the ruthless hand of renovation; from the building mania of modern speculators. I would have her go on till there was not a habitation among her ruins; till she stood, like Pompeii, alone in the wilderness, a sacred desert, where the traveller might sit down and meditate alone and undisturbed among the relics of the past. But already Athens has become a heterogeneous anomaly; the Greeks in their wild costume are jostled in the streets by Englishmen, Frenchmen, Italians, Dutchmen, Spaniards, and Bavarians, Russians, Danes, and sometimes Americans. European shops invite purchasers by the side of Eastern bazars, coffee-houses, and billiard-rooms, and French and German restaurants are opened all over the city. Sir Pultney Malcolm has erected a house to hire near the site of Plato's Academy. Lady Franklin has bought land near the foot of Mount Hymettus for a country-seat. Several English gentlemen have done the same. Mr. Richmond, an American clergyman, has purchased a farm in the neighbourhood; and in a few years, if the "march of improvement" continues, the Temple of Theseus will be enclosed in the garden of the palace of King Otho; the Temple of the Winds will be concealed by a German opera-house, and the Lantern of Demosthenes by a row of "three-story houses."
I was not a sentimental traveller, but I visited all the localities around Athens, and, therefore, briefly mention that several times I jumped over the poetic and perennial Ilissus, trotted my horse over the ground where Aristotle walked with his peripatetics, and got muddied up to my knees in the garden of Plato.
One morning my Scotch friend and I set out early to ascend Mount Hymettus. The mountain is neither high nor picturesque, but a long flat ridge of bare rock, the sides cut up into ravines, fissures, and gullies. There is an easy path to the summit, but we had no guide, and about midday, after a wild scramble, were worn out, and descended without reaching the top, which is exceedingly fortunate for the reader, as otherwise he would be obliged to go through a description of the view therefrom.
Returning, we met the king taking his daily walk, attended by two aids, one of whom was young Marco Bozzaris. Otho is tall and thin, and, when I saw him, was dressed in a German military frockcoat and cap, and altogether, for a king, seemed to be an amiable young man enough. All the world speaks well of him, and so do I. We touched our hats to him, and he returned the civility; and what could he do more without inviting us to dinner? In old times there was a divinity about a king; but now, if a king is a gentleman, it is as much as we can expect. He has spent his money like a gentleman, that is, he cannot tell what has become of it. Two of the three-millions loan are gone, and there is no colonization, no agricultural prosperity, no opening of roads, no security in the mountains; not a town in Greece but is in ruins, and no money to improve them. Athens, however, is to be embellished. With ten thousand pounds in the treasury, he is building a palace of white Pentelican marble, to cost three hundred thousand pounds.
Otho was very popular, because, not being of age, all the errors of his administration were visited upon Count Armansbergh and the regency, who, from all accounts, richly deserved it; and it was hoped that, on receiving the crown, he would shake off the Bavarians who were preying upon the vitals of Greece, and gather around him his native-born subjects. In private life he bore a most exemplary character. He had no circle of young companions, and passed much of his time in study, being engaged, among other things, in acquiring the Greek and English languages. His position is interesting, though not enviable; and if, as the first king of emancipated Greece, he entertains recollections of her ancient greatness, and the ambition of restoring her to her position among the nations of the earth, he is doomed to disappointment. Otho is since crowned and married. The pride of the Greeks was considerably humbled by a report that their king's proposals to several daughters of German princes had been rejected; but the king had great reason to congratulate himself upon the spirit which induced the daughter of the Duke of Oldenburgh to accept his hand. From her childhood she had taken an enthusiastic interest in Greek history, and it had been her constant wish to visit Greece; and when she heard that Otho had been called to the throne, she naively expressed an ardent wish to share it with him. Several years afterward, by the merest accident, she met Otho at a German watering-place, travelling with his mother, the Queen of Bavaria, as the Count de Missilonghi; and in February last she accompanied him to Athens, to share the throne which had been the object of her youthful wish.
M. dined at my hotel, and, returning to his own, he was picked up and carried to the guardhouse. He started for his hotel without a lantern, the requisition to carry one being imperative in all the Greek and Turkish cities; the guard could not understand a word he said until he showed them some money, which made his English perfectly intelligible; and they then carried him to a Bavarian corporal, who, after two hours' detention, escorted him to his hotel. After that we were rather careful about staying out late at night.
"Thursday. I don't know the day of the month." I find this in my notes, the caption of a day of business, and at this distance of time will not undertake to correct the entry. Indeed, I am inclined to think that my notes in those days are rather uncertain and imperfect; certainly not taken with the precision of one who expected to publish them. Nevertheless, the residence of the court, the diplomatic corps, and strangers form an agreeable society at Athens. I had letters to some of the foreign ministers, but did not present them, as I was hardly presentable myself without my carpet-bag. On "Thursday," however, in company with Dr. W., I called upon Mr. Dawkins, the British minister. Mr. Dawkins went to Greece on a special mission, which he supposed would detain him six months from home, and had remained there ten years. He is a high tory, but retained under a whig administration, because his services could not well be dispensed with. He gave us much interesting information in regard to the present condition and future prospects of Greece; and, in answer to my suggestion that the United States were not represented at all in Greece, not even by a consul, he said, with emphasis, "You are better represented than any power in Europe. Mr. Hill has more influence here than any minister plenipotentiary among us." A few days after, when confined to my room by indisposition, Mr. Dawkins returned my visit, and again spoke in the same terms of high commendation of Mr. Hill. It was pleasing to me, and I have no doubt it will be so to Mr. Hill's numerous friends in this country, to know that a private American citizen, in a position that keeps him aloof from politics, was spoken of in such terms by the representative of one of the great powers of Europe. I had heard it intimated that there was a prospect of Mr. Dawkins being transferred to this country, and parted with him in the hope at some future day of seeing him the representative of his government here.
I might have been presented to the king, but my carpet-bag—Dr. W. borrowed a hat, and was presented; the doctor had an old white hat, which he had worn all the way from New-York. The tide is rolling backward; Athens is borrowing her customs from the barbarous nations of the north; and it is part of the etiquette to enter a drawing-room with a hat (a black one) under the arm. The doctor, in his republican simplicity, thought that a hat, good enough to put on his own head, was good enough to go into the king's presence; but he was advised to the contrary, and took one of Mr. Hill's, not very much too large for him. He was presented by Dr. ——, a German, the king's physician, with whom he had discoursed much of the different medical systems in Germany and America. Dr. W. was much pleased with the king. Did ever a man talk with a king who was not pleased with him? But the doctor was particularly pleased with King Otho, as the latter entered largely into discourse on the doctor's favourite theme, Mr. Hill's school, and the cause of education in Greece. Indeed, it speaks volumes in favour of the young king, that education is one of the things in which he takes the deepest interest. The day the doctor was to be presented we dined at Mr. Hill's, having made arrangements for leaving Athens that night; the doctor and M. to return to Europe. In the afternoon, while the doctor remained to be presented, M. and I walked down to the Piræus, now, as in the days of her glory, the harbour of Athens. The ancient harbour is about five miles from Athens, and was formerly joined to it by long walls built of stone of enormous size, sixty feet high, and broad enough on the top for two wagons to pass abreast. These have long since disappeared, and the road is now over a plain shaded a great part of the way by groves of olives. As usual at this time of day, we met many parties on horseback, sometimes with ladies; and I remember particularly the beautiful and accomplished daughters of Count Armansbergh, both of whom are since married and dead.[2] It is a beautiful ride, in the afternoon particularly, as then the dark outline of the mountains beyond, and the reflections of light and shade, give a peculiarly interesting effect to the ruins of the Acropolis. Toward the other end we paced between the ruins of the old walls, and entered upon a scene which reminded me of home. Eight months before there was only one house at the Piræus; but, as soon as the court removed to Athens, the old harbour revived; and already we saw long ranges of stores and warehouses, and all the hurry and bustle of one of our rising western towns. A railroad was in contemplation, and many other improvements, which have since failed; but an omnibus! that most modern and commonplace of inventions, is now running regularly between the Piræus and Athens. A friend who visited Greece six months after me brought home with him an advertisement printed in Greek, English, French, and German, the English being in the words and figures following, to wit:
"ADVERTISEMENT.
"The public are hereby informed, that on the nineteenth instant an omnibus will commence running between Athena and the Piræus, and will continue to do so every day at the undermentioned hours until farther notice.
Hours of Departure.
| From Athens. | From Piræus. | |
| Half past seven o'clock A.M. | Half past eight o'clock A.M. | |
| Ten o'clock A.M. | Eleven o'clock A.M. | |
| Two o'clock P.M. | Three o'clock P.M. | |
| Half past four P.M. | Half past five P.M. |
"The price of a seat in the omnibus is one drachme.
"Baggage, if not too bulky and heavy, can be taken on the roof.
"Smoking cannot be allowed in the omnibus, nor can dogs be admitted.
"Small parcels and packages may be sent by this conveyance at a moderate charge, and given to the care of the conducteur.
"The omnibus starts from the corner of the Hermes and Æolus streets at Athens and from the bazar at the Piræus, and will wait five minutes at each place, during which period the conducteur will sound his horn.
"Athens, 17th, 29th September, 1836."
Old things are passing away, and all things are becoming new. For a little while yet we may cling to the illusions connected with the past, but the mystery is fast dissolving, the darkness is breaking away, and Greece, and Rome, and even Egypt herself, henceforward claim our attention with objects and events of the present hour. Already they have lost much of the deep and absorbing interest with which men turned to them a generation ago. All the hallowed associations of these ancient regions are fading away. We may regret it, we may mourn over it, but we cannot help it. The world is marching onward; I have met parties of my own townsmen while walking in the silent galleries of the Coliseum; I have seen Americans drinking Champagne in an excavated dwelling of the ancient Pompeii, and I have dined with Englishmen among the ruins of Thebes, but, blessed be my fortune, I never rode in an omnibus from the Piræus to Athens.
We put our baggage on board the caique, and lounged among the little shops till dark, when we betook ourselves to a dirty little coffee-house filled with Greeks dozing and smoking pipes. We met there a boat's crew of a French man-of-war, waiting for some of the officers, who were dining with the French ambassador at Athens. One of them had been born to a better condition than that of a common sailor. One juvenile indiscretion after another had brought him down, and, without a single vice, he was fairly on the road to ruin. Once he brushed a tear from his eyes as he told us of prospects blighted by his own follies; but, rousing himself, hurried away, and his reckless laugh soon rose above the noise and clamour of his wild companions.
About ten o'clock the doctor came in, drenched with rain and up to his knees in mud. We wanted to embark immediately, but the appearance of the weather was so unfavourable that the captain preferred waiting till after midnight. The Greeks went away from the coffee-house, the proprietor fell asleep in his seat, and we extended ourselves on the tables and chairs; and now the fleas, which had been distributed about among all the loungers, made a combined onset upon us. Life has its cares and troubles, but few know that of being given up to the tender mercies of Greek fleas. We bore the infliction till human nature could endure no longer; and, at about three in the morning, in the midst of violent wind and rain, broke out of the coffee-house and went in search of our boat. It was very dark, but we found her and got on board. She was a caique, having an open deck with a small covering over the stern. Under this we crept, and with our cloaks and a sailcloth spread over us, our heated blood cooled, and we fell asleep. When we woke we were on the way to Epidaurus. The weather was raw and cold. We passed within a stone's throw of Salamis and Ægina, and at about three o'clock, turning a point which completely hid it from view, entered a beautiful little bay, on which stands the town of Epidaurus. The old city, the birthplace of Esculapius, stands upon a hill projecting into the bay, and almost forming an island. In the middle of the village is a wooden building containing a large chamber, where the Greek delegates, a band of mountain warriors, with arms in their hands, "in the name of the Greek nation, proclaimed before gods and men its independence."
At the locanda there was by chance one bed, which not being large enough for three, I slept on the floor. At seven o'clock, after a quarrel with our host and paying him about half his demand, we set out for Napoli di Romania. For about an hour we moved in the valley running off from the beautiful shore of Epidaurus; soon the valley deepened into a glen, and in an hour we turned off on a path that led into the mountains, and, riding through wild and rugged ravines, fell into the dry bed of a torrent; following which, we came to the Hieron Elios, or Sacred Grove of Esculapius. This was the great watering-place for the invalids of ancient Greece, the prototype of the Cheltenham and Saratoga of modern days. It is situated in a valley surrounded by high mountains, and was formerly enclosed by walls, within which, that the credit of the God might not be impeached, no man was allowed to die, and no woman to be delivered. Within this enclosure were temples, porticoes and fountains, now lying in ruins hardly distinguishable. The theatre is the most beautiful and best preserved. It is scooped out of the side of the mountain, rather more than semicircular in form, and containing fifty-four seats. These seats are of pink marble, about fifteen inches high and nearly three feet wide. In the middle of each seat is a groove, in which, probably, woodwork was constructed, to prevent the feet of those above from incommoding them who sat below, and also to support the backs of an invalid audience. The theatre faces the north, and is so arranged that, with the mountain towering behind it, the audience was shaded nearly all the day. It speaks volumes in favour of the intellectual character of the Greeks, that it was their favourite recreation to listen to the recitation of their poets and players. And their superiority in refinement over the Romans is in no way manifested more clearly than by the fact, that in the ruined cities of the former are found the remains of theatres, and in the latter of amphitheatres, showing the barbarous taste of the Romans for combats of gladiators and wild beasts. It was in beautiful keeping with this intellectual taste of the Greeks, that their places of assembling were in the open air, amid scenery calculated to elevate the mind; and, as I sat on the marble steps of the theatre, I could well imagine the high satisfaction with which the Greek, under the shade of the impending mountain, himself all enthusiasm and passion, rapt in the interest of some deep tragedy, would hang upon the strains of Euripides or Sophocles. What deep-drawn exclamations, what shouts of applause had rung through that solitude, what bursts of joy and grief had echoed from those silent benches! And then, too, what flirting and coqueting, the state of society at the springs in the Grove of Esculapius being probably much the same as at Saratoga in our own days. The whole grove is now a scene of desolation. The lentisculus is growing between the crevices of the broken marble; birds sing undisturbed among the bushes; the timid hare steals among the ruined fragments; and sometimes the snake is seen gliding over the marble steps.
We had expected to increase the interest of our visit by taking our noonday refection on the steps of the theatre, but it was too cold for a picnic al fresco; and, mounting our horses, about two o'clock we came in sight of Argos, on the opposite side of the great plain; and in half an hour more, turning the mountain, saw Napoli di Romania beautifully situated on a gentle elevation on the shore of the gulf. The scenery in every direction around Napoli is exceedingly beautiful; and, when we approached it, bore no marks of the sanguinary scenes of the late revolution. The plain was better cultivated than any part of the adjacent country; and the city contained long ranges of houses and streets, with German names, such as Heidecker, Maurer-street, &c., and was seemingly better regulated than any other city in Greece. We drove up to the Hotel des Quatre Nations, the best we had found in Greece, dined at a restaurant with a crowd of Bavarian officers and adventurers, and passed the evening in the streets and coffee-houses.
The appearance of Otho-street, which is the principal, is very respectable; it runs from what was the palace to the grand square or esplanade, on one side of which are the barracks of the Bavarian soldiers, with a park of artillery posted so as to sweep the square and principal streets; a speaking comment upon the liberty of the Greeks, and the confidence reposed in them by the government.
Everything in Napoli recalls the memory of the brief and unfortunate career of Capo d'Istria. Its recovery from the horrors of barbarian war, and the thriving appearance of the country around, are ascribed to the impulse given by his administration. A Greek by birth, while his country lay groaning under the Ottoman yoke he entered the Russian service, distinguished himself in all the diplomatic correspondence during the French invasion, was invested with various high offices and honours, and subscribed the treaty of Paris in 1815 as imperial Russian plenipotentiary. He withdrew from her service because Russia disapproved the efforts of his countrymen to free themselves from the Turkish yoke; and, after passing five years in Germany and Switzerland, chiefly at Geneva, in 1827 he was called to the presidency of Greece. On his arrival at Napoli amid the miseries of war and anarchy, he was received by the whole people as the only man capable of saving their country. Civil war ceased on the very day of his arrival, and the traitor Grievas placed in his hands the key of the Palimethe. I shall not enter into any speculations upon the character of his administration. The rank he had attained in a foreign service is conclusive evidence of his talents, and his withdrawal from that service for the reason stated is as conclusive of his patriotism; but from the moment he took into his hands the reins of government, he was assailed by every so-called liberal press in Europe with the party cry of Russian influence. The Greeks were induced to believe that he intended to sell them to a stranger; and Capo d'Istria, strong in his own integrity, and confidently relying on the fidelity and gratitude of his countrymen, was assassinated in the streets on his way to mass. Young Mauromichalis, the son of the old Bey of Maina, struck the fatal blow, and fled for refuge to the house of the French ambassador. A gentleman attached to the French legation told me that he himself opened the door when the murderer rushed in with the bloody dagger in his hand, exclaiming, "I have killed the tyrant." He was not more than twenty-one, tall and noble in his appearance, and animated by the enthusiastic belief that he had delivered his country. My informant told me that he barred all the doors and windows, and went up stairs to inform the minister, who had not yet risen. The latter was embarrassed and in doubt what he should do. A large crowd gathered round the house; but, as yet, they were all Mauromichalis's friends. The young enthusiast spoke of what he had done with a high feeling of patriotism and pride; and while the clamour out of doors was becoming outrageous, he ate his breakfast and smoked his pipe with the utmost composure. He remained at the embassy more than two hours, and until the regular troops drew up before the house. The French ambassador, though he at first refused, was obliged to deliver him up; and my informant saw him shot under a tree outside the gate of Napoli, dying gallantly in the firm conviction that he had played the Brutus and freed his country from a Cæsar.
The fate of Capo d'Istria again darkened the prospects of Greece, and the throne went begging for an occupant until it was accepted by the King of Bavaria for his second son Otho. The young monarch arrived at Napoli in February, eighteen hundred and thirty-three. The whole population came out to meet him, and the Grecian youth ran breast deep in the water to touch his barge as it approached the shore. In February, eighteen hundred and thirty-four, it was decided to establish Athens as the capital. The propriety of this removal has been seriously questioned, for Napoli possessed advantages in her location, harbour, fortress and a town already built; but the King of Bavaria, a scholar and an antiquary, was influenced more, perhaps, by classical feeling than by regard for the best interests of Greece. Napoli has received a severe blow from the removal of the seat of government; still it was by far the most European in its appearance of any city I had seen in Greece. It had several restaurants and coffee-houses, which were thronged all the evening with Bavarian officers and broken-down European adventurers, discussing the internal affairs of that unfortunate country, which men of every nation seemed to think they had a right to assist in governing. Napoli had always been the great gathering-place of the phil-Hellenists, and many appropriating to themselves that sacred name were hanging round it still. All over Europe thousands of men are trained up to be shot at for so much per day; the soldier's is as regular a business as that of the lawyer or merchant, and there is always a large class of turbulent spirits constantly on the look-out for opportunities, and ever ready with their swords to carve their way to fortune. I believe that there were men who embarked in the cause of Greece with as high and noble purposes as ever animated the warrior; but of many, there is no lack of charity in saying that, however good they might be as fighters, they were not much as men; and I am sorry to add that, from the accounts I heard in Greece, some of the American phil-Hellenists were rather shabby fellows. Mr. M., then resident in Napoli, was accosted one day in the streets by a young man, who asked him where he could find General Jarvis. "What do you want with him?" said Mr. M. "I hope to obtain a commission in his army." "Do you see that dirty fellow yonder?" said Mr. M., pointing to a ragged patriot passing at the moment; "well, twenty such fellows compose Jarvis's army, and Jarvis himself is no better off." "Well, then," said the young American, "I believe I'll join the Turks!" Allen, another American patriot, was hung at Constantinople. One bore the sacred name of Washington; a brave but unprincipled man. Mr. M. had heard him say, that if the devil himself should raise a regiment and would give him a good commission, he would willingly march under him. He was struck by a shot from the fortress of Napoli while directing a battery against it; was taken on board his Britannic majesty's ship Asia, and breathed his last uttering curses on his country.
There were others, however, who redeemed the American character. The agents sent out by the Greek committee (among them our townsmen, Messrs. Post and Stuyvesant), under circumstances of extraordinary difficulty fulfilled the charitable purposes of their mission with such zeal and discretion as to relieve the wants of a famishing people, and secure the undying gratitude of the Greeks. Dr. Russ, another of the agents, established an American hospital at Poros, and, under the most severe privations, devoted himself gratuitously to attendance upon the sick and wounded. Dr. Howe, one of the earliest American phil-Hellenists, in the darkest hour of the revolution, and at a time when the Greeks were entirely destitute of all medical aid, with an honourable enthusiasm, and without any hope of pecuniary reward, entered the service as surgeon, was the fellow-labourer of Dr. Russ in establishing the American hospital, and, at the peril of his life, remained with them during almost the whole of their dreadful struggle. Colonel Miller, the principal agent, now resident in Vermont, besides faithfully performing the duties of his trust, entered the army, and conducted himself with such distinguished gallantry that he was called by the Greek braves the American Delhi, or Daredevil.[3]