We slept at San Nicolo on the bare ground, having made ourselves a fire in a tiny chapel. Fop, my dog, fell into a well and was rescued with great difficulty. One of the peasants, who had never seen anything like a Skye terrier before, when he saw him pulled out took him for a fiend or a goblin, and crossed himself devoutly.
We sailed in the open boat all through a very stormy day, and arrived at last at Tinos (the town), thoroughly chilled and wet. The island, once highly prosperous, is now poor and depopulated.
From Tinos we sailed across to Great Delos (Rhenea), slept in a hut, and next day went on to Little Delos. Here there was nothing to sleep in but the sail of the boat, and nothing to eat at all. Everything on the island had been bought up by an English frigate a few days before. We were obliged to send across to Great Delos for a kid, which was killed and roasted by us in the Temple of Apollo. I spent my time sketching and measuring everything I could see in the way of architectural remains, and copying every inscription. I had to work hard, but without house or food we could not stop where we were, and in the evening we sailed to Mycone.
Next day I went back to Delos, and after much consideration resolved to try to dig there. I had to sleep in the open air, for the company of the diggers in the hut was too much for me. First I made out the columns of the temple and drew a restoration of the plan. Then we went on digging, but discovered next to nothing—a beautiful fragment of a hand, a dial, some glass, copper, lead, &c., and vast masses of marble chips, as though it had once been a marble-mason's shop. At last it seemed to promise so little that I gave it up and went back to Mycone; but on the 28th, not liking to be beaten, I went back alone to have a last look. But I could discover no indications to make further digging hopeful, so I came away."
From Mycone the travellers sailed to Syra, and from thence to Zea, where they stayed some days at least; for there is in Bronstedt's "Voyages et recherches en Grèce" a drawing by my father of a colossal lion which must have been made at this time. Ingilby had left them, but my father and Foster must have arrived in Athens about the beginning of December 1810. Not long after he made acquaintance with a brother craftsman, Baron Haller von Hallerstein, a studious and accomplished artist, about fourteen years his senior, and a gentleman by birth and nature; altogether a valuable companion. The two struck up a great intimacy, and henceforth were inseparable. They could be of service to each other. Haller was travelling on a very small allowance from his patron, Prince Louis of Bavaria; and my father, while he profited by the company of a man of greater learning and experience, was able in return to add to his comfort by getting commissions for him to do drawings for some of his English friends,[15] and in other ways supplementing his means. He had come to Athens from Rome with one Linckh, a painter from Cannstadt, Baron Stackelberg,[16] an Esthonian from Revel, Bronstedt,[17] a Dane, and Koes, another Dane, all of them accomplished men, seriously engaged in antiquarian studies. Together they formed a society suited to my father's tastes and pursuits.
In the way of Englishmen there were Messrs. Graham and Haygarth and Lord Byron, all three young Cambridge men of fortune, with whom, especially the two first, he was intimate.
His only other friends, except Greeks, were Fauvel, the French consul, who had taste and information, and was owner of a good collection of Greek antiquities; and Lusieri,[18] the Italian draughtsman to Lord Elgin, an individual of indifferent character.
Athens was a small place. There was a khan, of course, but nothing in the shape of an hotel. The better class of travellers lived in lodgings, the best known of which were those of Madame Makri, a Greek lady, the widow of a Scotchman of the name of Macree, who had been British consul in Athens in his day. She had three pretty daughters known to travellers as "les Consulines" or "les trois Grâces," of whom the eldest was immortalised as "the Maid of Athens" in a much overrated lyric by Lord Byron, who was one of their lodgers.
As they were going to stop some time in the town, instead of going into an apartment, Foster and my father took a house together.
"There is hardly anything that can be called society among the Greeks. I know a few families, but I very rarely visit them, for such society as theirs is hateful.