“Well, certainly those Greeks——!” gasped Jane when the full meaning of it all began to dawn upon her, and Peripatetica, who usually suffers from chronic palpitation of the tongue, simply sat still staring with shining eyes. Greeks to her are as was King Charles’ head to Mr. Dick. She is convinced the Greeks knew everything worth knowing, and did everything worth doing, and any further proof of their ability only fills her with a gratified sense of “I-told-you-so-ness.” So she lent a benign ear to a young American architect there, who pointed out many constructive details, which, under an appearance of great simplicity, proved consummate grasp of the art, and of the subtlest secrets of architectural harmonics.
Before the land made out into the harbour Poseidon’s temple stood almost on the sea’s edge. The old pavement of the street before its portals being disinterred shows the ruts made by the chariot wheels still deep-scored upon it, and it was here
“The merry Grecian coaster came
Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,
Green bursting figs, and tunnies steeped in brine—”
anchoring almost under the shadow of the great fane of the Lord of the Waters; and here, when his cargo was discharged, he went up to offer sacrifices and thanks to the Sea-god of Poseidonia, and
“Hung his sea-drenched garments on the wall,”
and prayed for skill to outwit his fellows in trade; for fair winds to blow him once more to Greece.
Besides the temple of Neptune there was, of course, the enormous Basilica, and a so-called temple of Ceres, and some Roman fragments, but these were so much less interesting than the golden-pillared shrine of the Trident God, that the rest of the time was spent in looking vainly and wistfully for Pæstum’s famous rose gardens, of which not even the smallest bud remained, and then Berliet gathered them up, and went in search of the Station of La Cava.