24th October. I left Athens by the small steamer Baron Kübeck, seventy-horse power, and went as far as Calamachi (twenty-eight miles). Here I had to leave the ship and cross the Isthmus, three English miles broad. At Lutrachi we went on board another vessel.
During the passage to Calamachi, which lasts only a few hours, the little town of Megara is seen upon a barren hill.
Nothing is more unpleasant in travelling than changing the conveyance, especially when it is a good one, and you can only lose by doing so. We were in this situation. Herr Leitenberg was one of the best and most attentive of all captains that I had ever met with in my travels, and we were all sorry to have to leave him and his ship. Even in Calamachi, where we remained this day and the following, as the ship which was to carry us on from Lutrachi did not arrive, on account of contrary winds, until the 25th, he attended to us with the greatest politeness.
The village of Calamachi offers but little of interest, the few houses have only been erected since the steamers plied, and the tolerably high mountains on which it lies are for the most part barren, or grown over with low brambles. We took several walks on the Isthmus, and ascended minor heights, from whence on one side is seen the gulf of Lepanto, and on the other the Ægean sea. In front of us stood the large mountain, Akrokorinth, rising high above all its companions. Its summit is embellished by a well-preserved fortification, which is called the remains of the Castle of Akrokorinth, and was used by the Turks in the last war as a fortress. The formerly world-famous city of Corinth, after which all the fittings of luxury and sumptuousness in the interior of palaces were named, and which gave the name to a distinct order of architecture, is reduced to a small town with scarcely a thousand inhabitants, and lies at the foot of the mountain, in the midst of fields and vineyards. It owes the whole of its present celebrity to its small dried grapes, called currants.
It is said that no town of Greece had so many beautiful statues of stone and marble as Corinth. It was upon this isthmus, which consists of a narrow ridge of mountains, and is covered with dense fig-groves, in which stood a beautiful temple of Neptune, were held the various Isthmian games.
How greatly a people or a country may degenerate! The Grecian people, at one time the first in the world, are now the furthest behind! I was told by everyone that in Greece it was neither safe to trust myself with a guide nor to wander about alone, as I had done in other countries; indeed, I was warned here in Calamachi not to go too far from the harbour, and to return before the dusk of the evening.
26th October. We did not start from Lutrachi until towards noon, by the steamer Hellenos, of one hundred and twenty-horse power.
We anchored for a few hours in the evening near Vostizza, the ancient Ægion, now an unimportant village, at the foot of a mountain.
27th October, Patras. That portion of Greece which I had already seen was neither rich in beauty, well cultivated, nor thickly inhabited. Here were, at least, plains and hills covered with meadows, fields, and vineyards. The town, on the Gulf of Lepanto, was formerly an important place of trade; and before the breaking out of the Greek revolution in 1821, contained 20,000 inhabitants; it has now only 7,000. The town is defended by three fortresses, one of which stands upon a hill, and two at the entrance of the harbour. The town is neither handsome nor clean, and the streets are narrow. The high mountains pleased me better; and their chain can be followed for a considerable distance.
I saw grapes here whose beauty and size induced me to buy some; but I found them so hard, dry, and tasteless, that I did not even venture to give them to a sailor, but threw them into the sea.