CHAPTER XI.
ELIS—OLYMPIA AND ITS GAMES—THE VALLEY OF THE ALPHEUS—MOUNT ERYMANTHUS—PATRAS.
The thousands of visitors, whose ships thronged the bay of Katakolo every four years in the great old times, cannot have been fairly impressed with the beauty of the country at first sight. Most other approaches to the coast of Greece are far more striking. For although, on a clear day, the mountains of Arcadia are plainly visible, and form a fine background to the view, from the great bar of Erymanthus on the north, round to the top of Lykæon far south-west, the foreground has not, and never had, either the historic interest or the beauty of the many bays and harbors in other parts of Greece. Yet I am far from asserting that it is actually wanting even in this respect. As we saw the bay in a quiet summer sunset, with placid water reflecting a sleeping cloud and a few idle sails in its amber glow, with a wide circle of low hills and tufted shore bathed in a golden haze, which spread its curtain of light athwart all the distance, so that the great snowy comb of Erymanthus alone seemed suspended by some mystery in the higher blue—the view was [pg 300]not indeed very Greek, but still it was beautiful, and no unsuitable dress wherein the land might clothe itself to welcome the traveller, and foretell him its sunny silence and its golden mystery.
The carriage-way along the coast passes by sand-hills, and sandy fields of vines, which were being tilled when we saw them by kindly but squalid peasants, some of whom lived in wretched huts of skins, enclosed with a rough fence. But these were probably only temporary dwellings, for the thrift and diligence of the southern Greek seems hardly compatible with real penury. Mendicancy, except in the case of little children who do it for the nonce, seems unknown in the Morea.
A dusty ride of two hours, relieved now and then for a moment by the intense perfume from the orange blossoms of gardens fenced with mighty aloes, brought us to the noisy and stirring town of Pyrgos.[115] We found this town, one of the most thriving in Greece, quite as noisy as Naples in proportion to its size, full of dogs barking, donkeys braying, and various shopkeepers screaming out their wares—especially frequent where young shrill-voiced boys were so employed. Nowhere does the ultra-democratic temper of new Greek social life show itself more manifestly than in these disturbed streets. Not only does every member of human society, how[pg 301]ever young or ill-disposed, let his voice be heard without reserve, but it seems to be considered an infraction upon liberty to silence yelping dogs, braying donkeys, or any other animal which chooses to disturb its neighbors.
The whole town, like most others in Greece, even in the Arcadian highlands, is full of half-built and just finished houses, showing a rapid increase of prosperity, or perhaps a return of the population from country life into the towns which have always been so congenial to the race. But if the latter be the fact, there yet seems no slackening in the agriculture of the country, which in the Morea is strikingly diligent and laborious, reaching up steep hillsides, and creeping along precipices, winning from ungrateful nature every inch of niggard soil.[116] This is indeed the contrast of northern and southern Greece. In Bœotia the rich plains of Thebes and Orchomenos are lying fallow, while all the rugged mountains of Arcadia are yielding wine and oil. The Greeks will tell you that it is the result of the security established by their Government in those parts of Greece which are not accessible from the Turkish frontier. They assert that if their present frontier were not at Thermopylæ but at Tempe, or even farther north, the rich plains of northern Greece would not lie idle through fear of the bandits, which [pg 302]every disturbance excites about the boundaries of ill-guarded kingdoms.
The carriage road from Pyrgos up to Olympia was just finished, and it is now possible to drive all the way from the sea, but we preferred the old method of travelling on horseback to the terrors of a newly-constructed Greek thoroughfare. There is, moreover, in wandering on unpaved thoroughfares, along meadows, through groves and thickets, and across mountains, a charm which no dusty carriage road can ever afford. We soon came upon the banks of the Alpheus, which we followed as our main index, though at times we were high above it, and at times in the meadows at the water-side; at times again mounting some wooded ridge which had barred the way of the stream, and forced it to take a wide circuit from our course, or again crossing the deep cuttings made by rivulets which come down from northern Elis to swell the river from mile to mile.
Our path must have been almost the same as was followed by the crowds which came from the west to visit the Olympic games in classical days: they must have ascended along the windings of the river, and as they came upon each new amphitheatre of hills, and each new tributary stream, they may have felt the impatience which we felt that this was not the sacred Altis, and that this was not the famous confluence of the Kladeus. But the season in which they travelled—the beginning of July—can never [pg 303]have shown them the valley in its true beauty. Instead of a glaring dry bed of gravel, and meadows parched with heat, we found the Alpheus a broad and rapid river, which we crossed on horseback with difficulty; we found the meadows green with sprouting corn and bright with flowers, and all along the slopes the trees were bursting into bud and blossom, and filling the air with the rich scent of spring. Huge shrubs of arbutus and of mastich closed around the paths, while over them the Judas tree and the wild pear covered themselves with purple and with white, and on every bank great scarlet anemones opened their wistful eyes in the morning sun.