“Ces adieux à l’Elide,” adds M. Beulé, “laissent [pg 343]une pure et vive impression. Rarement la nature se trouve en si parfaite harmonie avec les souvenirs. On dirait un théâtre éternel, toujours prêt pour les joies pacifiques, toujours paré pour les fêtes, et qui, depuis dix-huit siècles, attend ses acteurs qui ont disparu.”
The Valley of the Alpheus
Travellers going from Olympia northward either go round by carriage through Elis to Patras—a drive of two days—or by Kalavryta to Megaspilion, and thence to Vostitza, thus avoiding the great Alps of Olonos (as Erymanthus is now called) and Chelmos, which are among the highest and most picturesque in Greece. After my last visit to Olympia (1884) I was so tantalized by the perpetual view of the snowy crest of Olonos, that I determined to attempt a new route, not known to any of the guide-books,[133] and cross over the mountain, as directly as I could, from Olympia to Patras. It was easy for me to carry out this plan, being accompanied by a young Greek antiquarian, M. Castroménos, and by Dr. Purgold from Olympia, who had travelled through most of Greece, but was as anxious as I was to try this new route.
So we started on a beautiful spring morning, up the valley of the Kladeos, with all the trees bursting into leaf and blossom, and the birds singing their hymns of delight. The way was wooded, and led [pg 344]up through narrow and steep, but not difficult glens, until, on a far higher level, we came in three or four hours to the village of Lala, once an important Turkish fort. Here was a higher plain, from which we began to see the plan of that vast complex of mountains which form the boundaries of the Old Elis, Achaia, and Arcadia, and which have so often been the scenes of difficult campaigns. From Lala, where we breakfasted, we crossed a sudden deep valley, and found ourselves, on regaining the higher level, in a vast oak forest, unlike anything I had yet seen in Greece. The trees had been undisturbed for centuries, and the forest was even avoided in summer by the natives, on account of the many poisonous snakes which hid in the deep layers of dead leaves. In that high country the oaks were just turning pink with their new buds, and not a green leaf was to be seen, so we could trust to the winter sleep of the snakes, while we turned aside again and again from our path, to the great perplexity of the muleteers, to dig up wood anemones of all colors, pale blue, pink, deep crimson, scarlet, snowy-white, which showed brilliantly on the brown oak-leaf carpet.
We spent at least two hours in riding through this forest, and then we rose higher and higher, passing along the upper edge of deep glens, with rushing streams far beneath us. The most beautiful point was one from which we looked down a vast straight [pg 345]glen of some fifteen miles, almost as deep as a cañon, with the silvery Erymanthus river pursuing its furious course so directly as to be clearly visible all the way. But though ascending the river from this point, where its course comes suddenly round a corner, the upper country was no longer wooded, but bleak, like most of the Alpine Arcadia, a country of dire winters and great hardship to the population, who till an unwilling soil on the steep slopes of giant precipices.
We were much tempted to turn up another tortuous glen to the hidden nest of Divri, where the Greeks found refuge from Turkish prosecution in the great war—a place so concealed, and so difficult of access, that an armed force has never penetrated there. But the uncertainties of our route were too many to admit of these episodes, so we hurried on to reach the Kahn of Tripotamo in the evening—a resting-place which suggested to us strongly the inn where St. John is reported to have slept in the apocryphal Acts of his life. Being very tired with preaching and travelling, he found it so impossible to share the room with the bugs, that he besought them in touching language to allow him to sleep; practically in virtue of his apostolic authority, he ordered them out of the house. They all obeyed, but when in the morning the apostle and his companions found them waiting patiently outside the door, he was so moved by their consideration for [pg 346]him, that he permitted them to return and infest the house.
Nor were the bugs perhaps the worst. Being awakened by a crunching noise in the night, I perceived that a party of cats had come in to finish our supper for us, and when startled by a flying boot, they made our beds and bodies the stepping stones for a leap to the rafters, and out through a large hole in the roof. By and by I was aroused by the splashing of cold water in my face, and found that a heavy shower had come on, and was pouring through the cats’ passage. So I put up my umbrella in bed till the shower was over—the only time I felt rain during the whole of that voyage. I notice that Miss Agnes Smith, who travelled through these parts in May, 1883, and had very similar experiences at Tripotamo, was wet through almost every day. We did not see more than two showers, and were moreover so fortunate as to have perfectly calm days whenever we were crossing high passes, though in general the breeze was so strong as to be almost stormy in the valleys.
Next morning we followed the river up to the neighboring site of Psophis, so picturesquely described by Polybius in his account of Philip V., and his campaigns in Elis and Triphylia.[134] This town, regarded as the frontier-town of Elis, Arcadia, and Achaia, would well repay an enterprising excavator. [pg 347]The description of Polybius can be verified without difficulty, and ruins are still visible. We found out from a solitary traveller that our way turned to the north, up one of the affluents of the Erymanthus, and so we ascended in company with this worthy man to a village (Lechouri) under the highest precipices of Olonos. He was full of the curiosity of a Greek peasant—Who were we, where did we come from, were we married, had we children, how many, what was our income, was it from land, was it paid by the State, could we be dismissed by the Government, were we going to write about Greece, what would we say, etc., etc.? Such was the conversation to which we submitted for the sake of his guidance. But at last it seemed as if our way was actually at an end, and we had come into an impassable cul-de-sac. Perpendicular walls of rock surrounded us on all sides except where we had entered by constantly fording the stream, or skirting along its edge. Was it possible that the curiosity of our fellow-traveller had betrayed him into leading us up this valley to the village whither he himself was bound? We sought anxiously for the answer, when he showed us a narrow strip of dark pine-trees coming down from above, in form like a little torrent, and so reaching with a narrow thread of green to the head of the valley. This was our pass, the pine-trees with their roots and stems made a zigzag path up the almost perpendicular wall possible, and so we [pg 348]wended our way up with infinite turnings, walking or rather climbing for safety’s sake, and to rest the laboring mules. Often as I had before attempted steep ascents with horses in Greece, I never saw anything so astonishing as this.
When we had reached the top we found ourselves on a narrow saddle, with snowy heights close to us on both sides, the highest ridge of Olonos facing us a few miles away, and a great pine forest reaching down on the northern side, whither our descent was to lead us. About us were still great patches of snow, and in them were blowing the crocus and the cyclamen, with deep blue scilla. Far away to the south reached, in a great panorama, the mountains of Arcadia, and even beyond them the highest tops of Messene and Laconia were plainly visible. The air was clear, the day was perfectly fine and calm. To the north the chain of Erymanthus still hid from us the far distance. For a long time, while our muleteers slept and the mules and ponies rested, we sat wondering at the great view. The barometer indicated that we were at a height of about 5500 feet. The freshness and purity of the atmosphere was such that no thought of hunger and fatigue could mar our perfect enjoyment. In the evening, descending through gloomy pines and dazzling snow, we reached the village of Hagios Vlasos, where the song of countless nightingales beguiled the hours of the night, for here too sleep was not easily obtained.