Rambles and Studies in Greece

by J. P. Mahaffy

But let us turn from this poetical and imaginary country to the real land—from Arcádia to Arcadía, as it is called by the real inhabitants. As everybody knows, this Arcadia is the alpine centre of the Morea, bristling with mountain chains, which reach their highest points in the great bar of Erymanthus, to the N. W., in the lonely peak of “Cyllene hoar,” to the N. E., in the less conspicuous, but far more sacred Lykæon, to the S. W., and finally, in the ser[pg 357]rated Taygetus to the S. E. These four are the angles, as it were, of a quadrilateral enclosing Arcadia. Yet these are but the greatest among chains of great mountains, which seem to traverse the country in all directions, and are not easily distinguished, or separated into any connected system.[139] They are nevertheless interrupted, as we found, by two fine oval plains—both stretching north and south, both surrounded with a beautiful panorama of mountains, and both, of course, the seats of the old culture, such as it was in Arcadia. That which is southerly and westerly, and from which the rivers still flow into the Alpheus and the western sea,[140] is guarded at its south end by Megalopolis. That which is more east, which is higher in level, and separated from the former by the bleak bar of Mænalus, is the plain of Mantinea and Tegea, now represented by the important town of Tripolitza. These two parallel plains give some plan and system to the confusion of mountains which cover the ordinary maps of Arcadia.

The passage from Elis into Arcadia is nowhere marked by any natural boundary. You ride up the valley of the Alpheus, crossing constantly the [pg 358]streams, great and small, which come flowing into it from the spurs of Erymanthus, from northern Arcadia, and the adjoining highlands of Elis. The stream called Erymanthus, which is the old boundary, though called a λάβρος ποταμὸς by Polybius, does not strike the traveller here as it does higher up in its course, and the only other confluent water worth mentioning is the Ladon, which meets the Alpheus at some hours’ ride above Olympia, but which counted of old as a river of Arcadia. This Ladon seems to have specially struck Pausanias with its beauty, as he returns to it several times; and later observers, such as M. Beulé, have corroborated him, saying that on the banks of this river you may indeed find the features of the poetical Arcadia—grassy slopes and great shady trees, without the defiles and precipices so common in the inner country. The Ladon and its valley in fact, though in Arcadia, partake of the character of the neighboring Elis: it is the outer boundary of the real Alps. The Alpheus, on the contrary, which is a broad, peaceful stream when it passes into tamer country, comes through the wildest part of central Arcadia; and if you follow its course upward, will lead you first past the ancient site of Heræa, a few miles above the Ladon, and then through rugged and savage mountains, till you at last ascend to the valley of Megalopolis, round which it winds in a great curve. We did not follow this route, nor did we ascend the [pg 359]valley of the Ladon, in spite of its reputed beauties. For we were bound for Andritzena, a ride of eleven hours from Olympia, which lay to the S. E., and within easy distance of the temple of Bassæ. We therefore forded the Alpheus, just above the confluence of the Ladon, where the two rivers form a great delta of sand, and the stream is broad and comparatively shallow. The banks were clothed with brushwood, and above it with a green forest, along the grassy margin of which scarlet anemones were scattered like our primroses among the stems of the trees, and varied with their brightness the mosses and hoary lichen. From this point onward we began to cross narrow defiles, and climb up steeps which seemed impossible to any horse or mule. We entered secluded mountain valleys, where the inhabitants appeared to live apart from all the world, and looked with wonder upon the sudden stranger. We rested beside tumbling rivers, rushing from great wooded mountain sides, which stood up beside us like walls of waving green. The snow had disappeared from these wild valleys but a few weeks, and yet even the later trees were already clothed with that yellow and russet brown which is not only the faded remnant, but also the forerunner, of the summer green. And down by the river’s side the gray fig trees were putting forth great tufts at the end of every branch, while the pear trees were showering their snowy blossoms upon the stream. [pg 360]But in one respect, all this lonely solitude showed a marked contrast to the wilds of northern Greece. Every inch of available ground was cultivated; all the steep hill sides were terraced in ridges with infinite labor; the ravages of the winter’s torrent were being actively repaired. There was indeed in some sense a solitude. No idlers or wanderers were to be seen on the way. But the careful cultivation of all the country showed that there was not only population, but a thrifty and careful population. All the villages seemed encumbered with the remains of recent building; for almost all the houses were new, or erected within very few years. The whole of this alpine district seemed happy and prosperous. This, say the Greeks, is the result of its remoteness from the Turkish frontier, its almost insular position—in fact, of its being under undisturbed Hellenic rule. No bandit has been heard of in Arcadia since the year 1847. Life and property are, I should think, more secure than in any part of England. Morals are remarkably pure. If all Greece were occupied in this way by a contented and industrious peasantry, undisturbed by ambition from within or violence from without, the kingdom must soon become rich and prosperous. It was not uncommon to find in these valleys two or three secluded homesteads, miles from any village. This is the surest sign both of outward security and of inward thrift, when people cut themselves off from society for the [pg 361]sake of ample room and good return for their industry. Late in the evening we entered the steep streets of the irregular but considerable town of Andritzena.

We experienced in this place some of the rudeness of Greek travel. As the party was too large to be accommodated in a private house, we sought the shelter of a ξενοδοχεῖον, as it is still called—an inn with no chairs, no beds, one tiny table, and about two spoons and forks. We were in fact lodged within four bare walls, with a balcony outside the room, and slept upon rugs laid on the floor. The people were very civil and honest—in this a great contrast to the inn at Tripolitza, of which I shall speak in due time—and were, moreover, considerably inconvenienced by our arrival during the Passion Week of the Greek Church, when there is hardly anything eaten. There was no meat, of course, in the town. But this was not all. No form of milk, cheese, or curds, is allowed during this fast. The people live on black bread, olives, and hard-boiled eggs. They are wholly given up to their processions and services; they are ready to think of nothing else. Thus we came not only to a place scantily supplied, but at the scantiest moment of the year. This is a fact of great importance to travellers in Greece, and one not mentioned, I think, in the guide-books. Without making careful provision beforehand by telegraph, no one should [pg 362]venture into the highlands of Greece during this very Holy Week, and it should be remembered that it does not coincide with the Passion or Holy Week of the Latin Church. It was just ten days later on this occasion; so that, after having suffered some hardships from this unforeseen cause in remote parts of Italy, we travelled into the same difficulty in Greece. But I must say that a Greek fast is a very different thing from the mild and human fasting of the Roman Catholic Church. We should have been well-nigh starved had I not appealed, as was my wont, to the physician, ὁ κύριος ἴατρος, of the town, a very amiable and cultivated man, and really educated in the most philosophical views of modern medicine. He was well acquainted, for example, with the clinical practice of the Dublin school, as exemplified in the works of Graves and Stokes. It seems to me, from a comparison of many instances, that in this matter of medicine, as indeed generally, the Greeks show remarkable intelligence and enterprise as compared with the nations around them. They study in the great centres of European thought. They know the more important languages in which this science can be pursued. A traveller taken ill in the remote valleys of Arcadia would receive far safer and better treatment than would be his lot in most parts of Italy.

The gentleman to whom I appealed in this case did all he could to save us from starvation. He [pg 363]procured for us excellent fresh curds. He obtained us the promise of meat from the mountains. He came to visit us, and tell us what we required to know of the neighborhood. Thus we were able to spend the earlier portion of the night in comparative comfort. But, as might have been expected, when the hour for sleep had arrived our real difficulties began. I was protected by a bottle of spirits of camphor, with which my rugs and person were sufficiently scented to make me an object of aversion to my assailants. But the rest of the party were not so fortunate. It was, in fact, rather an agreeable diversion, when we were roused, or rather, perhaps, distracted, shortly after midnight, by piercing yells from a number of children, who seemed to be slowly approaching our street.

On looking out a very curious scene presented itself. All the little children were coming in slow procession, each with a candle in its hand, and shouting Kyrie Eleison at the top of its voice. After the children came the women and the older men (I fancy many of the younger men were absent), also with candles, and in the midst a sort of small bier, with an image of the dead Christ laid out upon it, decked with tinsel and flowers, and surrounded with lights. Along with it came priests in their robes, singing in gruff bass some sort of Litany. The whole procession adjourned to the church of the town, where the women went to a separate gallery, the men gathered [pg 364]in the body of the building, and a guard of soldiers with fixed bayonets stood around the bier of their Christ. Though the congregation seemed very devout, and many of them in tears at the sufferings of their Saviour, they nevertheless all turned round to look at the strangers who chanced to witness their devotions. To those who come from without, and from a different cult, and see the service of a strange nation in a strange tongue, the mesquin externals are the first striking point, and we wonder how deep devotion and true piety can exist along with what is apparently mean and even grotesque. And yet it is in these poor and shabby services, it is with this neglect or insouciance of detail, that purer faith and better morals are found than in the gorgeous pageants and stately ceremonies of metropolitan cathedrals.

We rose in the morning eager to start on our three hours’ ride to Bassæ, where Ictinus had built his famous but inaccessible temple to Apollo the Helper. The temple is very usually called the temple of Phigalía, and its friezes are called Phigalian, I think, in the British Museum. This is so far true that it was built for and managed by the people of Phigalía. But the town was a considerable distance off,—according to Pausanias forty stadia, or about five miles,—and he tells us they built the temple at a place called Bassæ (the glades), near the summit of Mount Kotilion. Accordingly, [pg 365]it ought to be consistently called the temple at or of Bassæ.

The morning, as is not unusual in these Alps, was lowering and gloomy, and as we and our patient mules climbed up a steep ascent out of the town, the rain began to fall in great threatening drops. But we would not be daunted. The way led among gaunt and naked mountain sides, and often up the bed of winter torrents. The lateness of the spring, for the snow was now hardly gone, added to the gloom; the summer shrubs and the summer grass were not yet green, and the country retained most of its wintry bleakness. Now and then there met us in the solitude a shepherd coming from the mountains, covered in his white woollen cowl, and with a lamb of the same soft dull color upon his shoulders. It was the day of preparation for the Easter feast, and the lamb was being brought by this picturesque shepherd, not to the fold, but to the slaughter. Yet there was a strange and fascinating suggestion in the serious face surrounded by its symphony of white, in the wilderness around, in the helpless patience of the animal, all framed in a background of gray mist, and dripping with abundant rain. As we wound our way through the mountains we came to glens of richer color and friendlier aspect. The sound of merry boys and baying dogs reached up to us from below as we skirted far up along the steep sides, still seeking a higher and higher level. Here the [pg 366]primrose and violet took the place of the scarlet and the purple anemone, and cheered us with the sight of northern flowers, and with the fairest produce of a northern spring.

At last we attained a weird country, in which the ground was bare, save where some sheltered and sunny spot showed bunches of very tall violets, hanging over in tufts, rare purple anemones, and here and there a great full iris; yet these patches were so exceptional as to make a strong contrast with the brown soil. But the main features were single oak-trees with pollarded tops and gnarled branches, which stood about all over these lofty slopes, and gave them a melancholy and dilapidated aspect. They showed no mark of spring, no shoot or budding leaf, but the russet brown rags of last year’s clothing hung here and there upon the branches. These wintry signs, the gloomy mist, and the insisting rain gave us the feeling of chill October. And yet the weird oaks, with their branches tortured as it were by storm and frost—these crippled limbs, which looked as if the pains of age and disease had laid hold of the sad tenants of this alpine desert—were colored with their own peculiar loveliness. All the stems were clothed with delicate silver-gray lichen, save where great patches of velvety, pale green moss spread a warm mantle about them. This beautiful contrast of gray and yellow-green may be seen upon many of our [pg 367]own oak-trees in the winter, and makes these the most richly colored of all the leafless stems in our frosty landscape. But here there were added among the branches huge tufts of mistletoe, brighter and yellower than the moss, yet of the same grassy hue, though of different texture. And there were trees so clothed with this foreign splendor that they looked like some quaint species of great evergreen. It seemed as if the summer’s foliage must have really impaired the character and the beauty of this curious forest.

At last we crossed a long flat summit, and began to descend, when we presently came upon the temple from the north, facing us on a lower part of the lofty ridge. As we approached, the mist began to clear away, and the sun shone out upon the scene, while the clouds rolled back toward the east, and gradually disclosed to us the splendid prospect which the sanctuary commands. All the southern Peloponnesus lay before us. We could see the western sea, and the gulf of Koron to the south; but the long ridge of Taygetus and the mountains of Malea hid from us the eastern seas. The rich slopes of Messene, and the rugged highlands of northern Laconia and of Arcadia, filled up the nearer view. There still remained here and there a cloud which made a blot in the picture, and marred the completeness of the landscape.

Nothing can be stranger than the remains of a beautiful temple in this alpine solitude. Greek life [pg 368]is a sort of protest for cities and plains and human culture, against picturesque Alps and romantic scenery. Yet here we have a building of the purest age and type set up far from the cities and haunts of men, and in the midst of such a scene as might be chosen by the most romantic and sentimental modern. It was dedicated to Apollo the Helper, for his deliverance of the country from the same plague which devastated Athens at the opening of the Peloponnesian War,[141] and was built by the greatest architect of the day, Ictinus, the builder of the Parthenon.