But on that classical soil I ought not to have been lonely. I should have conjured up the ghosts of the departed Atridæ, and held converse on their own ground with Homer's heroes. Nevertheless, I was not in the mood; and, entirely forgetting the glories of the past, I started my horse into a gallop. My companion followed on a full run, close at my heels, belabouring my horse with a stick, which when he broke, he pelted him with stones; indeed, this mode of scampering over the ground seemed to hit his humour, for he shouted, hurraed, and whipped, and sometimes laying hold of the tail of the beast, was dragged along several paces with little effort of his own. I soon tired of this, and made signs to him to stop; but it was his turn now, and I was obliged to lean back till I reached him with my cane before I could make him let go his hold, and then he commenced shouting and pelting again with stones.
In this way we approached the village of Krabata, about a mile below the ruins of Mycenæ, and the most miserable place I had seen in Greece. With the fertile plain of Argos uncultivated before them, the inhabitants exhibited a melancholy picture of the most abject poverty. As I rode through, crowds beset me with outstretched arms imploring charity; and a miserable old woman, darting out of a wretched hovel, laid her gaunt and bony hand upon my leg, and attempted to stop me. I shrunk from her grasp, and, under the effect of a sudden impulse, threw myself off on the other side, and left my horse in her hands.
Hurrying through the village, a group of boys ran before me, crying out "Agamemnon," "Agamemnon." I followed, and they conducted me to the tomb of "the king of kings," a gigantic structure, still in good preservation, of a conical form, covered with turf; the stone over the door is twenty-seven feet long and seventeen wide, larger than any hewn stone in the world except Pompey's Pillar. I entered, my young guides going before with torches, and walked within and around this ancient sepulchre. A worthy Dutchman, Herman Van Creutzer, has broached a theory that the Trojan war is a mere allegory, and that no such person as Agamemnon ever existed. Shame upon the cold-blooded heretic. I have my own sins to answer for in that way, for I have laid my destroying hand upon many cherished illusions; but I would not, if I could, destroy the mystery that overhangs the heroic ages. The royal sepulchre was forsaken and empty; the shepherd drives within it his flock for shelter; the traveller sits under its shade to his noonday meal; and, at the moment, a goat was dozing quietly in one corner. He started as I entered, and seemed to regard me as an intruder; and when I flared before him the light of my torch, he rose up to butt me. I turned away and left him in quiet possession. The boys were waiting outside, and crying "Mycenæ," "Mycenæ," led me away. All was solitude, and I saw no marks of a city until I reached the relics of her Cyclopean walls. I never felt a greater degree of reverence than when I approached the lonely ruins of Mycenæ. At Argos I spent most of my time in the horsemarket, and I had galloped over the great plain as carelessly as if it had been the road to Harlem; but all the associations connected with this most interesting ground here pressed upon me at once. Its extraordinary antiquity, its gigantic remains, and its utter and long-continued desolation, came home to my heart. I moved on to the Gate of the Lions, and stood before it a long time without entering. A broad street led to it between two immense parallel walls; and this street may, perhaps, have been a market-place. Over the gate are two lions rampant, like the supporters of a modern coat-of-arms, rudely carved, and supposed to be the oldest sculptured stone in Greece. Under this very gate Agamemnon led out his forces for the siege of Troy; three thousand years ago he saw them filing before him, glittering in brass, in all the pomp and panoply of war; and I held in my hand a book which told me that this city was so old that, more than seventeen hundred years ago, travellers came as I did to visit its ruins; and that Pausanias had found the Gate of the Lions in the same state in which I beheld it now. A great part is buried by the rubbish of the fallen city. I crawled under, and found myself within the walls, and then mounted to the height on which the city stood. It was covered with a thick soil and a rich carpet of grass. My boys left me, and I was alone. I walked all over it, following the line of the walls. I paused at the great blocks of stone, the remnants of Cyclopic masonry, the work of wandering giants. The heavens were unclouded, and the sun was beaming upon it with genial warmth. Nothing could exceed the quiet beauty of the scene. I became entangled in the long grass, and picked up wild flowers growing over long-buried dwellings. Under it are immense caverns, their uses now unknown; and the earth sounded hollow under my feet, as if I were treading on the sepulchre of a buried city. I looked across the plain to Argos; all was as beautiful as when Homer sang its praises; the plain, and the mountains, and the sea were the same, but the once magnificent city, her numerous statues and gigantic temples, were gone for ever; and but a few remains were left to tell the passing traveller the story of her fallen greatness. I could have remained there for hours; I could have gone again and again, for I had not found a more interesting spot in Greece; but my reveries were disturbed by the appearance of my muleteer and my juvenile escort. They pointed to the sun as an intimation that the day was passing; and crying "Cavallo," "Cavallo," hurried me away. To them the ruined city was a playground; they followed capering behind; and, in descending, three or four of them rolled down upon me; they hurried me through the Gate of the Lions, and I came out with my pantaloons, my only pantaloons, rent across the knee almost irreparably. In an instant I was another man; I railed at the ruins for their strain upon wearing apparel, and bemoaned my unhappy lot in not having with me a needle and thread. I looked up to the old gate with a sneer. This was the city that Homer had made such a noise about; a man could stand on the citadel and almost throw a stone beyond the boundary-line of Agamemnon's kingdom. In full sight, and just at the other side of the plain, was the kingdom of Argos. The little state of Rhode Island would make a bigger kingdom than both of them together.
But I had no time for deep meditation, having a long journey to Corinth before me. Fortunately, my young Greek had no tire in him; he started me off on a gallop, whipping and pelting my horse with stones, and would have hurried me on, over rough and smooth, till either he, or I, or the horse broke down, if I had not jumped off and walked. As soon as I dismounted he mounted, and then he moved so leisurely that I had to hurry him on in turn. In this way we approached the range of mountains separating the plain of Argos from the Isthmus of Corinth. Entering the pass, we rode along a mountain torrent, of which the channel-bed was then dry, and ascended to the summit of the first range. Looking back, the scene was magnificent. On my right and left were the ruined heights of Argos and Mycenæ; before me, the towering Acropolis of Napoli di Romania; at my feet, the rich plain of Argos, extending to the shore of the sea; and beyond, the island-studded Ægean. I turned away with a feeling of regret that, in all probability, I should never see it more.
I moved on, and in a narrow pass, not wide enough to turn my horse if I had been disposed to take to my heels, three men rose up from behind a rock, armed to the teeth with long guns, pistols, yataghans, and sheepskin cloaks—the dress of the klept or mountain robber—and altogether presenting a most diabolically cutthroat appearance. If they had asked me for my purse I should have considered it all regular, and given up the remnant of my stock of borrowed money without a murmur; but I was relieved from immediate apprehension by the cry of passe porta. King Otho has begun the benefits of civilized government in Greece by introducing passports, and mountain warriors were stationed in the different passes to examine strangers. They acted, however, as if they were more used to demanding purses than passports, for they sprang into the road and rattled the butts of their guns on the rock with a violence that was somewhat startling. Unluckily, my passport had been made out with those of my companions, and was in their possession, and when we parted neither thought of it; and this demand to me, who had nothing to lose, was worse than that of my purse. A few words of explanation might have relieved me from all difficulty, but my friends could not understand a word I said. I was vexed at the idea of being sent back, and thought I would try the effect of a little impudence; so, crying out "Americanos," I attempted to pass on; but they answered me "Nix," and turned my horse's head toward Argos. The scene, which a few moments before had seemed so beautiful, was now perfectly detestable. Finding that bravado had not the desired effect, I lowered my tone and tried a bribe; this was touching the right chord; half a dollar removed all suspicions from the minds of these trusty guardians of the pass; and, released from their attentions, I hurried on.
The whole road across the mountain is one of the wildest in Greece. It is cut up by numerous ravines, sufficiently deep and dangerous, which at every step threaten destruction to the incautious traveller. During the late revolution the soil of Greece had been drenched with blood; and my whole journey had been through cities and over battle-fields memorable for scenes of slaughter unparalleled in the annals of modern war. In the narrowest pass of the mountains my guide made gestures indicating that it had been the scene of a desperate battle. When the Turks, having penetrated to the plain of Argos, were compelled to fall back again upon Corinth, a small band of Greeks, under Niketas and Demetrius Ypsilanti, waylaid them in this pass. Concealing themselves behind the rocks, and waiting till the pass was filled, all at once they opened a tremendous fire upon the solid column below, and the pass was instantly filled with slain. Six thousand were cut down in a few hours. The terrified survivers recoiled for a moment; but, as if impelled by an invisible power, rushed on to meet their fate. "The Mussulman rode into the passes with his sabre in his sheath and his hands before his eyes, the victim of destiny." The Greeks again poured upon them a shower of lead, and several thousand more were cut down before the Moslem army accomplished the passage of this terrible defile.
It was nearly dark when we rose to the summit of the last range of mountains, and saw, under the rich lustre of the setting sun, the Acropolis of Corinth, with its walls and turrets, towering to the sky, the plain forming the Isthmus of Corinth; the dark, quiet waters of the Gulf of Lepanto; and the gloomy mountains of Cithæron, and Helicon, and Parnassus covered with snow. It was after dark when we passed the region of the Nemean Grove, celebrated as the haunt of the lion and the scene of the first of the twelve labours of Hercules. We were yet three hours from Corinth; and, if the old lion had still been prowling in the grove, we could not have made more haste to escape its gloomy solitude. Reaching the plain, we heard behind us the clattering of horses' hoofs, at first sounding in the stillness of evening as if a regiment of cavalry or a troop of banditti was at our heels, but it proved to be only a single traveller, belated like ourselves, and hurrying on to Corinth. I could see through the darkness the shining butts of his pistols and hilt of his yataghan, and took his dimensions with more anxiety, perhaps, than exactitude. He recognised my Frank dress; and accosted me in bad Italian, which he had picked up at Padras (being just the Italian in which I could meet him on equal ground), and told me that he had met a party of Franks on the road to Padras, whom, from his description, I recognised as my friends.
It was nearly midnight when we rattled up to the gate of the old locanda. The yard was thronged with horses and baggage, and Greek and Bavarian soldiers. On the balcony stood my old brigand host, completely crestfallen, and literally turned out of doors in his own house; a detachment of Bavarian soldiers had arrived that afternoon from Padras, and taken entire possession, giving him and his wife the freedom of the outside. He did not recognise me, and, taking me for an Englishman, began, "Sono Inglesi Signor" (he had lived at Corfu under the British dominion); and, telling me the whole particulars of his unceremonious ouster, claimed, through me, the arm of the British government to resent the injury to a British subject; his wife was walking about in no very gentle mood, but, in truth, very much the contrary. I did not speak to her, and she did not trust herself to speak to me; but, addressing myself to the husband, introduced the subject of my own immediate wants, a supper and night's lodging. The landlord told me, however, that the Bavarians had eaten everything in the house, and he had not a room, bed, blanket, or coverlet to give me; that I might lie down in the hall or the piazza, but there was no other place.
I was outrageous at the hard treatment he had received from the Bavarians. It was too bad to turn an honest innkeeper out of his house, and deny him the pleasure of accommodating a traveller who had toiled hard all day, with the perfect assurance of finding a bed at night. I saw, however, that there was no help for it; and noticing an opening at one end of the hall, went into a sort of storeroom filled with all kinds of rubbish, particularly old barrels. An unhinged door was leaning against the wall, and this I laid across two of the barrels, pulled off my coat and waistcoat, and on this extemporaneous couch went to sleep.
I was roused from my first nap by a terrible fall against my door. I sprang up; the moon was shining through the broken casement, and, seizing a billet of wood, I waited another attack. In the mean time I heard the noise of a violent scuffling on the floor of the hall, and, high above all, the voices of husband and wife, his evidently coming from the floor in a deprecating tone, and hers in a high towering passion, and enforced with severe blows of a stick. As soon as I was fairly awake I saw through the thing at once. It was only a little matrimonial tête-à-tête. The unamiable humour in which I had left them against the Bavarians had ripened into a private quarrel between themselves, and she had got him down, and was pummelling him with a broomstick or something of that kind. It seemed natural and right enough, and was, moreover, no business of mine; and remembering that whoever interferes between man and wife is sure to have both against him, I kept quiet. Others, however, were not so considerate, and the occupants of the different rooms tumbled into the hall in every variety of fancy night-gear, among whom was one whose only clothing was a military coat and cap, with a sword in his hand. When the hubbub was at its highest I looked out, and found, as I expected, the husband and wife standing side by side, she still brandishing the stick, and both apparently outrageous at everything and everybody around them. I congratulated myself upon my superior knowledge of human nature, and went back to my bed on the door.