Athens, February, 1818.
I gave you in my last an account of our journey from Naples to Athens, and before I plunge into antiquities, I will complete the sketch with the description of our accommodations and manner of life here. Our intention was to have gone to the French convent, but we found the rooms occupied. The padre, for there is but one, recommended us to a lodging belonging to a man called Giacomo, and we slept there one night, but afterwards established ourselves more comfortably in the house of Demetri Zografo, where we hired two rooms for fifteen dollars per month. The largest is about 22 feet long and 12 wide, with a divân at one end, and six low windows, all at the upper part of the room, the object being apparently, that those who are seated on the divân may commodiously look out of window in all directions. These windows have glazed wooden casements, which are only slightly put up during the winter, and meant to be altogether taken away in the summer, and outside shutters, the fastenings of which are apt to give way in a high wind. Above these windows runs a continued shelf all round the room, and higher than this, and over the windows already mentioned, are six other small windows, with panes of coloured glass disposed in an ornamental pattern, and protected on the outside by another casement of horn. These openings are not intended either to give light or air, but merely as ornaments. Every genteel room in Turkey is divided into two parts; one for the company, the dais of our ancestors, and the other for the servants. In general there is a step from one to the other, which does not exist in our apartment, but the distinction is completely marked in the ornaments. The small cornice extends no farther than the more honourable portion, and the arabesque pattern of the ceiling, which is painted on a dark ground, corresponds to this part only. In the lower part of the room is a lamp; it is of glass, in the shape of an inverted sugar loaf, and nearly full of water, a little oil swims over this, and in the oil three corks sustain a floating wick. This is lighted as soon as it is dark, whether I am at home or not, for it is not lighted on my account, but in honour of a picture of the Virgin on the shelf over my bed. The servant moreover, comes in occasionally with an incense-pot, which she waves before the painting, muttering what is probably a prayer, at the same time.
This is our common room, and I have had a bed made up for me in one corner of it, the other room is much smaller, with a divân on three sides, but rather narrow for a bed, and S. is obliged to bolster it out with cushions. There is no fireplace in either, and we use charcoal to warm ourselves, nor is there any danger of suffocation from this practice, for there is no ceiling below, and the boards of the floor are not so closely joined, but that the fixed air may leak through them as fast as it descends. Both rooms open into a gallery, or perhaps you would call it a shed, which fronts the north; and from whence we have a view of the temple of Theseus, of the plain of Athens, the olive-grove, the banks of the Cephisus, and beyond these of the mountains of Parnes, Corydalus, and Cithæron. A solitary palm-tree commemorated by Lord Byron, also adorns the prospect. On the opposite side we can peep out of our windows, and see the Acropolis, or at least the rock on which it stands, and nearer to us the bare Areopagus; for half the ancient city was erected on barren limestone rocks, on which we still trace almost everywhere the marks of human labour, for the foundation of public and private buildings, for receptacles of grain, and probably for reservoirs of water.
Our eating here is nearly the same as in Italy. Our host, who is also our cook, adds lemon juice and eggs to the soup, which is a very laudable addition, and generally gives us a sauce of these materials to our boiled meat. We have good cauliflowers, generally brought in with a little grated cheese over them. The cabbages also are good, but lettuce and celery are very poor. Jerusalem artichokes supply the place of potatoes, and these are all the vegetables that Athens furnishes at this season. At first we found it difficult to have any milk, either morning or evening, but that is now more abundant, and we have even added to our breakfast-table, a dish called yergouti (γεργουτι), which is sour goat’s milk curd, and I think it very good. The honey also is excellent. Our evenings are lighted by long, wax candles, very thick at one end, and very thin at the other, so that they would well deserve the name of tapers.
You know the situation of Athens. The Acropolis crowns an abrupt and rocky hill about five miles from the sea, and the ancient city spread round its base, and over some other hills of the same nature to the south and west, but the modern town is clustered principally on the north-eastern side of the citadel. These hills, though steep and rugged towards the top, slope gently at their bases into a fertile plain, watered by the Cephisus, at the distance of about half a mile from Athens. The upper part of this low tract is covered with olives; but towards the Piræus, (which stands on a separate cluster of eminences) it is marshy. The Ilissus passes close by the town among the hills, but even at this season it is a dry channel, without water except at one place, where a little spring rising at the foot of some marble rocks which cross the channel, is supposed to be the fountain Callirrhoe or Enneacrune, and serves for one of the washing-places of the inhabitants; but whether the name be rightly given to it or not, it is I believe only the reappearance of a little thread of water which the hollow actually contains a little higher up, and is speedily lost again amongst loose stones and rocks of mica slate. Yet in this part the rock is marked by several artificial channels for water, and evidently polished by its action, and there are likewise other similar channels higher up, and unconnected with the bed of the river. The opposite slope of the ravine was once crowned by the little Ionic temple, published in the first volume of Stuart’s Athens; but that has now disappeared, nothing remaining but the foundations of the semicircular apsis, added to make it a church. About a mile above the town, a small current is led away from the bed of the Ilissus, to supply modern Athens, but all together would fall far short of the contents of a London gutter after a shower. The Cephisus is said to present in its upper part a copious and beautiful stream of excellent water, but it diminishes as it descends, partly from being diverted for the purposes of cultivation, and partly perhaps from the loose nature of the soil. We were told that even in winter this larger river does not reach the sea, but this is calumny, for it forms a pool between Cape Colias and Munychia, whence a stream passes into the Saronic gulf, which I could hardly cross without getting wetshod.
Returning to the ground at Athens, we find the Areopagus on the north-western descent of the Acropolis, and forming an appendage to it: a hollow to the south-west of these eminences, separates these from a long hill, divided into three summits, now called the Musæum, the Pnyx, and the Lycabettus; for the first name we have sufficient authority, the second is not so clear, and for the last, I can find no reason, except that we have the name in ancient authors, without knowing to what eminence it was applied, and here is a hill without any other name; but I shall use all these names, and some other doubtful ones, just as if they rested on the most perfect chain of evidence, for the sake of convenience.
The Musæum is very nearly as high as the Acropolis; the other summits are lower: on the opposite side of the town, but at a greater distance, the hill of St. George, supposed to be the ancient Anchesmus, overtops them all; and its narrow summit is crowned with a small chapel.
To the south-east, on the other side of the Ilissus, our views are bounded by the great, rounded mass of Hymettus; while from various points looking up the stream, we perceive the more lofty, and more picturesquely formed Pentelicus. Across the plain, and the Cephisus, is the long range of Parnes, ending in the lower hills of Corydalus and Aigialos; but if you wish to complete the picture, as seen from the eminences about Athens, you must add to these objects the Saronic gulf, with its surrounding mountains, the islands of Egina and Salamis, the mountains of Megara, Cithæron, the Acropolis of Corinth, and mount Cyllene; names crowded with recollections which spread a charm on every spot over which the eye wanders.
The rock here is generally limestone, but not all of one formation; in the bottoms, and on the high mountains, it is united with mica slate. Anchesmus, and the hills about Athens, if not of mountain lime, are perhaps oolitic, though the stone is very hard and compact, and frequently somewhat translucent, and I have not been able to discover any shells in it. There is a conglomerate, where fragments of primitive rocks are united by a calcareous cement, which seems to contain magnesia, and may correspond with our magnesian limestone, while the hills of the Piræus are of a soft calcareous sandstone, containing shells of a much later period. A sandstone at the base of the Musæum is perhaps gray wacke, but I will not detain you on a subject of which I understand so little.
I have given you this description of the country, in order not to interrupt by it the account of its antiquities, to which I will now proceed. I had formed the most sanguine expectations of the beauty of the edifices, and I was not disappointed. First-rate productions never disappoint us, if we have formed a tolerably precise idea of what we are to see. It is the expectation, not of the object, but of being surprised and delighted, without any distinct notion of why this is to happen, which is disappointed; and indeed the state of mind seems almost to ensure that feeling, since it most readily takes place with those whose previous habits have not led them to feel much interest in the objects they are about to visit.