We came on by the Greek steamer here yesterday. Mr. Barnett brought me from Athens your delightful letter and dear Miranda’s, and some newspapers.... We have seen the Consul and his wife—delightful people. They have recommended us a former servant of their own, who was with them for years, to drive us to Olympia. The same man lately took Mr. Newton, the chief man at the British Museum. It is a four days’ drive there and back, and Miss Muir and Mr. Dufour left us at Corinth, so we are thoroughly glad to have a trustworthy man. We are in high spirits, the weather glorious; and we are looking forward to going very much. Part of to-day’s drive is thro’ four hours of oak forest! I do not know if we told you about Olympia. The Germans are excavating there, and have found all the temples buried under sand brought down by the Alpheus, and some grand statues, one of Hermes, as fine as any of the world-famous statues. It is very fine of the German Government to take all the expense. They spent 10,000 francs annually on it till this year, when they are too poor; and the Emperor himself has given 5,000 that the work may not cease. Yet they are to have nothing for it except the right of taking casts. Everything they find is to belong to the Greek Government; only they stipulated that the Greeks should make them a road. Scientific Germans are there directing, with 500 Greek workmen. They say they are such splendid workmen, better than Germans—so the director says. We take all our food with us to-day, and sleep at a khan. At Olympia the director’s cook will take us in. It is all very funny. Here there is a very nice hotel. We find our Greek most useful. I am so delighted about the English news of elections.
Pyrgos,
April 14th, 1880.
To her Mother.
AN OAK WOOD IN GREECE
I seem to have such a number of things to tell you, I hardly know how to begin. We left Patras at 6 o’clock on Monday morning, and drove on and on for miles, along the bright sea-shore, just on the beach; then we turned inland, along the roughest roads; no boundary road in a remote district in England could be worse. We had to go at a foot’s pace; but it was all lovely, great masses of asphodel in full bloom, bushes of broom one sheet of gold, crimson carpets of great cranesbill; olive, oak, and terebinth; and between, and over them, we saw the bright sea and the blue mountains. We drove thro’ countless streams, large and small, now fording rivers, now plunging down steep banks. Then we came to the oak forest thro’ which we drove, incessantly, over the smooth turf, or gravelly soil, for four hours. The oaks stand, not close together, but as in an English park, here and there, thicker or more scattered, on slopes, or spaces of turf. Many of the trees were old and knotted; some had suffered by fire; here and there were parts full of rich underwood; and then we came to smooth sheets of delicate blue with the tiny iris; the mountains were always in sight. There was hardly a trace of cultivation; hardly a house the whole day to be seen; and we drove incessantly till 6 at night. We stayed the night at a khan, they say one of the best in Greece; and the wall and beds were clean; but it is a strange kind of savage accommodation. The dogs barked so, and the wind howled over the great plain we had reached; I could not sleep much. Next day—yesterday—we started at 5 in the morning, having cooked and eaten our breakfast. The clouds, which had gathered over night, broke away before the sun; and we had a magnificent day. We drove on and on, thro’ uncultivated wastes rather like our heaths, thro’ water courses, and usually off the road, it was so bad; but with the most splendid light, and a view of the sea, and Zante in the distance. At mid-day we dined here; and then drove on to Olympia in a sunlight I never shall forget. The road from here to Olympia is very good. It has been made by the Greek Government, that being the one condition the Germans made on undertaking the excavations. We excited the greatest amazement, as no ladies do anything alone here; it is very amusing. The country is much more cultivated near here; and, going to Olympia, we saw several villages; but still it was very strange to drive for 3½ hours up, as it were, into the heart of an untraversed country, and find the road stopping in the heart of a remote valley, where a handful of Germans had undertaken this curious great work. Five hundred Greek workmen were digging and carting and shovelling. Our coachman led us to a sort of foreman, who asked us if we spoke German or Greek. He spoke no English, but some Italian. We asked for a lodging, and he sent one of his men to take us to the cottage of the director’s cook, who has 3 spare rooms. We climbed a steep hill overlooking the excavations, on which stood one new, well-built house. We were led to such a cottage that I felt as if we hardly could sleep there. However the bed was clean, and the view something splendid. We ate our dinner laid on a board on the top of a stool; and we sat on the bed. We had not an atom of blind, nor a chair!—After that we got a man with a lantern; and, armed with one of Mrs. Coupland’s introductions, a visiting card, and the name of a Dr. and Mrs. Irvi, mentioned to us by the Consul at Patras, we went off to what the peasants call the “German house.”—I had hardly sent in my card with message of enquiry before Mrs. Irvi came out with kindest words and hurried us in to a room where sat, after their dinner, the little company of Germans, who are directing the work. She introduced us to Herr Kurtzius, who speaks English. Such a man! but I must tell you of him later. Mrs. I. was so kind, would make us have coffee and stay, and would go back with us to see where we were lodged. She laughed, saying, “Oh yes! its our very best hotel here, you could not do better.” Three gentlemen friends of theirs were sleeping there too. The German house is quite full.—We breakfasted with the Irvis at 7 o’clock, and then Herr K. came with his plan, and for three hours shewed us over the excavations. He is such a man! |GERMAN EXCAVATIONS AT OLYMPIA| It has evidently been the dream of his life to do this thing; and now it is nearly done. You can see by the far away look of his great blue eyes, and the way he stumbles over the wood and stones in his path, that his thoughts are of the past and the future, or, at any rate, not of the earth, earthy. It was he who imagined doing this thing, mentioned it to the Crown Prince, who got the German Parliament to pay; and now they have excavated, at a depth of often 20 feet of gravel, the whole space on which the temples and their surrounding buildings stood. The space occupied is that bounded on the south by the Alpheus, just where a smaller river joins it. This triangular space lies at the foot of a small sand hill. But such a valley as it is! And between the mountains that bound it you can see the opening to the defiles leading south to Messina, north to Corinth, east to Sparta; and all round the wooded hills look down upon the sunny plain, and you can almost see the old Greeks trooping in from every quarter. The foundations of all the buildings are found, the bases of walls and pillars in their places, the steps, the entrances, the pedestals of the statues all in their places. Twenty-one statues (or the principal part of them) from the pediments have been found, besides the Hermes and Bacchus of Praxiteles, and numbers of Roman statues, and a lovely Greek figure of the Winged Victory descending. The Hermes is splendid. He carries the infant Bacchus on his arm, such a sweet child; the head was only found last week. The early statues from the pediment are very powerful, massive and expressive, but not so delicate nor so exquisitely true in artistic power. I almost think the whole scene impressed me most. The great temple of Zeus stands in the centre of the ground, its mighty pillars shattered by earthquake. One sees the pedestal of the gold figure of Zeus sixty feet high, which was taken from Byzantium; one sees all round the other temples. The one to Hera is one of the oldest. Pelops has a temple too; but, being a hero who died, not a god who lives always, its entrance is to the setting sun, not on the East like those of the rest. Then there is the Gymnasium, where the youths practised with the rough stones, that they might not slip in wrestling, and the smooth ones for their masters still lying in their places. Beyond are the eleven treasure houses, built by eleven of the Greek towns, each for their own votive offerings to the gods, which on great feast days were opened and their glories displayed. Then I was interested to see the one that belonged to Megara. There is a great arched passage, leading from the space where the altars were, thro’ which, after sacrificing to the gods, the judges and competitors in solemn procession walked, not being visible to the people assembled to see the games, till they came out of the passage. Two statues, one of Fortune and one of Nemesis, were found, which watched over this way—the one supposed to remind competitors how Fortune might favour or injure them, the other to warn the judges and competitors alike of the punishment which certainly overtakes any breach of fairness. We saw the stone from which the runners started; and, exactly 600 feet beyond, where they knew it ought to be, these Germans dug down twenty-one feet thro’ the gravel, and found the goal or opposite starting place. We saw the men washing tiny little bronze figures of animals about one and a half inches long, which they had just found, which are supposed to be votive offerings from the very poor to the god. They are green with age now.
HERR KURTZIUS
These Germans leave in a month or two; and the 500 men cease working. They will be dreadfully missed; for they have brought work and money, and civilisation and visitors, right up into the heart of the country. The place will be left—the Greek Pompeii—to the Greeks to take care of. They have to build a museum and arrange the treasures. Herr Kurtzius carries away all he has learned. He has sent to Berlin the casts and plans and maps; and there they are making models of the thing as he found it, and as he thinks it was of old. He takes, one may say—nothing; but one sees that to him to have done what enables him to know is all. He doesn’t look as if he worked for fame, or for others, but to know and to see. As he showed us the things, now and then he flashed up, as if it were all before him, and spoke of the life that had been as if he saw, sometimes gently stroked the faces of the statues, pointing out how perfect they were; now and again his eyes looked out as to some further thought he did not tell.
We post this at Patras, where we arrived safely to-night (April 16th); to-morrow we go by steamer to Athens, where I hope to find news of you all.
Achmetaga, Eubœa,