Greece and the Ægean Islands

by Philip Sanford Marden

The main, and practically the only, street of the town led westward from the plane, winding along through the village in an amiable and casual way. It was lined close on either side by the houses, which were generally two stories in height, and provided with latticed balconies above to make up for the necessary lack of piazzas below. Close to the great central tree these balconies seemed almost like the arboreal habitation made dear to the childish heart by the immortal Swiss Family Robinson; and in these elevated stations the families of Andhritsæna were disporting themselves after the burden and heat of the day, gossiping affably to and fro across the street, or in some cases reading.

ANDHRITSÆNA

We found it as impossible to disperse our body guard of boys and girls as had been the case the evening before at Megalopolis. Foreign visitors in Andhritsæna are few enough to be objects of universal but not unkindly curiosity to young and old; and the young, being unfettered by the insistent demands of coffee-drinking, promptly insisted on attending our pilgrimage en masse. It was cool, for the sun was low and the mountain air had begun to take on the chill of evening. We clambered up to a lofty knoll over the town and looked down over its slanting tiles to the wooded valley beneath, the evening smoke of the chimneys rising straight up in thin, curling wisps, while from the neighboring hills came the faint clatter of the herd bells and occasionally the soft note of some boy’s piping. Far away to the north we could see the snowy dome of Erymanthus, rising out of a tumbling mass of blue mountains, while between lay the opening and level plain of the Alpheios, widening from its narrows to form the broad meadows of Elis on the western coasts of the Peloponnesus. Here and there the house of some local magnate, more prosperous than the rest, boasted a small yard and garden, adorned with the sombre straightness of cypresses. Behind the town rose the rocky heights of the neighboring hills, long gorges running deep among them. Whichever way the eye turned, there was charm. The body guard of infantry retired to a respectful distance and stood watching us, finger bashfully to mouth in silent wonderment. Mothers with babies came out of near-by hovels to inspect us, and enjoyed us as much as we enjoyed the prospect that opened before.

From the aspect of the houses of the town we had adjudged it prudent to allow Spyros and Stathi a decent interval for the preparation of our abode before descending to the main street again and seeking out the house. Apparently the exact location of it was known by the entire population by this time, for, as we descended, willing natives pointed the way by gesticulations, indicating a narrow and not entirely prepossessing alley leading down from the central thoroughfare by some rather slimy steps, to a sort of second street, and thence to another alley, if anything less prepossessing than the first, where a formidable wooden gateway gave entrance to a court. Here the merry villagers bade adieu and retired to their coffee again. Once within, the prospect brightened. It was, of course, the fore-court of a peasant’s house, for hotels are entirely lacking in Andhritsæna. It was paved with stone flagging, and above the courtyard rose a substantial veranda on which stood the host—a bearded man, gorgeous in native dress, the voluminous skirt of which was immaculate in its yards and yards of fustanella. From tasseled fez to pomponed shoes he was a fine type of peasant, contrasting with his wife, who wore unnoticeable clothes of European kind. She was a pleasant-faced little body, and evidently neat, which was more than all. And she ushered us into the house to the rooms where Spyros and the cook were busily engaged in making up the beds, discreetly powdering the mattresses, and setting things generally to rights. The embroidered bed linen which had given us such delight by its contrast with the surroundings at Megalopolis at once caught the eye of the peasant woman, and she promptly borrowed a pillow-case to learn the stitch with which it was adorned. As for the rooms, they were scrubbed to a whiteness.

Just outside, overlooking the narrow by-way through which we had entered, was the inevitable balcony, whence the view off to the northern mountains was uninterrupted; and while supper was preparing we wrapped ourselves in sweaters and shawls and stood in mute admiration of the prospect—the deep valley below, the half-guessed plain beyond, and the rugged line of peaks silhouetted against the golden afterglow of the sunset. From this view our attention was distracted only by the sudden clamor of a church bell close at hand, which a priest was insistently ringing for vespers. The bell was hung, as so often happens, in a tree beside the church; and to prevent the unauthorized sounding of it by the neighborhood urchins the wise priest had caused the bell-rope to be shortened so that the end of it hung far up among the branches, and was only to be reached for the purposes of the church by a long iron poker, which the holy man had produced from somewhere within his sanctuary and which he was wielding vigorously to attract the attention of the devout. It may have been a sort of Greek angelus, designed to mark the hour of general sunset prayer; for nobody appeared in response to its summons, and after clanging away for what seemed to him a sufficient interval the priest unshipped the poker and retired with it to the inner recesses of the church, to be seen no more. The nipping and eager evening air likewise drove us to shelter, and the heat of the lamp and candles was welcome as lessening, though ever so slightly, the cold which the night had brought. It was further temporarily forgotten in the discussion of the smiling Stathi’s soups and chickens and flagons of Solon.

AN ARBOREAL CAMPANILE. ANDHRITSÆNA

The professor and I stumbled out in the darkness of the yard after the evening meal in search of a coffee-house, for the better enjoyment of our postprandial cigarettes, but we got no farther than the outer court before deciding to return for a lantern. Andhritsæna turned out to be not only chilly, but intensely dark o' nights. Its serpentine by-ways were devoid of a single ray of light, and even the main street, when we had found it, was relieved from utter gloom only by the lamps which glimmered few and faint in wayside shops that had not yet felt the force of the early-closing movement. The few wayfarers that we met as we groped our way along by the ineffectual fire of a square lantern, wherein a diminutive candle furnished the illuminant, likewise carried similar lights, and looked terrible enough hooded in their capotes. Diogenes-like, we sought an honest man,—and speedily discovered him in the proprietor of a tiny “kaffeneion,” who welcomed us to his tables and set before us cups of thick coffee, fervently disclaiming the while his intention to accept remuneration therefor. Indeed this generosity bade fair to be its own reward, for it apparently became known in a surprisingly short time that the foreign visitors were taking refreshment in that particular inn, with the result that patronage became brisk. The patrons, however, apparently cared less for their coffee than for the chance to study the newcomers in their midst at close range, and after we had basked for a sufficient time in the affable curiosity of the assembled multitude we stumbled off again through the night to our abode, the lantern casting gigantic and awful shadows on the wayside walls the while.

Now the chief reason for our visiting this quaint and out-of-the-way hamlet was its contiguity to the mountain on the flat top of which stands the ancient Bassæ temple. The correct designation, I believe, is really the “temple at Bassæ,” but to-day it stands isolated and alone, with no considerable habitation nearer than Andhritsæna, whatever was the case when it was erected. The evidence tended to show that Bassæ might be reached with about the same ease on foot as on horseback, or at least in about the same time; but as we were entirely without experience in riding, it was voted best that we begin our training by securing steeds for this minor side trip, in order to have some slight preparation for the twelve hours in the saddle promised us for the day following—a portentous promise that had cast a sort of indefinite shadow of apprehension over our inmost souls since leaving Nauplia. It was a wise choice, too, because it revealed to us among other things the difficulty of Greek mountain trails and the almost absolute sure-footedness of the mountain horse.