TEMPLE AT BASSÆ, FROM ABOVE
TEMPLE AT BASSÆ, FROM BELOW
At dinner that night in Andhritsæna an old man appeared with wares to sell—curiously wrought and barbaric blankets, saddlebags, and the like, apparently fresh and new, but really, he claimed, the dowry of his wife who had long been dead. He had no further use for the goods, but he did think he might find uses for the drachmæ they would bring. Needless to say, our saddlebags were the heavier the next day when our pack-mules were loaded for the journey over the hills to Olympia.
One other thing deserves a word of comment before we leave Andhritsæna, and that is the cemetery. We had seen many funeral processions at Athens, carrying the uncoffined dead through the streets, but we had never paid much attention to the burial places, because they are still mainly to be found outside the city gates, and not in the line commonly taken by visitors. At Andhritsæna we came upon one, however, and for the first time noticed the curious little wooden boxes placed at the heads of the graves, resembling more than anything else the bird-houses that humane people put on trees at home. Inside of the boxes we found oil stains and occasionally the remains of broken lamps, placed there, we were told, as a "mnemeion"—doubtless meaning a memorial, which word is a direct descendant. The lamps appear to be kept lighted for a time after the death of the person thus honored, but none were lighted when we saw the cemetery of Andhritsæna, and practically all had fallen into neglect, as if the dead had been so long away that grief at their departure had been forgotten. A little chapel stood hard by, and on its wall a metal plate and a heavy iron spike did duty for a bell.
Then the cold night settled down upon Andhritsæna, and we retired to the warmth of our narrow beds, ready for the summons which should call us forth to begin our fatiguing ride to the famous site of old Olympia.
CHAPTER XIII. OVER THE HILLS
TO OLYMPIA
At five o'clock the persistent thumping of Spyros on the bedroom doors announced the call of incense-breathing morn, though Phœbus had not yet by any means driven his horses above the rim of the horizon. The air outside was thick o' fog,—doubtless a low-lying cloud settling on the mountain,—and it was dark and cheerless work getting out of our narrow beds and dressing in the cold twilight. Nevertheless it was necessary, for the ride to Olympia is long, and Spyros had promised us a fatiguing day, with twelve hours in the saddle as a minimum. To this forecast the pessimistic Baedeker lent much plausibility by his reference to the road as being unspeakably bad; and besides we ourselves had on the previous day gathered much personal experience of the mountain trails of the region. Breakfast under these circumstances was a rather hasty meal, consumed in comparative silence.