Vacation days in Greece

by Rufus B. Richardson

We stopped only a few minutes here, as our intention was to reach Kephalovrysi (Thermon) that night, and, if we failed in that, it seemed child’s-play to reach at least Makrinou on the lake. Even when bicycling ceased and we settled down to steady climbing, we felt no misgivings; and when at four o’clock we began to descend we thought our work for the day about finished. But our confidence was rudely shaken when we saw before us the broad, pebbly bed of the Evenos, which flows down through these mountains, taking a sharp turn to the west and passing under the walls of Calydon. We had forgotten to reckon with this. We now paid dearly for our descent by another climb, which seemed unending, and before we reached our greatest altitude far from Kephalovrysi, and, for aught we knew, far from Makrinou also, it became dark.

This road seems an excellent example of the way in which the little kingdom of Greece ought not to make internal improvements. The fine carriage-road, built at great expense, winds with gentlest grade along every projection and indentation of the mountains; and yet we met on our whole journey to the top only a single cart, and in many places the road was so overgrown with grass that no ruts appeared. When it was growing dark we saw another reason why the road might not be popular. In some places it had slipped downhill; and in other places the hills had slipped down into it, which was almost as bad. There is no call for a fine highway from Naupaktos to the lake. The great interior basin of Ætolia is provided with a good course for its traffic via Messolonghi; and no power on earth can force it to come this way. It is useless for some silly people in Naupaktos to complain that favoritism was shown in not laying out the Northwestern Railroad with their town as a starting-point. For a town doomed to decline, a steamer stopping two or three times a week, supplemented by sail-boats to and from the more lively and more important southern shore of the Corinthian Gulf, may well suffice. The Northwestern Railroad will soon be prolonged to Arta, giving to him that hath, according to the habit of railroads; and even this finely built carriage-road will continue to be avoided by every self-respecting traveller, as it is now, until only pieces of this monumental folly shall remain. The demarch of Kephalovrysi told me that the primary object of this road was to enable the Government to move troops by land in case of the blockade of the coast by stronger Powers. But even with that explanation the road seems useless without good roads farther east to connect with it, to say nothing of the futility of Greece attempting to resist the stronger naval Powers.

When darkness was fairly upon us, and just as we were beginning to descend, we found a wretched village of four or five houses. At one of these with a wine-shop below and living-rooms above, we were well fed, but in a rather primitive style, I eating my rice from the same bowl with the host, as we all sat cross-legged in front of the fire. Since it was very cold, we were glad to lie down for the night on rugs, with other rugs over us, with our feet to the fire, making one end of a semicircle, at the other end of which was the host with his wife and five small children, while below, in the business part of the establishment, were five larger children.

When we got off at sunrise the next morning, the view to the west was something over which one may well grow enthusiastic. Low down at our feet, but stretching far away to the west, was the lake which we had sought, and beyond its farther end another smaller one. At that farther end, too, was the fertile plain of Agrinion, where grows the best tobacco in Greece. Beyond that and across the Acheloos rose the snowy mountains of Acarnania and Leukas, just touched by the rising sun. On our right, rising up from the north shore of the lake and stretching far to the north, were the gigantic mountains which make the larger and wilder part of Ætolia. On our left were the lower peaks of Mount Arakynthos bordering the lake on the south. This is the heart of Ætolia. It has a wonderfully drawing power to one who has once seen it. The lake, enclosed by mountains on its eastern end, and on its western end by a plain, is wonderfully beautiful. It is striking that its surface is hardly stirred by either row-boats or sail-boats. The only time I ever saw a sail upon it was on this particular morning.

It was matter for sad reflection that this great plain did not all belong to Ætolia, but that the part beyond the Acheloos was Acarnania. Rivers cannot divide peoples; and these two peoples through all their history dyed this unnatural boundary with their blood. The Ætolians, as the stronger if not the better people, generally succeeded in keeping a foothold on the other bank, holding even Stratos, the capital of Acarnania, and Œniadæ, its strongest city, for periods of centuries. But the Acarnanians were tough antagonists, and never said die till all was merged in the supremacy of Rome.

It was a matter of a few minutes to spin down to Makrinou, which now had for us no importance. Kephalovrysi was our goal. The visit was for me tinged with some melancholy reflections. Less than a year before I had been there with my friend, Charles Peabody, of Cambridge, and we had been much excited at the thought that here lay Thermon, the head of the Ætolian League, and so near the surface that a little excavation would prove it. On my return to Athens I asked the Ephor General of Antiquities to reserve the spot for us, which he said he would do. But a few months later, when the Greek Archæological Society sent Georgios Soteiriades into Ætolia to explore sites, this one was not excepted; and he attacked it with great success. While I had to rejoice that archæology had gained a triumph, I was sorry that an enthusiastic American had not been the instrument. After a few miles of level road along the east end of the lake, we toiled four or five miles up along the face of the mountain enclosing it on the north side, and then turning sharply away from the lake at Petrochori, a village perched on the top of a ridge commanding as good a view as the one already described, in a few minutes we had reached our goal.

Kephalovrysi has about a thousand inhabitants. It was not more than ten minutes after we had settled ourselves in an eating-house when all the boys of the place and most of the men, with a small representation of the girls, gathered around and thronged in at the door, in spite of the kicks and cuffs of the proprietor. Before we had fairly begun to eat, the demarch appeared with his inseparable companion, the young schoolmaster, the two who had last year escorted us to the ruins, at the head of the whole school, which had been given a half-holiday in honor of our arrival. This time it was a holiday without special dispensation; but the boys were so absorbed in our bicycles, which were the first ever seen in the place, that we had the demarch and the schoolmaster almost to ourselves on the walk out to the ruins.

The excavation of these ruins called Palæo-Bazaar closes a chapter in the topographical study of Ætolia, which began with Colonel Leake. Pouqueville, indeed, prompted by the natural desire to give names to the impressive ruins that met him on every hand, gave names, as he himself confessed, “by a sort of lucky inspiration.” A passage in Polybius forms the basis for the topography of this central region of Ætolia. It is the passage in which he describes how Philip V., the young King of Macedon, in 218 B.C., by a forced march from the Acheloos, near Stratos, reached and destroyed Thermon in revenge for the destruction of Dodona in the preceding year by the Ætolians, under Dorymachos. In this narrative he mentions several towns to the right and left of the line of march.