Part of the way the road is excellent and on another part it is not so good. There is a Greek convent at the foot of the mountain and when we reached it we were told that the carriages could go no further.
Then we had an animated discussion with the guide. None of us wished to undertake the ascent, which requires about two hours on foot, and so we decided to let the guide do it for us, and when we stated our plan his eyes opened so wide that they appeared really to drop out.
“I not goes up mitout you gentlemens,” he said as soon as he had sufficiently recovered himself to be able to speak.
“You won’t, eh; well, what have we engaged you for.”
“For five francs ze day, five francs par jour.”
“Very well, then, we are to pay you five francs a day to be our guide and you are to guide us where we want to go.”
“Yees! yees, zat is so.”
“If we wanted to go up that mountain you would go with us.”
“Certainly, genteelmens, certainly zat is to guide you up ze mountain.”
“Well, now let’s have no more nonsense about it. Pentelicus would be nowhere by the side of Pike’s Peak or Mount Shasta. And you say, gentlemen come here and climb this potato-hill. We don’t intend to climb it ourselves, and we came here to do it by proxy. We have hired you for that purpose, so now go ahead.” "But I have been up ze mountain many times. Why I go now all alone without ze genteelmens.”