“That is our affair. We pay you five francs a day for that kind of work, you are to do anything for us that we find disagreeable.”
The guide was puzzled, and after a thorough examination of our faces to ascertain if we were really lunatics, he started off.
He went about twenty yards and then returned, declaring that he would not ascend the mountain unless we furnished him with a saddle horse.
“Once for all,” said the Judge, “will you go or not? If you don’t we shall be obliged to murder you, and then report your misconduct to the police.”
“Veree well,” sulkily replied the descendant of Sophocles, “I no go ze mountain, and I no be guide for you again. Tomorrow you have one other guide.”
We took him at his word and that night paid him off and discharged him. He had been a nuisance from the first, bothering us with all sorts of importunities, and we were glad to be rid of him in such a way that he could have no real or fancied claim upon us. During the rest of our stay in Athens he did not condescend to speak to us; he had formerly been all obsequiousness, but now he considered us quite unfit to associate with him. I am afraid our reputations suffered somewhat in his hands. He described us to some gentlemen who were in Athens the week after we left, as the greatest fools he had ever seen.
Mount Pentelicus is about thirty-six hundred feet above the level of the sea, and the view from its summit is said to be quite extensive.
Looking toward the southwest one sees the plain of Attica with its smaller mountains, and with Athens and the Acropolis occupying a prominent place on the plain.
Beyond them are the Piraeus, Salamis, and Egina, and further away the coast and mountains of the Morea, form a background to the picture. Toward the southeast are Mount Hymettus, all the promontory of Attica to Cape Sunium and beyond this cape, the jagged summits of the Cyclades are visible. On the northeast the hills fall away in undulations till they sink into the plain of Marathon, where was fought the battle that resulted in the defeat and partial destruction of the Persian army. The numerous bays of this part of the coast are distinctly visible, and the combinations of sea, mountain, and plain make a picture of unusual beauty.
In a clear day nearly all the great islands of the Greek Archipelago can be made out, and sometimes the coast of Asia is visible away to the east. Altogether the view from Mount Pentelicus is one of the finest in Greece, as it includes nearly the whole of Athens, and awakens many historical associations.