[Illustration: THE PARTHENON]

 SEEING EUROPE

 WITH FAMOUS AUTHORS

 SELECTED AND EDITED

 WITH INTRODUCTIONS, ETC. 

 BY

 FRANCIS W. HALSEY

 _Editor of "Great Epochs in American History" Associate Editor of "The World's Famous Orations" and of "The Best of the World's Classics, " etc. _

 IN TEN

 VOLUMES

 ILLUSTRATED

 Vol. VIII

 ITALY, SICILY, AND GREECE

 PART TWO

 FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY NEW YORK AND LONDON

 COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY [_Printed in the United States of America_]

 CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII

 Italy, Sicily, and Greece--Part Two

 IV. THREE FAMOUS CITIES

 PAGE

 IN THE STREETS OF GENOA--By Charles Dickens 1

 MILAN CATHEDRAL--By Hippolyte Adolphe Taine 4

 PISA'S FOUR GLORIES--By Hippolyte Adolphe Taine 7

 THE WALLS AND "SKYSCRAPERS" OF PISA--By Janet Ross and Nelly Erichson 11

 V. NAPLES AND ITS ENVIRONS

 IN AND ABOUT NAPLES--By Charles Dickens 18

 THE TOMB OF VIRGIL--By Augustus J. C. Hare 24

 TWO ASCENTS OF VESUVIUS--By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 26

 ANOTHER ASCENT--By Charles Dickens 31

 CASTELLAMARE AND SORRENTO--By Hippolyte Adolphe Taine 37

 CAPRI--By Augustus J. C. Hare 42

 POMPEII--By Percy Bysshe Shelley 45

 VI. OTHER ITALIAN SCENES

 VERONA--By Charles Dickens 52

 PADUA--By Theophile Gautier 55

 FERRARA--By Theophile Gautier 59

 LAKE LUGANO--By Victor Tissot 62

 LAKE COMO--By Percy Bysshe Shelley 64

 BELLAGIO ON LAKE COMO--By W. D. M'Crackan 66

 THE REPUBLIC OF SAN MARINO--By Joseph Addison 69

 PERUGIA--By Nathaniel Hawthorne 73

 SIENA---By Mr. And Mrs. Edwin H. Blashfield 75

 THE ASSISSI OF ST. FRANCIS--By Hippolyte Adolphe Taine 78

 RAVENNA--By Edward A. Freeman 80

 BENEDICTINE SUBIACO--By Augustus J. C. Hare 83

 ETRUSCAN VOLTERRA--By William Cullen Bryant 86

 THE PAESTUM OF THE GREEKS--By Edward A. Freeman 88

 VII. SICILIAN SCENES

 PALERMO--By Will S. Monroe 91

 GIRGENTI--By Edward A. Freeman 93

 SEGESTE--By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 97

 TAORMINA--By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 99

 MOUNT ÆTNA--By Will S. Monroe 101

 SYRACUSE--By Rufus B. Richardson 104

 MALTA--By Theophile Gautier 107

 VIII. THE MAINLAND OF GREECE

 ARRIVING IN ATHENS--THE ACROPOLIS--By J. P. Mahaffy 112

 A WINTER IN ATHENS HALF A CENTURY AGO--By Bayard Taylor 119

 THE ACROPOLIS AS IT WAS--By Pausanias 122

 THE ELGIN MARBLES--By J. P. Mahaffy 127

 THE THEATER OF DIONYSUS--By J. P. Mahaffy 130

 WHERE ST. PAUL PREACHED--By J. P. Mahaffy 134

 FROM ATHENS TO DELPHI ON HORSEBACK--By Bayard Taylor 136

 CORINTH--By J. P. Mahaffy 140

 OLYMPIA--By Philip S. Marden 143

 THE TEMPLE OF ZEUS AT OLYMPIA AS IT WAS--By Pausanias 146

 THERMOPYLÆ--By Rufus B. Richardson 152

 SALONICA--By Charles Dudley Warner 155

 FROM THE PIERIAN PLAIN TO MARATHON--By Charles Dudley Warner 157

 SPARTA AND MAINA--By Bayard Taylor 160

 MESSENIA--By Bayard Taylor 164

 TIRYNS AND MYCENÆ--By J. P. Mahaffy 169

 IX. THE GREEK ISLANDS

 A TOUR OF CRETE--By Bayard Taylor 175

 THE COLOSSAL RUINS AT CNOSSOS--By Philip S. Marden 179

 CORFU--By Edward A. Freeman 182

 RHODES--By Charles Dudley Warner 185

 MT. ATHOS--By Charles Dudley Warner 189

 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

 VOLUME VIII

 FRONTISPIECE

 THE PARTHENON

 PRECEDING PAGE 1

 VENICE: SANTA MARIA DEL SALUTE

 FEEDING THE DOVES IN FRONT OF ST. MARK'S

 VENICE: STATUE OF COLLEONI

 PALACE IN ST. MARK'S PLACE

 GONDOLA ON THE GRAND CANAL

 GENERAL VIEW OF FLORENCE

 PALACE OF THE DUKES OF ESTE, FERRARA

 LAKE LUGANO

 TITIAN'S BIRTHPLACE AT CADORE

 THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS

 VERONA: TOMB OF THE SCALIGERS

 MILAN CATHEDRAL

 BAPTISTERY, CATHEDRAL, AND LEANING TOWER OF PISA

 FOLLOWING PAGE 96

 CITY AND BAY OF NAPLES WITH VESUVIUS

 IN THE DISTANCE

 TEMPLE OF THESEUS AT ATHENS

 PALERMO, SICILY, FROM THE SEA

 GREEK THEATER, SEGESTA, SICILY

 TEMPLE OF CONCORD, GIRGENTI, SICILY

 TEMPLE OF JUNO, GIRGENTI, SICILY

 AMPHITHEATER AT SYRACUSE, SICILY

 GREEK TEMPLE AT SEGESTA, SICILY

 HARBOR OF SYRACUSE, SICILY

 THE SO-CALLED "SHIP OF ULYSSES, " OFF CORFU

 TEMPLE OF THE OLYMPIAN ZEUS AT ATHENS

 THE PLAIN BELOW DELPHI

 THE ROAD NEAR DELPHI

 ENTRANCE TO THE STADIUM AT OLYMPIA

 THRONE OF MINOS IN CRETE

[Illustration: VENICE: SANTA MARIA DEL SALUTE]

[Illustration: FEEDING THE DOVES IN FRONT OF ST. MARK'S(See Vol. VII for article on these doves)]

[Illustration: VENICE: STATUE OF COLLEONICourtesy John C. Winston Co. ]

[Illustration: PALACE IN ST. MARK'S PLACE, VENICE(Base of the old Campanile at the right)]

[Illustration: GONDOLA ON THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE]

[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF FLORENCE]

[Illustration: PALACE OF THE DUKES OF ESTE. FERRARA]

[Illustration: LAKE LUGANO]

[Illustration: TITIAN'S BIRTHPLACE AT CADORE(Cadore is in the Italian part of the Dolomites)]

[Illustration: THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS, VENICE]

[Illustration: TOMB OF THE SCALÍGERS AT VERONA]

[Illustration: MILAN CATHEDRAL(See Vol. VII for article on Milan Cathedral)]

[Illustration: BAPTISTERY, CATHEDRAL, AND LEANING TOWER OF PISA(See Vol. VII for article on Pisa)]

IV

THREE FAMOUS CITIES

IN THE STREETS OF GENOA[1]

BY CHARLES DICKENS

The great majority of the streets are as narrow as any thoroughfare canwell be, where people (even Italian people) are supposed to live andwalk about; being mere lanes, with here and there a kind of well, orbreathing-place. The houses are immensely high, painted in all sorts ofcolors, and are in every stage and state of damage, dirt, and lack ofrepair. They are commonly let off in floors, or flats, like the housesin the old town of Edinburgh, or many houses in Paris. .. . 

When shall I forget the Streets of Palaces: the Strada Nuova and theStrada Baldi! The endless details of these rich palaces; the walls ofsome of them, within, alive with masterpieces by Vandyke! The great, heavy, stone balconies, one above another, and tier over tier; with hereand there, one larger than the rest, towering high up--a huge marbleplatform; the doorless vestibules, massively barred lower windows, immense public staircases, thick marble pillars, strong dungeon-likearches, and dreary, dreaming, echoing vaulted chambers; among which theeye wanders again, and again, and again, as every palace is succeeded byanother--the terrace gardens between house and house, with green archesof the vine, and groves of orange-trees, and blushing oleander in fullbloom, twenty, thirty, forty feet above the street--the painted halls, moldering and blotting, and rotting in the damp corners, and stillshining out in beautiful colors and voluptuous designs, where the wallsare dry--the faded figures on the outsides of the houses, holdingwreaths, and crowns, and flying upward, and downward, and standing inniches, and here and there looking fainter and more feeble thanelsewhere, by contrast with some fresh little Cupids, who on a morerecently decorated portion of the front, are stretching out what seemsto be the semblance of a blanket, but is, indeed, a sun-dial--the steep, steep, up-hill streets of small palaces (but very large palaces for allthat), with marble terraces looking down into close by-ways--themagnificent and innumerable churches; and the rapid passage from astreet of stately edifices, into a maze of the vilest squalor, steamingwith unwholesome stenches, and swarming with half-naked children andwhole worlds of dirty people--make up, altogether, such a scene ofwonder; so lively, and yet so dead; so noisy, and yet so quiet; soobtrusive, and yet so shy and lowering; so wide-awake, and yet so fastasleep; that it is a sort of intoxication to a stranger to walk on, andon, and on, and look about him. A bewildering phantasmagoria, with allthe inconsistency of a dream, and all the pain and all the pleasure ofan extravagant reality!. .. 

In the streets of shops, the houses are much smaller, but of great sizenotwithstanding, and extremely high. They are very dirty; quiteundrained, if my nose be at all reliable; and emit a peculiar fragrance, like the smell of very bad cheese, kept in very hot blankets. Notwithstanding the height of the houses, there would seem to have beena lack of room in the city, for new houses are thrust in everywhere. Wherever it has been possible to cram a tumble-down tenement into acrack or corner, in it has gone. If there be a nook or angle in the wallof a church, or a crevice in any other dead wall, of any sort, there youare sure to find some kind of habitation; looking as if it had grownthere, like a fungus. Against the Government House, against the oldSenate House, round about any large building, little shops stick close, like parasite vermin to the great carcass. And for all this, look whereyou may; up steps, down steps, anywhere, everywhere; there are irregularhouses, receding, starting forward, tumbling down, leaning against theirneighbors, crippling themselves or their friends by some means or other, until one, more irregular than the rest, chokes up the way, and youcan't see any further. 

MILAN CATHEDRAL[2]

BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

The cathedral, at the first sight, is bewildering. Gothic art, transported entire into Italy at the close of the Middle Ages, [3]attains at once its triumph and its extravagance. Never had it been seenso pointed, so highly embroidered, so complex, so overcharged, sostrongly resembling a piece of jewelry; and as, instead of coarse andlifeless stone, it here takes for its material the beautiful lustrousItalian marble, it becomes a pure chased gem as precious through itssubstance as through the labor bestowed on it. The whole church seems tobe a colossal and magnificent crystallization, so splendidly do itsforests of spires, its intersections of moldings, its population ofstatues, its fringes of fretted, hollowed, embroidered and openmarblework, ascend in multiple and interminable bright forms against thepure blue sky. 

Truly is it the mystic candelabra of visions and legends, with a hundredthousand branches bristling and overflowing with sorrowing thorns andecstatic roses, with angels, virgins, and martyrs upon every flower andon every thorn, with infinite myriads of the triumphant Church springingfrom the ground pyramidically even into the azure, with its millions ofblended and vibrating voices mounting upward in a single shout, hosannah!. .. 

We enter, and the impression deepens. What a difference between thereligious power of such a church and that of St. Peter's at Rome! Oneexclaims to himself, this is the true Christian temple! Four rows ofenormous eight-sided pillars, close together, seem like a serried hedgeof gigantic oaks. Their strange capitals, bristling with a fantasticvegetation of pinnacles, canopies, foliated niches and statues, are likevenerable trunks crowned with delicate and pendent mosses. They spreadout in great branches meeting in the vault overhead, the intervals ofthe arches being filled with an inextricable network of foliage, thornysprigs and light branches, twining and intertwining, and figuring theaerial dome of a mighty forest. As in a great wood, the lateral aislesare almost equal in height to that of the center, and, on all sides, atequal distances apart, one sees ascending around him the secularcolonnades. 

Here truly is the ancient Germanic forest, as if a reminiscence of thereligious groves of Irmensul. Light pours in transformed by green, yellow and purple panes, as if through the red and orange tints ofautumnal leaves. This, certainly, is a complete architecture like thatof Greece, having, like that of Greece, its root in vegetable forms. TheGreek takes the trunk of the tree, drest, for his type; the German theentire tree with all its leaves and branches. True architecture, perhaps, always springs out of vegetal nature, and each zone may haveits own edifices as well as plants; in this way oriental architecturesmight be comprehended--the vague idea of the slender palm and of itsbouquet of leaves with the Arabs, and the vague idea of the colossal, prolific, dilated and bristling vegetation of India. 

In any event I have never seen a church in which the aspect of northernforests was more striking, or where one more involuntarily imagines longalleys of trunks terminating in glimpses of daylight, curved branchesmeeting in acute angles, domes of irregular and commingling foliage, universal shade scattered with lights through colored and diaphanousleaves. Sometimes a section of yellow panes, through which the sundarts, launches into the obscurity its shower of rays and a portion ofthe nave glows like a luminous glade. A vast rosace behind the choir, awindow with tortuous branchings above the entrance, shimmer with thetints of amethyst, ruby, emerald and topaz like leafy labyrinths inwhich lights from above break in and diffuse themselves in shiftingradiance. Near the sacristy a small door-top, fastened against the wall, exposes an infinity of intersecting moldings similar to the delicatemeshes of some marvelous twining and climbing plant. A day might bepassed here as in a forest, in the presence of grandeurs as solemn asthose of nature, before caprices as fascinating, amid the sameintermingling of sublime monotony and inexhaustible fecundity, beforecontrasts and metamorphoses of light as rich and as unexpected. A mysticreverie, combined with a fresh sentiment of northern nature, such is thesource of Gothic architecture. 

PISA'S FOUR GLORIES[4]

BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

There are two Pisas--one in which people have lapsed into ennui, andlive from hand to mouth since the decadence, which is in fact the entirecity, except a remote corner; the other is this corner, a marblesepulcher where the Duomo, Baptistery, Leaning Tower and Campo-Santosilently repose like beautiful dead beings. This is the genuine Pisa, and in these relics of a departed life, one beholds a world. 

In 1083 in order to honor the Virgin, who had given them a victory overthe Saracens of Sardignia, they [the Pisans] laid the foundations oftheir Duomo. This edifice is almost a Roman basilica, that is to say atemple surmounted by another temple, or, if you prefer it, a househaving a gable for its façade which gable is cut off at the peak tosupport another house of smaller dimensions. Five stories of columnsentirely cover the façade with their superposed porticos. Two by twothey stand coupled together to support small arcades; all these prettyshapes of white marble under their dark arcades form an aerialpopulation of the utmost grace and novelty. Nowhere here are weconscious of the dolorous reverie of the medieval north; it is the fêteof a young nation which is awakening, and, in the gladness of its recentprosperity, honoring its gods. It has collected capitals, ornaments, entire columns obtained on the distant shores to which its wars and itscommerce have led it, and these ancient fragments enter into its workwithout incongruity; for it is instinctively cast in the ancient mold, and only developed with a tinge of fancy on the side of finesse and thepleasing. Every antique form reappears, but reshaped in the same senseby a fresh and original impulse. 

The outer columns of the Greek temple are reduced, multiplied anduplifted in the air, and from a support have become an ornament. TheRoman or Byzantine dome is elongated and its natural heavinessdiminished under a crown of slender columns with a miter ornament, whichgirds it midway with its delicate promenade. On the two sides of thegreat door two Corinthian columns are enveloped with luxurious foliage, calyxes and twining or blooming acanthus; and from the threshold we seethe church with its files of intersecting columns, its alternate coursesof black and white marble and its multitude of slender and brilliantforms, rising upward like an altar of candelabra. A new spirit appearshere, a more delicate sensibility; it is not excessive and disordered asin the north, and yet it is not satisfied with the grave simplicity, therobust nudity of antique architecture. It is the daughter of the paganmother, healthy and gay, but more womanly than its mother. 

She is not yet an adult, sure in all her steps--she is somewhat awkward. The lateral façades on the exterior are monotonous; the cupola withinis a reversed funnel of a peculiar and disagreeable form. The junctionof the two arms of the cross is unsatisfactory and so many modernizedchapels dispel the charm due to purity, as at Sienna. At the secondglance however all this is forgotten, and we again regard it as acomplete whole. Four rows of Corinthian columns, surmounted witharcades, divide the church into five naves, and form a forest. A secondpassage, as richly crowded, traverses the former crosswise, and, abovethe beautiful grove, files of still smaller columns prolong andintersect each other in order to uphold in the air the prolongation andintersection of the quadruple gallery. The ceiling is flat; the windowsare small, and for the most part, without sashes; they allow the wallsto retain the grandeur of their mass and the solidity of their position;and among these long, straight and simple lines, in this natural light, the innumerable shafts glow with the serenity of an antique temple. .. . 

Nothing more can be added in relation to the Baptistery or the LeaningTower; the same ideas prevail in these, the same taste, the same style. The former is a simple, isolated dome, the latter a cylinder, and eachhas an outward dress of small columns. And yet each has its own distinctand expressive physiognomy; but description and writing consume too muchtime, and too many technical terms are requisite to define theirdifferences. I note, simply, the inclination of the Tower. Some supposethat, when half constructed, the tower sank in the earth on one side, and that the architects continued on; seeing that they did continuethis deflection was only a partial obstacle to them. In any event, thereare other leaning towers in Italy, at Bologna, for example; voluntarilyor involuntarily this feeling for oddness, this love of paradox, thisyielding to fancy is one of the characteristics of the Middle Ages. 

In the center of the Baptistery stands a superb font with eight panels;each panel is incrusted with a rich complicated flower in full bloom, and each flower is different. Around it a circle of large Corinthiancolumns supports round-arch arcades; most of them are antique and areornamented with antique bas-reliefs; Meleager with his barking dogs, andthe nude torsos of his companions in attendance on Christian mysteries. On the left stands a pulpit similar to that of Sienna, the first work ofNicholas of Pisa (1260), a simple marble coffer supported by marblecolumns and covered with sculptures. The sentiment of force and ofantique nudity comes out here in striking features. The sculptorcomprehended the postures and torsions of bodies. His figures, somewhatmassive, are grand and simple; he frequently reproduces the tunics andfolds of the Roman costume; one of his nude personages, a sort ofHercules bearing a young lion on his shoulders, has the broad breast andmuscular tension which the sculptors of the sixteenth century admired. 

The last of these edifices, the Campo-Santo, is a cemetery, the soil ofwhich, brought from Palestine, is holy ground. Four high walls ofpolished marble surround it with their white and crowded panels. Inside, a square gallery forms a promenade opening into the courtthrough arcades trellised with ogive windows. It is filled with funerealmonuments, busts, inscriptions and statues of every form and of everyage. Nothing could be simpler and nobler. A framework of dark woodsupports the arch overhead, and the crest of the roof cuts sharp againstthe crystal sky. At the angles are four rustling cypress trees, tranquilly swayed by the breeze. Grass is growing in the court with awild freshness and luxuriance. Here and there a climbing flower twinedaround a column, a small rosebush, or a shrub glows beneath a gleam ofsunshine. There is no noise; this quarter is deserted; only now and thenis heard the voice of some promenader which reverberates as under thevault of a church. It is the veritable cemetery of a free and Christiancity; here, before the tombs of the great, people might well reflectover death and public affairs. 

THE WALLS AND "SKYSCRAPERS" OF PISA[5]

BY JANET ROSS AND NELLY ERICHSON

Few cities have preserved their medieval walls with such loving care asPisa. The circuit is complete save where the traveler enters the city;and there, alas, a wide breach has been made by the restless spirit ofmodernity. But once past the paltry barrier and the banal square, withits inevitable statue of Victor Emanuel, that take the place of the oldPorta Romana, one quickly perceives that the city is a walled one. Glimpses of battlements close the vistas of the streets, and greenfields peep through the open gates, marking that abrupt transitionbetween town and country peculiar to a fortified city. 

The walls are best seen from without. An admirable impression of themcan be had on leaving the city by the Porta Lucchese. Turning to theleft, after passing a crucifix overshadowed by cypresses, we come to theedge of a stretch of level marshy meadows, gaily pied in spring withorchids and grape hyacinths. Above our heads the high air vibrates withthe song of larks. Before us is the long line of the city walls. Strong, grim and gray, they look with nothing to break the outline of squarebattlements against the sky, but that majestic groups of domes andtowers for whose defense they were built. At the angle of the wall tothe right is a square watch-tower, backed by groups of cypresses thatrise into the air like dark flames. Its little windows command the flatplain as far as the horizon. How easy to imagine the warning blast ofthe warder's trumpet as he caught sight of a distant enemy, and the wallspringing into life at the sound. Armed men buckling on their harnesswould swarm up ladders to the battlements, the catapult groan and squeakas its lever was forced backward, and at the sharp word of command thefirst flight of arrows would be loosed. 

But the dream fades, and we pass on to the angle of the wall where thecypresses stand. From the picturesque Jews' cemetery, to which access iseasy, the structure of the walls can be studied in detail because thehand of the restorer has been perforce withheld within its gates. Thewall is some forty feet high, built of stone from the Pisan hills, weathered for the most part to a grayish hue. The masonry of the lowerhalf is good. The blocks of stone are large and well laid. Those of theupper half are smaller and the masonry is in places careless andirregular. The red brick battlements are square. At short intervalsthere are walled-up gateways, round-headed or ogival in form, and thewhole surface is rent and patched. Centuries of war and earthquakes, rain and fire, have given it a pleasant irregularity, the record ofviolent and troublous times. 

The city can be reentered by the Porta Nuova, only a few yards to theleft of the cemetery. So venerable do these battered walls look that weneed the full evidence of history to realize that they had more than onepredecessor. The memory even of the first walls of Pisa, an ancient citywhen Rome was young, has been lost. The earliest record of which we knowanything appears on a map of the ninth century drawn by one Bonanno; amap, we should rather say professing to be of the ninth century, forchurches of the thirteenth century are marked upon it, so it must eitherhave been made, or the churches inserted, then. .. . 

The ancient walls were practically swept away by the prosperity of Pisa. Beside the Balearic Islands she had conquered Carthage, the LipariIslands, Elba, Corsica, and Palermo, and her galleys poured their spoilsinto the Pisan port. She traded with the East, and was successful incommerce as in war. Her inhabitants increased rapidly. They could nolonger be penned within the narrow limits of the old wall, butoverflowed in all directions beyond it. Not only was the Borgo thicklypopulated, but a whole new region called Forisportae, sprang up. 

So masked was the wall by houses, built into it and huddling against itboth on the outside and the inside, that it seems to have been actuallyinvisible. So much so that contemporary chroniclers spoke of Pisa aswithout walls, and attributed her safety to the valor of her citizensand the multitude of her towers. The ancient wall was evidently sohidden and decayed that Pisa must be regarded as a defenseless city inthe twelfth century. It is curious that her citizens should haveneglected their own safety at a time when they were masters offortification and defense; when their fame in these arts had reached asfar as Egypt and Syria, and when the Milanese came to them to beg forengineers. .. . 

The external appearance of an Italian city in the twelfth century was sounlike anything we are accustomed to in modern times that a strongeffort of the imagination is needed to conceive it. Seen from a distancethe walls enclosed, not houses, but a forest of tall square shafts, rising into the sky like the crowded chimney stacks in a manufacturingtown but far more thickly set together. The city appeared, to use agraphic contemporary metaphor, like a sheaf of corn bound together byits walls. 

[Illustration: PANEL IN THE CATHEDRAL, SHOWING PART OF THE MEDIEVAL WALLAND TOWERS OF PISA]

San Gimignano, tho most of its towers have perished long ago, helps usto imagine faintly what Italian towns were like in the days of FrederickBarbarossa or his grandson Frederick II. For most of the houses wereactually towers, long rectangular columns, vying with each other inheight and crowded close together on either side of the narrow, airless, darkened streets. Sometimes they were connected with one another bywooden bridges, and all were furnished with wooden balconies used indefensive and offensive warfare with their neighbors. 

Cities full of towers were common all over southern France and centralItaly, but Tuscany had more than any other state, and those of Pisa werethe most famous of all. The habit of building and dwelling in towersrather than in houses may have arisen from the difficulty of expandinglaterally within an enclosed city; but a stronger reason may be found inthe dangers and uncertainty of life in a period when a man might beattacked at any moment by his fellow-citizen, as well as by the enemy ofthe state. It was a distinct military advantage to overlook one'sneighbor, who might be an enemy; and towers rose higher and higher. Thespirit of emulation entered, and rich nobles gloried in adding tower totower and in looking down on all rivals. 

But whatever the cause of their existence, they were picturesque, andmust have presented a gallant sight on the eve of a high festival. Thetall shafts were tinged with gold by the western sun, their battlementscrowned with three fluttering banners--the eagle of the Emperor, thewhite cross of the Commune, and the device of the People--looking as thoa cloud of many-colored butterflies were hovering over the city. 

Again, how dramatic the scene when the city was rent by one of theperpetually recurring faction-fights. Light bridges with grappling-ironswere thrown from tower to tower, doors and windows were barricaded, balconies and battlements lined with men in shining mail, bearing thefantastic device of their leader on helm and shield. Mangonels, orcatapults, huge engines stationed on the roofs of the towers, sentmasses of stone hurtling through the air, whistling arbelast bolts andclothyard shafts flew in thick showers, boiling oil or lead rained downon the heads of those who ventured down to attack the doors, and arrows, with Greek fire attached, were shot with nice aim into the woodenbalconies and bridges. Vile insults were hurled where missiles failed tostrike. The shouts and shrieks of the combatants were mingled with thecrash of a falling tower or with the hissing of a fire-arrow. Wherethose struck, a red glow arose and a thick cloud of smoke enveloped thedefenders. 

Altho it is evident that towers were very numerous in Pisa, it isdifficult to arrive at their precise number. The chroniclers differgreatly in their estimates. Benjamin da Tudela, for instance, says thatthere were 10, 000 in the twelfth century; while Marangone puts thenumber at 15, 000 and Tronci at 16, 000. These are round numbers such asthe medieval mind loved, but we have abundant evidence that they are notmuch exaggerated. An intarsia panel in the Duomo, shows how closely thetowers were packed together, while the mass of legislation relating tothem was directed against abuses that could only have arisen if theirnumber was very large. 

V

NAPLES AND ITS ENVIRONS

IN AND ABOUT THE CITY[6]

BY CHARLES DICKENS

So we go, rattling down-hill, into Naples. A funeral is coming up thestreet, toward us. The body, on an open bier, borne on a kind ofpalanquin, covered with a gay cloth of crimson and gold. The mourners, in white gowns and masks. If there be death abroad, life is wellrepresented too, for all Naples would seem to be out of doors, andtearing to and fro in carriages. Some of these, the common Vetturinovehicles, are drawn by three horses abreast, decked with smart trappingsand great abundance of brazen ornament, and always going very fast. Notthat their loads are light; for the smallest of them has at least sixpeople inside, four in front, four or five more hanging behind, and twoor three more, in a net or bag below the axle-tree, where they liehalf-suffocated with mud and dust. 

Exhibitors of Punch, buffo singers with guitars, reciters of poetry, reciters of stories, a row of cheap exhibitions with clowns andshowmen, drums, and trumpets, painted cloths representing the wonderswithin, and admiring crowds assembled without, assist the whirl andbustle. Ragged lazzaroni lie asleep in doorways, archways, and kennels;the gentry, gaily drest, are dashing up and down in carriages on theChiaja, or walking in the Public Gardens; and quiet letter-writers, perched behind their little desks and inkstands under the Portico of theGreat Theater of San Carlo, in the public street, are waiting forclients. 

Why do the beggars rap their chins constantly, with their right hands, when you look at them? Everything is done in pantomime in Naples, andthat is the conventional sign for hunger. A man who is quarreling withanother, yonder, lays the palm of his right hand on the back of hisleft, and shakes the two thumbs--expressive of a donkey's ears--whereathis adversary is goaded to desperation. Two people bargaining for fish, the buyer empties an imaginary waistcoat pocket when he is told theprice, and walks away without a word, having thoroughly conveyed to theseller that he considers it too dear. Two people in carriages, meeting, one touches his lips, twice or thrice, holding up the five fingers ofhis right hand, and gives a horizontal cut in the air with the palm. Theother nods briskly, and goes his way. He has been invited to a friendlydinner at half-past five o'clock, and will certainly come. 

All over Italy, a peculiar shake of the right hand from the wrist, withthe forefinger stretched out, expresses a negative--the only negativebeggars will ever understand. But, in Naples, those five fingers are acopious language. All this, and every other kind of out-door life andstir, and maccaroni-eating at sunset, and flower-selling all day long, and begging and stealing everywhere and at all hours, you see upon thebright sea-shore, where the waves of the Bay sparkle merrily. .. . 

Capri--once made odious by the deified beast Tiberius--Ischia, Procida, and the thousand distant beauties of the Bay, lie in the blue seayonder, changing in the mist and sunshine twenty times a day; now closeat hand, now far off, now unseen. The fairest country in the world, isspread about us. Whether we turn toward the Miseno shore of the splendidwatery amphitheater, and go by the Grotto of Posilipo to the Grotto delCane and away to Baiae, or take the other way, toward Vesuvius andSorrento, it is one succession of delights. In the last-named direction, where, over doors and archways, there are countless little images of SanGennaro, with this Canute's hand stretched out, to check the fury of theburning Mountain, we are carried pleasantly, by a railroad on thebeautiful Sea Beach, past the town of Torre del Greco, built upon theashes of the former town destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius, within ahundred years; and past the flat-roofed houses, granaries, and maccaronimanufacturies; to Castellamare, with its ruined castle, now inhabited byfishermen, standing in the sea upon a heap of rocks. 

Here, the railroad terminates; but, hence we may ride on, by an unbrokensuccession of enchanting bays, and beautiful scenery, sloping from thehighest summit of Saint Angelo, the highest neighboring mountain, downto the water's edge--among vineyards, olive-trees, gardens of orangesand lemons, orchards, heaped-up rocks, green gorges in the hills--and bythe bases of snow-covered heights, and through small towns withhandsome, dark-haired women at the doors--and pass delicious summervillas--to Sorrento, where the poet Tasso drew his inspiration from thebeauty surrounding him. Returning, we may climb the heights aboveCastellamare, and looking down among the boughs and leaves, see thecrisp water glistening in the sun; and clusters of white houses indistant Naples, dwindling, in the great extent of prospect, down todice. The coming back to the city, by the beach again, at sunset; withthe glowing sea on one side, and the darkening mountain (Vesuvius), withits smoke and flame, upon the other, is a sublime conclusion to theglory of the day. 

That church by the Porta Capuna--near the old fisher-market in thedirtiest quarter of dirty Naples, where the revolt of Masaniellobegan--is memorable for having been the scene of one of his earliestproclamations to the people, and is particularly remarkable for nothingelse, unless it be its waxen and bejeweled Saint in a glass case, withtwo odd hands; or the enormous number of beggars who are constantlyrapping their chins there, like a battery of castanets. The cathedralwith the beautiful door, and the columns of African and Egyptian granitethat once ornamented the temple of Apollo, contains the famous sacredblood of San Gennaro or Januarius, which is preserved in two phials in asilver tabernacle, and miraculously liquefies three times a year, to thegreat admiration of the people. At the same moment, the stone (distantsome miles) where the Saint suffered martyrdom, becomes faintly red. Itis said that the officiating priests turn faintly red also, sometimes, when these miracles occur. 

The old, old men who live in hovels at the entrance of these ancientcatacombs, and who, in their age and infirmity, seem waiting here, to beburied themselves, are members of a curious body, called the RoyalHospital, who are the official attendants at funerals. Two of these oldspecters totter away, with lighted tapers, to show the caverns ofdeath--as unconcerned as if they were immortal. They were used asburying-places for three hundred years; and, in one part, is a large pitfull of skulls and bones, said to be the sad remains of a greatmortality occasioned by a plague. In the rest, there is nothing butdust. They consist, chiefly, of great wide corridors and labyrinths, hewn out of the rock. At the end of some of these long passages, areunexpected glimpses of the daylight, shining down from above. It looksas ghastly and as strange; among the torches, and the dust, and the darkvaults; as if it, too, were dead and buried. 

The present burial-place lies out yonder, on a hill between the city andVesuvius. The old Campo Santo with its three hundred and sixty-fivepits, is only used for those who die in hospitals, and prisons, and areunclaimed by their friends. The graceful new cemetery, at no greatdistance from it, tho yet unfinished, has already many graves among itsshrubs and flowers, and airy colonnades. It might be reasonably objectedelsewhere, that some of the tombs are meretricious and too fanciful; butthe general brightness seems to justify it here; and Mount Vesuvius, separated from them by a lovely slope of ground, exalts and saddens thescene. 

If it be solemn to behold from this new City of the Dead, with its darksmoke hanging in the clear sky, how much more awful and impressive isit, viewed from the ghostly ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii!

Stand at the bottom of the great market-place of Pompeii, and look upthe silent streets, through the ruined temples of Jupiter and Isis, overthe broken houses with their inmost sanctuaries open to the day, away toMount Vesuvius, bright and snowy in the peaceful distance; and lose allcount of time, and heed of other things, in the strange and melancholysensation of seeing the Destroyed and the Destroyer making this quietpicture in the sun. Then, ramble on, and see, at every turn, the littlefamiliar tokens of human habitation and everyday pursuits, the chafingof the bucket-rope in the stone rim of the exhausted well; the track ofcarriage-wheels in the pavement of the street; the marks ofdrinking-vessels on the stone counter of the wine-shop; the amphoræ inprivate cellars, stored away so many hundred years ago, and undisturbedto this hour--all rendering the solitude and deadly lonesomeness of theplace, ten thousand times more solemn, than if the volcano, in its fury, had swept the city from the earth, and sunk it in the bottom of the sea. 

THE TOMB OF VIRGIL[7]

BY AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE

A road to the right at the end of the Chiaja, leads to the mouth of theGrotto of Posilipo, above which those who do not wish to leave theircarriages may see, high on the left, close above the grotto, the ruinedcolumbarium known as the Tomb of Virgil. A door in the wall, on the leftof the approach to the grotto, and a very steep staircase, lead to thecolumbarium, which is situated in a pretty fruit-garden. 

Virgil desired that his body should be brought to Naples fromBrundusium, where he died, B. C. 19, and there is every probability thathe was buried on this spot, which was visited as Virgil's burial-placelittle more than a century after his death by the poet Statius, who wasborn at Naples, and who describes composing his own poems while seatedin the shadow of the tomb. If further confirmation were needed of thestory that Virgil was laid here, it would be found in the fact thatSilius Italicus, who lived at the same time with Statius, purchased thetomb of Virgil, restored it from the neglect into which it had fallen, and celebrated funeral rites before it. 

The tomb was originally shaded by a gigantic bay-tree, which is said tohave died on the death of Dante. Petrarch, who was brought hither byKing Robert, planted another, which existed in the time of Sannazaro, but was destroyed by relic-collectors in the last century. A branch wassent to Frederick the Great by the Margravine of Baireuth, with someverses by Voltaire. If from no other cause, the tomb would beinteresting from its visitors; here Boccaccio renounced the career of amerchant for that of a poet, and a well-known legend, that St. Paulvisited the sepulcher of Virgil at Naples, was long commemorated in theverse of a hymn used in the service for St. Paul's Day at Mantua. 

The tomb is a small, square, vaulted chamber with three windows. Earlyin the sixteenth century a funeral urn, containing the ashes of thepoet, stood in the center, supported by nine little marble pillars. Somesay that Robert of Anjou removed it, in 1326, for security to the CastelNuovo, others that it was given by the Government to a cardinal fromMantua, who died at Genoa on his way home. In either event the urn isnow lost. 

It is just beneath the tomb that the road to Pozzuoli enters the famousGrotto of Posilipo, a tunnel about half a mile long, in breadth from 25to 30 feet, and varying from about 90 feet in height near the entrance, to little more than 20 feet at points of the interior. Petronius andSeneca mention its narrow gloomy passage with horror, in the reign ofNero, when it was so low that it could only be used for foot-passengers, who were obliged to stoop in passing through. 

In the fifteenth century King Alphonso I. Gave it height by lowering thefloor, which was paved by Don Pedro di Toledo a hundred years later. Inthe Middle Ages the grotto was ascribed to the magic arts of Virgil. Inrecent years it has been the chief means of communication between Naplesand Baiae, and is at all times filled with dust and noise, theflickering lights and resounding echoes giving it a most weird effect. However much one may abuse Neapolitans, we may consider in their favor, as Swinburne observes, "what a terror this dark grotto would be inLondon!"

TWO ASCENTS OF VESUVIUS[8]

BY JOHANN WOLGANG VON GOETHE

At the foot of the steep ascent, we were received by two guides, oneold, the other young, but both active fellows. The first pulled me upthe path, the other Tischbein[9]--pulled I say, for these guides aregirded round the waist with a leathern belt, which the traveler takeshold of, and being drawn up by his guide, makes his way the easier withfoot and staff. In this manner we reached the flat from which the conerises; toward the north lay the ruins of the summit. 

A glance westward over the country beneath us, removed, as well as abath could, all feeling of exhaustion and fatigue, and we now went roundthe ever-smoking cone, as it threw out its stones and ashes. Whereverthe space allowed of our viewing it at a sufficient distance, itappeared a grand and elevating spectacle. In the first place, a violentthundering toned forth from its deepest abyss, then stones of larger andsmaller sizes were showered into the air by thousands, and enveloped byclouds of ashes. The greatest part fell again into the gorge; the restof the fragments, receiving a lateral inclination, and falling on theoutside of the crater, made a marvelous rumbling noise. First of all thelarger masses plumped against the side, and rebounded with a dull heavysound; then the smaller came rattling down; and last of all, drizzled ashower of ashes. All this took place at regular intervals, which byslowly counting, we were able to measure pretty accurately. 

Between the summit, however, and the cone the space is narrow enough;moreover, several stones fell around us, and made the circuit anythingbut agreeable. Tischbein now felt more disgusted than ever withVesuvius, as the monster, not content with being hateful, showed aninclination to become mischievous also. 

As, however, the presence of danger generally exercises on man a kind ofattraction, and calls forth a spirit of opposition in the human breastto defy it, I bethought myself that, in the interval of the eruptions, it would be possible to climb up the cone to the crater, and to get backbefore it broke out again. I held a council on this point with ourguides under one of the overhanging rocks of the summit, where, encampedin safety, we refreshed ourselves with the provisions we had broughtwith us. The younger guide was willing to run the risk with me; westuffed our hats full of linen and silk handkerchiefs, and, staff inhand, we prepared to start, I holding on to his girdle. 

The little stones were yet rattling around us, and the ashes stilldrizzling, as the stalwart youth hurried forth with me across the hotglowing rubble. We soon stood on the brink of the vast chasm, the smokeof which, altho a gentle air was bearing it away from us, unfortunatelyveiled the interior of the crater, which smoked all round from athousand crannies. At intervals, however, we caught sight through thesmoke of the cracked walls of the rock. The view was neither instructivenor delightful; but for the very reason that one saw nothing, onelingered in the hope of catching a glimpse of something more; and so weforgot our slow counting. We were standing on a narrow ridge of thevast abyss; of a sudden the thunder pealed aloud; we ducked our headsinvoluntarily, as if that would have rescued us from the precipitatedmasses. The smaller stones soon rattled, and without considering that wehad again an interval of cessation before us, and only too much rejoicedto have outstood the danger, we rushed down and reached the foot of thehill together with the drizzling ashes, which pretty thickly coveredour heads and shoulders. .. . 

The news [two weeks later] that an eruption of lava had just commenced, which, taking the direction of Ottajano, was invisible at Naples, tempted me to visit Vesuvius for the third time. Scarcely had I jumpedout of my cabriolet at the foot of the mountain, when immediatelyappeared the two guides who had accompanied us on our previous ascent. Ihad no wish to do without either, but took one out of gratitude andcustom, the other for reliance on his judgment--and the two for thegreater convenience. Having ascended the summit, the older guideremained with our cloaks and refreshment, while the younger followed me, and we boldly went straight toward a dense volume of smoke, which brokeforth from the bottom of the funnel; then we quickly went downward bythe side of it, till at last, under the clear heaven, we distinctly sawthe lava emitted from the rolling clouds of smoke. 

We may hear an object spoken of a thousand times, but its peculiarfeatures will never be caught till we see it with our own eyes. Thestream of lava was small, not broader perhaps than ten feet, but the wayin which it flowed down a gentle and tolerably smooth plain wasremarkable. As it flowed along, it cooled both on the sides and on thesurface, so that it formed a sort of canal, the bed of which wascontinually raised in consequence of the molten mass congealing evenbeneath the fiery stream, which, with uniform action, precipitated rightand left the scoria which were floating on its surface. In this way aregular dam was at length thrown up, in which the glowing stream flowedon as quietly as any mill-stream. We passed along the tolerably highdam, while the scoria rolled regularly off the sides at our feet. Somecracks in the canal afforded opportunity of looking at the livingstream, from below, and as it rushed onward, we observed it from above. 

A very bright sun made the glowing lava look dull; but a moderate steamrose from it into the pure air. I felt a great desire to go nearer tothe point where it broke out from the mountain; there my guide averred, it at once formed vaults and roofs above itself, on which he had oftenstood. To see and experience this phenomenon, we again ascended thehill, in order to come from behind to this point. Fortunately at thismoment the place was cleared by a pretty strong wind, but not entirely, for all round it the smoke eddied from a thousand crannies; and now atlast we stood on the top of the solid roof (which looked like a hardenedmass of twisted dough), but which, however, projected so far outward, that it was impossible to see the welling lava. 

We ventured about twenty steps further, but the ground on which we steptbecame hotter and hotter, while around us rolled an oppressive steam, which obscured and hid the sun; the guide, who was a few steps inadvance of me, presently turned back, and seizing hold of me, hurriedout of this Stygian exhalation. 

After we had refreshed our eyes with the clear prospect, and washed ourgums and throat with wine, we went round again to notice any otherpeculiarities which might characterize this peak of hell, thus rearingitself in the midst of a Paradise. I again observed attentively somechasms, in appearance like so many vulcanic forges, which emitted nosmoke, but continually shot out a steam of hot glowing air. They wereall tapestried, as it were, with a kind of stalactite, which covered thefunnel to the top, with its knobs and chintz-like variation of colors. In consequence of the irregularity of the forges, I found many specimensof this sublimation hanging within reach, so that, with our staves and alittle contrivance, we were able to hack off a few, and to secure them. I saw in the shops of the dealers in lava similar specimens, labeledsimply "Lava"; and I was delighted to have discovered that it wasvolcanic soot precipitated from the hot vapor, and distinctly exhibitingthe sublimated mineral particles which it contained. 

ANOTHER ASCENT[10]

BY CHARLES DICKENS

No matter that the snow and ice lie thick upon the summit of Vesuvius, or that we have been on foot all day at Pompeii, or that croakersmaintain that strangers should not be on the mountain by night, in suchunusual season. Let us take advantage of the fine weather; make the bestof our way to Resina, the little village at the foot of the mountain;prepare ourselves, as well as we can, on so short a notice, at theguide's house, ascend at once, and have sunset half-way up, moonlight atthe top, and midnight to come down in!

At four o'clock in the afternoon, there is a terrible uproar in thelittle stable-yard of Signor Salvatore, the recognized head guide, withthe gold band round his cap; and thirty under-guides who are allscuffling and screaming at once, are preparing half-a-dozen saddledponies, three litters, and some stout staves, for the journey. Every oneof the thirty quarrels with the other twenty-nine, and frightens the sixponies; and as much of the village as can possibly squeeze itself intothe little stable-yard, participates in the tumult, and gets trodden onby the cattle. 

After much violent skirmishing, and more noise than would suffice forthe storming of Naples, the procession starts. The head guide, who isliberally paid for all the attendants, rides a little in advance of theparty; the other thirty guides proceed on foot. Eight go forward withthe litters that are to be used by and by; and the remainingtwo-and-twenty beg. We ascend, gradually, by stony lanes like roughbroad flights of stairs, for some time. At length, we leave these, andthe vineyards on either side of them, and emerge upon a bleak, bareregion where the lava lies confusedly, in enormous rusty masses; as ifthe earth had been plowed up by burning thunder-bolts. And now, we haltto see the sunset. The change that falls upon the dreary region and onthe whole mountain, as its red light fades, and the night comes on--andthe unutterable solemnity and dreariness that reign around, who that haswitnessed it, can ever forget!

It is dark, when after winding, for some time, over the broken ground, we arrive at the foot of the cone, which is extremely steep, and seemsto rise, almost perpendicularly, from the spot where we dismount. Theonly light is reflected from the snow, deep, hard, and white, with whichthe cone is covered. It is now intensely cold, and the air is piercing. The thirty-one have brought no torches, knowing that the moon will risebefore we reach the top. Two of the litters are devoted to the twoladies; the third, to a rather heavy gentleman from Naples, whosehospitality and good-nature have attached him to the expedition, anddetermined him to assist in doing the honors of the mountain. The ratherheavy gentleman is carried by fifteen men; each of the ladies byhalf-a-dozen. We who walk, make the best use of our staves; and so thewhole party begin to labor upward over the snow--as if they were toilingto the summit of an antediluvian Twelfth-cake. 

We are a long time toiling up; and the head guide looks oddly about himwhen one of the company--not an Italian, tho an habitué of the mountainfor many years: whom we will call, for our present purpose, Mr. Pickleof Portici--suggests that, as it is freezing hard, and the usual footingof ashes is covered by the snow and ice, it will surely be difficult todescend. But the sight of the litters above, tilting up, and down, andjerking from this side to that, as the bearers continually slip, andtumble, diverts our attention, more especially as the whole length ofthe rather heavy gentleman is, at that moment, presented to usalarmingly foreshortened, with his head downward. 

The rising of the moon soon afterward, revives the flagging spirits ofthe bearers. Stimulating each other with their usual watchword, "Courage, friend! It is to eat maccaroni!" they press on, gallantly, forthe summit. 

From tingeing the top of the snow above us with a band of light, andpouring it in a stream through the valley below, while we have beenascending in the dark, the moon soon lights the whole white mountainside, and the broad sea down below, and tiny Naples in the distance, andevery village in the country round. The whole prospect is in this lovelystate, when we come upon the platform on the mountain-top--the region offire--an exhausted crater formed of great masses of gigantic cinders, like blocks of stone from some tremendous waterfall, burned up; fromevery chink and crevice of which, hot, sulfurous smoke is pouring out;while, from another conical-shaped hill, the present crater, risingabruptly from this platform at the end, great sheets of fire arestreaming forth; reddening the night with flame, blackening it withsmoke, and spotting it with red-hot stones and cinders, that fly up intothe air like feathers, and fall down like lead. What words can paint thegloom and grandeur of this scene!

The broken ground; the smoke; the sense of suffocation from the sulfur;the fear of falling down through the crevices in the yawning ground; thestopping, every now and then, for somebody who is missing in the dark(for the dense smoke now obscures the moon); the intolerable noise ofthe thirty; and the hoarse roaring of the mountain; make it a scene ofsuch confusion, at the same time, that we reel again. But, dragging theladies through it, and across another exhausted crater to the foot ofthe present volcano, we approach close to it on the windy side, and thensit down among the hot ashes at its foot, and look up in silence;faintly estimating the action that is going on within, from its beingfull a hundred feet higher, at this minute, than it was six weeks ago. 

There is something in the fire and roar, that generates an irresistibledesire to get nearer to it. We can not rest long, without starting off, two of us on our hands and knees, accompanied by the head guide, toclimb to the brim of the flaming crater, and try to look in. Meanwhile, the thirty yell, as with one voice, that it is a dangerous proceeding, and call to us to come back; frightening the rest of the party out oftheir wits. 

What with their noise, and what with the trembling of the thin crust ofground, that seems about to open underneath our feet and plunge us inthe burning gulf below (which is the real danger, if there be any); andwhat with the flashing of the fire in our faces, and the shower ofred-hot ashes that is raining down, and the choking smoke and sulfur; wemay well feel giddy and irrational, like drunken men. But, we contriveto climb up to the brim, and look down, for a moment, into the hell ofboiling fire below. Then, we all three come rolling down; blackened, andsinged, and scorched, and hot, and giddy; and each with his dress alightin half-a-dozen places. 

You have read, a thousand times, that the usual way of descending, is, by sliding down the ashes; which, forming a gradually-increasing ledgebelow the feet, prevent too rapid a descent. But, when we have crossedthe two exhausted craters on our way back, and are come to thisprecipitous place, there is (as Mr. Pickle has foretold) no vestige ofashes to be seen; the whole being a smooth sheet of ice. 

In this dilemma, ten or a dozen of the guides cautiously join hands, andmake a chain of men; of whom the foremost beat, as well as they can, arough track with their sticks, down which we prepare to follow. The waybeing fearfully steep, and none of the party--even of the thirty--beingable to keep their feet for six paces together, the ladies are taken outof their litters, and placed, each between two careful persons; whileothers of the thirty hold by their skirts, to prevent their fallingforward--a necessary precaution, tending to the immediate and hopelessdilapidation of their apparel. The rather heavy gentleman is abjured toleave his litter too, and be escorted in a similar manner; but heresolves to be brought down as he was brought up, on the principle thathis fifteen bearers are not likely to tumble all at once, and that he issafer so, than trusting to his own legs. 

In this order, we begin the descent; sometimes on foot, sometimesshuffling on the ice; always proceeding much more quietly and slowlythan on our upward way; and constantly alarmed by the falling among usof somebody from behind, who endangers the footing of the whole party, and clings pertinaciously to anybody's ankles. It is impossible for thelitter to be in advance, too, as the track has to be made; and itsappearance behind us, overhead--with some one or other of the bearersalways down, and the rather heavy gentleman with his legs always in theair--is very threatening and frightful. We have gone on thus, a verylittle way, painfully and anxiously, but quite merrily, and regarding itas a great success--and have all fallen several times, and have all beenstopt, somehow or other, as we were sliding away when Mr. Pickle ofPortici, in the act of remarking on these uncommon circumstances asquite beyond his experience, stumbles, falls, disengages himself, withquick presence of mind, from those about him, plunges away headforemost, and rolls, over and over, down the whole surface of the cone!

Giddy, and bloody, and a mere bundle of rags, is Pickle of Portici whenwe reach the place where we dismounted, and where the horses arewaiting; but, thank God, sound in limb! And never are we likely to bemore glad to see a man alive and on his feet, than to see himnow--making light of it too, tho sorely bruised and in great pain. Theboy is brought into the Hermitage on the Mountain, while we are atsupper, with his head tied up; and the man is heard of, some hoursafterward. He, too, is bruised and stunned, but has broken no bones; thesnow having, fortunately, covered all the larger blocks of rock andstone, and rendered them harmless. 

CASTELLAMARE AND SORRENTO[11]

BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

The sky is almost clear. Only above Naples hangs a bank of clouds, andaround Vesuvius huge white masses of smoke, moving and stationary. Inever yet saw, even in summer at Marseilles, the blue of the sea sodeep, bordering even on hardness. Above this powerful lustrous azure, absorbing three-quarters of the visible space, the white sky seems to bea firmament of crystal. As we recede we obtain a better view of theundulating coast, embraced in one grand mountain form, all its partsuniting like the members of one body. Ischia and the naked promontorieson the extreme end repose in their lilac envelop, like a slumberingPompeiian nymph under her veil. Veritably, to paint such nature as this, this violet continent extending around this broad luminous water, onemust employ the terms of the ancient poets, and represent the greatfertile goddess embraced and beset by the eternal ocean, and above themthe serene effulgence of the dazzling Jupiter. 

We encounter on the road some fine faces with long elegant features, quite Grecian; some intelligent noble-looking girls, and here and therehideous mendicants cleaning their hairy breasts. But the race is muchsuperior to that of Naples, where it is deformed and diminutive, theyoung girls there appearing like stunted, pallid grisets. The railroadskirts the sea a few paces off and almost on a level with it. A harborappears blackened with lines of rigging, and then a mole, consisting ofa small half-ruined fort, reflecting a clear sharp shadow in theluminous expanse. Surrounding this rise square houses, gray as ifcharred, and heaped together like tortoises under round roofs, servingthem as a sort of thick shell. 

On this fertile soil, full of cinders, cultivation extends to the shoreand forms gardens; a simple reed hedge protects them from the sea andthe wind; the Indian fig with its clumsy thorny leaves clings to theslopes; verdure begins to appear on the branches of the trees, theapricots showing their smiling pink blossoms; half-naked men work thefriable soil without apparent effort; a few square gardens containcolumns and small statues of white marble. Everywhere you behold tracesof antique beauty and joyousness. And why wonder at this when you feelthat you have the divine vernal sun for a companion, and on the right, whenever you turn to the sea, its flaming golden waves. 

With what facility you here forget all ugly objects! I believe I passedat Castellamare some unsightly modern structures, a railroad station, hotels, a guard-house, and a number of rickety vehicles hurrying alongin quest of fares. This is all effaced from my mind; nothing remains butimpressions of obscure porches with glimpses of bright courts filledwith glossy oranges and spring verdure, of esplanades with childrenplaying on them and nets drying, and happy idlers snuffing the breezeand contemplating the capricious heaving of the tossing sea. 

On leaving Castellamare the road forms a corniche[12] winding along thebank. Huge white rocks, split off from the cliffs above, lie below inthe midst of the eternally besieging waves. On the left the mountainslift their shattered pinnacles, fretted walls, and projecting crags, allthat scaffolding of indentations which strike you as the ruins of a lineof rocked and tottering fortresses. Each projection, each mass throwsits shadow on the surrounding white surfaces, the entire range beingpeopled with tints and forms. 

Sometimes the mountain is rent in twain, and the sides of the chasm arelined with cultivation, descending in successive stages. Sorrento isthus built on three deep ravines. All these hollows contain gardens, crowded with masses of trees overhanging each other. Nut-trees, alreadylively with sap, project their white branches like gnarled fingers;everything else is green; winter lays no hand on this eternal spring. The thick lustrous leaf of the orange-tree rises from amid the foliageof the olive, and its golden apples glisten in the sun by thousands, interspersed with gleams of the pale lemon; often in these shady lanesdo its glittering leaves flash out above the crest of the walls. This isthe land of the orange. It grows even in miserable court-yards, alongside of dilapidated steps, spreading its luxuriant tops everywherein the bright sunlight. The delicate aromatic odor of all these openingbuds and blossoms is a luxury of kings, which here a beggar enjoys fornothing. 

I passed an hour in the garden of the hotel, a terrace overlooking thesea about half-way up the bank. A scene like this fills the imaginationwith a dream of perfect bliss. The house stands in a luxurious garden, filled with orange and lemon-trees, as heavily laden with fruit as thoseof a Normandy orchard; the ground at the foot of the trees is coveredwith it. Clusters of foliage and shrubbery of a pale green, bordering onblue, occupy intermediate spaces. The rosy blossoms of the peach, sotender and delicate, bloom on its naked branches. The walks are ofbright blue porcelain, and the terrace displays its round verdantmasses overhanging the sea, of which the lovely azure fills all space. 

I have not yet spoken of my impressions after leaving Castellamare. Thecharm was only too great. The pure sky, the pale azure almosttransparent, the radiant blue sea as chaste and tender as a virginbride, this infinite expanse so exquisitely adorned as if for a festivalof rare delight, is a sensation that has no equal. Capri and Ischia onthe line of the sky lie white in their soft vapory tissue, and thedivine azure gently fades away surrounded by this border of brightness. 

Where find words to express all this? The gulf seemed like a marble vasepurposely rounded to receive the sea. The satin sheen of a flower, thesoft luminous petals of the velvet orris with shimmering sunshine ontheir pearly borders, such are the images that fill the mind, and whichaccumulate in vain and are ever inadequate. The water at the base ofthese rocks is now a transparent emerald, reflecting the tints of topazand amethyst; again a liquid diamond, changing its hue according to theshifting influences of rock and depth; or again a flashing diadem, glittering with the splendor of this divine effulgence. 

CAPRI[13]

BY AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE

The Island of Capri (in the dialect of the people Crapi), the ancientCapreae, is a huge limestone rock, a continuation of the mountain rangewhich forms the southern boundary of the Bay of Naples. Legend says thatit was once inhabited by a people called Teleboae, subject to a kingcalled Telon. Augustus took possession of Capreae as part of theimperial domains, and repeatedly visited it. His stepson Tiberius (A. D. 27) established his permanent residence on the island, and spent thelatter years of his life there, abandoning himself to the voluptuousexcesses which gave him the name of Caprineus. .. . 

The first point usually visited in Capri is the Blue Grotto (GrottaAzzurra), which is entered from the sea by an arch under the wall oflimestone cliff, only available when the sea is perfectly calm. Visitorshave to lie flat down in the boat, which is carried in by the wave andis almost level with the top of the arch. Then they suddenly findthemselves in a magical scene. The water is liquid sapphire, and thewhole rocky vaulting of the cavern shimmers to its inmost recesses witha pale blue light of marvelous beauty. A man stands ready to plunge intothe water when the boats from the steamers arrive, and to swim about;his body, in the water, then sparkles like a sea-god with phosphorescentsilver; his head, out of the water, is black like that of a Moor. Nothing can exaggerate the beauty of the Blue Grotto, and perhaps theeffect is rather enhanced than spoiled by the shouting of the boatmen, the rush of boats to the entrance, the confusion on leaving and reachingthe steamers. 

That the Grotta Azzurra was known to the Romans is evinced by theexistence of a subterranean passage, leading to it from the upperheights, and now blocked up; it was also well known in the seventeenthcentury, when it was described by Capraanica. There are other beautifulgrottoes in the cliffs surrounding the island, the most remarkable beingthe natural tunnel called the Green Grotto (Grotta Verde), under thesouthern rocks, quite as splendid in color as the Grotta Azzurraitself--a passage through the rocks, into which the boat glides (throughno hole, as in the case of the Grotta Azzurra) into water of the mostexquisite emerald. The late afternoon is the best time for visiting thisgrotto. Occasionally a small steamer makes the round of the island, stopping at the different caverns. 

On landing at the Marina, a number of donkey women offer their services, and it will be well to accept them, for the ascent of about one mile, tothe village of Capri is very hot and tiring. On the left we pass theChurch of St. Costanzo, a very curious building with apse, cupola, stonepulpit, and several ancient marble pillars and other fragments takenfrom the palaces of Tiberius. 

The little town of Capri, overhung on one side by great purple rocks, occupies a terrace on the high ridge between the two rocky promontoriesof the island. Close above the piazza stands the many-domed ancientchurch, like a mosque, and so many of the houses--sometimes of dazzlingwhiteness, sometimes painted in gay colors--have their own little domes, that the appearance is quite that of an oriental village, which isenhanced by the palm-trees which flourish here and there. In the piazzais a tablet to Major Hamill, who is buried in the church. He fell underFrench bayonets, when the troops of Murat, landing at Orico, recapturedthe island, which had been taken from the French two years and a halfbefore (May, 1806) by Sir Sidney Smith. 

Through a low wide arch in the piazza is the approach to the principalhotels. There is a tiny English chapel. An ascent of half an hour bystony donkey-paths leads from Capri to the ruins called the VillaTiberiana, on the west of the island, above a precipitous rock 700 feethigh, which still bears the name of Il Salto. .. . 

The visitor who lingers in Capri may interest himself in tracing out theremains of all the twelve villas of Tiberius. A relief exhibitingTiberius riding a led donkey, as modern travelers do now, was found onthe island, and is now in the museum at Naples. Capri has a delightfulwinter climate, and is most comfortable as a residence. The natives arequite unlike the Neapolitans, pleasant and civil in their manners, andfull of courtesies to strangers. The women are frequently beautiful. 

POMPEII[14]

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

We have been to see Pompeii, and are waiting now for the return ofspring weather, to visit, first, Paestum, and then the islands; afterwhich we shall return to Rome. I was astonished at the remains of thiscity; I had no conception of anything so perfect yet remaining. My ideaof the mode of its destruction was this: First, an earthquake shatteredit, and unroofed almost all its temples, and split its columns; then arain of light small pumice-stones fell; then torrents of boiling water, mixed with ashes, filled up all its crevices. A wide, flat hill, fromwhich the city was excavated, is now covered by thick woods, and you seethe tombs and the theaters, the temples and the houses, surrounded bythe uninhabited wilderness. 

We entered the town from the side toward the sea, and first saw twotheaters; one more magnificent than the other, strewn with the ruins ofthe white marble which formed their seats and cornices, wrought withdeep, bold sculpture. In the front, between the stage and the seats, isthe circular space, occasionally occupied by the chorus. The stage isvery narrow, but long, and divided from this space by a narrow enclosureparallel to it, I suppose for the orchestra. On each side are theconsuls' boxes, and below, in the theater at Herculaneum, were found twoequestrian statues of admirable workmanship, occupying the same placeas the great bronze lamps did at Drury Lane. The smallest of thetheaters is said to have been comic, tho I should doubt. From both yousee, as you sit on the seats, a prospect of the most wonderful beauty. 

You then pass through the ancient streets; they are very narrow, and thehouses rather small, but all constructed on an admirable plan, especially for this climate. The rooms are built round a court, orsometimes two, according to the extent of the house. In the midst is afountain, sometimes surrounded with a portico, supported on flutedcolumns of white stucco; the floor is paved with mosaic, sometimeswrought in imitation of vine leaves, sometimes in quaint figures, andmore or less beautiful, according to the rank of the inhabitant. Therewere paintings on all, but most of them have been removed to decoratethe royal museums. Little winged figures, and small ornaments ofexquisite elegance, yet remain. There is an ideal life in the forms ofthese paintings of an incomparable loveliness, tho most are evidentlythe work of very inferior artists. It seems as if, from the atmosphereof mental beauty which surrounded them, every human being caught asplendor not his own. 

In one house you see how the bed-rooms were managed; a small sofa wasbuilt up, where the cushions were placed; two pictures, one representingDiana and Endymion, the other Venus and Mars, decorate the chamber; anda little niche, which contains the statue of a domestic god. The flooris composed of a rich mosaic of the rarest marbles, agate, jasper, andporphyry; it looks to the marble fountain and the snow-white columns, whose entablatures strew the floor of the portico they supported. Thehouses have only one story, and the apartments, tho not large, are verylofty. A great advantage results from this, wholly unknown in ourcities. 

The public buildings, whose ruins are now forests, as it were, of whitefluted columns, and which then supported entablatures, loaded withsculptures, were seen on all sides over the roofs of the houses. Thiswas the excellence of the ancients. Their private expenses werecomparatively moderate; the dwelling of one of the chief senators ofPompeii is elegant indeed, and adorned with most beautiful specimens ofart, but small. But their public buildings are everywhere marked by thebold and grand designs of an unsparing magnificence. In the little townof Pompeii (it contained about twenty thousand inhabitants), it iswonderful to see the number and the grandeur of their public buildings. Another advantage, too, is that, in the present case, the gloriousscenery around is not shut out, and that, unlike the inhabitants of theCimmerian ravines of modern cities, the ancient Pompeiians couldcontemplate the clouds and the lamps of heaven; could see the moon risehigh behind Vesuvius, and the sun set in the sea, tremulous with anatmosphere of golden vapor, between Inarime and Misenum. 

We next saw the temples. Of the temples of Aesculapius little remainsbut an altar of black stone, adorned with a cornice imitating the scalesof a serpent. His statue, in terra-cotta, was found in the cell. Thetemple of Isis is more perfect. It is surrounded by a portico of flutedcolumns, and in the area around it are two altars, and many ceppi forstatues; and a little chapel of white stucco, as hard as stone, of themost exquisite proportion; its panels are adorned with figures inbas-relief, slightly indicated, but of a workmanship the most delicateand perfect that can be conceived. 

They are Egyptian subjects, executed by a Greek artist, who hasharmonized all the unnatural extravagances of the original conceptioninto the supernatural loveliness of his country's genius. They scarcelytouch the ground with their feet, and their wind-uplifted robes seem inthe place of wings. The temple in the midst raised on a high platform, and approached by steps, was decorated with exquisite paintings, some ofwhich we saw in the museum at Portici. It is small, of the samematerials as the chapel, with a pavement of mosaic, and fluted Ioniccolumns of white stucco, so white that it dazzles you to look at it. 

Thence through the other porticos and labyrinths of walls and columns(for I can not hope to detail everything to you), we came to the Forum. This is a large square, surrounded by lofty porticos of fluted columns, some broken, some entire, their entablatures strewed under them. Thetemple of Jupiter, of Venus, and another temple, the Tribunal, and theHall of Public Justice, with their forest of lofty columns, surround theForum. Two pedestals or altars of an enormous size (for, whether theysupported equestrian statues, or were the altars of the temple of Venus, before which they stand, the guide could not tell), occupy the lower endof the Forum. At the upper end, supported on an elevated platform, stands the temple of Jupiter. Under the colonnade of its portico we satand pulled out our oranges, and figs, and bread, and medlars (sorryfare, you will say), and rested to eat. 

Here was a magnificent spectacle. Above and between the multitudinousshafts of the sun-shining columns was seen the sea, reflecting thepurple heaven of noon above it, and supporting, as it were, on its linethe dark lofty mountains of Sorrento, of a blue inexpressibly deep, andtinged toward their summits with streaks of new-fallen snow. Between wasone small green island. To the right was Capreae, Inarime, Prochyta, andMisenum. Behind was the single summit of Vesuvius, rolling forth volumesof thick white smoke, whose foam-like column was sometimes darted intothe clear dark sky, and fell in little streaks along the wind. BetweenVesuvius and the nearer mountains, as through a chasm, was seen the mainline of the loftiest Apennines, to the east. 

The day was radiant and warm. Every now and then we heard thesubterranean thunder of Vesuvius; its distant deep peals seemed to shakethe very air and light of day, which interpenetrated our frames with thesullen and tremendous sound. This sound was what the Greeks beheld(Pompeii, you know, was a Greek city). They lived in harmony withnature; and the interstices of their incomparable columns were portals, as it were, to admit the spirit of beauty which animates this gloriousuniverse to visit those whom it inspired. If such is Pompeii, what wasAthens? What scene was exhibited from the Acropolis, the Parthenon, andthe temples of Hercules, and Theseus, and the Winds? The island and theÆgean sea, the mountains of Argolis, and the peaks of Pindus andOlympus, and the darkness of the Boeotian forests interspersed?

From the Forum we went to another public place; a triangular portico, half enclosing the ruins of an enormous temple. It is built on the edgeof the hill overlooking the sea. That black point is the temple. In theapex of the triangle stands an altar and a fountain, and before thealtar once stood the statue of the builder of the portico. Returninghence, and following the consular road, we came to the eastern gate ofthe city. The walls are of an enormous strength, and enclose a space ofthree miles. On each side of the road beyond the gate are built thetombs. How unlike ours! They seem not so much hiding-places for thatwhich must decay, as voluptuous chambers for immortal spirits. They areof marble, radiantly white; and two, especially beautiful, are loadedwith exquisite bas-reliefs. On the stucco-wall that encloses them arelittle emblematic figures, of a relief exceedingly low, of dead anddying animals, and little winged genii, and female forms bending ingroups in some funereal office. The high reliefs represent, one anautical subject, and the other a Bacchanalian one. 

Within the cell stand the cinerary urns, sometimes one, sometimes more. It is said that paintings were found within, which are now, as has beeneverything movable in Pompeii, removed, and scattered about in royalmuseums. These tombs were the most impressive things of all. The wildwoods surround them on either side; and along the broad stones of thepaved road which divides them, you hear the late leaves of autumn shiverand rustle in the stream of the inconstant wind, as it were, like thestep of ghosts. The radiance and magnificence of these dwellings of thedead, the white freshness of the scarcely-finished marble, theimpassioned or imaginative life of the figures which adorn them, contrast strangely with the simplicity of the houses of those who wereliving when Vesuvius overwhelmed them. 

I have forgotten the amphitheater, which is of great magnitude, tho muchinferior to the Coliseum. I now understand why the Greeks were suchgreat poets; and, above all, I can account, it seems to me, for theharmony, the unity, the perfection, the uniform excellence, of all theirworks of art. They lived in a perpetual commerce with external nature, and nourished themselves upon the spirit of its forms. Their theaterswere all open to the mountains and the sky. Their columns, the idealtypes of a sacred forest, with its roof of interwoven tracery, admittedthe light and wind; the odor and the freshness of the country penetratedthe cities. Their temples were mostly upaithric; and the flying clouds, the stars, or the deep sky, were seen above. 

VI

OTHER ITALIAN SCENES

VERONA[15]

BY CHARLES DICKENS

I had been half afraid to go to Verona, lest it should at all put me outof conceit with Romeo and Juliet. But, I was no sooner come into the oldMarket-place, than the misgiving vanished. It is so fanciful, quaint, and picturesque a place, formed by such an extraordinary and richvariety of fantastic buildings, that there could be nothing better atthe core of even this romantic town; scene of one of the most romanticand beautiful of stories. 

It was natural enough, to go straight from the Market-place, to theHouse of the Capulets, now degenerated into a most miserable little inn. Noisy vetturini and muddy market-carts were disputing possession of theyard, which was ankle-deep in dirt, with a brood of splashed andbespattered geese; and there was a grim-visaged dog, viciously pantingin a doorway, who would certainly have had Romeo by the leg, the momenthe put it over the wall, if he had existed and been at large in thosetimes. The orchard fell into other hands, and was parted off many yearsago; but there used to be one attached to the house--or at all eventsthere may have been--and the Hat (Cappello), the ancient cognizance ofthe family, may still be seen, carved in stone, over the gateway of theyard. The geese, the market-carts, their drivers, and the dog, weresomewhat in the way of the story, it must be confessed; and it wouldhave been pleasanter to have found the house empty, and to have beenable to walk through the disused rooms. But the Hat was unspeakablycomfortable; and the place where the garden used to be, hardly less so. Besides, the house is a distrustful, jealous-looking house as one woulddesire to see, tho of a very moderate size. So I was quite satisfiedwith it, as the veritable mansion of old Capulet, and wascorrespondingly grateful in my acknowledgments to an extremelyunsentimental middle-aged lady, the Padrona of the Hotel, who waslounging on the threshold looking at the geese. 

From Juliet's home, to Juliet's tomb, is a transition as natural to thevisitor, as to fair Juliet herself, or to the proudest Juliet that everhas taught the torches to burn bright in any time. So, I went off, witha guide, to an old, old garden, once belonging to an old, old convent, Isuppose; and being admitted, at a shattered gate, by a bright-eyed womanwho was washing clothes, went down some walks where fresh plants andyoung flowers were prettily growing among fragments of old wall, andivy-covered mounds; and was shown a little tank, or water-trough, whichthe bright-eyed woman--drying her arms upon her 'kerchief--called "Latomba di Giulietta la sfortunáta. " With the best disposition in theworld to believe, I could do no more than believe that the bright-eyedwoman believed; so I gave her that much credit, and her customary fee inready money. It was a pleasure, rather than a disappointment, thatJuliet's resting-place was forgotten. However consolatory it may havebeen to Yorick's Ghost, to hear the feet upon the pavement overhead, and, twenty times a day, the repetition of his name, it is better forJuliet to lie out of the track of tourists, and to have no visitors butsuch as come to graves in spring-rain, and sweet air, and sunshine. 

Pleasant Verona! With its beautiful old palaces, and charming country inthe distance, seen from terrace walks, and stately, balustradedgalleries. With its Roman gates, still spanning the fair street, andcasting, on the sunlight of to-day, the shade of fifteen hundred yearsago. With its marble-fitted churches, lofty towers, rich architecture, and quaint old quiet thoroughfares, where shouts of Montagues andCapulets once resounded. 

 And made Verona's ancient citizens Cast by their grave, beseeming ornaments, To wield old partisans. 

With its fast-rushing river, picturesque old bridge, great castle, waving cypresses, and prospect so delightful, and so cheerful! PleasantVerona! In the midst of it, in the Piazza di Brá--a spirit of old timeamong the familiar realities of the passing hour--is the great RomanAmphitheater. So well preserved, and carefully maintained, that everyrow of seats is there, unbroken. Over certain of the arches, the oldRoman numerals may yet be seen; and there are corridors, and staircases, and subterranean passages for beasts, and winding ways, above ground andbelow, as when the fierce thousands hurried in and out, intent upon thebloody shows of the arena. Nestling in some of the shadows and hollowplaces of the walls, now, are smiths with their forges, and a few smalldealers of one kind or other; and there are green weeds, and leaves, andgrass, upon the parapet. But little else is greatly changed. 

When I had traversed all about it, with great interest, and had gone upto the topmost round of seats, and turning from the lovely panoramaclosed in by the distant Alps, looked down into the building, it seemedto lie before me like the inside of a prodigious hat of plaited straw, with an enormously broad brim and a shallow crown; the plaits beingrepresented by the four-and-forty rows of seats. The comparison is ahomely and fantastic one, in sober remembrance and on paper, but it wasirresistibly suggested at the moment, nevertheless. 

PADUA[16]

BY THÉOPHILE GAUTIER

Padua is an ancient city and exhibits a rather respectable appearanceagainst the horizon with its bell-turrets, its domes, and its old wallsupon which myriads of lizards run and frisk in the sun. Situated near acenter which attracts life to itself, Padua is a dead city with analmost deserted air. Its streets, bordered by two rows of low arcades, in nowise recall the elegant and charming architecture of Venice. Theheavy, massive structures have a serious, somewhat crabbed aspect, andits somber porticos in the lower stories of the houses resemble blackmouths which yawn with ennui. 

We were conducted to a big inn, established probably in some ancientpalace, and whose great halls, dishonored by vulgar uses, had formerlyseen better company. It was a real journey to go from the vestibule toour room by a host of stairways and corridors; a map of Ariadne's threadwould have been needed to find one's way back. Our windows opened upon avery pleasant view; a river flows at the foot of the wall--the Brenta orthe Bacchiglione, I know not which, for both water Padua. The banks ofthis watercourse were adorned with old houses and long walls, and trees, too, overhung the banks; some rather picturesque rows of piles, fromwhich the fishermen cast their lines with that patience characteristicof them in all countries; huts with nets and linen hanging from thewindows to dry, formed under the sun's rays a very pretty subject for awater-color. 

After dinner we went to the Café Pedrocchi, celebrated throughout allItaly for its magnificence. Nothing could be more monumentally classic. There are nothing but pillars, columnets, ovolos, and palm leaves of thePercier and Fontain kind, the whole very fine and lavish of marble. What was most curious was some immense maps forming a tapestry andrepresenting the different divisions of the world on an enormous scale. This somewhat pedantic decoration gives to the hall an academic air; andone is surprized not to see a chair in place of the bar, with aprofessor in his gown in place of a dispenser of lemonade. 

The University of Padua was formerly famous. In the thirteenth centuryeighteen thousand young men, a whole people of scholars, followed thelessons of the learned professors, among whom later Galileo figured, oneof whose bones is preserved there as a relic, a relic of a martyr whosuffered for the truth. The façade of the University is very beautiful;four Doric columns give it a severe and monumental air; but solitudereigns in the class-rooms where to-day scarcely a thousand students canbe reckoned. .. . 

We paid a visit to the Cathedral dedicated to Saint Anthony, who enjoysat Padua the same reputation as Saint Januarius at Naples. He is the"genius loci, " the Saint venerated above all others. He used to performnot less than thirty miracles each day, if Casanova[17] is to bebelieved. Such a performance fairly earned for him his surname ofThaumaturge, but this prodigious zeal has fallen off greatly. Nevertheless, the reputation of the saint has not suffered, and so manymasses are paid for at his altar that the number of the priests of thecathedral and of days in the year are not sufficient. To liquidate theaccounts, the Pope has granted permission, at the end of the year, formasses to be said, each, one of which is of the value of a thousand; inthis fashion Saint Anthony is saved from being bankrupt to his faithfuldevotees. 

On the place which adjoins the cathedral, a beautiful equestrian statueby Donatello, in bronze, rises to view, the first which had been castsince the days of antiquity, representing a leader of banditti:Gattamelata, a brigand who surely did not deserve that honor. But theartist has given him a superb bearing and a spirited figure with hisbaton of a Roman emperor, and it is entirely sufficient. .. . 

One thing which must not be neglected in passing through Padua is avisit to the old Church of the Arena, situated at the rear of a gardenof luxuriant vegetation, where it would certainly not be conjectured tobe located unless one were advised of the fact. It is entirely paintedin its interior by Giotto. Not a single column, not a single rib, norarchitectural division interrupts that vast tapestry of frescoes. Thegeneral aspect is soft, azure, starry, like a beautiful, calm sky;ultramarine dominates; thirty compartments of large dimensions, indicated by simple lines, contain the life of the Virgin and of herDivine Son in all their details; they might be called illustrations inminiature of a gigantic missal. The personages, by naïve anachronismsvery precious for history, are clothed in the mode of the times in whichGiotto painted. 

Below these compositions of the purest religious feeling, a paintedplinth shows the seven deadly sins symbolized in an ingenious manner, and other allegorical figures of a very good style; a Paradise and aHell, subjects which greatly imprest the minds of the artists of thatepoch, complete this marvelous whole. There are in these paintings weirdand touching details; children issue from their little coffins to mountto Paradise with a joyous ardor, and launch themselves forth to go toplay upon the blossoming turf of the celestial garden; others stretchforth their hands to their half-resurrected mothers. The remark may alsobe made that all the devils and vices are obese, while the angels andvirtues are thin and slender. The painter wishes to mark thepreponderance of matter in the one class and of spirit in the other. 

FERRARA[18]

BY THÉOPHILE GAUTIER

Ferrara rises solitary in the midst of a flat country more rich thanpicturesque. When one enters it by the broad street which leads to thesquare, the aspect of the city is imposing and monumental. A palace witha grand staircase occupies a corner of this vast square; it might be acourt-house or a town hall, for people of all classes were entering anddeparting through its wide doors. .. . 

The castle of the ancient dukes of Ferrara, which is to be found alittle farther on, has a fine feudal aspect. It is a vast collection oftowers joined together by high walls crowned with a battlement forminga cornice, and which emerge from a great moat full of water, over whichone enters by a protected bridge. The castle, built wholly of brick orof stones reddened by the sun, has a vermilion tint which deprives it ofits imposing effect. It is too much like a decoration of a melodrama. 

It was in this castle that the famous Lucretia Borgia lived, whom VictorHugo has made such a monster for us, and whom Ariosto depicts as a modelof chastity, grace and virtue; that blonde Lucretia who wrote lettersbreathing the purest love, and some of whose hair, fine as silk andshining as gold, Byron possest. It was there that the dramas of Tassoand Ariosto and Guarini were played; there that those brilliant orgiestook place, mingled with poisonings and assassinations, whichcharacterized that learned and artistic, refined and criminal, period ofItaly. 

It is the custom to pay a pious visit to the problematical dungeon inwhich Tasso, mad with love and grief, passed so many years, according tothe poetic legend which grew up concerning his misfortune. We did nothave time to spare and we regretted it very little. This dungeon, aperfectly correct sketch of which we have before our eyes, consists onlyof four walls, ceiled by a low arch. At the back is to be seen a windowgrated by heavy bars and a door with big bolts. It is quite unlikelythat in this obscure hole, tapestried with cobwebs, Tasso could haveworked and retouched his poem, composed sonnets, and occupied himselfwith small details of toilet, such as the quality of the velvet of hiscap and the silk of his stockings, and with kitchen details, such aswith what kind of sugar he ought to powder his salad, that which he hadnot being fine enough for his liking. Neither did we see the house ofAriosto, another required pilgrimage. Not to speak of the little faithwhich one should place in these unauthenticated traditions, in theserelics without character, we prefer to seek Ariosto in the "OrlandoFurioso, " and Tasso in the "Jerusalem Délivrée" or in the fine drama ofGoethe. 

The life of Ferrara is concentrated on the Plaza Nuova, in front of thechurch and in the neighborhood of the castle. Life has not yet abandonedthis heart of the city; but in proportion as one moves away from it, itbecomes more feeble, paralysis begins, death gains; silence, solitude, and grass invade the streets; one feels that one is wandering about aThebes peopled with ghosts of the past and from which the living haveevaporated like water which has dried up. There is nothing more sad thanto see the corpse of a dead city slowly falling into dust in the sun andrain. One at least buries human bodies. 

LAKE LUGANO[19]

BY VICTOR TISSOT

On emerging from the second tunnel, [20] beyond a wild and narrow gorge, there lies suddenly before us, as in a gorgeous fairyland or in thelandscape of a dream, the blue expanse of Lake Lugano, with its settingof green meadows and purple mountains, with the many-colored villagespires, and the great white fronts of the hotels and villas. Oh, what awonderful picture!

We feel as if we were going down into an enchanted garden that has beenhidden by the great snowy walls of the Alps. The air is full of theperfume of roses and jessamine. The hedges are in flower, butterfliesare dancing, insects are humming, birds are singing. Up above, in themountain, is snow, ice, winter, and silence; here there is sunshine, life, joy, love--all the living delights of spring and summer. Goldenharvests are shining on the plains, and the lake in the distance is likea piece of the sky brought down to earth. 

Lugano is already Italy, not only because of the richness of the soiland the magnificence of the vegetation, but also as regards thelanguage, the manners, and the picturesque costumes. In each valley thedress is different; in one place the women wear a short skirt, an apronheld in by a girdle, and a bright colored bodice; in another they wear acap above which is a large shady hat; in the Val Maroblio they have awoolen dress not very different from that of the Capuchins. 

The men have not the square figure, the slow, heavy walk of the peopleof Basle and Lucerne; they are brisk, vigorous, easy; and the women havesomething of the wavy suppleness of vine branches twining among thetrees. These people have the happy, childlike joyousness, the frankgood-nature, of those who live in the open air, who do not shutthemselves up in their houses, but grow freely like the flowers underthe strong, glowing sunshine. 

At every street corner sellers are sitting behind baskets ofextraordinary vegetables and magnificent fruit; and under the arcadesthat run along the houses, big grocers in shirt sleeves come atintervals to their shop doors to take breath, like hippopotami comingout of the water for the same purpose. In this town, ultramontane in itspiety, the bells of churches and convents are sounding all day long, andwomen are seen going to make their evening prayer together in thenearest chapel. 

But if the fair sex in Lugano are diligent in frequenting the churches, they by no means scorn the cafés. After sunset the little tables thatare all over the great square are surrounded by an entire population ofmen and women. How gay and amusing those Italian cafés are! full ofsound and color, with their red and blue striped awnings, their advanceguard of little tables under the shade of the orange-trees, and theirbabbling, stirring, gesticulating company. The waiters, in black vestsand leather slippers, a corner of their apron tucked up in their belt, run with the speed of kangaroos, carrying on metal plates syrups ofevery shade, ices, sweets in red, yellow, or green pyramids. Betweenseven and nine o'clock the whole society of Lugano defiles before you. There are lawyers with their wives, doctors with their daughters, bankers, professors, merchants, public officials, with whom aresometimes misted stout, comfortable, jovial-looking canons, wrappingthemselves in the bitter smoke of a regalia, as in a cloud of incense. 

LAKE COMO[21]

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

We have been to Como, looking for a house. This lake exceeds anything Iever beheld in beauty, with the exception of the arbutus islands ofKillarney. It is long and narrow, and has the appearance of a mightyriver winding among the mountains and the forests. We sailed from thetown of Como to a tract of country called the Tremezina, and saw thevarious aspects presented by that part of the lake. The mountainsbetween Como and that village, or rather cluster of villages, arecovered on high with chestnut forests (the eating chestnuts, on whichthe inhabitants of the country subsist in time of scarcity), whichsometimes descend to the very verge of the lake, overhanging it withtheir hoary branches. But usually the immediate border of this shore iscomposed of laurel-trees, and bay, and myrtle, and wild fig-trees, andolives which grow in the crevices of the rocks, and overhang thecaverns, and shadow the deep glens, which are filled with the flashinglight of the waterfalls. Other flowering shrubs, which I can not name, grow there also. On high, the towers of village churches are seen whiteamong the dark forests. 

Beyond, on the opposite shore, which faces the south, the mountainsdescend less precipitously to the lake, and altho they are much higher, and some covered with perpetual snow, there intervenes between them andthe lake a range of lower hills, which have glens and rifts opening tothe other, such as I should fancy the abysses of Ida or Parnassus. Hereare plantations of olive, and orange, and lemon trees, which are now soloaded with fruit, that there is more fruit than leaves--and vineyards. This shore of the lake is one continued village, and the Milanesenobility have their villas here. The union of culture and the untameableprofusion and loveliness of nature is here so close, that the line wherethey are divided can hardly be discovered. 

But the finest scenery is that of the Villa Pliniana; so called from afountain which ebbs and flows every three hours, described by theyounger Pliny, which is in the courtyard. This house, which was once amagnificent palace, and is now half in ruins, we are endeavoring toprocure. It is built upon terraces raised from the bottom of the lake, together with its garden, at the foot of a semicircular precipice, overshadowed by profound forests of chestnut. The scene from thecolonnade is the most extraordinary, at once, and the most lovely thateye ever beheld. On one side is the mountain, and immediately over youare clusters of cypress-trees, of an astonishing height, which seem topierce the sky. 

Above you, from among the clouds, as it were, descends a waterfall ofimmense size, broken by the woody rocks into a thousand channels to thelake. On the other side is seen the blue extent of the lake and themountains, speckled with sails and spires. The apartments of thePliniana are immensely large, but ill-furnished and antique. Theterraces, which overlook the lake, and conduct under the shade of suchimmense laurel-trees as deserve the epithet of Pythian, are mostdelightful. 

BELLAGIO ON LAKE COMO[22]

BY W. D. M'CRACKEN

The picture of the promontory of Bellagio is so beautiful as a wholethat the traveler had better stand off for awhile to admire it at adistance and at his leisure. Indeed it is a question whether the lastingimpressions which we treasure of Bellagio are not, after all, thosederived from across the lake, from the shore-fronts of Tremezzo, Cadenabbia, Menaggio, or Varenna. 

A colossal, conquering geological lion appears to have come up from thesouth in times immemorial, bound for the north, and finding furtherprogress stopt by the great sheet of water in front of him, seems tohave halted and to be now crouching there with his noble head betweenhis paws and his eyes fixt on the snow-covered Alps. The big white houseon the lion's neck is the Villa Serbelloni, now used as the annex of ahotel, and the park of noble trees belonging to the villa forms thelion's mane. Hotels, both large and small, line the quay at the water'sedge; then comes a break in the houses, and stately Villa Melzi is seento stand off at one side. Villa Trotti gleams from among its bowersfarther south; on the slope Villa Trivulzio, formerly Poldi, showsbravely, and Villa Giulia has cut for itself a wide prospect over botharms of the lake. At the back of this lion couchant, in the middleground, sheer mountain walls tower protectingly, culminating in MonteGrigna. 

The picture varies from hour to hour, from day to day, and from seasonto season. Its color-scheme changes with wind and sun, its sparkle comesand goes from sunrise to sunset; only its form remains untouched throughthe night and lives to delight us another day. As the evening wears on, lights appear one by one on the quay of Bellagio, until there is a lineof fire along the base of the dark peninsula. The hotel windows catchthe glare, the villas light their storied corridors, and presentlyBellagio, all aglow, presents the spectacle of a Venetian night mirroredin the lake. 

By this time the mountains have turned black and the sky has faded. Itgrows so still on the water that the tinkle of a little Italian bandreaches across the lake to Cadenabbia, a laugh rings out into the quietair from one of the merry little rowboats, and even the slight clattermade by the fishermen, in putting their boats to rights for the nightand in carrying their nets indoors, can be distinguished as one of manyindications that the day is done. 

When we land at Bellagio by daylight, we find it to be very much of abazaar of souvenirs along the water-front, and everybody determined tocarry away a keepsake. There is so much to buy--ornamental olive woodand tortoise-shell articles, Como blankets, lace, and what may bedescribed in general terms as modern antiquities. These abound from shopto shop; even English groceries are available. Bellagio's principalstreet is suddenly converted at its northern end into a delightfularcade, after the arrangement which constitutes a characteristic charmof the villages and smaller towns on the Italian lakes; moreover, thevista up its side street is distinctly original. This mounts steeplyfrom the waterside, like the streets of Algiers, is narrow andconstructed in long steps to break the incline. 

THE REPUBLIC OF SAN MARINO[23]

BY JOSEPH ADDISON

The town and republic of St. Marino stands on the top of a very high andcraggy mountain. It is generally hid among the clouds, and lay undersnow when I saw it, though it was clear and warm weather in all thecountry about it. There is not a spring or fountain, that I could hearof, in the whole dominions; but they are always well provided with hugecisterns and reservoirs of rain and snow water. The wine that grows onthe sides of their mountain is extraordinarily good, much better thanany I met with on the cold side of the Apennines. 

This mountain, and a few neighboring hillocks that lie scattered aboutthe bottom of it, is the whole circuit of these dominions. They havewhat they call three castles, three convents, and five churches and canreckon about five thousand souls in their community. [24] Theinhabitants, as well as the historians who mention this little republic, give the following account of its origin. St. Marino was its founder, aDalmatian by birth, and by trade a mason. He was employed above thirteenhundred years ago in the reparation of Rimini, and after he had finishedhis work, retired to this solitary mountain, as finding it very properfor the life of a hermit, which he led in the greatest rigors andausterities of religion. He had not been long here before he wrought areputed miracle, which, joined with his extraordinary sanctity, gainedhim so great an esteem, that the princess of the country made him apresent of the mountain, to dispose of at his own discretion. Hisreputation quickly peopled it, and gave rise to the republic which callsitself after his name. 

So that the commonwealth of Marino may boast, at least, of a nobleroriginal than that of Rome, the one having been at first an asylum forrobbers and murderers, and the other a resort of persons eminent fortheir piety and devotion. The best of their churches is dedicated to thesaint, and holds his ashes. His statue stands over the high altar, withthe figure of a mountain in its hands, crowned with three castles, whichis likewise the arms of the commonwealth. They attribute to hisprotection the long duration of their state, and look on him as thegreatest saint next the blessed virgin. I saw in their statute-book alaw against such as speak disrespectfully of him, who are to be punishedin the same manner as those convicted of blasphemy. 

This petty republic has now lasted thirteen hundred years, [25] while allthe other states of Italy have several times changed their masters andforms of government. Their whole history is comprised in two purchases, which they made of a neighboring prince, and in a war in which theyassisted the pope against a lord of Rimini. In the year 1100 they boughta castle in the neighborhood, as they did another in the year 1170. Thepapers of the conditions are preserved in their archives, where it isvery remarkable that the name of the agent for the commonwealth, of theseller, of the notary, and the witnesses, are the same in both theinstruments, tho drawn up at seventy years' distance from each other. Nor can it be any mistake in the date, because the popes' and emperors'names, with the year of their respective reigns, are both punctually setdown. About two hundred and ninety years after this they assisted PopePius the Second against one of the Malatestas, who was then, lord ofRimini; and when they had helped to conquer him, received from the pope, as a reward for their assistance, four little castles. This theyrepresent as the flourishing time of the commonwealth, when theirdominions reached half-way up a neighboring hill; but at present theyare reduced to their old extent. .. . 

The chief officers of the commonwealth are the two capitaneos, who havesuch a power as the old Roman consuls had, but are chosen every sixmonths. I talked with some that had been capitaneos six or seven times, tho the office is never to be continued to the same persons twicesuccessively. The third officer is the commissary, who judges in allcivil and criminal matters. But because the many alliances, friendships, and intermarriages, as well as the personal feuds and animosities, thathappen among so small a people might obstruct the course of justice, ifone of their own number had the distribution of it, they have always aforeigner for this employ, whom they choose for three years, andmaintain out of the public stock. He must be a doctor of law, and a manof known integrity. He is joined in commission with the capitaneos, andacts something like the recorder of London under the lord mayor. Thecommonwealth of Genoa was forced to make use of a foreign judge for manyyears, while their republic was torn into the divisions of Guelphs andGhibelines. The fourth man in the state is the physician, who mustlikewise be a stranger, and is maintained by a public salary. He isobliged to keep a horse, to visit the sick, and to inspect all drugsthat are imported. He must be at least thirty-five years old, a doctorof the faculty, and eminent for his religion and honesty, that hisrashness or ignorance may not unpeople the commonwealth. And, that theymay not suffer long under any bad choice, he is elected only for threeyears. 

The people are esteemed very honest and rigorous in the execution ofjustice, and seem to live more happy and contented among their rocks andsnows, than others of the Italians do in the pleasantest valleys of theworld. Nothing, indeed, can be a greater instance of the natural lovethat mankind has for liberty, and of their aversion to an arbitrarygovernment, than such a savage mountain covered with people, and theCampania of Rome, which lies in the same country, almost destitute ofinhabitants. 

PERUGIA[26]

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

We pursued our way, and came, by and by, to the foot of the high hill onwhich stands Perugia, and which is so long and steep that Gaetano took ayoke of oxen to aid his horses in the ascent. We all, except my wife, walked a part of the way up, and I myself, with J----[27] for mycompanion, kept on even to the city gate, a distance, I should think, oftwo or three miles, at least. The lower part of the road was on the edgeof the hill, with a narrow valley on our left; and as the sun had nowbroken out, its verdure and fertility, its foliage and cultivation, shone forth in miraculous beauty, as green as England, as bright as onlyItaly. 

Perugia appeared above us, crowning a mighty hill, the most picturesqueof cities; and the higher we ascended, the more the view opened beforeus, as we looked back on the course that we had traversed, and saw thewide valley, sweeping down and spreading out, bounded afar by mountains, and sleeping in sun and shadow. No language nor any art of the pencilcan give an idea of the scene. .. . 

We plunged from the upper city down through some of the strangestpassages that ever were called streets; some of them, indeed, beingarched all over, and, going down into the unknown darkness, looked likecaverns; and we followed one of them doubtfully, till it opened, outupon the light. The houses on each side were divided only by a pace ortwo, and communicated with one another, here and there, by archedpassages. They looked very ancient, and may have been inhabited byEtruscan princes, judging from the massiveness of some of the foundationstones. The present inhabitants, nevertheless, are by no means princely, shabby men, and the careworn wives and mothers of the people, one ofwhom was guiding a child in leading-strings through these antiquealleys, where hundreds of generations have trod before those littlefeet. Finally we came out through a gateway, the same gateway at whichwe entered last night. 

The best part of Perugia, that in which the grand piazzas and theprincipal public edifices stand, seems to be a nearly level plateau onthe summit of the hill; but it is of no very great extent, and thestreets rapidly run downward on either side. J---- and I followed one ofthese descending streets, and were led a long way by it, till we at lastemerged from one of the gates of the city, and had another view of themountains and valleys, the fertile and sunny wilderness in which thisancient civilization stands. 

On the right of the gate there was a rude country path, partly overgrownwith grass, bordered by a hedge on one side, and on the other by thegray city wall, at the base of which the tract kept onward. We followedit, hoping that it would lead us to some other gate by which we mightreenter the city; but it soon grew so indistinct and broken, that it wasevidently on the point of melting into somebody's olive-orchard orwheat-fields or vineyards, all of which lay on the other side of thehedge; and a kindly old woman of whom I inquired told me (if I rightlyunderstood her Italian) that I should find no further passage in thatdirection. So we turned back, much broiled in the hot sun, and only nowand then relieved by the shadow of an angle or a tower. 

SIENA[28]

BY MR. AND MRS. EDWIN H. BLASHFIELD

That admirers of minute designs and florid detail could appreciategrandeur as well, no one can doubt who has seen the plans of the Sienesecathedral. Its history is one of a grand result, and of far grander, thothwarted endeavor, and it is hard to realize to-day, that the church asit stands is but a fragment, the transept only, of what Siena willed. From the state of the existing works no one can doubt that the bravelittle republic would have finished it had she not met an enemy beforewhom the sword of Monteaperto was useless. The plague of 1348 stalkedacross Tuscany, and the chill of thirty thousand Sienese graves numbedthe hand of master and workman, sweeping away the architect who planned, the masons who built, the magistrates who ordered, it left but theyellowed parchment in the archives which conferred upon Maestro LorenzoMaitani the superintendence of the works. 

The façade of the present church is amazing in its richness, undoubtedlypossesses some grand and much lovely detail, and is as undoubtedlysuggestive, with its white marble ornaments upon a pink marble ground, of a huge, sugared cake. It is impossible to look at this restoredwhiteness with the sun upon it; the dazzled eyes close involuntarily andone sees in retrospect the great, gray church front at Rheims, or thesolemn façade of Notre Dame de Paris. It is like remembering an organburst of Handel after hearing the florid roulades of the mass within thecathedral. 

The interior is rich in color and fine in effect, but the northerner ispainfully imprest by the black and white horizontal stripes which, running from vaulting to pavement, seem to blur and confuse the vision, and the closely set bars of the piers are positively irritating. In thehexagonal lantern, however, they are less offensive than elsewhere, because the fan-like radiation of the bars above the great gildedstatues breaks up the horizontal effect. The decoration of thestone-work is not happy; the use of cold red and cold blue with giltbosses in relief does much to vulgarize, and there is constant sally insmall masses which belittles the general effect. It is evident that theSienese tendency to floridity is answerable for much of this, and thathaving added some piece of big and bad decoration, the cornice of papalhead, for instance, they felt forced to do away with it or continue itthroughout. 

But this fault and many others are forgotten when we examine the detailwith which later men have filled the church. Other Italian cathedralspossess art-objects of a higher order; perhaps no other one is so richin these treasures. The great masters are disappointing here. Raphael, as the co-laborer of Pinturicchio, is dainty, rather than great, andMichelangelo passes unnoticed in the huge and coldly elaboratealtar-front of the Piccolomini. But Marrina, with his doors of thelibrary; Barili, with his marvelous casing of the choir-stalls;Beccafumi, with his bronze and neillo--these are the artists whom onewonders at; these wood-carvers and bronze-founders, creators of themicrocosmic detail of the Renaissance which had at last bursttriumphantly into Siena. 

This treasure is cumulative, as we walk eastward from the main door, where the pillars are a maze of scroll-work in deepest cutting, and bythe time we reach the choir the head fairly swims with the play of lightand color. We wander from point to point, we finger and caress thelustrous stalls of Barili, and turn with a kind of confusion of visionfrom panel to panel; above our heads the tabernacle of Vecchietta, thelamp bearing angels of Beccafumi make spots of bituminous color, withglittering high-lights, strangely emphasizing their modeling; from theseyouths, who might be pages to some Roman prefect, the eye travels upwardstill further, along the golden convolutions of the heavily stuccoedpilasters to the huge, gilded cherubs' heads that frame the easternrose. .. . 

It is incredible that these frescoes are four hundred years old. SurelyPinturicchio came down from his scaffolding but yesterday. This is howthe hardly dried plaster must have looked to pope and cardinal andprinces when the boards were removed, and when the very figures on thesewalls--smart youths in tights and slashes, bright-robed scholars, ecclesiastics caped in ermine, ladies with long braids bound in nets ofsilk--crowded to see themselves embalmed in tempera for curiousafter-centuries to gaze upon. 

THE ASSISSI OF ST. FRANCIS[29]

BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

On the summit of an abrupt height, over a double row of arcades, appearsthe monastery; at its base a torrent plows the soil, winding off in thedistance between banks of boulders; beyond is the old town prolongingitself on the ridge of the mountain. We ascend slowly under the burningsun, and suddenly, at the end of a court surrounded by slender columns, enter within the obscurity of the cathedral. It is unequalled; beforehaving seen it one has no idea of the art and the genius of the MiddleAges. Append to it Dante and the "Fioretti" of St. Francis, and itbecomes the masterpiece of mystic Christianity. 

There are three churches, one above the other, all of them arrangedaround the tomb of St. Francis. Over this venerated body, which thepeople regard as ever living and absorbed in prayer at the bottom of aninaccessible cave, the edifice has arisen and gloriously flowered likean architectural shrine. The lowest is a crypt, dark as a sepulcher, into which the visitors descend with torches; pilgrims keep close to thedripping walls and grope along in order to reach the grating. 

Here is the tomb, in a pale, dim light, similar to that of limbo. A fewbrass lamps, almost without lights, burn here eternally like stars lostin mournful obscurity. The ascending smoke clings to the arches, and theheavy odor of the tapers mingles with that of the cave. The guide trimshis torch; and the sudden flash in this horrible darkness, above thebones of a corpse, is like one of Dante's visions. Here is the mysticgrave of a saint who, in the midst of corruption and worms, beholds hisslimy dungeon of earth filled with the supernatural radiance of theSavior. 

But that which can not be represented by words is the middle church, along, low spiracle supported by small, round arches curving in thehalf-shadow, and whose voluntary depression makes one instinctivelybend his knees. A coating of somber blue and of reddish bands starredwith gold, a marvelous embroidery of ornaments, wreaths, delicatescroll-work, leaves, and painted figures, covers the arches and ceilingswith its harmonious multitude; the eye is overwhelmed by it; apopulation of forms and tints lives on its vaults; I would not exchangethis cavern for all the churches of Rome!

On the summit, the upper church shoots up as brilliant, as aerial, astriumphant, as this is low and grave. Really, if one were to give way toconjecture, he might suppose that in these three sanctuaries thearchitect meant to represent the three worlds; below, the gloom of deathand the horrors of the infernal tomb; in the middle, the impassionedanxiety of the beseeching Christian who strives and hopes in this worldof trial; aloft, the bliss and dazzling glory of Paradise. 

RAVENNA[30]

BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN

With exceptions, all the monuments of Ravenna belong to the days oftransition from Roman to Medieval times, and the greater part of themcome within the fifth and sixth centuries. It was then that Ravennabecame, for a season, the head of Italy and of the Western world. Thesea had made Ravenna a great haven: the falling back of the sea made herthe ruling city of the earth. Augustus had called into being the port ofCaesarea as the Peiraieus of the Old Thessalian or Umbrian Ravenna. Haven and city grew and became one; but the faithless element again fellback; the haven of Augustus became dry land covered by orchards, andClassis arose as the third station, leaving Ravenna itself an inlandcity. 

Again has the sea fallen back; Caesarea has utterly perished; Classissurvives only in one venerable church; the famous pine forest has grownup between the third haven and the now distant Hadriatic. Out of allthis grew the momentary greatness of Ravenna. The city, girded with thethree fold zone of marshes, causeways, and strong walls, became theimpregnable shelter of the later Emperors; and the earliest TeutonicKings naturally fixt their royal seat in the city of their Imperialpredecessors. When this immediate need had passed away, the citynaturally fell into insignificance, and it plays hardly any part in thehistory of Medieval Italy. Hence it is that the city is crowded with themonuments of an age which has left hardly any monuments elsewhere. 

In Britain, indeed, if Dr. Merivale be right in the date which he givesto the great Northern wall, we have a wonderful relic of those times;but it is the work, not of the architect, but of the military engineers. In other parts of Europe also works of this date are found here andthere; but nowhere save at Ravenna is there a whole city, so to speak, made up of them. Nowhere but at Ravenna can we find, thickly scatteredaround us, the churches, the tombs, perhaps the palaces, of the lastRoman and the first Teutonic rulers of Italy. In the Old and in the NewRome, and in Milan also, works of the same date exist; but either theydo not form the chief objects of the city, or they have lost theircharacter and position through later changes. If Ravenna boasts of thetombs of Honorius and Theodoric, Milan boasts also, truly or falsely, ofthe tombs of Stilicho and Athaulf. But at Milan we have to seek for theso-called tomb of Athaulf in a side-chapel of a church which has lostall ancient character, and the so-called tomb of Stilicho, tho placed inthe most venerable church of the city, stands in a strange position asthe support of a pulpit. 

At Ravenna, on the other hand, the mighty mausoleum of Theodoric, andthe chapel which contains the tombs of Galla Placidia, her brother, andher second husband, are among the best known and best preservedmonuments of the city. Ravenna, in the days of its Exarchs, could neverhave dared to set up its own St. Vital as a rival to Imperial St. Sophia. But at St. Sophia, changed into the temple of another faith, themost characteristic ornaments have been hidden or torn away, while atSt. Vital Hebrew patriarchs and Christian saints, and the Imperial formsof Justinian and his strangely-chosen Empress, still look down, as theydid thirteen hundred years back, upon the altars of Christian worship. Ravenna, in short, seems, as it were, to have been preserved all butuntouched to keep up the memory of the days which were alike Roman, Christian, and Imperial. 

BENEDICTINE SUBIACO[31]

BY AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE

One of the excellent mountain roads constructed by Pius IX. Leadsthrough a wild district from Olevano to Subiaco. A few miles beforereaching Subiaco we skirt a lake, probably one of the Simbrivii Lacuswhich Nero is believed to have made by damming up the Anio. Here hefished for trout with a golden net, and here he built the mountain villawhich he called Sublaqueum--a name which still exists in Subiaco. 

Four centuries after the valley had witnessed the orgies of Nero, ayoung patrician of the family of the Anicii-Benedictus, or "the blessedone, " being only fourteen at the time, fled from the seductions of thecapital to the rocks of Mentorella, but, being followed thither, soughta more complete solitude in a cave above the falls of the Anio. Here helived unknown to any except the hermit Romanus, who daily let down foodto him, half of his own loaf, by a cord from the top of the cliff. Atlength the hiding-place was revealed to the village priest in a vision, and pilgrims flocked from all quarters to the valley. Through thedisciples who gathered around Benedict, this desolate ravine became thecradle of monastic life in the West, and twelve monasteries rose amidits peaks under the Benedictine rule. .. . 

Nothing can exceed the solemn grandeur of the situation of the conventdedicated to St. Scholastica, the sainted sister of St. Benedict, whichwas founded in the fifth century, and which, till quite lately, includedas many as sixteen towns and villages among its possessions. The scenerybecomes more romantic and savage at every step as we ascend the windingpath after leaving St. Scholastica, till a small gate admits us to thefamous immemorial Ilex Grove of St. Benedict, which is said to date fromthe fifth century, and which has never been profaned by ax or hatchet. Beyond it the path narrows, and a steep winding stair, just wide enoughto admit one person at a time, leads to the platform before the secondconvent, which up to that moment is entirely concealed. Its name, SacroSpeco, commemorates the holy cave of St. Benedict. 

At the portal, the thrilling interest of the place is suggested by theinscription--"Here is the patriarchal cradle of the monks of the WestOrder of St. Benedict. " The entrance corridor, built on arches over theabyss, has frescoes of four sainted popes, and ends in an ante-chamberwith beautiful Umbrian frescoes, and a painted statue of St. Benedict. Here we enter the all-glorious church of 1116, completely covered withancient frescoes. A number of smaller chapels, hewn out of the rock, arededicated to the sainted followers of the founder. Some of the paintingsare by the rare Umbrian master Concioli. A staircase in front of thehigh altar leads to the lower church. At the foot of the first flight ofsteps, above the charter of 1213, setting forth all its privileges, isthe frescoed figure of Innocent III. , who first raised Subiaco into anabbacy; in the same fresco is represented Abbot John of Tagliacozzo, under whom (1217-1277) many of the paintings were executed. 

On the second landing, the figure of Benedict faces us on a window withhis finger on his lips, imposing silence. On the left is the coro, onthe right the cave where Benedict is said to have passed three years indarkness. A statue by Raggi commemorates his presence here; a basket isa memorial of that lowered with his food by St. Romanus; an ancient bellis shown as that which rang to announce its approach. As we descend theScala Santa trodden by the feet of Benedict, and ascended by the monksupon their knees, the solemn beauty of the place increases at everystep. On the right is a powerful fresco of Death mowing down the youngand sparing the old; on the left, the Preacher shows the young andthoughtless the three states to which the body is reduced after death. Lastly, we reach the Holy of Holies, the second cave, in which Benedictlaid down the rule of his order, making its basis the twelve degrees ofhumility. Here also an inscription enumerates the wonderful series ofsaints, who, issuing from Subiaco, founded the Benedictine Orderthroughout the world. 

ETRUSCAN VOLTERRA[32]

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

For several miles before reaching Volterra, our attention was fixt bythe extraordinary aspect of the country through which we were passing. The road gradually ascended, and we found ourselves among deep ravinesand steep, high, broken banks, principally of clay, barren, and in mostplaces wholly bare of herbage, a scene of complete desolation, were itnot for a cottage here and there perched upon the heights, a few sheepattended by a boy and a dog grazing on the brink of one of theprecipices, or a solitary patch of bright green wheat in some spot wherethe rains had not yet carried away the vegetable mold. 

In the midst of this desolate tract, which is, however, here and thereinterspersed with fertile spots, rises the mountain on which Volterra issituated, where the inhabitants breathe a pure and keen atmosphere, almost perpetually cool, and only die of pleurisies and apoplexies;while below, on the banks of the Cecina, which in full sight winds itsway to the sea, they die of fevers. One of the ravines of which I havespoken--the "balza, " they call it at Volterra--has plowed a deep chasmon the north side of this mountain, and is every year rapidlyapproaching the city on its summit. I stood on its edge and looked downa bank of soft, red earth five hundred feet in height. A few rods infront of me I saw where a road had crossed the spot in which the gulfnow yawned; the tracks of the last year's carriages were seen reachingto the edge on both sides. The ruins of a convent were close at hand, the inmates of which, two or three years since, had been removed by theGovernment to the town for safety. .. . 

The antiquities of Volterra consist of an Etruscan burial-ground, inwhich the tombs still remain, pieces of the old and incredibly massiveEtruscan wall, including a far larger circuit than the present city, twoEtruscan gates of immemorial antiquity, older, doubtless, than any thingat Rome, built of enormous stones, one of them serving even yet as anentrance to the town, and a multitude of cinerary vessels, mostly ofalabaster, sculptured with numerous figures in "alto relievo. " Thesefigures are sometimes allegorical representations, and sometimes embodythe fables of the Greek mythology. Among them are many in the mostperfect style of Grecian art, the subjects of which are taken from thepoems of Homer; groups representing the besiegers of Troy and itsdefenders, or Ulysses with his companions and his ships. I gazed withexceeding delight on these works of forgotten artists, who had theverses of Homer by heart--works just drawn from the tombs where they hadbeen buried for thousands of years, and looking as if fresh from thechisel. 

THE PAESTUM OF THE GREEKS[33]

BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN

Few buildings are more familiar than the temples of Paestum; yet themoment when the traveler first comes in sight of works of untouchedHellenic skill is one which is simply overwhelming. Suddenly, by theside of a dreary road, in a spot backed indeed by noble mountains, buthaving no charm of its own, we come on these works, unrivaled on ourside of the Hadriatic and the Messenian strait, standing in all theirsolitary grandeur, shattered indeed, but far more perfect than the massof ruined buildings of later days. The feeling of being brought near toHellenic days and Hellenic men, of standing face to face with thefathers of the world's civilization, is one which can never pass away. Descriptions, pictures, models, all fail; they give us the outward form;they can not give us the true life. 

The thought comes upon us that we have passed away from that Roman worldout of which our own world has sprung into that earlier and fresher andbrighter world by which Rome and ourselves have been so deeplyinfluenced, but out of which neither the Roman nor the modern world canbe said to spring. There is the true Doric in its earliest form, in allits unmixed and simple majesty. The ground is strewed with shells andcovered with acanthus-leaves; but no shell had suggested the Ionicvolute, no acanthus-leaf had suggested the Corinthian foliage. The vastcolumns, with the sudden tapering, the overhanging capitals, the stern, square abacus, all betoken the infancy of art. But it is an infancy likethat of their own Hêraklês; the strength which clutched the serpent inhis cradle is there in every stone. Later improvements, the improvementsof Attic skill, may have added grace; the perfection of art may be foundin the city which the vote of the divine Assembly decreed to Athênê; butfor the sense of power, of simplicity without rudeness, the city ofPoseidon holds her own. Unlike in every detail, there is in thesewonderful works of early Greek art a spirit akin to some of the greatchurches of Romanesque date, simple, massive, unadorned, like thePoseidônian Doric. 

And they show, too, how far the ancient architects were from any slavishbondage to those minute rules which moderns have invented for them. Ineach of the three temples of Paestum differences both of detail and ofarrangement may be marked, differences partly of age, but also partly oftaste. And some other thoughts are brought forcibly upon the mind. Hereindeed we feel that the wonders of Hellenic architecture are things tokindle our admiration, even our reverence; but that, as the expressionof a state of things which has wholly passed away, nothing can be lessfit for reproduction in modern times. 

And again, we may be sure that the admiration and reverence which theymay awaken in the mind of the mere classical purist is cold beside thatwhich they kindle in the mind which can give them their true place inthe history of art. The temples of Paestum are great and noble from anypoint of view. But they become greater and nobler as we run over thesuccessive steps in the long series by which their massive columns andentablatures grew into the tall clusters and soaring arches ofWestminster and Amiens. 

VII

SICILIAN SCENES

PALERMO[34]

BY WILL S. MONROE

While not one of the original Hellenic city-states, Palermo has a superblocation on the northern shores of the central island of the centralsea; its harbor is guarded by the two picturesque cliffs and the fertileplain that forms the "compagne" is hemmed in by a semicircular cord ofrugged mountains. "Perhaps there are few spots upon the surface of theglobe more beautiful than Palermo, " writes Arthur Symonds. "The hills oneither hand descend upon the sea with long-drawn delicately brokenoutlines, so delicately tinted with aerial hues at early dawn or beneaththe blue light of a full moon the panorama seems to be some fabric offancy, that must fade away, 'like shapes of clouds we form, ' to nothing. Within the cradle of these hills, and close upon the tideless water, lies the city. Behind and around on every side stretches the famousConco d'Oro, or golden shell, a plain of marvelous fertility, so calledbecause of its richness and also because of its shape; for it tapers toa fine point where the mountains meet, and spreads abroad, where theydiverge, like a cornucopia. The whole of this long vega is a garden, thick with olive-groves and orange trees, with orchards of nespole andpalms and almonds, with fig-trees and locust-trees, with judas-treesthat blush in spring, and with flowers as multitudinously brilliant asthe fretwork of sunset clouds. "

During the days of Phoenician and Carthagenian supremacy Palermo was abusy mart--a great clearing-house for the commerce of the island andthat part of the Mediterranean. But during the days of the Saracens itbecame not only a very busy city but also a very beautiful city. TheArabian poets extolled its charms in terms that sound to us exceedinglyextravagant. One of them wrote: "Oh how beautiful is the lakelet of thetwin palms and the island where the spacious palace stands. The limpidwaters of the double springs resemble liquid pearls, and their basin isa sea; you would say that the branches of the trees stretched down tosee the fishes in the pool and smile at them. The great fishes in thoseclear waters, and the birds among the gardens tune their songs. The ripeoranges of the island are like fire that burns on boughs of emerald; thepale lemon reminds me of a lover who has passed the night in weeping forhis absent darling. The two palms may be compared to lovers who havegained an inaccessible retreat against their enemies, or raisethemselves erect in pride to confound the murmurs and the ill thoughtsof jealous men. O palms of two lakelets of Palermo, ceaseless, undisturbed, and plenteous days for ever keep your freshness. "

With the coming of the Normans Palermo enjoyed even greater prosperitythan had been experienced under the liberal rule of the Saracens. Thiswas the most brilliant period in the history of the city. The populationwas even more mixed than during Moslem supremacy. Besides the Greeks, Normans, Saracens, and Hebrews, there were commercial colonies of Slavs, Venetians, Lombardians, Catalans, and Pisans. 

The most interesting public monuments at Palermo date from the Normanperiod; and while many of the buildings are strikingly Saracenic incharacter and recall similar structures erected by the Arabs in Spain, it will be remembered that the Normans brought no trained architects tothe island, but employed the Arabs, Greeks, and Hebrews who had alreadybeen in the service of the Saracen emirs. But the Arab influence inarchitecture was dominant, and it survived well into the fourteenthcentury. 

GIRGENTI[35]

BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN

The reported luxury of the Sikeliot cities in this age is, in thedouble-edged saying of Empedocles, connected with one of their noblesttastes. They built their houses as if they were going to live for ever. And if their houses, how much more their temples and other publicbuildings? In some of the Sikeliot cities, this was the most brillianttime of architectural splendor. At Syracuse indeed the greatestbuildings which remain to tell their own story belong either to anearlier or to a later time. It is the theater alone, as in its firstestate a probable work of the first Hierôn, which at all connects itselfwith our present time. But at Akragas[36] and at Selinous the greatestof the existing buildings belong to the days of republican freedom andindependence. At Akragas what the tyrant began the democracy went onwith. The series of temples that line the southern wall are due to animpulse which began under Thêrôn and went on to the days of theCarthaginian siege. 

Of the greatest among them, the temple of Olympian Zeus, this isliterally true. There can be little doubt that it was begun as one ofthe thank-offerings after the victory of Himera, and it is certain thatat the coming of Hannibal and Hamilkôn it was still so far imperfectthat the roof was not yet added. It was therefore in building during atime of more than seventy years, years which take in the whole of thebrilliant days of Akragantine freedom and well-being. 

To the same period also belong the other temples in the lower city, temples which abide above ground either standing or in ruins, while theolder temples in the akropolis have to be looked for underneathbuildings of later ages. It was a grand conception to line the southernwall, the wall most open to the attacks of mortal enemies, with thiswonderful series of holy places of the divine protectors of the city. Itwas a conception due, we may believe, in the first instance, to Thêrôn, but which the democracy fully entered into and carried out. The two bestpreserved of the range stand to the east; one indeed occupies thesoutheastern corner of the fortified enclosure. 

Next in order to the west comes the temple which bears a name notunlikely, but altogether impossible and unmeaning, the so-called templeof Concord. No reasonable guess can be made at its pagan dedication; inthe fifteenth century of our era it followed the far earlier precedentof the temples in the akropolis. It became the church of Saint Gregory, not of any of the great pontiffs and doctors of the Church, but of thelocal bishop whose full description as Saint Gregory of the Turnips canhardly be written without a smile. The peristyle was walled up, andarches were cut through the walls of the cella, exactly as in the greatchurch of Syracuse. Saint Gregory of Girgenti plays no such part in theworld's history as was played by the Panagia of Syracuse; we maytherefore be more inclined to extend some mercy to the Bourbon king whoset free the columns as we now see them. When he had gone so far, onemight even wish that he had gone on to wall up the arches. In each ofthe former states of the building there was a solid wall somewhere togive shelter from the blasts which sweep round this exposed spot. As thebuilding now stands, it is, after the Athenian house of Theseus andSaint George, the best preserved Greek temple in being. Like its fellowto the east, it is a building of moderate size, of the middle stage ofDoric, with columns less massive than those of Syracuse and Corinth, less slender than those of Nemea. 

Again to the west stood a temple of greater size, nearly ranging inscale with the Athenian Parthenon, which is assigned, with far more oflikelihood than the other names, to Hêraklês. Save one patched-up columnstanding amid the general ruin, it has, in the language of the prophet, become heaps. All that is left is a mass of huge stones, among which wecan see the mighty columns, fallen, each in its place, overthrown, it isclear, by no hand of man but by those powers of the nether world whosesway is felt in every corner of Sicilian soil. 

These three temples form a continuous range along the eastern part ofthe southern wall of the city. To the west of them, parted from them bya gate, which, in Roman times at least, bore, as at Constantinople andSpalato, the name of Golden, rose the mightiest work of Akragantinesplendor and devotion, the great Olympieion itself. Of this giganticbuilding, the vastest Greek temple in Europe, we happily have somewhatfull descriptions from men who had looked at it, if not in the days ofits full glory, yet at least when it was a house standing up, and not aruin. As it now lies, a few fragments of wall still standing amidconfused heaps of fallen stones, of broken columns and capitals, nobuilding kindles a more earnest desire to see it as it stood in the daysof its perfection. 

[Illustration: CITY AND BAY OF NAPLES WITH VESUVIUS IN THE DISTANCE Courtesy International Mercantile Marine Co. ]

[Illustration: TEMPLE OF THESEUS AT ATHENS]

[Illustration: PALERMO, SICILY, FROM THE SEACourtesy L. C. Page & Co. ]

[Illustration: GREEK THEATER AT SEGESTA, SICILY]

[Illustration: TEMPLE OF CONCORD, GIRGENTI, SICILY]

[Illustration: TEMPLE OF JUNO AT GIRGENTI, SICILY]

[Illustration: AMPHITHEATER AT SYRACUSE, SICILY]

[Illustration: GREEK TEMPLE AT SEGESTA, SICILY Courtesy L. C. Page & Co. ]

[Illustration: HARBOR OF SYRACUSE, SICILY Courtesy L. C. Page & Co. ]

[Illustration: THE SO-CALLED "SHIP OF ULYSSES" OFF CORFU Courtesy Houghton, Mifflin Co. ]

[Illustration: TEMPLE OF THE OLYMPIAN ZEUS AT ATHENSCourtesy Houghton, Mifflin Co. ]

[Illustration: THE PLAIN BELOW DELPHICourtesy Houghton, Mifflin Co. ]

[Illustration: THE ROAD NEAR DELPHICourtesy Houghton, Mifflin Co. ]

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE STADIUM AT OLYMPIACourtesy Houghton, Mifflin Co. ]

[Illustration: THRONE OF MINOS IN CRETE(Minoan civilization in Crete antedates the Homeric age--perhaps by manycenturies) Courtesy Houghton, Mifflin Co. ]

SEGESTE[37]

BY JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The temple of Segeste was never finished; the ground around it was nevereven leveled; the space only being smoothed on which the peristyle wasto stand. For, in several places, the steps are from nine to ten feet inthe ground, and there is no hill near, from which the stone or moldcould have fallen. Besides, the stones lie in their natural position, and no ruins are found near them. 

The columns are all standing; two which had fallen, have very recentlybeen raised again. How far the columns rested on a socle is hard to say;and without an engraving it is difficult to give an idea of theirpresent state. At some points it would seem as if the pillars rested onthe fourth step. In that case to enter the temple you would have to godown a step. In other places, however, the uppermost step is cutthrough, and then it looks as if the columns had rested on bases; andthen again these spaces have been filled up, and so we have once morethe first case. An architect is necessary to determine this point. 

The sides have twelve columns, not reckoning the corner ones; the backand front six, including them. The rollers on which the stones weremoved along, still lie around you on the steps. They have been left inorder to indicate that the temple was unfinished. But the strongestevidence of this fact is the floor. In some spots (along the sides) thepavement is laid down; in the middle, however, the red limestone rockstill projects higher than the level of the floor as partially laid; theflooring, therefore, can not ever have been finished. There is also notrace of an inner temple. Still less can the temple have ever beenoverlaid with stucco; but that it was intended to do so, we may inferfrom the fact that the abaci of the capitals have projecting pointsprobably for the purpose of holding the plaster. The whole is built of alimestone, very similar to the travertine; only it is now much fretted. The restoration which was carried on in 1781, has done much good to thebuilding. The cutting of the stone, with which the parts have beenreconnected, is simple, but beautiful. 

The site of the temple is singular; at the highest end of a broad andlong valley, it stands on an isolated hill. Surrounded, however, on allsides by cliffs, it commands a very distant and extensive view of theland, but takes in only just a corner of the sea. The district reposesin a sort of melancholy fertility--every where well cultivated, butscarce a dwelling to be seen. Flowering thistles were swarming withcountless butterflies, wild fennel stood here from eight to nine feethigh, dry and withered of the last year's growth, but so rich and insuch seeming order that one might almost take it to be an oldnursery-ground. A shrill wind whistled through the columns as if througha wood, and screaming birds of prey hovered around the pediments. 

TAORMINA[38]

BY JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

When you have ascended to the top of the wall of rocks [at Taormina], which rise precipitously at no great distance from the sea, you find twopeaks, connected by a semicircle. Whatever shape this may have hadoriginally from Nature has been helped by the hand of man, which hasformed out of it an amphitheater for spectators. Walls and otherbuildings have furnished the necessary passages and rooms. Right across, at the foot of the semicircular range of seats, the scene was built, andby this means the two rocks were joined together, and a most enormouswork of nature and art combined. 

Now, sitting down at the spot where formerly sat the uppermostspectators, you confess at once that never did any audience, in anytheater, have before it such a spectacle as you there behold. On theright, and on high rocks at the side, castles tower in the air--fartheron the city lies below you; and altho its buildings are all of moderndate, still similar ones, no doubt, stood of old on the same site. Afterthis the eye falls on the whole of the long ridge of Ætna, then on theleft it catches a view of the sea-shore, as far as Catania, and evenSyracuse, and then the wide and extensive view is closed by the immensesmoking volcano, but not horribly, for the atmosphere, with itssoftening effect, makes it look more distinct, and milder than itreally is. 

If now you turn from this view toward the passage running at the back ofthe spectators, you have on the left the whole wall of the rocks betweenwhich and the sea runs the road to Messina. And then again you beholdvast groups of rocky ridges in the sea itself, with the coast ofCalabria in the far distance, which only a fixt and attentive gaze candistinguish from the clouds which rise rapidly from it. 

We descended toward the theater, and tarried awhile among its ruins, onwhich an accomplished architect would do well to employ, at least onpaper, his talent of restoration. After this I attempted to make a wayfor myself through the gardens to the city. But I soon learned byexperience what an impenetrable bulwark is formed by a hedge of agavesplanted close together. You can see through their interlacing leaves, and you think, therefore, it will be easy to force a way through them;but the prickles on their leaves are very sensible obstacles. If youstep on these colossal leaves, in the hope that they will bear you, theybreak off suddenly; and so, instead of getting out, you fall into thearms of the next plant. When, however, at last we had wound our way outof the labyrinth, we found but little to enjoy in the city; tho from theneighboring country we felt it impossible to part before sunset. Infinitely beautiful was it to observe this region, of which every pointhad its interest, gradually enveloped in darkness. 

MOUNT ÆTNA[39]

BY WILL S. MONROE

By the ancients Ætna was supposed to be the prison of the mighty chainedgiant Typhon, the flames proceeding from his breath and the noises fromhis groans; and when he turned over earthquakes shook the island. Manyof the myths of the Greek poets were associated with the slopes of Ætna, such as Demeter, torch in hand, seeking Persephone, Acis and Galatea, Polyphemus and the Cyclops. 

Ætna was once a volcano in the Mediterranean and in the course of agesit completely filled the surrounding sea with its lava. A remarkablefeature of the mountain is the large number of minor cones on itssides--some seven hundred in all. Most of these subsidiary cones arefrom three to six thousand feet in height and they make themselves moststrongly felt during periods of great activity. The summit merely servesas a vent through which the vapors and gases make their escape. Thenatural boundaries of Ætna are the Alcantara and Simeto rivers on thenorth, west, and south, and the sea on the east. 

The most luxurious fertility characterizes the gradual slopes near thebase, the decomposed volcanic soil being almost entirely covered witholives, figs, grapes, and prickly pears. Higher up is the timber zone. Formerly there was a dense forest belt between the zone of cultivatedland and the tore of cinders and snow; but the work of forestextermination was almost completed during the reign of the SpanishBourbons. One may still find scattered oak, ilex, chestnut, and pineinterspersed with ferns and aromatic herbs. Chestnut trees of surprizinggrowth are found on the lower slopes. "The Chestnut Tree of the HundredHorses, " for which the slopes of Ætna are famous, is not a single treebut a group of several distinct trunks together forming a circle, underwhose spreading branches a hundred horses might find shelter. 

Above the wooded zone Ætna is covered with miniature cones thrown up bydifferent eruptions and regions of dreary plateau covered with scoriaeand ashes and buried under snow a part of the year. While the upperportions of the volcano are covered with snow the greater portion of theyear, Ætna does not reach the limit of perpetual snow, and the heatwhich is emitted from its sides prevents the formation of glaciers inthe hollows. One might expect that the quantities of snow and rain whichfall on the summit would give rise to numerous streams. But the smallstones and cinders absorb the moisture, and springs are found only onthe lower slopes. The cinders, however, retain sufficient moisture tosupport a rich vegetation wherever the surface of the lava is not toocompact to be penetrated by roots. The surface of the more recent lavastreams is not, as might be supposed, smooth and level, but full ofyawning holes and rents. 

The regularity of the gradual slopes is broken on the eastern side bythe Valle del Bove, a vast amphitheater more than three thousand feet indepth, three miles in width, and covering an area of ten square miles. The bottom of the valley is dotted with craters which rise in giganticsteps; and, when Ætna is in a state of eruption, these craters pourforth fiery cascades of lava. The Monte Centenari rise from the Valledel Bove to an elevation of 6, 026 feet. At the head of the valley is theTorre del Filosofo at an altitude of 9, 570 feet. This is the reputedsite of the observatory of Empedocles, the poet and philosopher, who isfabled to have thrown himself into the crater of Ætna to immortalize hisname. 

The lower slopes of Ætna--after the basin of Palermo--include the mostdensely populated parts of Sicily. More than half a million people liveon the slopes of a mountain that might be expected to inspire terror. "Towns succeed towns along its base like pearls in a necklace, and whena stream of lava effects a breach in the chain of human habitations, itis closed up again as soon as the lava has had time to cool. " As soon asthe lava has decomposed, the soil produces an excellent yield and thistempts the farmer and the fruit grower to take chances. Speaking of thedual effect of Ætna, Freeman says: "He has been mighty to destroy, buthe has also been mighty to create and render fruitful. If his fierystreams have swept away cities and covered fields, they have given thecities a new material for their buildings and the fields a new soil richabove all others. "

SYRACUSE[40]

BY RUFUS B. RICHARDSON

The ruins of Syracuse are not to the casual observer very imposing. Buteven these ruins have great interest for the archeologist. There is, forexample, an old temple near the northern end of Ortygia, for the mostpart embedded in the buildings of the modern city, yet with its east endcleared and showing several entire columns with a part of the architraveupon them. And what a surprize here awaits one who thinks of a Dorictemple as built on a stereotyped plan! Instead of the thirteen columnson the long sides which one is apt to look for as going with asix-column front, here are eighteen or nineteen, it is not yet quitecertain which. The columns stand less than their diameter apart, and theabaci are so broad that they nearly touch. 

So small is the inter-columnar space that archeologists incline to thebelief that in this one Doric temple there were triglyphs only over thecolumns, and not also between them as in all other known cases. Everything about this temple stamps it as the oldest in Sicily. Aninscription on the top step, in very archaic letters, much worn anddifficult to read, contains the name of Apollo in the ancient form. .. . The inscription may, of course, be later than the temple; but it is initself old enough to warrant the supposition that the temple waserected soon after the first Corinthian colonists established themselvesin the island. While the inscription makes it reasonably certain thatthe temple belonged to Apollo, the god under whose guiding hand allthese Dorians went out into these western seas, tradition, with strangeperversity, has given it the name of "Temple of Diana. " But it is all inthe family. 

Another temple ruin on the edge of the plateau, which begins about twomiles south of the city, across the Anapos, one might also easilyoverlook in a casual survey, because it consists only of two columnswithout capitals, and a broad extent of the foundations from which theaccumulated earth has been only partially removed. This was the famoustemple of Olympian Zeus, built probably in the days of Hiero I. , soonafter the Persian war, but on the site of a temple still more venerable. One seeks a reason for the location of this holy place at such adistance from the city. Holm, the German historian of Sicily, argueswith some plausibility that this was no mere suburb of Syracuse, but theoriginal Syracuse itself. In the first place, the list of the citizensof Syracuse was kept here down at least to the time of the Athenianinvasion. In the second place, tradition, which, when rightly consulted, tells so much, says that Archias, the founder of Syracuse, had twodaughters, Ortygia and Syracusa, which may point to two coordinatesettlements, Ortygia and Syracuse; the latter, which was on this templeplateau, being subsequently merged in the former, but, as sometimeshappens in such cases, giving its name to the combined result. 

Besides these temple ruins there are many more foundations that tell amore or less interesting story. Then there are remains of the ancientcity that can never be ruined--for instance, the great stone quarries, pits over a hundred feet deep and acres broad, in some of which theAthenian prisoners were penned up to waste away under the gaze of thepitiless captors; the Greek theater cut out of the solid rock; the greataltar of Hiero II. , six hundred feet long and about half as broad, alsoof solid rock. Then there is a mighty Hexapylon, which closed thefortifications of Dionysius at the northwest at the point where theychallenged attack from the land side. With its sally-ports and rock-hewnpassages, some capacious enough to quarter regiments of cavalry, showingholes cut in the projecting corners of rock, through which thehitch-reins of the horses were wont to be passed, and its greatmagazines, it stands a lasting memorial to the energy of a tyrant. Butwhile this fortress is practically indestructible, an impregnablefortress is a dream incapable of realization. Marcellus and his stoutRomans came in through these fortifications, not entirely, it is true, by their own might, but by the aid of traitors, against whom no wallsare proof. 

One of the stone quarries, the Latomia del Paradiso, has an addedinterest from its association with the tyrant who made himself hated aswell as feared, while Gelon was only feared without being hated. Aninner recess of the quarry is called the "Ear of Dionysius, " andtradition says that at the inner end of this recess either he or hiscreatures sat and listened to the murmurs that the people utteredagainst him, and that these murmurs were requited with swift and fatalpunishment. Certain it is that a whisper in this cave produces awonderful resonance, and a pistol shot is like the roar of a cannon; butthat people who had anything to say about the butcher should come upwithin ear-shot of him to utter it is not very likely. Historians arenot quite sure that the connection of Dionysius with this recess isaltogether mythical, but that he shaped it with the fell purpose abovementioned is not to be thought of, as the whole quarry is older than histime, and was probably, with the Latomia dei Cappuccini, a prison forthe Athenians. 

MALTA[41]

BY THÉOPHILE GAUTIER

The city of Valetta, founded in 1566, by the grand master whose name itbears, is the capital of Malta. The city of La Sangle, and the city ofVictoria, which occupy two points of land on the other side of theharbor of the Marse, together with the suburbs of Floriana and Burmola, complete the town; encircled by bastions, ramparts, counterscarps, forts, and fortifications, to an extent which renders siege impossible!If you follow one of the streets which surround the town, at each stepthat you take, you find yourself face to face with a cannon. Gibraltaritself does not bristle more completely with mouths of fire. Theinconvenience of these extended works is, that they enclose a vastradius, and demand to defend them, in case of attack, an enormousgarrison; always difficult to maintain at a distance from the mothercountry. 

From the height of the ramparts, one sees in the distance the blue andtransparent sea, broken into ripples by the breeze, and dotted withsnowy sails. The scarlet sentinels are on guard from point to point, andthe heat of the sun is so fierce upon the glacis, that a cloth stretchedupon a frame and turning upon a pivot at the top of a pole, forms ashade for the soldiers, who, without this precaution, must inevitably beroasted on their posts. .. . 

The city of Valetta, altho built with regularity, and, so to speak, allin one "block, " is not, therefore, the less picturesque. The decidedslope of the ground neutralizes what the accurate lines of the streetmight otherwise have of monotony, and the town mounts by degrees and byterraces the hillside, which it forms into an amphitheater. The houses, built very high like those of Cadiz, terminate in flat roofs that theirinhabitants may the better enjoy the sea view. They are all of whiteMaltese stone; a sort of sandstone easy to work, and with which, atsmall expense, one can indulge various caprices of sculpture andornamentation. These rectilinear houses stand well, and have an air ofgrandeur, which they owe to the absence of (visible) roofs, cornices, and attics. They stand out sharply and squarely against the azure of theheavens, which their dazzling whiteness renders only the more intense;but that which chiefly gives them a character of originality is theprojecting balcony hung upon each front; like the "moucharabys" of theEast, or the "miradores" of Spain. 

The palace of the grand masters--to-day the palace of thegovernment--has nothing remarkable in the way of architecture. Its dateis recent, and it responds but imperfectly to the idea one would form ofthe residence of Villiers de I'lle Adam, of Lavalette, and of theirwarlike ancestors. Nevertheless, it has a certain monumental air, andproduces a fine effect upon the great Place, of which it forms oneentire side. Two doorways, with rustic columns, break the uniformity ofthe long façade; while an immense balcony, supported by giganticsculptured brackets, encircles the building at the level of the firstfloor, and gives to the edifice the stamp of Malta. This detail, sostrictly local in its character, relieves what might be heavy and flatin this architecture; and this palace, otherwise vulgar, becomes thusoriginal. The interior, which I visited, presents a range of vast hallsand galleries, decorated with pictures representing battles by sea andland, sieges, and combats between Turkish galleys and the galleys of the"Religion. " . .. 

To finish with the knights, I turned my steps toward the Church of St. John--the Pantheon of the Order. Its façade, with a triangular porchflanked by two towers terminating in stone belfries, having for ornamentonly four pillars, and pierced by a window and door, without sculptureor decoration, by no means prepares the traveler for the splendorwithin. 

The first thing which arrests the sight is an immense arch, painted infresco, which runs the whole length of the nave. This fresco, unhappilymuch deteriorated by time, is the work of Matteo Preti, called theCalabrese; one of those great second-rate masters, who, if they haveless genius, have often more talent than the princes of the art. Whatthere is of science, facility, spirit, expression, and abundantresource, in this colossal picture, is beyond description. 

Each section of the arch contains a scene from the life of St. John, towhom the church is dedicated, and who was the patron of the Order. These sections are supported, at their descent, by groups ofcaptives--Saracens, Turks, Christians, and others--half naked, or cladin the remains of shattered armor, and placed in positions ofhumiliation or constraint, who form a species of barbaric caryatidesstrikingly suited to the subject. All this part of the fresco is full ofcharacter, and has a force of coloring very rare in this species ofpicture. These solid and massive effects give additional strength to thelighter tone of the arch, and throw the skies into a relief and distancesingularly profound. I know no similar work of equal grandeur except theceiling by Fumiana in the Church of St. Pantaleone at Venice, representing the life, martyrdom, and apotheosis of that saint. But thestyle of the decadence makes itself less felt in the work of theCalabrese than in that of the Venetian. In recompense of this giganticwork, the artist had the honor, like Carravaggio, to be made a Knightof the Order. 

The pavement of the church is composed of four hundred tombs of knights, incrusted with jasper, porphyry, verd-antique, and precious stones ofvarious kinds, which should form the most splendid sepulchral mosaicsconceivable. I say should form, because at the moment of my visit, thewhole floor was covered with those immense mats, so constantly used forcarpeting the southern churches--a usage which is explained by theabsence of pews or chairs, and the habit of kneeling upon the floor toperform one's devotions. I regretted this exceedingly; but the crypt andthe chapel contain enough sepulchral wealth to offer some atonement. 

VIII

THE MAINLAND OF GREECE

ON ARRIVING IN ATHENS--THE ACROPOLIS[42]

BY J. P. MAHAFFY

There is probably no more exciting voyage, to any educated man, than theapproach to Athens from the sea. Every promontory, every island, everybay, has its history. If he knows the map of Greece, he needs noguide-book or guide to distract him; if he does not, he needs littleGreek to ask of any one near him the name of this or that object; andthe mere names are sufficient to stir up all his classicalrecollections. But he must make up his mind not to be shocked at "Ægina"or "Phalrum, " and even to be told that he is utterly wrong in his way ofpronouncing them. 

It was our fortune to come into Greece by night, with a splendid moonshining upon the summer sea. The varied outlines of Sunium, on the oneside, and Ægina on the other, were very clear, but in the deep shadowsthere was mystery enough to feed the burning impatience of seeing all inthe light of common day; and tho we had passed Ægina, and had come overagainst the rocky Salamis, as yet there was no sign of Peiræus. Thencame the light on Psyttalea, and they told us that the harbor was rightopposite. Yet we came nearer and nearer, and no harbor could be seen. 

The barren rocks of the coast seemed to form one unbroken line, andnowhere was there a sign of indentation or of break in the land. Butsuddenly, as we turned from gazing on Psyttalea, where the flower of thePersian nobles had once stood in despair, looking upon their fategathering about them, the vessel had turned eastward, and discovered tous the crowded lights and thronging ships of the famous harbor. Small itlooked, very small, but evidently deep to the water's edge, for greatships seemed touching the shore; and so narrow is the mouth, that wealmost wondered how they had made their entrance in safety. But we sawit some weeks later, with nine men-of-war towering above all itsmerchant shipping and its steamers, and among them crowds of ferryboatsskimming about in the breeze with their wing-like sails. Then we foundout that, like the rest of Greece, the Peiræus was far larger than itlooked. 

It differed little, alas! from more vulgar harbors in the noise andconfusion of disembarking; in the delays of its custom-house; in theextortion and insolence of its boatmen. It is still, as in Plato's day, "the haunt of sailors, where good manners are unknown. " But when we hadescaped the turmoil, and were seated silently on the way to Athens, almost along the very road of classical days, all our classical notions, which had been seared away by vulgar bargaining and protesting, regained their sway. 

We had sailed in through the narrow passage where almost every greatGreek that ever lived had some time passed; now we went along the line, hardly less certain, which had seen all these great ones going to andfro between the city and the port. The present road is shaded with greatsilver poplars, and plane trees, and the moon had set, so that ourapproach to Athens was even more mysterious than our approach to thePeiræus. We were, moreover, perplexed at our carriage stopping undersome large plane trees, tho we had driven but two miles, and the nightwas far spent. Our coachman would listen to no advice or persuasion. Welearned afterward that every carriage going to and from the Peiræusstops at this half-way house, that the horses may drink, and thecoachman take "Turkish delight" and water. There is no exception made tothis custom, and the traveler is bound to submit. At last we entered theunpretending ill-built streets at the west of Athens. .. . 

We rose at the break of dawn to see whether our window would afford anyprospect to serve as a requital for angry sleeplessness. And there, right opposite, stood the rock which of all rocks in the world's historyhas done most for literature and art--the rock which poets, and orators, and architects, and historians have ever glorified, and can not staytheir praise--which is ever new and ever old, ever fresh in its decay, ever perfect in its ruin, ever living in its death--the Acropolis ofAthens. 

When I saw my dream and longing of many years fulfilled, the first raysof the rising sun had just touched the heights, while the town below wasstill hid in gloom. Rock, and rampart, and ruined fanes--all werecolored in uniform tints; the lights were of a deep rich orange, and theshadows of dark crimson, with the deeper lines of purple. There was novariety in color between what nature and what man had set there. Nowhiteness shone from the marble, no smoothness showed upon the hewn andpolished blocks; but the whole mass of orange and crimson stood outtogether into the pale, pure Attic air. There it stood, surrounded bylanes and hovels, still perpetuating the great old contrast in Greekhistory, of magnificence and meanness--of loftiness and lowness--as wellin outer life as in inward motive. And, as it were in illustration ofthat art of which it was the most perfect bloom, and which lasted inperfection but a day of history, I saw it again and again, in sunlightand in shade, in daylight and at night, but never again in this perfectand singular beauty. .. . 

I suppose there can be no doubt whatever that the ruins on the Acropolisof Athens are the most remarkable in the world. There are ruins farlarger, such as the Pyramids, and the remains of Karnak. There are ruinsfar more perfectly preserved, such as the great Temple at Paestum. Thereare ruins more picturesque, such as the ivy-clad walls of medievalabbeys beside the rivers in the rich valleys of England. But there is noruin all the world over which combines so much striking beauty, sodistinct a type, so vast a volume of history, so great a pageant ofimmortal memories. There is, in fact, no building on earth which cansustain the burden of such greatness, and so the first visit to theAcropolis is and must be disappointing. 

When the traveler reflects how all the Old World's culture culminated inGreece--all Greece in Athens--all Athens in its Acropolis--all theAcropolis in the Parthenon--so much crowds upon the mind confusedly thatwe look for some enduring monument whereupon we can fasten our thoughts, and from which we can pass as from a visible starting-point into allthis history and all this greatness. And at first we look in vain. Theshattered pillars and the torn pediments will not bear so great astrain; and the traveler feels forced to admit a sense ofdisappointment, sore against his will. He has come a long journey intothe remoter parts of Europe; he has reached at last what his soul hadlonged for many years in vain; and as is wont to be the case with allgreat human longings, the truth does not answer to his desire. The pangof disappointment is all the greater when he sees that the tooth of timeand the shock of earthquake have done but little harm. It is the hand ofman--of reckless foe and ruthless lover--which has robbed him of hishope. .. . 

Nothing is more vexatious than the reflection, how lately these splendidremains have been reduced to their present state. The Parthenon, beingused as a Greek church, remained untouched and perfect all through theMiddle Ages. Then it became a mosque, and the Erechtheum a seraglio, andin this way survived without damage till 1687, when, in the bombardmentby the Venetians under Morosini, a shell dropt into the Parthenon, wherethe Turks had their powder stored, and blew out the whole center of thebuilding. Eight or nine pillars at each side have been thrown down, andhave left a large gap, which so severs the front and rear of the temple, that from the city below they look like the remains of two differentbuildings. The great drums of these pillars are yet lying there, intheir order, just as they fell, and some money and care might set themall up again in their places; yet there is not in Greece the patriotismor even the common sense to enrich the country by this restoration, matchless in its certainty as well as in its splendor. 

But the Venetians were not content with their exploit. They were, aboutthis time, when they held possession of most of Greece, emulating thePisan taste for Greek sculptures; and the four fine lions standing atthe gate of the arsenal in Venice still testify to their zeal incarrying home Greek trophies to adorn their capital. 

In its great day, and even as Pausanias saw it, the Acropolis wascovered with statues, as well as with shrines. It was not merely an Holyof Holies in religion; it was also a palace and museum of art. At everystep and turn the traveler met new objects of interest. There werearchaic specimens, chiefly interesting to the antiquarian and thedevotee; there were the great masterpieces which were the jointadmiration of the artist and the vulgar. Even all the sides and slopesof the great rock were honeycombed into sacred grottos, with theiraltars and their gods, or studded with votive monuments. All theselesser things are fallen away and gone; the sacred eaves are filled withrubbish, and desecrated with worse than neglect. The grotto of Pan andApollo is difficult of access, and when reached, an object of disgustrather than of interest. There are left but the remnants of thesurrounding wall, and the ruins of the three principal buildings, whichwere the envy and wonder of all the civilized world. 

The beautiful little temple of Athena Nike, tho outside thePropylæa--thrust out as it were on a sort of great buttress high on theright--must still be called a part, and a very striking part, of theAcropolis. It is only of late years that it has been cleared of rubbishand modern stone-work, thus destroying, no doubt, some precious tracesof Turkish occupation which the fastidious historian may regret, butrealizing to us a beautiful Greek temple of the Ionic Order in somecompleteness. The peculiarity of this building, which is perched upon aplatform of stone, and commands a splendid prospect, is that its tinyperibolus, or sacred enclosure, was surrounded by a parapet of stoneslabs covered with exquisite reliefs of winged Victories, in variousattitudes. Some of these slabs are now in the Museum of the Acropolis, and are of great interest--apparently less severe than the school ofPhidias, and therefore later in date, but still of the best epoch, andof marvelous grace. The position of this temple also is not parallelwith the Propylæa, but turned slightly outward, so that the lightstrikes it at moments when the other building is not illuminated. At theopposite side is a very well-preserved chamber, and a fine colonnade atright angles with the gate, which looks like a guard-room. This is thechamber commonly called the Pinacotheca, where Pausanias saw pictures orfrescoes by Polygnotus. 

A WINTER IN ATHENS HALF A CENTURY AGO[43]

BY BAYARD TAYLOR

Our sitting-room fronted the south (with a view of the Acropolis and theAreopagus), and could be kept warm without more labor or expense thanwould be required for an entire dwelling at home. Our principal anxietywas, that the supply of fuel, at any price, might become exhausted. Weburned the olive and the vine, the cypress and the pine, twigs of rosetrees and dead cabbage-stalks, for aught I know, to feed our one littlesheet-iron stove. For full two months we were obliged to keep up ourfire, from morning until night. Know ye the land of the cypress andmyrtle, where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine? Here itis, with almost snow enough in the streets for a sleighing party, withthe Ilissus frozen, and with a tolerable idea of Lapland, when you facethe gusts which drive across the Cephissian plain. 

As the other guests were Greek, our mode of living was similar to thatof most Greek families. We had coffee in the morning, a substantialbreakfast about noon, and dinner at six in the evening. The dishes wereconstructed after French and Italian models, but the meat is mostlygoat's flesh. Beef, when it appears, is a phenomenon of toughness. Vegetables are rather scarce. Cow's milk, and butter or cheesetherefrom, are substances unknown in Greece. The milk is from goats orsheep, and the butter generally from the latter. It is a white, cheesymaterial, with a slight flavor of tallow. The wine, when you get itunmixed with resin, is very palatable. We drank that of Santorin, withthe addition of a little water, and found it an excellent beverage. .. . 

Except during the severely cold weather, Athens is as lively a town asmay be. One-fourth of the inhabitants, I should say, are always in thestreets, and many of the mechanics work, as is common in the Orient, inopen shops. The coffee-houses are always thronged, and every afternooncrowds may be seen on the Patissia Road--a continuation of EolusStreet--where the King and Queen take their daily exercise on horseback. The national costume, both male and female, is gradually falling intodisuse in the cities, altho it is still universal in the country. Theislanders adhere to their hideous dress with the greatest persistence. With sunrise the country people begin to appear in the streets withladen donkeys and donkey-carts, bringing wood, grain, vegetables, andmilk, which they sell from house to house. .. . 

Venders of bread and coffee-rolls go about with circular trays on theirheads, calling attention to their wares by loud and long-drawn cries. Later in the day, peddlers make their appearance, with packages of cheapcotton stuffs, cloth, handkerchiefs, and the like, or baskets of pins, needles, buttons, and tape. They proclaim loudly the character and priceof their articles, the latter, of course, subject to negotiation. Thesame custom prevails as in Turkey, of demanding much more than theseller expects to get. Foreigners are generally fleeced a little in thebeginning, tho much less so, I believe, than in Italy. .. . 

The winter of 1857-58 was the severest in the memory of any inhabitant. For nearly eight weeks, we had an alternation of icy north winds andsnow-storms. The thermometer went down to 20 degrees of Fahrenheit--adegree of cold which seriously affected the orange-, if not theolive-trees. Winter is never so dreary as in those southern lands, whereyou see the palm trees rocking despairingly in the biting gale, and thesnow lying thick on the sunny fruit of the orange groves. As for thepepper trees, with their hanging tresses and their loose, misty foliage, which line the broad avenues radiating from the palace, they weretouched beyond recovery. The people, who could not afford to purchasewood or charcoal, at treble the usual price, even tho they had hearths, which they have not, suffered greatly. They crouched at home, in cellarsand basements, wrapt in rough capotes, or hovering around a mangal, orbrazier of coals, the usual substitute for a stove. From Constantinoplewe had still worse accounts. The snow lay deep everywhere; charcoal soldat twelve piastres the oka (twenty cents a pound), and the famishedwolves, descending from the hills, devoured people almost at the gatesof the city. In Smyrna, Beyrout, and Alexandria, the winter was equallysevere, while in Odessa it was mild and agreeable, and in St. Petersburg there was scarcely snow enough for sleighing. All NorthernEurope enjoyed a winter as remarkable for warmth as that of the Southfor its cold. The line of division seemed to be about the parallel oflatitude 45 degrees. Whether this singular climatic phenomenon extendedfurther eastward, into Asia, I was not able to ascertain. I was actuallyless sensitive to the cold in Lapland, during the previous winter, withthe mercury frozen, than in Attica, within the belt of semi-tropicalproductions. 

THE ACROPOLIS AS IT WAS[44]

BY PAUSANIAS

To the Acropolis there is only one approach; it allows of no other, being everywhere precipitous and walled off. The vestibules have a roofof white marble, and even now are remarkable for both their beauty andsize. As to the statues of the horsemen, I can not say with precisionwhether they are the sons of Xenophon, or merely put there fordecoration. On the right of the vestibules is the shrine of the WinglessVictory. From it the sea is visible; and there Ægeus drowned himself, asthey say. For the ship which took his sons to Crete had black sails, butTheseus told his father (for he knew there was some peril in attackingthe Minotaur) that he would have white sails if he should sail back aconqueror. But he forgot this promise in his loss of Ariadne. And Ægeus, seeing the ship with black sails, thinking his son was dead, threwhimself in and was drowned. And the Athenians have a hero-chapel to hismemory. And on the left of the vestibules is a building with paintings;and among those that time has not destroyed are Diomedes andOdysseus--the one taking away Philoctetes's bow in Lemnos, the othertaking the Palladium from Ilium. Among other paintings here is Ægisthusbeing slain by Orestes; and Pylades slaying the sons of Nauplius thatcame to Ægisthus's aid. And Polyxena about to have her throat cut nearthe tomb of Achilles. Homer did well not to mention this savage act. .. . 

And there is a small stone such as a little man can sit on, on whichthey say Silenus rested, when Dionysus came to the land. Silenus is thename they give to all old Satyrs. About the Satyrs I have conversed withmany, wishing to know all about them. And Euphemus, a Carian, told methat sailing once on a time to Italy he was driven out of his course bythe winds, and carried to a distant sea, where people no longer sail. And he said that here were many desert islands, some inhabited by wildmen; and at these islands the sailors did not like to land, as they hadlanded there before and had experience of the natives; but they wereobliged on that occasion. These islands he said were called by thesailors Satyr-islands; the dwellers in them were red-haired, and hadtails at their loins not much smaller than horses. .. . 

And as regards the temple which they call the Parthenon, as you enter iteverything portrayed on the gables relates to the birth of Athene, andbehind is depicted the contest between Poseidon and Athene for the soilof Attica. And this work of art is in ivory and gold. In the middle ofher helmet is an image of the Sphinx--about whom I shall give an accountwhen I come to Boeotia--and on each side of the helmet are griffinsworked. These griffins, says Aristus the Proconnesian, in his poems, fought with the Arimaspians beyond the Issedones for the gold of thesoil which the griffins guarded. And the Arimaspians were all one-eyedmen from their birth; and the griffins were beasts like lions, withwings and mouth like an eagle. Let so much suffice for these griffins. But the statue of Athene is full length, with a tunic reaching to herfeet; and on her breast is the head of Medusa worked in ivory, and inone hand she has a Victory four cubits high, in the other hand a spear, and at her feet a shield; and near the spear a dragon which perhaps isErichthonius. And on the base of the statue is a representation of thebirth of Pandora--the first woman, according to Hesiod and other poets;for before her there was no race of women. Here too I remember to haveseen the only statue here of the Emperor Adrian; and at the entrance oneof Iphicrates, the celebrated Athenian general. 

And outside the temple is a brazen Apollo said to be by Phidias; andthey call it Apollo, Averter of Locusts, because when the locustsdestroyed the land the god said he would drive them out of the country. And they know that he did so, but they don't say how. I myself know oflocusts having been thrice destroyed on Mount Sipylus, but not in thesame way; for some were driven away by a violent wind that fell on them, and others by a strong light that came on them after showers, and otherswere frozen to death by a sudden frost. All this came under my ownnotice. 

There is also a building called the Erechtheum, and in the vestibule isan altar of Supreme Zeus, where they offer no living sacrifice, butcakes without the usual libation of wine. And as you enter there arethree altars: one to Poseidon (on which they also sacrifice toErechtheus according to the oracle), one to the hero Butes, and thethird to Hephæstus. And on the walls are paintings of the family ofButes. The building is a double one; and inside there is sea-water in awell. And this is no great marvel; for even those who live in inlandparts have such wells, as notably Aphrodisienses in Caria. But this wellis represented as having a roar as of the sea when the south wind blows. And in the rock is the figure of a trident. And this is said to havebeen Poseidon's proof in regard to the territory Athene disputed withhim. 

Sacred to Athene is all the rest of Athens, and similarly all Attica;for altho they worship different gods in different townships, none theless do they honor Athene generally. And the most sacred of all is thestatue of Athene in what is now called the Acropolis, but was thencalled the Polis (city) which was universally worshiped many yearsbefore the various townships formed one city; and the rumor about it isthat it fell from heaven. As to this I shall not give an opinion, whether it was so or not. And Callimachus made a golden lamp for thegoddess. And when they fill this lamp with oil it lasts for a wholeyear, altho it burns continually night and day. And the wick is of aparticular kind of cotton flax, the only kind indestructible by fire. And above the lamp is a palm tree of brass reaching to the roof andcarrying off the smoke. And Callimachus, the maker of this lamp, althohe comes behind the first artificers, yet was remarkable for ingenuity, and was the first who perforated stone, and got the name of"Art-Critic, " whether his own appellation or given him by others. 

In the temple of Athene Polias is a Hermes of wood (said to be a votiveoffering of Cecrops), almost hidden by myrtle leaves. And of the antiquevotive offerings worthy of record, is a folding-chair, the work ofDædalus, and spoils taken from the Persians--as a coat of mail ofMasistius, who commanded the cavalry at Platæa, and a scimitar said tohave belonged to Mardonius. Masistius we know was killed by the Atheniancavalry; but as Mardonius fought against the Lacedæmonians and waskilled by a Spartan, they could not have got it at first hand; nor is itlikely that the Lacedæmonians would have allowed the Athenians to carryoff such a trophy. And about the olive they have nothing else to tellbut that the goddess used it as a proof of her right to the country, when it was contested by Poseidon. And they record also that this olivewas burnt when the Persians set fire to Athens; but tho burnt, it grewthe same day two cubits. 

And next to the temple of Athene is the temple of Pandrosus; who was theonly one of the three sisters who didn't peep into the forbidden chest. Now the things I most marveled at are not universally known. I willtherefore write of them as they occur to me. Two maidens live not farfrom the temple of Athene Polias, and the Athenians call them the"carriers of the holy things"; for a certain time they live with thegoddess, but when her festival comes they act in the following way, bynight: Putting upon their heads what the priestess of Athene gives themto carry (neither she nor they know what these things are), thesemaidens descend, by a natural underground passage, from an inclosure inthe city sacred to Aphrodite of the Gardens. In the sanctuary below theydeposit what they carry, and bring back something else closely wrapt up. And these maidens they henceforth dismiss, and other two they electinstead of them for the Acropolis. 

THE ELGIN MARBLES[45]

BY J. P. MAHAFFY

Morosini[46] wished to take down the sculptures of Phidias from theeastern pediment, but his workmen attempted it so clumsily that thefigures fell from their place and were dashed to pieces on the ground. 

An observing traveler[47] was present when a far more determined andsystematic attack was made upon the remaining ruins of the Parthenon. While he was traveling in the interior, Lord Elgin had obtained hisfamous firman from the Sultan, to take down and remove any antiquitiesor sculptured stones he might require, and the infuriated Dodwell saw aset of ignorant workmen, under equally ignorant overseers, let looseupon the splendid ruins of the age of Pericles. He speaks with much goodsense and feeling of this proceeding. He is fully aware that the worldwould derive inestimable benefit from the transplanting of thesesplendid fragments to a more accessible place, but he can not findlanguage strong enough to express his disgust at the way in which thething was done. 

Incredible as it may appear, Lord Elgin himself seems not to havesuperintended the work, but to have left it to paid contractors, whoundertook the job for a fixt sum. Little as either Turks or Greeks caredfor the ruins, he says that a pang of grief was felt through all Athensat the desecration, and that the contractors were obliged to bribeworkmen with additional wages to undertake the ungrateful task. Dodwellwill not even mention Lord Elgin by name, but speaks of him with disgustas "the person" who defaced the Parthenon. He believes that had thisperson been at Athens himself, his underlings could hardly have behavedin the reckless way they did, pulling down more than they wanted, andtaking no care to prop up and save the work from which they had takenthe support. 

He especially notices their scandalous proceeding upon taking up one ofthe great white marble blocks which form the floor or stylobate of thetemple. They wanted to see what was underneath, and Dodwell, who wasthere, saw the foundation--a substructure of Peiræic sandstone. But whenthey had finished their inspection they actually left the block they hadremoved, without putting it back into its place. So this beautifulpavement, made merely of closely-fitting blocks, without any artificialor foreign joinings, was ripped up, and the work of its destructionbegan. I am happy to add that, tho a considerable rent was then made, most of it is still intact, and the traveler of to-day may still walk onthe very stones which bore the tread of every great Athenian. 

The question has often been discust, whether Lord Elgin was justified incarrying off this pediment, the metopes, and the friezes, from theirplace; and the Greeks of to-day hope confidently that the day will comewhen England will restore these treasures to their place. This is, ofcourse, absurd, and it may fairly be argued that people who wouldbombard their antiquities in a revolution are not fit custodians of themin the intervals of domestic quiet. This was my reply to an old Greekgentleman who assailed the memory of Lord Elgin with reproaches. 

I confess I approved of this removal until I came home from Greece, andwent again to see the spoil in its place in our great museum. Tho theretreated with every care--tho shown to the best advantage, and explainedby excellent models of the whole building, and clear descriptions oftheir place on it--notwithstanding all this, it was plain that thesewonderful fragments lost so terribly by being separated from theirplace--they looked so unmeaning in an English room, away from theirtemple, their country and their lovely atmosphere--that one earnestlywished they had never been taken from their place, even at the risk ofbeing made a target by the Greeks or the Turks. I am convinced, too, that the few who would have seen them, as intelligent travelers, ontheir famous rock, would have gained in quality the advantage nowdiffused among many, but weakened and almost destroyed by the wrench inassociations, when the ornament is severed from its surface, and thedecoration of a temple exhibited apart from the temple itself. We mayadmit, then, that it had been better if Lord Elgin had never taken awaythese marbles. Nevertheless, it would be absurd to send them back. But Ido think that the museum on the Acropolis should be provided with abetter set of casts of the figures than those which are now to be seenthere. They look very wretched, and carelessly prepared. .. . 

THE THEATER OF DIONYSUS[48]

BY J. P. MAHAFFY

Some ten or twelve years ago, a very extensive and splendidly successfulexcavation was made when a party of German archeologists laid bare theTheater of Dionysus--the great theater in which Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides brought out their immortal plays before an immortalaudience. There is nothing more delightful than to descend from theAcropolis, and rest awhile in the comfortable marble arm-chairs withwhich the front row of the circuit is occupied. They are of the patternusual in the sitting portrait statues of the Greeks--very deep, and witha curved back, which exceeds both in comfort and in grace any chairsmade by modern workmen. [49] Each chair has the name of a priestinscribed on it, showing how the theater among the Greeks correspondedto our cathedral, and this front row to the stalls of canons andprebendaries. 

But unfortunately all this sacerdotal prominence is probably the work ofthe later restorers of the theater. For after having been firstbeautified and adorned with statues by Lycurgus (in Demosthenes' time), it was again restored and embellished by Herodes Atticus, or about histime, so that the theater, as we now have it, can only be called thebuilding of the second or third century after Christ. The front wall ofthe stage, which is raised some feet above the level of the empty pit, is adorned with a row of very elegant sculptures, among which one--ashaggy old man, in a stooping posture, represented as coming out fromwithin, and holding up the stone above him--is particularly striking. Some Greek is said to have knocked off, by way of amusement, the headsof most of these figures since they were discovered, but this I do notknow upon any better authority than ordinary report. The pit or centerof the theater is empty, and was never in Greek days occupied by seats, but a wooden structure was set up adjoining the stage, and on this thechorus performed their dances, and sang their odes. But now there is acircuit of upright slabs of stone close to the front seat, which canhardly have been an arrangement of the old Greek theater. They aregenerally supposed to have been added when the building was used forcontests of gladiators or of wild beasts; but the partition, being notmore than three feet high, would be no protection whatever from anevil-disposed wild beast. 

All these later additions and details are, I fear, calculated to detractfrom the reader's interest in this theater, which I should indeedregret--for nothing can be more certain than that this is the veritablestone theater which was built when the wooden one broke down, at thegreat competition of Æschylus and Pratinas; and tho front seats may havebeen added, and slight modifications introduced, the general structurecan never have required alteration. 

It is indeed very large, tho I think exaggerated statements have beenmade about its size. I have heard it said that the enormous number of30, 000 people could fit into it--a statement I think incredible; for itdid not to me seem larger than, or as large as, other theaters I haveseen, at Syracuse, at Megalopolis, or even at Argos. But, no doubt, allsuch open-air enclosures and sittings look far smaller than coveredrooms of the same size. This is certain, that any one speaking on thestage, as it now is, can be easily and distinctly heard by peoplesitting on the highest row of seats now visible, which can not, I fancy, have been far from the original top of the house. And we may doubt thatany such thing were possible when 30, 000 people, or a crowd approachingthat number, were seated. We hear, however, that the old actors hadrecourse to various artificial means of increasing the range of theirvoices. Yet there is hardly a place in Athens which forces back the mindso strongly to the old days, when all the crowd came jostling in, andsettled down in their seats, to hear the great novelties of the yearfrom Sophocles or Euripides. No doubt there were cliques and cabals andclaqueurs, noisy admirers and cold critics, the supporters of the old, and the lovers of the new, devotees and sceptics, wondering foreignersand self-complacent citizens. They little thought how we should come, not only to sit in the seats they occupied, but to reverse the judgmentswhich they pronounced, and correct with sober temper the errors ofprejudice, of passion, and of pride. 

WHERE PAUL PREACHED TO THE ATHENIANS[50]

BY J. P. MAHAFFY

It was on this very Areopagus, where we are now standing, that thesephilosophers of fashion came into contact with the thorough earnestness, the profound convictions, the red-hot zeal of the Apostle Paul. Thememory of that great scene still lingers about the place, and everyguide will show you the exact place where the Apostle stood, and in whatdirection he addrest his audience. There are, I believe, even somerespectable commentators who transfer their own estimate of St. Paul'simportance to the Athenian public, and hold that it was before the courtof the Areopagus that he was asked to expound his views. This is morethan doubtful. The "blasés" philosophers, who probably yawned over theirown lectures, hearing of a new lay preacher, eager to teach andapparently convinced of the truth of what he said, thought the noveltytoo delicious to be neglected, and brought him forthwith out of thechatter and bustle of the crowd, probably past the very orchestra whereAnaxagoras' books had been proselytizing before him, and where the stiffold heroes of Athenian history stood, a monument of the escape frompolitical slavery. 

It is even possible that the curious knot of idlers did not bring himhigher than this platform, which might well be called part of Mars'Hill. But if they chose to bring him to the top, there was no hindrance, for the venerable court held its sittings in the open air, on stoneseats; and when not thus occupied, the top of the rock may well havebeen a convenient place of retirement for people who did not want to bedisturbed by new acquaintances, and the constant eddies of new gossip inthe market-place. 

It is, however, of far less import to know on what spot of the AreopagusPaul stood, than to understand clearly what he said, and how he soughtto conciliate as well as to refute the philosophers who, no doubt, looked down upon him as an intellectual inferior. He starts naturallyenough from the extraordinary crowd of votive statues and offerings, forwhich Athens was remarkable above all other cities of Greece. He says, with a slight touch of irony, that he finds them very religious indeed, so religious that he even found an altar to a God professedly unknown, or perhaps unknowable. .. . 

Thus ended, to all appearance ignominiously, the first heralding of thefaith which was to supplant all the temples and altars and statues withwhich Athens had earned renown as a beautiful city, which was tooverthrow the schools of the sneering philosophers, and even to remodelall the society and the policy of the world. And yet, in spite of thisgreat and decisive triumph of Christianity, there was somethingcuriously prophetic in the contemptuous rejection of its apostle atAthens. Was it not the first expression of the feeling which stillpossesses the visitor who wanders through its ruins, and which stilldominates the educated world--the feeling that while other cities oweto the triumph of Christianity all their beauty and their interest, Athens has to this day resisted this influence; and that while theChristian monuments of Athens would elsewhere excite no small attention, here they are passed by as of no import compared with its heathensplendor?

There are very old and very beautiful little churches in Athens, "delicious little Byzantine churches, " as Renan calls them. They arevery peculiar, and unlike what one generally sees in Europe. They strikethe observer with their quaintness and smallness, and he fancies he heresees the tiny model of that unique and splendid building, the cathedralof St. Mark at Venice. But yet it is surprizing how little we noticethem at Athens. I was even told--I sincerely hope it was false--thatpublic opinion at Athens was gravitating toward the total removal ofone, and that the most perfect, of these churches, which stands in themiddle of a main street, and so breaks the regularity of the modernboulevard!

FROM ATHENS TO DELPHI ON HORSEBACK[51]

BY BAYARD TAYLOR

We left Athens on the 13th of April, for a journey to Parnassus and thenorthern frontier of Greece. It was a teeming, dazzling day, with lightscarfs of cloud-crape in the sky, and a delicious breeze from the westblowing through the pass of Daphne. The Gulf of Salamis was pureultramarine, covered with a velvety bloom, while the island and MountKerata swam in transparent pink and violet tints. Crossing the sacredplain of Eleusis, our road entered the mountains--lower offshoots ofCithæron, which divide the plain from that of Boeotia. .. . 

We climbed the main ridge of the mountains; and, in less than an hour, reached the highest point--whence the great Boeotian plain suddenlyopened upon our view. In the distance gleamed Lake Capaïs, and the hillsbeyond; in the west, the snowy top of Parnassus, lifted clear and brightabove the morning vapors; and, at last, as we turned a shoulder of themountain in descending, the streaky top of Helicon appeared on the left, completing the classic features of the landscape. .. . 

As we entered the plain, taking a rough path toward Platæa, the fieldswere dotted, far and near, with the white Easter shirts of the peopleworking among the vines. Another hour, and our horses' hoofs were uponthe sacred soil of Platæa. The walls of the city are still to be tracedfor nearly their entire extent. They are precisely similar inconstruction to those of OEnoë--like which, also, they werestrengthened by square towers. There are the substructions of variousedifices--some of which may have been temples--and on the side next themodern village lie four large sarcophagi, now used as vats for treadingout the grapes in vintage-time. A more harmless blood than once curdledon the stones of Platæa now stains the empty sepulchers of the heroes. We rode over the plain, fixt the features of the scene in our memories, and then kept on toward the field of Leuktra, where the brutal power ofSparta received its first check. The two fields are so near, that a partof the fighting may have been done upon the same ground. .. . 

I then turned my horse's head toward Thebes, which we reached in twohours. It was a pleasant scene, tho so different from that of twothousand years ago. The town is built partly on the hill of theCadmeion, and partly on the plain below. An aqueduct, on mossy arches, supplies it with water, and keeps its gardens green. The plain to thenorth is itself one broad garden to the foot of the hill of the Sphinx, beyond which is the blue gleam of a lake, then a chain of barren hills, and over all the snowy cone of Mount Delphi, in Euboea. The onlyremains of the ancient city are stones; for the massive square tower, now used as a prison, can not be ascribed to an earlier date than thereign of the Latin princes. .. . 

The next morning we rode down from the Cadmeion, and took the highway toLivadia, leading straight across the Boeotian plain. It is one of thefinest alluvial bottoms in the world, a deep, dark, vegetablemold--which would produce almost without limit, were it properlycultivated. Before us, blue and dark under a weight of clouds, layParnassus; and far across the immense plain the blue peaks of MountOeta. In three hours we reached the foot of Helicon, and looked up atthe streaks of snow which melt into the Fountain of the Muses. .. . 

As we left Arachova, proceeding toward Delphi, the deep gorge opened, disclosing a blue glimpse of the Gulf of Corinth and the Achaianmountains. Tremendous cliffs of blue-gray limestone towered upon ourright, high over the slope of Delphi, which ere long appeared before us. Our approach to the sacred spot was marked by tombs cut in the rock. Asharp angle of the mountain was passed; and then, all at once, theenormous walls, buttressing the upper region of Parnassus, stoodsublimely against the sky, cleft right through the middle by a terriblesplit, dividing the twin peaks which gave a name to the place. At thebottom of this chasm issue forth the waters of Castaly, and fill a stonetrough by the road-side. On a long, sloping mountain-terrace, facing theeast, stood once the town and temples of Delphi, and now the modernvillage of Kastri. 

As you may imagine, our first walk was to the shrine of the Delphicoracle, at the bottom of the cleft between the two peaks. The hewn faceof the rock, with a niche, supposed to be that where the Pythia sat uponher tripod, and a secret passage under the floor of the sanctuary, areall that remain. The Castalian fountain still gushes out at the bottom, into a large square enclosure, called the Pythia's Bath, and now chokedup with mud, weeds, and stones. Among those weeds, I discerned one offamiliar aspect, plucked and tasted it. Watercress, of remarkable sizeand flavor! We thought no more of Apollo and his shrine, but delvingwrist-deep into Castalian mud, gathered huge handfuls of the profaneherb, which we washed in the sacred front, and sent to François for asalad. .. . 

As the sun sank, I sat on the marble blocks and sketched the immortallandscape. High above me, on the left, soared the enormous twin peaks ofpale-blue rock, lying half in the shadow of the mountain slope upheavedbeneath, half bathed in the deep yellow luster of sunset. Before merolled wave after wave of the Parnassian chain, divided by deep lateralvalleys, while Helicon, in the distance, gloomed like a thunder-stormunder the weight of gathered clouds. Across this wild, vast view, thebreaking clouds threw broad belts of cold blue shadow, alternating withzones of angry orange light, in which the mountains seemed to be heatedto a transparent glow. The furious wind hissed and howled over the pilesof ruin, and a few returning shepherds were the only persons to be seen. And this spot, for a thousand years, was the shrine where spake theawful oracle of Greece. 

CORINTH[52]

BY J. P. MAHAFFY

The gulf of Corinth is a very beautiful and narrow fiord, with chains ofmountains on either side, through the gaps of which you can see far intothe Morea on one side, and into Northern Greece on the other. But thebays or harbors on either coast are few, and so there was no city ableto wrest the commerce of these waters from old Corinth, which held thekeys by land of the whole Peloponnesus, and commanded the passage fromsea to sea. It is, indeed, wonderful how Corinth did not acquire andmaintain the first position in Greece. 

But as soon as the greater powers of Greece decayed and fell away, wefind Corinth immediately taking the highest position in wealth, and evenin importance. The capture of Corinth, in 146 B. C. , marks theRoman conquest of all Greece, and the art-treasures carried to Rome seemto have been as great and various as those which even Athens could haveproduced. No sooner had Julius Cæsar restored and rebuilt the ruinedcity, than it sprang at once again into importance, and among thesocieties addrest in the Epistles of St. Paul, none seems to have livedin greater wealth or luxury. It was, in fact, well-nigh impossible thatCorinth should die. Nature had marked out her site as one of the greatthoroughfares of the old world; and it was not till after centuries ofblighting misrule by the wretched Turks that she sank into the hopelessdecay from which not even another Julius Cæsar could rescue her. 

The traveler who expects to find any sufficient traces of the city ofPeriander and of Timoleon, and, I may say, of St. Paul, will begrievously disappointed. In the middle of the wretched straggling modernvillage there stand up seven enormous rough stone pillars of the DoricOrder, evidently of the oldest and heaviest type; and these are the onlyvisible relic of the ancient city, looking altogether out of place, andalmost as if they had come there by mistake. These pillars, thoinsufficient to admit of our reconstructing the temple, are inthemselves profoundly interesting. Their shaft up to the capital is ofone block, about twenty-one feet high and six feet in diameter. It is tobe observed, that over these gigantic monoliths the architrave, in whichother Greek temples show the largest blocks, is not in one piece, buttwo, and made of beams laid together longitudinally. The length of theshafts (up to the neck of the capital) measures about four times theirdiameter, on the photograph which I possess; I do not suppose that anyother Doric pillar known to us is so stout and short. 

Straight over the site of the town is the great rock known as theAcro-Corinthus. A winding path leads up on the southwest side to theTurkish drawbridge and gate, which are now deserted and open; nor isthere a single guard or soldier to watch a spot once the coveted prizeof contending empires. In the days of the Achæan League it was calledone of the fetters of Greece, and indeed it requires no militaryexperience to see the extraordinary importance of the place. 

Next to the view from the heights of Parnassus, I suppose the view fromthis citadel is held the finest in Greece. I speak here of the large anddiverse views to be obtained from mountain heights. To me, personally, such a view as that from the promontory of Sunium, or, above all, fromthe harbor of Nauplia, exceeds in beauty and interest any bird's-eyeprospect. Any one who looks at the map of Greece will see how theAcro-Corinthus commands coasts, islands, and bays. The day was too hazywhen we stood there to let us measure the real limits of the view, and Ican not say how near to Mount Olympus the eye may reach in a suitableatmosphere. But a host of islands, the southern coasts of Attica andBoeotia, the Acropolis of Athens, Salamis and Ægina, Helicon andParnassus, and endless Ætolian peaks were visible in one direction;while, as we turned round, all the waving reaches of Arcadia andArgolis, down to the approaches toward Mantinea and Karytena, laystretched out before us. The plain of Argos, and the sea at that side, are hidden by the mountains. But without going into detail, this muchmay be said, that if a man wants to realize the features of thesecoasts, which he has long studied on maps, half an hour's walk about thetop of this rock will give him a geographical insight which no years ofstudy could attain. 

OLYMPIA[53]

BY PHILIP S. MARDEN

Olympia, like Delphi, is a place of memories chiefly. The visibleremains are numerous, but so flat that some little technical knowledgeis needed to restore them in mind. There is no village at the modernOlympia at all--nothing but five or six little inns and a railwaystation--so that Delphi really has the advantage of Olympia in thisregard. As a site connected with ancient Greek history and Greekreligion, the two places are as similar in nature as they are in generalruin. The field in which the ancient structures stand lies just acrossthe tiny tributary river Cladeus, spanned by a footbridge. 

Even from the opposite bank, the ruins present a most interestingpicture, with its attractiveness greatly enhanced by the neighboringpines, which scatter themselves through the precinct itself and coverdensely the little conical hill of Kronos close by, while the grasses ofthe plain grow luxuriantly among the fallen stones of the former templesand apartments of the athletes. The ruins are so numerous and soprostrate that the non-technical visitor is seriously embarrassed todescribe them, as is the case with every site of the kind. 

All the ruins, practically, have been identified and explained, andnaturally they all have to do with the housing or with the contests ofthe visiting athletes of ancient times, or with the worship of tutelarydivinities. Almost the first extensive ruin that we found on passing theencircling precinct wall was the Prytaneum--a sort of ancient trainingtable at which victorious contestants were maintained gratis--whilebeyond lay other equally extensive remnants of exercising places, suchas the Palæstra for the wrestlers. But all these were dominated, evidently, by the two great temples, an ancient one of comparativelysmall size sacred to Hera, and a mammoth edifice dedicated to Zeus, which still gives evidence of its enormous extent, while the fallencolumn-drums reveal some idea of the other proportions. It was in itsday the chief glory of the enclosure, and the statue of the god was evenreckoned among the seven wonders of the world. Unfortunately thisstatue, like that of Athena at Athens, has been irretrievably lost. Butthere is enough of the great shrine standing in the midst of the ruinsto inspire one with an idea of its greatness; and, in the museum above, the heroic figures from its two pediments have been restored and set upin such wise as to reproduce the external adornment of the temple withremarkable success. 

Gathered around this central building, the remainder of the ancientstructures having to do with the peculiar uses of the spot present abewildering array of broken stones and marbles. An obtrusive remnant ofa Byzantine church is the one discordant feature. Aside from this theprecinct recalls only the distant time when the regular games called allGreece to Olympia, while the "peace of God" prevailed throughout thekingdom. Just at the foot of Kronos a long terrace and flight of stepsmark the position of a row of old treasuries, as at Delphi, while alongthe eastern side of the precinct are to be seen the remains of a porticoonce famous for its echoes, where sat the judges who distributed theprizes. There is also a most graceful arch remaining to mark theentrance to the ancient stadium, of which nothing else now remains. 

Of the later structures on the site, the "house of Nero" is the mostinteresting and extensive. The Olympic games were still celebrated, evenafter the Roman domination, and Nero himself entered the lists in hisown reign. He caused a palace to be erected for him on thatoccasion--and of course he won a victory, for any other outcome wouldhave been most impolite, not to say dangerous. Nero was more fortunatelylodged than were the other ancient contestants, it appears, for therewere no hostelries in old Olympia in which the visiting multitudes couldbe housed, and the athletes and spectators who came from all over theland were accustomed to bring their own tents and pitch them roundabout, many of them on the farther side of the Alpheios. 

THE TEMPLE OF ZEUS AT OLYMPIA AS IT WAS[54]

BY PAUSANIAS

Many various wonders may one see, or hear of, in Greece; but theEleusinian mysteries and Olympian games seem to exhibit more thananything else the Divine purpose. And the sacred grove of Zeus they havefrom old time called Altis, slightly changing the Greek word for grove;it is, indeed, called Altis also by Pindar, in the ode he composed for avictor at Olympia. And the temple and statue of Zeus were built out ofthe spoils of Pisa, which the people of Elis razed to the ground, afterquelling the revolt of Pisa, and some of the neighboring towns thatrevolted with Pisa. And that the statue of Zeus was the work of Phidiasis shown by the inscription written at the base of it: "Phidias theAthenian, the son of Charmides, made me. "

The temple is a Doric building, and outside it is a colonnade. And thetemple is built of stone of the district. Its height up to the gable issixty-eight feet, and its length 2, 300 feet. And its architect wasLibon, a native of Ellis. 

And the tiles on the roof are not of baked earth; but Pentelican marble, to imitate tiles. They say such roofs are the invention of a man ofNaxos called Byzes, who made statues at Naxos with the inscription:"Euergus of Naxos made me, the son of Byzes, and descended from Leto, the first who made tiles of stone. "

This Byzes was a contemporary of Alyattes the Lydian, and Astyages (theson of Cyaxares), the king of Persia. And there is a golden vase at eachend of the roof, and a golden Victory in the middle of the gable. Andunderneath the Victory is a golden shield hung up as a votive offering, with the Gorgon Medusa worked on it. The inscription on the shieldstates who hung it up, and the reason why they did so. For this is whatit says: "This temple's golden shield is a votive offering from theLacedæmonians at Tanagra and their allies, a gift from the Argives, theAthenians, and the Ionians, a tithe offering for success in war. "

The battle I mentioned in my account of Attica, when I described thetombs at Athens. And in the same temple at Olympia, above the zone thatruns round the pillars on the outside, are twenty-one golden shields, the offering of Mummius the Roman general, after he had beaten theAchæans and taken Corinth, and expelled the Dorians from Corinth. And onthe gables in bas-relief is the chariot race between Pelops andOEnomaus; and both chariots in motion. And in the middle of the gableis a statue of Zeus; and on the right hand of Zeus is OEnomaus with ahelmet on his head; and beside him his wife Sterope, one of thedaughters of Atlas. And Myrtilus, who was the charioteer of OEnomaus, is seated behind the four horses. And next to him are two men whosenames are not recorded, but they are doubtless OEnomaus's grooms, whose duty was to take care of the horses. .. . 

The carvings on the gables in front are by Pæonius of Mende in Thracia;those behind by Alcamenes, a contemporary of Phidias and second only tohim as statuary. And on the gables is a representation of the fightbetween the Lapithæ and the Centaurs at the marriage of Pirithous. Pirithous is in the center, and on one side of him is Eurytion trying tocarry off Pirithous's wife, and Cæneus coming to the rescue, and on theother side Theseus laying about among the Centaurs with his battle-ax;and one Centaur is carrying off a maiden, another a blooming boy. Alcamenes has engraved this story, I imagine, because he learned fromthe lines of Homer that Pirithous was the son of Zeus, and knew thatTheseus was fourth in descent from Pelops. There are also in bas-reliefat Olympia most of the Labors of Hercules. Above the doors of the templeis the hunting of the Erymanthian boar, and Hercules taking the maresof Diomede the Thracian, and robbing Geryon of his oxen in the island ofErytheia, and supporting the load of Atlas, and clearing the land ofElis of its dung. .. . 

The image of the god is in gold and ivory, seated on a throne. And acrown is on his head imitating the foliage of the olive tree. In hisright hand he holds a Victory in ivory and gold, with a tiara and crownon his head; and in his left hand a scepter adorned with all manner ofprecious stones, and the bird seated on the scepter is an eagle. Therobes and sandals of the god are also of gold; and on his robes areimitations of flowers, especially of lilies. And the throne is richlyadorned with gold and precious stones, and with ebony and ivory. Andthere are imitations of animals painted on it, and models worked on it. There are four Victories like dancers, one at each foot of the throne, and two also at the instep of each foot; and at each of the front feetare Theban boys carried off by Sphinxes, and below the Sphinxes, Apolloand Artemis shooting down the children of Niobe. And between the feet ofthe throne are four divisions formed by straight lines drawn from eachof the four feet. 

In the division nearest the entrance there are seven models--the eighthhas vanished no one knows where or how. And they are imitations ofancient contests, for in the days of Phidias the contests for boys werenot yet established. And the figure with its head muffled up in a scarfis, they say, Pantarcas, who was a native of Elis and the darling ofPhidias. This Pantarces won the wrestling-prize for boys in the 86thOlympiad. And in the remaining divisions is the band of Herculesfighting against the Amazons. The number on each side is twenty-nine, and Theseus is on the side of Hercules. And the throne is supported notonly by the four feet, but also by four pillars between the feet. Butone can not get under the throne, as one can at Amyclæ, and pass inside;for at Olympia there are panels like walls that keep one off. 

At the top of the throne, Phidias has represented above the head of Zeusthe three Graces and three Seasons. For these too, as we learn from thepoets, were daughters of Zeus. Homer in the Iliad has represented theSeasons as having the care of Heaven, as a kind of guards of a royalpalace. And the base under the feet of Zeus (what is called in Attic"thranion") has golden lions engraved on it, and the battle betweenTheseus and the Amazons--the first famous exploit of the Atheniansbeyond their own borders. And on the platform that supports the thronethere are various ornaments round Zeus, and gilt carving--the Sun seatedin his chariot, and Zeus and Hera; and near is Grace. Hermes is close toher, and Vesta close to Hermes. And next to Vesta is Eros receivingAphrodite, who is just rising from the sea and being crowned byPersuasion. And Apollo and Artemis, Athene and Hercules, are standingby, and at the end of the platform Amphitrite and Poseidon, and Seleneapparently urging on her horse. And some say it is a mule and not ahorse that the goddess is riding upon; and there is a silly tale aboutthis mule. 

I know that the size of the Olympian Zeus both in height and breadth hasbeen stated; but I can not bestow praise on the measurers, for theirrecorded measurement comes far short of what any one would infer fromlooking at the statue. They make the god also to have testified to theart of Phidias. For they say that when the statue was finished, Phidiasprayed him to signify if the work was to his mind; and immediately Zeus, struck with lightning that part of the pavement where in our day is abrazen urn with a lid. 

And all the pavement in front of the statue is not of white but of blackstone. And a border of Parian marble runs round this black stone, as apreservative against spilled oil. For oil is good for the statue atOlympia, as it prevents the ivory being harmed by the dampness of thegrove. But in the Acropolis at Athens, in regard to the statue of Athenecalled the Maiden, it is not oil but water that is advantageouslyemployed to the ivory; for as the citadel is dry by reason of its greatheight, the statue being made of ivory needs to be sprinkled with waterfreely. And when I was at Epidaurus, and inquired why they use neitherwater nor oil to the statue of Æsculapius, the sacristans of the templeinformed me that the statue of the god and its throne are over a well. 

THERMOPYLÆ[55]

BY RUFUS B. RICHARDSON

We took Thermopylæ at our leisure, passing out from Lamia over theSpercheios on the bridge of Alamana, at which Diakos, famous in ballad, resisted with a small band a Turkish army, until he was at last capturedand taken to Lamia to be impaled. .. . 

It may be taken as a well-known fact that the Spercheios has since thetime of Herodotus made so large an alluvial deposit around its mouththat, if he himself should return to earth, he would hardly recognizethe spot which he has described so minutely. The western horn, which inhis time came down so near to the gulf as to leave space for a singlecarriage-road only, is now separated from it by more than a mile ofplain. Each visit to Thermopylæ has, however, deepened my convictionthat Herodotus exaggerated the impregnability of this pass. The mountainspur which formed it did not rise so abruptly from the sea as to form animpassable barrier to the advance of a determined antagonist. It is ofcourse difficult ground to operate on, but certainly not impossible. 

The other narrow place, nearly two miles to the east of this, is stillmore open, a fact that is to be emphasized, because many topographers, including Colonel Leake, hold that the battle actually took placethere, as the great battle between the Romans and Antioches certainlydid. This eastern pass is, to be sure, no place where "a thousand maywell be stopt by three, " and there can not have taken place any greattransformation here since classical times, inasmuch as this region ispractically out of reach of the Spercheios, and the deposit from the hotsulfur streams, which has so broadened the theater-shaped area enclosedby the two horns, can hardly have contributed to changing the shape ofthe eastern horn itself. 

Artificial fortification was always needed here; but it is veryuncertain whether any of the stones that still remain can be claimed asparts of such fortification. It is a fine position for an inferior forceto choose for defense against a superior one; but while it can not bedeclared with absolute certainty that this is not the place where thefighting took place, yet the western pass fits better the description ofHerodotus. Besides this, if the western pass had been abandoned to thePersians at the outset the fact would have been worth mentioning. 

As to the heroic deed itself, the view that Leonidas threw away his ownlife and that of the four thousand, that it was magnificent but notstrategy, not war, does not take into account the fact that Sparta hadfor nearly half a century been looked to as the military leader ofGreece. It was audacious in the Athenians to fight the battle ofMarathon without them, and they did so only because the Spartans did notcome at their call. Sparta had not come to Thermopylæ in force, it istrue; but her king was there with three hundred of her best men. Onlyby staying and fighting could he show that Sparta held by right theplace she had won. It had to be done. "So the glory of Sparta was notblotted out. "

One may have read, and read often, the description of the battle in theschool-room, but he reads it with different eyes on the spot, when hecan look up at the hillock crowned with a ruined cavalry barrack justinside the western pass and say to himself: "Here on this hill theyfought their last fight and fell to the last man. Here once stood themonuments to Leonidas, to the three hundred, and to the four thousand. "

The very monuments have crumbled to dust, but the great deed lives on. We rode back to Lamia under the spell of it. It was as if we had been inchurch and been held by a great preacher who knows how to touch thedeepest chords of the heart. Euboea was already dark blue, while thesky above it was shaded from pink to purple. Tymphrestos in the west wasbathed in the light of the sun that had gone down behind it. The wholesurrounding was most stirring, and there was ever sounding in our heartsthat deep bass note: "What they did here. "

SALONICA[56]

BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

The city of Salonica lies on a fine bay, and presents an attractiveappearance from the harbor, rising up the hill in the form of anamphitheater. On all sides, except the sea, ancient walls surround it, fortified at the angles by large, round towers and crowned in thecenter, on the hill, by a respectable citadel. I suppose that portionsof these walls are of Hellenic, and perhaps, Pelasgic date, but the mostare probably of the time of the Latin crusaders' occupation, patched andrepaired by Saracens and Turks. We had come to Thessalonica on St. Paul's account, not expecting to see much that would excite us, and wewere not disappointed. When we went ashore we found ourselves in a cityof perhaps sixty thousand inhabitants, commonplace in aspect, altho itsbazaars are well filled with European goods, and a fair display ofOriental stuffs and antiquities, and animated by considerable brisknessof trade. I presume there are more Jews here than there were in Paul'stime, but Turks and Greeks, in nearly equal numbers, form the bulk ofthe population. 

In modern Salonica there is not much respect for pagan antiquities, andone sees only the usual fragments of columns and sculptures worked intowalls or incorporated in Christian churches. But those curious in earlyByzantine architecture will find more to interest them here than in anyplace in the world except Constantinople. We spent the day wanderingabout the city, under the guidance of a young Jew, who was withouteither prejudices or information. On our way to the Mosque of St. Sophia, we passed through the quarter of the Jews, which is much cleanerthan is usual with them. These are the descendants of Spanish Jews, whowere expelled by Isabella, and they still retain, in a corrupt form, thelanguage of Spain. In the doors and windows were many pretty Jewesses;banishment and vicissitude appear to agree with this elastic race, forin all the countries of Europe Jewish women develop more beauty in formand feature than in Palestine. We saw here and in other parts of thecity a novel head-dress, which may commend itself to America in therevolutions of fashion. A great mass of hair, real or assumed, wasgathered into a long, slender, green bag, which hung down the back andwas terminated by a heavy fringe of silver. Otherwise, the dress of theJewish women does not differ much from that of the men; the latter weara fez or turban, and a tunic which reaches to the ankles, and is boundabout the waist by a gay sash or shawl. 

The Mosque of St. Sophia, once a church, and copied in its proportionsand style from its namesake in Constantinople, is retired, in adelightful court, shaded by gigantic trees and cheered by a fountain. Sopeaceful a spot we had not seen in many a day; birds sang in the treeswithout disturbing the calm of the meditative pilgrim. In the porticoand also in the interior are noble columns of marble and verd-antique, and in the dome is a wonderfully quaint mosaic of the Transfiguration. We were shown also a magnificent pulpit of the latter beautiful stonecut from a solid block, in which it is said St. Paul preached. As theApostle, according to his custom, reasoned with the people out of theScriptures in a synagogue, and this church was not built for centuriesafter his visit, the statement needs confirmation; but pious ingenuitysuggests that the pulpit stood in a subterranean church underneath this. I should like to believe that Paul sanctified this very spot with hispresence; but there is little in its quiet seclusion to remind one ofhim who had the reputation when he was in Thessalonica of one of thosewho turn the world upside down. 

FROM THE PIERIAN PLAIN TO MARATHON[57]

BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

At early light of a cloudless morning we were going easily down the Gulfof Thermæ or Salonica, having upon our right the Pierian plain; and Itried to distinguish the two mounds which mark the place of the greatbattle near Pydna, one hundred and sixty-eight years before Christ, between Æmilius Paulus and King Perseus, which gave Macedonia to theRoman Empire. Beyond, almost ten thousand feet in the air, toweredOlympus, upon whose "broad" summit Homer displays the ethereal palacesand inaccessible abode of the Grecian gods. Shaggy forests still clotheits sides, but snow now, and for the greater part of the year, coversthe wide surface of the height, which is a sterile, light-colored rock. The gods did not want snow to cool the nectar at their banquets. 

This is the very center of the mythologic world; there between Olympusand Ossa is the Vale of Tempe, where the Peneus, breaking through anarrow gorge fringed with the sacred laurel, reaches the gulf, south ofancient Heracleum. Into this charming but secluded retreat the gods andgoddesses, weary of the icy air, or the Pumblechookian deportment of thecourt of Olympian Jove, descended to pass the sunny hours with theyouths and maidens of mortal mold; through this defile marks ofchariot-wheels still attest the passage of armies which flowed eitherway, in invasion or retreat; and here Pompey, after a ride of fortymiles from the fatal field of Pharsalia, quenched his thirst. 

At six o'clock the Cape of Posilio was on our left, we were sinkingOlympus in the white haze of morning, Ossa, in its huge silver bulk, wasnear us, and Pelion stretched its long white back below. The sharp coneof Ossa might well ride upon the extended back of Pelion, and it seems apity that the Titans did not succeed in their attempt. We were leaving, and looking our last on the Thracian coasts, once rimmed from Mt. Athosto the Bosphorus with a wreath of prosperous cities. What must oncehave been the splendor of the Ægean Sea and its islands, when everyisland was the seat of a vigorous state, and every harbor the site of acommercial town which sent forth adventurous galleys upon any errand oftrade or conquest!. .. 

We ascended Mt. Pentelicus. Hymettus and Pentelicus are about the sameheight--thirty-five hundred feet--but the latter, ten miles to thenortheast of Athens, commands every foot of the Attic territory; if oneshould sit on its summit and read a history of the little state, hewould need no map. 

Up to the highest quarries the road is steep, and strewn with brokenmarble, and after that there is an hour's scramble through bushes andover a rocky path. From these quarries was hewn the marble for theTemple of Theseus, the Parthenon, the Propylæ, the theaters, and otherpublic buildings, to which age has now given a soft and creamy tone; thePentelic marble must have been too brilliant for the eye, and itsdazzling luster was, no doubt, softened by the judicious use of color. Fragments which we broke off had the sparkle and crystalline grain ofloaf-sugar, and if they were placed upon the table one wouldunhesitatingly take them to sweeten his tea. The whole mountain-side isovergrown with laurel, and we found wild flowers all the way to thesummit. .. . 

We looked almost directly down upon Marathon. There is the bay and thecurving sandy shore where the Persian galleys landed; here upon a spur, jutting out from the hill, the Athenians formed before they encounteredthe host in the plain, and there--alas! it was hidden by a hill--is themound where the one hundred and ninety-two Athenian dead are buried. Itis only a small field, perhaps six miles along the shore and a mile anda half deep, and there is a considerable marsh on the north and a smallone at the south end. The victory at so little cost, of ten thousandover a hundred thousand, is partially explained by the nature of theground; the Persians had not room enough to maneuver, and must have beenthrown into confusion on the skirts of the northern swamp, and if oversix thousand of them were slain, they must have been killed on the shorein the panic of their embarkation. But still the shore is broad, level, and firm, and the Greeks must have been convinced that the godsthemselves terrified the hearts of the barbarians, and enabled them todiscomfit a host which had chosen this plain as the most feasible in allAttica for the action of cavalry. 

AN EXCURSION TO SPARTA AND MAINA[58]

BY BAYARD TAYLOR

As we approached Sparta, the road descended to the banks of the Eurotas. Traces of the ancient walls which restrained the river still remain inplaces, but, in his shifting course, he has swept the most of them away, and spread his gravelly deposits freely over the bottoms inclosedbetween the spurs of the hills. Toward evening we saw, at a distance, the white houses of modern Sparta, and presently some indications of theancient city. At first, the remains of terraces and ramparts, then theunmistakable Hellenic walls, and, as the superb plain of the Eurotasburst upon us, stretching, in garden-like beauty, to the foot of theabrupt hills, over which towered the sun-touched snows of Taygetus, wesaw, close on our right, almost the only relic of the lost ages--thetheater. Riding across the field of wheat, which extended all over thescene of the Spartan gymnastic exhibitions, we stood on the prosceniumand contemplated these silent ruins, and the broad, beautiful landscape. It is one of the finest views in Greece--not so crowded with strikingpoints, not so splendid in associations as that of Athens, but larger, grander, richer in coloring. Besides the theater, the only remains aresome masses of Roman brickwork, and the massive substructions of a smalltemple which the natives call the tomb of Leonidas. .. . 

We spent the night in a comfortable house, which actually boasted of afloor, glass windows, and muslin curtains. On returning to the theaterin the morning, we turned aside into a plowed field to inspect asarcophagus which had just been discovered. It still lay in the pitwhere it was found, and was entire, with the exception of the lid. Itwas ten feet long by four broad, and was remarkable in having a divisionat one end, forming a smaller chamber, as if for the purpose ofreceiving the bones of a child. From the theater I made a sketch of thevalley, with the dazzling ridge of Taygetus in the rear, and Mistra, themedieval Sparta, hanging on the steep sides of one of his gorges. Thesun was intensely hot, and we were glad to descend again, making our waythrough tall wheat, past walls of Roman brickwork and scattering blocksof the older city, to the tomb of Leonidas. This is said to be a temple, tho there are traces of vaults and passages beneath the pavement whichdo not quite harmonize with such a conjecture. It is composed of hugeblocks of breccia, some of them thirteen feet long. 

I determined to make an excursion to Maina. This is a region rarelyvisited by travelers, who are generally frightened off by the reputationof its inhabitants, who are considered by the Greeks to be bandits andcut-throats to a man. The Mainotes are, for the most part, linealdescendants of the ancient Spartans, and, from the decline of the Romanpower up to the present century, have preserved a virtual independencein their mountain fastnesses. The worship of the pagan deities existedamong them as late as the eighth century. They were never conquered bythe Turks, and it required considerable management to bring them underthe rule of Otho. .. . 

Starting at noon, we passed through the modern Sparta, which is welllaid out with broad streets. The site is superb, and in the course oftime the new town will take the place of Mistra. We rode southward, downthe valley of the Eurotas, through orchards of olive and mulberry. Westopt for the night at the little khan of Levetzova. I saw some cowspasturing here, quite a rare sight in Greece, where genuine butter isunknown. That which is made from the milk of sheep and goats is nobetter than mild tallow. The people informed me, however, that they makecheese from cow's milk, but not during Lent. They are now occupied withrearing Paschal lambs, a quarter of a million of which are slaughteredin Greece on Easter Day. The next morning, we rode over hills coveredwith real turf, a little thin, perhaps, but still a rare sight insouthern lands. In two hours we entered the territory of Maina, on thecrest of a hill, where we saw Marathonisi (the ancient Gythium), lyingwarm upon the Laconian Gulf. The town is a steep, dirty, labyrinthineplace, and so rarely visited by strangers that our appearance createdquite a sensation. .. . 

A broad, rich valley opened before us, crossed by belts of poplar andwillow trees, and inclosed by a semicircle of hills, most of which werecrowned with the lofty towers of the Mainotes. In Maina almost everyhouse is a fortress. The law of blood revenge, the right of which istransmitted from father to son, draws the whole population under itsbloody sway in the course of a few generations. Life is a running fight, and every foe slain entails on the slayer a new penalty of retributionfor himself and his descendants for ever. 

Previous to the revolution most of the Mainote families lived in a stateof alternate attack and siege. Their houses are square towers, forty orfifty feet high, with massive walls, and windows so narrow that theymay be used as loopholes for musketry. The first story is at aconsiderable distance from the ground, and reached by a long ladderwhich can be drawn up so as to cut off all communication. Some of thetowers are further strengthened by a semicircular bastion, projectingfrom the side most liable to attack. The families supplied themselveswith telescopes, to look out for enemies in the distance, and always hada store of provisions on hand, in case of a siege. Altho this privatewarfare has been supprest, the law of revenge exists. 

From the summit of the first range we overlooked a wild, gloriouslandscape. The hills, wooded with oak, and swimming in soft blue vapor, interlocked far before us, inclosing the loveliest green dells in theirembraces, and melting away to the break in Taygetus, which yawned in thedistance. On the right towered the square, embrasured castle of Passavaon the summit of an almost inaccessible hill--the site of the ancientLas. Far and near, the lower heights were crowned with tall, whitetowers. 

MESSENIA[59]

BY BAYARD TAYLOR

The plain of Messenia is the richest part of the Morea. Altho its grovesof orange and olive, fig and mulberry, were entirely destroyed duringthe Egyptian occupation, new and more vigorous shoots have sprung upfrom the old stumps and the desolated country is a garden again, apparently as fair and fruitful as when it excited the covetousness ofthe Spartan thieves. Sloping to the gulf on the south, and protectedfrom the winds on all other sides by lofty mountains, it enjoys analmost Egyptian warmth of climate. Here it was already summer, while atSparta, on the other side of Taygetus, spring had but just arrived, andthe central plain of Arcadia was still bleak and gray as in winter. Asit was market-day, we met hundreds of the country people going toKalamata with laden asses. .. . 

We crossed the rapid Pamisos with some difficulty, and ascended itsright bank, to the foot of Mount Evan, which we climbed, by rough pathsthrough thickets of mastic and furze, to the monastery of Vurkano. Thebuilding has a magnificent situation, on a terrace between Mount Evanand Mount Ithome, overlooking both the upper and lower plains of thePamisos--a glorious spread of landscape, green with spring, and touchedby the sun with the airiest prismatic tints through breaks of heavyrain-clouds. Inside the courts is an old Byzantine chapel, withfleurs-de-lis on the decorations, showing that it dates from the time ofthe Latin princes. The monks received us very cordially, gave us aclean, spacious room, and sent us a bottle of excellent wine for dinner. 

We ascended Ithome and visited the massive ruins of Messene the sameday. The great gate of the city, a portion of the wall, and four of thetowers of defense, are in tolerable condition. The name of Epaminondashallows these remains, which otherwise, grand as they are, do notimpress one like the cyclopean walls of Tiryns. The wonder is, that theycould have been built in so short a time--eighty-five days, sayshistory, which would appear incredible, had not still more marvelousthings of the kind been done in Russia. 

The next day, we rode across the head of the Messenian plain, crossedthe Mount Lycæus and the gorge of the Neda, and lodged at the littlevillage of Tragoge, on the frontiers of Arcadia. Our experience ofGrecian highways was pleasantly increased by finding fields ploweddirectly across our road, fences of dried furze built over it, andditches cutting it at all angles. Sometimes all trace of it would belost for half a mile, and we were obliged to ride over the growing cropsuntil we could find a bit of fresh trail. 

The bridle-path over Mount Lycæus was steep and bad, but led us throughthe heart of a beautiful region. The broad back of the mountain iscovered with a grove of superb oaks, centuries old, their long armsmuffled in golden moss, and adorned with a plumage of ferns. The turf attheir feet was studded with violets, filling the air with deliciousodors. This sylvan retreat was the birthplace of Pan, and no morefitting home for the universal god can be imagined. On the northern sidewe descended for some time through a forest of immense ilex trees, whichsprang from a floor of green moss and covered our pathway with summershade. .. . 

We were now in the heart of the wild mountain region of Messenia, inwhose fastnesses Aristomenes, the epic hero of the state, maintainedhimself so long against the Spartans. The tremendous gorge below us wasthe bed of the Neda, which we crossed in order to enter the lateralvalley of Phigalia, where lay Tragoge. The path was not only difficultbut dangerous--in some places a mere hand's-breath of gravel, on theedge of a plane so steep that a single slip of a horse's foot would havesent him headlong to the bottom. 

In the morning, a terrible sirocco levante was blowing, with an almostfreezing cold. The fury of the wind was so great that in crossing theexposed ridges it was difficult to keep one's seat upon the horse. Weclimbed toward the central peak of the Lycæan Hills, through a wild dellbetween two ridges, which were covered to the summit with magnificentgroves of oak. Starry blue flowers, violets and pink crocuses spangledthe banks as we wound onward, between the great trunks. The temple ofApollo Epicurius stands on a little platform between the two highestpeaks, about 3, 500 feet above the sea. 

On the day of our visit, its pillars of pale bluish-gray limestone roseagainst a wintry sky, its guardian oaks were leafless, and the windwhistled over its heaps of ruin; yet its symmetry was like that of aperfect statue, wherein you do not notice the absence of color, and Ifelt that no sky and no season could make it more beautiful. For itsbuilder was Ictinus, who created the Parthenon. It was erected by thePhigalians, out of gratitude to Apollo the Helper, who kept from theircity a plague which ravaged the rest of the Peloponnesus. Owing to itssecluded position, it has escaped the fate of other temples, and mightbe restored from its own undestroyed materials. The cella had beenthrown down, but thirty-five out of thirty-eight columns are stillstanding. Through the Doric shafts you look upon a wide panorama of graymountains, melting into purple in the distance, and crowned by arcs ofthe far-off sea. On one hand is Ithome and the Messenian Gulf, on theother the Ionian Sea and the Strophades. .. . 

We now trotted down the valley, over beautiful meadows, which wereuncultivated except in a few places where the peasants were plowing formaize, and had destroyed every trace of the road. The hills on bothsides began to be fringed with pine, while the higher ridges on ourright were clothed with woods of oak. I was surprised at the luxuriantvegetation of this region. The laurel and mastic became trees, the pineshot to a height of one hundred feet, and the beech and sycamore beganto appear. Some of the pines had been cut for ship-timber, but in therudest and most wasteful way, only the limbs which had the proper curvebeing chosen for ribs. I did not see a single sawmill in thePeloponnesus; but I am told that there are a few in Euboea andAcarnania. .. . 

As we approached Olympia, I could almost have believed myself among thepine-hills of Germany or America. In the old times this must have been alovely, secluded region, well befitting the honored repose of Xenophon, who wrote his works here. The sky became heavier as the day wore on, andthe rain, which had spared us so long, finally inclosed us in its mistycircle. Toward evening we reached a lonely little house, on the banks ofthe Alpheus. Nobody was at home, but we succeeded in forcing a door andgetting shelter for our baggage. François had supper nearly ready beforethe proprietor arrived. The latter had neither wife nor child, tho a fewchicks, and took our burglarious occupation very good-humoredly. Weshared the same leaky roof with our horses, and the abundant fleas withthe owner's dogs. 

TIRYNS AND MYCENÆ[60]

BY J. P. MAHAFFY

The fortress of Tiryns may fitly be commented on before approaching theyounger, or at least more artistically finished, Mycenæ. It standsseveral miles nearer to the sea, in the center of the great plain ofArgos, and upon the only hillock which there affords any natural scopefor fortification. Instead of the square, or at least hewn, well-fittedblocks of Mycenæ, we have here the older style of rude masses piledtogether as best they would fit, the interstices being filled up withsmaller fragments. This is essentially cyclopean building. There is asmaller fort, of rectangular shape, on the southern and highest part ofthe oblong hillock, the whole of which is surrounded by a lower wall, which takes in both this and the northern longer part of the ridge. Itlooks, in fact, like a hill-fort, with a large inclosure for cattlearound it. 

Just below the northeast angle of the inner fort, and where the lowercircuit is about to leave it, there is an entrance, with a massiveprojection of huge stones, looking like a square tower, on its rightside, so as to defend it from attack. The most remarkable feature in thewalls are the covered galleries, constructed within them at thesoutheast angle. The whole thickness of the wall is often over twentyfeet, and in the center a rude arched way is made--or rather, I believe, two parallel ways; but the inner gallery has fallen in, and is almostuntraceable--and this merely by piling together the great stones so asto leave an opening, which narrows at the top in the form of a Gothicarch. Within the passage, there are five niches in the outer side, madeof rude arches in the same way as the main passage. The length of thegallery I measured, and found it twenty-five yards, at the end of whichit is regularly walled up, so that it evidently did not run all the wayround. The niches are now no longer open, but seem to have been oncewindows, or at least to have had some lookout points into the hillcountry. 

It is remarkable that, altho the walls are made of perfectly rudestones, the builders have managed to use so many smooth surfaces lookingoutward, that the face of the wall seems quite clean and well built. Atthe southeast corner of the higher and inner fort, we found a largeblock of red granite, quite different from the rough, gray stone of thebuilding, with its surface square and smooth, and all the four sidesneatly beveled, like the portal stones at the treasury of Atreus. Ifound two other similar blocks close by, which were likewise cut smoothon the surface. The intention of these stones we could not guess, butthey show that some ornament, and some more finished work, must haveonce existed in the inner fort. Tho both the main entrances have massivetowers of stone raised on their right, there is a small postern at theopposite or west side, not more than four feet wide, which has nodefenses whatever, and is a mere hole in the wall. 

The whole ruin is covered in summer with thistles, such as Englishpeople can hardly imagine. The needles at the points of the leaves arefully an inch long, extremely fine and strong, and sharper than anytwo-edged sword. No clothes except a leather dress can resist them. Theypierce everywhere with the most stinging pain, and make antiquarianresearch in this famous spot a veritable martyrdom, which can only besupported by a very burning thirst for knowledge, or the sure hope offuture fame. The rough masses of stone are so loose that one's footingis insecure, and when the traveler loses his balance, and falls amongthe thistles, he will wish that he had gone to Jericho instead, or evenfallen among thieves on the way. 

It is impossible to approach Mycenæ from any side without being struckwith the picturesqueness of the site. If you come down over themountains from Corinth, as soon as you reach the head of the valley ofthe Inachus, which is the plain of Argos, you turn aside to the left, oreast, into a secluded corner--"a recess of the horse-feeding Argos, " asHomer calls it--and then you find on the edge of the valley, and wherethe hills begin to rise one behind the other, the village of Charváti. When you ascend from this place, you find that the lofty Mount Elias isseparated from the plain by two nearly parallel waves of land, which areindeed joined at the northern end by a curving saddle, but elsewhere aredivided by deep gorges. The loftier and shorter wave forms the rockycitadel of Mycenæ--the Argion, as it was once called. 

I need not attempt a fresh description of the Great Treasury. It is inno sense a rude building, or one of a helpless and barbarous age, but, on the contrary, the product of enormous appliances, and of a perfectknowledge of all the mechanical requirements for any building, if weexcept the application of the arch. The stones are hewn square, orcurved to form the circular dome within, with admirable exactness. Abovethe enormous lintel-stone, nearly twenty-seven feet long, and which isdoubly grooved, by way of ornament, all along its edge over the doorway, there is now a triangular window or aperture, which was certainly filledwith some artistic carving like the analogous space over the lintel inthe gate of the Acropolis. Shortly after Lord Elgin had cleared theentrance, Gell and Dodwell found various pieces of green and red marblecarved with geometrical patterns, some of which are reproduced inDodwell's book. Gell also found some fragments in a neighboring chapel, and others are said to be built into a wall at Nauplia. There aresupposed to have been short columns standing on each side in front ofthe gate, with some ornament surmounting them; but this seems to me torest on doubtful evidence, and on theoretical reconstruction. Dr. Schliemann, however, asserts them to have been found at the entrance ofthe second treasury which Mrs. Schliemann excavated, tho his account issomewhat vague. There is the strongest architectural reason for thetriangular aperture over the door, as it diminishes the enormous weightto be borne by the lintel; and here, no doubt, some ornament very likelions on the other gate may have been applied. 

There has been much controversy about the use to which this building wasapplied, and we can not now attempt to change the name, even if we couldprove its absurdity. Pausanias, who saw Mycenæ in the second centuryA. D. , found it in much the same state as we do, and was nobetter informed than we, tho he tells us the popular belief that thisand its fellows were treasure-houses like that of the Minyæ atOrchomenus, which was very much greater, and was, in his opinion, one ofthe most wonderful things in all Greece. 

Standing at the entrance, you look out upon the scattered masonry of thewalls of Mycenæ, on the hillock over against you. Close behind this is adark and solemn chain of mountains. The view is narrow and confined, andfaces the north, so that, for most of the day, the gate is dark and inshadow. We can conceive no fitter place for the burial of a king, within sight of his citadel, in the heart of a deep natural hillock, with a great solemn portal symbolizing the resistless strength of thebarrier which he had passed into an unknown land. But one more remarkseems necessary. This treasure-house is by no means a Greek building inits features. It has the same perfection of construction which can beseen at Eleutheræ, or any other Greek fort, but still the reallyanalogous buildings are to be found in far distant lands--in the rathsof Ireland, and the barrows of the Crimea. 

 "And yet how lovely in thine age of woe, Land of lost gods and godlike men, are thou! Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow, Proclaim thee Nature's varied favourite now: Thy fanes, thy temples to the surface bow, Commingling slowly with heroic earth, Broke by the share of every rustic plough:

 "Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild: Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, Thine olives ripe as when Minerva smiled, And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields; There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds, The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain air; Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare; Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair. "

 --From Byron's "Childe Harold. "

IX

THE GREEK ISLANDS

A TOUR OF CRETE[61]

BY BAYARD TAYLOR

Crete lies between the parallels of 35 degrees and 36 degrees, not muchfarther removed from Africa than from Europe, and its climate, consequently, is intermediate between that of Greece and that ofAlexandria. In the morning it was already visible, altho some thirtymiles distant, the magnificent snowy mass of the White Mountainsgleaming before us, under a bank of clouds. By ten o'clock, the longblue line of the coast broke into irregular points, the Dictynnæanpromontory and that of Akroteri thrusting themselves out toward us so asto give an amphitheatric character to that part of the island we wereapproaching, while the broad, snowy dome of the Cretan Ida, standingalone, far to the east, floated in a sea of soft, golden light. TheWhite Mountains were completely enveloped in snow to a distance of 4, 000feet below their summits, and scarcely a rock pierced the luminouscovering. The shores of the Gulf of Khania, retaining theiramphitheatric form, rose gradually from the water, a rich panorama ofwheat-fields, vineyards and olive groves, crowded with sparklingvillages, while Khania, in the center, grew into distinctness--apicturesque jumble of mosques, old Venetian arches and walls, pink andyellow buildings, and palm trees. The character of the scene was Syrianrather than Greek, being altogether richer and warmer than anything inGreece. 

Khania occupies the site of the ancient Cydonia, by which name the Greekbishopric is still called. The Venetian city was founded in 1252, andany remnants of the older town which may have then remained, were quiteobliterated by it. The only ruins now are those of Venetian churches, some of which have been converted into mosques, and a number of immensearched vaults, opening on the harbor, built to shelter the galleys ofthe Republic. Just beyond the point on which stands the Serai, I countedfifteen of these, side by side, eleven of which are still entire. Alittle further, there are three more, but all are choked up with sand, and of no present use. The modern town is an exact picture of a Syrianseaport, with its narrow, crooked streets, shaded bazaars, and turbanedmerchants. Its population is 9, 500, including the garrison, according toa census just completed at the time of our visit. It is walled, and thegates are closed during the night. .. . 

Passing through the large Turkish cemetery, which was covered with anearly crop of blue anemones, we came upon the rich plain of Khania, lying broad and fair, like a superb garden, at the foot of the WhiteMountains, whose vast masses of shining snow filled up the entiresouthern heaven. Eastward, the plain slopes to the deep Bay of Suda, whose surface shone blue above the silvery line of the olive groves;while, sixty miles away, rising high above the intermediate headlands, the solitary peak of Mount Ida, bathed in a warm afternoon glow, gleamedlike an Olympian mount, not only the birthplace, but the throne ofimmortal Jove. Immense olive trees from the dark-red, fertile earth;cypresses and the canopied Italian pine interrupted their gray monotony, and every garden hung the golden lamps of its oranges over the wall. Theplain is a paradise of fruitfulness. .. . 

In the morning, the horses were brought to us at an early hour, incharge of a jolly old officer of gendarmes, who was to accompany us. Asfar as the village of Kalepa, there is a carriage road; afterward, onlya stony path. From the spinal ridge of the promontory, which we crossed, we overlooked all the plain of Khania, and beyond the Dictynnæanpeninsula, to the western extremity of Crete. The White Mountains, tholess than seven thousand, feet in height, deceive the eye by thecontrast between their spotless snows and the summer at their base, andseem to rival the Alps. The day was cloudless and balmy; birds sang onevery tree, and the grassy hollows were starred with anemones, white, pink, violet and crimson. It was the first breath of the southernspring, after a winter which had been as terrible for Crete as forGreece. 

After a ride of three hours, we reached a broad valley, at the foot ofthat barren mountain mass in which the promontory terminates. To theeastward we saw the large monastery of Agia Triada (the Holy Trinity), overlooking its fat sweep of vine and olive land. .. . In the deep, drymountain glen which we entered, I found numbers of carob-trees. Rocks ofdark-blue limestone, stained with bright orange oxydations, overhung usas we followed the track of a torrent upward into the heart of thisbleak region, where, surrounded by the hot, arid peaks, is the Monasteryof Governato. 

We descended on foot to the Monastery of Katholiko, which we reached inhalf an hour. Its situation is like that of San Saba in Palestine, atthe bottom of a split in the stony hills, and the sun rarely shines uponit. Steps cut in the rock lead down the face of the precipice to thedeserted monastery, near which is a cavern 500 feet long, leading intothe rock. The ravine is spanned by an arch, nearly fifty feet high. 

At Agia Triada, as we rode up the stately avenue of cypresses, betweenvineyards and almond trees in blossom, servants advanced to take ourhorses, and the abbot shouted, "Welcome, " from the top of the steps. Wewere ushered into a clean room, furnished with a tolerable library oforthodox volumes. A boy of fifteen, with a face like the young Raphael, brought us glasses of a rich, dark wine, something like port, some jellyand coffee. The size and substantial character of this monastery attestsits wealth, no less than the flourishing appearance of the landsbelonging to it. Its large courtyard is shaded with vine-bowers andorange trees, and the chapel in the center has a façade supported byDoric columns. 

THE COLOSSAL RUINS OF CNOSSOS[62]

BY PHILIP S. MARDEN

The ruins [of the Cnossos palace] lie at the east of the high road, in adeep valley. Their excavation has been very complete and satisfactory, and while some restorations have been attempted here and there, chieflybecause of absolute necessity to preserve portions of the structure, they are not such restorations as to jar on one, but exhibit a fidelityto tradition that saves them from the common fate of such efforts. Little or no retouching was necessary in the case of the stupendousflights of steps that were found leading up to the door of thisprehistoric royal residence, and which are the first of the many sightsthe visitor of to-day may see. 

It is in the so-called "throne room of Minos" that the restoring hand isfirst met. Here it has been found necessary to provide a roof, thatdamage by weather be avoided; and to-day the throne room is a duskyspot, rather below the general level of the place. Its chief treasure isthe throne itself, a stone chair, carved in rather rudimentaryornamentation, and about the size of an ordinary chair. The roof issupported by the curious, top-heavy-looking stone pillars, that areknown to have prevailed not only in the Minoan but in Mycenæan period;monoliths noticeably larger at the top than at the bottom, reversing theusual form of stone pillar with which later ages have made us morefamiliar. This quite illogical inversion of what we now regard as theproper form has been accounted for in theory, by assuming that it wasthe natural successor of the sharpened wooden stake. When the ancientsadopted stone supports for their roofs, they simply took over the formsthey had been familiar with in the former use of wood, and the resultwas a stone pillar that copied the earlier wooden one in shape. Time, ofcourse, served to show that the natural way of building demanded thereversal of this custom; but in the Mycenæan age it had not beendiscovered, for there are evidences that similar pillars existed inbuildings of that period, and the representation of a pillar that standsbetween the two lions on Mycenæ's famous gate has this inverted form. 

Many hours may be spent in detailed examination of this colossal ruin, testifying to what must have been in its day an enormous and impressivepalace. One can not go far in traversing it without noticing the tracesstill evident enough of the fire that obviously destroyed it manyhundred, if not several thousand, years before Christ. Along the westernside have been discovered long corridors, from which scores of long andnarrow rooms were to be entered. These, in the published plans, serve togive to the ruin a large share of its labyrinthine character. It seemsto be agreed now that these were the storerooms of the palace, and inthem may still be seen the huge earthen jars which once served tocontain the palace supplies. Long rows of them stand in the ancienthallways and in the narrow cells that lead off them, each jar largeenough to hold a fair-sized man, and in number sufficient to haveaccommodated Ali Baba and the immortal forty thieves. In the center ofthe palace little remains; but in the southeastern corner, where theland begins to slope abruptly to the valley below, there are to be seenseveral stories of the ancient building. Here one comes upon the roomsmarked with the so-called "distaff" pattern, supposed to indicate thatthey were the women's quarters. 

The restorer has been busy here, but not offensively so. Much of theancient wall is intact, and in one place is a bathroom with a verydiminutive bathtub still in place. Along the eastern side is also shownthe oil press, where olives were once made to yield their covetedjuices, and from the press proper a stone gutter conducted the fluiddown to the point where jars were placed to receive it. This discoveryof oil presses in ancient buildings, by the way, has served in more thanone case to arouse speculation as to the antiquity of oil lamps such aswere once supposed to belong only to a much later epoch. Whether in theMinoan days they had such lamps or not, it is known that they had atleast an oil press and a good one. In the side of the hill below themain palace of Minos has been unearthed a smaller structure, which theynow call the "villa, " and in which several terraces, have been uncoveredrather similar to the larger building above. Here is another throneroom, cunningly contrived to be lighted by a long shaft of light fromabove falling on the seat of justice itself, while the rest of the roomis in obscurity. 

It may be that it requires a stretch of the imagination to compare thepalace of Cnossos with Troy, but nevertheless there are one or twofeatures that seem not unlike the discoveries made by Dr. Schliemann onthat famous site. Notably so, it seems to me, are the traces of thefinal fire, which are to be seen at Cnossos as at Troy, and the hugejars, which may be compared with the receptacles the Trojan excavatorsunearthed, and found still to contain dried peas and other things thatthe Trojans left behind when they fled from their sacked and burningcity. Few are privileged to visit the site of Priam's city, which ishard, indeed, to reach; but it is easy enough to make the excursion toCandia and visit the palace of old King Minos, which is amply worth thetrouble, besides giving a glimpse of a civilization that is possiblyvastly older than even that of Troy and Mycenæ. For those who reverencethe great antiquities, Candia and its pre-classic suburb are distinctlyworth visiting, and are unique among the sights of the ancient Hellenicand pre-Hellenic world. 

CORFU[63]

BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN

From whichever side our traveler draws near to Corfu, he comes fromlands where Greek influence and Greek colonization spread in ancienttimes, but from which the Greek elements have been gradually driven out, partly by the barbarism of the East, partly by the rival civilization ofthe West. The land which we see is Hellenic in a sense in which not evenSicily, not even the Great Hellas of Southern Italy, much less than theDalmatian archipelago, ever became Hellenic. Prom the first historicglimpse which we get of Korkyra, [64] it is not merely a land fringed byHellenic colonies; it is a Hellenic island, the dominion of a singleHellenic city, a territory the whole of whose inhabitants were, at thebeginning of recorded history, either actually Hellenic or so thoroughlyhellenized that no one thought of calling their Hellenic position inquestion. Modern policy has restored it to its old position by making itan integral portion of the modern Greek kingdom. 

To the south of the present town, connected with it by a favorite walkof the inhabitants of Corfu, a long and broad peninsula stretches boldlyinto the sea. Both from land and from sea, it chiefly strikes the eye asa wooded mass, thickly covered with the aged olive trees which form somarked a feature in the scenery of the island. A few houses skirt thebase, growing on the land side into the suburb of Kastrades, which maypass for a kind of connecting link between the old and the new city. Andfrom the midst of the wood, on the side nearest to the modern town, stands out the villa of the King of the Greeks, the chief moderndwelling on the site of ancient Korkyra. This peninsular hill, stillknown as Palaiopolis, was the site of the old Corinthian city whose nameis so familiar to every reader of Thucydides. On either side of it liesone of its two forsaken harbors. Between the old and the new city liesthe so-called harbor of Alkinoos; beyond the peninsula, stretching farinland, lies the old Hyllaic harbor, bearing the name of one of thethree tribes which seem to have been essential to the being of a Doriancommonwealth. .. . 

This last is the Corfu whose fate seems to have been to become thepossession of every power which has ruled in that quarter of the world, with one exception. For fourteen hundred years the history of the islandis the history of endless changes of masters. We see it first a nominalally, then a direct possession, of Rome and of Constantinople; we thensee it formed into a separate Byzantine principality, conquered by theNorman lord of Sicily, again a possession of the Empire, then amomentary possession of Venice, again a possession of the Siciliankingdom under its Angevin kings, till at last it came back to Venetianrule, and abode for four hundred years under the Lion of Saint Mark. Then it became part of that first strange Septinsular Republic of whichthe Czar was to be the protector and the Sultan the overlord. Then itwas a possession of France; then a member of the second SeptinsularRepublic under the hardly disguised sovereignty of England; now at lastit is the most distant, but one of the most valuable, of the provincesof the modern Greek kingdom. 

Of the modern city there is but little to say. As becomes a city whichwas so long a Venetian possession, the older part of it has much of thecharacter of an Italian town. It is rich in street arcades; but theypresent but few architectural features; and we find none of thosevarious forms of ornamental window so common, not only in Venice andVerona, but in Spalato, Cattaro, and Traü. The churches in the moderncity are architecturally worthless. They are interesting so far as theywill give to many their first impression of orthodox arrangement andorthodox ritual. The few ecclesiastical antiquities of the place belongto the elder city. The suburb of the lower slope of the hill containsthree churches, all of them small, but each of which has an interest ofits own. 

RHODES[65]

BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

Coming on deck the next morning at the fresh hour of sunrise, I found wewere at Rhodes. We lay just off the semicircular harbor, which isclasped by walls--partly shaken down by earthquakes--which have noble, round towers at each embracing end. Rhodes is, from the sea, one of themost picturesque cities in the Mediterranean, altho it has littleremains of that ancient splendor which caused Strabo to prefer it toRome or Alexandria. The harbor wall, which is flanked on each side bystout and round, stone windmills, extends up the hill, and becomingdouble, surrounds the old town; these massive fortifications of theKnights of St. John have withstood the onsets of enemies and the tremorsof the earth, and, with the ancient moat, excite the curiosity of thisso-called peaceful age of iron-clads and monster cannon. The cityascends the slope of the hill and passes beyond the wall. Outside and onthe right toward the sea are a picturesque group of a couple of dozenstone windmills, and some minarets and a church-tower or two. Higher upthe hill is sprinkled a little foliage, a few mulberry trees, and anisolated palm or two; and, beyond, the island is only a mass of broken, bold, rocky mountains. Of its forty-five miles of length, runningsouthwesterly from the little point on which the city stands, we can seebut little. 

Whether or not Rhodes emerged from the sea at the command of Apollo, theGreeks exprest by this tradition of its origin their appreciation of itsgracious climate, fertile soil, and exquisite scenery. From remoteantiquity it had fame as a seat of arts and letters, and of a vigorousmaritime power, and the romance of its early centuries was equaled ifnot surpassed when it became the residence of the Knights of St. John. Ibelieve that the first impress of its civilization was given by thePhoenicians; it was the home of the Dorian race before the time of theTrojan War, and its three cities were members of the Dorian Hexapolis;it was, in fact, a flourishing maritime confederacy strong enough tosend colonies to the distant Italian coast, and Sybaris and Parthenope(modern Naples) perpetuated the luxurious refinement of their founders. The city of Rhodes itself was founded about four hundred years beforeChrist, and the splendor of its palaces, its statues and paintings gaveit a pre-eminence among the most magnificent cities of the ancientworld. If the earth of this island could be made to yield its buriedtreasures as Cyprus has, we should doubtless have new proofs of theinfluence of Asiatic civilization upon the Greeks, and be able to tracein the early Doric arts and customs the superior civilization of thePhoenicians, and of the masters of the latter in science and art, theEgyptians. 

Naturally, every traveler who enters the harbor of Rhodes hopes to seethe site of one of the seven wonders of the world, the Colossus. He isfree to place it on either mole at the entrance of the harbor, but hecomprehends at once that a statue which was only one hundred and fivefeet high could never have extended its legs across the port. The fameof this colossal bronze statue of the sun is disproportioned to theperiod of its existence; it stood only fifty-six years after itserection, being shaken down by an earthquake in the year 224 B. C. , andencumbering the ground with its fragments till the advent of the Moslemconquerors. 

Passing from the quay through a highly ornamented Gothic gateway, weascended the famous historic street, still called the Street of theKnights, the massive houses of which have withstood the shocks ofearthquakes and the devastation of Saracenic and Turkish occupation. This street, of whose palaces we have heard so much, is not imposing; itis not wide, its solid stone houses are only two stories high, and theirfronts are now disfigured by cheap Arab balconies; but the façades aregray with age. All along are remains of carved windows. Gothicsculptured doorways and shields and coats of arms, crosses and armoriallegends, are set in the walls, partially defaced by time and the respectof Suleiman for the Knights, have spared the mementos of their faith andprowess. I saw no inscriptions that are intact, but made out upon oneshield the words "voluntas mei est. " The carving is all beautiful. 

We went through the silent streets, waking only echoes of the past, outto the ruins of the once elegant church of St. John, which was shakendown by a powder-explosion some thirty years ago, and utterly flattenedby an earthquake some years afterward. Outside the ramparts we met, andsaluted, with the freedom of travelers, a gorgeous Turk who was takingthe morning air, and whom our guide in bated breath said was thegovernor. In this part of the town is the Mosque of Suleiman; in theportal are two lovely marble columns, rich with age; the lintels areexquisitely carved with flowers, arms, casques, musical instruments, thecrossed sword and the torch, and the mandolin, perhaps the emblem ofsome troubadour knight. Wherever we went we found bits of old carving, remains of columns, sections of battlemented roofs. The town issaturated with the old Knights. Near the mosque is a foundation ofcharity, a public kitchen, at which the poor were fed or were free tocome and cook their food; it is in decay now, and the rooks were sailingabout its old, round-topped chimneys. 

There are no Hellenic remains in the city, and the only remembrance ofthat past which we searched for was the antique coin, which has uponone side the head of Medusa and upon the other the rose (rhoda) whichgave the town its name. The town was quiet; but in pursuit of this coinin the Jews' quarter we started up swarms of traders, were sent fromIsaac to Jacob, and invaded dark shops and private houses where Jewishwomen and children were just beginning to complain of the morning light. Our guide was a jolly Greek, who was willing to awaken the whole town insearch of a silver coin. The traders, when we had routed them out, hadlittle to show in the way of antiquities. Perhaps the bestrepresentative of the modern manufactures of Rhodes is the wooden shoe, which is in form like the Damascus clog, but is inlaid with more taste. The people whom we encountered in our morning walk were Greeks or Jews. The morning atmosphere was delicious, and we could well believe that theclimate of Rhodes is the finest in the Mediterranean, and also that itis the least exciting of cities. 

MT. ATHOS[66]

BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

Beyond Thasos is the Thracian coast and Mt. Pangaus, and at the foot ofit Philippi, the Macedonian town where republican Rome fought its lastbattle, where Cassius leaned upon his sword-point, believing everythinglost. Brutus transported the body of his comrade to Thasos and raisedfor him a funeral pyre; and twenty days later, on the same field, metagain that specter of death which had summoned him to Philippi. It wasnot many years after this victory of the Imperial power that a greatertriumph was won at Philippi, when Paul and Silas, cast into prison, sangpraises unto God at midnight, and an earthquake shook the house andopened the prison doors. 

In the afternoon we came in sight of snowy Mt. Athos, an almostperpendicular limestone rock, rising nearly six thousand four hundredfeet out of the sea. The slender promontory which this magnificentmountain terminates is forty miles long and has only an average breadthof four miles. The ancient canal of Xerxes quite severed it from themainland. The peninsula, level at the canal, is a jagged stretch ofmountains (seamed by chasms), which rise a thousand, two thousand, fourthousand feet, and at last front the sea with the sublime peak of Athos, the site of the most conspicuous beacon-fire of Agamemnon. The entirepromontory is, and has been since the time of Constantine, ecclesiasticground; every mountain and valley has its convent; besides the twentygreat monasteries are many pious retreats. All the sects of the Greekchurch are here represented; the communities pay a tribute to theSultan, but the government is in the hands of four presidents, chosen bythe synod, which holds weekly sessions and takes the presidents, yearly, from the monasteries in rotation. Since their foundation thesereligious houses have maintained against Christians and Saracens analmost complete independence, and preserved in their primitivesimplicity the manners and usages of the earliest foundations. 

Here, as nowhere else in Europe or Asia, can one behold thearchitecture, the dress, the habits of the Middle Ages. The gooddevotees have been able to keep themselves thus in the darkness andsimplicity of the past by a rigorous exclusion of the sex alwaysimpatient of monotony, to which all the changes of the world are due. Nowoman, from the beginning till now, has ever been permitted to set footon the peninsula. Nor is this all; no female animal is suffered on theholy mountain, not even a hen. I suppose, tho I do not know, that themonks have an inspector of eggs, whose inherited instincts of aversionto the feminine gender enable him to detect and reject all those inwhich lurk the dangerous sex. Few of the monks eat meat, half the daysof the year are fast days, they practise occasionally abstinence fromfood for two or three days, reducing their pulses to the feeblestbeating, and subduing their bodies to a point that destroys their valueeven as spiritual tabernacles. The united community is permitted to keepa guard of fifty Christian soldiers, and the only Moslem on the islandis the solitary Turkish officer who represents the Sultan; his positioncan not be one generally coveted by the Turks, since the society ofwomen is absolutely denied him. The libraries of Mt. Athos are full ofunarranged manuscripts, which are probably mainly filled with thetheologic rubbish of the controversial ages, and can scarcely beexpected to yield again anything so valuable as the TishendorfScriptures. 

At sunset we were close under Mt. Athos, and could distinguish thebuildings of the Laura Convent, amid the woods beneath the frowningcliff. And now was produced the apparition of a sunset, with thistowering mountain cone for a centerpiece, that surpassed all ourexperience and imagination. The sea was like satin for smoothness, absolutely waveless, and shone with the colors of changeable silk, blue, green, pink, and amethyst. Heavy clouds gathered about the sun, and frombehind them he exhibited burning spectacles, magnificent fireworks, vastshadow-pictures, scarlet cities, and gigantic figures stalking acrossthe sky. From one crater of embers he shot up a fan-like flame thatspread to the zenith and was reflected on the water. His rays lay alongthe sea in pink, and the water had the sheen of iridescent glass. Thewhole sea for leagues was like this; even Lemnos and Samothrace lay in adim pink and purple light in the east. There were vast clouds in hugewalls, with towers and battlements, and in all fantastic shapes--one agigantic cat with a preternatural tail, a cat of doom four degrees long. All this was piled about Mt. Athos, with its sharp summit of snow, itsdark sides of rock. 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] From "Pictures from Italy. " Dickens made his trip to Italy in 1844. 

[2] From "Italy: Florence and Venice. " By special arrangement with, andby permission of, the publishers. Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1869. Translated by John Durand. 

[3] Begun in 1386. Its architects were Germans and Frenchmen. 

[4] From "Italy: Florence and Venice. " By special arrangement with, andby permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1869. Translated by John Durand. 

[5] From "The Story of Pisa. " Published by E. P. Dutton & Co. 

[6] From "Pictures From Italy. "

[7] From "Cities of Southern Italy and Sicily. "

[8] From "Travels in Italy. "

[9] A German friend with whom Goethe was traveling. 

[10] From "Pictures from Italy. "

[11] From "Italy: Rome and Naples. " By special arrangement with, and bypermission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1869. Translated by John Durand. 

[12] This term designates a road built along the rocky shore of aseaside, being a figurative application of the architectural term"cornice. "--Translator's note. 

[13] From "Cities of Southern Italy and Sicily. "

[14] From a letter to Thomas Love Peacock, written in 1819. 

[15] From "Pictures from Italy. "

[16] From "Journeys in Italy. " By special arrangement with, and bypermission of, the publishers, Brentano's. Copyright, 1902. 

[17] The memoir writer. 

[18] From "Journeys in Italy. " By special arrangement with, and bypermission of, the publishers, Brentano's. Copyright, 1902. 

[19] From "Unknown Switzerland. " Published by James Pott & Co. Politically, Lake Lugano is part Swiss and part Italian. 

[20] The St. Gothard. 

[21] From a letter to Thomas Love Peacock, written in 1818. 

[22] From "The Spell of the Italian Lakes. " By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, L. C. Page & Co. Copyright, 1907. 

[23] From "Remarks on Several Parts of Italy in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703. "

[24] In the town are now about 1, 500 people; in the whole territory ofthe republic, 9, 500. San Marino lies about fourteen miles southwest fromRimini. 

[25] At the present time, fourteen hundred years; so that San Marino isthe oldest as well as the smallest republic in the world. 

[26] From "French and Italian Note-Books. " By special arrangement with, and by permission of, Houghton, Mifflin Co. , publishers of Hawthorne'sworks. Copyright, 1871, 1883, 1889. 

[27] The author's son, Julian Hawthorne. 

[28] From "Italian Cities. " By special arrangement with, and bypermission of, the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1900. 

[29] From "Italy: Florence and Venice. " By special arrangement with, andby permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1869. 

[30] From "Historical and Architectural Sketches: Chiefly Italian. "Published by the Macmillan Co. 

[31] From "Cities of Southern Italy and Sicily. "

[32] From "Letters of a Traveler. "

[33] From "Historical and Architectural Sketches: Chiefly Italian. "Published by the Macmillan Co. 

[34] From "Sicily: The Garden of the Mediterranean. " By specialarrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, L. C. Page & Co. Copyright, 1909. 

[35] From "The History of Sicily. " Published by the Macmillan Co. 

[36] The Greek name for Girgenti. 

[37] From "Travels in Italy. "

[38] From "Travels in Italy. "

[39] From "Sicily: The Garden of the Mediterranean. " By specialarrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, L. C. Page & Co. Copyright, 1909. 

[40] From "Vacation Days in Greece. " By special arrangement with, and bypermission of, the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1903. 

[41] From "Constantinople. " By special arrangement with, and bypermission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1875. 

[42] From "Rambles and Studies in Greece. " Published by the MacmillanCo. 

[43] From "Travels in Greece and Russia. " Published by G. P. Putnam'sSons. 

[44] From the "Description of Greece. " Pausanias was a Greek travelerand geographer who lived in the second century A. D. --in the time of theRoman emperors, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. 

[45] From "Rambles and Studies in Greece. " Published by the MacmillanCo. 

[46] The Venetian commander who bombarded the Parthenon in 1687. 

[47] Edward Dodwell (1767-1832), an English traveler and archeologist, notable for his investigations in Greece when it had been littleexplored, and author of various records of his work. --Author's note. 

[48] From "Rambles and Studies in Greece. " Published by the MacmillanCo. 

[49] This very pattern, in mahogany, with cane seats, and adapted, likeall Greek chairs, for loose cushions, was often used in Chippendalework, and may still be found in old mansions furnished at thatepoch. --Author's note. 

[50] From "Rambles and Studies in Greece. " Published by the MacmillanCo. 

[51] From "Travels in Greece and Russia. " Published by G. P. Putnam'sSons. 

[52] From "Rambles and Studies in Greece. " Published by the MacmillanCo. 

[53] From "Greece and the Aegean Islands. " By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1907. 

[54] From the "Description of Greece. " Pausanias wrote in the time ofHadrian and Marcus Aurelius. 

[55] From "Vacation Days in Greece. " By special arrangement with, and bypermission of, the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1903. 

[56] From "In the Levant. " By special arrangement with, and bypermission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1875. Salonica, formerly Turkish territory, was added to the territory ofGreece in 1913, under the terms of the treaty of peace that followed theBalkan war against Turkey. 

[57] From "In the Levant. " By special arrangement with, and bypermission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1875. 

[58] From "Travels in Greece and Russia. " Published by G. P. Putnam'sSons. 

[59] From "Travels in Greece and Russia, " Published by G. P. Putnam'sSons. 

[60] From "Rambles and Studies in Greece. " Published by the MacmillanCo. 

[61] From "Travels in Greece and Russia. " Published by G. P. Putnam'sSons. 

[62] From "Greece and the Ægean Islands. " By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1907. 

[63] From "Sketches from the Subject and Neighbor Lands of Venice. "Published by the Macmillan Co. 

[64] The ancient Greek name of Corfu. 

[65] From "In the Levant. " By special arrangement with, and bypermission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1876. 

[66] From "In the Levant. " By special arrangement with, and bypermission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1876. Asone of the results of the Balkan war of 1912-1913, Mt. Athos, which hadformerly been under Turkish rule, was added to the territory of Greece. Nature made Mt. Athos a part of the mainland, but a canal was cut byXerxes across the lowland at the base of the lofty promontory, making itan island. Some parts of this canal still remain.