UC-NRLF $B 321 453 UW.W ;■ !li!!:i! . ,: wmM iilllllii- i i ! t!t[|| I !i| i ;| ! j ill L iilllll 11 ill 1 1 1 1 lip " "W ill |M| il ! I : I I 'iilllll Iffllll F ' 1 P I \\\\W P lit il lllll'i i v THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA r\* s GIFT OF JANE K. SATHER ( duty <&KAsfi**»fU a^U^M) WANDERINGS SEARCH OF HEALTH <~c **>\ Drawn k Engraved bv F.WFairholc.ESA. Fig. 1. — Gold Fipur? found at Corinth. 2, 3, 4, 5._ Silver Dice found near Marseilles. WANDERINGS SEARCH OF HEALTH LORD ALBERT DENISON, K.C.H., F.S.A. LONDON. PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION. M.DCCC.XLIX. LONDON: RICHARDS, 100, ST. MARTIN'S LANE. WANDERINGS IN SEARCH OF HEALTH CHAPTER I. After six weeks 1 confinement to a sick room, the state of my chest causing me to experience the sensations of a fish taken out of water and gasping in another element, my medical advisers determined that I was sufficiently recovered to leave England for a winter in a warm climate ; and on Wednesday, the 15 th day of November 1848, 1 made my way to Southampton, and em- barked on board the Tagus, a steamer belonging to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Naviga- tion Company, commanded by Captain Joy. My impedimenta consisted of a wife, a plump and rather pretty English maid, and an English valet, the said valet being an exception to the B 681 2 WANDERINGS latter part of the rule, " that a servant may be a good servant for the first five years, a good master for the second five years, but is a hard master for the third five years of his service." Plan of journey I formed none, beyond that of seeing as much as a forced return to England in May would allow me to see : the information which I might gain, whilst wandering, having to be acquired in that peculiar Anglo-Gallic used by the English, and familiar to Lady Albert and myself, added to the mother tongue alone spoken by the rest of the party. I had also a sort of hallucination of my own, that I could manage a little broken Italian. The cabin — allotted to my wife and myself, intended to contain four persons — was a curious piece of mechanism : two berths might be made up on each side, or two on one side and a sofa on the other, or one berth and one sofa on oppo- site sides ; between the berths was a large wash- ing stand, taking half of the remaining space. I had the curiosity to measure the standing room with my measuring tape, and found, that three IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 3 feet by two feet eight inches was allowed for washing, dressing, and undressing room for four persons. Gradually we learnt to dispose of hat, bonnet, coat, great coat, male and female cloaks, shawls, handkerchiefs, gowns, and the other arti- cles of clothing, and for washing and dressing, hanging them, by every sort of contrivance of our own, from the bulk-heads ; but how these things were disposed of when the cabin was tenanted by four persons, was a mystery that I reflected upon in many a waking hour, and that I never solved during the voyage ; but if the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Company limited the washing and dressing, the eating and drink- ing on board was most unlimited, and was conti- nued from nine in the morning till ten at night The Bay of Biscay was perfectly calm. Whilst crossing it, three or four whales showed them- selves very distinctly near the steamer, rolling on the "swell" of the sea, they appeared of huge size, and must have measured about forty- five feet in length. Occasionally they blew forth a puffing noise, and spouted steam precisely like 4 WANDERINGS the escape of steam from a locomotive engine. On the 18th, in the afternoon, we made Cape Finisterre : it is a rugged, barren highland, with a mass of white buildings at its very verge. Again we lost sight of land. On the 19th we were off Oporto, but passed it at a considerable distance. The 21st was stormy, and we had a dreadful tossing till about two o'clock on the following morning, when we anchored in the Bay of Gibraltar. Gibraltar, the Phoenician Alupe and Greek and Roman Calpe, was the European pillar of Hercules. It appears to have been neglected as a military station by the Romans, and first em- ployed for that purpose by the Moors, when they invaded Spain in the beginning of the eighth century. From their leader Tarif, it was called Gibel Tarif, or the mountain of Tarif. Gibraltar is a corruption of this Arabic name. The town now contains a population of above 17,000 persons. The Emperor Charles V, in the sixteenth century, fortified it in the modern style, employing the German engineer, Daniel IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 5 Speck el. Hardly any vestiges of the fortifica- tions then erected now remain. Alas ! we were not allowed pratique, but were forced to remain on board whilst we took in coals, tinder the shelter of the rock. It was a dull, drizzling day, and clouds of coal dust pene- trated into the cabins. Great was the dearth of amusement. Some, to kill time, tried fishing out of the cabin windows; others, joking with and laughing at the quarantine guard-boats along- side. At last a passenger threw a piece of orange at one of the guardianos, who returned it by throwing a piece of wood, about the size of a boat's tiller, at the group of passengers on deck, hitting the wrong man on the shoulder. Away rowed the boat ; and alongside, in about half an hour, came the pompous lieutenant of the port, and he, in his turn, fixed upon the wrong man as culprit, venting his wrath upon the captain of the steamer, who, poor man, had in vain en- deavoured to keep order amongst his passengers. " The vessel was to be detained", etc. Lord Selkirke, one of the passengers, was b2 6 WANDERINGS rash enough M to put in his oar", and to think of interfering between " the lion and the lamb", and thus came in for his share of the great man's wrath. Then commenced the correspondences. Lord Selkirke wrote to Captain Grey (the cap- tain of the port), and I wrote to the governor (Sir Eobert Wilson), deprecating the conse- quences of the lieutenant's anger. In another hour back came the lieutenant, stating, that as we had chosen to interfere, he would in good earnest stop the coaling and watering, and thus virtually detain the vessel. — More writing from all parties. A general memorial from the pas- sengers was drawn up and forwarded to the governor. A memorial of complaint of the lieu- tenant's tyrannic conduct was also sent to the Admiralty, accompanied by a private letter from Lord Selkirke to the First Lord. Never, since the world began, was there such a God -send for men who were at a loss for weapons to kill time. In the morning of the 23rd, a long feather was seen floating over a small shore boat, and great was the sensation on perceiving no less a IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 7 personage than the governor himself, with an aide-de-camp, who looked rather sea-sick, and the culprit lieutenant, coming alongside. The lion lieutenant was converted into a lamb. Virtue, in the shape of Captain Joy, of the Tagus, was applauded. The governor edified all parties by a most apposite speech. Again began the coal- ing and watering, and in the afternoon we passed the lovely scenery upon the Spanish coast. Nothing worthy of note occurred on the 24th or 25th, excepting that, early on the 25th, a flying fish was idiot enough to fly on board, to be stared at by all of us, and afterwards to practise the surgeon of the vessel in the art of preserving fish and reptiles. On the night of the 25th we had a gale of wind. The entries in the vessel's log-book for the 26th, 27th, and 28th, were, alas! "heavy gales at intervals". Still worse was the fact that the said gales were dead against us ; and right glad were we when, at about eleven o'clock on the morning of the 29th, we found ourselves 8 WANDERINGS safely anchored in the harbour of Valetta. Then commenced the most amusing scene that I ever witnessed. Swarms of boats collected round the steamer: some with "touters" from the various hotels, and others seeking the custom of the passengers ; but every human being exerting the whole of his voice and strength in chatter- ing, squabbling, and pushing. Lord Selkirke, in his zeal for lodgings, was the first who ventured to descend the ship's side ; both his legs were instantly seized by rival boatmen, whilst one wrist was pounced upon by another. Do him the justice I must, that with his disengaged hand he fought man- fully, and did escape being torn limb from limb. Mr. Vyse, leaving his servant and luggage to their fate, then descended with a coat over his arm, and a small bag and dressing-box ; in the twinkling of an eye each article was snatched from him, and placed in a separate boat. He himself, unwilling that his body should follow this example, and be also deposited piecemeal in different boats, hung on to a rope with all his IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 9 strength, only allowing his legs to be pulled at till help arrived. Captain Joy ordered for us the gig of the Tagus, and whilst it was preparing, some divers, from a boat alongside, exhibited for us. After washing away the dirt of the steam- packet, and devouring quantities of exquisite Maltese oranges, we walked upon the heights, crowned by the arcade called Upper Barracka, commanding noble views of the town, harbours, etc. On the opposite, but lower height, is an arcade with a monument to Sir Alexander Ball, in the form of a Grecian temple. We afterwards went into the cathedral dedi- cated to St. John, the patron of the Order of Malta. It was built in 1580, by the Grand Master, John de la Cassiere. The really re- markable object of this cathedral is its pave- ment in mosaic, of monuments of the knights ; thus giving a grand heraldic picture of the ar- morial bearings of the principal European nobi- lity. Only a portion of this pavement is visible, except by a special order from the Governor, 10 WANDERINGS or on high days of festival ; it is at other times covered up with matting. The eight languages composing the Order had each their chapel; the chapel of the Madonna has a railing before it in silver ; it escaped pillage during the French occupation of Malta, by having been painted over. There is a good picture by Caravaggio of the beheading of St. John. The crypt under the choir contains the sarcophagi of some of the Grand Masters of the Order. On Thursday we visited the governor's country palace and gardens of St. Antonio; they are pleasing to an English eye, from being filled with orange trees (not of any great size), and other trees and plants which we can only rear in conservatories. On our way we walked through the public botanical garden. One of the gardeners, a Moorish-looking lad, of about nineteen, and barefooted, like the generality of the lower orders, walked up to my wife, made her a graceful bow, handed her a tea rose, and, wonderful to relate, hurried away, without appearing to expect anything in return. I IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 11 called to him, and gave him a trifle ; and it was amusing to see each one of the gardeners pre- paring flowers as we came near them, each hoping that in his turn he should obtain some- thing. I narrowly inspected the armory, in the hopes of meeting with some rare specimens of curious arms ; alas I it had not escaped pillage. I saw very few of what we collectors call '* covetable objects," with the exception of one suit of armour, inlaid with gold, said to have been that of the Grand Master Vignacourt, and of no great value, a very few good sword-blades, and some curious powder-horns of bone, en- graved quaintly and grotesquely enough ; there were also some Turkish arms, and some thou- sand stand of arms for modern warfare ; there was also a rope cannon. On Friday, the 1st December, we drove a " Tagus" fellow-passenger, H General Mattan," by the Quarantine harbour, along a fine road that follows the coast by Sliema to the village of St. Julian, a favourite change of residence 1 2 WANDERINGS for English families during the summer. The country is so barren and destitute cf vegetation, that one feels wonder at the trouble being taken to move from Valetta. On Saturday, the 2nd, I was introduced to the Union Club : it is conducted upon a liberal footing with respect to strangers ; they may be introduced by any member for a week " gratis" ; at the end of that time they are admitted for a month longer, on payment of a sovereign ; after that they must be balloted for, as mem- bers. The apartments are remarkably lofty, and the ball-room is splendid. The building was for- merly the " Auberge de Provence," " The Lan- guages", or national divisions composing the order of St. John of Malta, having given the name of" Auberges" to their palaces. Dr. Cesare Vassallo, the librarian of the public library, conducted me over that institu- tion ; he is an enthusiastic antiquary, and, in going over the little museum which he has com- menced, he made me remark the circular shape IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 13 of the indentations upon the altar found at Gebel Keem, of the seated and crouching figures that had also been found there; and pointed out to me the half spheres which, when joined, give the symbol of the " egg^ (the Phoenician Venus) ; he wished to prove that all the articles found in the temple had reference to this symbol of the egg. On Sunday, the 3rd, we attended divine worship in the Protestant church of St. Paul. It is a handsome building, laid out in seats, and not in pews, holding a congregation of above 1500 persons. Till this church was erected, a room in the palace and the clock-yard chapel were alone devoted to our Protestant service. It was founded by Queen Adelaide, who laid the first stone on the 20th of March, 1839. She nobly took upon herself the whole expense, and expended £10,000 upon the building ; — one act of munificence amongst the great number by which the Queen Dowager's visit will be long remembered at Malta. In the afternoon we drove to Citta Vecchia, c 14 WANDERINGS the Medina of the Saracens, and the " notabile" ■» of the Arragonese capital of the island previ- ously to Valetta having been founded, in 1566, by La Valette, a Provencal, the then grand master. The road for some distance runs parallel to, and at one point passes under, the great aqueduct constructed by the grand master Vignacourt, in 1635. It is carried over arches and through tunnels for a distance of 16,885 yards. Citta Vecchia is about five miles from Valetta. It has a melancholy deserted appear- ance. Situated in the centre of the island, and on very high ground, it commands an extensive view. What with the very small stone enclo- sures, and the numerous bleak-looking, and deserted, villages, that are to be seen from it, the face of the country gives the effect of one vast and deserted city. The villages being de- serted arises from the fact, that when a church becomes too small for the population of its village, building materials are so abundant and cheap, that a new church is built on another site, instead of the old one being enlarged. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 15 The position of the village then gradually changes ; new houses being erected round the church, and the old ones either pulled down or deserted. Many instances of this change of position have been mentioned to me. There is much to be seen at Citta Vecchia. On this occasion we visited a fine cathedral, said to be built upon the site of the house of Publius, who was the Roman governor during St. Paul's stay in the island. We then went to the celebrated catacombs in the suburb of *W Rabbato. The priest who conducted us over those which, either from their size or from their being first discovered, are distinguished by the natives under the name of u the catacombs", gave us his theories upon them. He considers them to have been the early habitations of the islanders, and shewed us what he conceives to be a chapel, and what had been its altar, with two large round platforms, which he presumes to have been mills for the use of this subterraneous town, this town being afterwards used as a cemetery. 16 WANDERINGS These catacombs are of vast extent, with tombs of all sizes cut into the soft limestone. In each tomb was a place carved in the stone, so shaped as to fit the head of the corpse ; and two small niches were usually cut by the side, above the body, to receive lamps. There were single tombs for adults; single tombs for in- fants ; double tombs ; family tombs for two persons, with a small niche adjoining for the tomb of an infant ; and a large line of tombs, as if a party had agreed to be buried together ; but almost invariably was there the place for the head of the corpse, and the niches for the lamps. There were several ventilators walled up, and several passages, also blocked up : two of these were stated to lead, one to Valetta, and the other to Boschetto, a mile distant. They were ordered to be closed, said the priest, from the loss of life consequent upon persons rambling without guides ; a schoolmaster and his seven pupils having wandered into them, and having never after been heard of. I no- ticed faint traces of fresco painting in some of IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 17 the passages : these my guide assured me had faded even in his time, and were growing fainter and more faint. I purchased from the guide an urn of a pleasing shape, and of a clay and fabrique precisely that of some fragments of pottery which I picked up amongst the rub- bish. I also purchased from him a small lamp, and as I only gave one shilling and sixpence for both these articles, the manufacturer, if they were not genuine, would not make any great sum by his skill in forgery. Dr. Cesare Vassallo, in a note which he addressed to me upon the subject of these catacombs, states, " that they extend many miles around, and that if we place any faith in local tradition, supported by facts which have from time to time taken place, — such, for instance, as animals having wandered and found egress at some opening of the distant rocks, — some of the galleries have their issue in valleys five miles distant from the chief entrance. " It is for this reason that, in times not very remote from our own, it has been found neces- c2 18 WANDERINGS sary to restrict their extent by walling up more than one passage ; and several of our husband- men, in breaking up the soil, have found them- selves plunged into small tombs, which evi- dently formed a continuation of the catacombs. " They go back to a period antecedent to the Christian era, and are probably Roman ; the same customs that prevailed in Rome prevailed also in Malta, a Roman province. The primi- tive Christians, and their immediate successors, made use of the Roman sepulchres, adding to them, perhaps, another story, to bury the faithful apart from the Pagans ; for this reason two stories are visible. "With some expense and much patience a third and lower story might be laid open, in which bodies still lie undisturbed. Those circu- lar platforms, rising two or three feet from the ground, and about six feet in diameter, which attracted your Lordship's attention, may have served, I think, in Pagan times, for slaughtering the black victims to the manes, and, in the days of Christianity, for washing the corpses of the IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 19 faithful. I am induced to believe this from the projecting border round the platforms, and the opening at the front of them to give passage to the blood or water ; of these platforms no traces are perceptible in any other catacombs hitherto discovered, not even in those of Rome." On the 4th we drove to Casal Crendi, seven miles from Valetta. At a mile and a half from Casal Crendi, at a place called Gebel Keem — signifying, in Arabic, " the mountain of wor- ship" — you come to the larger but most ruined of two Phoenician temples. It is difficult to trace the plan of the building ; it is almost two parallel compressed rhomboids of unequal length, divided into several apartments, leading one into another, with a number of circular or oval enclosures of a lesser size : the extreme area measures 105 feet by 70 ; the outer wall ave- rages ten feet in height, and is constructed of one tier of huge stones, chiefly hewn and placed vertically. Without this enclosure at the southern extremity stand four colossal slabs, from 14 to 20 feet in height, and covering aline 20 WANDERINGS of 27 feet by their united width. I measured another huge stone employed in the building ; it was 21 feet in length by 9 in height. The principal entrance was from the south east, opposite to which was one of smaller dimen- sions ; and there were apparently one or two more, but not very distinctly to be traced. The first grand section of the building, on en- tering from the south-east, is divided into three almost equal parts by two corresponding parti- tions, each containing a door-way connecting the chambers together ; in the central division is a carved stone placed upright between two other stones, forming a cell, found filled with animal bones ; and this stone is sculptured with two serpents meeting at the lower part of an egg. The rest of this sculptured stone, and the two upright stones which support it, are covered with small, round indentations. Close to this cell is a beautiful small altar, with its four sides grooved, each having the representa- tion of a tree growing out of a vessel or pot. The second grand section is connected with the IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 21 first by an opening in the wall, which separates them. The area to the right of the entrance slopes slightly, till it reaches a row of circular stone slabs, four feet high, gradually inclining outwards towards the top, so forming a species of basin with a narrow opening left in the cir- cumference. On either side of the wall to the left are two rude cells, the roofs of which are each formed of a single stone, and supported chiefly by the wall over which they hang ; a passage from this division leads into two other chambers, and is flanked at the entrance by two altars of stone, five feet high, and with a slightly depressed surface. From one of these chambers were dug a number of stone hemispheres, measuring five inches in diameter, and an oval figure, twice the size of a hen's egg. Whilst these ruins were being excavated, a few human bones were discovered, and one remarkable head, now pre- served in the museum of the public library, — it has a very low forehead. The eight small headless figures, also at the library, were here 22 WANDERINGS disinterred ; they are in a sitting or crouching position : six are in soft Maltese stone, and two in well-glazed pottery : the part below the neck of three of the figures is scooped out and per- forated with holes, supposed to be for strings to fasten heads upon them at pleasure. At the distance of about a quarter of a mile, at a place called Minaidra, is the smaller temple, which our laquais -de-place, to save himself the trouble of a scrambling walk, in vain en- deavoured to dissuade us from visiting. It is a most beautiful sort of " chapel of ease" to the larger one : it is placed in a commanding posi- tion, near the sea, and the walls are as fresh and as perfect (but with few exceptions) as when they were erected. Here you are struck by the circular shape of the apartments ; the beautiful manner in which the architect rounded the circles in huge and often unwrought stones, fills you with admiration. There are many small cells, in which skeletons are said to have been discovered. This temple is a gem of architectural skill ; IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 23 and every antiquary must dread lest it should suffer desecration. We afterwards drove to Macluba, a circular well-like hollow in a stratum of rock. It is 100 feet in depth, and 90 yards in diameter. It is stated to have been formed by an earthquake ; the descent into it is wild and picturesque, by rude stone steps ; the bottom is of the richest mould, and forms a valuable garden, filled with plants and trees. The soil is said to be so deep as to have " no soundings", to use a nautical term. On the 5th, I visited Citta Vecchia with Dr. Cesare Vassallo. We entered the celebrated grotto of St. Paul : it contains a fine statue of the apostle, by a scholar of Bernini, and has a church built over it ; tradition calls it the resi- dence of the apostle whilst on a visit to Publius, but it is supposed to have been the spot selected by him for the worship of the early Christian converts, and for his own preaching. The cave is said to have the miraculous property of not increasing in size, although the soft stone of which it is formed is constantly scraped 24 WANDERINGS away by the peasantry, as a specific for various We then descended into the principal cata- combs. I advanced to more distant points than at my former visit, — to passages not generally visited, but which presented no new feature. Remarking a slab of stone under my feet, I had the loose earth and rubble scraped from its side, and found it to be the covering of an undisco- vered and undisturbed tomb ; giving the idea of still greater size to these catacombs, from the probability of another layer of tombs existing under those till now discovered, — precisely as Dr. Vassallo suggested in his note to me. I also met with another of those remarkable raised platforms of circular shape. I then visited another catacomb, in the garden of Ta l'Abatia, close to Citta Vecchia. The tombs are supposed to be exclusively Christian. They are much more regularly placed than in the catacombs we first visited, and many have ornaments channeled in the stone. I remarked one with an ornament (fig. 1) carved over the IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 25 side of the tomb ; another had the covering, or vault of the tomb, carved like fig. 2. Just at (5^ the entrance of this catacomb, is a chamber, cut in the rock, for a chapel. It has a painting in fresco, upon a very thick coat of plaister, repre - senting the Crucifixion, with the Virgin and St. John, and gives the appropriate motto, — " Viktor mortis" ; and another, with the angel Gabriel saluting the kneeling Mary, with the motto, — " Mater Dei 11 . Father Marchi, the Americus Vesputius of the Roman catacombs, thinks this painting to be of the seventh cen- tury ; and, indeed, before that time, no mystery of the Passion appears to have been attempted by Christian artists. I could not descend into another in the same garden, which is entered by a well, — no ladder being at hand for that purpose ; but it is said to contain some curious early Christian frescoes, representing the Chris- tian symbols of the Dove, the Rabbit, and the 26 WANDERINGS Fish. I thence went to the catacombs under the church of St. Cataldo. They are of small extent : the tombs are regularly placed, but without ornaments. I there noticed a peculiar feature which I had not remarked in the other catacombs : upright niches cut in the stone, as if to enclose a human being, giving the idea of the niches used for the fearful punishment of the " In pace", by monastic discipline. These catacombs are imagined to have be- longed to some Roman family numerous in its branches (gens), who wished to have a separate place of interment. These small catacombs are numerous both in Malta and Gozo. Before leaving Citta Vecchia, I visited the curious crypt of St. Agatha. The walls have been richly decorated with frescoes of sacred subjects, in the Byzantine style ; but, alas, they are fast disappearing by the action of the air. There are, however, many traces of their former richness and beauty. In the evening we went to the Opera. It was the Lombardi. The orchestra was remarkably good; and though there were no very good IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 27 singers, it was what the French might call pro- prement donne. It is a pretty, small theatre. On the 6th, our English maid thought herself desperately ill. In vain the English medical man whom 1 sent for, represented to her that there was nothing the matter but what a little aperient medicine would remove. Dying she was, and dying she would remain ; fortunately, by desiring her to remain in bed, she got bored, and declared herself recovering. The gaieties of Malta now began to open upon us. General Ellice sent us an invitation to dinner. On this evening there was a concert ; and we were also invited to two balls. My health did not allow me to accept any of these invitations. I traced out an old Jew in the Strada Levante, who owned some coins. He had only a few large brass, and a drawer of denarii. They were in wretched condition ; and he asked more than thrice the price for which I could have purchased them from any London dealer. Tired of driving along the same dusty roads, 28 WANDERINGS we next rowed about the harbour. Fort St. Elmo, with fort Bicasoli on the opposite shore, command the entrance of the grand harbour. In 1 807, the latter fort was the scene of a des- perate mutiny. Our government had made a bargain with a foreign nobleman for a regiment to be raised in the Levant for the Mediterra- nean service. He raised a number of men, who were enrolled under the name of Froberg's regi- ment. They were stationed in Fort Ricasoli. Disgusted by the severity with which they were treated by their officers, who were principally Germans, and disappointed by the failure of the hopes which had induced them to enlist, they broke into open mutiny upon an officer striking a drummer across the face with a cane. Killing some of their officers, they bade defiance to the garrison of Valetta. An English artillery officer, and some of his men, retained prisoners by them, were com- pelled to assist in their defence. Scarcity of provisions, and quarrels amongst themselves, caused the largest portion of the mutineers to IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 29 quit the fort, leaving about one hundred and fifty of their companions firm in their mutiny. A naval officer, Captain Collins, volunteered to take the fort, and succeeded in storming it by night, securing all the mutineers, with the ex- ception of six, who took possession of the pow- der magazine, and protested they would blow it up if the stormers persevered in their endea- vours to seize them. Of those who were taken, ten were hung, and fifteen shot, at Floriana. Those shot were made to kneel upon their cof- fins without being blindfolded; and after the first discharge, several rose up and ran about the plain, in vain endeavours to escape from their fate. One managed to reach the bastions, from which he threw himself, at a height of one hundred and fifty feet. The soldiers, who reached the spot, found him still alive, and had to despatch him. The six remaining mutineers held out five days without provisions, endea- vouring to negotiate for pardon. On the sixth day they threatened that, if assurances of par- don were not given them, they would blow up d2 30 WANDERINGS the fort at vespers. The threat was treated with contempt ; but at the appointed hour, the stones of the magazine were seen rising into the air, and a loud explosion was heard. The whole building was destroyed, with a part of the for- tification, and considerable loss of life was occa- sioned. Some time after, a priest, returning home on a donkey from the direction of the fort^ had a musket pointed at him by a man in the Froberg uniform. In great alarm, the priest made his escape; and on giving notice to the police, they managed to discover the retreat of the six mutineers, who had escaped the explo- sion, and, weak and emaciated, could not offer much resistance. They stated that they had carried out a mine to the edge of the fortfiica- tions, so that, after placing a train to the maga- zine, they were enabled to make their escape when they fired it. They had hoped that, hav- ing escaped from the fort, they might fall in with some vessel, and thus leave the island. They were publicly executed. We passed the following days in idling and IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. SI sight-seeing. I ordered some specimens of the carvings in the stone of the island, and Lady Albert selected some of those beautiful silk mit- tens made by Maltese ladies, who, with limited incomes, are so sensible as not to waste their time upon unproductive works. The upper classes do not mix much in Eng- lish society. They are not wealthy, and have great self-respect. They are not altogether in- different to the position and condition of their island ; and indeed, of late, some Maltese, of all classes, have endeavoured to recover certain rights and privileges, which they claim as theirs before the cession of the island to the knights of St. John ; but Bulwer has said, and with some truth, that " the people's voice is not heard unless it speaks in thunder" ; and the Maltese, having merely employed " the still small voice", it has not been listened to. We duly admired the beautiful building called the Chiesa disecrata di Birchircara, rendered touching by its forlorn and deserted appear- ance. This church, which was too small for the 32 WANDERINGS village, has been allowed to fall to ruins, and another, not to be compared to it for architec- tural beauty, has been built at a little distance. Our whole party, including the plump maid and English valet, went to Monte Benjemma, distant about three miles from Citta Vecchia : it com- mands a fine view of Gozo. Its eastern side, overhanging a wild mountain gorge, is honey- combed by chambers of various sizes, in many instances communicating with each other. In the tombs, within these caves, niches were placed for the heads of the bodies deposited, and niches for lamps, as at the Citta Vecchia catacombs ; and lamps are often found as fresh tombs are opened. In vain, Dr. Vassallo, who was of the party, endeavoured to argue me into his favour- ite theory of their being the habitations of the Troglodytae. Tombs they are, and for tombs they were intended. Some of the entrances were narrow, and easily to be closed by a very large stone ; and I was forcibly struck with the resemblance to the mode of sepulchre used for our Lord, as described in the gospel according IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. S3 to St. Mark, 15th chapter, 45th verse, where it is said that Joseph of Arimathea " laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre." And then in the 16th chapter, the 3rd, 4th, and 5th verses: "And they said amongst them- selves, who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre ? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away, for it was very great ; and entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment, and they were affrighted. " The wildness of the spot brought to my mind the passage in the gospel according to St. Mark, 5th chapter, 5th verse, where it is said of the man possessed with the unclean spirit, " that he always, night and day, was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones." Although this mountain is called Benjemma, which, in Arabic, means " the son of loveliness", the popular Maltese name for this place is the City of the Jews, " Bliet il EuoV\ 34 WANDERINGS as if the Maltese had some idea of the resem- blance between the ancient Hebrew mode of interment and that used at Benjemma, and which must have been Phoenician, copied from the Hebrews, for the Jews themselves never visited Malta. After passing some time amongst these caves, whilst eating the luncheon that we had brought with us, the cultivator of the adjacent fields and gardens offered us some honey that he had collected from his own bees ; and however we may have differed respecting the caves, we agreed that the honey was exqui- site, and well worthy of having given the island its name of Melita. It has a peculiar taste of strongly-scented flowers. Benjemma has been called the highest point in the island. This is not correct. Ta Ghalia is the highest point of Malta ; whilst Ta Tbiegi, in the island of Gozo, is the highest land upon any of these islands. Another day we inspected the colossal church building at Musta, on the plan of the Pantheon at Kome. The architect is M. Grognet. The total height of the edifice, when finished, will IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 35 be 200 feet. The main body of the edifice consists of a circle of about 200 feet in extreme diameter: it has two projections, at opposite sides; one, a portico of 125 feet long by 60 high, with a double row of columns, between two bell towers : here are three entrance doors. The other and opposite projection is ornamented with pilasters, and contains sacristies or vestries, with an upper story of rooms, for a certain number of priests to be attached to the church. The edifice surrounds a church already existing upon the spot, which will be removed as soon as the new one is completed. This building is astonishing, when the slender means of those who commenced and are finishing it are taken into consideration. The village of Musta contains about 6,000 inhabitants, almost all of the poorer classes; and this splendid building arises from a native of the village, a poor priest, Don Felice Calleja, having celebrated his first mass in the Pantheon at Borne. The thought then suddenly struck him of raising a similar temple in his own native 36 WANDERINGS village. Upon his return to Malta and to Musta, appointed parish priest, he laboured hard in the accumulation of wealth, and laid by money with the most scrupulous care. Unable to carry out his darling plan in his life-time, he left his property by will for the purpose of erecting a round temple like the Pantheon. Even after his death, the strongest opposition arose to this building. The bishop, as well as the general opinion in the island, opposed the construction of a round temple, upon the plea that round temples, though used for heathen worship, are not adapted for that of Christians. The bishop insisted upon a plan being adopted, drawn by his own architect, and in the form of a Greek cross. The inhabitants of Musta were so pleased by a plan presented to them by M. Grognet, that they petitioned the governor. All objections were overruled, and the first stone was laid on May 30th, 1833. The funds left by the parish priest, 30,000 scudi, being quite inade- quate to the object in view, subscriptions were IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 37 raised, and labour being the principal expense, the Church bestows indulgences upon those who work there gratuitously on Sundays. From two to three hundred volunteers have been seen labouring there on the same day ; and the church is thus progressing gradually, though slowly, towards completion. I made acquaint- ance with M. Grognet. He is far advanced in years, and of eccentric appearance ; but he is an enthusiastic lover of his profession, and ardent in his wish to draw attention to the antiquities of his island, and to the interesting nature of the Maltese language. He put him- self into a state of great excitement whilst demonstrating to me that the island of Malta was the real Tyre of Holy Writ ; and that this was an incontrovertible fact, he could prove geologically by the Maltese stone, as well as by other arguments, of which I own I could not see the force. He stated the Maltese lan- guage to be Syro-Phcenician, and that an in- scription upon a slab brought from Syria was mere Maltese. 38 WANDERINGS Admiral Harvey took us over the splendid new government buildings, erected for work- shops, etc., and made us remark the new dock. During all our expeditions the weather was lovely, the heat of the sun intense. On the 10th I placed my thermometer at the open window of the covered balcony ; the quicksilver rose to 98, or blood heat, still the air was not oppressive. It is said that November and Fe- bruary are the most rainy months of the winter, but that January. is generally fine; and indeed the beauty of the nights during that month have become a proverb. I must here bear my testimony that I never found the Maltese beggars to be so importunate as they have been represented. Let the com- plaining traveller visit poor Ireland, and he will then experience the importunity of beggary, when, alas ! it is urged on by starvation. During my stay at Malta I had the opportu- nity of inspecting two or three collections of coins. Captain Graves, of the "Volage", has one which must charm the eye of any person of IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 39 taste, even though neither a numismatist nor an antiquary : his coins are absolute gems of Greek art, and the enthusiasm of a frank sailor on subjects of this nature adds to the pleasure of viewing them. He gave me a curious little bronze figure, found in Crete, near Megalo Castro : it is apparently a satirical figure of an Ethiop, with his finger in his mouth : though of rude, careless workmanship, the ease of the attitude and the folds of the dress are most artistic. Mr. Ross has a large collection o* consular denarii in fine condition ; amongst his other coins he has two fine specimens, with satisfactorily clear reverses, of that very rare coin of Malta, having on the obverse the head of Hercules, and on the reverse what has been so strongly disputed, whether it be meant to represent a bell or some other object. Polio - nius's whale is nothing to this vexata quwstio. The casual visitor soon tires of Malta ; there are but few rides and drives, and but a limited number of sights. The situation of Valetta, with its noble harbour, and Burmola, Serglea, 40 WANDERINGS and Vittoriosa, lying around it, is strikingly beautiful: everything about this city is pic- turesque or strange; some of its streets are gradations of steps ; some form vistas, ended by the sea, of houses in the soft white stone of the island, with covered and over-hanging balconies ; whilst figures, some with handsome but always with picturesque features, form groups in strange costumes, and converse in strange languages. — All interests or commands admiration. Lovely as is Yaletta by day, it is, if possible, still more exquisitely beautiful at night, when the moon shows some of the buildings and of the harbour in a flood of light, but without the painful glare of day, and leaves the imagination to work in those portions that are thrown into shade, whilst the sea, glittering in its beams, gives life to the scene. Unlikely as it may appear, after a time all this palls, and the traveller, unless he finds the island to be still that of Calypso, and is fascinated by the acquaintance that he may have formed, longs to quit it. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 41 CHAPTER II. Malta did not quite agree with me ; a hot sun, whilst climbing the steep streets of Valetta, was too much for an invalid. I also found that the drives in the neighbourhood were few and unattractive, so I made up my mind to try Greece. Athens, if there were any truth in classical writing, was the very place for me. Euripides has, in the Medea, described the Athenians " as for ever delicately marching through pellucid air." The classics also acquaint us with the fashion in those days at Athens for invalids and travellers alone to cover their heads ; and tell us, that "any man wearing a cap would he stared at'"'; proving to me that the sun could E 2 42 WANDERINGS neither be very broiling, the air very cold, or the ruin very heavy, unless the climate had sadly changed since their time. Attracted by these prospects of a fine climate, with plenty of sight-seeing occupation, I secured berths for the Peirseus by the French Government steamer " Eurotas", running as packet-boat between Marseilles and Constantinople, stopping at various intermediate ports. Though I had only passed sixteen days at Malta, yet, on leaving the acquaintances I had made there, I felt as if separating from old, old friends. Mr. Holton, the agent of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (who had shown us every sort of attention whilst we were at Malta), accompanied us on board the " Eurotas", and would not leave us till the last moment before sailing. I had never been on board a French vessel, and their habits of discipline amused me : each individual appeared to give his opinion, when it differed with that of those above him ; and the IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 43 arguments that occasionally took place before an order was executed were very comical. Nothing could exceed the courtesy and kind- ness of the officers, who were bearded like "pards", and were literally " a tout crin", as the French say of their horses. By dark, on the 17 th, we were off Cape Gallo; and on my going on deck on the 18th, we were close under the Island of Hydra. It was a lovely morning, and we had a clear view of this little rocky cradle of liberty : it is only eleven miles long by three broad, and apparently so utterly barren that Mr. Waddington's sur- prise was very natural. " What a spot you have chosen for your country", he said to Admiral Tombazi. " It was Liberty that chose the spot, not we", was the reply. Hydra was the birth-place of Miaulis, and of several other Greek patriots, as well as of Tombazi. We coasted along the island of Egina ; but, even with a glass, I could not make out any of the ruins still existing upon it. In the dis- 44 WANDERINGS tance, the promontory of Sunium was distinctly visible. We approached the Peiraeus ; and no expectations formed of the exquisite beauty of Athens can be disappointed, thus viewed from the sea on a fine day, through the pellucid air of Euripides, the Acropolis standing out in the boldest relief; Hymettus and Lycabettus form- ing a noble back-ground. The bay of Phalerum was on the right, as we drew near the mouth of the harbour ; and I could not help thinking of Demosthenes walking on its beach and haranguing the waves, preparing himself for " his public speaking" to the vast audience which he purposed addressing from the Bema. There is a good harbour at the Peiraeus, and a fair proportion of shipping ; but it is fortunate that Hippodamus, of Miletus, who was distin- guished fur having improved the mode of build- ing in the Greek cities, cannot see the present condition of that town, which he built by the order of Themistocles : it is now like a wretched small town in a remote part of Ireland. A host of crazy carriages await the passengers who IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 45 land ; and it is highly ludicrous to see Greeks, in the beautiful dress of their country, driving these miserable vehicles, that some extraordinary speculation has brought into Greece. We landed on St. Nicholas' day. He is evi- dently a popular saint, as it was a general holi- day. Numbers of the same equipages that met us upon our landing were driving between the Peirasus and Athens, filled with joyous passen- gers, and clouding the very good road in dust. Just at the entrance of the Peiraeus, you pass the ruins of one of the three celebrated long walls, built by Themistocles. They were of a width that would permit two chariots to pass on their summit. After a drive of five miles, you reach Athens. Its present appearance is not prepossessing. There is one long street, that commences from the road to the Peirseus, and leads up to the palace. This is intersected by a church, which, though low, is highly pic- turesque. Branching right and left from this street, are a vast number of ill-paved, irregular lanes. The best houses are in the neighbourhood 46 WANDERINGS of the palace ; but they are scattered and uncon- nected : and this part of Athens made me think of a box of toy houses carelessly set up by a child. The bye lanes are disgustingly dirty ; and indeed, we always found that with the exception of the Acropolis, the filth surrounding the various localities of interest rendered caution in approaching them absolutely necessary. We had some difficulty in escaping from the landlord of the Hotel d' Angleterre, who, though his house was full, was not content, but endea- voured to detain us in an unfurnished apartment in an adjoining building. He almost cried when we proceeded to lodge at the Hotel de l'Orient. Having letters of credit and of introduction to M. Notara, a Greek merchant, that gentleman called upon us on the morning following our arrival, and, as we found difficulty in obtaining lodgings, rented me the upper story : t>f his own house. I was very fortunate in engaging Dimitri Pomonis, the very best valet-de-place and tra- velling servant that I ever had in my service. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 47 He appears full of zeal for his temporary mas- ter's interest, and has the tact merely to draw his attention to the objects worthy of notice ; then leaves him to his own stores of information, or to Murray's Hand-book. We made acquaintance with Mr. and Mrs. Hill. He is an American, and a Philhellene who has rendered Greece far the most important ser- vices of any of her friends. Since the year 1830 he has devoted himself to Greece. Possessing judgment and perseverance, as well as enthu- siasm in her cause, he has been fitting her for liberty and power by educating her children. The beneficial working of his system of educa- tion is now beginning to tell ; and his scholars are fitted to teach, and are teaching in their own localities. One thousand children used at one time to receive the blessings of education ; but lately that number has been reduced to five hundred, on account of Mrs. Hill's delicate health. Besides being a thoroughly pious cler- gyman, Mr. Hill is a most agreeable and well- informed man. In spite of his remark to me, 48 WANDERINGS that the wonders of the Acropolis, which every traveller hurries to visit upon his arrival at Athens, spoil him for her other beauties, we, like the rest, hastened to the Acropolis, as soon as I had secured Dimitri to act as guide to it. Wordsworth states " that, in its best days the Acropolis of Athens had four distinct cha- racters. It was at once the fortress, the sacred enclosure, the treasury, and the museum of art of the Athenian nation. Thus a flat oblong rock, the greatest length of which was a thou- sand feet, and breadth five hundred, was made the most interesting spot of ground on the face of the heathen earth." Though it has suffered in every possible man- ner, its treasures pillaged, its works of art de- faced or mutilated, portions of those mutilated fragments being the boast and pride of foreign museums, — though it has served as the mark of batteries directed against it at no great range, — the fire of these batteries being returned by missiles formed from the marbles of its columns, again and again suffering from its very strength, IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 49 by serving as magazines for powder, and that powder ignited, blasting its beauties, — still there it remains unrivalled, as a concentration of won- ders in architecture and sculpture. Alas ! that the ill-directed zeal of Athenians of the present day should be disfiguring it more than the hands or weapons of earlier barbarians. In searching for inscriptions, or those statues and works of art, that may be buried under the accumulated rubbish of the whole Christian era, they tumble all the mould and stuff cleaned away down the sides of the rock, instead of carting it away, and are actually changing the bold features of the rock. In vain I have lifted my voice against such Vandalism. I feel that it is useless. From the Acropolis you can distinctly trace many localities of interest mentioned by clas- sical writers, as well as those monuments of Athenian grandeur and art that are still in ex- istence. My first visit being towards the even- ing, I viewed the exquisite scenery that sur- rounded me by the light of the setting sun. I returned there at all hours, and each time F 50 WANDERINGS fancied that the light of the moment was the best suited to exhibit its beauty. The Acropolis received its name of the Cecro- pian rock from Cecrops, who may be considered as the earliest king and legislator of the Athen- ians, and was supposed to have been buried under that southern portico of the Erechtheum, supported by Caryatides, and called the Cecro- pium. He was an Egyptian, and obtained his position by marriage with a daughter of Actaeus. He introduced amongst the Pelasgi, the earlier inhabitants of Attica, the worship of Neith (Adeyrj) or Minerva, although it was not till the reign of Erechtheus that she became the tute- lary deity of Attica, giving the inhabitants her name in lieu of that of Cecropidge. Bacon alludes to this when he mentions " the light air which passed from more ancient people into the flutes of the Grecians, and became modulated into the many beautiful harmonies of their most plastic and poetic religion." And it is remark- able that the Athenians, when about the time of Solon they first gave, upon that coinage of IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 51 which they were so justly proud, the type of the head of Minerva, represented rather an Egyptian than a Grecian model. The Acropolis is entered from the west, after winding through a modern fortification, by a gate, where permission has to be asked, and an attendant is appointed. This preserves the buildings within from further desecration than they have already suffered. After passing this barrier, at a sudden turn, you have the Pro- pylasa before you. It was the most celebrated of all the Athenian buildings ; so much so, that when Epaminondas wished to inspire the The- ban assembly, he cried : " Oh, men of Thebes, you must uproot the propylaea of the Athenian Acropolis, and plant them in front of the Cad- moean citadel." It is, indeed, a noble pile of pure white marble, simple as well as magnifi- cent, as befitted what was purposed for a work of defence to the citadel, as well as an orna- mental structure. Commenced in the archon- ship of Euthymenes, in the year before Christ 437, the architect, Mnesides, completed it in 52 WANDERINGS five years. It presents a front of six columns and two wings, surmounted by a frieze. There are four rows of these columns, then a barrier of marble, running its whole height and width, which supported the celebrated brazen gates of entrance ; and then another row of six columns on the inner side. On the right, it is disfigured by a high tower, built in the middle ages. It was approached by flights of marble steps, extending the whole width, with an inclined plane of marble in the centre, for chariots and horses. On the right of the Propylsea, and so close as to have even been fancied to belong to it, is the little temple of Victory without wings. This temple was erected on the spot whence iEgeus precipitated himself, on seeing the black sail on his son's ship. It is, by some, supposed to have been dedicated to Victory without wings, from the news of Theseus' victory not having preceded him ; but there is a tablet of marble, — though, alas ! it is but a mutilated one, — lying in the temple, that tells another story. It represents a Victory, of ex- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 53 quisite beauty and grace, untying her sandal ; as if Victory, arrived at Athens, purposed to unfit herself for wandering from it, by laying aside her sandals as well as her wings. This temple forms a sort of outwork, or bastion ; and it shews what the resources of sculpture, in the days of Pericles, must have been, when that exquisite slab was only one of a series that formed a parapet round the temple for the pro- tection of the archers who defended it. The Acropolis contained three principal sta- tues of Minerva, besides numberless others of less repute. The first was in bronze, and armed, the work of Phidias, and called " Minerva Pro- machus' p : it was so colossal that the point of its spear and the crest of its helmet were de- scribed as being visible above the Parthenon by mariners when they had rounded Sunium. The next was Minerva Parthenos, or the Virgin Goddess, whose temple was the Parthenon : her statue, in ivory and gold, was also the work of Phidias. On passing through the Propykea that temple is before you, a little to your right ; f2 54 WANDERINGS it was erected by Pericles, to replace that more ancient temple destroyed by the Persians, and which stood upon the site of the present Erechtheum. Tetinus and Calistratus being the architects, it was adorned by Phidias and his scholars, and its frieze represented the pro- cession to the Parthenon on the great quin- quennial festival of the Panathensea. In this temple was the treasury of Athens. Near it, and to the left, stands the Erechtheum, the temple of the third Minerva, called * Minerva Polias"; it contained her statue in olive wood, said to have descended from heaven ; before her burned, night and day, the sacred golden lamp, the work of Calimachus, that architect who first formed the Corinthian capital, — it was only fed with oil once a year. To her was brought the sacred peplos in the Panathenaic festival, — that peplos, such a matter of dispute whether it were meant for her garment or to be a curtain to hang before her. Another chamber in this temple contained the salt spring produced by Nepture with a stroke of his trident, in his con- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 55 test with Minerva for the guardianship of Attica. The sacred olive tree, produced by Minerva in the same contest, also grew here ; and some trophies specially valued by the Athenians, were here preserved. The Erech- theum was commenced by Pericles, and finished thirty years after his decease : it is supposed to stand upon the site of that ancient temple of Minerva burnt by the Persians. Erechtheus was buried beneath it, whence its name; and Cecrops was also buried under its southern por- tico, called the "Cecropium", and supported by Caryatides : they are represented as virgins, arrayed in their Panathenaic costume. I especially remarked in the Acropolis that, at the period when the Greeks had attained the highest perfection in the fine arts, they care- fully avoided straight lines : all the lines in the Parthenon are curved, and you are brought up to it from the Propylsea by a curved chariot- way of marble. I have heard that the rules which they followed in these curves have not yet been defined. The effect produced is, that 56 WANDERINGS the Parthenon deceives the eye as to its real size, and appears larger than the reality : in contradistinction to this rule I may here state, that the remaining columns of the temple of Jupiter Olympus, in the plain, are straight, that temple being of a later epoch ; there the eye leads you to imagine that they are smaller than the reality, and on approaching them you are astounded to find them six feet in diameter, and lofty in proportion. The principal objects of classical interest now remaining, and forming a part of the Acropolis, but below the main platform, are — the Cave sacred to Pan and Apollo ; Apollo had first pos- session, — Pan having been given his share for services rendered at the battle of Marathon : a well that was named the Spring of Clepsydra, from a supposed subterraneous communication with Phalerum, is adjacent to it : — the Cave of Agraulus, where the young soldiers of Athens took the military oath ; thus named after Agraulus, who precipitated herself from the Acropolis as a sacrifice to save her country : its IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 57 subterraneous communication with the Erech- theum has lately been discovered. The Temple of Bacchus is a cave converted by Thrasylus into a small temple; it is marked by two columns that stand above it with triangular capitals to support tripods. Just at the foot of the Acropolis, to the south-east, is the site of the theatre ; it was formed by seats scooped in the rock, and is mentioned as having been the most magnificent in the world : Plato states that more than 30,000 persons have been assem- bled there, but the correctness of this statement is doubted. These, as far as I can remember, are the principal objects actually forming a part of the Acropolis. On my first visit we had a proof that Minerva no longer held her former sway there, for we actually saw a crow, — it flew before us, and lighted upon the Parthenon. Minerva had forbidden the crow ever to enter the Acropolis ; for having met her on her return from Pallene with Mount Lycabettus, the present Mount St. George, which she was bringing as an outwork for the Acropolis, and 58 WANDERINGS giving her the bad news of the birth of Erich- thonius, Minerva, startled at this intelligence, dropped her burthen where it still remains. This myth arose from the crows, which are seen flying about the rock of the Acropolis, seldom soaring to the summit. We had passed two days at Athens, when the weather changed to what would, in Eng- land, have been very severe weather for March : the wind was dreadfully cold, and occasionally a little sleet fell ; the mountains round were capped with snow ; there was even some little attempt at frost, but it was a failure. Dimitri, as well as all those with whom I had made acquaintance at Athens, thought it necessary to apologize for their weather; and assured me that it could not last, that such cold had not been known since the year 1832, etc. No wood is burned but olive wood. It is said that all the olive trees of Attica were originally propa- gated from the olive tree in the Erechtheum : hence they were sacred. Whilst the cold weather lasted, I must have made sad havoc in the sacred groves. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 59 On one bitter day, I took courage and went to the Chamber of Representatives. It is a small, paltry, octagonal building, with dirty red and white fluted linen hangings. It was the ball room attached to the King's temporary residence before he moved into the present palace. Benches for the members slope towards the President's tribune ; around, there are galleries for the court, for the diplomatic body, and for the public. The members themselves, some in dirty Greek, others in shabby European dresses, were as careless about their persons as even the members of our own House of Com- mons. The business was generally carried on by conversational remarks; sometimes by a speech; but there was no warmth of discus- sion. The President was provided with a hand-bell. The elections are conducted upon a system of universal suffrage ; but the King manages completely to pack the house. I will give, as one instance, the case of my friend, M. Boudouris, a Hydriote, and an opposition member. He became a marked man. Three 60 WANDERINGS times was his election invalidated, and twice was he reelected. Hydra was then kept without a representative, till, in despair, it consented to return one that would agree to all the govern- ment measures. I must here mention the very marked unpopularity of the present King of Greece. In no single instance have I heard him well spoken of. His subjects consider him to be a man totally indifferent to the historical recollections of this, his adopted country ; and who cares not for its condition, so that it be incapable of resisting his encroachments upon its liberties. Those that do not like to speak ill of him, are silent ; but none praise him. The members of the representative body being paid, so long as the king does not dissolve them they are his very humble servants. No work no pay being the system, they are only paid during the session : they therefore contrive to spin out the little business before them for unconscionable periods. The senate sits in a room in the same building. This body is entirely nominated by the king. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 61 We attended divine service on Christmas day at a pretty little church which Mr. Hill has been the means of founding. The congregation was very small. After service we went to the Areopagus. This celebrated rock is under the Acropolis ; and here the council of the Areopa- gus met by night in the open air. We mounted the rock by the same steps which the apostle Paul ascended to address — not the tribunal, as it has been supposed, for he was not actually accused of any crime — but, those philosophers of the Epicureans and Stoics- who had taken him to the Areopagus, as to a convenient locality for hearing what he had to say for himself. From the spot where he stood, a great part of Athens, and especially the bazaar and Eolus-street are in view. These are the site of the Agora (translated market in the New Testament) of St. Paul's time ; and still called Agora by the Greeks of the present day. The streets and lanes of that quarter of the town are as noisy, and evidently as gossiping as when St. Paul visited them. You see little knots of " Athe- G 02 WANDERINGS nians and strangers" at the doors of the coffee houses and in the streets, who appear " to spend their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear of some new thing."* We learn that the Agora was divided into markets, streets, and porticoes, which, in gene- ral, took their names from the objects sold in them. Of those manifold articles of trade, the most curious to persons of the present day, was the sale in the "«c rd fXEfficovia", or the place where asses' flesh was sold. M. Pittaky, the government conservator of antiquities, who has often accompanied me in my walks, insists that the porch known as the entrance to the Agora, and which consists of four Doric columns sup- porting a pediment with an inscription, was, in reality, the entrance to the temple of Minerva Archegetis. This is stoutly disputed by other archaeologists. The pillar just within the porch, known as the market tariff of Hadrian, he * Mr. Hill tells me, that the first conversational remark of an Athenian of the present day, would be : " Is there any thing newer ?" IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 63 affirms, stood within the temple, that being the usual place where the public documents were preserved. This pillar has been hastily called the Market Tariff; but the inscription, when read through, states the terms upon which the growth of certain articles upon the forfeited estates of one Hipparchus, might be farmed. Not far from this, are two marble measures, with traces of a third, that has been broken. They were the standard measures for the mar- ket. At a very little distance from these remains, at the top of Eolus-street, is the cele- brated Tower of the Winds, or the Water Clock of Andronicus Cyrrhestes. The form of the building is octagonal, and each side faces one of the eight points into which the Athenian compass was divided. Upon each, the name of the wind blowing from that quarter is inscribed, and its ideal form sculptured. The top was surmounted by a bronze triton, with a wand acting as a vane ; the whole building was thus one large weather-cock. Below these sculptured winds were sun-dials, and the meridian is now 64 WANDERINGS as correctly pointed by one of them as on the day on which the tower was erected. In the interior of the tower was a water clock, sup- plied by water brought by a small aqueduct from a spring just under the cave sacred to Pan. The regular flow of the water acted upon a bronze triton that, with a rod, pointed to the hour. Dimitri, longing to persuade us to some expe- dition from Athens, whence profits of every kind might accrue to himself, tempted us to his house, to see his travelling apparatus, can- teen, portable bedsteads, etc. ; he showed us his horses, and boasted of his side-saddle. His pretty little wife bustled about, and brought us orange marmalade of her own making. He has two children, of three or four years old, who were ordered to kiss our hands. Madame Dimitri pretended to be angry with her hus- band for not having prepared her for our visit, but could not conceal her delight, that the neighbours in the unpaved, narrow lane, should see a carriage at her door. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 65 Dimitri holds out to me hopes, that, whilst travelling through the country, he will obtain for me objects of antiquity which I may pur- chase ; for this he finds to be a temptation which will, at any time, lead me into the dirtiest house of the dirtiest lane in Athens. The law laid in Greece, with respect to ob- jects of this nature, for the purpose of retaining them in the country, is as follows : half of every thing found belongs to the government, and half to the proprietor of the soil. If of value, it is priced, and the proprietor has it at his option to receive his moiety of the value, and to hand it over to the proper authorities, or to retain it himself; but, in the latter case, he must give security that he will not sell it, and that it shall be secure from robbery, and shall not suffer damage from fire. The exportation of antiquities is absolutely forbidden. If the individual who finds any thing, should give it up to the government, he well knows that he will never receive payment for it ; he therefore uses every means in his power to conceal it till G 2 66 WANDERINGS he can sell it to some foreigner, who bribes the ill-paid custom-house officers to close their eyes when it is exported. Occasionally my friend, M. Pittaky, makes a sad hawl of the vases, etc., of some unfortunate collector too stingy to bribe effectually ; but in my own case, I found no difficulty in sending trunk upon trunk, filled with antiquities, out of the country ; and the collection at the Acro- polis, of vases, bronzes, etc., shows how very seldom really valuable objects fall into the hands of the government. The Greeks of the present day are sharp enough where their own interests are concerned, and make the mystery to be observed in purchases of this nature, a capital excuse for shewing a sepulchral tablet or a statue, of very inferior art, in such a dimly lighted place, that its defects cannot be seen. Of all the articles that I have been shown for sale, I have never seen one first-rate work of art. I should have liked — and, indeed, endea- voured — to obtain a most exquisite marble urn, found by the King's butler whilst building his IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 67 house ; but, as bad luck would have it, the authorities happened to hear of it. Gend'armes^ headed by M. Pittaky, carried it off at once, and by force, to the Temple of Theseus ; and the butler was left to endeavour to recover it by a tardy and tedious course of law. " Adhuc sub judice lis est." The natives of Athens must think the Eng- lish deranged, whilst under the influence of curiosity. M. Pittaky conducted us to trace the Stoa of Hadrian. It was a square enclosure, which contained a library, temples, etc. Part of the walls, with half its gateway, and half its facade, with seven noble marble columns, still remain. The interior is now partly filled by a barrack and its barrack-yard, partly by hovels belonging to the bazaar, and other miserable tenements. M. Pittaky leading the way, we all, namely Lady Albert, Dimitri, and myself, turned into an open wine-stall filled with customers. They were in utter astonishment at our entrance, having probably never heard of the object of our search ; 68 WANDERINGS for even Dimitri, during the fifteen years that he has acted as guide at Athens, had never visited the place. M. Pittaky raised a trap-door at the back of the shop ; customers, as well as visitors, descended some crazy steps, crept along a very filthy sort of cellar, — a receptacle for dirt and rubbish, — and then issued into a small sunken enclosure, also filled with rubbish. Into this opened two small deserted chapels, one of which was dedicated to the angel Gabriel, the other to * Megali Panaghia", or the Great Vir- gin. Fresco paintings, in the Byzantine style of art, still appear upon the walls and upon the roof; upon some marble columns remain por- tions of painted stucco. These chapels, and this yard, were part of the site of two temples, the Pantheon and the Temple of Juno. Marble columns are built into the wall around the sunken enclosure. Hovels, belonging to the bazaar, cover the roofs of these deserted chapels, and prove how the accumulation of rubbish must have raised the level of the soil. I know not whether the archaeological information which IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 69 I carried away from this expedition, will re- main impressed upon my mind ; but the bite of those fleas, which I also carried off, never can be forgotten. We visited several times that often-described and lovely little temple, called the Choragic monument of Lysicrates. It is contrasted by the crumbling modern tenements which are scattered around. Every sort of abomination must be waded through to view it. Six grace- ful columns support a frieze beautifully sculp- tured. This is the only temple left of a series of twelve that formed a street, called the Street of Tripods, from these temples having been sur- mounted by the tripods gained by the Choragi in the neighbouring theatre of Bacchus, and here dedicated by them to that patron of dra- matic representation. The popular name of this temple being the f* Lantern of Diogenes", the story given to explain it is, that this philosopher retired to it as his study, and shaved half his beard, that his eccentric appearance might pre- clude him from showing himself in public. This 70 WANDERINGS little temple has been copied on the roof of a chapel in London ; it has also been copied in Scotland ; but, like all the other imitations of Greek works of art, however correct in their measurements, they fail in giving the effect of the original. The last day of the year fell upon a Sunday. After service, I went to the temple of Theseus. The conservator of antiquities accompanied me, as he wished to point out some inscriptions and monumental effigies, of peculiar interest, that are kept there. The mass of objects of this nature that are found at Athens puzzle him, for he hardly knows where to place them for temporary preservation. He flatters himself that, at some future day, the destinies of Greece may be ruled by one alive to the interests of her monuments and works of art ; in the mean while, he preserves them as well as he can, and crams every available locality. He specially called my attention to a number of large slabs found at the Peiraeus, and covered with inscrip- tions : they are the records of the armament of IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 71 certain vessels, furnished by individuals for the service of the State : they contain a list of arti- cles granted for their outfit from the public stores, and state what were brought back and delivered up on the return of the vessels. A full-sized effigy of a Greek warrior, that was found at Velanidheza, is as fresh as on the day when it was sculptured : it gives the cor- rect costume of Greece, and is an admirable specimen of Grecian art at a very early period. The artist has added to the effect of the sculp- ture by paint, some of which has not yet disap- peared. There are inscriptions at the feet of the figure. Thus his name, "Aristion", is known, and that the artist was Aristocles. Were not the individuality thus proved, it might readily be taken for an Egyptian war- rior, as well as an Egyptian work of art. Some of the monumental marbles preserved at this temple are most touching, from the pathos of the tales they tell of affecting separa- tions between relations and friends. Scenes of domestic life are given. In one, the dog be- 72 WANDERINGS longing to the dying man appears under his bed, and an attendant is busied in the back- ground, during his master's last interview with a female, supposed to be his wife. Invariably some poetic allusion to the deceased is introduced ; thus, if the monument were that of a female, she would perhaps be represented veiling her- self, as if no longer to encounter the gaze of human kind. The numberless representations of this temple that have been given, in models of every size and of every material, have rendered it one of the most universally known remains of anti- quity. It will be remembered that only four metopes on the southern, and four on the north- ern side, are sculptured ; the remaining metopes on those sides being destitute of ornament. M. Pittaky suggested to me that this might arise from their having been painted, — Micon, who ornamented this temple, having been a painter, as well as sculptor. The whole of this temple, like the Parthenon, inclines inwards. This has most materially added to the strength and dura- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 73 bility of their construction. Its lines, also, are curved, like those of the Parthenon. This day made me moralize upon the uncer- tainty of all that has to do with this life, and upon the folly of plans for the future. How little, at the commencement of the year, did my wife or I think that we should see its close in Greece. It was a lesson, to cause us to reflect that a longer journey might be at hand, and that, before the close of another year, either or both of us might be summoned to that far country whence no traveller returns. 74 WANDERINGS CHAPTER III. On the 1st of January 1849, at ten o'clock, Dimitri announced to us that the carriage which he had ordered to take us to Eleusis, twelve miles distant, was at the door; it attracted much attention, as well it might, for its shabby- finery really merited attentive examination ; — it was evidently a worn-out state-carriage, its light blue colour faded, and its rich silver mountings fast changing into iron : — a tattered Greek, in what had once been a splendid dress, was to drive a team composed of a pair of greys and a pair of bays; he had evidently wasted no time in attempting to clean the old plated harness. I suggested, from the first, that the leaders should be attached behind the carriage, IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 75 and indeed all parties would have benefited had my advice been followed; their eccentric vagaries from side to side of the road, and their attempts to turn from it at every available op- portunity, produced a series of attacks upon our own nervous systems, tried Dimitri's muscles, who had perpetually to jump down to secure them before mischief ensued, and stretched the charioteering Greek's lungs with one incessant roll of what, I presume, were Greek anathemas. However, Dimitri was in raptures at the sensa- tion we created whilst shouting, jolting, and hitching our wheels along the streets and lanes and round the corners, till we turned out of Athens upon the very fine road that leads to Eleusis; thence one branch is continued to Megara, and another, that is not yet completed, is to go to Thebes. This road follows the an- cient sacred way ; the monuments and temples that bordered it have disappeared ; it now passes through a grove of most venerable and dingy looking olive trees, crossing two branches of the Cephissus; but their channels were dry, the 76 WANDERINGS water being diverted to irrigate the land. This was the spot selected for one of the numerous halts made by the sacred processions on their way to Eleusis, and here the Athenian popu- lace assembled to see them pass. They do not appear to have treated either the procession or those who formed it, with any great respect — the more illustrious the individuals, the more bitterly were they gibed ; in fact, it was a sort of Derby day for the inhabitants of Athens, who all turned out to see them pass. Issuing from the olive grove, the road crosses a wild, barren country and ascends to the pass of Daphne. The monastery of that name is a curious build- ing ; it is one of the earliest Christian edifices, and well deserves a visit : marble columns and slabs are built into the masonry: it stands upon the site of the Temple of Apollo. The chapel was gorgeously decorated with mosaic in the Byzantine style of art; much of this mosaic being gilded, it has suffered from Turkish rapa- city, portions having been pulled down under the flattering delusion that it was composed of IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 77 gold. A few old women are now the only tenants of this desecrated spot. Dimitri produced a basket of human bones with fragments of flesh still adhering ; these he declared to be the bones " of one bishop, a bad man, who had sold the place to the Turkeys": it is believed that as a retribution for his per- fidy, his dust is not allowed to return to dust. In this defile are some very indistinct ruins, and in one place niches cut in the rock for votive offerings. On descending from this pass into the Thria- sian plain, the view gradually opens upon the Bay of Eleusis. It is so land-locked that, in despite of a breeze of wind, there was hardly a curl upon the water ; and the little miniature waves breaking upon the shore, would have permitted the tiniest fairy-boat to have been " beached " without danger. I thought this view the most exquisite that I had ever seen ; traces of the ancient sacred road are pointed out, still visible upon the rocks at the foot of the defile. The road passes those celebrated h 2 78 WANDERINGS salt pools formed by the Rheiti, and on reach- ing Eleusis skirts an aqueduct supposed to have been built by Hadrian, to remedy the scarcity of water which inconvenienced the inhabitants. The beauty of the views during the drive, and which are obtained from the Acropolis, render an expedition to Eleusis most delightful; but the ruins there are disappointing. The present village is upon the site of the temple of Ceres, and it is impossible to imagine a havock more complete than has been made of its remains ; — columns, friezes, and slabs are worked into the various hovels and enclosures. One large marble medallion, containing a Roman, but headless, bust, is the only statuary that I saw ; excepting two large female figures that had suf- fered amputation of all their extremities, with a few other fragments that are either preserved in, or built into, the little mud chapel of St. Zacharias. All traces of the temple of Tripto- lemus and his threshing-floor have disappeared, and the precise locality of the Rharian plain, where corn was first planted, is a matter of dis- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 79 pute. A ruined fragment of masonry, part of some medieval fortification on the high ground near the Acropolis, is now the most prominent feature of Eleusis. The costumes worn are those of the Albanian peasantry — white, embroidered with some dark colour, and very picturesque. The head-dress of the young women worn on festivals, proves the inhabitants to be cautious in investing their capital ; it is a sort of cloth helmet, or rather skull-cap, covered with coins of the present day. They all attempt to form one by their earnings for their dowry ; when married, the coins com- posing it are only spent in cases of the most urgent necessity, for they wish to leave it to their children. The finest view of Athens is supposed to be that obtained while descending from the pass of Daphne, on the return from Eleusis. The time now came for us to be presented at court. The English are supposed to be very unpopular there, — and no wonder ; that unfor- tunate Greek loan is one perpetual source of 80 WANDERINGS dunning from the British government ; — and the audience at court bears some resemblance to an interview between a London tailor and a customer deep in his books. The most agreeable feature in the presentation, arises from the little ceremony attending it. The Queen received Lady Lyons and Lady Albert early in the day, in their morning dresses, her only attendant present being the Grande Maitresse de la Cour. In the evening, Sir Edmund Lyons and my- self drove up to the palace. One solitary ser- vant was in attendance, in a vast, dimly-lighted hall. We had to find our own way up a large, gloomy stair-case, into a long, lofty corridor. This was also scantily lighted. Doors opened into it on either side. Two servants were sta- tioned there. We were shown into a room where the grand maitre de la cour was waiting to receive us. My powers of conversation were placed " under a bushel", by his only speaking his native Greek and Italian. In about five minutes a side-door was opened, and we were IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 81 ushered into the presence of the king and queen, the only persons in waiting being the grand maitre and the grande maitresse de la cour. The king talked to me first, and then to Sir Edmund Lyons. The queen talked first to Sir Edmund Lyons, and then to me. After an audience of about ten minutes, we were bowed out. The king is plain, with a slim figure. He was dressed in an elaborately embroidered Greek dress, of blue and silver. He charmed me by talking to me of the British Archasological Association, having, of course, been primed for this by M. Prokesh d'Osten, the Austrian mi- nister at this court, who is a member of our Numismatic Society, or by M. Pittaky. He was less fortunate with Sir Edmund Lyons, whom he scandalized by not having read Louis Napoleon's manifesto, a document which just then was creating great public interest. The queen is rather pretty, and a remark- ably pleasing person : she is plump, and has very good teeth. Her two passions are dancing and gardening. The one she gratifies, when 82 WANDERINGS she cannot get up a ball, by dancing, almost every night, in her own private circle ; she in- dulges the other, by planting in the rear and to the west of the palace, where, in time, she will form a very pleasing garden out of a barren spot. Poor woman, she little thinks the un- popularity that she is laying up for herself by this innocent pursuit. It is said that in the summer water is scarce, and that she pours vast quantities upon the palace garden, instead of allowing the poor to benefit by it. The palace itself is a huge, two-storied, white building, measuring 300 feet by 280 : it has a portico in front, and a colonnade in the rear. These, with the window-frames, cornices, angles, plinths, etc., are formed of Pentelic marble ; the walls being of limestone, faced with cement. It is undoubtedly an unsightly building. The win- dow-frames are so flat and plain, as to give it the appearance of a manufactory. In forming the gardens, at the back of the palace, a mag- nificent mosaic pavement was discovered, of a very great size, and as fresh as on the day on IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 83 which it was laid down. The queen has had it roofed for preservation. It represents vases, birds, fish, masks, and fancy patterns, and is a splendid specimen of the art. The winter was severe for Greece ; but the air so delightfully pure, that I each day felt benefit from it, and my health gradually improv- ing. On one charming, but bracing, day in January, Lady Albert and myself amused our- selves by finding our way to the Stadium, and wandering about it without a guide. The Greeks found intense excitement in their races ; and chaplets of victory, with a profusion of flowers, were showered by the spectators upon the vic- tors. They afforded favourite, because popular, similes to their writers. St. Paul felt that he could not employ one that would be more effective with the Corinthians ; and therefore, in his first Epistle to them, 9th chapter, 24th, 25th, 26th verses, he says : " Know ye not that they which run in a race, run all ; but one receiveth the prize ? so run that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery, 84 WANDERINGS is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incor- ruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly ; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air." The Athenian stadium is at right angles with the Ilissus. It measures 675 feet in length, by 130 in width ; open at one end, and rounded into a semicircle at the other. It has been said that this semicircular shape was to facilitate the turning of the chariots in the race ; but this is incorrect, for the chariot-races were held else- where, — in the Hippodrome ; of which, the locality is stoutly disputed, and, I believe, yet undecided amongst archaeologists. The length of the actual course was probably 609 feet ; the two sides and the circular end were pro- vided, by Herodius Atticus, with tiers of seats in Pentelic marble, that would accommodate 40,000 persons ; the sloping heights were partly natural, and partly artificial. On the eastern side, near the semicircular extremity, is an aperture, in masonry, that measures twelve feet wide, by ten in height; — unusual, as well as IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 85 useless, for a Greek stadium, this is believed to have been made when the stadium served as an arena for the exhibition offered by Hadrian of the slaughter of a thousand wild beasts. There were various courses ; in one, those who contended started from the open end and ran up to the semicircular end ; in another, they started at the same place, and returned by a parallel line to a point rather to the east of the starting- post ; in others, they continued as many circuits as the particular course demanded. The ap- proach from Athens was by a bridge of three arches, built by Herodius Atticus. All is now changed; the bed of the Ilissus is dry, the bridge over it was pulled down in 1774 by a Turkish governor for the materials, the marble m seats have disappeared, and the grassy slopes alone mark out the course ; but the view from the ground above is beautiful, and it is a fine wild country to ramble over. In vain we searched on the banks of the Ilissus for a spe- cimen of Plato's heliotrope, — not one plant could we find. 86 WANDERINGS On another day, M. Pittaky conducted me over the line of rocky heights to the west of the town of Athens, commencing at the hill sur- mounted by the monument of Philopappus, called Museum hill, to that surmounted by the modern observatory, called the hill of the Nymphs ; in this line the prisons of Socrates, and the Pnyx, are specially to be remarked. Museum hill was thus named from the poet Musaeus having been buried there ; subsequently Philopappus, grandson of Antiochus, king of Commagen, who was deposed and carried to Rome by Vespasian, erected a semicircular monument in white marble upon this spot. Philopappus having attained to many high dignities under Trajan, and having retired to Athens, erected this monument in honour of his benefactor, one of whose triumphs he com- memorated in the lower compartment ; and in the upper one, he placed in three niches the statues of his grandfather, his father Epiphanes, and himself. M. Pittaky gave me pleasure by proving IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 87 satisfactorily that the chambers cut in the rock at the base of this hill, and termed the prison of Socrates, really were the Athenian dungeons for condemned criminals; their position, as well as arrangements, tally with descriptions of classical writers. There are three chambers ; in the inner one, domed and receiving light from an aperture above, the condemned man was confined ; it was entered by a ladder, let down through the same aperture that admitted light; in the chamber now opening into it, but which formerly was separated from it, he drank the hemlock juice; as this chamber gives a loud reverberation to the voice, the expression of Xantippe's grief may have been as noisy as has been represented. In the third chamber, the doomed man bathed ; on the outside are places cut in the rock apparently to fix a roof, and may have been intended for that of some build- ing for the use of the Eleven and of those who acted as gaolers. He next drew my attention to the Pnyx, which is a little further on, upon a rocky elevation. Wordsworth says, with re- 88 WANDERINGS spect to it : — " This was the place provided for the public assemblies at Athens in its most glorious times, and nearly such as it was then, is it seen now. This Bema was the throne from which the ' Olympian Pericles 1 fulmined over Greece. The Athenian orator spoke from a block of bare stone ; his audience sat before him on a blank and open field." It has been stated that this celebrated place of assembly for the Athenian people originally gave a view of the sea, and that the Thirty Tyrants had it removed to another spot, whence the popular orators would be deprived of this assistance to their many facilities of working upon an excita- ble audience. The locality when visited com- pletely bears out this account ; the site of the wilfully destroyed Bema of the more early Pnyx is plainly to be traced, and the sea may be viewed from it ; this view cannot be obtained from the well-preserved rocky tribune from which the orations of Demosthenes were deli- vered. The later Pnyx is a semicircular area of nearly twelve thousand square yards; the IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 89 circular side is faced by large square stones; the chord of the semicircle is cut in the rock ; in the centre of this straight line stands the Bema; this, as well as the steps by which it was ascended, is also cut out of the rock; un- derneath it are places in the rock to which were fastened tablets inscribed with the laws, ready to be referred to by scribes at hand for that purpose ; to the right and left are niches for statues and votive offerings. Large as is the area of this place of assembly, the voice travels from the Bema to its furthest extremity without any very great exertion. Below the observatory, at the foot of the rock that was dedicated to the nymphs, is the little church of Santa Marina. Sick children are brought here by their parents, and, after attending mass, part of their dress is left on the adjacent rock. This chapel was the site of a temple dedicated to Hercules, and here children were also brought when sick, and, after sacri- ficing, they left the garments in which they came, quitting the place in fresh attire. i2 90 WANDERINGS Below this, again, is a bath scooped in the rock. Here the Grecian married women, who were enceinte, after sacrificing to Diana, under her attributes of Lucina, bathed, and then slid down a smooth side of the rock, from a height of several feet, thus to secure a favourable con- finement. The rock, by its well-worn surface, shows what faith the Grecian dames must have had in this rite. Two other localities must specially be no- ticed in the vicinity of Athens. Two low hills, to the north-west, are celebrated as the scene of Sophocles 1 tragedy of "CEdipus at Colonus." The village of Colonus, the birth-place of So- phocles, was situated at the foot of these hills. The larger of the two is now surmounted by a white marble pillar, a monument erected to the celebrated German antiquary Miiller: it was called Colonus Hippius, and was sacred to Nep- tune. To the west of these small hills is a tract of ground still called the Academy. This was the celebrated Gymnasium, planted by Cimon with plane-trees, from their affording IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 91 great shade, and having a rapid growth. ' Plato had a small property close to it, and resided there, near a small temple dedicated to the Muses. It is now valuable vegetable ground, from lying low, and still affording those facili- ties of irrigation which rendered its verdure so luxuriant of old. 92 WANDERINGS CHAPTEE IV. We made our first attempt at travelling in Greece on Monday the 8th of January. This is now managed with great facility, and no very great discomfort, by those who secure the services of either Dimitri or Yani, the rival travelling servants. These, as well as some other men not so well provided with the appa- ratus required, are engaged at the rate of a pillar dollar per diem, for their own services, whilst either stationary at Athens or travelling ; they receive, in addition, one pound sterling per head, for each member of the party with which they travel. They provide a cook, with his batterie de cuisine ; portable beds and bed- ding, plenty of table linen, towels, etc. ; in short, IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 93 every thing that can be wanted or required, except wine. This the travellers provide for themselves. In almost every Greek village there is a house rather superior to the rest, which is a sort of coffee-house for the pea- santry ; there they meet to gossip and talk politics, for they are all great politicians. Wine and rakie are sold ; and it has generally a loft for the shelter of a chance traveller and his baggage. Of this loft the servant takes posses- sion ; or should the village be too wretched for even this accommodation, he bribes a whole family to turn out of their hovel for the night : he then, with his assistants, gets to work, and cleans it out ; beds, portable chairs, etc., are set up ; and the cook gives a far better dinner than is to be obtained at any but a first-rate conti- nental hotel. Dimitri or Yani contrive, if pos- sible, to detain the party sight-seeing on the road, and thus, by hustling the cook off the moment he has dressed a couple of made dishes for breakfast, manage that dinner shall be ready for the hungry travellers as soon as they have dismounted from their horses. 94 WANDERINGS All my Athenian friends assured me, that at this time the country was in a state so disor- ganized, that if I were not escorted by gens- d'armerie, I should inevitably be stopped, and not only robbed of every thing with me, but that Lady Albert and myself would very probably be carried up into the mountains till a ransom was sent from Athens. Even the Greek mer- chants, to whom I had letters of introduction from England, agreed that this was a matter of the greatest probability, from the bands of rob- bers, which the government is not sufficiently strong to put down, and who laugh at the rewards set upon their heads. I was allowed three gensd'armes by the authorities; one of these always acted as a vidette at some distance ahead, whilst the others kept close to ourselves. The first symptom of our intended journey was the appearance of Dimitri, mounted, with very short stirrups, on a clever grey barb, an old musket upon the pommel of his saddle, and his usually pure white petticoats concealed by a pair of baggy trowsers and leggings, all in IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 95 one, of shabby blue camlet. He had a belt stuck full of pistols ; but on examining them in the evening, I found that not one was loaded. For the first half hour after his appearance, he amused himself by galloping about in every direction, for no object beyond showing to the rival, Yani, and his other competitors, his good fortune in securing a travelling party at an unlikely season. The first individual "got under weigh' 1 was the cook, perched upon the top of his pots and pans, with a canteen, balanced by a provision basket, large enough to supply the whole party for four days. This was the burthen of a stout and clever but a most dreadfully restive animal, who kicked a return to the whip cuts and shouts by which he was started ; whilst the un- fortunate cook, so hampered up that he could not dismount without assistance, roared for mercy as if the stripes were lighting on his own back. Next started two baggage horses laden with portable bedsteads, bedding, and car- pet bags ; these were led by two very filthy- 96 WANDERINGS looking Greeks. Whilst we were dressing and breakfasting, our two English servants, who were to remain at Athens, attended upon us with the dejected, subdued demeanour of the attendants of persons about to mount the scaf- fold. M. Notara and his family all came to the door to see us off. M. Boudouris rode part of the way, leaving us in the afternoon. I rebelled against Dimitri's suggestion, that we should ride forth escorted by the gend'armes, and in- sisted upon their meeting us a few miles from the town. We left Athens by a very fine carriage-road, that only leads to the village of Patissia. We turned off from it to the right, before reaching the little German village of Heracly ; passed through a plantation of olive trees, and under a Roman aqueduct— left the monastery of Kalo- grias on our left hand, rode through a country of great wildness and beauty, under another aqueduct, — passed a sort of public-house, at a place called Psichico, — through the village of Halandri, and came to a single pillar in the plain IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 97 called Stavro, or the cross. It has a Byzantine inscription. Here the gensd'armes were waiting for us. We then kept the range of Hymettus near us on the right, and Pentelicus at a dis- tance on our left ; rounding Hymettus, we came to the small village of Leontari. Close to the little church of St. Nicholas, lies the colossal lion in white marble which has given its name to the village ; though very greatly mutilated, it still shews that it is of the highest style of art. It is represented looking round to the left, and rousing itself from its lair. The peasantry call it the " monster'" — say that it had its den in Hymettus, and was turned to stone by St. John, the hunter, who has a chapel dedicated to him, that is visible in the distance on Hymettus. We then crossed a dreary country, with only a few olive trees, till we reached the village of Macropoulos, about twenty miles from Athens. Here M. Boudouris and I left Lady Albert. We rode about seven miles through a rocky pass to Port Raphte ; M. Boudouris being attracted there by a brig from Sutherland, that K 98 WANDERINGS had been run ashore in a gale of wind whilst on her way to Odessa, and had been bought by some persons from Hydra, his own native island — and I, attracted by the colossal statue of Apollo, upon the island in the mouth of the harbour that forms its principal shelter. The statue's supposed resemblance to a tailor, gives that name, in Greek, to the harbour : it was described to me as being fifteen feet high. On reaching the harbour we were both dis- appointed ; the brig, which had been got off, was anchored too far for hailing, and M. Boudouris could not go on board ; and a heavy surf break- ing over the landing-place on the island pre- vented my attempting to visit it. This is supposed to have been the site of the ancient Prassise, and that the sacred processions to Delos made this their place of embarcation. We galloped back to Macropoulos. M. Boudouris swallowed some luncheon as fast as he could, jumped upon his horse, that had been baiting whilst he had ridden to Port Raphte upon a horse of Dimitri's, and started back as hard as he could gallop for Athens. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 99 I found Lady Albert in a melancholy mood, established in our quarters for the night ; our two truckle-beds and a little table for our dinner, with two chairs, were the furniture of a large loft and granary, open by many cracks in the tiles to the sky, — receiving light from the door alone, and warmth from an earthen pan of coals, which, by the way, gave me a dreadful head- ache all night. A lighted lamp, swung in the draughts of wind before a Byzantine Virgin and Child, and holes pierced in the floor, gave us the advantage of all the noises from below, which were manifold, — our place of shelter being the village coffee-house. Our discomfort was soon remedied by an admirable dinner. Unfortunately for us, the English crew of the stranded and sold brig arrived at Macropoulos, on their way to Athens. My infernal philan- thropy induced me to give them some money : as bad luck would have it, the landlord had some rum, — my money instantly passed into his hands. They began the night by singing ; as it advanced they quarrelled ; a battle-royal ensued 100 WANDERINGS — Dimitri, landlord, landlord's wife, their inter- preter, gensd'armes, cook, Dimitri's assistants — all got entangled in the row which they had interfered to quell. On the following morning Dimitri, in piteous tones, gave us a most comical account of the affray, in which he had been en- gaged, solely, as he said, to prevent milord being disturbed by the noise: — a good purpose, but in which he most completely failed. We had a most capital breakfast, and off we started, leaving the baggage to take care of itself. The road was good, and away we clat- tered, across a fertile plain with a good many tumuli. We left, on our right, an uninhabited village, where the inhabitants of Macropoulos establish themselves during the season for labour in the field. We passed through Keratea, which was to be our quarters for the night, within sight of Mount Laurium, formerly celebrated for its silver mines. Gradually we entered the defiles between Mounts Tibari and Korora : in many places were traces of an ancient road worn by chariot wheels. There were vast IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 101 quantities of scoria strewed by the sides of the paths ; they were from the worn-out silver mines. Wc came to a beautiful view, where the sea opened upon us between the rocks ; and we descended into the fertile valley of Thorico. Close to the village of that name — which was the ancient Thoricus — is Port Mandri. In the valley there are the remains of a temple ; and the ancient city walls are plainly to be traced, with the theatre, let, as it were, into them. Thorico is now a wretched village, only tenanted by persons from Keratea, who bring there a few articles for sale to the crews of vessels taking shelter in Port Mandri. The day was advancing, and we galloped on. The road was strewed with scoria. Suddenly Lady Albert reined up her horse, and declared that if she rode any further, she would be un- able to regain Keratea. What was to be done ? Dimitri produced a pewter plate with some cold meat, for her luncheon ; and I left her with the gensd^armes, whilst Dimitri and I went on, by a k 2 102 WANDERINGS beautiful mountain path, towards Sunium. We saw many vestiges of Grecian masonry, and some of Grecian edifices. A mutilated female statue, with a slab bearing an inscription, were by the side of the path. We galloped on at risk of our necks, and, A turning a corner, the temple of Sunium was before us, on an opposite hill, backed by the sea, which shewed through the nine graceful columns that stand in line. Sunium must have been a strong fortification ; the descent to the sea is precipitous on one side, and on the other a very steep ascent is intersected by lines of fine strong masonry. The melancholy beauty of this deserted and lovely fragment of the Temple of Minerva, has been often described ; it seemed so lonely with no human being in sight, that it struck me as resembling some proud beauty re- tiring to mourn and to hide her grief from every human eye. The wild note of some curlews, feeding in a little marshy hollow on thfc inland side, added to the effect of the scene. I dis- turbed some partridges sunning themselves at IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 103 the foot of the columns. I had not the heart to do more than to meditate for some time, and was glad when Dimitri aroused me to press my return ; we scrambled down the steep ascent, got upon the horses, and I rode as hard as I could, to drown melancholy thoughts. Cape Colonna was the scene of Falconer's shipwreck ; and he describes it as then wearing a very different aspect from that under which I viewed it. " But now Athenian mountains they descry, And o'er the surge, Colonna frowns on high ; Beside the cape's projecting verge are plac'd A range of columns, long by time defac'd. First planted by devotion, to sustain, In older times, Tritonia's sacred fane. Foams the wild beach below, with madd'ning rage, Where waves and rocks a dreadful combat wage." We found Lady Albert by the side of a fire, with two wild-looking figures, who had left their flocks to converse with the gensd'armes. I had begn absent about two hours. The time had appeared long ; and she had fancied every sort of mishap for us. 104 WANDERINGS After breathing our horses, we made the best of our way back to Karatea. On approaching it, Dimitri rode forward, and we found dinner ready upon our arrival. We slept in the same sort of place as on the preceding night, light being only admitted through the door; the walls were not quite weather-tight ; however, wonderful to relate, there was a hearth-stone, with a chimney over it, and the luxury of a fire made up for any other discomfort. On the following morning we again passed through Macropoulos, and then crossed an un- interesting plain, towards a very peculiar round hill called Ettos. We passed it on our left hand, and threaded some passes in those hills, which run up to Mount Argaliki. These passes have been disfigured by the practice of the shepherds, of firing the woods, to encourage the growth of the more tender shoots for their flocks. Here we entered upon the plain of Marathon. The commencement of this plain abounds in lentisk and arbutus, with a little fine timber. The first object that catches the IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. J 05 eye is the large tumulus of the Athenians. It is diminished by the scraping of persons anxious to obtain, as relics, some of the arrow-heads said to be found in great numbers. In vain Lady Albert and myself searched, — not one could we find. Dimitri, to comfort us, affirmed that all the persons with whom he had travelled, had been equally unsuccessful. The marshy plain was unusually deep, and I had trouble to reach a little island, surrounded by a streamlet, and situated near the sea. There is a sheep- fold upon it, and many sculptured fragments. This is supposed to be the site of the Temple of Minerva Hellotis. Many tumuli are scattered about the marsh and plain : all appear to have been opened. I observed fragments of marble columns. These are now mere objects for anti- quarian discussion. We remained on the plain till dusk, in the vain hopes of seeing the bag- gage, or the cook, in the distance. Tired .of waiting, we made for the village of Marathon, where Dimitri took possession of the house belonging to the Dimark, or mayor. It 106 WANDERINGS was a miserable place. The evening was chilly, and our feet had got soaked in the marshes. The family amongst whom we had sought re- fuge, consisted of two fine-looking brothers, with their hideous and dirty wives, and swarms of young children. The women and children were cowering upon the ground round a hearth ; the smoke from it had rendered the room black and sooty as the chimney itself. Sitting up would have been at the risk of suffocation ; we therefore crouched down with the rest. The poor children appeared too chilled to have much curiosity about us, and merely stared with their large, black eyes; whilst the youngest crept whimpering close to their mothers. The la- bourers employed by the Dimark came in and had their suppers, consisting of bread, which they dipped into some sort of porridge: they eat it seated upon the ground, around a board that was raised a few inches. At length our belated luggage and dinner arrived, and we were consigned to solitary grandeur and a pan of coals in another room. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 107 Early on the next morning I visited the cave of Pan, situated in a rugged mountain at the back of the village. The outer chamber is entered by merely stooping, but the interior chambers, that are hung with stalactites, must be reached by traversing a very wet passage upon the hands and knees. They contain no inscriptions. We found the skeleton of an unfortunate goat upon a sort of natural altar ; it had caught its hind feet in the crevice of a rock, and died a miserable death by starvation. Fragments of matting, left upon some of the floors, showed that human beings had at some period chosen this as a place of refuge. These chambers are of considerable extent. A pea- sant had guided us up to the spot, and entered the cave with Dimitri and myself. We had only two candles with us ; and as, whilst ex- ploring, we felt misgivings of our own powers of retracing our steps, we placed the guide, to await our return, as a sort of human finger-post, at an awkward turning. He had to be left in the dark, and as he greatly disliked this arrange- 108 WANDERINGS ment, we could hear him, the whole time of our absence, piteously bleating for our return. It was from this cave that Pan was supposed to have issued, to render his services at the battle of Marathon. Remounting our horses at the foot of the mountain, we turned to the right, and passed one of those medieval towers so common in Greece. This ought to be a place of celebrity, as the scene of the gallant defence of a few Greeks, who held it against an overwhelming Turkish force, till they were relieved by General Church. We soon came to Vrana, a deserted monas- tery, picturesquely situated at the entrance of a gorge, dividing Mounts Argaliki and Afor- ismo. As usual, our vidette led the way far ahead. I followed next, just keeping him in sight ; then came Lady Albert ; Dimitri after her ; the gensd'armes bringing up the rear. The path became more and more difficult, and at last so rugged, that the sheer precipice below us made our nerves give way, and we all IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 109 scrambled up on foot, the horses making by far the best fight of the ascent. It was now evi- dent that we were too far to the left; but a steep cliff hemmed us in on one side, and a pre- cipice on the other, and we did not quite like returning. A little further, a number of huge dogs rushed forward and attacked our vidette, who had to defend himself with his broad sword from the ferocious brutes. A flock of goats was under their care, but no human being would appear. After breathing our horses, we went on. Some distance further, we came to a man who was tending the bees by whose honey he gained his livelihood. From him we learnt that we had no alternative but to return to the monas- tery, and thence start afresh. Dimitri, who is not blest with a very good temper, poured forth dreadful lamentations at his bad fortune in thus unnecessarily tiring his horses. It was all in vain. Return we must to the monastery. To add to his despair, whilst he was still muttering execrations, Lady Albert and I, thinking that L 1 10 WANDERINGS our apparently quiet horses would follow us, let go their bridles. Mine, far from following, turned short round, and then attempted to mount the rocky side of the path, that was steep and slippery as the slated roof of a house. Dimitri had only time to spring forward, when the brute made a scramble, his legs flew from under him, and down he came, plump upon his side. I thought Dimitri would have died on the spot. He was speechless for some moments ; then vented his grief in a torrent of words. He knew that something dreadful must happen to the horse, for I had praised its surefootedness in the morning ; and it appears that either admiring or praising any thing in Greece, is sure to bring misfortune to the object praised, unless at the time a short formula is repeated to avert the evil omen. However, the horse escaped without much damage. We returned to the monastery at Vrana, and thence wound our way by the side of Mount Aforismo, our former path having entangled us in Mount Argaliki. The scenery was lovely : a IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. Ill torrent was below us, and the side of the moun- tain thickly planted with evergreen shrubs, festooned with creepers. Nothing could be more picturesque than the effect produced by our party, thus winding our way, with the sun shining brightly upon us. We reached the hamlet of Arapdosa, snugly nestled in a mountain nook : here we were to bait the horses and have luncheon. In one of the huts its mistress was making the new year's cake for the following day, which was our thirteenth, and their first, of January. The cake was of meal and honey. Some pieces of the dough from which the cake had been made, were given to us: they were baked upon the hearth, and excellent. Some pretty children were playing on the floor, and we were much touched by the affectionate good nature with which the elder ones took care of, or played with, the younger ones : when we gave them anything to eat, they were sure to offer it to the smallest. A beautiful girl of about sixteen, — who told us, by Dimitri's interpretation, that 112 WANDERINGS she was engaged to be married, and whose helmet of coins we assisted to form, — bustled about, did all she could to minister to our com- forts, and endeavoured to converse with us by We were all excellent friends, till Dimitri made a successful search for barley for his horses. Never did I hear such shrill abuse, as that poured forth by the woman of the house and some of her neighbours who assisted her in repelling this attack upon her property, which the sight of the gensd'armes made her think would never be paid for: the actual touch of the money alone pacified her. Whilst we were resting, the weather had changed, clouds accu- mulated rapidly, and before the horses could be saddled, drops of rain fell. All thoughts of crossing Pentelicus, and enjoying the view from it, had to be abandoned. We turned to the right, so as to round its base. The rain soon descended in torrents, with violent gusts of wind. We mended our pace, following each other in silence ; sometimes trotting, sometimes IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 113 galloping. The evening closed in, and we had ridden in utter darkness for more than an hour and a half, when lights shone through the heavy rain, and in about ten minutes more, I found myself entering Athens by the road that passes the palace. l 2 114 WANDERINGS CHAPTER V. In despite of the charm of novelty afforded by the mode of travelling in Greece, of the beauti- ful scenery through which we had passed, and of the enthusiasm which all are bound to affect who visit Marathon, we were glad to find our- selves again established in a weather-tight room at Athens. Sir Edmund Lyons, with the hospitality for which he is so justly celebrated, again gave us repeated invitations to his house ; and for some time, the attraction of comparative comfort in our own apartments, prevented us from starting on any fresh expedition. We returned just in time to be enabled to attend a grand ball at the palace. On driving IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 115 to the principal entrance, and mounting the grand staircase, a large anteroom is first entered. This leads into a suite of three very lofty and well-decorated rooms, with " parquets" of beau- tiful " marqueterie". The first is the ball-room. The Queen, and all the ladies present, collect on one side, — the King and the principal mem- bers of the corps diplomatique approaching to speak to them ; whilst the remainder of the male guests, crowded together, form a deep semicircle opposite. After a very formal half- hour spent in presentations, etc., the Queen opened the ball by a " polonaise"; she was fol- lowed by the King, but by not more than three other couple; for this unfortunate polonaise has been an apple of diplomatic discord at Athens. The King danced the first quadrille with Lady Albert. As we only went to the ball to look at the dresses, we left it after two or three dances. Sir Edmund Lyons told us that, hardly had we parted from him, when the grande maitresse came up in search of me, to dance with the Queen ; thus drawing a host of 116 WANDERINGS excuses from Sir Edmund, with respect to a sudden indisposition of Lady Albert, which had forced us to quit the ball, and a visit of apology from me to the grande maitresse on the follow- ing morning. There was a remarkable deficiency of female beauty, and not a single fresh-looking girl did I see ; all looked like faded, married women. The Queen, who is thirty, appeared the youngest person in the room : she was admirably dressed, danced beautifully, and it is impossible to do justice to the grace with which she spoke to those present. The male guests must have nearly quadrupled the women, for the Grecian ladies are not fond of dancing. Of the latter, but a few were in the costumes of their country, and these dresses had evidently seen much ser- vice. There was a great mixture in the attire of the men : some wore a mass of embroidery, (especially the king's Greek aides-de-camps, who blazed in scarlet and a profusion of gold, (said to be the Queen's taste) ; others were in plain clothes, with black and evenJcoloured neck- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 117 cloths, and wore boots. I heard that some of the guests present bore dreadful characters. One or two were pointed out to me as having been more than suspected of awful crimes. Dancing being for the young, this ball made me think of a definition of youth that I had heard, — " the age of thirty in a man and fifty in a woman " , but, indeed, there are many ladies in our own country who appear to be of this opinion. Our 18th, or the Greek 1st of January, is their Epiphany, and a grand festival. We drove over to the Peirseus to see the ceremony of blessing the waters that is to ensure fine weather. The sight was pleasing, from the vast number of picturesque figures assembled around an altar that had been erected at the fountain in the principal square. The religious ceremony was very tedious, and the voices of those taking part in it were painfully nasal, and gave it a ridicu- lous effect. Our great object of attraction was the subsequent ceremonial of throwing a cross into the sea : any who chose were to plunge in, and the fortunate individual who recovered it 118 WANDERINGS was to be certain of good luck for the whole year ensuing, and, above all, was to have the privilege of taking it first to the Queen, and then round Athens, to be kissed by the devout, who give money in return. We hastened to the quay to secure a good place, and were in the act of stepping into a shore boat, when we were accosted by M. Ebeling, the lieutenant of a Kussian vessel of war in the harbour. He offered to take us in one of her boats. We gladly availed ourselves of his kindness, and in a few moments, by a mixture of fair means and foul, we were backed up to one of the three booms, which, lashed together, formed, with the quay, a square space into which the cross was to be thrown. About eight men were standing half dressed upon the booms, prepared for their plunge; all around was crowded with boats, and every spot from whence a glimpse could be obtained was swarming with people. I threw a dollar into the vacant space : in sprung the divers, and in a moment one reappeared with the dollar. Another that I threw in afforded IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 119 the spectators more diversion ; again and again was it dived after, but in vain. The procession with the cross now approached ; the excitement of the populace passed all bounds ; an escort of gensd'armes could hardly clear the way ; and when at last it reached the quay, the priests, who composed it, had difficulty in frustrating the attempts of some enthusiastic individuals who endeavoured to snatch the cross from the hands of the little boy who was to cast it into the sea. The instant the coveted prize touched the water, in sprung the competitors. Two sailors, belonging to a Grecian corvette, were looking at the show, balancing themselves upon the bowsprit of a small craft moored close along- side. One of these men, completely dressed, plunged after the divers, and almost directly reappeared with the cross in his hand. There were several vessels of war in the harbour, all of which fired a salute, and the populace were actually mad with delight. Lieutenant Ebeling then took us on board his vessel. She was a fine corvette, and tolerably well kept, but there 120 WANDERINGS was something not quite sailor- like in the ap- pearance of the crew : they looked more like soldiers than sailors. We made the Peiraeus the commencement of a very interesting ride, following the shore by a rugged path, as far as Phalerum ; and thence returning to Athens, we passed Muny- chia, which celebrated Athenian port is now a favourite bathing place from Athens. The whole line of coast from the Peirseus to Pha- lerum presents vestiges of the fortifications of maritime Athens ; there are foundations of the walls and of the towers that flanked them : in some places several courses of the masonry remain ; they are not constructed in the usual manner, that is to say — piled up in the middle with broken stones and mortar, but are formed throughout of large stones well fitted and not cemented, but cramped together with metal. I observed, at Munychia, masonry jutting into the sea below the surface ; these are pro- bably the foundations of jetties. It is at Phalerum that the Queen bathes during the IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 121 summer, she drives down at four o'clock in the morning, bathes and returns to bed at Athens ; the King bathes at ten or eleven at night. Very near the entrance of the har- bour at the Peirseus, at the western point of the Munychian promontory, is a prostrate column ; close to it, and just covered by the sea, is a double sarcophagus hewn in the rock ; this is called the Tomb of Themistocles, but there is no evidence by which this tra- dition can be supported, and there are many sepulchres of a similar nature on both sides of the entrance of the harbour. Colonel Leake does not credit it ; he imagines that Themis- tocles was not interred at the Peirseus, but that an honorary cenotaph was there erected to his memory. We took a very fatiguing ride up Mount Pentelicus, the ancient Mount Brilessus or Brilettus, it is 3,500 feet above the level of the sea, and seven or eight miles from Athens ; the fatigue was occasioned by the snow which had drifted in many places, so as to render M 122 WANDERINGS a steep but very practicable path really dan- gerous for horses; the view from the summit is magnificent, commanding Attica and the Negropont; the deserted quarries are pictu- resque, and are curious from shewing the means used by the ancient Greeks for facili- tating the lowering their large blocks of mar- ble. Half way up is the celebrated Grotto, sixty feet square ; a small chapel dedicated to the Virgin is built into it, on the right as you enter ; lower down are the quarries that were worked during the construction of the palace, and it is strange to see some huts, deserted by the artisans who were then employed, built of white marble. At the foot of the mountain, in a very fertile position, there is a monastery, which is a favourite spot for those who visit Pentelicus to eat their luncheon. The Duchesse de Plaisance is building a small house by the side of the road that leads to the monastery. Having the misfortune to lose her only daugh- ter whilst travelling in the East, she caused the body to be embalmed, purposing that it IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 123 should be interred with herself, and she kept it in her own room; her house catching fire, she offered a very large reward to those who would save the body, — but in vain, the case was too heavy for removal. She has now left her property to " the most virtuous woman;" a com- mittee, of which the Queen of Greece is to be the president, having to decide amongst the competitors ; English women are specially ex- cluded from competing. Unpopular as the English are said to be at the Grecian court, I cannot but feel the great personal civility shewn to ourselves. On the 20th, I was invited, but without Lady Albert, to dine at the palace — for a rule has been established that no foreign ladies should be invited unless of royal rank. When the guests were assembled, the King and Queen entered the room ; after speaking to every person present, they led the way into the dining-room, and sat side by side ; I sat next the King, who talked to me constantly about England ; he appeared to be well informed : on 124 WANDERINGS my other side sat a very pretty lady of honour, who could talk English : after dinner the King and Queen led the way into an adjoining room; again they spoke to each one of their guests, who were about twenty-four in num- ber, and who consisted of members of the Chamber of Deputies, with a few officers, — they then retired, leaving us to depart as soon as we chose. The small balls at the palace are usually given on Sundays ; but one being given on the 22nd, which was Monday, we were enabled to be present. These balls are held in a suite of rooms above the principal apartments. The King was suffering from a relapse of an inter- mittent fever which he caught whilst making a tour in the Negropont; this kept him from dancing much, but the Queen made up for it by dancing enough for both. The King sat out a dance with Lady Albert, and the Queen danced the first quadrille with me. I was amused on hearing that a grave, elderly man, one of her partners, was the Minister of Religion and of IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 125 Public Instruction. It is wonderful that the Queen, in despite of her fondness for dancing, should not get tired of giving balls, from which the ladies invited seize every decent excuse for absenting themselves. Many ladies, whose position in the country ought to ensure them invitations to these balls, are excluded from them when the political opinions of their male relations are disagreeable to the Court. Considerable interest was excited about this time at Athens by a number of very early Greek manuscripts, the property of a young man named Symonides : he stated that he had an uncle, a priest in one of the monasteries of Mount Athos, who discovered these manu- scripts, and gave them to him. Anxious that they should remain in Greece, M. Symonides proposed to present them to the government, provided that an annual sum of money were given him for six years, to enable him to pur- sue his studies at a European university; he affirmed that he had as many as a hundred in his possession, though only twelve or fifteen m 2 126 WANDERINGS were exhibited ; he represented them to consist of a few manuscripts of classical authors, many others of Fathers of the Greek Church, and some which he himself had not time to deci- pher. A commission was appointed to exa- mine into their authenticity ; this committee consisted of four members ; two of these not attending, the remaining two added three other literati to their number: of these five — two would not give an opinion, two others decided them to be genuine, and one stoutly affirmed them to be forgeries. They now became matters of great discussion, and their partizans and opponents grew very warm. M. Symoni- des showed them several times to me : whether forgeries or genuine, they are exquisite speci- mens of caligraphy, written upon the finest parchment — one, indeed, is so fine as to be imagined of human skin. The characters are so minute as to render the assistance of a magni- fying glass indispensable to make them out. It must be allowed, in favour of the opponents to their being genuine, that M. Symonides is cele- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 127 brated for his skill as a copyist ; he made what is termed a " Chinese copy " of a Sanscrit manuscript without a single mistake, whilst perfectly ignorant of the language. It is as- serted that he must have become the possessor of some valueless Greek manuscripts, and em- ployed their margins for these skilful imitations of earlier manuscripts, using the earliest alpha- bets. As he speaks nothing but Greek, his re- peated long morning visits, with an interpreter, became matters of dread to Lady Albert and myself. He probably thought that, failing with the Greek government, I might finally become a purchaser. Of all the purchases made by amateurs, that have come to my knowledge, that made, many years ago, by Sir Edmund Lyons, has the most amused me. Excited, like many other English- men, with the wish to be the possessor of a Grecian statue, he was so unfortunate as to exemplify the proverb of " buying a pig in a poke" 1 ' 1 , by trusting to a " soi-disant " friend, who assured him that he could find him such a thing 128 WANDERINGS if he gave him forty dollars to lay out. Sir Edmund did so, and the friend soon after re- turned, in great glee, to acquaint him that he had purchased a splendid and very cheap work of art. Beautiful it certainly is, were it port- able ; but Sir Edmund had not made this a stipulation. It is a colossal figure, with serpent legs, mutilated of both head and arms, and of enormous weight; it has often attracted me into its squalid locality just below the temple of Theseus, from the contrast which it and some other pieces of statuary offer to all around them. The number of small churches and chapels in Greece, as compared with the population, is a striking feature of the country. In the most remote districts, and without a single habitation in sight, are chapels, causing wonder whence their congregations can possibly come. When there is a chapel near any city or temple of ancient renown, the marble objects of ancient art found, are generally placed there for pre- servation, and portions of pillars, friezes, and IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 129 sepulchral stones are built into the walls, — they thus form a sort of local museum. The former cathedral of Athens, which is now deserted, is a curious example of this method of building ancient fragments into mo- dern ecclesiastical buildings. It is a charming little specimen. Over the door is an exquisite frieze of the zodiac, in the first style of Grecian art, but with modern crosses carved upon it; below this there is another ancient and beau- tiful fragment. Let into the side walls are sculptured marbles of every style — Grecian as well as Byzantine — most of them possessing great beauty : the interior has been injured by fire, and presents defaced fresco paintings, in the Byzantine style of art. I have been told that there are no less than seventy deserted churches and chapels at Athens ; all of these are to be pulled down, with the exception of this ancient cathedral; and the funds raised by the sale of the sites and the materials are to pay for the new cathedral now building. 130 WANDERINGS CHAPTEE VI. Our next expedition began unprosperously. I had planned to commence it by Plataea, then to cross Mount Cithseron, and sleep at the village of Villia ; there I should be within reach of Porto Ghermano, the site of the ancient Agos- thenes; I could visit Psathos and Pagae, and reach Megara to sleep. For my first day's journey I sent horses upon the previous day to a place called Casa, intend- ing to go thus far in a carriage. We were to start punctually at seven o'clock : we were quite ready, and had finished breakfast by the time appointed, but no carriage appeared till half-past eight, and then four wretched horses, hardly able to drag themselves, attached to IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 131 a rickety vehicle, crawled up to the door ; but it was then too late to do more than vent my wrath in words. The coachman, by means of a short stick with a long lash, with which, at the very first cut, he almost whisked an eye from Dimitri, who was sitting by his side, at length drove us to Eleusis by Daphne. We followed the ancient city walls, which form the foundation of the road, and reached the village of Mandra : here the starving horses were fed. From Mandra to Casa the road was a series of ascents and descents, that sorely tried our nervous systems. The leaders, in the descents, could not get out of the way of the wheelers : we had no drag- chain, and Dimitri and an amateur assistant coachman w T ho accompanied us to assist in flog- ging the horses up the hills, had to rush to the rescue whenever the leaders turned short round : our instant destruction would have been the inevitable consequence of any w T ant of activity. We were thankful when we reached Casa with whole bones. 132 WANDERINGS Casa, or Gyphtro Kastro, as it is also called, is a khan at the entrance of a pass winding round the foot of Mount Cithseron : on an eminence above are the ruins of an ancient fortification ; the walls, of which several courses still remain, are of that beautiful Hellenic masonry used when the arts in Greece were at their highest perfection : it completely com- manded the pass. Colonel Leake imagines this to have been the Acropolis of the ancient CEnoe. The Pytheium, or temple of Apollo Pytheius, there, was esteemed of such sanctity as to have given CEnoe the name of "the sacred". Other antiquaries contend that this fortification be- longed to the ancient Eleutherae. By the time I had visited these ruins, it was three o'clock. I mounted my horse, leaving Lady Albert to proceed with Dimitri, the bag- gage, and two gensd'armes, to Villia, five miles distant, whilst I, with the remaining gens- d'armes, went to visit Platoea. Afraid of being overtaken by darkness in the very bad pass over Mount Cithaeron, between Platoea and IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 133 Villia, we galloped on as hard as we could. It was but a few miles to the highest point of the pass, and we descended intoBoeotia ; then turned short to the left, round the base of Mount Cithasron, crossed a straggling village, and reached the site of Platasa, which derives such melancholy interest from the gallant defence of its inhabitants against the Lacedemonians, and from their melancholy fate. The city walls have not been quite levelled : they are to be traced all round the town ; two fragments of buildings alone remain within the circuit of the walls. The piles of stones, in all directions, recall to the mind the city demolished by the Thebans, and that which was subsequently rebuilt by Alexander the Great is forgotten. There are some sarcophagi ranged along a bank to the westward, but I had no time to loiter for long examination ; the gensd'arme made me understand, in broken Italian, that we must hurry away. We made for a mountain path that ascends Mount Cithasron ; as we advanced, the whole of Bceotia was visible, whenever I N 134 . WANDERINGS turned to view it. The evening shut in. There was a good deal of snow at the top of the moun- tain, and as we descended towards Villia, the path became worse and worse. The ledge along which we walked, sloping towards the precipice, made our own footing, whilst leading our horses, very precarious; the horses well knew their danger, and carefully examined the ground before trusting themselves upon it. It was quite dark before we reached Villia, — a large village, with apparently greater comfort amongst the inhabitants than is generally to be met with in Greek villages. I found Lady Albert established in the judged house : his official papers and documents were neatly ar- ranged in pigeon-holes, made in a wooden frame, near a window that blew open twice during the night ; when I left my bed to close it, I was in a perfect storm of these papers, whirling in every direction about the room. By day-break these gusts of wind had blown up rain. We started for Porto Ghermano, none of our party knowing the way, but trust- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 135 ing to the promises of the village schoolmaster, that, if we preceded him, he would follow us, to be our guide, as soon as he could saddle his mule. The clouds grew thicker and thicker ; no signs of the schoolmaster were to be seen as far as the eye could reach ; presently a violent thunder-storm came on, the rain descended in torrents, and we were all drenched to the skin in a twinkling. We determined to give up the attempt of making our way to Porto Ghermano, and struck into a path that led towards Megara, our quarters for the night. We were too wet and wretched to admire the beautiful mountain scenery around us ; but a square tower, quite perfect, of the most beautiful Hellenic masonry, attracted my attention; it was an exquisite specimen, only requiring a roof to be even now habitable. The foundations of two or three other towers were visible, as we advanced, on the slope of the mountain which we descended towards the Megarian plain. Glad were we when, reaching this plain, we were able to gallop towards the miserable deserted-looking 136 WANDERINGS village, miscalled town, of Megara. A fire was made up in our quarters for the night; and, throwing off our soaked clothes, we made our- selves tolerably comfortable, partly with things that we had brought in Dimitri's saddle-bags, and partly with capotes that he obtained for us till our luggage arrived. We then re -dressed, and, having no books, dosed away our time till dinner. From the wet state in which our port- able bedsteads reached Megara, we thought it prudent to spread our mattresses upon the floor; and we practically learnt the truth of what we had heard of the torment of Greek vermin. Hardly any vestiges of antiquity remain at Megara, with the exception of some of the foundations of the walls that defended the Acro- polis, and a few of the foundations which have been excavated of the wall that connected Megara with the Port of Nisea, now called Dodeka Ecclesiae ; and some inscriptions built into various walls, which I could not visit upon this occasion. The Megarians were celebrated for their mirth and for their roguery; hence IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. J 37 the two proverbs, " Megarensis ars," and "Me- garensis risus." It is rather curious that, to this day, the festivals and holidays of the Megarians are remarkable for their gaiety and liveliness, and that they themselves are reck- oned a light-hearted race. Megara boasts of being the birth-place of Euclid. We determined to go to Corinth by the mount Geranion, the old road between Corinth and Megara: it is the steepest as well as the longest of the two roads that connect these places, and therefore, although far the most picturesque, it is now hardly ever used. We were on horseback by eight o'clock, and crossed the plain of Megara to Mount Geranion. As we ascended it, we passed a ruined village in a lovely situation, and a few peasants at work. One of the principal features in Greek travel- ing is the thinness of the population ; these individuals were the only persons we saw for eight hours. Higher up we obtained a beautiful view of the bay of Salamis and the Egean sea, the plain of Megara, the Gulf of Lepanto, and n2 138 WANDERINGS Porto Ghermano. On reaching the ruined fort of Devernia, at the summit of the pass, those views were behind us, and before us the Isthmus and Gulph of Corinth, and the Morea. The road as we descended became worse : it had originally been paved, but, cut up by the winter torrents and never repaired, it was in many places very dangerous. The views were beyond measure lovely, and the stone pines covering the mountains had not suffered by fire. We passed two ruined hamlets, and de- scended to the Isthmus : here it began to rain. We hurried on, crossed the excellent carriage- road from Lutraki to Calamaki, saw traces of the canal commenced by Nero to connect the two seas, — and which, if completed at the present day, would be a good speculation, — observed the remains of the great Isthmian wall, passed, on our left, the subterranean entrance to the amphitheatre, and, almost directly after, entered that most ancient but filthy town of Corinth, supposed to have been built by Sisyphus, the son of iEolus, 1438 years before Christ. I IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 139 triumphed in being one of those men allowed by fate to visit it ; for Horace says, " Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum". But what a contrast does the wretched, dirty, modern town offer to that Corinth, so cele- brated for its luxury, and the voluptuousness of its inhabitants! The bazaar was crowded as we rode up it towards the miserable hotel, although it was raining heavily. Wonderful to relate, the windows of our room were, or rather had been, glazed. It was over a sort of coffee and wine-stall, and we thus learned the early rising of the modern Corinthians. After four o'clock in the morning sleep was impossible, from the noise of the customers who thronged it from that hour. On the morning after our arrival we found that it would be vain to attempt visiting the Aero Corinth, from the clouds hanging round its summit, and I devoted the day to search- ing for vases. I rode to the village founded by the American missionary, Dr. Howe; its 140 WANDERINGS inhabitants make a trade in the vases which they rifle from the ancient tombs of that dis- trict. I was offered at least a hundred for sale, but they were all of very inferior kinds. I heard that one of the villagers was even then excavating at a short distance, and I went in search of him. — I found the individual whom I sought, with four other men busily employed in opening the tombs which abounded and lay opened in hundreds within a circuit of three miles : their mode of proceeding was to probe the ground with long augurs till they felt the covering stone of the sarcophagus, of lime- stone ; it was generally at a depth of from two to five feet from the surface; they then dug till the stone could be broken with a pick. The sarcophagus was then rifled. The number of urns which are found prove Strabo's state- ment to be incorrect ; " The Romans," he says, " when sent to colonize the town, happening at the commencement of their building opera- tions to light upon some tombs, charmed with the beauty of their contents, ransacked the IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 141 whole cemeteries of the place, not leaving a single grave unopened." For a dollar, (4s. 4=d. English), I purchased the contents of a tomb that they had just prepared for opening, it con- tained six urns of different sizes and of grace- ful shapes ; during the two days that I remained at Corinth, I purchased forty vases, and might have purchased at least two hun- dred more. On the next day I found that our hopes of seeing the Aero Corinth under favourable auspices were vain ; it was a thorough wet day, but I thought that it would be absurd to have been to Corinth without visiting this pre- sent given by Briareus to the sun, and by the sun to Venus. We mounted our horses and passed the seven celebrated columns sup- posed to have belonged to the temple of Minerva Chalamatis. They are each formed of one single block of limestone, and stuccoed; they are imagined to date from an antiquity so remote as 700 years before Christ, and are almost the only remains' of ancient Corinth. 142 WANDERINGS Our horses scrambled up the ascent of the Aero Corinth; it is so steep that I should have thought it might have been defended with no better weapons than stones from above, and it made me wonder how the citadel could have been so repeatedly taken and re- taken. We contrived to ride up far beyond the first gate where visitors generally alight: the rain changed to snow, and when we reach- ed the summit, panting, and with hearts pal- pitating, we found that we might just as well have remained in our room at Corinth for any view that we could obtain. On our descent we noticed the fountain of Peirene, where Bellerophon is said to have caught Pegasus when he came to drink there. Close to the remains of the governor's house, I observed some pros- trate Corinthian capitals of no great size ; in the wall of the modern fortification, may be remarked two pieces of Hellenic masonry. I was too cold and wet on returning to the town to visit the remains of the Roman am- phitheatre as I had intended. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 143 On the morning of the 3rd, we quitted Corinth ; provokingly enough it was a fine morning, but we could not defer our return to Athens, for a carriage was waiting for us at Megara. I again passed through the Ame- rican village ; on approaching Calamaki, Dimitri pointed out to me that single, broken drum of a column, now the only remains of the temple of Neptune, with its sacred groves, shrines, and statues. On the right of the road is the Stadium, where the Isthmian games were celebrated, and hard by are the remains of the Isthmian wall. About half a mile further is the little town of Callamaki, the ancient Schoenus, situated on the bay of the same name : like the generality of Greek vil- lages and towns, it is far more promising at a distance than when entered. Here Dimitri stopped for a few minutes to allow the people the amusement of gazing at us ; a respite from travel which our escort employed in tossing down glass after glass of " raki ", the common spirit of the country. We then kept along 144 WANDERINGS the coast, by the celebrated Scironian rocks. The " Kaki-scala" pass is not nearly so bad as it has been represented ; the path overhangs the sea, and in some places is rugged and slippery, but there was so little danger that Lady Albert was able to pass it without dis- mounting from her horse : however, I observed that Dimitri, as well as the gens-d'armes, though protesting that there was nothing to fear, took very good care to cross it on foot. This was the spot chosen by Scirron for kicking down his guests whilst in the act of washing his feet ; Theseus punished him by the same fate. On reaching Megara, we found the carriage in readiness ; we rounded the Gulf of Salamis, passed through Eleusis and Daphne, and reached Athens by six o'clock. For some days after our return, the weather was so chilly and disagreeable, that I thought it advisable to leave Lady Albert whilst I went to get a glimpse of a small portion of the Morea. At five o'clock on the cold moonlight morning IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 145 of the 12th, Dimitri and I mounted our hacks : mine was a grey poney with very straight shoulders, that nearly kicked me off in defend- ing itself from the pack of dogs that rushed upon us from all directions, and pursued us as we galloped through the town, and towards the Peirseus. The Grecian dogs are a perpetual source of annoyance ; they rush from any dis- tance for the amusement of attacking a travel- ler : those belonging to the shepherds are large and very savage ; they are so useful, as a pro- tection to their flocks from the wolves which abound, that I have been informed, as a fact, that the owners would prefer the death of a child to the loss of a really good dog. However ferocious and dangerous may be their attack, they may not be shot, but must only be killed by a weapon, not a missile. M. Boudouris told me that a young English nobleman, whose name he mentioned, having shot one of these animals that attacked him, M. Boudouris had serious difficulty in pacifying the owner and his friends, though offering to pay a good round sum. In o 146 WANDERINGS general, one of the large stones that are scat- tered about, proves a sufficient defence; from the days of their puppyhood they have so often experienced the pain of these missiles, that the most ferocious dog will generally hesitate in his attack when the object of his rage stoops to pick up a stone. I had heard that Ulysses' plan, related in the Odyssey, of sitting down and laying aside the truncheon which he had in his hand, was followed in the present day ; and that if the person attacked sat down and laid aside his stick or other weapon, the dogs would not molest him till he attempted to rise. I asked Dimitri if this was true ? his answer was sensible : " I hear so, Milor ; but who try it?" He assured me that he had never met with a person who had actually ventured upon an ex- periment requiring so much nerve. Our course might have been traced by the noisy chase of these torments. Though day had not dawned as we entered the Peiraeus, it was in a state of bustle, from the preparations of those who were to embark IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 147 by the Austrian steamer that was to sail at six o'clock for Calamaki, in communication with one at Lutraki, on the opposite side of the Isthmus of Corinth, running to Corfu and Trieste. Having time to spare, Dimitri conducted me to a coffee-house, where the proprietor had a statue for sale. On being taken, with great mystery, to view this statue, concealed in the back pre- mises, I was, as on previous occasions, shown a sepulchral tablet, of a very low style of art, and not worth purchasing. I went on board the steamer : it presented a curious scene ; the whole deck, with the excep- tion of a small space railed off, was devoted to a crowd of third-class passengers ; they were sheltering themselves, as well as they could, under the bulwarks, huddling together for mu- tual warmth; the morning being cold, they were well provided with blankets, coverlets, etc., and were full of fun, talking and laughing at and with each other. A group, returning to the Ionian Islands, had two guitars, and 148 WANDERINGS amused their fellow-passengsrs by singing na- tional melodies, in which the different voices took part in perfect harmony. It would seem as if the Venetian blood in the veins of the Ionian Islanders gave them their taste for music ; for, whilst they are good musicians, the inhabitants of the rest of Greece are, to the most remarkable degree, the reverse. Mr. and Mrs. Hill have told me that the Greek children whom they educated, easily obtained the theory of music, but never had any ear, nor could be made to keep time. I felt so cold that I went below, and thus witnessed the " toilettes" of the cabin passen- gers, most of whom had slept on board rather than rise early ; neither much time was em- ployed nor water used. Two Greek officers of rank were amongst the passengers ; they had seen me at the court balls ; and one of them, hearing that I proposed riding to Nauplia, gave me a letter to the Commandant de place, to admit me into the town, in case I were too late for the gates, that close at seven. I afterwards IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 149 found that this gentleman was the son of the celebrated Marco Botzaris. In no part of the world can a public conveyance be entered without an Englishman being met : on board this steamer were a young English gentleman and his sister, on their way to Patras. The wind was high and dead against us. The captain, to keep in smooth water, followed the coast, and went between the island of Salamis and the main land, affording a good opportunity for the fancy to work upon the scene of the celebrated battle, and to imagine whence Xerxes might best have viewed it. iEschylus, who was present, gives a most graphic description of it : he supposes a messenger sent from Athens to Persia by Xerxes to his mother, who states, " that the monarch, upon receiving information from a pretended friend in the Grecian fleet that the Greeks were preparing to retreat in the ensuing night from the straits of Salamis, gave orders to his naval commanders to arrange his fleet in three lines as soon as the darkness should be sufficient to commence their o 2 150 WANDERINGS proceedings ; and at the same time to occupy- all the openings and narrow passages of the straits, detaching other ships to complete the blockade of the island, and making the Persian commanders answerable with their heads for the escape of any of the Greeks". The poet then proceeds to say : " The Persians having taken their supper, the rowers tied their oars with the leathern thongs to the pegs, and, when the night came on, both rowers and combatants embarked. All night the commanders were occupied in arranging the ships in their ap- pointed stations. The Greeks made no attempt to escape ; on the contrary, at day-light the barbarians were struck with surprise and fear when they beheld the Greeks prepared for battle, and heard the rocks of Salamis re-echo to the sound of the trumpet and to the song of the poean. The stroke of the Grecian oars kept time to the word of command. First, the right wing, and then the whole fleet, moved forward, the commanders exhorting their men to liberate by that day's combat their country, their fami- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 151 lies, the tombs of their ancestors, and the seats of their paternal deities. These cries having been met by those of the Persians, the battle was commenced by a Greek ship, which attacked a Phoenician, and carried away its outer works. u At first the Persians sustained the encoun- ter ; but at length the multitude of their ships be- came embarassed in the narrow sea, and, instead of assisting one another, their oars were carried away by the brazen prows of their own fleet. The Greeks then attacked them on every side ; the hulls of the Persian vessels were overturned, and the sea was no longer to be seen for the broken ships and the bodies of the slain, which covered even the rocks and the shore. The remaining vessels of the Persians had recourse to a disorderly flight ; those disabled were sur- rounded by the Greeks, and the men were beaten to death by broken oars and fragments of the wreck, like a shoal of tunnies or a netful of other fish. Night alone put an end to the cries and groans which filled all the Pelasgian sea ; for never before was there such a multi- tude of men slain in one day. 152 WANDERINGS " In a small island, difficult of access, the re- sort of Pan, which lies before Salamis, Xerxes had posted a body of Persians, selected for their beauty, valour, noble birth, or fidelity to the king. He had placed them there for the pur- pose of securing a refuge to his own friends, or of preparing an easy conquest of the Greeks, if the latter, after having lost their ships, should escape to the island. But no sooner had the deity given victory to the Greeks, than a band of them, clothed in brazen armour, leaped out of their vessels and surrounded the island on every side, that the enemy might have no means of escaping. Many of the Persians fell by stones and arrows, and at length, in a general assault of the Greeks, they all perished. When Xerxes, who had been seated during the action upon a lofty height near the sea, beheld this last most severe misfortune, he cried out aloud and rent his garments, gave orders to his army, and be- took himself to a disorderly flight." On landing at Calamaki, I found Dimitri's horses in readiness. It was then half-past eleven IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 153 o'clock, and we had a long journey before us. My mind misgave me, as Dimitri galloped away to show off to our fellow-passengers, that we should rue the speed at which we started, before we arrived at Nauplia. We rode at a good pace till we reached Corinth ; but on passing those pillars which serve as a sort of land-mark, we rode more leisurely. We entered upon a desolate, wild tract of land called the Plain of Courtesa : it is much broken by ravines, and the road is slippery and bad. At eight miles from Corinth, are the founda- tions of walls surrounding an eminence that overlooks some more fertile land ; this was the site of Cleona. Between three and four miles from Cleona, on descending from a height, the three remaining columns of the temple of the Nemsean Jupiter are particularly striking, from the desolation of the scenery that surrounds them. Close to these columns, are the drums of many other columns that belonged to the same building, but which have been shaken down by earthquakes. The wild pear trees which are 154 WANDERINGS scattered about the plain, were all that pre- sented themselves to recall to my memory the Nemasan forest where Hercules cut his club. I passed on my left, before I reached the columns, a height with a cave; it is shown as the retreat of the Nemsean Lion. Below this cave is the Stadium. From Nemsea, the road wound amongst the mountains, and we passed through a narrow defile, which Dimitri pointed out as the scene of the celebrated defeat of Mohammed Dramali Pacha in 1824. This Mohammed Dramali (or native of Drama), who had the command of the Turks in the Morea, finding his position in the plain of Argos hardly tenable, determined to retreat upon Corinth, there to await relief from Chouechid and his fleet. He entangled himself in these defiles ; and then the Greeks attacked his army, — pouring down their shot and rolling down rocks from the heights above, in com- parative safety to themselves ; for they only lost one hundred of their number. Of the Turkish forces two thousand cut their way back to IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 155 Nauplia, which was still theirs ; about the same number reached Corinth; but three thou- sand perished in these defiles. When we issued from them we entered upon a vast open plain, and came to a solitary khan, named Khavati, where Dimitri tossed down some " raki ". Our horses were now very- weary ; but the sea was before us in the dis- tance, and we could see Argos, with Nauplia, that was to be our resting place for the night, with their respective Acropolises frowning at each other across the intervening plain. The sight of my journey's end gave me fresh courage to keep up my jaded horse. The Acropolis of Argos is striking. It is a round lofty hill, surrounded by a ruined Vene- tian fortification: some portions of Hellenic masonry are built into its more modern walls. At the side of the hill, below the Acropolis, is a picturesque monastery, forming a pleasing feature when the Acropolis is not viewed from too great a distance. Argos is a thriving town, but built without the slightest attempt at regu- 156 WANDERINGS larity : its houses, which have gardens attached to them, are scattered in disorder, giving the appearance of an overgrown hamlet. This city is full of school-boy recollections. Founded by Inachus, a Phoenician, 1856 years before Christ, and having Juno for its special patroness, it was joint capital with Mycene, of the kingdom of Argos, and the most embellished of the two. It would appear that Mycene be- came, finally, the seat of government. It was the scene of one of the labours of Hercules, when he cleaned the stables of Augias, king of Argos, by turning through them the river Alpheus; — a very unnecessary feat, I should have thought, as the river Alpheus runs on the other side of the Morea, and other plans more feasible might easily have been hit upon. Here the Danaides, daughters of Danaus, murdered their husbands. This was the birth-place of Perseus, son of Danae, and of Jupiter. Few vestiges of its ancient splendour now remain. There are twenty-one rows of seats that be- longed to the theatre, cut in the rock and most IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 157 gracefully designed. Besides these are the re- mains of sixty-seven other rows, falling into ruins, that appear not to have been connected with them : close to these are the ruins of a huge, graceless Roman pile. I observed a cave sacred to Pan in the rock above. This was all that I saw at Argos. Evening was closing in, and Nauplia six miles distant : our horses were unable to move out of a walk ; but the road communicating between Nauplia and Argos is good : it was constructed by General Gordon, a Philhellene, who resided near Argos. The road passes close by Tirynth : but it was so dark when we reached it, that I deferred visit- ing it till the following morning. We reached Nauplia, or Napoli di Romania, at a few minutes before seven. I could only distinguish that it was a fortified town, and that we rode up a street with few people about. The inn was wretched ; and I never heard any thing so wonderful as the crowing of the cocks, which was kept up throughout the whole night. The morning of the 13th was brilliant, and I 158 WANDERINGS expected to have made a grand day of " sight- seeing". But, " Thomme propose et Dieu dis- pose"; whilst at breakfast, Dimitri introduced to me a man, who, from under his handkerchief, produced, for sale, a very extraordinary group of statuettes, representing heathen divinities supporting a sort of cup upon their heads ; these statuettes being of very early art. Upon inquiring the price, it was j8100: I offered him £15. Dreadful were the vendor's out- cries : the group had cost him £50. After long discussions, he offered to take £80, and I left him and his group. Dimitri mounted a broken- down chesnut, and I, a worn-out grey with a vicious eye. Nauplia (founded by Nauplius, a reputed son of Neptune) is a slovenly modern town, in a beautiful situation. It is overhung by the Palamede, a stupendous rock, seven hundred and twenty feet above the level of the sea; taking its name from that Palamedes, son of Nauplius, who lost his life from Ulysses' revenge for having discovered that his insanity was IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 159 feigned. The Greeks took it from the Turks by blockade, starving out the garrison. Below the Palamede again, is another fortification, called the fortress of Itch Kali. Lying off the town, is a castle, upon a small island ; it is now solely used as a prison. Whilst Dimitri and I were riding out of the town, it struck me that I ought to make an attempt to obtain the group which I had seen; I therefore sent Dimitri back, to offer its owner £20. I then found that I had judged aright in thinking that my grey had a vicious eye. He would not move without his companion : the more I spurred, the more he kicked ; and when I kept his head up, he ran me against every thing that offered him an opportunity for so doing. At length I got the better of him. After a while, up came Dimitri. He had bargained till he had reduced the price of my group to £30. As this was more than I wished to give, we cantered along till we reached the village of New Tirynth, — a village which the present king purposed as a Bavarian colony ; but these colonists took 160 WANDERINGS alarm, and quitted the country, when the hatred of the Grecians and the Bavarians had risen to such a pitch, before a constitution was granted by King Otho, in 1843. Here again my mind misgave me, that I had done a foolish thing ; and I sent Dimitri back, to offer £25 for the group. A hack-carriage was passing, Dimitri got upon it, not to tire his horse, leaving me to lead it, and to view the ruins of Tirynth at my leisure. When he had fairly started, I found that his horse would not lead. He struck out his fore-legs, held back, and I was a mounted fac-simile of Mr. Winkle in the Pickwick Papers, Finding him immovable, I dismounted ; and then neither horses would go on. Fortu- nately, a garden wall ran by the road-side : I allowed the brutes to back up against it, and then flogged them on, backing them before me till I got them to Tirynth, which was at no great distance. Never can I forget those ruins, from the long hours which I passed there. We had left Nauplia at a little after eight : Tirynth is but IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 161 two miles from it ; and yet it was nearly ten by the time Dimitri returned to me. The owner of the group was with him, vowing and pro- testing that he could not take a leptha (or the hundredth part of ninepence) under £30. When I had mounted my horse, to ride away, he changed his mind, and would accept my offer of £25. But how was the money to be paid ? Dimitri was well known at Nauplia, and went back there with the man, to give security for the money. Again was I left to my examin- ation of Tirynth. Tirynth is said to have been founded by Tiryns, son of Argus, and that its walls were built by Cyclopeans, architects from Lycia, for Proetus. It was destroyed by the Argives 466 years before Christ. The ruins which remain are supposed to have been the defences of the Acropolis, and that the town itself lay between the hill which they surround and the sea. This hill is about half a mile in circumference : its summit is upon two levels, which appear to have been separate fortifications. The prin- p2 162 WANDERINGS cipal entrance, postern, etc., are plainly to be traced ; indeed the postern is still quite perfect : it is composed of four huge stones on each side, with a smaller one forming the top into an angle ; the walls are twenty-five feet in thick- ness, and of what is termed Cyclopean masonry, of large irregular blocks of stone, with the inter- stices filled up by small stones. Pausanias has correctly stated that two mules, harnessed to the smallest of these blocks, would be unable to stir it. There are two curious galleries in the thickness of the walls, that are imagined to have served as communications to towers or places of arms at their extremities. The Tirynthians were such great laughers that it rendered them incapable of transacting serious business, and they consulted the Delphic oracle for a remedy. The answer was, that if they sacrificed a bull to Neptune without laugh- ing, they would be freed from their infirmity. To succeed in this, they ordered the children to keep away from the ceremony. One boy, whom they were driving away, cried, " Aha ! I IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 163 see that you are afraid of ray swallowing your fat ox." This made them all burst out laugh- ing, and they gave up in despair all attempts at any remedy. I waited and waited, — paced and repaced these ruins, — grew uneasy, — lost my patience, — paced again, — still no Dimitri appeared. I walked into a cottage and sat down, though I could not make the inhabitants understand a word that I said. It was half-past three before Dimitri reappeared ; it was then too late to think of seeing Mycenae, or of any thing but reaching Corinth, where we were to sleep. I hastily assisted in getting the horses ready, and securing my treasure behind Dimitri's saddle. As we galloped towards the khan of Kavati, where we had fresh horses, he told me his mis- fortunes and the cause of his delay. On get- ting back to Nauplia, he sought out and found a friend who would join him in security for the payment of the statuettes at Athens ; but in the meanwhile, the landlord of the Hotel d'Angleterre, who happened to be at Nauplia, 164 WANDERINGS offered the owner twenty-eight pounds, and he did all in his power to be off the bargain. First, he said that he must have the money paid down, and poor Dimitri, in despair, had to search the town for some friend so wealthy as to have such a sum at his command. After long searching, or, as he said, "walking the streets like one stupid," he found a friend from Sparta able to lend him the money. He paid it down, and the vendor then offered him five dollars to be off the bargain ; but " No," cried Dimitri ; " I tell him he give me one hunder dollar, and he no get it back." We returned very nearly by the road that we had passed on the previous day, only leaving Argos, Nemea, and Cleona? a little to our left. Poor Dimitri had a most dreadful fall : his hack turned completely over with him whilst we w r ere at a full gallop ; and I was much touched to see that, when in the act of rolling over, he had the presence of mind to think of my group, and to endeavour to protect them from injury in the fall. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 165 It was perfectly dark very long before we reached Corinth. How our horses took us in safety over the bad ground, which had made me nervous and caused me to dismount by daylight, is marvellous. I was thankful that, by having sent them forward, they were com- paratively fresh for such a wonderful feat of surefootedness. Many urns were brought to me at Corinth, but none worth purchasing. The road by which I returned to Athens, by Megara, taking me through the American village, I stopped there to bargain with an old woman who had a curious specimen of Roman glass, taken out of a ring found in a tomb. She had asked me twenty-five drachmas for this glass on a former occasion ; she now sold it me for seven. On reaching Megara, I passed three quarters of an hour visiting the various chapels and buildings which have inscriptions built into their walls ; of these a considerable number still remain. I was also shown three graceless female figures, without heads, of a late style of 166 WANDERINGS art, which would have been sold to me. Mount- ing fresh horses, we reached Athens by about five o'clock. At three miles from the town, I saw before me a carriage progressing at a foot-pace ; and Dimitri, who was following me as fast as his jaded horse would permit him, cried, " Milor, milor, please stop!" In front of the carriage were two ladies and a gentleman, walking in line along the dusty high road ; it was the Queen, with two attendants, taking that exer- cise for which she has a fondness quite inexpli- cable to the Greeks, who, especially the women, detest any exertion that is not unavoidable. Her greatest triumph is, during one of those equestrian tours in which she delights, to gallop on before the King, with a few of her own more immediate attendants, compel him, through fatigue, to pass the night at some village not so far advanced as that which she herself has reached, and, finally, gain a whole day upon him in the course of the journey. To the utter astonishment of those who witness it, she drives IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 167 out of Athens by one road, alights from her carriage, and sends it round to await her in a road in an opposite direction ; then makes her way across the fields on foot. The Greek maids of honour, unaccustomed to exertion till they entered her service, can hardly perform the duties of their office and keep up with her. I got out of the road, and passed her Majesty in the field by its side ; she recognzied me, and was amused at my dusty appearance and tired horses; they were tokens of congenial tastes for travelling in Greece. 168 WANDERINGS CHAPTER VII. Upon returning to Athens, I found great ex- citement, produced at a daring attempt to rob a wealthy banker, living in the centre of the town, that had nearly proved successful. His family consisted of himself and his wife, four or five children, a tutor, and a small establish- ment of servants ; whilst at dinner, evening having closed in, the coachman came into the room, stating that one of the horses was taken dangerously ill. The banker went to his stables in the court-yard of his house, to see what was the matter. He was instantly seized and gagged by a band of armed men ; the coachman then returned to the dining-room, and said that his master wished to see the IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 169 tutor directly. The tutor hastened to the stables, almost immediately followed by the banker's wife, whose curiosity was excited ; each in turn was seized and gagged ; the rob- bers then went into the house and bound the servants. Upon demanding the banker's keys, he said that they were useless unless he shewed the mode of using them ; his strong box being in an upper story, they led him there, and the house being now quite in their possession, they did not watch him very closely. Seizing an opportunity, he rushed to the balcony, and called aloud for help; those of the band who kept watch outside hearing the alarm, gave the signal for flight; those inside the house, upon this signal being given, only thought of making their escape as rapidly as possible. To create a panic and thus pre- vent their being stopped, they fired a volley down the street, wounding two or three unfor- tunate passengers ; they then got clean off. Not one would have been subsequently taken, for all, except the coachman, were disguised, Q 170 WANDERINGS had it not been for the banker's wife, who recognized the voice of a man who threatened the death of herself and all her children, as that of their dealer in fire-wood; this led to his arrest, and his confessions facilitated the arrest of the remainder of the band. But two or three weeks before, we heard several volleys of fire-arms near the house where we lived ; and, upon the following morn- ing, we were told that an attempt to rob a neighbouring house had been resisted; that some gens-d'armes had arrived to the rescue, and that two robbers had been shot. These were the only attempts at robbing during our stay at Athens. Monday the 26th of February was the first day of the Grecian Lent : it is a general holi- day; and though more strict in their fasting than Roman Catholics, — abstaining from fish and eggs, as well as animal food and fowl, — they contrive to feast upon vegetables, olives, caviare, and, above all, drink a good deal of wine. Should the weather prove fine, all classes upon this day enjoy themselves in the open air. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 171 Lady Albert, her maid, and myself, started by the steamer for Calamaki. I had sent on horses. We made a circuit to several small villages on our way to Corinth, in the hopes of finding something worth purchasing ; but the villagers had only a number of very inferior vases, and one engraved stone, for sale. It was a lovely day, and on reaching Corinth we strolled out to look at the amphitheatre. It is a natural hollow in the rock, assisted by art. Vestiges of the seats still remain, and there is a subterranean passage leading into it, for the entrance of wild beasts or gladiators. The beauty of the view, which is obtained from above it, was enhanced by groups feasting in the sun ; and a number of peasant girls were dancing to their own unmelodious singing. This amphitheatre is not mentioned by Pau- sanias, and is supposed to be posterior to his time. The barbarous exhibitions for which these theatres were intended were introduced by the Romans into Greece. Their origin appears to have been the practice of killing a 172 WANDERINGS certain number of slaves at the funerals of emi- nent men, for the benefit of the souls of the dead. In succeeding ages, it was reckoned less cruel to oblige them to kill one another like men, than to slaughter them like brutes ; there- fore the barbarity was covered by the specious show of pleasure and voluntary combat. Gladiators were first exhibited at Rome, a. u. 433, by M. and D. Brutus, on occasion of the death of their father. This show consisted only of three pairs: a.u. 537, the three sons of M. ^milius Lepidus, the augur, entertaining the people in the forum with eleven pairs, and the show lasted three days : a.u. 552, the three sons of M. Valerius Lasvinus exhibited twenty- five pairs, and thus these shows increased in number and frequency. Originally only captives, criminals, and dis- obedient slaves, were trained up for combat ; but when the diversion became more frequent, and was exhibited on the smallest occasion* many of the Roman citizens enlisted themselves amongst the gladiators ; and Nero, at one show, IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 173 exhibited no less than four hundred senators and six hundred knights. No exhibition upon a scale so magnificent was ever attempted in Greece ; the slaughter of one thousand wild beasts, exhibited by Hadrian to the Athenians, being the greatest ever mentioned. These barbarities were abolished by Constan- tine the Great nearly six hundred years after their first institution ; they were, however, revived for a while under Constantius and his two successors ; but in the reign of Honorius, when he was celebrating, with magnificent games, the retreat of the Goths and the deliver- ance of Rome, an Asiatic monk, by name Tele- machus, had the boldness to descend into the arena to part the combatants. The Romans were provoked by this interruption, and the monk was overwhelmed under a shower of stones ; but the rage of the people soon sub- sided: they respected the memory of Tele- machus, who had deserved the honours of mar- tyrdom, and they submitted to the laws of Honorius, which abolished the human sacrifices Q2 174 WANDERINGS of the amphitheatre. This occurred a.d. 404 ; it was not, however, until the year 500 that the practice was finally and completely abo- lished by Theodoric. England was disgraced by a taste for gla- diatorial excitement as late as the last century, and the following is a curious notice of one of these exhibitions : — " In Islington Road, on Monday, being the 17th of July 1727, will be performed a trial of skill by the following combatants : We, Robert Barker and Mary Welsh, from Ireland, having often contaminated our swords in the abdom- nious corporations of such antagonists as have had the insolence to dispute our skill, do find ourselves once more necessitated to challenge, defy, and invite, Mr. Stokes and his bold ama- zonian virago, to meet us on the stage ; when we hope to give a satisfaction to the honourable lord of our nation, who has laid a wager of twenty guineas on our heads. They that give the most cuts, to have the whole money, and the benefit of the house ; and if swords, dag- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 175 gers, quarter -staff, fury, rage, and resolution, will prevail, our friends shall not meet with a disappointment." " We, James and Elizabeth Stokes, of the city of London, having already gained an uni- versal approbation by our agility of body, dex- terous hands, and courageous hearts, need not perambulate on this occasion ; but rather choose to exercise the sword, to their sorrow, and cor- roborate the general opinion of the town, than to follow the custom of our repartee antago- nists. This will be the last time of Mrs. Stokes' appearing on the stage. There will be a door open for the reception of gentlemen, where coaches may drive up to it, and company come in without being crowded. Attendance will be given at three, and the combatants mount at six. They all fight in the same dresses as before." Upon returning to Corinth, a labourer sold me a charming terra cotta group, of a female figure carrying a child upon her shoulder. In the evening a party of men assembled in the 176 WANDERINGS small square, to dance the " romaika", said to be the ancient Pyrrhic dance. At first, they were in great good humour : a man carrying a bottle, and keeping time to the music, managed that they should drink without stopping in their dance. Their mirth grew " fast and furi- ous": a quarrel arose; the mob around took part in it. A general affray took place : knives and daggers were drawn ; but, in despite of the excitement, they were not used, — greatly to Dimitrfs disgust, who, being from the Ionian Islands, boasted that there, at least, a knife was never drawn in vain. The gens-d'armes arrived, and behaved with great firmness and good temper. The most violent of the mob were walked off in custody : all was again quiet ; and this ended the gaiety of the day. On the 27th, I left Lady Albert and her maid at Corinth, whilst I rode to see Mycense. She was rather nervous at my leaving her : for the hotel has a villainous appearance, and she had heard the story of the Englishman who had disappeared so mysteriously. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 177 In 1837, the Intrepid, commanded by Captain Price, was laying at Calamaki, and Mr. Cooper, the purser, with two other officers, agreed to walk over to Corinth. Mr. Cooper, although an elderly man, out-walked his companions so much, that he had mounted the Aero-Corinth, and descended to the outer gate, by the time they reached it. They then arranged to meet at the hotel. After viewing the Aero-Corinth, the two officers went to the place of meeting. Mr. Cooper was not there ; and was never again seen. Sir Edmund Lyons, who was on board the Intrepid with Captain Price, caused every possible search to be made : a large reward was offered ; all the wells were dragged, and a con- siderable body of men were employed, for a fortnight, closely searching every likely place of concealment in the isthmus ; but the body could not be found. The last authentic trace of Mr. Cooper, was, when he inquired of a sol- dier the way to the hotel. I reached the Mycenae about one o'clock. This town was built about the year 1344 before 178 WANDERINGS the Christian era, either by Acrisius or Per- seus. One derivation of its name is attributed to the word /uqicqc, signifying a sword-handle, — the oracle having directed Perseus to found a city where the handle of his sword had fallen. Homer calls it the " well-built city", and men- tions the width of its streets. This was the scene of the murder of Agamemnon by Cly tem- nestra ; and here Orestes revenged his death by murdering Clytemnestra and -ZEgysthus in the temple of Apollo. The walls of the Acropolis, and part of a bridge in Hellenic masonry, were all the remains of the city that I could meet with. The Acropolis is a height between two commanding mountains, and offers a splendid view. Some of the masonry is Cyclopean, like that of Tyrinth ; other parts are what is termed Hellenic, or of wrought stone symmetrically placed. The whole style of fortification must have resembled that of Tyrinth. The great gate had its approach between, and was com- manded by the rampart, and a wall running parallel to it. It is called the Gate of the Lions, IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 179 from being surmounted by a slab of grey stone, upon which are sculptured two lions, standing upon their hind legs, with their fore-feet rest- ing upon a pedestal that supports a pillar. Some distance below the Acropolis, is the cele- brated vault, termed, by some, the Treasury of Atreus ; by others, the tomb of Agamemnon. It is partially built into the side of the hill, and the top bears the appearance of a tumulus, being covered with earth. It is entered by a beautiful doorway, of Egyptian appearance, having an approach twenty feet wide, faced with stones. Over the door is a triangular win- dow : the door itself was covered by an enor- mous stone, measuring twenty-seven feet by eighteen. A domed chamber, forty-seven feet in diameter, by fifty in height, is first entered ; it is formed of worked stones, symmetrically placed, being studded with fragments of bronze nails, or holes from which the nails have fallen. It is imagined that it was lined with brazen plates, and that this was the mode of construct- ing the brazen chambers in Greece : such as ] 80 WANDERINGS that in which Danae was confined at Argos, by Acrisius. Through this domed apartment a smaller chamber is entered, not faced with stone, but rudely cut out of the rock, which is a sort of pudding stone. There are three other buildings of the same nature, in the immediate neighbourhood ; but far inferior to this, and not well preserved. In the adjoining village I was offered a few miserable coins for sale. Descending from Mycenae, on my way to Nauplia, I passed through the village of Kerbata. The church is evidently upon the site of some ancient temple. In the interior are four marble columns, that have been painted over ; and some sculptured slabs are let into the exterior walls. My cicerone, observing me examining one rather minutely, and suspecting me of evil designs upon it, assured me, that two men coming by night to remove it had been struck dead on the spot : this was intended to deter me from a similar crime. I slept at Nauplia ; and on the following IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 181 morning rode round by Argos, where I had heard that an officer, high in the Greek service, had a collection of antiquities : he had, alas ! parted with them. I returned to Corinth by the same road that I had followed on a previous occasion, crossing, near Argos, the bed of the Inachus. I found it quite dry, — an illustration of the myth, that Inachus, the founder of the kingdom, gave his name to this river ; and that Neptune deprived it of its water, in revenge for the kingdom having been placed under the protection of Juno. Reaching Corinth by three o'clock, I mounted a fresh horse and rode with Lady Albert to see the excavator licensed by the government — a courier, named Francois— open some tombs. He had opened seven or eight in the course of the day, but had obtained nothing but vases of the most common kind, with the exception of a bronze scraper used in the baths. It was in perfect condition, and I purchased it for two drachmas (eighteen pence). 182 WANDERINGS On the 1st of March, the maid and the baggage were sent on at daylight; at eight, Lady Albert, Dimitri, and myself followed. We visited the American village, for urns ; one peasant had a fine specimen as to shape, but not as to painting. He insisted upon double the price which I felt disposed to give. We came up with the baggage, at the khan situated on the Corinthian side of the Kaki Scala pass. The maid was seated on a stone by the side of the door, ruefully cracking some almonds with which Dimitri had supplied her, by way of pro- vision for her journey. In a strange country, and with strange faces around her, she had given herself up for lost. Dimitri had mounted her upon a long -tailed grey, that went as if its legs were fastened together by hobbles. When we all started again, I managed, with a long whip, to make it keep up to the rest, whilst the poor woman held fast by the pommel. On a very bad part of the pass, the grey did not exactly follow in the track of the horse imme- diately preceding him, ventured on a slippery IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 183 rock, and his legs flew from under him. To my horror, its rider was some seconds before she could free herself from her stirrups I but when she did so, 1 thought that she never intended to stop rolling. Over and over she turned, till she had placed ten or twelve yards between herself and her horse. When she was safe and found to be quite unhurt, none of us could help laughing at her bewildered look. Sir Edmund Lyons' little grandchild, a boy of about seven, telling him about the fall, said, " You see, grandpapa, being a fat, round maid, she did not hurt herself". I did not laugh long. At the very same spot my horse lost his footing, and came down with me for the first time. This was our only adventure till we reached Megara, where a carriage was waiting to take us to Athens. This carriage was the cause of my not seeing anything more of Greece. I had planned for the following week to go by the pass of Phyle to Thebes ; thence to visit Leuctra, Lebadea, Chaeronea, and Delphi, and, engaging a boat at Scala, to have sailed to 184 WANDERINGS Patras, where I should have met the Austrian steamboat and proceeded to Corfu. The week was less agreeably passed under the care of Dr. Treiber, a German philhellene, — who is at the head of the military medical department in Greece. I caught a chill from sitting in the carriage after a hot ride, and the cold instantly flew to my chest. During the first days of my confinement, I had not even the resource of con- versation ; for the pain in my chest prevented my speaking. When I became a little better, that gallant veteran, Sir Richard Church, con- soled me for my indisposition by sitting with me, and giving me the most interesting informa- tion with regard to the present state of Greece, and to the mischievous system pursued by her present rulers. When conversing upon the War of Independence, in which he had taken so distinguished a part, he described to me the gallantry, the sufferings, as well as the pecuniary sacrifices of all classes of Greeks ; — how the army kept together without money, often without food, and depended for ammuni- IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 185 tion upon what was seized from the enemy. Upon one occasion the whole army was nine days totally unprovided with food ; officers as well as men having to subsist upon grass or anything of that nature they could get bold of, but their spirits never flagged. Sir Kichard may well sicken with disgust when he sees the thankless being, who has benefited by their sacrifices and struggles, and obtained by them a throne. The time having elapsed which I could pass in Greece, I left it with the most sincere re- gret. I had made acquaintances there of a very superior order ; and the lower classes had especially interested me : they never ceased causing me wonder by their intelligence, and natural intellect. It is inconceivable that the faults of their character should not be tenfold what they are, from the ages during which they have groaned in the most abject bondage, and from which they have only been released, to be ruled under the most demoralizing system of government. k2 186 WANDERINGS I felt pain even at parting from Dimitri, with his most amusing English conversation ; I regretted leaving the curiosity dealers, who came to me every morning, each in turn, bring- ing me the very same articles that another had brought me on the previous day; all hoping, that, at last, some one among them might per- suade me to purchase, against my own consent. One of them, a tall, fat man, with little pig- like eyes, enormous baggy Turkish trousers, and a red Turkish cap, was a constant source of amusement to us, from his earnest entreaties that I would purchase from him, and his anger when he discovered that I had made any pur- chase elsewhere. He invariably declared that the articles he had for sale, were not his own property ; and, when I offered him a tenth of what he asked, always said he must consult the owner ; he would then go down into the garden, remain there ten minutes and come up again, saying, that with much difficulty, he had concluded the bargain for me, and trusted that I would give him something for his trouble. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 187 Both Lady Albert and myself could have cried when we took leave of dear, kind, round, little Madame Notara, the lady of our house ; with whom we used to reciprocate long visits, she chattering away in Greek, and we answer- ing in English or French, as the case might be, neither party understanding one syllable that the other said. 188 WANDERINGS CHAPTEE VIII. On Monday, the 12th of March, I left the Peirasus with a heavy heart; sailing by the Austrian steamboat at six in the morning, we reached Calamaki at eleven o'clock. Three sets of dealers from Corinth were awaiting my arrival : Francois, to tell me that he had found some good vases which should meet me at Lutraki ; the owner of a mirror supported by a bronze figure, to tell me that I should have it at my own price; and two peasants, who had a few bad urns and a glass vase for sale. I purchased the vase of them ; but, poor fellows, as they were leaving the village, three gensd'armes, who had their suspicions excited, stopped them and seized all their urns; for- tunately they were of no great value. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 189 Carriages for the passengers, and vans for the luggage, were provided by the Austrian company, and conveyed us to Lutraki, a dis- tance of seven miles ; there we waited till ten at night ; my only resource for killing time, being bargaining with Francois for the pur- chase of two of his vases. This dreadful arrangement of leaving Lutraki at night, pre- vents the passengers from seeing the beautiful scenery of the Gulf of Lepanto ; we had an- chored off Patras, before I was up in the morning. Patras is situated at the foot of a ridge of hills running up to Mount Voidha. Just above the modern town are the foundations, as well as some remains, of the more ancient town ; above these, again, is the melancholy, deserted-looking citadel. There is a considerable tract of land near the town, cultivated with currants, and vineyards clothe the side of the hills. The situation of Patras has great beauty : Mount Voidha is at its back, and before it, the coast of Etolia, with the two striking mountains of 190 WANDERINGS Varasova and Klokova. The town is planned with much regularity; but only one street — that which runs parallel with, and close to, the sea — has any appearance of life. This street is stirring and bustling enough. At about a quarter of a mile from the westward end of this street, is the church of St. Andrew, — the site of the temple of Ceres, and of the well mentioned by Pausanias. There are several fountains in the town: one is curious, being surrounded by columns, and was shewn to me as Roman. The others are very humble imita- tions of it. There are also some remains of an aqueduct just outside the town. Patras was founded by Eumelius, to whom Triptolemus taught building and to sow wheat. It was originally called Aroe: Pataerus, having enlarged and fortified it, gave it his name. It had fallen into a state of total decline, when Augustus, after the battle of Nicopolis, colo- nized it from Etolia, called it Colonia Augusta, Arae-Patrensis, and gave its inhabitants the rights of Roman citizenship. Diana was the IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 191 deity especially worshipped here, and, under the name of Diana Triclaria, had a temple near the river Meilichos, as it is now called, or Ameilichos, as it was anciently called, — from the annual human sacrifice of a youth and a virgin, on its banks, to that most cruel of Grecian deities, in revenge for Melanippus and Cometho having polluted her temple. This stream still flows, as well as the Selemnus, — once a hand- some shepherd, loved by the nymph Argyra, who daily left the sea to visit him. Her attach- ment growing cool, and finally ceasing, Selem- nus died of despair; and Venus, in compassion, turned him into this river. We had to embark again at two o'clock, and the track followed by the steamboat enabled us to have a distant view of Missolonghi. Placed on level ground, its situation was totally diffe- rent from what my imagination had drawn it to me. I had figured it to myself, on a height, and its defenders rushing down, as they cut their way out of it, at its celebrated siege. It has a thoroughly prosaic appearance. Evening 1 92 WANDERINGS closing in, I saw nothing more; and we had anchored at Corfu before I had left my berth on the morning of the 1 4th. The health-officers came alongside, and the usual formalities were gone through before the vessel had free pratique. Presently up came a very long boat, rowed by heaven knows how many men. In the stern-sheets was a very smart gentleman with mustachios, who, seeing me leaning over the side, nodded very fami- liarly ; being in an absent mood, I only recol- lected the face, and nodded and smiled in return. He came on deck ; and I then remem- bered who he was, — a servant of Lord Seaton, whom I had seen at Athens. He told me that the Lord High Commissioner's boat was intended for me, and that breakfast was ready at the palace. I thought this very odd, and marvellously civil, as I had only seen Lord Seaton once in my life, and Lady Albert was not acquainted with Lady Seaton. However, as I had despatches for Lord Seaton, I thought that I might make use of the boat : the breakfast was another IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 193 affair ; and I therefore said that we must first go to the hotel. My friend made great diffi- culty about this plan ; but I was not to be caught, and the more so, as he dropped, in his agreeable conversation, that Sir Edmund and Lady Lyons had been expected by the same steamer. Never was such good fortune as my not having been taken in, — the invitation being solely the impulse of my friend's own civility and love of patronage. Lord and Lady Seaton would have been not a little surprised, had two comparative strangers marched in, at nine o'clock in the morning, and coolly established themselves at their breakfast-table. This would indeed have been presuming upon the very great hospitality and kindness which they exercised towards all visiting the island, and which they shewed towards ourselves. The town of Corfu is beautifully situated, near the sea, opposite the coast of Albania. It is built on the sides and top of an eminence ; at the south-eastern extremity of this eminence rises a striking hill with two summits, upon s 1 94 WANDERINGS one of which is a magazine ; the other is covered with barracks, military hospitals, etc. The whole forms a strong citadel that is con- nected, by a draw-bridge, with the beautiful esplanade forming the most agreeable feature of the town. It is prettily laid out, surrounded by trees, and commands fine views. At one end is the palace called the Palace of St. Michael and St. George ; a fine building, of Maltese stone, with its first-floor devoted to the Lord High Commissioner's apartments, and the ground-floor to various public offices. One side of the esplanade has some good houses, with colonades. The rest of the town is not prepos- sessing, though it has a very thriving appear- ance. Its little Opera was described to me as good. There are no sights beyond the mum- mied body of St. Spiridion, kept in the rather richly-decorated, small cathedral dedicated to that saint. Corfu was the ancient Corcyra. It was also named Scheria, Phaeacia, and Drepanon. It was an island of importance, and had a IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 195 powerful navy ; but few vestiges of antiquity remain upon it, and fewer objects of antiquarian interest have been found here, than upon the other islands. In the centre of the mouth of the harbour, is the little strongly-fortified island of Vido, which assists its shelter. We found the Club Hotel fair, and the bill was very reasonable. There is a most obliging English shop-keeper, Mr. Taylor, established at Corfu; and we hired excellent carriages and horses from Mr. Carter, an Englishman. The short drive generally taken from the town, is to the one-gun battery overhanging the sea, and within sight of one of the two islands, given as the Phaeacian galley, petrified by Neptune for having conveyed Ulysses to Ithaca. Near the town are numerous vegetable gardens, — originally a speculation of some Mal- tese, who first introduced into Corfu the culti- vation of vegetables for the supply of the town. The Ionian islanders are a dissatisfied race : they have obtained liberty of the press within the last two years ; it was, in fact, found better 196 WANDERINGS to give it them, to render the publishers of papers responsible, and to check the mass of inflammatory pamphlets, etc., that were printed out of the islands and poured in upon the popu- lation. The principal agitation appears to be, at present, for freedom of election to their legislative assembly, and their principal griev- ance, that pensions granted to natives of Britain for official duties in the islands, should be spent out of their country : but many of their pub- lications boldly declare the wish of the popula- tion to be a separation from Great Britain, and an annexation to Greece. They thank the British for affording them protection whilst it was required ; but affirm that they no longer wish for it. The principal inhabitants en- deavour to connect themselves with the Greek families by marriage, and the population gene- rally ape the Greeks, being as inferior to them as is the monkey to its human prototype. We drove to Paleacastrizza ; it is sixteen miles from Corfu, on the north-western coast. Having so lately left Greece, with her ne- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 197 glected resources, the higher state of cultivation of Corfu, its thickly planted olive trees, and fine roads running in every direction, struck us more than they otherwise might have done. The surface of the country undulates beauti- fully ; and the charm of the island does not so much consist in the simple, bold outline of Greek scenery, as in the softness of the more fertile parts of Italy. I thought that were I to live out of England, no part of the world would offer to me such attractions as Corfu, — with its temperate climate and lovely scenery ; as a sportsman, I should have first-rate shooting on the coast of Albania, which is only sepa- rated from it by a channel, varying from two to twelve miles in breadth. I should have the finest yachting, boating, and sea-fishing in the world — all this, combined with the advantages of a good town in Corfu, and the protection of the British government ; regular communication with England, and, above all, very cheap living. Paleacastrizza is a monastic institution, now only consisting of three nuns, a priest, a monk, s2 1 98 WANDERINGS and a clerk. The salubrity of the situation caused it at one time to be employed as a sort of hospital for the invalids of the Garrison; but now one English sergeant is alone quartered there, who, with his wife, takes care of some apartments, to which the Lord Commissioner's family or British officers retire from the close air of Corfu in the height of summer. It is on very high ground, and with splendid views of the Adriatic and of the coast of Corfu. I did not fail to take advantage of Mr. Woodehouse's kind permission to view his very extraordinary series of Greek coins belonging to the islands, formed during a residence of thirty years ; he filled the office of treasurer. He has also made an admirable collection of objects of antiquity. I do not think that I ever saw one so well selected, and so little encum- bered by what I should call " rubbish' 1 . At seven o'clock on the morning of the 17th, we embarked on board a steamer which makes a weekly tour of the islands. We were taken on board by the Lord High Commissioner's IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 199 boat. My former friend, who again accom- panied us, was, to my regret, far more subdued in his manner, and thus not nearly so amusing. We had a most entertaining fat captain, evidently well known and a general favourite, " Captain Gavaso " ; he told us that he had been thirty-three years in the Adriatic. The steamer was small and very crowded ; first and second class passengers, without distinction, slept in the main and lady's cabin. The good- natured captain had to give up his own to Lady Albert and to me. The passage was amusing ; the cabin passengers were principally merchants and landed proprietors, belonging to the various islands: having formed an ac- quaintance with one of them at Corfu, I soon got acquainted with the rest; they fully appreciated their own and each other's jokes and fun, but were all desperate radicals, and complained bitterly of the onerous export duties laid upon the produce of their lands. They represented them to be nearly twice as heavy as those of the continent of Greece. To add 200 WANDERINGS to their difficulties, the growth of currants is rapidly increasing in Greece, and the produce is more esteemed than that of Zante; which, again, is preferred to that of the other islands. They were, also, uneasy lest the price of their oil should not be kept up ; the only produce about which they were in spirits, were their wines — which they boasted as superior to any grown in the Levant, and still capable of great improvement. Our course lay between the island and the bold picturesque coast of Albania ; the steamer just stopped off the small town of Leftimo, some two miles inland of the coast. Our next station was the little island of Paxos, cele- brated for its oil; it is covered with olive trees, averaging an annual crop worth one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Though only four miles and a half long, by one and a half broad, it has its miniature Lord High Commissioner, in the person of the resident ; its courts of law, and civil establishment, with a military force of forty men. Once a week IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 201 the steamer supplies the British with vegeta- bles and meat from Corfu, goats being its only live stock. The inhabitants depend upon tanks for water, or must bring it from the Albanian coast. The few houses forming the town are close to the harbour, which is good. The little island of Anti Paxos is separated from it by a narrow channel. At the northern extremity of the latter island is a curious rock, washed by the sea into the shape of a tower; and this is, again, fretted by the action of the waves into grotesque shapes of animals, &c. At about four o'clock we had anchored in the harbour of Santa Maura, to the north-east of the island of the same name. The captain had his boat ready to take us on shore, the moment that we had finished dinner: at this dinner, the poor, dear captain, whilst employ- ing his knife, with the greatest activity, in the united services of spoon, knife, and fork, missed his aim, and gave himself a dreadful gash ; an accident that I had all my life ex- pected to witness upon such occasions. 202 WANDERINGS Santa Maura, the ancient Leucadia, is only separated from Acarnania by a swampy chan- nel of two or three feet deep, and from one hundred yards to a mile and a half in breadth ; at the entrance of the channel there is a fort garrisoned by British troops, who suffer fearful ravages from the fevers which the surrounding swamps produce in the autumn. Some of the British officers and residents came on board to inquire for parcels and newspapers, and to hear the latest news ; the arrival of the steamer being evidently a source of great excitement in their banishment. They looked as if the pestilential climate was telling upon them, and it struck me as cruel, that they should be condemned to this fort, (pest-house as it is, and commanded by the opposite coast), when there is a fine, healthy situation above the town, which might be fitted, at a small expense, for the reception of the troops. This fort and the harbour are connected with the mainland, and the town, by a trench cut through the mud for a distance of about a mile and a half. The town is large and very IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 203 populous; it has a curious appearance, from the upper part of the houses being of wood; earthquakes being awfully frequent there. The two objects worth landing for, are the exquisite inland view — for, when looking from the end of the main street up towards the mountains over the olive woods, it has much the cha- racter of Sicilian scenery, — and a very curious ruined bridge of prodigious length crossing the swamp ; it must have connected the town with the harbour. The government is cutting a channel to enable vessels of burthen to pass between the island and the main land, instead of being compelled to sail round it ; the island is twenty miles long, by about eight miles wide, with a population of about eighteen thousand souls. It was ten o'clock when we got under weigh, and I thus missed the great sight of the island, called Sappho's leap — a rock of one hundred and fifty feet in height, to the south-east of the island, whence Sappho is said to have pre- cipitated herself. 204 WANDERINGS It blew a gale of wind on the night of the 17th; Captain Gavaso's cabin did not protect us from the horrible noises of sea sickness which rose above the tempest. Unable to face the weather, and perhaps, deservedly reckoned a timid man, the captain went between Ithaca and Cephalonia, and, to my great disappoint- ment, anchored in the Bay of Samos instead of at Argostoli. Argostoli is a good town, where I purposed passing two or three days for excursions in the island ; but it would have been madness to land at the little village of Samos, on a cold, wet morning, trusting to the chance of finding donkeys or mules to take me, Lady Albert, servants, and baggage, to Argostoli, over the ridge of the black mountain (the mount Enos of old) that is four thousand, five hundred feet in height, and that we could see was covered with snow. I therefore had reluctantly to abandon my purpose of visiting Cephalonia, with its objects of natural as well as antiquarian interest, and stick to the steamer. IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 205 The Bay of Samos has the appearance of a large lake, shut in, as it is, by the island of Ithaca. The ancient town of Samos, whence came Penelope's twenty-four suitors, still pre- sents fine remains of Cyclopean walls. The site of the castle of Ulysses was pointed out to me upon Ithaca, on the summit of mount Aito — a round hill, standing perfectly distinct from the other mountains forming the island. Ithaca, like many other spots of classical in- terest, surprises by the disparity between its size and its celebrity. It is a rugged, moun- tainous island, of eighteen miles in length, by four in breadth. We landed at Zante at about two o'clock. The town is of great length, built round a bay, which bears some faint resemblance to the bay of Naples; but reversed, as Mount Skopo, which would represent Mount Vesuvius, is at the opposite side of the town. Captain Gavaso, in the fulness of his heart, sent us on shore in his own boat. We went to the miserable place called the hotel : it was horribly filthy, and the 206 WANDERINGS prospect of vermin justly alarming. Some merchants, to whom I had letters, called upon me almost immediately after my arrival, and promised to look out for lodgings for me : how- ever, Colonel Hill, the British resident at Zante, called upon us, and hospitably insisted upon our going to his house. We only, therefore, passed one night in the purgatory of the hotel. We employed our time at Zante, viewing the natural beauties of the island, for it possesses no remains of antiquarian interest. The island is sixty miles in circumference and very fer- tile ; it has a plain, running from the northern to the southern coast, bounded to the west by a very high range of hills, and to the east by Mount Skopo, formerly Mount Elatus; the castle hill, and the eminences connected with it. The views from these hills, down upon the sea and upon the fertile plain, are beautiful in the extreme, as is also that from the plain up to the hills, which are studded by picturesque villages and small country houses. The island has acquired the rather exaggerated name of the IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 207 " Fior di Levante". The inhabitants are very proud of their country houses ; but those which I was shown as specimens, resembled inferior Italian villas; their gardens are not what in England we should call, well kept. I went to one beautiful garden, laid out on the side of a hill in terraces, but the house belonging to it lay in ruins, just as the earthquake, from which it had suffered, had left it : these earth- quakes are of great frequency, though the inhabitants calculate that the severe shocks only recur every twenty years; perhaps they adopt this calculation from one of great violence having occurred in December 1820, and another in 1840. Very serious damage to life and property was occasioned by both these shocks. One was felt at six o'clock on the morning of the 20th ; it was so slight as not to awaken me. We went with Colonel and Mrs. Hill, Colonel Grubbe, and Count Metarci, to visit the celebrated Pitch Wells, described by various classical wri- ters. There is a fine carriage road as far as the 208 WANDERINGS little village of Litakia, but thence the road winds for some miles by a rugged path, through a mixture of rocky, barren land, and olive plantations, to a marsh. On the edge of this, at a short distance from the sea, is a circular spring of about six feet in diameter ; the pitch rises in very large bubbles, under the clear spring water, which is about eighteen inches deep, and not very disagreeable to the taste : the bubbles burst, and then the pitch, if not collected, runs off and flows with the water into the sea. About three barrels of pitch may be collected in a day ; upon analyzing it, it proves to be pure petrolium, — it will not harden unless mixed with pine pitch and lime. In a cleft between two mountains, at a dis- tance of about two miles from the Pitch Well, is a round bason of very clear water ; attempts have often been made — but without success — to fathom its depth : it is confidently asserted that a bull that fell into it reappeared at a distance of four miles out at sea. The weather, whilst I was at Zante, was too unsettled to IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 209 permit me to visit without danger the locality known by the name of the Tallow Well, for it can only be approached by water. It was described to me as a fissure in a cliff upon the sea, from which exudes a quantity of fatty matter of most disagreeable smell ; this matter flows into the sea, and I could not learn that any experiment had ever been made to dis- cover whether it would be serviceable, even as manure. I did not consider it sufficiently interesting to tempt me to run any risk in visiting it. Count Roma was good enough to show me his celebrated collection of Greek coins ; it is very large, but of no great value. As it consists of between three and four thou- sand pieces, it would indeed be extraordinary were not some among them of great interest. He had one coin that specially interested me ; the reverse being that bell which has so puzzled antiquarians, as the reverse of a coin belonging to the island of Malta. t2 2 1 WANDERINGS CHAPTER IX. Zante must be a place of dreadful banishment for an Englishman. The Resident remains there for a period of five years ; his small salary is dearly earned, in despite of the charming climate and tempting situation of the official residence. We heard, whilst at dinner, the report of the gun fired from the steamer which each fortnight is the medium of communication between the Ionian islands and Malta. We had no time to lose, for her commander did not anchor, but waited, with the steam up, in the roadstead, for the boat bearing the letters. We took a hurried leave of Mrs. Hill, and hastened into Colonel Hill's boat. He accompanied us on board, and IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 211 it was very fortunate that he did so, for Lieu- tenant Glinn refused us a passage, upon the plea of want of accommodation, — not without some reason, the Locust being a very small vessel, with only one cabin for passengers. Colonel Hill long used in vain the influence of an acquaintance and of his official situation, whilst persuading him to take us. At length, finding that he had no alternative but that of ordering his men to remove us by force, for we would not listen to his objections, he gave way. Much as we dreaded the appearance of the Locust, we felt that we could not trespass upon Colonel Hill's hospitality till the arrival of another steamer, in a fortnight. When Lieutenant Glinn found resistance vain, he gave up his own cabin to Lady Albert, and did all in his power to accommodate us. We did not long congratulate ourselves upon having obtained our wishes. We had dreadful weather for the first six and-thirty hours of our passage, with the wind from the north-east ; and the Locust laboured, as I never felt vessel 212 WANDERINGS labour before, in the trough of the heavy sea that got up. One unfortunate Maltese gentleman, our only fellow-passenger, appeared to think that his last hour was come ; and as for Lady Albert, she stoutly refused to touch food or to move out of her berth when the weather moderated, till we were safely anchored in the harbour of Malta, at two o'clock in the morning of the 26th. Lieutenant Glinn sent us on shore in his gig. We knocked up the waiters at Baker's hotel, and after a few hours' sleep, whilst sitting at breakfast in the apartments that we had before occupied, with the band playing in the square before the palace, we felt as if our absence from Malta had been the previous night's dream. I unpacked with trembling hands the vases which had preceded me to Malta. They had all escaped the perils of the journey ; not one had been injured. The unpacking, cleaning, and repacking for their journey to England was great occupation for me, whilst passing the few days that intervened till the French steamer sailed for the Italian coast and Marseilles. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 213 On the second of April, at ten o'clock, we embarked on board the Alexandre, a fine-looking vessel, with excellent accommodation. We put into Messina for a few hours on our passage. The town was a sad wreck. Three forts on the inland side, were vast masses of ruin ; whilst the only remaining fort on the outer side of the harbour, appeared grimly waiting to destroy the town in case of necessity. The southern suburbs were in ruins, and many of that fine row of houses forming the Marina, were riddled by shot. The Alexandre had been in Messina for some days during the late con- test, and her officers gave me some painful accounts of it. I heard from them, as well as from an English gentleman, a resident at Mes- sina, that it was Neapolitan money, and not their arms, that had taken the town, for that many of the Sicilian leaders had been bought. Three days' sack kad been promised the troops ; but after the town had suffered, during four-and- twenty hours, atrocities that the imagination of demons alone could have invented, the com- 214 WANDERINGS manders of the English and French vessels of war remonstrated, and the total destruction of Messina was thus prevented. The soldiers had been provided with canteens filled with a sort of combustible stuff, to be applied by a brush and with lucifer matches, for firing the town ; and certainly they used them effectually in the southern suburb, the only one that they had spare time from their other enormities to destroy. These statements were not merely assertions, for pains had been taken to render them capable of being proved. The whole Neapolitan force had left Messina the day before we arrived there, upon that ex- pedition against Catania, that ended in three days' sack of that unfortunate town. The principal performers of an Opera, that had been sent to Messina, apparently for the amusement of the troops (for the inhabitants had no spirits for such entertainments), re- turned by the Alexandre to Naples. The first tenor was a very good-looking young fellow, of about one-and-twenty : he was remarkably well IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 215 dressed. The prima donna made a sad appear- ance without rouge, and in her slovenly travel- ling dress. These two were objects of worship to their companions, as well as to several mus- tachiod, dingy-looking men, with satin stocks and collarless shirts, who had come with us from Malta. Sea sickness, soon after they came on board, levelled all distinctions amongst them and cooled the attentions of their admirers. They suffered dreadfully whilst the Alexandre rolled about ; for she proved a sad impostor, being a bad sea-boat. Her boilers were so out of repair, that their leakage rendered it a matter of difficulty to keep up the fires, and after a bad passage, she hobbled into Naples in a very crippled condition. We landed at the custom-house, at about two o'clock on the afternoon of the 4th, in the Babel of tongues, and in the confusion, with which every thing must be done at Naples. The authorities, being nervously sensitive to the chance of any foreign publications being introduced into the country that might add to 216 WANDERINGS the excitement of public opinion, have quite altered the old system, by which a trifling bribe would pass luggage unexamined, and nothing could exceed the rigour with which our passport was verified and baggage ransacked. I had not seen Naples for seventeen years : I could perceive no alterations in the town ; but I thought that I saw a very marked difference in the character of the people. The light- headedness and gaity amongst the very lowest of the populace, peculiar to Naples, and which added such a charm to the scenes that I re- membered, was gone, and replaced by the matter-of-fact appearance of the inhabitants of other towns : — it was the buoyancy of youth converted into the gravity of discontented middle age. At first, I feared that my own advancing years caused me to view things under a different aspect, and that what had charmed and amused a young man, no longer had the same effect upon one now blase and middle-aged. I was comforted to find that this was not the case ; but that the character of the Neapolitan IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 217 population had indeed undergone a change within the last few years. It did not look the happier for having turned its thoughts to political agitation. The two parties opposed to each other had divided Naples between them. The lazzaroni, and those of the lower orders inhabiting the vicinity of the sea, called them- selves royalists ; those living on the inland side of the Toledo were constitutionalists. Patrols of cavalry and infantry were incessantly moving through the streets, to show that the authorities were prepared, should any disturbances arise. Our first drive from Naples was to Baia — that Baia so celebrated as the most favourite of all the haunts of pleasure of the Romans. Besides the invalids who flocked there to obtain relief from the healing springs and warm sul- phur baths, a much larger number of persons in health assembled there in pursuit of pleasure, and solely devoted to enjoyment in any shape : the licentiousness which was veiled in the me- tropolis, was there openly displayed. Seneca called it a seat of voluptuousness and a harbour u 2 I 8 WANDERINGS of vice, and was so disgusted with the life led there, that he left it on the second day after his arrival. The bay was surrounded by palaces built into the sea for salubrity, and which were suffi- ciently lofty to command extended views ; whilst the heights were covered by villas of less pretensions. The beauty of the scenery remains as in the days of the Romans, and the climate as genial ; but the vestiges of its splendour consist but in the ruins of three baths, now termed, respectively, the temples of Diana, of Mercury, and the temple of Venus. The baths must have been of enormous size ; but all those luxurious decorations have disappeared, for which they were celebrated, and that were much as those described by Seneca in his eighty-sixth letter, when, after mentioning the simplicity of the baths of the great Scipio, he continues : " But who would now submit to bathe in this fashion ? He would consider him- self poor and sordid, whose walls shone not with precious materials ; unless the marbles of IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 219 Egypt be picked out by those of Numidia, and the walls laboriously inlaid with them, in imita- tion of painting ; unless the Thasian stone — formerly a rare sight, even in a temple — sur- round those basons into which we cast our bodies weakened by perspiration ; unless silver pipes bring the water. And, as yet, I only speak of plebeian baths : what must I say of those of freedmen ? What numbers of statues ; what numbers of columns supporting nothing, but placed as ornaments, for the sake of ex-* pense; what quantities of water, producing noise by tumbling down steps. We have reached that degree of luxury, that it would appear as if we could only tread upon precious stones." Fragments of mosaic upon the ceilings and walls, alone mark that these baths were de- corated ; and even these are fast disappearing, as they are sold for relics to visitors. The passion for bathing must have amounted to a mania with the Romans: the noblest women visited the baths, as well as the men ; 220 WANDERINGS and that habit arose, of men and women bathing together, often alluded to by Juvenal and Mar- tial. Hadrian was the first to endeavour to check these improprieties ; but he only suc- ceeded for a short period; and the renewal, afterwards, of these interdicts, shews that the evil could not easily be eradicated. It is given as an instance of the extent to which luxury was carried, that Nero's ladies used to bathe in asses' milk ; but it will be perhaps remembered, that a well-known lady of fashion, in our own country, and in the present century, made use of milk-baths, that were supposed to find their way, afterwards, into the milk-pails supplying the town. Baia retained its reputation as a haunt of pleasure and of vice, through the middle ages. The tour which the laquais-de -place compels his victim to take, when visiting Baia, includes Pozzuoli, Bauli, and Misene. He conducts him over ruins and vaults that belonged to celebrated villas; shews him wonders of ma- sonry, in the cisterns and the amphitheatre, IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 221 with an interesting and ancient temple, that was dedicated to Serapis ; he also makes him look at the Port of Misene. Such was our fate ; and we fell in with another party, guide-book in hand, undergoing precisely the same course of treatment. We had a succession of rainy days, so that it was some time before we could visit Hercula- neum or Pompeii. Of Herculaneum, but a small portion is exposed to view, the towns of Resina and Portici having been built over it, upon repeated layers of lava. The process of clearing has been very laborious ; and, to avoid the extra labour of raising the quarried mate- rials to the surface, from a depth of seventy or eighty feet, former excavations have been filled up from the later excavations. Only a small portion of the town has been bared. The theatre, which must be viewed by torch-light, gives the idea of a modern coal-pit, whilst galleries, cut in the black-looking lava, are being paced ; it has, however, been a rich mine for valuable objects of art. It was decorated u2 222 WANDERINGS with statues and columns : of these, four eques- trian statues were in gilded bronze. At Herculaneum were found a vast number of papyri: at first, they were supposed to be merely charred wood, and many were therefore thrown aside; but in excavating under the garden of St. Augustin, at Portici, a country house of a very superior order was discovered, that had a garden leading down to the sea, adorned with columns, marble busts, and bronze statues, with a summer-house contain- ing numerous mosaics. In clearing out one of the rooms of this house, a number of car- bonized rolls were found, so symmetrically arranged as to attract attention ; and an inspector of the excavations, named Paderni, made out that they were inscribed with Greek characters. The Herculaneum rolls are written with a preparation like our Indian ink; and, if the writing be held towards the light, it appears in slight relief. The material written upon was the bark of the Egyptian papyrus, care- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 223 fully prepared and bleached ; as it was brought into the greatest state of perfection at the time of Augustus, the best kind was called after him ; the second best after Livia. Charles the Third, who was king of Naples at the time of this discovery, had about eighteen hundred of these rolls taken to the museum at Portici, whence they were again moved to the Museo Reale Bourbonico, by Ferdinand the First, in 1816, with the other collections which he deposited there. It was long before a method to unroll them could be invented. Antonio Piazzi, an ecclesiastic, has the merit of the simple apparatus by which they are now unrolled. Being written only on one side, the exterior is stuck upon gold beater's skin, and this is raised by two wires ; the outer fold of the papyrus is then separated from the next, and, as unrolled, continues to be stuck upon fresh skin. It is a process requiring great delicacy of touch. About five hundred of these manuscripts have been deciphered. Pompeii is now reached by the railway that 224 WANDERINGS connects Naples with Nocera, and this facility of access, renders it no longer what Sir Walter Scott termed it, when on visiting it, he exclaimed, "this is, indeed, the city of the dead". Joyous parties of visitors cause the walls to resound, and the contrast between these thoughtless butterflies, and the scenes which they have chosen for their fluttering, is not without its effect. The railway station is surrounded by men- dicants of every description, to torment and distract the attention of the unfortunate antiquary. Some are musicians playing the Tarantelle, others are dancing to the music; some accompany their own singing by their guitars ; there are blind and lame beggars ; many compel charity by the disgust of their deformities, and others alarm women into it by their gibbering as idiots. All this, though provoking, forms a very curious scene; and as we left the station and returned to it, escorted by all these individuals, and followed by our English servants, we must have amused all who saw us. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 225 Far less labour has been required for excava- ting at Pompeii than at Herculaneum. It was buried under a mass of pumice-stone and ashes, to a depth of about fourteen feet; and it is bared with comparative ease. The ashes are supposed to have fallen in a shower, being mixed with boiling water. Successive layers of these ashes are distinctly to be traced ; eight of them have been counted ; the lowest has been moved, whilst the others have not. From this appearance, and from many of the houses having been evidently ransacked previous to the later excavations, it is supposed that many of the in- habitants returned, to endeavour to save what they could of this ruined property, and that the town has been again and again covered by fresh showers of ashes at various periods. The late Lord Dudley and Ward aptly termed it "a town potted for the use of antiquaries". The king has ordered one house, that has been lately excavated, to be left precisely as it was found, with its statues and its frescoes undisturbed. This is useful, as it enables the 226 WANDERINGS visitor more readily to understand the plan of the other houses, all having been built upon very much the same model, only varying in size and extent of accommodation. Even in the best houses the rooms were small. All had gardens attached to them. The space being limited, they made up for want of extent by painting the walls of the gardens so as to represent trees with birds in them, shrubs, and flowers. Much bad taste is shewn in the gaudiness* and general decorations of those little gardens, when com- pared with the artistic skill of the other frescoes, of the mosaics and statues, as well as with the beauty and good taste of the various articles that have been found. The houses of the richer classes were usually surrounded by shops, which they let out to hire, and from which they derived a considerable source of revenue. This was also the habit in other towns, for Cicero, in a letter to Atticus, mentions the ruinous state into which his shops had fallen ; so much so, that not only the men, but the mice had quitted them ; and an inscrip- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 227 tion at Pompeii states, that one Julia Felix possessed nine hundred of these shops. A baker's shop is attached to the house termed " the house of Sallust" ; another to that of Panza. The principal charm of visiting Pompeii, con- sists in the traces of every-day life that are to be seen. The piece of marble left half worked by the mason ; the stains upon the counters in the shops, from the wet glasses set down upon them ; the ill-written names of the owners of the various houses ; the scrawled inscriptions and notices upon the walls, in many places de- faced and again covered by other inscriptions ; the marks of .the chariot wheels in the streets ; that of the feet of the passengers upon the foot pavement ; the worn resting-places for the feet in the waiting-room of the public baths, shewing that some were peculiarly favourite seats ; the rings pierced in the curb-stone before a shop, to which beasts of burthen might be fastened whilst their owners dealt within; — these are the sort of things that give a special interest to Pompeii. After visiting it and inspecting, at the Museo 228 WANDERINGS Bourbonico, the mass of articles, sacrificial, military, domestic, and for personal ornament, that are preserved there, Bulwer's " Last Days of Pompeii " made me feel as if I had actually lived amongst beings who existed eighteen hun- dred years since. Strabo (lib. v.) gives the fol- lowing account of the position and origin of Herculaneum and Pompeii : " Next to Neapolis is Herculaneum, standing on a promontory re- markably open to the south-west wind, which makes it unusually healthy. This city and its next neighbour, Pompeii, on the river Sarnus, were originally held by the Osci, then by the Tyrrhenians and Pelasgians, then by the Samnites, who in their turn were expelled by the Romans. It is the port of Nola, Nuceria, and Acerrse, being situated on the river Sarnus, which is suited for the exportation and im- portation of cargoes. Above these places rises Vesuvius ; well cultivated and inhabited all round, except its top, which is for the most part level and entirely barren, covered with ashes, and displaying cavernous hollows in rocks IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 22§ which look as if they had been burned in the fire ; so that we may suppose this spot to have been formerly a volcano with burning craters, now extinguished for want of fuel.' 11 230 WANDERINGS CHAPTER X. On the 23rd of April, we ascended Mount Vesuvius; that extraordinary volcano, which, after being dormant for so many ages that even traditions of its eruptions were lost in time, burst forth afresh, a.d. 79, causing the most awful destruction of property. No exertion is required for this expedition ; a capital carriage- road leads from the town of Resina up to the government building erected for meteorological observations, close to the well-known hermitage. About three-fourths of the ascent can thus be mounted ; some distance is then ridden, and the summit may finally be reached in a chair carried on men's shoulders. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 231 It had been a bad year for the guides, from the few travellers who had visited Naples, and they determined to make all they could out of us. I had sent on the previous day to Salvatore, the guide principally employed, giving him notice that three persons would ascend. When we reached the little town of Kesina, we found it in a state of great excitement; all the idlers, who hope to gain something by those who visit Vesuvius, were assembled round Salvatore's house, and every available horse and mule that could not find standing room in his little court-yard, was squealing and fighting in the street without. Salvatore would not hear of our quietly driving up to the hermitage, but made us start from his house in procession. Lady Albert, her maid, and myself, were all the party, but he had made preparations more suited for twenty persons. I was, alas ! a " Milord An- glais", and to suffer accordingly. Salvatore's face lengthened when I told him that I should settle with him alone, at the regular fixed price, 232 WANDERINGS for horses and a reasonable number of bearers and idlers. The hermitage is reached without difficulty ; the hermit is but a regular innkeeper, who, with one assistant, drives a stirring trade in the wine, fruit, bread, and eggs, — of which, all who visit Vesuvius think it a sort of duty to partake ; and who, in his turn, has to part with his gains to the peasantry of the adjacent country, who make parties to rob him. Here Salvatore assembled his forces of guides, bearers, and idlers. Though it was in the middle of the day, one man was provided with torches ; but to this hour I know not for what purpose they were intended. A soldier, also, insisted upon being an escort, against the possible brigands of the mountain. We soon entered upon the table-land lying between Monte Somma and Vesuvius; it has the appearance of an extinct crater, and I amused myself by fancying it the very spot where Spartacus encamped with his band of insurgent slaves and gladiators. It is well- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 233 known that it was on Vesuvius that he encamped, and the aspect of the place tallies with the description. " The Romans besieged them in their fort, situate upon a hill that had a very steep and narrow ascent to it, and kept the passage up to them. All the rest of the ground round about it, was nothing but high rocks hanging over, and upon them great store of wild vines". It had a strange, wild appearance, and looked very much like the approach to the infernal regions, or some English mining district, upon a gigantic scale. There had been a slight eruption high on the south-eastern side of the mountain, which spared us the trouble of mounting to the summit. Several streamlets of lava trickling forth gave a good idea of what the effect would be when appearing on a larger scale. The largest stream issued very slowly, like molten ore from a fur- nace, with scoria, representing the dross, floating upon it. It rapidly crusted over. When sufrj - ciently cool to be walked upon, the effect to the x2 234 WANDERINGS tread was much like walking upon strongly frozen snow. There were a good many round apertures scattered about, of very trifling width, but which appeared of awful depth. Some were throwing up volumes of smoke ; others only heated air, with suffocating fumes of brimstone. The remark of Lady Albert's maid, when peer- ing into one of them was, " Lor, if it is not for all the world like looking down a London chimney !" I cannot vouch for the correctness of this simile from personal observation, but I imagine it to be apt. The chair bearers earned their hire without much fatigue ; the apertures and the lava are approached over large cinders and scoria ; Lady Albert was seated upon a chair upon the shoulders of six men j but from the rolling gait of the bearers, produced partly from the real ruggedness of the way, partly from their anxiety to shew the labour with which they earned their reward, she took fright, screamed aloud for mercy, and begged only to be carried where there was good walking ground of ashes, — trusting to Salvatore's arm, and a IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 235 stick for the bad passes. The maid got on well enough : two stout young fellows gave her each an arm, and half carried, half led her along. After passing a short time scrambling about the lava, admiring the exquisite beauty of the views, and, of course, eating luncheon, we made our way back to where we had left our horses. We stopped for Lacryma Christi at the her- mitage, and then rode back to Resina. After settling with Salvatore his by no means un- reasonable charges, we attempted to start for Naples ; but no imagination could possibly con- ceive the scene outside the house, from the mob of people of every sort and kind, of some who had, and others who had not, accompanied us upon our expedition, but all clamouring for money, though fully understanding that Salva- tore had been amply paid for all who had earned money by accompanying us. They raved with excitement ; and the laquais-de-place's coat was converted into a jacket, as he tore himself out of their hands and scrambled up behind the 236 WANDERINGS We had left Naples at twelve o'clock, and had returned there in time for dinner, and for the opera at San Carlos. Oh, the daily labour that I allotted to myself, and in which I persevered without respite or flinching, to get through the various sights ! Forty -six churches are reckoned worth seeing ; some for the splendour of the marbles that adorn them, others for pictures ; the Santa Maria della Pieta, de' Principi di Sansavero for its marble effigy of the Saviour, extended and enveloped in a winding sheet, for the statues of the man entangled in a net, and of the veiled female figure. Some must be visited for me- dieval monuments ; the Santa Chiara for its towers, and the tombs of the Neapolitan kings. Then there are the catacombs, which are much more lofty than those at Malta, but not to be compared to them for extent. Here, as at Malta, are niches for lamps attached to each sepulchre. The Campo Santo must be seen, with its gaudy resting-places for the clay of the rich, and its awful, but disgusting receptacle for the IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 237 poor. Here there are three hundred and sixty- five pits ; one of these is alternately opened on each day of the year, and into it are indiscrimi- nately thrown the bodies of all whose survivors have not the means or the will to provide an expensive but decent interment. It gave me a sickening sensation, which habit could not over- come, to see, each evening, hearses of various sorts driving rapidly about the streets, to convey with indecent haste the dead to their long home. The Museo Bourbonico requires days for even a slight examination. It is classified into fourteen compartments ; the first contains the frescoes and mosaics ; the second, Egyptian an- tiquities ; the third, marble statues and bas- reliefs; the fourth, inscriptions, with the Farnese Hercules, and the group with the Bull, from the sauie collection ; the fifth, the bronze sta- tues ; the sixth, works of medieval art, ancient glass, and pottery ; the seventh, gold and silver ornaments, cameos, and intaglios, eatables and colours from Herculaneum and Pompeii, with various kinds of tissues ; the eighth, coins and 238 WANDERINGS medals ; the ninth, a collection too improper to be shewn ; the tenth, bronze articles of every sort and for every possible use ; the eleventh, vases of pottery; the twelfth, paintings and cork models ; the thirteenth, Herculaneum papyri ; the fourteenth, the library, taking up the whole upper story of the building, and containing two hundred thousand volumes: of these, three thou- sand are manuscripts. The principal room for this vast mass of books is of enormous size ; it measures one hundred and seventy feet eight inches, by sixty feet three inches. This splendid museum was founded by Fer- dinand the First, in 1816; and he directed that all the treasures of literature, of the fine arts, and of antiquity, preserved in the different palaces, should be there collected : the royal palaces, of which there are six, are thus de- prived of any objects of interest. Noble apart- ments are paced by the visitor, but they contain little to attract his attention : however, they have all fine pleasure-grounds attached to them, and command views of exquisite loveliness. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 239 There are no less than twenty private col- lections, principally of paintings, that may be viewed upon application through proper chan- nels : of these, the most interesting to me was that of the Marquis Santangelo, lately Minister of the Interior. Pictures I do not understand ; but I was told that those in his collection were invaluable. His collection of ancient vases, bronzes, coins, and glass, I did understand, and imagine it to be the finest in the world, after the leading national collections. Whilst he was in office, all those who wished to obtain favours, fancied that they would gain his good will by presenting him something to add to his collec- tion ; and, in addition to this, he spared no money where his superior taste told him it would be well laid out. He possesses two basso relievos in mosaic, that are very nearly unique. Lord Pembroke, at Wilton, had, or still has in his possession, a mosaic of this nature that would be envied by any crowned head for his national museum, and one I afterwards saw in the Museum at Lyons. His collection of rhytons 240 WANDERINGS is decidedly unrivalled; they are drinking cups, modelled after animal or human heads, or to represent grotesque figures : they were so made, that, when held on high, the liquid might be poured into the mouth through a small aperture. The cabinet of bronzes and vases formed by the British minister, Mr. Temple, though small, displays the most perfect taste in its selection. Besides all these sights, there are, at least, eighteen villas that the laquais-de-place urges his employer to visit, that he may divide the fee given to the servants as a bribe for shewing them. The view of Naples and of its immediate neighbourhood, that most interested me, was that from the Carthusian monastery of St. Mar- tino. This building is situated just under the castle of St. Elmo, upon the hill of St. Erasmo, commonly called St. Elmo. It gives distant views of the Bay of Naples and its islands, with a part of Campania, and has the town of Naples so immediately beneath it, that every street and building can be distinguished: the sounds rising IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 241 from the town, and softened by distance, pre- cisely resemble the hum of a bee-hive when its inmates have entered it for the night. The church belonging to the convent is a mass of splendour, in marbles and pietra dura of the rarest sort, and contains paintings of the greatest beauty. Its treasury is curious, from a number of glazed niches, each filled by the labelled bones of some saint or martyr, and there is placed the celebrated picture, by Ribera, of the descent from the cross. The vestibule leading to the treasury, is ornamented by a number of chefs-cFceuvre in marqueterie. I never saw any thing that excelled them, in any of those pic- tures, in marqueterie, executed by first-rate artists in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. It is unfortunate that the marqueteur's name should be lost. The exterior of the convent, when I visited it, had just been furnished with a new wall, well provided with loop-holes, by his Majesty of the Two Sicilies. It com- mands the town, and evidently shows that, in his fancy for the paternal mode of rule, he 242 WANDERINGS did not intend to neglect giving his children a very good punishing should they prove unruly. Time will show whether all his pre- cautions, and his severities, will enable him to overcome the popular desire for a more liberal form of government. For the last year he has not ventured to show himself in public. The Queen is and always was unpopular ; she is a thrifty housewife, and therefore the very tradespeople whom she employs, dislike her. After all she is only prudent in looking after their bills ; and I respected her for an anecdote that Madame Bolton, the mistress of the cele- brated coral shop, told us in great wrath. The Queen had ordered an album to be mounted in coral, after a design of her own ; when it was sent to the palace, she considered the price exorbitant, and would not take it; about a week afterwards she changed her mind, and sent for it; to Madame Bolton's delight the album had been already sold to a Russian princess. Amusing stories are told of her care for the durability as well as the IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 243 price of her children's boots and shoes. She will, indeed, make an admirable wife, if the King should have to retire into private life. A very pretty drive may be taken along the tops of the hills from St. Elmo, passing over the summit of the tunneled hill of Posilipo, and getting into the Strada Nuova. An important and interesting fact was told us ; that this was the favourite and almost daily drive of the " reine m£re" — vulgo, queen dowager. 244 WANDERINGS CHAPTEK XL In true English fashion, we determined to follow the tract generally taken by our fellow- countrymen in visiting Capri and Pcestum ; and we, therefore, set off by the railway, which, branching at Torre Annunziata, connects both Nocera and Castellamare with Naples. This railway is the property of a company ; the only other Neapolitan railway — that lead- ing to Capua — is government property. It can give but a poor return to the share- holders, if one may judge from Lady Albert and myself being the only first-class passengers in the train by which we went to Castel- lamare. This was unfortunate in two respects ; it was bad for the shareholders and worse for us, as it caused the whole swarm of porters, IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 245 hack-carriage drivers, idlers, and beggars, to fasten upon us when the train reached its destination. By their combined annoyance they very nearly drove me into a state of dis- traction, and it was only by a strong effort of self-command that I could resist making my way through them by blows. We took refuge in a carriage and drove to Salerno. Castellamare, the ancient Stabiae, is the favourite summer residence of Anglo- Neapolitans, and is a flourishing town, with numerous villas built around it, and with a royal palace. Ninety-one years before Christ, in the Social or Marsic war, Stabias raised the standard of revolt with the other Campanian towns. The Romans then destroyed it, and scattered villas were built upon its site ; these were buried with Herculaneum and Pompeii : and have been in later years laid open for the benefit of the curious. We drove to Sorento by a road shaded by orange groves. There I hoisted Lady Albert upon a donkey, and leaving the servants and y2 246 WANDERINGS luggage to establish themselves in a boat, we made our way along the coast to the village of Masa, where there is a government establish- ment for invalid soldiers. Upon going down to the shore, we found our boat in readiness, and every available chair from the village placed in a line to it, down the beach ; a mob of men, women, and children, on each side of them, were endeavouring even to touch them, that they might claim a reward for assisting us. To satisfy this mob would have been impossible; I collected a number of halfpence from the laquais-de~place, servants, and boatmen, and gave them a scramble. As if by magic, a crowd of dirty faces was converted into a confused mass of bare legs, and not a face reappeared for several minutes after we had pushed off from the shore, and had started for the island of Capri. We were about two hours rowing to the island. On approaching the landing-place, two little boats, each sculled by one man, came off to us ; they accompanied us three miles along the coast, under high and precipitous cliffs; we IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 247 then had reached the entrance to the cele- brated blue grotto. Lady Albert placed herself at the stern, and I at the head of one of the little boats ; and the man sculling warned us not to raise our heads above the gunwale. The light air of wind was off the land, still there was a slight swell, that occasionally almost filled the low and narrow fissure in the cliff, through which our boatman, watching his opportunity, passed the boat, and, within the distance but of a few yards, we found ourselves floating upon a pond of the most beautiful turquoise-coloured liquid. As our eyes got accustomed to the dark- ness, we perceived that we were in a splendid domed grotto, and it finally seemed to us tole- rably well lit by the lovely blue light from beneath us. The grotto is one hundred and fifty feet long by one hundred wide, fifty-eight feet in height, and the depth of the water is also fifty-eight feet. At the furthest extremity is a spacious shelf, forming a kind of apartment hollowed in the rock ; from this our boatman precipitated himself into the water, to give us 248 WANDERINGS the effect of the light flashing in all directions by the splash which he made. We did not loiter long, for the slightest change in the wind would have made the sea block up the entrance, and we remembered that in the year 1839, a party of eleven gentlemen and five ladies, friends of a friend of ours, had to remain twenty- four hours upon the ledge which I have men- tioned. They bribed a boatman to dive out to their larger boat waiting without, and a commu- nication being thus established, provisions and candles were conveyed to them wrapped in oil cloths, and they passed the period of their imprisonment telling stories, a favourite amuse- ment with the Italians. We proceeded from the Grotto to visit the remainder of the island, which has obtained such a painful celebrity from those atrocities in cruelty and depravity of which Tiberius rendered it the scene, and of which Suetonius gives the disgust- ing particulars. It is said that Augustus visited it occasion- ally, and built the principal palace; but that IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 249 Tiberius, during the seven years of his resi- dence, erected no less than twelve palaces or villas at Capri, though it cannot be more than about eighteen miles in circumference. His first and principal residence — that of Jupiter, built by Augustus, and which he only enlarged, was situated upon the height where the chapel of Santa Maria del Soccorso now stands ; the second, was upon the height called Tuoro Grande ; the third, at Unghia Marina ; the fourth, upon the hill called San Michele; the fifth, at Castiglione ; the sixth, at Truglio ; the seventh, at Aiano ; the eighth, which must have been his bathing-place, was at Palazzo a Mare: it was built into the very sea, and its ruined found- ations shew how wonderfully Roman masonry could resist the action of the elements — five hundred and thirty-six steps cut in the rock, lead from it up to Anacapri ; the ninth, was at Capo-di-monte ; the tenth, at Timberino ; the eleventh, at Monticello ; and the twelfth, at Damecuta, When we reached the landing-place, we found 250 WANDERINGS poneys and donkeys ready saddled, with their owners prepared to clamour for our custom, and a whole host of idlers, as well as donkey-drivers, waiting to conduct us about the island. Lady Albert got upon a donkey, and a beautiful girl volunteered to lead it. I mounted a pony, whilst a troop of lads and girls insisted upon following us. We first crossed the island, and viewed it in that direction ; we then turned to the south- ward, and mounted the heights upon which stands the chapel of Santa Maria del Soccorso, for there are the ruins that are most worth visiting. Many apartments are still paved with mosaic, and vast vaults may be explored beneath them. Near to it are the remains of that lighthouse or pharus, which, Suetonius tells us, fell from an earthquake a few days before the death of that monster who was allowed to be a curse to the earth till the age of seventy-eight. The hermit who does religious service in the chapel was waiting to receive us, had nosegays ready upon the chance of visitors, and conducted us to a IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 251 convenient position for looking down that awful precipice, five hundred yards in height, close to the palace, which Suetonius states to have been the place of execution, whence, after long and exquisite torments, he caused those whom he had condemned to be precipitated in his own pre- sence. I should have imagined that the precau- tion mentioned by Suetonius, of placing "ma- rines" below to beat the bodies of those whom he thus precipitated, lest life might not be quite extinct, most unnecessary. I said, with Edgar, in King Lear — " I'll look no more, Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight Topple down headlong" although a parapet is placed as a protec- tion for the spectator. The hermit brought us chairs that we might rest after our rambles ; all his attentions being, as a matter of course, ren- dered "for a consideration": but we were gradu- ally getting accustomed to find that no civility of the most trifling kind could be oifered to us without proceeding from the hope of gain. How different was the feeling of self-respect 252 WANDERINGS of the very lowest and poorest of the Greek population, from that entertained by the lower orders in the Neapolitan dominions! During my search after antiquities, or whilst travelling, in Greece, Lady Albert would often sit down to rest in wretched hovels ; never was any re- ward expected, nor did the poorest child ever ask us for anything. Every little attention in their power was rendered to us, evidently from a pleasure in obliging, and the presents in money that we gave to the poorest peasants, had to be given through the children, not to hurt their pride. True, there were beggars, but they were only the crippled or the blind, who must have otherwise starved. In Italy, the inhabitants of the most respectable cottages, whilst sitting at their doors, were not ashamed of saying, when we passed, "Ah, EccellenzhOL date qualche cosa"; and never was the most trifling act of civility rendered to us by the lower orders, during our stay at Naples, or during our rambles in the neighbourhood, with- out a reward being expected and asked. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 253 When we had left the hermit, and descended to where our train was waiting for us, we found them prepared with an old tambourine, and with an old woman to sell us wine. They had rested and proposed dancing the Taran- tella ; in spite of their disreputable appearance, they danced with the greatest possible grace. As a matter of course, besides paying for the wine, we were expected to give a present to the dancers, and, equally as a matter of course, they pretended to expect more than what we gave them. We returned to an excellent inn, in the only town of the island. It is beautifully situated and delightfully clean ; I am happy to say that the landlord will realize a rapid fortune. Our dinner consisted of a little weak broth with the morsel of beef with which it had been made, a few small fish, some wretched little robins that must have been taken off their nests, with two small coffee cups half filled with some sort of custard ; oranges, and dried figs : hunger made me ask for a little of the 254 WANDERINGS cheese made in the island. The charge for this was the highest dinner price of the dearest hotel in Naples ; breakfast was at a still higher rate. The price of apartments and a lamp, woulcl have obtained at Naples a suite of rooms, and lit for a ball. On the following morning, we embarked early and crossed over to the Sorentine pro- montory. It has still a few ruins left of the celebrated temple of Minerva, said to have been founded by Ulysses ; there is a light- house upon it, and a fortified tower. A little further on, the view of the island of Capri enabled me to fancy that I could trace that resemblance to a goat, whence the name of Caprsea was given to it. We passed " The syren's cliffs, a shelfy coast, Long infamous for ships and sailors lost ; And white with bones, the impetuous ocean roars, And rocks rebellow from the sounding shores." Dryden. Those islands are now called Galli, probably from the winged appearance of the Syrens. The tower upon the largest of the three was IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 255 inhabited when we passed by a solitary indi- vidual, occupied in catching the quails that alighted there from their migratory flight. We went close to Amalfi, that we might view that town, so celebrated in the middle ages, and that had such extensive commerce ; its modern reputation is derived from manufacturing the best maccaroni. A fine coast-road for wheeled vehicles will, before long, connect it with Salerno ; hitherto it could only be approached by sea, or by bridle roads. Salerno is beautifully situated in the centre of the bay which bears its name; its streets are narrow, and the houses high. The cathe- dral well deserves being visited; the piazza before it, is surrounded by eight-and-twenty Corinthian columns of granite, and some fine marble sarcophagi are ranged around ; they are stated to have been all brought from Pcestum ; these sarcophagi have been used as coffins for the first princes of Salerno. It is curious to see here, as well as in the interior of the cathedral, sarcophagi, of Grecian workmanship, 256 WANDERINGS and portraying profane subjects, such for instance as the Rape of Prosperine, employed as Christian tombs, surmounted by middle-age effigies, and bearing Christian inscriptions. Below the cathedral is the subterraneous chapel, dedicated to St. Matthew, with his double statue in bronze, and his tomb under- neath. The chapel also contains three busts in bronze, of martyrs, with the block, in marble, upon which they were beheaded; in this block there is a slit to receive the axe when it had divided the neck. I was re- quested to apply my ear to it ; the sort of sound is heard that is produced by a shell when placed at the ear; this is presumed to be the flowing blood of the martyrs. There is a good deal of mosaic in the church, and two fine pulpits are covered with it ; it is all said to have been brought from Poestum. By leaving Salerno early, Poestum may be visited, and Naples reached the same evening, by means of the railway from Nocera : this was the course we pursued. The drive round the IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 257 bay, of twenty-four miles, is interesting, and half of it very beautiful. The carriage has to be ferried across the Sele, the ancient Silaris, — " Est lucos Silari circa, ilicibusque virentem Plurimus Alburnum volitans."...... The most beautiful of the four temples at Pces- tum, that of Neptune, is indeed a splendid specimen of Doric architecture, and striking even to an eye fresh from the Parthenon and Temple of Theseus. A few plants of the double-blowing roses of Pcestum still exist in gardens ; and the person who has the care of the ruins, has planted a few cuttings near the Temple of Neptune. The walls of the city are interesting, built of Hellenic work : it may be distinctly seen where they have been repaired by more modern ma- sonry. They were about two miles and three- quarters in circumference, and had four gates : only one remains ; it is quite perfect, is arched, and forty-six feet in height. The two bas- reliefs that were upon it, of a syren gathering a rose, and a dolphin, are now defaced. After returning to Salerno, we passed through z2 258 WANDERINGS Vetri. Here there is a curious foot-bridge crossing a ravine : it is awfully high and nar- row, without any parapet, and is composed of a line of small arches built upon other arches of great height. A moral, teaching the value of penitence, is attached to the legend of its erec- tion. One Pietro Boyardo sold himself to the devil, as the price of its construction ; although he had received absolution for this crime, and was released, by the church, from his compact, even then the devil kept him to his bargain ; but he was so constant in his feelings and expressions of penitence, that the devil at length gave him up in despair, — as a bad debt, I presume. Passing through La Cava, and a beautiful country, consisting of an undulating valley bounded by high hills, I reached Nocera, and visited the ruined church of Santa Maria Mag- giore. The centre is taken up by a large marble bath or fountain, surrounded by marble pillars. It is called Constantine's baptismal fount ; but I never heard for what purpose it IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 259 had really been used. At Nocera we got upon the railway, and were conveyed through scenery exactly that described by Virgil. It is still " Well clothed with cheerful grapes, and ever green, Is good for olives and aspiring vines, Embracing husband elms in amorous twines ; Is fit for feeding cattle, fit to sow, And equal to the pasture and the plough. Such is the soil of fat Campanian fields, Such large increase the land that joins Vesuvius yields." Dryden. We got back to Naples about half-past eight o'clock. 260 WANDERINGS CHAPTEE XII. On the 4th of May we left Naples by the government railway that connects it with Ca- pua, to make a tour through the only tract of country at that time safe for travellers. We started very early in the morning, and first visited the royal palace at Caserta ; though its beauty is much praised, it struck me as an unsightly brick building ; it has a splendid marble staircase and vestibule, fine gardens and cascade, and in the theatre are some noble columns, brought from the Temple of Serapis at Pozzuoles. We then visited the ancient Capua, which is close to the station of Santa Maria. In the second Punic war, two hundred and sixteen IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 261 years before Christ, Campania revolted, and took part with Hannibal, who proposed to make Capua the capital of Italy. His long stay in this delightful climate was fatal to the discipline of his troops. Capua was severely punished ; for, being taken, it was plundered, and stripped of all the honours of a city, and yet it was afterwards represented, by Cicero, as superior to Rome for the width, convenience, and appear- ance of its streets. But few vestiges of its former greatness remain, except in its amphi- theatre : this, though much dilapidated, shews what a splendid building it must have been. It measured rather more than five hundred and thirty-two feet in its greatest diameter, was adorned with statues, and Hadrian added to it a noble portico : the building could contain more than sixty thousand spectators. But Capua was celebrated for its gladiators ; its lanistas — those scoundrels who trafficked in their blood — hired them out to other cities. It was from Capua that Spartacus, with a band of gladiators, made his escape. He was joined by fugitive slaves, 262 WANDERINGS and was only overcome through their want of discipline : they were finally all cut to pieces. The modern Capua is two miles from the ancient city : it was built about the middle of the ninth century. The town is fortified, and the still muddy Vulturnus runs beneath it : " Multamque trahens sub gurgite arenam Vulturnus." Ovid. I Observed some colossal busts of divinities let into a wall in the principal square, and learnt that they had ornamented the amphitheatre of the ancient town. At Capua we found our carriage and three fresh horses waiting for us. We were late, and therefore hastened along a fine road through Calvi, the ancient Cales ; leaving Teano, for a future visit, on our left. We entered a beauti- ful and woody tract of country, between high hills, the commencement of the country of the Volsci ; and slept at the populous town of St. Germano, situated at the foot and side of a hill that is crested by a ruined fortification of the middle ages. Above this towers a mountain, IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 263 with the noble pile forming the celebrated mo- nastery of Monte Casino at its summit, which my plan of tour also made me leave for a visit on my return. We slept at a wretched inn ; but travelling in Greece had rendered Lady Albert accustomed to bad quarters. Future travellers will have the advantage of a very superior hotel, nearly com- pleted. The innkeeper amused me. Upon bringing his bill, and on my remonstrating at the amount, he agreed that it was too high, and received two-thirds of it with the greatest good humour and great gratitude. San Germano is built near the site of the ancient Casinum, the birth -place of Yarro. We passed a fine amphitheatre on the right of the road. The area is oval, and measures about seventy yards in its length. It is built against the side of a hill, and was entered by six gate- ways, with fine stone arches. The whole build- ing was faced by a sort of mosaic work, com- posed of small stones, about three inches square, 264 WANDERINGS at their head ; shoemakers' tacks give not a bad idea of the manner in which they were shaped. The road from St. Germano crosses an exten- sive plain, surrounded by mountains, and studded with forest trees. At about five miles from St. Germano, a bad country road turns off to the left, and leads to the little town of Aquino, containing about two thousand inhabitants. It lies just within the area of the ancient town of Aquinum, the birth-place of Juvenal, of Pesce- nius Niger, and St. Thomas of Aquinas. I should have found it difficult to have traced out the ruins, had it not been for a respectably dressed man, mounted upon a donkey. Upon my entering into conversation with him, he volunteered to act as my cicerone, and insisted upon Lady Albert riding his donkey. A dese- crated church is built upon the site of a temple, with the remains of a noble ascent by stone steps. Fragments of columns lay about. Close to it is a triumphal arch, of exquisite beauty. A mill-stream runs under it. Alas ! the summit IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 265 of the arch is giving way. A fine gateway, belonging to the ancient town, is still in a very perfect state : the masonry is so beautiful as almost to appear Hellenic. The walls of the town are worth tracing : they are of those large polygonal stones, with small stones filling the interstices, that are given as Pelasgic work. As a matter of course, there are the ruins of an amphitheatre. Fragments of buildings in stone, but indistinct, are scattered around. Before taking leave of my friend, upon getting into the carriage, I consulted the coachman whether I might venture to offer him a trifle for his trouble. He assured me that it was not likely he would take offence. He knew his country- men well, for my cicerone pocketed a gratuity with the most fervent expressions of gratitude. From Aquino the road runs nearer the mountains; little fortified towns are dotted along their sides Or summits. We passed through Arce ; the ancient Arx is the present Monte Arce, and the most curious of these fortified towns. It quite corresponds to its AA 266 WANDERINGS Latin name of citadel ; placed above the town of Arce, it is built round the summit of a rock, crested by a ruined castle, and so steep, that from a distance, it is difficult to imagine how the houses can retain their position. We toiled under a broiling sun to Arpino ; this town is now rendered thriving by a vast number of manufactories, principally of hats and of cloth : above it is the ancient Arpinum, the birth-place of Cicero and of Marius. A road, cut into steps, winds up to polygonal walls of a masonry that is a humble imitation of that of Tiryns, for the stones are of very inferior size; but a postern in its triangular shape exactly resembles the celebrated postern at Tiryns. How I suffered through my anxiety to see it; I could count the beatings of my heart as I laboured up to it, though I had a donkey to help me ; but the poor animal was more tired whilst walking without a burthen than I was, and I had not the heart to load it with my heavy weight. Besides this massive masonry, there is a good IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 267 deal of Roman work, and a very perfect Roman gateway; a stone is shown, which is called Cicero's seat, wke is said to have generally chosen this place to enjoy the splendid view which is obtained from this commanding posi- tion. A medieval house is shown as the place of Cicero's birth. I was not long descending the height which I had attained with so much labour. I had left Lady Albert, servants, and carriage below ; I found them all nearly stifled by the effluvia of the mob that had gathered round them on a day so hot, — but strangers are rarities at Arpino. The road gradually descended into a vale, where the town of Sora is placed, at the base of the mountains of the Abbruzzi. We passed one of the manufactories belonging to Monsieur Lefebvre, and his splendid residence; but, though I had a letter from him to the super- intendent of his works, which my coachman assured me always obtained a hospitable recep- tion for travellers, I preferred taking u mine ease at mine inn ", and therefore went on to 268 WANDERINGS Sora, where I left Lady Albert to rest, whilst I took a little light carriage of the country to see the Lake of Posta. It is celebrated for its beauty ; the drive to it is worth taking, for it shows a prettily wooded country backed by high mountains, but the lake itself is quite unworthy of its reputation. The river Fibrenus takes its source from it, and the road went along its bank; but, though I made diligent inquiries, I could not purchase any of those trouts rendered classical by Horace, and which are still highly esteemed. Before leaving the wretched inn at Sora, where we passed the night, our coachman gave us a pantomimic representation that I never saw equalled, but by the actor who takes the part of Polichinello in the comic company of St. Carlino at Naples. His whip had been stolen, whilst he was getting the carriage ready. He first stood aghast as the fact flashed across his mind ; then commenced a frantic, but evidently hopeless, search through coach- house and stables, and, finally, tore his hair, IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 269 and looking up to heaven, seemed to curse his evil star. His despair got him a far better whip than the one which he had lost. Sora is on the borders of the Abruzzi, and of what was the country of the Marsi. A fine military road winding along the sides of the mountains is completed to Capistrello ; it was made with funds advanced by Monsieur Lefebvre, and was planned to lead to Avezzano and thence to Aquila ; but the disturbed state of the whole of Italy has delayed the com- pletion of the original design. The deficiency of good roads in the more remote provinces of the Neapolitan dominions produces serious evils ; plenty has reigned in one district, whilst there has been death by starvation from failure of crops in that immediately adjoining. At about nine miles from Sora, on the left may be seen in the distance a waterfall, called the "Fall of Morino", from the adjacent vil- lage of that name, in the Valle di Roveto ; its beauty amply repays the fatiguing walk of five miles from the high road that must be taken aa 2 270 WANDERINGS to visit it. At the extremity of an amphi- theatre of well-wooded mountains, the stream is first collected in a narrow channel, and falls from a considerable height on a ledge of rocks, thence the water descends as a mist. The fall was improved by some snow that had fallen about a fortnight before my visit, and that was gradually melting on the heights. The country through which we drove was dotted with forest trees, and an occasional town crowned some height. Capistrello is a town in a very striking situa- tion, hanging over a ravine, at the bottom of which runs the Liris. Close to it, opens into the river that most extraordinary work, known by the name of the Emissarium of the emperor Claudius, planned for draining the Lake Fu- cinus. This wonderful tunnel is about four miles in length. It is six feet wide, and ten feet high, where it empties itself into the Liris. It passes under one of a high range of hills ; and along its length there are apertures, faced with stone, in some places of awful depth, that pro- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 271 bably were the apertures through which the soil was raised to the surface, as well as intended to admit air into the tunnel. The interior of the tunnel was faced by bricks, where the nature of the soil required it to be thus supported. The end next Capistrello is faced by an arch of about eighteen feet high ; the other end of the tunnel is in the Lake of Fucinus, near Avezzano, and is now almost entirely clogged up by soil. On the hill side, above the lake, there are four arches, two leading by a passage down to the tunnel, and two so contrived as to admit air and light. It is said that this stupendous work was executed at a fearful cost of human life, and that between forty and fifty thousand slaves lost their lives whilst completing it. A plan, of late years, was formed for clearing out the Emissarium, and employing it for its original purpose ; the work was slowly carried on for a considerable time, but is now discontinued, although it was plainly seen that it would have been perfectly successful. The reason given, is the malaria that would be produced by the mass of mud exposed to the 272 WANDERINGS atmosphere ; but the real cause is presumed to arise from the sovereign's wish, that money should alone be expended where it may assist in furthering his darling system of absolute and uncontrolled power. From Capistrello the road changes to one of the worst possible description, winding along the side, and gradually mounting, a barren line of hills, but with a fertile plain below, the " Campi Palentini," and the battle field of Charles of Anjou and Conradin of Hohen Staufen. When we reached the summit of these hills, and crossed it, we saw the Lake Fucinus beneath us, and, soon after, the sight of Avezzano, that was to be our resting place for the night, cheered our poor coachman. Situated at the foot of the mountain, it is not visible on first crossing its summit, and the coachman feared that we had mistaken the direction that had been given to us for reaching Avezzano. The inn was most wretched and forlorn ; but we preferred remaining there to taking advan- tage of the sotto intendente's hospitable invita- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 273 tion to his house. Hearing of our arrival, he called upon me, and most civilly pressed his hospitality upon us. The sotto intendente is the principal government officer in each district, and represents what in France is called the " sous prefet". Avezzano is a town so poor, that our servants, who were on board wages, were unable to purchase any provisions; we had the prudence to provide ourselves before- hand. The principal feature of the place is the striking building, that must once have been a splendid mansion, and that belonged to the Colonna family. It is very massive, but yet graceful. Flanked at its four corners by strongly constructed towers ; it is entered by a bridge, leading to a handsome portal, is surrounded by a moat, and appears as if, whilst a luxurious resi- dence, it could have resisted any irregular attack. It has now a forlorn melancholy appearance. I rose at day-light to visit the ruined walls of Alba Fucensis. I had promised my valet that he should accompany me, and had engaged horses the night before. Upon descending from 274 WANDERINGS my room, to mount and depart, I found that, instead of a horse, I was to ride a broken-down pony, and my servant a lame mule ; the guide, whom I had also engaged with a horse, was mounted upon a donkey ; but it was then too late to remonstrate. At first I was too much occupied with my own preparations for mount- ing, and my own departure, to think of anything or anybody else ; but when I had fairly started, and my nerves permitted me to look about me, I saw my servant limping away, at a foot- pace, upon his lame mule, in exactly the con- trary direction to that which he ought to have followed, and in vain pulling at the bridle, which only turned the animal's head, but not its body ; whilst the combined energies of all the spectators were employed in dragging and pushing the guide, upon his restive donkey, away from the door, and getting it to follow my pony. Wretched as was my animal, he far outstripped his companions. Upon my reaching Alba Fucensis, I met with an intelligent inhabitant of the modern IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 275 village to act as my guide. Several lengths of wall of massive polygonal stones, as well as one gateway with a flanking tower, remain in a comparatively perfect state, — at least, to an antiquarian eye. The grooved stone, to receive the gate, still retains its position; the other gates can only be traced. Vestiges of later inhabitants remain in the foundations of Roman houses, and there is a little cluster of half- ruined modern houses, with quite ruined medi- eval fortifications, and a medieval gateway still entire, upon the summit of the hill which was once surrounded by the walls of the more ancient city. It commands a fine view of the Lake Fucensis, rendered celebrated by the horrible slaughter of twenty thousand gladia- tors, offered as a show upon it, by the emperor Claudius, and the largest ever given. As they passed the emperor, they exclaimed, — " The miserable beings about to die, salute thee!" He had the barbarity, by his answer to their touch- ing salutation, to give them false hopes of mercy, and thus the exhibition was a little 276 WANDERINGS delayed; but the unfortunate wretches were finally compelled to engage. I was shown the spot whence Claudius is supposed to have viewed the exhibition ; it is at the southern end of the lake, and the church of St. Egidio is erected there After viewing Alba Fucensis, I rode to the opposite side of Avezzano ; to the spot where, at the distance of a mile and a half from the town, the tunnel which I have already men- tioned, commences. The deposit of soil has formed a small islet in the lake, at a little dis- tance from the shore. It had rained heavily the whole morning, and when, at about twelve o'clock, we left Avezzano, upon our return to Sora, the road had become so heavy, as to make it a matter of very serious difficulty to get our carriage up the first very long and steep ascent. It was late when we reached Sora, and it was pleasing to see the delighted faces with which all the hangers-on of the wretched inn received us upon our re- turn, and the alacrity with which all endea- voured to minister to our comfort. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 277 We left Sora early, and viewed the junction of the Fucensis and Liris close to a monastery of Trappists, erected upon the site of a villa that several inscriptions prove to have belonged to Cicero. We stopped at Monsieur Lefeb- vre's house at Formes, and I sent up his letter to Monsieur Delamorte, his agent; — that gen- tlemen came to me directly ; told me that Monsieur Lefebvre had written to him that we might be expected at any moment, and to have every thing ready for our reception ; that our apartments had been accordingly prepared for us, and dinner ready every day. I do not think hospitality could go beyond this, for I had never even made Monsieur Lefebvre's ac- quaintance, and had only once met his son at dinner. But it is well known that the Italians shew the greatest hospitality and kindness to strangers who travel through their districts; and in this they resemble the Romans of old, — it was then unusual for a traveller to be re- duced to take up his quarters at an inn. Mon- sieur Delamorte is a gentlemanlike, intelligent BB 278 WANDERINGS Belgian. He first took me round Monsieur Lefebvre's pleasure grounds ; those falls of the Liris, called " the Cascatelli", embellish them. They are of no great height ; but the gardens and falls combined render it a scene of great loveliness. After in vain pressing Monsieur Lefebvre's hospitality upon us, Monsieur Dela- morte accompanied us to the little town of Isola, to view the other falls of the Liris. The building once the palace of the Dukes of Sora is now converted into a cloth manufactory ; behind it the Liris branches into two channels, and these have each falls of different charac- ters ; one having a precipitous descent, the other rushing down a channel with a steep slope. We passed Arpino at a distance on our left ; stopped for a short time at Arce, where I remarked a fine Roman fountain with an inscription, and I made the carriage set me down at the amphitheatre before entering St. Germano, that I might more closely examine some ancient walls that I had remarked near it on my previous visit. I found some few frag- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 279 ments of the walls, made of polygonal-shaped stones, built into Roman work, and much Roman masonry around; a modern church stood just by these remains. A woman seeing me looking at it, asked me if I should like to enter ; the exterior was not very promising ; the front was merely a white-washed facade, and a belfry raised above it. Upon the door being unlocked, 1 thought that I was in a dream ; within was a doorway of massive stones, that resembled, on a minor scale, that of the trea- sury of Atreus, or tomb of Agamemnon at Mycene, and the interior was domed like that vault. Within the doorway of large stones, measuring eight feet three inches long, by nine wide, and about fourteen high, is a circular apartment about thirty feet high, and twenty feet three inches in diameter, having four arched side aisles, if they may be so termed, one of which joins to the doorway ; they are eleven feet six inches wide, by nine feet long, and fifteen feet high. Being exactly opposite each other, they give the interior the form of a 280 WANDERINGS cross, and the church into which this tomb is now converted is therefore called that of the Holy Crucifix. Like the treasury of Atreus, it was built into the side of a hill : two cottages are erected above it. Four apertures in the dome opened to the exterior ; they are about two feet high, two feet across the top, and three across their base. I had the curiosity to examine two of them that opened into one of the cottages above ; they were about ten feet in length, faced with stone at the end joining the building, but, wonderful to say, at the outer end with Roman brick. I could only understand this by supposing the tomb to have been opened by the Romans, who, finding it a strong and useful building, employed it for the purposes of a prison, and prepared these apertures to admit light and air. I carefully examined the inside of the building, and found no traces of those brazen nails that sometimes lined the interior of the Grecian tombs; the whole building was paved, and built of massive blocks of granite. IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 281 After we had rested a little at the inn, at St. Germano, Lady Albert and I mounted the long winding road which leads to the monas- tery of Monte Cassino ; I had a letter to the Padre L. Posti Cassinese, a member of that community. He received us with the greatest kindness, and did the honours of that splendid establishment with the good breeding of a man of the world. The monastery is a Benedictine establish- ment, and has a seminary and lay school within its walls ; for now, as in early times, the disciples of St. Benedict are celebrated for their exertions in cultivating the human mind. The English owe the order a debt of gratitude; for St. Augustine was a member of it, and he founded our two universities. Amongst the members of the monastery at Monte Cassino, there are some men of deep research and great erudition; their library was cele- brated for its manuscripts, but far the greater number have been removed to the Vatican : only eight hundred remain. They have some BB 2 282 WANDERINGS in uncial characters before the introduction of the barbarous characters ; they have some Longobardic manuscripts, of peculiar interest from the illuminations ; and an early copy of Dante, with most curious and interesting ex- planatory notes. The greater number of their manuscripts are, of course, of fathers of the Church. They are extremely rich in deeds ; many are interesting in the highest degree as historical documents ; and there are no less than 40,000 parchments. Their library is admira- bly arranged for study, being divided into various moderate sized rooms, comfortably furnished. I had long wished to have a sight of these treasures. After passing some time amongst them, Monsieur Cassinese took us over the splendid church, gorgeous in marbles and pietro- duras, and decorated by Giordano ; he then directed that their organ should be played. This instrument was made in the commencement of the eighteenth century, by Catarinotzi, a native of a small town in the Papal dominions : it is IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 283 very charming, and they are very proud of it, but it is not to be compared to those mag- nificent organs that may be heard at York and Birmingham. A shrine, by Bernini, of the most costly materials, was specially pointed out to me ; but what particularly struck me were the wood carvings in the sacristy, designed by Maio, and executed by Franzese, as well as the wood carvings of the stalls, that would have been worthy of Brustoleone, termed the Michael Angelo of wood. In one of the cloisters were some inscriptions found at Casinum; one mentioned the building of the amphitheatre, and of a temple by Ummidia Quadratilla, a matron, who, from other docu- ments, appears to have been very "fast". But, of all the objects of interest that may be seen at the monastery, I believe that of greatest rarity to be priests liberal in their ideas, and of liberal political opinions. We loitered about till evening caused us to hasten down, Italian twilight being very short, and there would have been no moon to assist our descent. 284 WANDERINGS On the following morning, I rose early to take another view of the Church of the Holy- Crucifix, and then started for Naples. I made the coachman drive round by Teano, the ancient Teanum ; it has some massive Roman ruins of baths, and the remains of a very large amphitheatre in a barely traceable state, with its area converted into a vegetable garden. A beautiful fountain, with light arches, just with- out the town, was crowded with picturesque groups of women; some washing, others gos- siping instead of drawing water, and of men watering their mules. On this, as on many other occasions, I bitterly regretted having never learnt to sketch. The appearance of the weather became very threatening. Heavy clouds were fast gathering for a thunder-storm. The coachman entreated me to hasten on. He was in despair when I insisted upon his stopping at Calvi, the ancient Cales, celebrated for the Obbse Calense. A square medieval castle stands close by the high road, and at some distance on the right of IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 285 the road leading to Naples, in a large ploughed field, is an amphitheatre, of no very great size. Its walls are now but slightly elevated above the surface of the soil. The interior, which is of some depth, is overgrown by brush- wood. Large masses of Roman work are scattered at a considerable distance around ; the town must have been of great size. Heavy drops of rain now fell, and thunder muttered in the distance ; I had compassion upon my coachman's impatience, and returned to the carriage. By the time we reached Capua an awful storm had commenced; we splashed on to Naples by the railway, converted into a long line of muddy puddles by the wonderful torrents of rain that were falling, after a continuance of fine weather. 286 WANDERINGS CHAPTER XIII. I finished my course of sight-seeing at Naples by visiting Cuma and the magnificent Arco Fe- lice, and in my zeal for scientific experiments, emulated Dr. Majendie in barbarity to animals, by allowing an unfortunate dog to be placed in the Grotto del Cane, seeing it faint from the effects of the exhalations, and witnessing its painful return to animation ; then, on May 14th, went on board the French packet, on its way from Malta to Marseilles. I left Naples without regret. Though the most charming residence in the world, it is dreadfully unsafe ; there would be an immediate insurrection whenever the Neapolitans saw the slightest chance of success ; and the muzzles of IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 287 cannon that are expressively pointing down various streets, show how well the king is aware of the feeling of his capital. I carried under my arm a box containing be- tween eight and nine hundred consular denarii, which I had purchased at Naples : a heavy load, but which I dared not trust to another person, as, had its contents been known, it would not have been allowed to quit the country. A custom-house officer on duty wished to open it, but a piece of silver that I produced, instead of the key, obtained for me a low bow and an order to pass into my boat. The steamer was much crowded. Amongst the passengers was a Neapolitan Church digni- tary, with his staff of chaplain, secretary, etc., on their way to pay their respects to the Pope, who was waiting at Mola di Gaeta till foreign intervention could persuade his unruly flock to receive him back at Rome. It was about ten o'clock at night when we were off Mola, and the prelate with his followers became sadly en- tangled in their flowing dresses, whilst scram- 288 WANDERINGS bling into a shore boat at night. By midday on the 15th, we were in the harbour of Givita Vecchia. The Roman and French flags were fraternizing over that most dull of all dull towns, garrisoned by a few French troops, the main body of the French army being between it and Rome. Our crowded steamer was still more closely crammed by a number of fresh passengers, rejoicing at having left Rome and its dangers. Of these, the most important, in her own esti- mation, was a very smart and very faded French beauty, all airs and graces. I was given to understand, and my informant told it me with great awe, that she was an eminent banker's lady at Rome ; she was comically irritated that the stewardess did not give her bankership undivided attention. I ought to except from the alarmed fugitives three Roman patriots, who, dressed and bearded in true young Italy fashion, and finding them- selves safe under the French flag, were loud in their regrets at having left their brothers in arms. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 289 One was the spokesman of the rest, and boasted to all who would listen to him, of what they themselves had done in the gallant defence offered by the Romans to the French. My excellent, short, and sleek acquaintance, Count St. G e, who was returning from Naples to Tuscany, upon some private mission from the Grand Duke to his Austrian reinstators, swelled and strutted as he passed their group, and cast them such melodramatic glances of hate, that, had they any feeling, they must have been withered. Early on the 16th, we had reached Leghorn. We went on shore to breakfast and kill time till five o'clock, when the steamer was again to sail. The town was swarming with troops ; twenty thousand AustrianS, and three thousand Modenese, had taken it on the 11th, after an obstinate resistance offered by not more than seven hundred men, principally foreigners, the other defenders having taken to flight. Not a single individual taken with arms in his hands received quarter. After the troops had posses- c c 290 WANDERINGS sion of the town, a few individuals still held out in the cathedral, and were mad enough to fire upon the troops drawn up in the square. The door was instantly forced, and these few reck- less individuals were overpowered and slaugh- tered before they could do much mischief; but they very nearly caused the town to be sacked by the troops, and their conduct was offered to me, at Leghorn, as an excuse for the severities exercised by the Austrians. Kolavrath, who was at Leghorn when I was there, had entered it with the troops, provided with a long list of persons to be disposed of; but a great number of these, having seen the hopelessness of resistance, had made their escape in time. The former police of the town had been recalled, and went round Leghorn and the neighbourhood, accompanied by parties of sol- diers ; all individuals reported by them as disaffected, were seized and confined, and a large number were daily shot in the fortress. An Englishman of the highest respectability? who had long resided at Leghorn, assured me that IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 291 in the five days that the Austrians had then had possession, from four to five hundred individuals must have been thus butchered without trial. Before I left Naples, a deputation had been sent from Florence to the Grand Duke, soliciting his peaceful return there. He had declined the invitation till the Austrians had first had it in their possession ; such a very simple method of getting rid of disaffected individuals, or those disagreeable to him, was not to be neglected. The town presented a picturesque appear- ance ; all the churches, with the exception of two that were left for religious worship, were converted into quarters for the troops. Soldiers were idling under the porches, or upon the steps, in picturesque groups, whilst small parties of cavalry and infantry were constantly hurrying about, and every available spot of ground was occupied by field batteries and waggon trains. I was glad to leave the place, for I found the reflection exciting, but not altogether agreeable, that I might at any moment be 292 WANDERINGS taken, and, without undergoing the slightest form of trial, or my remonstrances being at- tended to, shot the following morning, merely because some scoundrel took a fancy to point me out as a proper person to be mixed in the next morning's "battue". I thought that it would be no great satisfaction to myself, per- sonally, that apologies should be afterwards offered to my government for my having been executed through mistake, — all the redress that I could hope for, or, at all events, should obtain. I left Leghorn, blessing my stars that I was born an Englishman, and, coward that I was, almost vowed that, let me once get back to England, I would never leave it again. This love of my country was not diminished, when on the following day we reached Genoa, and I there learnt what a narrow escape its beau- tiful palaces had but lately experienced from destruction ; an escape for which it was prin- cipally indebted to the humane exertions and negotiations of Lord Hardwick, in the Ven- geance. IN SEARCH OP HEALTH. 293 By twelve o'clock on the 18th, we had en- tered the harbour of Marseilles, — an oblong basin, 1000 yards long by 330 broad, and crowded with shipping. In the confusion of landing, I did not fail personally to secure the safety of my coin-box, the only article which I would not trust out of my sight. To my despair I had to open it in the centre of a crowd of curious idlers on the quay, and the douanier very nearly made me take it to the custom-house after all. After dinner we first drove up to the hill overlooking the town, with the rough pleasure ground, called the "Jardin Napoleon 11 , strag- gling about it. I hardly knew why, but I never before saw a view that gave me so exactly the feeling that I was looking at a panorama in Leicester-square ; on one side it is bounded by a range of hills, and the ground from them gradually slopes to the town ; every available spot being dotted by those well- known little country-houses belonging to the middle classes, that are called " Bastides" ; on cc 2 294 WANDERINGS the other side is the sea, with islands and forts. Marseilles, the ancient Massilia, was founded by a colony of Phocaeans, from Ionia, 600 years b. c. It grew into great importance, and was increased by fresh settlers, when the Phocaeans left their country rather than submit to Cyrus ; an event which has been confounded with the origin of the city. The coins of Massilia are extremely numerous, and vary from the rudest specimen of those curious monstrosities, called "Gaulish coins", to the most exquisite gems of art. I endeavoured, but in vain, to meet with any that were worth purchasing. However, I was rewarded for my trouble in the research, by meeting with a very curious set of Roman silver dice, in the shape of male and female figures, found in a glass vase, dug up in the neighbourhood of Mar- seilles; which silver dice nearly killed my friend, Monsieur Comarmond, with envy, when I exhibited them to him at Lyons. On the 19th, we went by the railway to Aries. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 295 We crossed a frightful country, and a small portion of that curious stony plain, called the " Crau"; which extends to the Delta of the Rhone, or the " Camargue", and to the Medi- terranean. The vast quantities of stones that cover the whole surface of that great plain, were attributed by the ancients to a shower of stones from Jupiter; when the Tyrian Hercules landed at the mouth of the Rhone, and had a battle with the sons of Neptune: having exhausted his quiver, Jupiter assisted him by raining stones upon his adversaries. This myth has been explained by a battle between the Phoenicians, who purposed to establish a colony, and the Liguri, the pos- sessors of the country ; the Phoenicians, having expended their ammunition, had recourse to the stones which cover the plain of Crau. The railway enters Aries by that celebrated ancient cemetery, called the "Aliscamps" or "Elisii Campi", a fertile mine for sarcophagi of the early Christians, and for all sorts of curious relics. It has furnished the museum 296 WANDERINGS at Aries with some interesting sarcophagi of the early Christians, with scriptural subjects; and the cathedral church of St. Trophimus possesses a sculptured marble that was brought from it, of the resurrection of some female saint, — one of the most beautiful works of art that I ever saw. A monument in the museum to the memory of a child of three years old, also brought from the Aliscamp, bears an inscription of the most touching pathos. The museum at Aries con- tains many valuable objects; a quantity of leaden pipe found in the Ehone, and inscribed in many places with the plumber's name, is curious ; the town itself is full of remains of great interest, which are all correctly described in Murray's Hand-book. On the day after my visit, there was to be an entertainment, called a " Ferrade", in the amphitheatre, in which a number of wild bulls from the " Camargue", were to be tormented for the amusement of the spectators, before being branded with the mark of their various proprietors. IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 297 I was strongly urged to be present, and I was assured that Lady Albert would meet at that exhibition all the best society of the adjoining country, and that special trains brought vast numbers of persons from Mar- seilles to witness it. These exhibitions were forbidden, both at Aries and at Nismes, by Louis Philippe, but are now given at both these places. In the evening I went on to Nismes by rail- way. It is interrupted at Tarascon, where we were all — first, second, and third class passen- gers — huddled together into omnibuses, and thus crossed a wire suspension bridge across the Rhone. We got a good view of the fine massive square castle at the water side, that dates as early as the reign of King Henry II, and reached Nismes at about half-past eight o'clock. Nismes, the ancient Nemausus, was the capital of the Volcae Arecomici, a people who inhabited the districts known as Agde, Lodece, Montpel- lier, Uzes, Nismes, and Alais, and was reported to have been founded by the Tyrian Hercules. 298 WANDERINGS It became tributary to the Romans ; and a coin of Agrippa bears on its reverse, Col : Nem : (Colonia Nemausus). A palm tree rises in the centre of the field, to which is chained a croco- dile. This was struck by the citizens of Ne- mausus in honour of a victory gained in Egypt ; and the symbol was in late years placed upon the reverse of one of the Napoleon medals, struck to commemorate his successes in the same country. Murray's Guide Book gives, as usual, a most accurate description of every thing that is worth seeing at Nismes. I called upon Monsieur Perrot, the antiquary, who has occasionally some objects worth pur- chasing. He had sold his fine brongp head of Sappho to my friend Mr. Wells, only about ten days before my visit. He had little left that was tempting ; and what he had, he valued at prices that I considered too high. That cele- brated and beautiful building called the " Mai- son carree," now converted into a museum, is not as rich in antiquities as it ought to be, con- sidering the rich mine of them that the town IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 299 and neighbourhood afford ; they have evidently- been taken elsewhere, a fate from which the " Maison carree" itself narrowly escaped, Col- bert having planned its removal to Versailles ; I understood that their collection of medals had heen ™llncred hv a faithless sruardian. I visited JlG £?, /2x y'/^i^c /te^t+ls JJZ^cJf £* x 6+m^^^ /L+y* tion under that name. Two strong barriers are erected on each side of the arena, in such a manner that men can just slip between the planking for refuge, whilst they prevent the passage of the angry animal. The bull is turned into the arena with a cockade fastened between his horns: the individual who removes it re- ceives a reward of five francs. A large con- course of people were assembled to view the sport, and four or five hundred took part in it, by entering the arena and teazing the animal by shouting at him, but taking very good care to keep at a safe distance from his horns. About A. 298 WANDERINGS It became tributary to the Romans ; and a coin of Agrippa bears on its reverse, Col : Nem : (Colonia Nemausus). A palm tree rises in the centre of the field, to which is chained a croco- dile. This was struck by the citizens of Ne- mausus in honour of a victory sained in Egypt ; as usual, a most accurate description ui evoij thing that is worth seeing at Nismes. I called upon Monsieur Perrot, the antiquary, who has occasionally some objects worth pur- chasing. He had sold his fine bronao head of Sappho to my friend Mr. Wells, only about ten days before my visit. He had little left that was tempting ; and what he had, he valued at prices that I considered too high. That cele- brated and beautiful building called the " Mai- son carree," now converted into a museum, is not as rich in antiquities as it ought to be, con- sidering the rich mine of them that the town IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 299 and neighbourhood afford ; they have evidently been taken elsewhere, a fate from which the " Maison carree" itself narrowly escaped, Col- bert having planned its removal to Versailles ; I understood that their collection of medals had been pillaged by a faithless guardian. I visited the Amphitheatre, now called the Areines, whilst a " course de taureaux" was taking place there ; the ferrades are so popular, that some spectators keep bulls for the purpose of giving an exhibi- tion under that name. Two strong barriers are erected on each side of the arena, in such a manner that men can just slip between the planking for refuge, whilst they prevent the passage of the angry animal. The bull is turned into the arena with a cockade fastened between his horns: the individual who removes it re- ceives a reward of five francs. A large con- course of people were assembled to view the sport, and four or five hundred took part in it, by entering the arena and teazing the animal by shouting at him, but taking very good care to keep at a safe distance from his horns. About 300 WANDERINGS eight individuals shewed their dexterity by allowing the bull to run at them, and nimbly slipping aside so as to escape his rush ; their feats were loudly applauded by the spectators. There appeared to be no great danger; for when a bull ran at any individual he hardly seemed in earnest, but appeared merely to wish to drive away his tormentor. A gentleman with whom I entered into conversation, assured me that the proprietors of the bulls were not allowed to exhibit any animal considered to be savage, lest an accident should occur. The noise was deafening, and the heat overpowering, the sun having full force, and the building pre- venting any current of air. The amphitheatre is stated to be seventy feet in height ; its length, four hundred and thirty-seven feet ; and width, three hundred and thirty-two feet. About four thousand spectators were assembled there when I visited it; only the respectable people ap- peared to me to pay for admission : boys and rabble seemed to slip in gratis. I was much interested by the reservoir which IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 301 received the water brought by the aqueduct that crosses the valley of the Gardon by the Pont du Gard : it was accidentally discovered by a gardener, not very long since ; it is a bason of about sixteen feet in diameter, by five feet in depth, with three apertures at the bot- tom, to let water into the arena, and ten at the side, to distribute it into various parts of the town ; there were contrivances to shut it off, or admit it, at pleasure. The channel of entrance was formed of large slabs of stone : these are encrusted with a very hard and thick deposit left by the water. Above the bason, there is a line of fresco paintings that are fast disappear- ing, from the effects of the atmosphere. That extraordinary octagon building which, after long disputes amongst antiquaries, appears to have finally settled into a tomb, and which is known by the name of La Tourmagne, is placed at the summit of a hill that has been planted, within the last few years, with trees ; at the foot of the hill are the public gardens, an ancient temple, and a fine modern fountain, DD 302 WANDERINGS erected over some curious Roman baths ; they together form a delightful place of recreation for the public. The Tourmagne commands an extensive, but decidedly an unpicturesque view. The inhabitants of Nismes are very thriving, both through agriculture and their manufac- tories. The time that I had allotted to myself for an absence from England, was now nearly expired, and I had to hasten homewards. I followed the advice given in Murray's Guide-Book, and visited the Pont du Gard, on my way to Avignon : as a matter of course, the advice was good, and the description given quite accurate. I implicitly followed the instructions also given for viewing Avignon, and the objects most worth seeing at Villeneuve les Avignon. The interior of the Palace of the Popes, with the chamber of the inquisition, has very lately been again altered, to improve its arrangements as barracks. Avignon possesses an admirable museum, founded by Monsieur Calvet ; but this is to be expected, for Pomponius Mela IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 303 states that Avenio Cavarum was one of the wealthy towns of Narbonnic Gaul, and it has many neighbouring localities, such as Arauseo (the present Orange), and Vaison, to assist it with objects of archaeological interest. The gallery of paintings possesses some splendid works by the Vernets. The landlord of the Hotel de l'Europe, Monsieur Pierron, takes great pride in the museum, and appeared pleased by my admiration of its arrangement and con- tents ; fortunately, I still had by me some modern medals, which I generally carry about, upon Aladdin's principle of exchanging new lamps for old, and I was thus enabled to please him, by entrusting him with a few for presen- tation. I only said what I felt, when I assured him that I sincerely wished that they had been more worthy of being placed in the collection for which I left them ; Monsieur Pierron and I entangled ourselves in a labyrinth of civil speeches to each other, and on the next morn- ing, when I left the hotel, at a quarter before four, to go on board the Lyons steamer, two 304 WANDERINGS sonnets that he had written, * Sur la Fontaine de Vaucluse 1 ', were presented from him to me by the waiter. I was put into good humour with the dirty- steamer on which we embarked, by the fine view of the Papal Palace which is obtained from the river. The town, with its graceful medieval fortifications, appeared in the early light, and later, when glittering in the rising sun, as if it only formed a part of the proud pile that domineered above it. It is amusing that the period of residence of the Popes, from 1305 to 1376, at Avignon, should have been termed by them their Babylonish captivity, celebrated as the papal court then was for its luxury and vice. Froissart gives an amusing account of the alarm which it received from the free companies, thrown out of employ by the peace between Edward the Third and King John of France. They advanced so near to Avignon as the Pont St. Esprit, threatening it with plunder; his account gives an admi- rable insight into the insecure state of life IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 305 and property, at the period which he describes ; their insisting upon absolution, as part of the bribe for giving up a prize so tempting as the sack of Avignon, is not the least curious part of his relation ; which is as follows : " The other division of these free compa- nies, under the command of Nandoz de Bau- guierant, Espiote, Carnelle, Robert Briquet, Ortingo, and Bernard de la Salle, Lannuyt, Le Bourgeamus, Le Bourg de Breteuil, Le Bourg de l'Espagne, and many others of the same sort, and with the same intentions, ad- vanced towards Avignon, saying, they would go and visit the Pope and the cardinals, in order to have some of their money, otherwise they should be well vexed. They waited in that neighbourhood to receive the amount of their ransoms for the prisoners taken at Brignais, as well as to see if the peace that had been made between the two kings was likely to be lasting ; in the route to Avignon, they took towns, castles, and forts, for nothing could stand before them. dd 2 306 WANDERINGS "The whole country was in alarm; for, in those parts they had not had any war, and the guards did not know how to defend, or keep their strongholds against such men at arms; these companies got information that, at the Pont St. Esprit, seven leagues from Avignon, there was very great wealth, and that all the riches of the country thereabouts had been carried thither, as to a place of safety, trusting to the strength of its castle. They, therefore, consulted together, and agreed that, if they could get possession of this town of St. Esprit, it would be of the greatest advantage to them ; for they then would be masters of the Rhone as well as of Avignon. "After they had well digested their plan, Guyot du Pin and the little Mechin (as I have heard it related) mounted their horses, and with their companies rode one whole night to the extent of fifteen leagues. They arrived by break of day at the town of St. Esprit, which they took, and all those of both sexes which were therein. It was a pitiful sight; for IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 307 they murdered many a discreet man, and violated many a virgin. They gained im- mense riches, and provision sufficient to last them for a whole year. They could from this town escape easily in one hour's time, and without danger, into the kingdom of France; and, in another hour, into the empire. They collected their companies together, and kept advancing towards Avignon, at which the Pope and cardinals were much alarmed. These com- panies had chosen, at the Pont St. Esprit, a captain to command the whole of their forces, who was commonly styled the friend of God, and enemy of all the world. " There were at that time in France, besides these companies, many other pil- lagers, English, Gascons, and Germans ; who were desirous of living there, and who main- tained many garrisons in fortresses ; although the commissaries, from the King of England, had ordered them to evacuate these castles, and to leave the country, they had not obeyed, which was very displeasing to the King 308 WANDERINGS of France, as well as his council. But when many of them learnt (for they had possession of different places in France) that their brethren had overthrown the Lord James de Bourbon, with two thousand knights and squires ; had taken a great many prisoners, and had very lately surprised and conquered the town of St. Esprit, where they had found immense riches, and that they had expectations of all Provence: each was eager to join them, in the hopes of gain, and doing more mischief; this was the reason why many warriors left their forts and castles, and advanced before their companions, expecting greater pillage. When Pope Innocent the Sixth, and the Roman college, saw them- selves thus threatened by these accursed people, they were exceedingly alarmed, and ordered a croisade to be published against these wicked Christians, who were doing everything in their power to destroy Christianity (like the Vandals of old, without right or reason,) by ruining all the countries whither they resorted, — by rob- bing, whenever they could find anything, — by IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 309 violating women, both young and old, without pity, and by killing men, women, and children without mercy, who had done no ill to them ; for he was reckoned the bravest, and most honoured, who could boast of the most vil- lainous actions. "The Pope and the Cardinals had there- fore a croisade publicly preached; they ab- solved from every crime and sin all those who should take the cross, and voluntarily give themselves up to destroy these wretches. The Cardinals elected the Lord Peter de Monstier, Cardinal d'Arras, by some called Cardinal d'Ostia, to be the chief of this croisade ; who, upon his nomination, immediately left Avignon, and went to Carpentras, seven leagues distant, where he fixed his quarters. He retained all soldiers and others, who were desirous of saving their souls, and of gaining the foresaid pardons, but he would not give them any pay ; which caused many of them to depart, and go into Lombardy ; others returned to their own countries, and some joined these wicked com- 310 WANDERINGS panies, which were daily increasing. They divided themselves into several companies, over each of which they nominated captains, and took up their quarters in different places ; thus they harassed the Pope, the Cardinals, and the merchants in the neighbourhood of Avignon, and did a great deal of mischief until the summer was far advanced of the year 1361. " It happened that the Pope and Cardinals cast their eyes upon a very accomplished knight and good warrior, that is to say, upon the Marquis de Montferrat, who for a long time had been engaged in war against the lords of Milan, and was at this time so employed. They sent to him to come to Avignon, where he was received with much honour by the Pope and Cardinals ; a treaty was then entered into with him ; he agreed for a considerable sum of money to free the territories of the Pope, and the neighbour- hood, of those freebooting companies, and lead them with him into Lombardy. The marquis negotiated, therefore, with the captains of these companies, and managed so well, that by means IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 311 of sixty thousand florins, which he divided among them, and the high pay he promised them, they consented to follow him into Lom- bardy ; but they also insisted on receiving pardon and absolution from all crimes and sin. Every article was fulfilled, and the money paid. They gave up the towns of St. Espirit, quitted the territory of Avignon, and marched away with the Marquis of Montferrat." The steamer, for the first few hours, toiled its way against a rapid current, through a frightful country. At Pont St. Esprit, supposed to be the longest brick bridge in the world, the struggle between steam and water was very serious, and at one time steam had decidedly the worst of the encounter. A fellow steamer to the one upon which we were, was lying at Pont St. Esprit for repairs ; three days previously, she had run against one of the arches of the bridge. The man steering had been knocked overboard and drowned, and the steamer greatly damaged. Pont St. Esprit is an ugly town, of four thou- 312 WANDERINGS sand five hundred inhabitants, — some portions of its ruined fortifications are still to be seen. At Viviers, the banks of the Rhone change from a flat country to hills, and to great beauty. The river was swelled by rain, and instead of reaching Valence, our resting place for the night, at eight o'clock, it was eleven when we arrived there. The rain was descending in tor- rents, and we must have presented a curious sight to the host of individuals who turned out at the Hotel de la Poste to view the arrival of the " Milord Anglais" and the " Miladi," for whom rooms had been ordered, as, wet, draggled, and blackened by the steamer's smoke, we struggled out of the odd-looking vehicle that had been sent to meet us at the river side. The steamer left Valence at six on the following morning; the weather had cleared, and we were able to view from the deck the pleasing villages and picturesque ruins that are scattered within sight of the river. In the cabin, the scene was less pleasing; the steamer was crowded, and a curious mix- IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 313 ture of passengers assembled in the principal cabin, without respect of persons or distinction of first and second class fares. Those who had left Avignon with us on the previous day, showed that they had considered it unadvisable to waste any portion of the short time allotted for rest on shore, to ablutions : the conductor of a diligence, in his professional dress, was one of the most respectable of the party ; the spit- ting talked of as disgusting in America, cannot exceed the horrible shower that was incessantly sent forth on all sides. We passed, during the day, localities whose names are dear to the wine bibber : the village of St. Peray ; the hill topped by a ruin, whose sides are covered with the vineyards — growing Hermitage, and the hill- side known by the name of Cote Koti. The most celebrated place which we passed was Vienne, the ancient Vienna, and capital of the Allobroges : it was long a rival of Lyons ; we stopped there for passengers. The cathedral, with its two massive towers, gives it an imposing aspect as it is approached, and it has many EE 314 WANDERINGS objects of interest to be noticed when it is reached. A square tower by the water-side, with " Restaurant et Cafe" placarded upon it in large letters, is called "Tour de Mauconseil", from the tradition that Pilate cast himself from its summit. That Pilate really was banished to Vienna on his return to Rome from Jerusalem, is authentic; but the tower being a medieval building, Pilate must have committed suicide in some other manner. We reached Lyons at seven o'clock, after a day passed in steaming through scenery of great beauty. It was my good fortune to be known by name to Monsieur Comarmond, the conservator of the archaeological department of the museum at Lyons, and the district inspector of antiqui- ties ; this gentleman acted as my guide during the two days that I passed in his town, which is filled with objects of the highest antiquarian interest, that he was well qualified to point out to me. Lyons was the most important of the Gaulish capitals ; four aqueducts led to it ; it IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 315 contained an imperial palace, a forum, temples, naumachias, and was decorated with colossal statues ; indeed, a bronze fragment, preserved at the museum, is the largest fragment of bronze statuary extant. Claudius and Caligula were born at Lyons, and Augustus resided there three years ; the school of debate and composition, founded by Caligula, attained the highest reputation. It is celebrated for the sufferings of the early Christians, and the localities of the confinement of some, and of the martyrdom of others, may be seen. We could see from the windows of the Hotel du Pare, where we were staying, the Place des Terreaux, the scene of execution of Cinq Mars and De Thon, and where, in 1794, the blood of the victims of the guillotine flowed in such streams, as to compel other modes of execution. Monsieur Comarmond pointed out to me the scene of the engagement between Septimius Severus and Albinus, which may be traced from the heights of Fourvieres, and, what to me was personally more interesting, obtained 336 WANDERINGS for me, from the extensive Roman cemetery in the Faubourg St. Irenee, just at the back of Fourvieres, a leaden urn with its contents, con- sisting of small unguent bottles in coloured glass, and various small articles in bone. He took me twice over the museum ; it is especially rich in monumental inscriptions ; some give those touching sentiments which the an- cients so often used. One, in particular, aifected me : it was that of two soldiers who had received an honourable dismissal; having long rested under the same tent, they wished that their ashes might also repose in the same tomb. A man, endeared to his friends by his virtues, had a monument erected by the affection of his slaves. Other inscriptions are of historical value. Upon a taurobole appears at full length the ancient names of Lyons, — Colonia — Copia — Claudia Augusta, Lugdunum, and many have it in abbreviation. A seated statuette in the museum represents a deity symbolical of the town ; she is turreted, and bears two cornu copise. But the boast of the Lyons collection is in IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 317 the bronze tablet, (broken into two pieces, but now carefully preserved from further injury) on which is beautifully engraved the speech of the Emperor Claudius in the Roman senate, moving that the communities of Gallia Comata should be admitted to the privileges of Roman citizenship. The museum is rendered rich in objects of female ornament by a treasure dis- covered in 1841, by the "Freres de la Doctrine chretienne", in making excavations for the erection of some building on the eastern side of the heights of Fourvieres. Two thousand coins and some ornaments are supposed to have been abstracted when found; but some hun- dred silver coins, from the reign of Vespasian to that of Septimius Severus, were recovered ; together with three gold coins, seven bracelets, two rings, four sliders, three pairs of earrings, five necklaces, and a considerable length of small chain, supposed to have been intended to wear in the hair, with a quantity of small pendants. All these articles being of gold, and many set with precious stones, make the Lyons «318 WANDERINGS museum rival, in splendour of personal orna- ments, the Museo Borbonico at Naples. Many mosaics have been found at Lyons, and several are preserved in the museum : one is of especial interest ; it represents a chariot race ; the various courses are marked upon it ; the judges are in their stand ; the chariots are accompanied by individuals interested in the race, and the frequency of accidents vividly shown. Monsieur Comarmond also showed me his own splendid collection of antiquities. His Roman glass is the finest that I have ever seen ; a few of his bronze statuettes are gems of beauty, and he has a pair of bronze panther couples, that I would have made any pecuniary sacrifice to obtain. The collars, as well as the connect- ing bar, which is of the same width as the collars, are of open work, of fine tracery ; lines of it are modelled into cocks, others into bands of monkeys holding hands: it is a wonderful specimen of combined lightness and strength. He made me acquainted with Monsieur de IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. 319 Belley, who has, in addition to a vast collection of Roman coins in brass and silver, a magnifi- cent collection of Roman gold. The two days spent in the society of this most kind-hearted and well-informed man, Monsieur Comarmond, made an agreeable finale to my loiterings, and I returned from Lyons to England with all the speed that steam and horses could enable me to make. 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