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WE

SCAMPAVIAS.

PART IV. THE PINNACLE OF PENTELICUS.

E were a long while at the Piræus, where I passed the life of a parched chestnut, during the parching; for such a boiling pool of water, held in a basin of sun-roasted marble, does not exist anywhere.

One salamanderish, red-hot morning, while turning our parched eye-balls towards the high mountains around, we resolved to shake off our lassitude and seek a mouthful of fresh air on the cool, tall peak of Pentelicus.

We left the seething, smoking frigate, her black wales throwing off an atmosphere of lambent heat, and landed at the port. There we hallooed our obliging friend Black to his balcony, fresh from his mid-day siesta, and succeeded in dragooning him into a spare seat in a carriage which we had chartered for the occasion.

Now our friend Black is not only the husband of the original maid of Athens, bless her good amiable soul, but an accomplished linguist and a highly intelligent and entertaining gentleman. He came to Greece with that gallant old buccaneer, Lord Cochrane, at the breaking out of the revolution, and has not only seen service, but is as conversant with the affairs of the country, and the rascalities of the rulers, as the prime minister himself; perhaps more

so.

Withal, our friend Black has an appreciative relish for rollicking about the world, and can tell a pure Havana, or a good glass of sherry, wherever he finds them. For my part, I almost adored Black.

Our coach was an old rattle-trap of a superannuated traveling chaise, evidently sold off the grande route, and furbished up for Greece. I had the front seat; but as the cushion was as hard as lignum vitæ, and a mere ledge of about four inches wide, I kept slipping off, while my feet and legs became numb in striving to maintain an equilibrium of bottom, so that I was fain to take a place outside with the driver.

Leaving the broken streets of the port, we struck into the main road, and then jolted on as uncomfortably as could be expected. There was a breeze blowing up the gulf, which sent the dust flying in choking clouds around us. The

horses were not to our taste, not being excitable creatures, though their jehu was, and he continually made a noise to urge them on, very like to a person trying to light a hard-rolled cigar. Like all Greek drivers, he was attired in the red fez, tight jacket, and a lot of nasty petticoats.

The plain between the Piræus and Athens was once, perhaps, very beautiful. Of late years, however, owing to the sloth and indifference of the government and people, the ravages of war and the Turks, when the Moslems were good enough to cut down the famous olive groves that had withstood the brunt of centuries, so that their cavalry could prance about to advantage-what with all these causes, there is little left in the landscape pleasant for the eye to dwell upon. There is nothing green to be seen, except at intervals clusters of pale, sickly olives, a mournful fig-tree, or a few patches of corn. All else, from the shores of the blue gulf to the dried, baked hills in the interior, presents the same desolate, arid aspect. We passed a small herd of camels, browsing along the plain, and even they would at times raise their sharp snouts to heaven, as if beseeching the gods to send them something green and grassy to feed upon.

About mid-way to the city is a cluster of sheds and wells, where snarling curs are trained to bark horses to a halt; where vile fiddles are scraping incessantly for the enjoyment of travelers; and where nauseous resin wine and strong liquids for bipeds, besides water for horses, are to be had. The proprietor of the principal shop looked a retired pirate, as indeed he was, living in easy circumstances after his perils by sea. He was a sociably disposed rascal, and fond of slapping respectable individuals on the legs, designating them familiarly, in imperfect Saxon, as his "chummies," not forgetful, at the same time, to extend the hospitality of his bottles. On one occasion, however, he tried this innocent little game with our admiral, who, in return, gave him such a double jointed twist in the arm as to incapacitate the pirate for his favorite amusement for

some time to come.

In an hour from the Piræus we left

the temple of Theseus, looking very rusty, on our right, and entered the city of Pericles.

Pausanias, who was, I imagine, a very respectable old alderman or street surveyor in the ancient time, has given us a tolerably fair idea what the city was then. Now, however, the modern Athens is not only the very worst attempt at a civilized built town, but it is pitched in the wrong place. Instead of planting it on one of the fine sites upon the eminences about the Piræus, where blue water and commerce could be had at the gates, the present enlightened monarch of the empire, fearful of insult from hostile cannon, has not only built his own dreary white box of a palace out of gun-shot from the sea, but has encouraged his subjects to raise, likewise, their habitations around him, upon the very grave, too, of the old city, and beneath the shade of the noble ruins of the Acropolis, instead of leaving them alone in their grandeur, free from the contamination of houses of mud and sticks, the unpaved streets and foul markets of the mushroom town.

The main street is a double succession of filthy cafés and Samian wine-shops, where, all the day and a greater portion of the night, in the clouds of dust, fleas, dirt, and heat, sit the petticoated Athenians, sucking their pipes and mustachios, playing draughts and dominoes, and tippling. Idleness and vagabondizing seem to be predominant traits. Save in a few tradesmen's shops, where one sees a little gaudy embroidery going on for the gay legs or sleeves of their compatriots, industry is not known. Positively no one works. Even on the plains and on the hillsides, the very goatherds and shepherds lay down their crooks, and themselves beside them, sleeping away their lives. Pipes and petticoats constitute the Greek existence.

We drove through these idle vagabonds of Greeks-through their miserable town, to the hotel d'Angleterre, with a crack of the whip that fairly startled the red-legged sentry, dozing on post, at the gate-way. Other soldiers, likewise, in blue legs, who were repos ing in the dust, near to a small park of

field

guns, raised up to stare at us, when, feeling satisfied the country was safe, they relapsed again into their several

retreats.

We ascended to the second story of the house and found very decent

apartments; for the hotel was new and commodious. There we reclined on ottomans until the sun should hide his red and burning face behind the hills of Salamis.

A permit was procured to visit the Acropolis by night, and at the going down of the sun we departed from our caravansary, dressed in mufti, and provided with some small stores of tobacco and drinks.

Traversing a labyrinth of filthy lanes, we came to the monument of Lysicrates. This exquisite little ruin, with its light, elegant Corinthian columns, stands in the midst of dilapidated hovels, the whole structure nearly undermined, and seeming about to tumble to the ground. The great monuments, which fringe the sky above, look down in pity upon their delicate and decaying child.

From Lysicrates we wandered around the base of the Acropolis, by the Temple of the Winds, the Ancient Market, and the Stone Grain Measures, until we reached the pathway leading to the height, when we shortly entered the main approach to the Acropolis itself. We found ourselves, after our fatigue, on gaining the Propylea, in a profuse perspiration; but on getting into the open nave of the Parthenon, amid the white marbles--which at least looked cooland becoming posed in the solid chairs of the elders, with the night breeze from the gulf about our brows, which was in reality cool, we found satisfaction in looking about us. The majestic columns of the Parthenon towered in their silent and imposing magnificence, like sentinels of the old world, beside us. The easy, graceful figures of the caryatides seemed about to step from beneath their burdens, and wander in the opaque moonlight amid the huge fallen columns and fragments of marble, while the bats fitted about our heads as if incensed at mortals for wandering within their lonely haunts. It was matter of discussion with us, however, whether in these modern days something equally magnificent and more utilitarian could not be constructed; and we thought, too, what a capital speculation a cute Yankee might make by transforming the Parthenon into an ice-cream saloon, with an oyster-box in the temple of Victory, and spittoons at the base of every column.

Besides Jack Toker, Mr. Benedict, Black, and myself, we were accompa

nied by a stray and forlorn traveler, in the person of an Indian gentleman, from Benares, who bore about his garments a bag containing guide-books, a telescope, an edition of Byron, and other aids to memory. We were, moreover, attended by a brace of venerable gray-beards, who had heard the Turkish shot whistle about their ears in the same precincts, and who professed to be ciceroni, ostensibly to guard against pilfering, but, forgetful of their calling, became surreptitiously tipsy, and we might have shouldered half the loose sculpture in the Acropolis, and they have been none the wiser.

When we had become fully sated with repose and wonder, we betook ourselves down the steep face of the hill, and bent our steps towards the temple of Jupiter. Under the shade of the giant columns we wandered awhile amid the stacks of corn and heaps of wheat, and then returned by the new Boulevard to the city.

It was midnight when we regained our inn, and then we found our supper ready served in the grand saloon. The dishes tasted to me as insipid as everything looked in Greece; but the "Saint George" was not on the same standard. Several friends joined our party, and presently we beheld a gentleman, in the fez cap, petticoat, and red embroidered leg costume, approach, also.

"Hillo!" quoth we, rather sharply, to this apparition, as he carelessly sauntered into the room, "what the deuce do you want here ?"

He gave an abashed sort of look, but quickly informed us that he was not only the owner of the hotel we tarried at, but also of the "Orient." He was a handsome dog, with eyes twinkling with fun, and taking a seat at table, we soon became warmly attached to him. He was a wit, too, and baptized Benedict as Bifstek, on account of his fondness for those delicacies. Elias was our host's name; he had been courier of the "grand route," and not only understood, but talked a little of every known tongue in the universe. He played the piano, sang North American war-whoops, danced Patagonian reels, and made merry exceedingly.

It was getting to be very late, and after making arrangements for horses, cold luncheon, and to be called at daylight, I took my leave of the party. Elias, however, would persist in attend

ing me to my chamber, where he undressed me as carefully as a baby, tucked me up in bed, caressed my great toe, and then left me to repose. I went off to sleep, while the cheers and songs of my companions rose high and wild in the still night.

It did not seem to me that I had slept a wink, when I was aroused by Elias, who, standing at the bedside, with my big toe again in his hand, induced the belief that he had not left me a moment; but it was daylight, I could see from the lofty windows, and the fresh morning air came in deliciously.

66

go."

Come, Cappin, git up-Bifstek no

"Well," I yawned, "we don't want bifstek, only coffee for breakfast," thinking our landlord meant to apologize for want of that viand at our morning meal.

Presently, however, I heard him calling Jack Toker, in the adjoining room, and exclaim, "Come, Cappin, must git up, but Bifstek no go."

Losing all patience at his pertinacity, we sung out, "Dam beef-steak, we'll have chicken."

Whereupon, Elias chirped out with, "Bifstek say dam, too, but he no git up, and no go."

Then it was we recollected he was designating our friend Benedict, and wished to convey the idea, that he did not desire to accompany us on the proposed jaunt to Pentelicus. To evince our approbation, we seized Elias around his waspy red waist and waltzed him about like a dervish.

In a few minutes we had coffee, saw a rickety old fourgon stowed with our man Angelo and the provender, and then, our steeds being ready in the court-yard, we adjusted the stirrups, and vaulted into the saddle. Our acquaintance from Benares bidding us God-speed, the while, as he peered with his bottle-green colored eyes over an upper balcony, and complained of his natural rest having been disturbed in the night.

The horses were very good, spirited, and not hard of gait; the trappings, however, were somewhat worn and out of repair.

We passed out of the city by the palace, and took the road along the base of Lykabatus. Droves of donkeys, which were all Mexican, save the crimson-jacketed Greeks astride

them, for a time powdered the air with dust; but soon we got beyond the market-people, and, though the sun was getting up, and a little warm, we enjoyed the ride extremely. Trotting a few miles over the bare plains, groves of venerable olives began to rear their gnarled roots, and seamed, perforated trunks, over the landscape, while the perfume of thyme, sage, and bright flowering oleanders, filled the atmosphere. Still further, we turned down a little ravine, where a hill of water ran, and

"Where winds with reeds and osiers whis. p'ring play,"

amid a rich vegetation of canes, and where undergrowth and green grasses sprang up, cool and refreshing to look

upon.

Leaving the plains, we began to mount easily up the slopes of Pentelicus, by an excellent road, constructed by the Duchesse de Plaisance. This lady was a daughter of the Count de Marbois, and born in Philadelphia, while her father was the French Consul to our country. She was a reigning belle under the empire, and, if I mistake not, invented, when queen of the mode in Paris, the riselle velvet hats. For many years, the duchess, having forsaken the vanities of fashion, has resided in Athens, and devotes a large income to benevolent purposes. She was said to be a free-thinker on religious matters, and was, withal, somewhat eccentric, her chief pleasure consisting in building houses, but never completing them.

About nine o'clock we reached a grove of silver-bark poplars, at a height, perhaps, of fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. It is in close proximity to an ancient Greek monastery, and famous for a pure, sparkling fountain of icy cold water, which falls splashing into a large marble bowl, shaded by the lofty trees around. On this spot, so delightfully cool, picnics are made for the court, and the elite of Athens came to dance upon the turf; and here we proposed to lunch, on our return from the mountain.

We dismounted, watered the horses, and waited until we heard the thumps and shouts of Angelo, while enticing his beast to pull the fourgon up the hill, when we put foot in stirrup and began the ascent of Pentelicus.

We steered first for the quarries. The

road led up between two sharp ridges, over loose fragments of white marble, that had tumbled down in clippings from the deep veins above. As we ascended, the pathway became steep and the foothold precarious. At intervals we paused to breathe the animals or look down the gorge, and again we clambered on, until at last we found our progress barred by a rocky defile too perpendicular for further ascent. In fact, we had either mistaken the road, since it is rarely traveled, or else the debris of rocks and roots had blocked it up by the rush of torrents and storms.

While my companions, leaving the bridles to their horses in my hands, went on a tour of exploration, to find, if possible, a better track, I remained staring at the ancient quarries, those wombs of art that gave birth in the rude state to the beautiful and noble offspring in the Acropolis. The old Athenian wedge had cut the huge blocks in smooth and even surfaces from the parent mine, while, at the fissures from where the material was quarried to build the New Palace in Athens, the rough, jagged points and shivered, blackened ledges showed plainly how the villainous saltpetre was used to dig it out, and where king Otho's pioneers blasted the pure marble in a wasteful and wanton man

ner.

There was not a man at work in the bowels of the mountain, and we only saw two blocks, roughly hewn, which appeared to have been lying on the brink of the quarry for many years. The larger might have contained ninety or one hundred cubic feet of marble, and upon inquiry afterwards of a Greek master mason, its probable cost at the Piræus, he told me, that owing to great expense of transportation, it would be valued at about four thousand drachmas, or eight hundred Spanish dollars.

Indeed, there are none of the modern contrivances for getting the stone out of the quarries, by derricks or shears—and none either for swinging it without damage to the paths below. When quarried, it is simply tumbled down the steep, and then moved to its destination on rollers.

My friends returned without being able to find an accessible pathway, and we almost determined to picket the beasts and make the remainder of the journey on foot. Reflecting, however, from my experience of Mexican moun

tain passes, and scrambles in California, that an active horse could tread, wherever a man could walk without using his hands, I accordingly went away on a little scout by myself, and, after a time, discovered a practicable route. We took the bridles and moved on. The tramp was precarious, and though the animals were tolerably sure-footed, yet occasionally they quivered on the smooth, rocky heights, and seemed on the point of sliding down by the run. By care, however, and patience, we gained the flanks of the Five-fingered Mountain, and then our difficulties ceased. Mounting, we rode to one of the eastern finger peaks, where springing upon a great hoary, moss-covered block of marble, the sight beneath amply repaid our toil. But there was yet a higher point to reach, and only stopping to quaff long draughts of icy water from a little natural reservoir of a shepherd's well, scooped out of the rock, we swung into the saddle again, and picked our way cautiously up the steep. Wild pinks, bright yellow flowers, herbs and mosses were strewed over the mountain, and the air was filled with their perfume. Presently we secured our beasts and accomplished the remainder of the ascent on foot.

Then we stood upon the pinnacle of Pentelicus. There was no marble above our heads; nothing but the brilliant sun in a cloudless sky, and the pure blue ether of heaven. But below what a magnificent panorama of landscape beauty lay marked like a map at our feet!

To the east the plains of Marathon, carpeted by fields of green and yellow grain-with the curving white beach terminated by the half-moon promontory; then the sea, like a calm lake dotted by islands; while Negropont with its towering mountains stretched away up the coast toward Olympus, and only separated by a narrow belt of blue water from the main; then nearer arose, in endless succession, the hills around Marathon, dipping in many a nook and dale, off to the west, when the gaze is trailed on in the arc of a circle over the country, until it is arrested again by the Straits of Salamis. There we saw the distant lofty mountains of the Morea, Egina, Corinth, and Cape Colonna, all mingled with the blue water of the gulf; then nearer, the plains of Daphne, where the green groves, specked with bright dwellings, resembled a strong sea-breeze ruf

fling in white caps the waves. To the left was Athens amid the noble temples; beyond, Hymettus, and nearer, just at at our feet, the waving verdure of the poplar grove. In one single whirl around, the eye sweeps in all of Attica, with the mountains and sea which clasp it.

For a long time we reclined on the rocks gazing at the picture that nature presented to our view, while ever and anon the shrill whistle of the goatherds and shepherds arose from the hillsides a great way off, and the partridges answered the calls from their nestling thickets. The sun had passed the meridian when we began our descent, and this we found to be a more ticklish feat than the scramble up. We had to lead the horses nearly all the way down; but since we had accomplished our purpose in getting up, we were willing to pay liberally for the enjoyment.

Reaching the base of the quarried acclivities, we mounted, and then, at quicker pace, galloped down to the rendezvous at the Fountain. Here giving our good beasts water and a browse upon the grass, we dabbled in the little torrent until Angelo announced luncheon. We had appetites as sharp as a famished shark's, and each bracing his wearied back against a tree-forming a triangular breakfast-table of the turf-we fell to with a will.

Lord! how refreshingly cool was the claret, the ale, and the sherry; and how we tossed the cups, after every draining, into the bubbling. plashing water, so that not a breath of chill might escape our lips; and how we slashed into the chicken, the cold fillet of beef, the French rolls, and the salad; utterly regardless in our prodigality of the fond looks of a hungry, dirty old monk from the adjacent monastery. He was robed in a tattered garment of frieze-as ancient, apparently, as those of the Parthenon, and he kept his eyes riveted upon our operations; but very sad it makes me now to think, that that unhappy anchorite, after Angelo had taken his portion, found nothing but bones and cheese-parings to polish his pious teeth upon. We recompensed him, however, with a few coppers, which he implored us not to divulge to his brother the abbot, fearing, perhaps, that prebendary might demand a share.

The meal ended, we borrowed from the friar a couple of large rugs, and,

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