where there is no artificial adaptation of one rock to another by smoothing down the rough edges and inequalities, but the interstices are filled up with small stones. The smoothing down the rough edges of the stones, and the adaptation of the different sides together, is evidently a later improvement.

The extreme antiquity of these rude massive walls is manifest from the fabulous origin ascribed to them by the ancients, in the time of Pausanias. Walls of this description exist in other parts of Europe, and they are all remarkable for the simplicity of their construction and the great size of the stones: of these gigantic walls, Pausanias speaks with wonder, and considers them as marvellous as the Pyramids.

We first stopped at a gateway formed of three great stones, wo being placed perpendicularly, and one resting on them horizontally; it is five feet four inches wide at the top, and six feet at the bottom, but not more than a third of the original height is above ground. Passing on, we shortly arrived at the celebrated Gate of Lions, approached by a passage fifty feet long and thirty feet wide, formed by two massive Cyclopean walls on either hand, and these, together with the front of the gate, have been built of blocks rudely squared. This gateway, like the other smaller one, consists of two uprights of stone, so buried in rubbish, that it is difficult to form an exact idea of their size, but the immense transverse block resting upon them, forming the lintel of the gateway, is fifteen feet two inches long, six feet nine inches broad, and four feet thick. Resting on this immense horizontal lintel is a triangular stone, twelve feet long, ten feet high, and two feet thick, upon the face of which are rudely sculptured two lions, standing on their hind legs, on either side of a round pillar, which increases in size towards the top, and is surmounted by a sort of square capital, formed of a row of four balls, inclosed between two square blocks of stone. Pausanias, in his description of Mycena sixteen hundred years ago, speaks of this gateway, "upon which lions stand, said to be the work of the Cyclopes, who built also the fortress of Tiryns for Prœtus." Pausanias, book ii. c. 15 and 16. It is alluded to by Sophocles, in his Electra, v. 1391.

Near this gateway are the remains of a door, half buried in ruins, by some called a tomb, by others, one of the treasuries of Atreus. The length of the three stones forming

the entrance, is seventeen feet ten inches, and the passage is between seven and eight feet wide. Lower down is the half buried gateway of a ruined circular building, composed of three stones, measuring more than fifteen feet in length, and the ground is every where strewed with bits of ancient pottery.

But the most curious thing here is the conical mound, called the tomb of Agamemnon, and by some a treasury of Atreus. The mass of stone lying across the uprights of the portal, and forming the lintel of the doorway, is twentyseven feet long, seventeen feet wide, and four feet seven inches in thickness. Passing through this heavy colossal portal, you find yourself in a circular stone chamber, terminating above in a cone, corresponding with the external shape of the tumulus. The diameter of the apartment is about fifty feet. Immediately on the right of a person entering, is another doorway, with a triangular window above it, leading into a square chamber, about twenty-three feet each way, rudely excavated in the rock, with a slightly vaulted roof. In the stones on the inside are numerous small holes for brazen nails, some of which still remain, supposed formerly to have attached metal plates to the

walls.

Two, P. M.-Leaving Mycenae, we crossed near the site of the Heræum, or Temple of Juno, formerly one of the most celebrated sacred edifices of Greece, built in the ninth year of the Peloponnesian war, B. c. 423. We then traversed a deserted country, crossed the Inachus, and, in about two hours and a half, arrived at Argos, now a miserable ruined village; the antiquities consist only of a theatre, excavated in the rock, with two wings formed of masses of rude stone and mortar, and remains of several circular rows of seats. On the side of a hill, near the theatre, are ruins of a building at the entrance of a cavern, where there is a narrow passage leading up to a niche, supposed to have been one of the oracular shrines alluded to by Pausanias; a juggling place of the priests, who crept along the passage, and secreting themselves behind the altar, astonished the weak minds of the vulgar by preternatural sounds.

Among the many ruins of temples, theatres and edifices alluded to by Pausanias as existing in his time, he describes the Hieron of Venus, where was a statue of the poetess Telesilla, who is said, at the head of a band of females, to have repelled the Lacedæmonians from the walls, when they VOL. I.-4

attacked Argos. "She was represented," says Pausanias, "standing upon a pillar, with the books of her poetry scattered at her feet, in the act of regarding a helmet, which she was about to put upon her head."

April 29th.-At day-light we departed for Epiada, the ancient Epidaurus. Shortly after leaving Argos, we had a a fine view of the citadel of Napoli di Romania, which had a striking appearance on the opposite side of the gulf. In an hour and a half we arrived at the massive Cyclopean ruins of Tiryns, described by Pausanias as "rude masses piled one upon another, with small stones forced in between them." Homer, in his Iliad, describes them, v. 559, in the words, Τίρυνθα τε τειχιόεσσαν—So that they appear to have been as astonishing to the people 2000 years ago as they are to us in the present day. The most astonishing and interesting portion of them is the Cyclopean Gallery, consisting of immense blocks of stone, placed one on the other, the upper ones slanting over, forming a lancet arch. There appear to have been three gateways, and the principal one was flanked by a tower: one of the largest stones in the walls appears to be about ten feet six inches long, by three feet nine broad, and three feet nine in thickness, and the wall is twenty-four feet and a half in thickness.

Pausanias says, that these walls were built by the Cyclops, for Protus, whose reign is placed in Blair's Chronology, 1379 B. C. Elian says, that the inhabitants of Tiryns fed upon wild figs, and they had also the credit of being people of great mirth and frivolity.

The town of Napoli di Romania, the ancient Nauplia, the principal place in all Greece, and so lately the seat of government, is a miserable, dirty spot, and can boast of the most disagreeable and the very dearest hotel in all the land, and a most exacting, impertinent and deceitful landlord. Its population has been thinned by the plague and the dreadful intermittent fever; there is, at present, a motley collection of Italians, Franks, Greeks and Turks. Like most of the other ancient sites, it possesses its lofty Acropolis, called Palamedi, an interesting retention of the name of the hero Palamedes, the reputed son of Nauplius.

By the ramparts near the sea are some remains of Cyclopean walls, part of the ancient fortifications. This place appears to have first risen in importance under the Byzantine empire, and it became the chief town of the Morea under the Venetians and the Turks.

About ten o'clock we proceeded on our journey; it was a brilliant, clear, warm day, and the distant blue mountains of the Morea, with their wavy outlines, had a most beautiful appearance as we passed through the Argive territory. From Nauplia to the ruins of Lessa is a journey of about four hours; a town mentioned by Pausanias as being on the road to Epidaurus, and containing a temple of Minerva and a wooden statue of Jupiter, with three eyes. The mule track traverses a succession of narrow valleys; on the road we observed some vestiges of walls, and the ruins of two castles. The country is mostly rocky, barren and everywhere uncultivated.

We reached the village of Ligurio, close to the ruins of Lessa; at the base of the mountain are some remains of ancient walls, an ancient pyramid, and in the village church some Ionic columns. The place is half in ruins, small and miserable. The celebrated temple of Esculapius, and the sacred grove one of the most renowned places in Greece were situated at the upper end of the valley, on the road to Epidaurus; and, about a mile and a half from Ligurio, we arrived at some widely scattered ruins on a spot called "Sto-hiero," or "sacred-place," by the Greeks. Here are part of the foundations of a temple supposed to be that of Esculapius; some masses of brick foundations, supposed to have been ruins of a stadium, cisterns and baths, and the ruins of the theatre mentioned by Pausanias as the work of Polycletus, of which thirty rows of seats appear above ground, many of them covered with white marble, and overhung with brambles and bushes; it is supposed to have been near 400 feet in diameter. Pausanias says, "in harmony and beauty of workmanship what artist can come into competition with Polycleteus, who built the theatre. and tholus of the Epidauri?" This sacred grove formerly contained temples of Venus, Themis and Diana; baths erected by Antoninus Pius; and a building, beyond the sacred precincts, for the reception of the dying, and the women in labor, as it was unlawful to die or be born within the sacred district. Such was its sanctity, that according to Livy, lib. x. c. 47, a deputation was decreed at Rome, to Esculapius of Epidaurus, (293 B. c.,) to implore his aid in curing a pestilence which ravaged the city and neighboring country, and a ship was afterwards sent, and one of the sacred serpents brought back to Rome. Strabo describes the sanctuary as a place renowned for the cure of all sorts

of diseases, and always full of invalids, and the walls of the temple were covered with tablets descriptive of the cures.

Taking up our quarters for the night in a hovel, we sent down to the miserable port of Epiada, to search for a boat to carry us across the gulf of Ægina to the island.

April 30th.-Started early in the morning for Epiada: the scenery appeared very beautiful; we were surrounded by lofty mountains, and rode through a valley, filled with myrtles and dwarf evergreen shrubs. The sun røse magnificently behind the mountains of Attica, and the gulf of Egina, with its numerous islands and bold rocky shores, had a most lovely appearance.

We passed the miserable village of Epiada, and through olive plantations and some scanty vineyards, to the port. Of the ancient Epidaurus scarcely any vestiges remain.

CHAPTER II.

ISLAND OF EGINA.BAY OF

SALAMIS.-MEGARA.-GREEK

PEASANTRY.-SCENERY.-POLICE OFFICER.-ELEUSIS.ATHENS. ATHENIAN RUINS. GENERAL

IMPRESSIONS.

MOUNT PENTELICUS.-MARATHON.-MODERN ATHENS.

"Why need we say (exclaims Strabo,) that Ægina is one of the most celebrated of the islands, the native country of Eacus, and the Eacidæ, which once enjoyed the dominion of the seas, and contended with Athens herself, for the prize of superior glory in the battle with the Persian fleet at Salamis?"

As the wind was fair, and the island of Ægina in sight, about thirty miles off, we trusted ourselves to a frail bark; and soon after mid-day, we arrived at the ancient port of Ægina, and the site of the ancient town, marked by a large tumulus, and a beautiful Doric column, with the greater portion of the shaft of another standing by its side. There are ruins of two ancient ports, surrounded by shattered walls and moats, twenty feet thick. The walls of the town may be traced in several places; but the ruins of the temples, theatre, and stadium, are no longer visible.

Rowing round the northwest point of the island, until we got the wind again in our favor, we bore off eastward, close along shore, for the temple of Jupiter Panhellinus, whose majestic columns we shortly saw crowning a bold eminence