stitutional system, there is nothing to be looked for but the continuance of the chronic misery which the fatal contiguity of the two islands has created from the hour of Henry the Second's conquest. JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, in The Nineteenth Century. WE had ridden across the Peloponnese from shore to shore, and now in three, or at the most four, hours' time we were to be in Athens. So we thought. But dis aliter visum est. The south-west wind before which we sped merrily out of the little harbor of Epithavro (Epidarus) about 4 P.M. on an April afternoon, dropped as soon as we were in the open waters of the Saronic Gulf, to be succeeded by a stiff nor'-wester blowing right athwart our track from where, in the far horizon, the mighty Acrocorinthus towered above the low-lying Isthmus of Corinth. Our captain did not care to venture across to the Piræus in his small boat under these altered circumstances; so as night was coming on we ran for shelter into the harbor of Ægina. Here meeting with a collision which shattered one of our bulwarks, and might well have sent us to the bottom, we were fain to throw ourselves upon the mercy of a Greek naval officer, Captain Miaoulis, whose steamlaunch we found lying at the quay. He also had been driven into Ægina by stress of weather. He kindly agreed to take us across with him on the morrow, and named four o'clock in the morning as the hour of his start. Though the morning broke gloriously fine, the north-west wind was still blowing, and continued to do so all the forenoon. This gave us time to see something of Ægina, though not, unfortunately, the famous temple of Zeus, Panhellenios, which stands on a height some four hours' ride from the town. We saw, however, the remains of the old harbor, and of a temple of Aphrodite, built on a cliff about a quarter of a mile to the east of the town. From this point we could see distinctly the opposite coast of Attica, though Athens is not conspicuous enough to be seen at such. distance; and the rugged back of Salamis, which is higher and more imposing than I had expected to find it. Modern Ægina is a busy port, with a frontage of tall buildings -warehouses, inns, coffee-houses, and shops-along the quay, which is thronged with sailors. Behind the town rise heights covered with white villas, picturesquely set in gardens of olives, oranges, and mulberries; while here and there a single palm-tree reminded us that we were now in comparatively eastern climes. In the back-ground are the rugged peaks which make the island so conspicuous an object from Athens and from all the surrounding counry. Among the inhabitants of Ægina, especially the boys, we noticed more heads and faces of the type familiar to us in old Greek sculp ture than we had met hitherto, or were destined afterwards to meet, in the Greece of to-day. Three or four of these young fellows, with their large eyes, low foreheads, finely-cut profiles, and luxuriant heads of hair, might have sat as models for the Pan-Athenaic procession with which Phidias adorned the frieze of the Parthenon. Our hostess, too, a comely woman of forty, with two beautiful children, had a face and figure cast in true Attic mold. The By two o'clock at last the adverse wind had dropped, and we were able to set off in a trim little yawl, in tow of the steam-launch... Now were we indeed in the very heart of historic Hellas. dancing waters over which we were speeding, and in which now and again the fabled dolphin showed his tawny back, had been crossed and recrossed by all the fleets that Greece had ever equipped, and by all the great men who had ever left or visited her shores. Greek heroes must have sailed over them on their way to Troy. Here at any rate, was the central point of that splendid maritime dominion which Athens, in the days of her greatness, wielded over all the coasts and islands of the Egean. To the west, following the gulf till it narrowed to a point, the eye fell upon the huge Acrocorinthus. To the north rose mountain-masses, stretching back, as we knew, to Helicon and Parnassus, though those peaks were not in view. Citharon, in the foreground, wore a crown of luminous golden haze. Looking eastward, the low coast of Attica could be traced as far as Cape Sunium. Beyond loomed three or four of the "shining Cyclades." In front, but somewhat to the left of our course, a white row of houses along the shore betokened Megara, that troublesome neighbor and stubborn foe, whom Athens found a very thorn in her side. It is easy to see, when the scene is before you, how it was that this little State so long held possession of Salamis, which lies along the shore not much further from Megara than from the Piræus. And we must remember, too that in those early days before Solon's eloquent appeal had shamed his countrymen into seizing the island, the Piræus was not bound to Athens by the tie with which the genius of Themistocles afterwards united the city and the port. So that in fact, Salamis was nearer to Megra than to Athens. But now right in frout of us the sun catches some white buildings on the shore which must belong to the Piræus, and as we look inland a low conical height strikes the eye. It is too peaked to be the Acropolis. It is Mount Lycabettus. Before long, however, another elevation can be made out a little way to the right-an oblong mound, of a deep orange-brown, and with a remarkably level surface. And there, surely, are buildings upon it! An earnest gaze leaves at last no doubt in our minds that this mere speck in the landscape, but faintly visible against the background of hills, is in truth that which we have longed all our lives to see, the rock which seems to sum up in itself the supremest effort that art has achieved in the world-the Acropolis of Athens! Every moment we are drawing nearer to the shore, and the objects upon it become more distinct. One by one the buildings upon the Acropolis fall into their true relations, and the shattered wreck of the Parthenon stands out by itself. The main outline of the picture being thus stamped upon our minds, we must wait for a closer inspection to show us its details. Salamis is now quite close to us on the left; and while crossing the east end of the bay which lies between it and the shore, we are busy in our conjectures as to the exact scene of the battle. However far we may have been from forming a true idea of the positions of the rival fleets, we had at least no difficulty in recognizing a tiny little islet within a few yards of which we passed, as Psyttaleia, whereon the flower of the Persian army was cut off, and round which at last the struggle raged most fiercely. Meanwhile the Piræus, the Athenian Acropolis, and even Mount Lycabettus, have quite disappeared from view, and we are nearing an apparently harborless shore, when of a sudden, rounding a rocky point which runs out from the left to bar our path, we find ourselves in a roomy harbor full of shipping, of life and stir of all kinds. A few minutes' bustle, and we are in an open carriage, bowling along the dusky tree-fringed road between the Piræus and Athens. We have scarcely passed the outskirts of the port when the Acropolis again comes prominently into view, touched to purple by the sun now setting behind Salamis. To its left rises the conical peak of Lycabettus, and in the background the view is closed by Pentelicus, which has been most appropriately likened to the pediment of a Greek temple. Hymettus is on our right, parallel with the road; and on our left the plain is shut in by a ridge which near the sea is called Korydallos, and further inland bears the name of Ægaleos. Along the foot of it a belt of trees marks the course of the Kephisos, and the famous olive-groves which stretch away to Kolonos. Further inland, between this ridge and Pentelicus, rises the massive shoulder of Parnes, which, with Citharon further west, parts Attica from Boeotia. By the time we approach Athens the light has faded, leaving in the western sky an after-glow of orange fading into a lovely pale blue, while Salamis and Korydallos become black as night. Still there was sufficient twilight to show us the Acropolis and its buildings, the Theseum, the Areopagus, and the Hill of the Muses, and to make us realize that we were in the city of Pericles. The whole scene seemed strangely familar, the more so that it is just the ancient part of Athens which the traveler first sees on his road from the Piræus. He passes next through what remains of Athens as it was under Turkish rule-low dirty houses, narrow streets, and bazaars. From this quarter one comes into the modern town, fast becoming as trim and bright as Paris itself. Our slumbers, though well earned by a hard week's traveling, were by no means undisturbed. I should think that no city could vie with Athens in the extent and variety of its night-noises. Dogs, cats, men, and, perhaps most trying of all, the Attic owl, with its melancholy piping monotone, unite to make the blessed silence of night a hollow mockery. The Athenians of old might be excused for preferring the image of the owl in silver to its unmusical and feathered prototype. For If, however, the noises of the night recalled rather some London court than the city of Pericles, a glance in the morning from the windows of our hotel in Eolus Street, reassured us at once. at the end of the street rose an enormous barrier of orange-brown rock, and upon its summit stood two mighty fragments of a temple, separated by a chasm of blue sky. There, indeed, was the Parthenon, shattered and maimed, but still instinct with beauty and grandeur. It, too, is of an orange-brown tone, and that darkblue sky forms the most harmonious background one could conceive. It was not long before we were making our way along Eolus Street, then to the left, past the Temple of the Winds, to where some stone steps lead to the foot of the Acropolis on the north side. Then a winding footpath takes one to the western side, whence a zigzag track through a plantation of giant aloes runs up to the side-door which now serves for an entrance to the rock. The old broad steps up which processions used to pass are now blocked up below by a wall and disused gateway. Passing through an archway on the right, we enter on the left a small doorway which leads us through a little yard strewn with beautiful architectural and sculptured fragments, on to the main steps about half-way up. The Propylæa were immediately above us, on our right the lovely little temple of Wingless Victory; on our left the Pinacotheca, adorned of old with the famous paintings of Polygnotus. But these must not detain us now. Moving upwards and onwards, we had hardly gained the level of the Propylæa, when our eyes fell upon a grand temple-front, seared and discolored with the wear of ages, but majestic beyond belief. Of hue varying from light brown through rich orange to absolute black, while here and there, where a column has been chipped, the marble shows its dazzling whiteness, the mighty building confronts one with the calm dig nity, and yet faultless beauty, which one associates with the god. dess herself, to whom, by men of old, this shrine was raised. Between the Propylæa and the Parthenon the rugged surface of the rock is marked with wheel-tracks, associated by tradition with the chariot processions which went yearly to the Acropolis on the great Pan-Athenaic festival. All around lie huge fragments of marble. But these, and the details of the Parthenon front, were only taken in at a later time. An irresistible fascination, not unmingled with awe, led me now to mount the steps and at once enter the temple. Some people have felt disappointment at first sight of the Parthenon, but I can only say that it surpassed all my expectations in beauty and grandeur. Apart from the historic associations that come crowding into the mind as one stands on a spot so rich in memories, the scene itself cannot but fix contemplation. Now the imagination strives to restore the building, even in its ruin exquisitely harmonious, to its original perfection of form, adding the brilliant coloring which is now generally believed to have adorned it; or to recall to its place round the walls of the cella, that wonderful frieze which, born beneath the deep-blue of an Athenian sky, has at length found shelter in the gloom of a Bloomsbury basement. Now vain longings and regrets are stirred by the thought that this building, after surviving some two thousand years, fell a victim, hardly two centuries ago, to the explosion which has rent asunder the eastern and western ends, not only wrecking the inner shrine, but throwing down many of the outer columns on either side. Again, the eye is delighted by the rich tone which the wear of centuries has imparted to the western front, and which contrasts strikingly alike with the original marble where its surface has been laid bare, and with the sky above; or follows lovingly the beautiful lines of the still standing columns, allowing due picturesque value even to the ghastly gap in the center, and drinking in the strong sunlight which beats down upon the whole and throws deep shadows in contrast to its own radiance. And such a scene, if you are fortunate, you can enjoy in perfect stillness, so aloof at times seem the precincts of the Acropolis from the stir of modern everyday life. For the sake of clearness I will here depart from the chronological sequence hitherto observed, and proceed to mention more in detail certain features of the Parthenon and of the Acropolis which were stamped upon my memory by repeated visits. To begin with the west front of the Parthenon. It was a most pleasant surprise to find that the frieze of Phidias is on this side * * I use this phrase for convenience, and as according with popular usage. But |