Patras, their new commercial city, is nearly as pathetic and nearly as interesting as modern Athens; and one feels that from there actual safety, as well as education, and even the possibility of seeing the beauty, must spread gradually. The difficulties of travel are quite extraordinary, quite independently of the question of safety. There are no hotels, no lodgings, no beds, hardly any food, no relays of horses, no posts, no accurate guide-books, no trustworthy people to give information. And somehow one feels it will all come gradually from this little town, springing up, as it were, yesterday, with its little throb of life, which must permeate the whole before it can be healthy or alive. Even from a tourist’s point of view, mountains and woods and defiles and rivers are no use because you can’t get at them; and what of the life of the people, their education, their power of using the good things that the earth brings forth?
Mrs. Coupland’s introductions have been most useful.... Dr. Milschaefer came himself to give us a lesson in modern Greek, and brought such an interesting young Greek to teach us the pronunciation. It is very interesting to see how the young national life is flowing instinctively in the old grooves. The great thing they have progressed in, since their independence, has been education. Their University is evidently becoming remarkable, and people are coming from Asia Minor and Turkey to study. Their girls’ schools and boys’ schools are evidently what they feel they are succeeding in. They regret, however, that everyone tries to be a lawyer or something of that kind; and that agriculture and manufacture are neglected. Evidently agriculture has a great future here. The country is much less fertile than in olden times, partly from the bad systems of cultivation, partly, I should guess, from the neglect of trees. They excuse themselves by saying that the ancient Greeks had slaves; but one feels free men ought to work as well as slaves! and one can see they know they ought to do better. One great want is population. They can and do live by the rudest systems of culture. I daresay the utter insecurity of country life, which for years (I suppose ages) has prevailed, will have prevented anyone seeing to, or caring for, farming. The Greeks look as if they had much more stamina than the Italians. I fancy their sea life has kept it up; and perhaps their mountain fastnesses, and the fiercer oppression have really been better for them than the enervated life of Italian cities under Austrian, or despotic, cultivated home rule, where the richer and nobler classes must have had the ease of civilisation without the responsibility or duty of self-government. But this is all theory to account for the greater energy one sees. Certainly the Greeks seem to me to have dealt really well with brigandage, in contrast with the Italians. After that dreadful affair in 1870,[93] the House of Deputies enacted a law for four years, punishing the relations of those who were with the brigands, and the villages near which it occurred, which law the English minister here tells us, really extirpated it in a few months, so that the English consuls were able officially to report that, except on the borders and in Thessaly, it no longer existed. Brigandage broke out some time ago in Acarnania, and they instantly re-enacted the law, and it disappeared. It seems to me wise and right in cases where, as here, the crime could only exist by reason of the collusion of the surrounding people. And it must be much kinder than dallying on, as the Italians keep doing in Sicily, first sending and then withdrawing troops. Mr. Corbett was so kind. Gen. Gardiner got me a letter of introduction thro’ Mr. Eric Barrington, who is Secretary to Lord Salisbury; the letter was evidently a very kind one. Mr. Corbett called at once, and gave us full and kind assurances and directions as to our movements. The border land is evidently, as every one has said thro’out, quite unsafe; but everywhere else confidence has been quite restored for some years. We have the very best advice, and shall strictly follow it, so you need not have any fear. By the way, do you know those four poor gentlemen were given a large escort, and they insisted on galloping on, and leaving them two miles behind!! So Mr. Corbett told us. It really makes a great difference as to the blame attached to the Greek authorities.
We went up Mt. Pentelicus on Monday. The day was not fine, it was wet and cold, and we had no view from the top; but I did enjoy it so very much. The colours of all the wild landscape near were so exquisite ... I never saw such lights, even in Italy. (Here follows an account of flowers found, and the difficulty of identifying them without botany books.) I never shall forget the sunset light coming back last night, as we saw it on Pentelicus, Parnes and Hymettus, and on the Acropolis of Athens. There was the grey-green foreground of stone and dead thyme; the red ground here and there ploughed up, the grey-green olive, or full dark pine, set far and far between; then there were the blue shadowed sides and bases of the mountains and their snow-covered tops, now in blue shadow, now in rose-coloured light, and then all the sun-lighted sides of the mountains were rose and gold; and the blue-green sea, turned in places into one silver sheet of ripple, broke on the shores with sweet musical voice. It was like a dream of perfect beauty.... Mrs. Corbett turns out to be a cousin of Lady Ducie’s, and writes most warmly about seeing me.
About difficulties in the school.
Something has set the girls out of tune. I know how trying it is, and how the sense of it shuts one up, and makes it impossible to be oneself, or to trust to them. But I believe, if one could remember at such times what depths of better things there are in every human heart, and how they only need to be believed in and appealed to (especially in these young things), to spring up and grow and thrive, one would more quickly get past these trying times. There is usually either some stupid misconception, or false standard of what is desirable, confusing the young mind, some phantom, which seems good to it, and is not good; or else some real evil, which the child herself knows to be evil, and against which she—the better self—will side with you the teacher, if you can but assume that she is ready to do so. One may beat about the bush for any length of time, by dealing with manifestations of wrong; but if one can get near people, and get their spirits into harmony with God’s will and purpose, and make them feel that one only wants that done, one strikes at the root of the evil, and loses at once the sense of jar, because it is lost in the sense of harmony with the good in people.
... I suppose this will reach you a little before your birthday (tho’ that seems hardly credible); let it bring you my loving wishes for all that is brightest and best. We went on Saturday to Tatoë, which is a little place on Mt. Parnes, where the king has built a little place for summer. It is close to the old pass of Dekelea, which the Spartans fortified, and held during the Peloponnesian War. It was a glorious day, and we thoroughly enjoyed it; Mt. Pentelicus looked quite beautiful. There is a great quantity of fir wood near the king’s place. They have cleared away trees here and there; I fancy, to let one see the giants of the native forest, which stand magnificently, throwing their arms up in the sunshine, a foreground to the blue mountains. The ground was covered with wild golden crocuses, blue anemones; and, here and there, if a little bit of land was sown with corn, there were great crimson anemones growing among it. The utter solitude of the country is so strange here. One drives for miles, and hardly sees a creature. We drove on Monday to the Bay of Phalerum, and spent the afternoon at the Acropolis, and saw the sunset from there. Yesterday a wild, tearing wind arose. We were to to have gone to Phyle, and the mules had been sent on; but the storm of wind raged, so we did not attempt it; in fact we could hardly stand on the hill of Areopagus, or beat our way back along the streets, when we returned from seeing the theatre of Dionysius, and the Stadium. We spent Sunday evening at Mrs. Corbett’s, and last evening at Mrs. Finlay’s, and met Mr. and Mrs. F. Noel. They go to Eubœa soon, and we shall follow soon.... As I sit, I see the snow heavily falling between me and the cypress trees. It does look so out of place.... Every one agrees in one united testimony as to the extinction of brigandage.... Here it is pretty to watch the restored confidence, and the life that is able to grow up under it. They seem to be very cautious still, and send mounted gendarmes out over all these solitary roads; but it is nice to hear the pride with which the gendarme tells you you can go anywhere.... People are beginning to build little houses in the country, and there are other marks of confidence. How interesting it is to hear, on all sides, of the love of education! It seems quite innate; the children clamour to be taught, and especially do they delight in politics. They had no toys till lately. Old Mrs. Hill, who first established schools here for girls, forty years ago, says she never sees the toy-shops without remembering how she brought the first dolls to Athens, and tried to teach the children to play. She says they all sit down to read; boys and girls stand at the corners to discuss politics. Children used to walk from Eleusis and back to attend school here.
We saw, some few hundred yards from the hamlet, an old, broken marble pillar placed there to mark from the surrounding hilly open common a tiny space separated by a rough ridge of earth from the common; but even the ridges had gaps in them, one of which led to a stony path. We followed it, and found ourselves in the churchyard. A few graves, marked with little crosses, and planted with sweet rosemary, gathered round one which alone had a stone, a little railing, and a young date-tree planted at each corner. To our astonishment, we found the inscription in French. It was: “Oh you who pass by, pause and know that here lies an angel who waits for thee beyond there, Beatrice B.... who died in her 15th year, 1877.” It was so simple, and, having no surname, seemed to mark this more. We wondered whether French people were the cultivators, and what was the history. The people were all Greeks at the house doors in the hamlet, and we don’t know enough Greek to ask who has begun the cultivation. Still, we are getting on fast with our Greek. We often wish we knew more. There is an exciting ministerial crisis here—M. Tricoupis, the Liberal candidate, trying to overthrow, on financial questions, M. Koumondouros, the Conservative. People say M. Tricoupis is the man of most principle, but that he has not a strong party. Some of the deputies stay at this hotel, and every night at dinner they have a hot argument; but we cannot even follow the main drift—we only catch a few words here and there. If we knew more, we should learn much more. We have had a Greek master every night, and have been learning the grammar, when Miss Y. would let me; but it is slow work till one gets to the point of hearing.
... There seems so much to tell you of what we see here. I feel always as if I ought to dash into a sort of swift summary of journal, instead of writing, as I should like, about all the things you tell me. I am sure you know how my heart and thoughts follow you all in them, and I think you will like to know many things I am seeing.
The weather has been so wild and wintry that we are glad to be settled here, and shall not move till it is assured spring time. Meanwhile, we are seeing things within a drive, learning Greek, and trying to gather what we can about modern Greek life. Yesterday we went to see Mrs. Hill’s day school for girls. Dr. and Mrs. Hill came here nearly fifty years ago; their work has been supported by the Americans. This school was the first house built in Athens among the hovels. They used some foundations of an ancient market, and say the steps of the school, which were found when they were digging the foundations, may be those up which St. Paul stepped. Dr. and Mrs. Hill built their own house at the same time; and it stands in quite the poor part of Athens, the palace and all the better houses being later, and forming a new quarter. Dr. Hill is now quite blind, and Mrs. Hill too old to teach; but a vigorous and most sympathetic Scotch lady, Miss Muir, lives with them, and carries on their work. I was delighted with her; she and they seem to have been animated with the true spirit of trust in the people, love for them, and desire, not to proselytise, but to work with all that is good and pure in what the people themselves believe—to strengthen that, instead of dwelling on differences. Hence they have never found any difficulty in working with the Greek priests. The lady who was with us kept pressing difficulties upon Miss Muir, and asking her if she was not hampered by this or that; and it was very beautiful to hear her answers. “Have you not great difficulties in not being allowed to read the Bible?” “No,” said Miss Muir; “we read it from end to end if we wish.” “But how about the Greek doctrine and the procession of the Holy Ghost?” “O, the Filioque! we haven’t to touch upon it any way! Do you know there is a little school at the foot of Mount Parnes, from which the priest wrote, asking if we could spare any old spelling books, or maps, or school things, and we gathered together what we could; since which, we have always been interested in the school. And some time ago the priest said they would like some copies of the Bible. I wrote to America, and they sent out twelve copies of the New Testament. Twelve of the elder lads and the priest walked all the way to Athens one day, in pouring rain, to receive these. Some months after they wrote to say that, in reading the New Testament, so many questions came up for which they wanted to refer to the Old Testament. ‘Might they have the Pentateuch?’ So I wrote to America again. When the books came, I drove to Parnes to take them. The priest was absent for a few hours; on his return he rang the great village bell, and all the peasants assembled, and the great boys came forward to receive their books, and I wrote their names in them. ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘is it true that you read these? So many people say you don’t.’ ‘Every day,’ he answered, ‘we have our food of necessities, and something to give it a relish; so daily we have our lessons, and something to give them a relish.’ Many missionaries tell the people they should not cross themselves. To me,” she said, “it is beautiful to see them do it, when I remember what centuries they have lived under the Turks, as a despised and oppressed nation, and think what it must have cost them to make that cross publicly, as they do when they pass a church. It is the assertion of their Christianity. I sometimes ask myself how many of us would have power to make that cross?”
“But aren’t you obliged to have a priest come in and teach?” “No,” said Miss M.; “many come in as friends, and we always invite those we know to the examinations and gatherings; and we have a large number of priests’ children as scholars, but in this school we never had a priest to teach. In Mrs. Hill’s other school she often had a young deacon as pupil teacher. She used to prepare her Bible lessons with him. They are very ignorant, and were delighted to learn and then teach.”
All the human sympathy was so quick and so deep. She showed a tiny orphan boy of 4, left by his mother, at her death, whom they placed in school, to live with the teacher. We asked for a Greek teacher, and she recommended one of two orphan pupil teachers, to whom they had given rooms in the building. All the education in Greece, of rich and poor, was initiated by Dr. and Mrs. Hill. They have still this school of 700 boys and girls, and train their own teachers; but the larger work they helped the Government to start, and then gave it up to them.... I wonder what will be done about the unveiling of St. Christopher. They are not Lady Ducie’s houses, you see. I should like a little ceremony; but it is difficult to imagine a simple natural one, and there seems no place for it.
I wonder how you are. It seems so strange not to know. We went to see Dr. and Mrs. Hill the other day. Such quiet interesting beautiful old people. They remind me of Quakers. They are beloved and respected by every one, Greek and English, poor and sick, and seem to be the only missionaries who have won the people’s hearts, by trying to get them to do better in the way their consciences told them. They are full of stories of all they have seen. They came after the battle of Navarino. The Turks were still here for two years after they came; but the protocols were signed, and the Greeks were preparing to return. They told us lovely loving little stories of the people they had known; of their first teacher, a Greek girl from Crete, who came to them as a child, and became like a daughter to them, and of many of their protegés; but all in the same honouring, affectionate way people speak, who have the power of drawing out what is good in those they meet. There has been the wildest excitement here about the change of ministry. M. Tricoupis has just succeeded M. Koumondouros. Mr. T. seems to be universally respected. The English say he is the Greek they trust. The Greeks say he is before the age, too good for the time, &c. He is the son of a much respected Greek who was for years envoy in London; and he and his sister are supposed to owe much of their enlightenment to English influence; they are much attached to England. His main object is to abolish the payment of a tenth part of the agricultural produce to the Government, which is supposed to press heavily on the people. We hear that it was one great cause of the War of Independence; but it has never yet been altered. He is also understood to be most anxious to alter the practice now in force here, according to which every Government employé, from post office clerks upwards, changes with the ministry. It seems there are £2,000,000 of uncollected taxes in Greece now, the arrears being largely due to the tax-collectors being unable to employ any compulsion, the debtors simply threatening not to vote for the party which enforces payment. There are 500 doctors and 500 lawyers trained here in the University every year; the doctors, they say, do very well, for they go off into the villages in Asia Minor and Turkey. They are trying to improve the education of the priests, and train many; but only five out of every one hundred remain priests. But it all sounds to me like the swift cultivation of a large number of educated men, who must help. It is clear that party feeling runs high, and it is difficult to be sure with what bias statements are made; but, various as are the views, the statement of facts is curiously unanimous; and one listens to the quiet people who sympathise and talk quietly, as well as to the bursts of indignation and scorn; and we seem to learn a good deal. As I say, the facts that all tell us are much the same. We were fortunate yesterday, in being taken to Mlle. Tricoupis. She was very kind; her brother, of course, was too busy to be seen, and she was very tired—she had been receiving till two o’clock the night before, all the Greeks calling to offer congratulations to the new Prime Minister; but she was very kind and talked some little time, tho’ not about any of these burning questions. We are to go again....
I shall be so glad if anything is managed in the way of a little ceremony in Bts. Crt. for St. Christopher. I see many difficulties, but I should like it. I am specially glad if it leads to telling the people the story. Will the unveiler read one to the people, I wonder? And where? It seems a pity there is no space in the court where the people can gather. I had been wondering what could be devised in the way of a ceremony, and had thought of little medals with date and motto to be given to eldest and youngest child in each family resident there a given time, and their marching in procession thro’ St. Christopher’s room to receive them, with music and flowers and flags; but I think it would mean a great deal of labour. I think these common memories good for tenants and workers. I don’t much fear stone throwing; but one never quite knows how people will see things; one may throw a stone where fifty look with interest. I hope and believe they will like the thing; but if anything does happen I am always ready for failure in preparing the hearts of people for any new thing; some one must pay the cost in disappointment. I am quite willing to do so.
... We went up Pentelicus and had a lovely day. It is a splendid view from the top. One sees Eubœa with its long range of snow mountains and its narrow strait, and Helena and Andros and the mountain ranges of Parnes, Cithæron and Parnassus; and Hymettus, and Athens and its plain; below lies Marathon with its red soil and blue bay—indeed blue bays of the sea seem to be around one almost everywhere. Last evening we spent at the Hills’. Mrs. H. was saying that letters, when first they came here, were 7 months coming from America; that they could negotiate no bill of exchange here; when they wanted money Dr. H. used to have to go and fetch it from Smyrna, to which, of course, moreover, there were none but sailing ships. She said they never knew how long it would take, especially because of the quarantine. Plague raged at Constantinople and Jerusalem, so that vessels were often and often kept six weeks with passengers in quarantine. She says the last plague was in 1843.... We went to the House of Deputies to hear a debate, in the box of the Diplomatic Corps, and could see well, and could have heard had we known more Greek. It was very curiously interesting to see the House. The gallery is open to the public, and was quite densely packed with a crowd of the very poorest people, with earnest, eager eyes, watching and listening, with an intentness beyond what I ever saw at the play. Crowds outside, too, were standing, talking and waiting; and this goes on day after day. Mr. Darcy, the clergyman here, took us; and he knew all the members, and pointed them out to us and told us about them. I have been reading some very interesting statistics about Greece, published seven or eight years ago. Do you know that since the independence her population has doubled, and her revenue has increased 500 per cent.?—the children in school were between 6,000 and 7,000 and are now 81,000. I forget the increase of acres cultivated, but it is very large.
We went yesterday to Phyle, and saw the actual fortified place held by Thrasybulus against the 30 tyrants. The gigantic walls still stand. We went with Miss Muir, who is so friendly and delightful with all the people, it is beautiful to see. It reminds me of going about with Miss Cons. She always finds out all about the people and finds helpful things to do for them; and it makes one see all the gentle, helpful, friendly, hospitable side. It is so different from going about with guides. We had such a glorious day. We drove for 10 miles over a very bad road to a village called Chassia, quite up in a ravine of Parnes. There the road stopped, and I had a mule, and we went for 2½ hours into the folds of the mountain ravines, till we came to the great promontory-like rock. The utter solitude, the exquisite blue of the shadows on the gigantic cliff-like rocks, the clear sun-filled air, the fresh breeze, the far away look of plain or hill or bay alive with noble memories filled me with a strange awed joy. I am much touched with the nation. I am afraid I shall never tell you all that makes me feel towards them as I do. I am getting such a vivid impression of the people, its hopes and admirations, and capacities. It is clearly growing. I have been reading a great many official statistics, which show the wonderful growth. I cannot but believe it has a great future. I sometimes think of Matthew Arnold’s ideas about Hellenism, and wonder whether in very deed the people may be destined to bring out that side of human nature he speaks of as so wanting in the “Hebrew”;—the sort of intellectual grasp and reverence for thought and intangible things. Yet the nation has hard work just now with its tangible things, and is working to get them into order. Also it has, in its suffering under the Turks, clung with tenacity to its Christian faith, which is more than life to it; and this feeling is intensified by the faith being connected with the nation, the early martyrs for national freedom being many of them bishops. We were present in the metropolitan church at the anniversary of Greek independence. The king and the children were there. It was strange to see the tremendous crowd, the solitary Lutheran king, the tiny children standing between him and the people crossing themselves, and the gorgeously dressed priests who seem so human and so near the people compared with the Catholic clergy. With respect to the national worship for an idea—THE families who are considered great here are those who have lost their all at Missolonghi, or in supplying ships from Hydra!
... How delighted you will be about the elections! Is it not really marvellous; I never expected it! It is strange sometimes how silent England is, and yet how her heart rings true! I am filled with prayerful, almost tremulous, hope that the new Government will live up to a high standard. Oh! do you think it will? It is pathetic to see how happy the Greeks are about it, and how much they hope from England now. Sometimes I fear the Liberals will not have courage to tax to meet past expenditure quickly, as they ought; or to deal generously with the little struggling nationalities. Those I shall feel the test questions for them, as to their consciences. I believe they will deal with the question of land, which will be good. The Barnetts are here, and Mr. B. very much interested about the elections in England.... Mr. B.’s whole heart is at home, and in talking of it....
We started on our travels again yesterday, and seem to have seen a great deal. We drove from Athens to Megara yesterday—we being Miss Yorke, Miss Muir, a very nice Swiss lady, and myself. We were received and entertained by a hand-loom weaver, who knew Miss Muir. They were so kind; they gave up to us a large room, their best, and all slept in their second room, which led thro’ ours. Our beds were spotlessly clean, but laid on the earthen floor, after we had all had supper together, father, mother, married son and his wife, and half the village looking on. I never saw more affectionate welcome, or more native courtesy than they all showed. The son and his young wife spent the afternoon taking us to call on their friends and relations. It was so touching and beautiful; the very poorest people receiving us with such a dignified bearing; and everywhere we had to take something. One old woman, the mother of 12 children, and quite poor, was quite distressed she had nothing but some figs and nuts to give us. She remembered the time of the Turks and the dreadful hardships. Our host had come out of Thessaly to be in “free Greece,” after it was known that Thessaly was not to belong to Greece. “Oh”! he said, “they brought the children away in boxes, or anything, to get them safe into Greece.”
Megara is a populous village, almost entirely composed of houses of one room only. The people wear the most lovely costume, and carry themselves magnificently, so that every group forms a picture. There was nothing pretty in the old houses, so I am glad to hear they were beginning to build themselves better ones. We saw more of their life than we could have seen anyhow else, and heard more of their sayings. I shall just jot down a few, anyhow, to be sure to tell you. They never speak harm of anything, especially in the evening. They call the worst bit of a road Kali Scali, Kali meaning good; and in the evening they respectfully call vinegar “the little sweet thing.” Many of their expressions are formed from agricultural work. When Miss Muir’s glove was lost they were much distressed, and said someone must have “reaped” it. The bride and bridegroom are married in crowns which are framed and hung up; and when they die they are buried in them. The sons have to marry in regular order of age, and must not do so till their sisters are married off. The boys and girls—mere children—never stand together; the most eager crowds of lookers-on yesterday sorted themselves, the boys being on one side, and the girls on the other. They speak very freely to those above them in rank, our host kept addressing Miss Muir: “Oh, sister, what sayest thou?” tho’ the you is well distinguished from “thou.” There is no water in the village, but a large washing place outside it—great stone troughs by the spring; every girl, when she marries, has to receive one as part of her dowry. The unmarried girls wear a complete skull-cap made of half drachmas, about sixpence each; they never wear the cap after marriage, and never unthread it for use, unless in dire need. These people gave us food, lodging, and all their time, and turned out of their room, and would not hear of receiving anything. As we came along to-day, we met a flock of sheep with lambs; and Miss M. heard the muleteers tell the shepherd to wait till they came back, as they must take the Paschal lamb back for our host’s family. So we united to send the lamb back as a present. The people are all rigidly fasting; their Lent is not over. Not a man will touch any meat we offer him. At Easter every family buys a lamb, fattens and kills it. We had a sort of royal reception; the priest, the demarch, the schoolmaster, and all the people coming down. Here we four, utter strangers, rode up dusty and tired, sent in to the banker here a letter of introduction for Mr. Dufour, and all four were instantly received, lodged, and fed as a matter of course.
We came on by the Greek steamer here yesterday. Mr. Barnett brought me from Athens your delightful letter and dear Miranda’s, and some newspapers.... We have seen the Consul and his wife—delightful people. They have recommended us a former servant of their own, who was with them for years, to drive us to Olympia. The same man lately took Mr. Newton, the chief man at the British Museum. It is a four days’ drive there and back, and Miss Muir and Mr. Dufour left us at Corinth, so we are thoroughly glad to have a trustworthy man. We are in high spirits, the weather glorious; and we are looking forward to going very much. Part of to-day’s drive is thro’ four hours of oak forest! I do not know if we told you about Olympia. The Germans are excavating there, and have found all the temples buried under sand brought down by the Alpheus, and some grand statues, one of Hermes, as fine as any of the world-famous statues. It is very fine of the German Government to take all the expense. They spent 10,000 francs annually on it till this year, when they are too poor; and the Emperor himself has given 5,000 that the work may not cease. Yet they are to have nothing for it except the right of taking casts. Everything they find is to belong to the Greek Government; only they stipulated that the Greeks should make them a road. Scientific Germans are there directing, with 500 Greek workmen. They say they are such splendid workmen, better than Germans—so the director says. We take all our food with us to-day, and sleep at a khan. At Olympia the director’s cook will take us in. It is all very funny. Here there is a very nice hotel. We find our Greek most useful. I am so delighted about the English news of elections.
I seem to have such a number of things to tell you, I hardly know how to begin. We left Patras at 6 o’clock on Monday morning, and drove on and on for miles, along the bright sea-shore, just on the beach; then we turned inland, along the roughest roads; no boundary road in a remote district in England could be worse. We had to go at a foot’s pace; but it was all lovely, great masses of asphodel in full bloom, bushes of broom one sheet of gold, crimson carpets of great cranesbill; olive, oak, and terebinth; and between, and over them, we saw the bright sea and the blue mountains. We drove thro’ countless streams, large and small, now fording rivers, now plunging down steep banks. Then we came to the oak forest thro’ which we drove, incessantly, over the smooth turf, or gravelly soil, for four hours. The oaks stand, not close together, but as in an English park, here and there, thicker or more scattered, on slopes, or spaces of turf. Many of the trees were old and knotted; some had suffered by fire; here and there were parts full of rich underwood; and then we came to smooth sheets of delicate blue with the tiny iris; the mountains were always in sight. There was hardly a trace of cultivation; hardly a house the whole day to be seen; and we drove incessantly till 6 at night. We stayed the night at a khan, they say one of the best in Greece; and the wall and beds were clean; but it is a strange kind of savage accommodation. The dogs barked so, and the wind howled over the great plain we had reached; I could not sleep much. Next day—yesterday—we started at 5 in the morning, having cooked and eaten our breakfast. The clouds, which had gathered over night, broke away before the sun; and we had a magnificent day. We drove on and on, thro’ uncultivated wastes rather like our heaths, thro’ water courses, and usually off the road, it was so bad; but with the most splendid light, and a view of the sea, and Zante in the distance. At mid-day we dined here; and then drove on to Olympia in a sunlight I never shall forget. The road from here to Olympia is very good. It has been made by the Greek Government, that being the one condition the Germans made on undertaking the excavations. We excited the greatest amazement, as no ladies do anything alone here; it is very amusing. The country is much more cultivated near here; and, going to Olympia, we saw several villages; but still it was very strange to drive for 3½ hours up, as it were, into the heart of an untraversed country, and find the road stopping in the heart of a remote valley, where a handful of Germans had undertaken this curious great work. Five hundred Greek workmen were digging and carting and shovelling. Our coachman led us to a sort of foreman, who asked us if we spoke German or Greek. He spoke no English, but some Italian. We asked for a lodging, and he sent one of his men to take us to the cottage of the director’s cook, who has 3 spare rooms. We climbed a steep hill overlooking the excavations, on which stood one new, well-built house. We were led to such a cottage that I felt as if we hardly could sleep there. However the bed was clean, and the view something splendid. We ate our dinner laid on a board on the top of a stool; and we sat on the bed. We had not an atom of blind, nor a chair!—After that we got a man with a lantern; and, armed with one of Mrs. Coupland’s introductions, a visiting card, and the name of a Dr. and Mrs. Irvi, mentioned to us by the Consul at Patras, we went off to what the peasants call the “German house.”—I had hardly sent in my card with message of enquiry before Mrs. Irvi came out with kindest words and hurried us in to a room where sat, after their dinner, the little company of Germans, who are directing the work. She introduced us to Herr Kurtzius, who speaks English. Such a man! but I must tell you of him later. Mrs. I. was so kind, would make us have coffee and stay, and would go back with us to see where we were lodged. She laughed, saying, “Oh yes! its our very best hotel here, you could not do better.” Three gentlemen friends of theirs were sleeping there too. The German house is quite full.—We breakfasted with the Irvis at 7 o’clock, and then Herr K. came with his plan, and for three hours shewed us over the excavations. He is such a man! |GERMAN EXCAVATIONS AT OLYMPIA| It has evidently been the dream of his life to do this thing; and now it is nearly done. You can see by the far away look of his great blue eyes, and the way he stumbles over the wood and stones in his path, that his thoughts are of the past and the future, or, at any rate, not of the earth, earthy. It was he who imagined doing this thing, mentioned it to the Crown Prince, who got the German Parliament to pay; and now they have excavated, at a depth of often 20 feet of gravel, the whole space on which the temples and their surrounding buildings stood. The space occupied is that bounded on the south by the Alpheus, just where a smaller river joins it. This triangular space lies at the foot of a small sand hill. But such a valley as it is! And between the mountains that bound it you can see the opening to the defiles leading south to Messina, north to Corinth, east to Sparta; and all round the wooded hills look down upon the sunny plain, and you can almost see the old Greeks trooping in from every quarter. The foundations of all the buildings are found, the bases of walls and pillars in their places, the steps, the entrances, the pedestals of the statues all in their places. Twenty-one statues (or the principal part of them) from the pediments have been found, besides the Hermes and Bacchus of Praxiteles, and numbers of Roman statues, and a lovely Greek figure of the Winged Victory descending. The Hermes is splendid. He carries the infant Bacchus on his arm, such a sweet child; the head was only found last week. The early statues from the pediment are very powerful, massive and expressive, but not so delicate nor so exquisitely true in artistic power. I almost think the whole scene impressed me most. The great temple of Zeus stands in the centre of the ground, its mighty pillars shattered by earthquake. One sees the pedestal of the gold figure of Zeus sixty feet high, which was taken from Byzantium; one sees all round the other temples. The one to Hera is one of the oldest. Pelops has a temple too; but, being a hero who died, not a god who lives always, its entrance is to the setting sun, not on the East like those of the rest. Then there is the Gymnasium, where the youths practised with the rough stones, that they might not slip in wrestling, and the smooth ones for their masters still lying in their places. Beyond are the eleven treasure houses, built by eleven of the Greek towns, each for their own votive offerings to the gods, which on great feast days were opened and their glories displayed. Then I was interested to see the one that belonged to Megara. There is a great arched passage, leading from the space where the altars were, thro’ which, after sacrificing to the gods, the judges and competitors in solemn procession walked, not being visible to the people assembled to see the games, till they came out of the passage. Two statues, one of Fortune and one of Nemesis, were found, which watched over this way—the one supposed to remind competitors how Fortune might favour or injure them, the other to warn the judges and competitors alike of the punishment which certainly overtakes any breach of fairness. We saw the stone from which the runners started; and, exactly 600 feet beyond, where they knew it ought to be, these Germans dug down twenty-one feet thro’ the gravel, and found the goal or opposite starting place. We saw the men washing tiny little bronze figures of animals about one and a half inches long, which they had just found, which are supposed to be votive offerings from the very poor to the god. They are green with age now.
These Germans leave in a month or two; and the 500 men cease working. They will be dreadfully missed; for they have brought work and money, and civilisation and visitors, right up into the heart of the country. The place will be left—the Greek Pompeii—to the Greeks to take care of. They have to build a museum and arrange the treasures. Herr Kurtzius carries away all he has learned. He has sent to Berlin the casts and plans and maps; and there they are making models of the thing as he found it, and as he thinks it was of old. He takes, one may say—nothing; but one sees that to him to have done what enables him to know is all. He doesn’t look as if he worked for fame, or for others, but to know and to see. As he showed us the things, now and then he flashed up, as if it were all before him, and spoke of the life that had been as if he saw, sometimes gently stroked the faces of the statues, pointing out how perfect they were; now and again his eyes looked out as to some further thought he did not tell.
We post this at Patras, where we arrived safely to-night (April 16th); to-morrow we go by steamer to Athens, where I hope to find news of you all.