It was very hot, and the road was very dusty— indeed the whole country about appeared parched up to the last degree of drought. We put up the windows, but the dust still got in, and before long our beards assumed a most venerable appearance. We stopped to bait at a little wine-shed half-way on the road, where there was a well, and where one or two Albanians lounging about under a rude trellis of grapes made an effective “bit.” Here we had some iced lemonade, which appeared to be all the establishment afforded, with some lumps of Turkish sweetmeat; and then we dragged on again for another half-hour, in the heat and dust, until we were deposited at the door of the Hotel d’Orient—a fine house furnished in the English fashion, and formerly a palace, as the touter had informed us. Hemetri now told us that he let horses with English saddles to travellers; and that if we wished to see all the “lions,” we must hire some, otherwise there would not be time to do so. So we had up some stumbling ponies from the town, for which we were to pay a dollar each; and then started to visit the wonders, and be back to dinner by five o’clock.
“Athens in six hours” is rather quick work to be sure; however, after I had been taken the round of the usual sights, I should have been sorry to have remained there much longer. But the exceeding beauty of the ruins can scarcely be overpraised ; albeit the degree of enthusiasm, real or conventional, with which one regards them, must depend entirely upon such early classical training as the traveller may have been fortunate enough to have undergone. Yet I doubt whether I could have gazed upon those graceful remains with greater delight than I did on this occasion, had I gone through any further preparation to visit them than had been afforded by an ordinary public school education tour bulgaria.
Lovely symmetry
Apart from their histories and their associations—their lovely symmetry, the effect of their clean sandstone colour against the bright blue sky, their admirable position, and the horizon of finely swelling purple hills almost surrounding them, broken to the south-west by the silver harbour of the Piraeus, were quite sufficient to call up the most vivid sensations of delight. Their beauty, also, was enhanced by the picturesque people who idled about them—all was so artistic, so sunny, so admirably thrown together, that whichever way the eye was turned, it appeared to rest on the reality of some exquisite drop-scene.
Guardians are stationed where there is anything to knock off and carry away more portable than the Elgin marbles The interior of the temple of Theseus is used as a museum; and the fragments are of greater interest, even to the most ordinary traveller, than such as he may elsewhere encounter. Here wre made a luncheon from some singularly fine grapes and fresh figs, with bread, spread on part of a column, and then proceeded to the Acropolis, which Demetri had properly kept for the last visit. From hence the view was most superb, but it wanted the relief of green. Everything for miles round was baked up.
The channel of the Ilyssus was without water, and the barley which covers the undulating ground had all been cut, leaving only the naked hot reddish tracts of land. The guardians had a sort of habitation below the Propylsea, and cultivated a few vegetables in small artificial gardens, the leaves of which looked quite refreshing. Amongst the masses of marble ruins which the Turks had tumbled down from the Parthenon, to make cannon balls from, or grind up for mortar, several wild plants trailed and flourished. One of these bore a green fruit which, being ripe, burst into dust the instant it was touched, however gently, by the foot; and the guides appeared more anxious to call the attention of the visitors to this fact, than to the solemn glories of the Acropolis.
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