of yellow flowers were growing, with some daisies. Among the gray
limestone blocks of the orchestra I found a quantity of excellent
blackberries. Where once was the stage, there are now brown grasses
dried up by the sun. This theater is very steep, and above it towers
a precipice. Near by, between the theater and the stadium, Parnassus
gives back to your cry a swift and sharp echo. The gold, red-gold, and
gray stadium, which lies farther up the mountain than the theater,
is partly ruined, but in parts is well preserved. As I stood in it,
thinking of the intellectual competitions that used to take place
there, of the poems recited in it, of the music the lyre gave forth,
and of the famous Pythian games, which, later, used to be celebrated in
this strange mountain fastness, I saw eagles wheeling over me far up in
the blue, above the wild gray and orange peaks.
In the museum, which stands in a splendid position on the
mountain-side, with a terrace before it, there are many fine things.
Delphi in the time of its greatness contained thousands of statues,
great numbers of which were in bronze. Nero, Constantine, and others
carried hundreds of them away. One which they left, a bronze charioteer
in a long robe, faces you as you enter the museum. It is marvelously
alive, almost seems to glow with vitality. The feet should be specially
noticed. They are bare, and are miracles of sensitiveness. Farther
on there is a splendid Antinous, robust, sensual, egoistic, a type
of muscular beauty and crude determination, without heart or any
sparkle of intellect. Two other statues which I thought exceptionally
interesting are of a sturdy, smiling child and of a headless and
armless woman. The latter, numbered in the catalogue 1817, is very
gracious and lovely. The back of the figure and the drapery, especially
that part of it which flows from under the left arm to the heel of
the right foot, are exceptionally beautiful.
[Illustration: SITE OF ANCIENT DELPHI
PAINTED FOR THE CENTURY BY JULES GUÉRIN]
There is a very fine view from the terrace. Toward evening it becomes
wonderfully romantic. Far off, the village of Arachova, perched on its
high ridge, bounds the horizon. It is a view closed in by mountains
yet not oppressive; for there is width between the two ranges, and the
large volcanic slopes are splendidly spacious. Here and there on these
slopes are large wine-colored splashes such as you see often on the
mountains of Syria, and these splashes give warmth to the scene. Above
the Castalian fountain the two peaks of the Phædriadæ, a thousand feet
high, stand up magnificently. Between them is the famous cleft from
which the cold stream issues, to flow down through the olive-groves.
When evening falls, follow the winding white road a little way toward
Arachova. From the soft dusk of the defile that spreads out into the
plain of Krissa the goat-bells still chime melodiously. I have heard
them even very late in the night. The section of sea that was turquoise
now looks like solid silver. Behind it the mountains, velvety and
black, flow away in delicate shapes. They are dreamlike, but beyond
them rise other ethereal ranges which seem to you, as you gaze on
them, impalpable, fluid almost, like a lovely imagination of mountains
summoned up in your mind. Black-green is the plain. Under the tree of
Agamemnon glows a tiny light, like an earth-bound star. Where once the
pilgrims gathered who knew only the gods, Christian hands have tended
the lamp before the holy picture. And a little farther on, among the
foliage of the olive-trees, shines another of these Christian stars,
which, in the darkness of Delphi’s solitudes, shed their light, faintly
perhaps, but faithfully, upon a way once often trodden by pagans who
now sleep the last long sleep. To what changes in the human soul do
these earth-bound stars bear witness! I sat beneath Agamemnon’s tree,
listening to the cry of the fountain, watching the little lights, till
the night was black about me.
I must always think of Olympia as the poetic shrine of one of the most
poetic statues in the world. As the Parthenon seems to be the soul of
Athens, so the Hermes of Praxiteles seems to be the soul of Olympia;
gathering up and expressing its aloofness from all ugly things, its
almost reflective tenderness, its profound calm, and its far-off
freedom from any sadness. When I stayed there I was the only traveler.
Never did I see any human being among the beautiful ruins or hear any
voice to break their silence. Only the peasants of that region passed
now and then on the winding track below the hill of Cronus, to lose
themselves among the pine-trees. And I heard only at a distance the
wonderful sound, like eternity’s murmur withdrawn, that the breeze
makes among their branches, as I sat by the palace of Nero.
Nature has taken Olympia into her loving arms. She has shed her
pine-needles and her leaves of the golden autumn upon the seats where
the wrestlers reposed. She has set her grasses and flowers among the
stones of the Temple of Zeus. Her vines creep down to the edge of
that cup of her earth which holds gently, as a nurse holds a sleeping
child, palaces, temples, altars, shrines of the gods and ways for the
chariots. All the glory of men has departed, but something remains
which is better than glory--peace, loveliness, a pervading promise of
lasting things beyond.
Among the ruins of Nero’s palace I watched white butterflies flitting
among feathery, silver grasses and red and white daisies. Lizards
basked on the altar of Zeus. At the foot of the Heræum, the most
ancient temple that may be seen in Greece at this time, a jackal whined
in its dwelling. Sheep-bells were sounding plaintively down the valley
beyond the arch leading to the walled way by which the great stadium,
where the games took place, was entered. When I got up presently to
stroll among the ruins, I set my foot on the tiny ruts of an uneven
pavement, specially constructed so that the feet of contending athletes
should not slip upon it.
The ruins lie in a sheltered and remote valley far away from the sea,
and surrounded by gentle hills, woods, and delightful pastoral country.
At some distance is the last railway-station of the Peloponnesian
railway line, which connects with the main line at Pyrgos. Between the
station and the low hill on which stand the hotel and the museum is
strung out a small, straggling hamlet of peasants’ houses. It is very
difficult to realize that this remote sanctuary, hidden away in the
green glades and amid the pastures of Elis, where the waters of Cladeus
and Alpheus glide among reeds and rushes, was ever crowded with people
from all parts of Greece; that emperors dwelled there; that there the
passions of the mob were roused to intense expression; that there men
gained the desire of their hearts or were exposed to the sneers and
opprobrium of their fellows. For Olympia to-day looks like an ideal
home for the great god Pan.
I have called the ruins beautiful, and I think them so, partly because
of their situation, with which they seem to me to combine harmoniously,
and partly because of nature’s collaboration with them, which is
lacking from the ruins at Eleusis and even at Delphi. At Olympia many
trees grow among the remains of the temples. A river runs by them.
Excavations, though usually interesting, are often both dusty and ugly.
At Olympia they are pastoral. Dryads might love them. Pan might sit
happily on almost any bit of the walls and play his pipe. They form
a unique sylvan paradise, full of wonderful associations, in which
one is tempted to rest for hours, whereas from many ruins one wishes
only to get away once they have been examined. And yet Olympia is so
fragmentary that many persons are bitterly disappointed with what they
find there, as the visitors’ book in the little hotel bears witness.
In all the mass of remains, and they cover a very large extent of
ground, I think I saw only four complete columns standing. Two of these
were columns of the Heræum, in which the Hermes of Praxiteles was found
lying among the remnants. They are golden-brown in color, and are of
course Doric, very massive and rather squat. The temple, the base of
which is very clearly marked, must have looked very powerful, but, I
should think, heavy rather than really majestic. I cannot imagine the
wonderfully delicate Hermes standing within it. It is believed that the
original columns of the Heræum were of wood, and that when they began
to rot away the stone columns were put up in their places. Much of the
temple was made of brick. The Hermes stood between two of the columns.
It will be evident to any one who examines carefully all that is left
of the Temple of Zeus that it must have been very grand. Fragments of
the shafts of its columns, which are heaped in confusion on the ground,
are enormous. One block, which I found poised upright on its rounded
edge, was quite six feet high. This temple was made of limestone, which
is now of a rather dreary, almost sinister, gray color. Exposure to
the weather has evidently darkened it. The foundations are terrific.
They suggest titanic preparations for the bearing up of a universe
of stone. It seems to me that from what is left of this celebrated
building, which stands in the middle of the sacred precinct, and which
once contained Phidias’s statue of Zeus, about forty feet high, one can
gather something of what was the builder’s conception of the chief of
all the gods of Olympus. To them he must surely have been simply the
Thunderer, a deity terrific and forbidding, to whose worship must be
raised a temple grand but probably almost repellent. Legend relates
that when Phidias had completed his great statue of Zeus, and it had
been placed in position, Zeus sent down a thunderbolt which struck
the ground close to the statue. The Greeks considered the thunderbolt
to be the god’s characteristic expression of content. Instead of the
eagles of Zeus, I saw hovering over, and perching upon, this ruin black
and white birds, with long tails, not unlike magpies. The statue of
Zeus disappeared. It is known to have been taken to Constantinople,
and in that tempestuous city it vanished, like so much else. In the
time of Olympia’s glory the temple was elaborately decorated, with
stucco, painting, gilding, marble tiles, shields, and vases, as well
as with many statues. But despite this, I think it must have been far
less satisfying than the calm and glorious Parthenon, in which seems
to dwell rather the spirit of a goddess than the spirit of any human
builders.
Earthquakes are frequent at Olympia, and have been so since the most
ancient times. One destroyed the greater part of Zeus’s temple about
four hundred years after Christ. By that time the Olympic games had
ceased to be held, and no doubt the place was beginning to fall into
the neglect which, with the lapse of the centuries, has become so
romantic. After it was forgotten by men, nature began to remember and
love it. Very little of the famous stadium has been excavated. I found
flocks of sheep and goats feeding peacefully above it, and near by a
small, barefooted boy, with a little gun, out after quail.
On the first day of my visit to Olympia, after spending a few hours
alone among the ruins I crossed the river, where I saw some half-naked
men dragging for fish with hand-nets, and mounted the hill to the
museum, which looks out over the delicious valley, and is attended by
some umbrella-pines. It was closed, but the keeper came smiling from
his dwelling close by to let me in. He did not follow me far, but sat
down in the vestibule among the Roman emperors.
On my right I saw the entrance to what seemed a small gallery, or
perhaps a series of small rooms. In front of me was a large, calm,
well-lighted hall, with a wooden roof and walls of a deep, dull red,
round which were ranged various objects. My eyes were attracted
immediately to one figure, a woman apparently almost in flight,
radiantly advancing, with thin draperies floating back from an
exquisitely vital form--the celebrated “Victory” of Pæonius, now more
than two thousand years old. Beyond this marvel of suggested motion I
saw part of another room very much smaller than the hall and apparently
empty. It drew me on, as in certain Egyptian temples the dim holy of
holies draws the wanderer onward with an influence that may not be
resisted. I took no more heed of the “Victory,” of Hercules winning the
apples of the Hesperides, or of anything else, but walked forward, came
into the last room, and found myself alone with the Hermes of Olympia.
The room in which the Hermes stands--alone save for the little child
on his arm--is exactly opposite the distant entrance of the museum.
The keeper, when letting me in, had left the big door wide open. In my
heart I thanked him, but not at that moment, for just then I did not
notice it. I was looking at the Hermes.
A great deal of sad nonsense is talked in our day by critics of art,
music, and literature about “restraint.” With them the word has become
a mere parrot cry, a most blessed word, like Mesopotamia. They preach
restraint very often to those who have little or nothing to restrain.
The result is nullity. In striving to become “Greek,” too many unhappy
ones become nothing at all. Standing before the Hermes of Olympia, one
realizes as never before the meaning, the loveliness, of restraint,
of the restraint of a great genius, one who could be what he chose to
be, and who has chosen to be serene. This it is to be Greek. Desire of
anything else fails and lies dead. In the small and silent room, hidden
away from the world in the green wilderness of Elis, one has found that
rare sensation, a perfect satisfaction.
Naked the Hermes stands, with his thin robe put off, and flowing down
over the trunk of a tree upon which he lightly leans. He is resting
on his way to the nymphs, but not from any fatigue. Rather, perhaps,
because he is in no haste to resign his little brother Dionysus to
their hands for education. Semele, the mother, is dead, and surely this
gracious and lovely child, touching because of his innocent happiness,
his innocent eagerness in pleasure, looks to Hermes as his protector.
He stretches out one soft arm in an adorable gesture of desire. The
other clings to the shoulder of Hermes. And Hermes watches him with an
expression of divine, half-smiling gentleness, untouched by sadness, by
any misgiving, such as we often feel as to the future of a little child
we love; Hermes watches him, contemplative, benign, celestial.
There is a pause in the hurry, in the sorrow, of this travailing
world; there is a hush. No more do the human cries sound in the midst
of that darkness which is created by our misunderstanding. No longer
do the frantic footfalls go by. The golden age has returned, with its
knowledge of what is not needed--a knowledge that we have lost.
I looked up from Hermes and the little brother, and, in the distance,
through the doorway of the museum, I saw a tiny picture of Elis bathed
in soft, golden light; a calm hillside, some green and poetic country,
and, in the foreground, like a message, a branch of wild olive.
That is what we need, what secretly we desire, our branch, perhaps our
crown, of wild olive. And all the rest is as nothing.
(To be continued)
AN ELEPHANT ROUND-UP
BY D. P. B. CONKLING
[Illustration]
Ninety miles from the mouth of the Menam River lies the city of
Ayuthia, the old capital of Siam. The jungle has taken back to itself
miles of its ancient grandeur, and temples, palaces, and brick roadways
lie crumbling and half buried in the rank luxuriance of the tropical
forest. To the north, east, and west, except on the very banks of the
river, the country stretches out in one unbroken line of wilderness,
and this primeval jungle-land forms the great elephant preserve of the
king. Here the huge herds wander in absolute freedom, making unmolested
raids upon the paddy-fields and palm-orchards of the river villages,
lords of the land except in the event of a great “round-up,” when the
royal mahouts, mounted on tame tuskers, form in an immense circle and
slowly drive one or more herds steadily toward the kraal at Ayuthia.
With the exception on some few miles of roadways in Bangkok, Siam
is destitute of the ordinary modes of communication, and the entire
transportation of the country is by rivers and canals or by elephants.
All the great up-country produce is packed by them through the jungle
to the waterways, over roads made by themselves and quite impassable
for any other beast of burden. Therefore the capture of young tuskers
to be tamed and trained for this work forms, perhaps, _the_ event of
the year to the natives.
The kraal at Ayuthia is four hundred feet square, formed of teak-wood
logs, set about two feet apart and fifteen feet high, bound strongly
with iron and forming a barrier which is seldom broken even by the
strongest tuskers. The entrance is at the end immediately adjoining the
jungle, and two lines of stockade extend in the shape of a fan a mile
or more into the forest. In the center of the paddock is a small square
of ten feet, built in the same way as the outer barrier, and used as a
place of refuge for the natives employed in cutting-out and tying up
the captives.
In the round-up that we had the good fortune to see there were exactly
two hundred and thirteen wild elephants brought in. Thirty trained
mounts, each with his two mahouts, together with hundreds of natives
on foot, had been at work for two or more weeks getting this herd
together, and safely into the kraal. The driving of this huge mass of
beasts day after day until finally the last rush is made and the herd
is well inside the fan, requires more nerve, patience, and skill than
perhaps any other form of capture in the world. It is not unusual that
many men are killed in this work, for if once the herd gets scent of
danger, nothing can withstand their fearful charge. While there is no
animal in which docility and kindness are more strongly marked than in
the elephant, let him once become wicked, or “rogue,” as a man-killer
is called, and there is no other beast which shows equal ferocity and
cruelty, combined with an absolutely devilish cunning.
The first signs of the approaching herd were a great cloud of dust
and a dull roar like a heavy freight-train, making the ground fairly
tremble; and then out of the mist came the huge beasts, pushing and
fighting as they were packed closer in the converging fan, and making
the air ring with their shrill trumpetings.
The large swinging beams at the entrance were pulled aside, and in they
came with a rush, by twos and threes, stopping suddenly, and looking
about in a dazed way at the yelling crowd of natives perched out of
danger high on the walls beyond the stockade. When the whole herd was
in and the paddock closed, they were left to themselves for a time
before the real work of the day, from a spectator’s point of view at
least, began.
In a herd of this size it is remarkable how few elephants there are
that are fit for training--only eight in this case. They must be young,
strong, and well built, with promise of good tusks. The cutting-out
proceedings opened in a truly circus-like style. The exit by the
side of the pavilion was opened, and seven of the largest tame tuskers
entered in single file, led by the king’s chief mahout mounted on a
superb animal.
[Illustration: Half-tone plate engraved by S. Davis
A ROUND-UP FESTIVAL--TWO HUNDRED ELEPHANTS IN THE OUTER PEN]
Each elephant carried two men, the mahout sitting astride the neck and
guiding his mount by the pressure of his knees as well as by shouting,
the second man sitting over the hind quarters and by means of the goad
urging the beast to quicken his pace either forward or backward. The
mahouts carried a long bamboo pole, to one end of which was fastened
the detachable noose of a coil of rope on his elephant’s back.
When the seven tuskers had formed in line, they drove the herd in a
circle around the center refuge. After a short time, one of the young
elephants would drift to the rear rank, and a mahout, urging his mount
forward, would slip the noose under one of the youngster’s hind feet,
detach the pole by a quick jerk, and turning sharply and paying out the
coil of rope at the same time, would bring the line taut and fix the
noose firmly in place. The end would then be untied from the saddle
of the tame mount, and the young tusker would go racing madly back to
the herd, dragging fifty yards of rope after him. This operation was
repeated for each of the eight captives, and in some instances, when
the youngsters seemed particularly fractious, both hind feet would be
roped.
After all the ropes were made fast, the herd was let loose, the tame
mounts mingling with it, and gradually forcing the roped animals closer
to the posts to which they were respectively tied, the slack being
taken up by men outside the stockades, and made fast, leaving them
secured within a small radius of ten or fifteen yards. The mahouts now
left the kraal for a short breathing-space, and the herd wandered about
sucking up every possible drop of water from the pools made by the rain
of the night before, throwing it high over their backs to cool their
hot hides from the burning sun.
It was amusing to watch the frantic efforts of the baby elephants,
of which there were a considerable number, to keep from being
trampled upon by the herd. In every instance their coign of vantage
was immediately beneath their mother, and they showed the greatest
cleverness in keeping their position as she swayed about, backward or
forward, in the throng.
After a time the beams of the exit were pulled widely open, and
the chief mahout entered, urging his mount to a run, and feigning
what looked like a most foolhardy charge at the entire herd. When
only a few yards away, he turned sharply and rushed back through
the exit, thus acting as a leader for the herd, and the whole lot
dashed simultaneously for the gateway. The ford of the river was well
patrolled by tame elephants, and as the herd came rushing down the bank
to the stream, they were kept in a confined space, where they swayed
about in the cool water, grunting with satisfaction, and sending up a
perfect fountain through their trunks. After a reasonable rest had been
given them, they were cautiously driven into the jungle, and at a good
distance from the city were turned loose, to wander as they pleased and
seek again their old haunts.
While all this was going on, the young tuskers left tied in the kraal
were giving vent most strenuously to their feelings. Some, evidently
having given themselves up to despair, stood quite still and uttered
the most plaintive groans, while others seemed to go quite beside
themselves with rage, rolling in the mud, straining every nerve at
their ropes, and trumpeting wildly. One youngster, charging madly at
the post to which he was tied, managed to break one of his tusks sharp
off at the base, bringing down the most fearful amount of wrath on his
head from the mahouts, as it knocked some fifty per cent. off his value.
In many cases it seemed to be a particularly exasperating job to get
these captives out of the kraal. Two trained mounts would finally be
driven up on each side of the young elephant, and a sort of collar made
of cocoanut-fiber rope was slipped under his neck. These collar ropes
are crossed at the top, and an end is made fast to the neck of the tame
mounts, which, being a good deal taller than the little chap in the
middle, would be able to lift him nearly off his front legs by raising
their heads, and so compel him to walk, the youngster’s great act being
to lie down and refuse to budge. The leg-ropes were then thrown off,
and in this way they made a start for the exit, with a third elephant
bringing up the rear to push the captive forward in case of any signs
of balking. When he was gracefully shoved through the gateway, two
others would meet him outside the stockade, and he would be marched
off across the river to the stables, to be chained up to his post, and
there either sensibly accept his lot and start to learn to work, or
else be starved into submission. In some few cases captivity seems to
take all the spirit out of the beasts, and rather than endure it, they
will refuse all food and water and finally die, a sort of martyr at the
altar of freedom.