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------------------------------------------------------------------------
GREECE
AND
THE ÆGEAN ISLANDS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: ACROPOLIS, SHOWING PROPYLÆA]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
GREECE
AND THE
ÆGEAN ISLANDS
BY
PHILIP SANFORD MARDEN
[Illustration]
~London~
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO., LTD.
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
1907
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT 1907 BY PHILIP S. MARDEN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published November 1907_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PROLEGOMENA
What follows makes no pretense whatever of being a scientific work on
Greece, from an archæological or other standpoint. That it is written at
all is the resultant of several forces, chief among which are the
consciousness that no book hitherto published, so far as I am aware, has
covered quite the same ground, and the feeling, based on the experience
of myself and others, that some such book ought to be available.
By way of explanation and apology, I am forced to admit, even to myself,
that what I have written, especially in the opening chapters, is liable
to the occasional charge that it has a guide-bookish sound, despite an
honest and persistent effort to avoid the same. In the sincere desire to
show how easy it really is to visit Hellas, and in the ardent hope of
making a few of the rough places smooth for first visitors, I have
doubtless been needlessly prolix and explicit at the outset, notably in
dealing with a number of sordid details and directions. Moreover, to
deal in so small a compass with so vast a subject as that of ancient and
modern Athens is a task fraught with many difficulties. One certainly
cannot in such a book as this ignore Athens utterly, despite the fact
that so much has been published hitherto about the city and its
monuments that no further description is at all necessary. My object is
not to make Athens more familiar, but rather to describe other and more
remote sites in Greece for the information, and I hope also for the
pleasure, of past and future travelers. Athens, however, I could not
ignore; and while such brief treatment as is possible here is
necessarily superficial, it may help to awaken an additional interest in
that city where none existed before.
Aside from the preliminary chapters and those dealing with Athens
itself, I hope to have been more successful. I have, at any rate, been
free in those other places from the depressing feeling that I was
engaged on a work of supererogation, since this part of the subject is
by no means hackneyed even through treatment by technical writers. Since
the publication of most of the better known books on Greek travel, a
great deal has been accomplished in the way of excavation, and much that
is interesting has been laid bare, which has not been adequately
described, even in the technical works. In dealing with these additions
and in describing journeys to less familiar inland sites, as well as
cruises to sundry of the classic islands of the Ægean, I hope this book
will find its real excuse for being.
In adopting a system for spelling the names of Greek cities, towns, and
islands, I have been in something of a quandary, owing to the
possibilities presented by the various customs of authors in this field,
each one of which has something to recommend it and something, also, of
disadvantage. If one spells Greek names in the more common Anglicized
fashion, especially in writing for the average traveler, one certainly
avoids the appearance of affectation, and also avoids misleading the
reader by an unfamiliar form of an otherwise familiar word. Hence, after
much debate and rather against my own personal preferences and usage in
several instances, I have adhered in the main to the forms of name most
familiar to American eyes and ears. In cases of obscure or little known
sites, where it is occasionally more important to know the names as
locally pronounced, I have followed the Greek forms. This, while
doubtless not entirely logical, has seemed the best way out of a rather
perplexing situation, bound to be unsatisfactory whichever way one
attempts to solve the problem.
In mercy to non-Hellenic readers, I have likewise sought to exclude with
a firm hand quotations from the Greek language, and as far as reasonably
possible to avoid the use of Greek words or expressions when English
would answer every purpose.
If, in such places as have seemed to demand it, I have touched upon
archæological matters, I hope not to have led any reader far from the
truth, although one admittedly an amateur in such matters runs grave
risk in committing himself to paper where even the doctors themselves so
often disagree. I hope especially to have escaped advancing mere
personal opinions on moot points, since dilettanti in such a case have
little business to own any opinions, and none at all to exploit them to
the untutored as if they had importance or weight. Rather I have only
the desire to arouse others to a consciousness that it is as easy now to
view and enjoy the visible remnants of the glory that was Greece, as it
is to view those of the grandeur that was Rome.
In the writing of these chapters an effort has been made to set forth in
non-technical terms only what the writer himself has seen and observed
among these haunts of remote antiquity, with the idea of confining the
scope of this book to the needs of those who, like himself, possess a
veneration for the old things, an amateur’s love for the classics, and a
desire to see and know that world which was born, lived, and died before
our own was even dreamed of as existing. If by what is written herein
others are led to go and see for themselves, or are in any wise assisted
in making their acquaintance with Greece, or, better still, are enabled
the more readily to recall days spent in that most fascinating of all
the bygone nations, then this book, however unworthily dealing with a
great subject, will not have been written in vain.
PHILIP SANFORD MARDEN.
LOWELL, MASS., August, 1907.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. TRAVELING IN GREECE 1
II. CRETE 18
III. THE ENTRANCE TO GREECE 37
IV. ATHENS; THE MODERN CITY 50
V. ANCIENT ATHENS: THE ACROPOLIS 76
VI. ANCIENT ATHENS: THE OTHER MONUMENTS 96
VII. EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA 123
VIII. DELPHI 146
IX. MYCENÆ AND THE PLAIN OF ARGOS 169
X. NAUPLIA AND EPIDAURUS 193
XI. IN ARCADIA 211
XII. ANDHRITSÆNA AND THE BASSÆ TEMPLE 229
XIII. OVER THE HILLS TO OLYMPIA 247
XIV. THE ISLES OF GREECE: DELOS 272
XV. SAMOS AND THE TEMPLE AT BRANCHIDÆ 286
XVI. COS AND CNIDOS 304
XVII. RHODES 318
XVIII. THERA 334
XIX. NIOS; PAROS; A MIDNIGHT MASS 351
XX. CORFU 368
INDEX 381
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
ACROPOLIS, SHOWING PROPYLÆA _Frontispiece_
MAP 1
LANDING-PLACE AT CANEA 20—
THRONE OF MINOS AT CNOSSOS 34
STORE-ROOMS IN MINOAN PALACE, CNOSSOS 36
OLD CHURCH IN TURKISH QUARTER, ATHENS 60
TEMPLE OF NIKÉ APTEROS 80
THE PARTHENON, WEST PEDIMENT 86
TEMPLE OF OLYMPIAN ZEUS 104
THE AREOPAGUS 108
THE THESEUM 112
TOMB AMPHORA, CERAMICUS 116
TOMB RELIEF, CERAMICUS 118
BRONZE EPHEBUS, NATIONAL MUSEUM, ATHENS 120
THE TEMPLE AT SUNIUM 134
THE APPROACH TO ÆGINA 138
THE TEMPLE AT ÆGINA 138
PEASANT DANCERS AT MENIDI 142
THE PLAIN BELOW DELPHI 150
THE VALE OF DELPHI 156
CHARIOTEER, DELPHI 166
AGORA, MYCENÆ 180
WOMAN SPINNING ON ROAD TO EPIDAURUS 198
EPIDAURIAN SHEPHERDS 202
THEATRE AT EPIDAURUS 206
AN OUTPOST OF ARCADY 224
THE GORGE OF THE ALPHEIOS 226
ANDHRITSÆNA 230
AN ARBOREAL CAMPANILE. ANDHRITSÆNA 234
THRESHING FLOOR AT BASSÆ 240
TEMPLE AT BASSÆ, FROM ABOVE 244
TEMPLE AT BASSÆ, FROM BELOW 244
HERÆUM. OLYMPIA 258
ENTRANCE TO THE STADIUM. OLYMPIA 262
DELOS, SHOWING GROTTO 282
GROTTO OF APOLLO, DELOS 282
COLUMN BASES. SAMOS 296
CARVED COLUMN-BASE. BRANCHIDÆ 296
TREE OF HIPPOCRATES. COS 306
CNIDOS, SHOWING THE TWO HARBORS 314
SCULPTURED TRIREME IN ROCK AT LINDOS. 327
(From a Sketch by the Author)
ARCHED PORTAL OF ACROPOLIS. LINDOS 328
SANTORIN 336
LANDING-PLACE AT THERA 338
THERA 342
A THERAN STREET 346
OLD COLUMNS IN CHURCH, PAROS 362
“SHIP OF ULYSSES.” CORFU 374
------------------------------------------------------------------------
GREECE
AND
THE ÆGEAN ISLANDS
[Illustration:
SKETCH MAP
OF
GREECE
AND THE
ÆGEAN ISLANDS
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I. TRAVELING IN
GREECE
[Illustration]
The days in which a visit to Greece might be set down as something quite
unusual and apart from the beaten track of European travel have passed
away, and happily so. The announcement of one’s intention to visit
Athens and its environs no longer affords occasion for astonishment, as
it did when Greece was held to be almost the exclusive stamping-ground
of the more strenuous archæologists. To be sure, those who have never
experienced the delights of Hellenic travel are still given to
wonderment at one’s expressed desire to revisit the classic land; but
even this must pass away in its turn, since few voyage thither without
awakening that desire.
It is no longer an undertaking fraught with any difficulty—much less
with any danger—to visit the main points of interest in the Hellenic
kingdom; and, what is more to the purpose in the estimation of many, it
is no longer an enterprise beset with discomfort, to any greater degree
than is involved in a journey through Italy. The result of the growing
consciousness of this fact has been a steadily increasing volume of
travel to this richest of classic lands—richest not alone in its
intangible memories, but richest also in its visible monuments of a
remote past, presenting undying evidence of the genius of the Greeks for
expressing the beautiful in terms of marble and stone. One may, of
course, learn to appreciate the beautiful in Greek thought without
leaving home, embodied as it is in the imposing literary remains to be
met with in traversing the ordinary college course. But in order fully
to know the beauty of the sculptures and architecture, such as
culminated in the age of Pericles, one must visit Greece and see with
his own eyes what the hand of Time has spared, often indeed in
fragmentary form, but still occasionally touched with even a new
loveliness through the mellowing processes of the ages.
To any thinking, reading man or woman of the present day, the memories,
legends, and history of ancient Greece must present sufficient
attraction. Few of us stop to realize how much of our modern thought and
feeling was first given adequate expression by the inhabitants of
ancient Athens, or how much of our own daily speech is directly
traceable to their tongue. Modern politics may still learn much tact of
Pericles, and oratorical excellence of Æschines, as modern philosophy
has developed from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Is it not even true
that a large part of modern religious thought, the hope of glory at
least, if not the means of grace, finds its strongest foreshadowing in
the groping of the more enlightened Athenians for a hope of immortality
and life beyond the grave? The transition of the crowning architectural
glory of the Acropolis at Athens from a temple of the virgin (parthenos)
Athena to a church of the Virgin Mary was, after all, not so violent,
when it is remembered that the later paganism had softened from its old
system of corrupt personal deities to an abstract embodiment of their
chief attributes or qualities, such as wisdom, healing, love, and war.
Down to this day the traces of the pagan, or let us say the classic
period, are easy to discern, mingled with the modern Greek Christianity,
often unconsciously, and of course entirely devoid of any content of
paganism, but still unmistakably there. To this day festivals once
sacred to Asklepios still survive, in effect, though observed on
Christian holy days and under Christian nomenclature, with no thought of
reverence for the Epidaurian god, but nevertheless preserving intact the
ancient central idea, which impelled the worshiper to sleep in the
sanctuary awaiting the healing visit of a vision. In every church in
Greece to-day one may see scores of little metal arms, legs, eyes, and
other bodily organs hung up as votive offerings on the iconastasis, or
altar screen, just as small anatomical models were once laid by grateful
patients on the shrine of Asklepios at Cos. It is most striking and
impressive, this interweaving of relics of the old-time paganism with
the modern Greek religion, showing as it does a well-marked line of
descent from the ancient beliefs without violent disruption or
transition. It has become a well-recognized fact that certain modern
churches often directly replace the ancient temples of the spot in a
sort of orderly system, even if it be hard occasionally to explain. The
successors of the fanes of Athena are ordinarily churches of the Virgin
Mary, as was the case when the Parthenon was used for Christian worship.
In other sites the worship of Poseidon gave way to churches sacred to
St. Nicholas. The old temples of Ares occasionally flowered again, and
not inappropriately, as churches of the martial St. George. Dionysus
lives once more in churches named “St. Dionysius,” though no longer
possessing any suspicion of a Bacchic flavor. Most striking of all is
the almost appalling number of hills and mountains in Greece named “St.
Elias,” and often bearing monasteries or churches of that designation.
There is hardly a site in all Greece from which it is not possible to
see at least one “St. Elias,” and I have been told that this is nothing
more nor less than the perpetuation of the ancient shrines of Helios
(the sun) under a Christian name, which, in the modern Greek
pronunciation, is of a sound almost exactly similar to the ancient one.
The substitution, therefore, when Christianity came to its own, was not
an unnatural, nor indeed an entirely inappropriate, one.
It all conspires to show that, while the modern Greek is sincerely and
devoutly a Christian, his transition into his new faith from the
religion of his remotest ancestors has been accompanied by a very
considerable retention of old usages and old nomenclature, and by the
persistence of ineradicable traces of the idealistic residuum that
remained after the more gross portions of the ancient mythology had
refined away and had left to the worshiper abstract godlike attributes,
rather than the gods and goddesses his forefathers had created in man’s
unworthy image. So, while nobody can call in question the Christianity
of the modern Greek, his churches nevertheless often do mingle a quaint
perfume of the ancient and classic days with the modern incense and odor
of sanctity. To my own mind, this obvious direct descent of many a
churchly custom or churchly name from the days of the mythical Olympian
theocracy is one of the most impressively interesting things about
modern Hellas and her people.
In a far less striking, but no less real way, we ourselves are of course
the direct inheritors of the classic Greeks, legatees of their store of
thought, literature, and culture, and followers on the path the Greeks
first pioneered. They and not we have been the creators in civilization,
with all its varied fields of activity from politics to art. Of our own
mental race the Greeks were the progenitors, and it is enough to
recognize this fact of intellectual descent and kinship in order to view
the Athenian Acropolis and the Hill of Mars with much the same thrill
that one to-day feels, let us say, in coming from Kansas or California
to look upon Plymouth Rock, the old state house at Philadelphia, or the
fields of Lexington and Concord.
All this by way of introduction to the thought that to visit Hellas is
by no means a step aside, but rather one further step back along the
highway traversed from east to west by the slow course of empire, and
therefore a step natural and proper to be taken by every one who is
interested in the history of civilized man, the better to understand the
present by viewing it in the light of the past. The “philhellene,” as
the Greeks call their friend of to-day, needs no apologist, and it is
notable that the number of such philhellenes is growing annually.
Time was, of course, when the visit to Greece meant so much labor,
hardship, and expense that it was made by few. To-day it is no longer
so. One may now visit the more interesting sites of the Greek peninsula
and even certain of the islands with perfect ease, at no greater cost in
money or effort than is entailed by any other Mediterranean journey, and
with the added satisfaction that one sees not only inspiring scenery,
but hills and vales peopled with a thousand ghostly memories running far
back of the dawn of history and losing themselves in pagan legend, in
the misty past when the fabled gods of high Olympus strove, intrigued,
loved, and ruled.
The natural result of a growing appreciation of the attractions of
Greece is an increase in travel thither, which in its turn has begotten
increasing excellence of accommodation at those points where visitors
most do congregate. Railroads have been extended, hotels have multiplied
and improved, steamers are more frequent and more comfortable. One need
no longer be deterred by any fear of hardship involved in such a
journey. Athens to-day offers hostelries of every grade, as does Rome.
The more famous towns likely to be visited can show very creditable inns
for the wayfarer, which are comfortable enough, especially to one inured
to the hill towns of Italy or Sicily. Railway coaches, while still much
below the standard of the corridor cars of the more western nations, are
comfortable enough for journeys of moderate length, and must inevitably
improve from year to year as the hotels have done already. As for safety
of person and property, that ceased to be a problem long ago. Brigandage
has been unknown in the Peloponnesus for many a long year. Drunkenness
is exceedingly rare, and begging is infinitely more uncommon than in
most Italian provinces and cities. Time is certain to remove the
objection of the comparative isolation of Greece still more than it has
done at this writing, no doubt. It is still true that Greece is, to all
intents and purposes, an island, despite its physical connection with
the mainland of Europe. The northern mountains, with the wild and
semi-barbaric inhabitants thereamong, serve to insulate the kingdom
effectually on the mainland side, just as the ocean insulates it on
every other hand, so that one is really more out of the world at Athens
than in Palermo. All arrival and departure is by sea; and even when
Athens shall be finally connected by rail with Constantinople and the
north, the bulk of communication between Greece and the western world
will still be chiefly maritime, and still subject, as now, to the delays
and inconveniences that must always beset an island kingdom. Daily
steamers, an ideal not yet attained, will be the one effective way to
shorten the distance between Hellas and Europe proper—not to mention
America.
It may be added that one need not be deterred from a tour in Greece by a
lack of knowledge of the tongue, any more than one need allow an
unfamiliarity with Italian to debar him from the pleasures of Italy. The
essential and striking difference in the case is the distinctive form of
the Greek letters, which naturally tends to confuse the unaccustomed
visitor rather more than do Italian words, written in our own familiar
alphabet. Still, even one quite unfamiliar with the Hellenic text may
visit the country with comparatively little inconvenience from his
ignorance, if content to follow the frequented routes, since in these
days perfect English is spoken at all large hotels, and French at large
and small alike. Indeed, the prevalence of French among all classes is
likely to surprise one at first. The Greeks are excellent linguists, and
many a man or woman of humble station will be found to possess a fair
working knowledge of the Gallic tongue. It is entirely probable that in
a few more years the effect of the present strong tendency toward
emigration to America will reflect even more than it does now a general
knowledge of English among the poorer people. I have frequently met with
men in obscure inland towns who spoke English well, and once or twice
discovered that they learned it in my own city, which has drawn heavily
on the population of the Peloponnesus within recent years.
If the traveler is fortunate enough to have studied ancient Greek in his
school and college days, and—what is more rare—retains enough of it to
enable him to recognize a few of the once familiar words, he will
naturally find a considerable advantage therein. It is often stated that
Greek has changed less since Agamemnon’s time than English has altered
since the days of Chaucer; and while this generalization may not be
strictly true, it is very near the fact, so that it is still possible
for any student well versed in the ancient Greek to read a modern
Athenian newspaper with considerable ease. The pronunciation, however,
is vastly different from the systems taught in England and in America,
so that even a good classical student requires long practice to deliver
his Greek trippingly on the tongue in such wise that the modern Athenian
can understand it. Grammatically speaking, Greek is to-day vastly
simpler than it was in the days of Plato. It has been shorn of many of
those fine distinctions that were, and are, such terrors to the American
schoolboy. But the appearance of the letters and words, with their
breathings and accents, is quite unchanged, and many of the ancient
words are perfectly good in modern Greek with their old meanings
unimpaired. When one has mastered the modern pronunciation, even to a
very moderate degree, one is sure to find that the once despised “dead
language” is not a dead language at all, but one in daily use by a
nation of people who may claim with truth that they speak a speech as
old as Agamemnon and far more homogeneous in its descent than modern
Italian as it comes from the Latin.
It cannot be disguised, however, that it is very desirable at least to
know the Greek alphabet, even if one does not speak or read the
language, since this little knowledge will often serve to give one a
clue to the names of streets or railroad stations. Aside from that, the
few words the habitual traveler always picks up will serve as well in
Greece as anywhere. One should know, of course, the colloquial forms of
asking “how much?” and for saying “It is too dear.” These are the primal
necessities of European travel, always and everywhere. With these alone
as equipment, one may go almost anywhere on earth. In addition to these
rudimentary essentials, the ever-versatile Bædeker supplies, I believe,
phrases of a simple kind, devised for every possible contingency, remote
or otherwise, which might beset the traveler—omitting, curiously enough,
the highly useful expression for hot water, which the traveler will
speedily discover is “zestò nerò.” Among the conveniences, though not
essential, might be included a smattering of knowledge of the Greek
numerals to be used in bargaining with merchants and cab-drivers. But
since the Greek merchant, for reasons which will later appear, is never
without his pad and pencil, and since the written figures are the same
as our own, the custom is to conduct bargains with Europeans generally
by written symbols. The inevitable haggling over prices in the small
shops requires little more than the sign manual, plus a determination to
seem indifferent at all hazards. The Greek merchant, like every other,
regards the voyager from foreign parts as legitimate prey, and long
experience has led him to expect his price to be questioned. Hence
nothing would surprise a small dealer more than to be taken at his
initial figure, and the process of arriving at some middle ground
remotely resembling reasonableness is often a complicated but perfectly
good-humored affair.
The cab-drivers present rather more difficulty. They seldom speak French
and they carry no writing pads. The result is a frequent
misunderstanding as to both price and destination, while in the
settlement of all differences at the close of the “course” both cabby
and his fare are evidently at a mutual linguistic disadvantage. The
trouble over the destination is twofold, as a rule. Part of the time the
cabman is “green” and not well acquainted with the city; and part of the
time he is wholly unable to recognize, in the name pronounced to him,
any suggestion of a street he may know perfectly well when pronounced
with the proper accent. The element of accent is highly important in
speaking Greek; for unless the stress is properly laid, a word will
often elude entirely the comprehension of the native, although every
syllable be otherwise correctly sounded. The names of the Greek streets
are all in the genitive case, which makes the matter still worse. It is
of small avail to say “Hermes Street” to a driver. He must have the
Greek for “Street of Hermes” in order to get the idea clearly in mind.
It is not safe to generalize, but I incline to rate the Greeks as rather
slower than Italians at grasping a foreigner’s meaning, despite their
cleverness and quickness at acquiring other languages themselves.
However, this is getting considerably ahead of our narrative and in
danger of losing sight of the main point, which is that Greece is easy
enough to visit and enjoy, even if one is ignorant of the language. For
those who feel safer to know a trifle of it, there is ample time on the
steamer voyage toward the Grecian goal to acquire all that ordinary
necessities demand.
Let it be said, in passing from these general and preliminary remarks to
a more detailed discussion of Hellenic travel, that the modern Greek has
lost none of his ancient prototype’s reverence for the guest as a person
having the highest claims upon him and none of the ancient regard for
the sacred name of hospitality. Whatever may be said of the modern Greek
character, it cannot be called in question as lacking in cordiality and
kindness to the stranger. The most unselfish entertainer in the world is
the Greek, who conceives the idea that he may be able to add to your
happiness by his courtesy, and this is true in the country as well as in
the city. The native met on the highway has always a salutation for you.
If it is the season for harvesting grapes, you are welcome to taste and
see that they are good. He will welcome you to his house and set before
you the best it affords, the sweet “sumadha” or almond milk, the rich
preserved quince, the glass of pungent “mastika,” or perhaps a bit of
smoke-cured ham from the earthen jar which is kept for just such
occasions as this. If he sets out to entertain, nothing is done by
halves. The Greek bearing gifts need cause no fear to-day, unless it be
a fear of superabundant hospitality such as admits of no repayment. He
will drive a hard bargain with you in business, no doubt. Occasionally
an unscrupulous native will commit a petty theft, as in any other
country where only man is vile. But once appear to him in the guise of
friendship and he will prove himself the most obliging creature in the
world. He may not be as well aware of the general history of his remote
ancestors as you are yourself, but what he does know about his vicinity
he will relate to you with pride and explicitness. Curiously enough, the
Greek in ordinary station is likely to think you wish to see modern
rather than ancient things. He cannot understand why you go every
evening to the Acropolis and muse on the steps of the Parthenon while
you omit to visit the villas of Kephissià or Tatoïs. He would rather
show you a tawdry pseudo-Byzantine church than a ruined temple. But the
cordial spirit is there, and everybody who ever visited Greece has had
occasion to know it and admire it.
There remains necessary a word as to the choice of routes to Greece. As
in the case of Venice, one may enter by either the front or the back
door, so to speak; and probably, as in the case of Venice, more actually
elect to enter by the rear. The two gateways of Hellas are the Piræus at
the eastern front, and Patras at the back. Either may be selected as the
point for beginning a land journey in the kingdom, and each has certain
advantages. In any event the visitor should enter by one portal and
leave by the other, and the direction may safely be left to be decided
by the convenience and aims of each particular visitor’s case. Taking
Naples as the natural starting-point of American travelers, two routes
lie open. One is the railroad to Brindisi, traversing the mountainous
Italian interior to the Adriatic coast, where on stated days very
comfortable steamers ply between Brindisi and Patras, touching at Corfù.
The other route is from Naples to the Piræus by sea on either French or
Italian steamers, the latter lines being slower and enabling stops in
Sicily and in Crete. To those fortunately possessed of ample time and
willing to see something of Magna Graecia as well as of Greece proper,
the slower route is decidedly to be recommended.
For the purposes of this book let us choose to enter Greece by her
imposing main portal of the Piræus, setting at naught several
considerations which incline us to believe that, on the whole, the
advantage lies rather with the contrary choice. Whatever else may be
said in favor of either selection, it remains true that in any case one
immediately encounters mythology and legend in the shape of the wily
Ulysses, and is thus at once _en rapport_ with Grecian things. The
steamers from Naples must sail through the Strait of Messina, between
Scylla and Charybdis, once the terror of those mariners who had the
experiences of Homer’s wandering hero before their eyes; while not far
below Charybdis and just off the Sicilian shore they still show the
wondering traveler a number of small rocks, rising abruptly from the
ocean, as the very stones that Polyphemus hurled in his blind rage after
the fleeing Odysseus, but fortunately without doing him any harm. If, on
the contrary, we sail from Brindisi to Patras, we must pass Corfù, which
as all the world knows was the island on which Odysseus was cast from
his ship and where, after he had refreshed himself with sleep, he was
awakened by the laughter of Nausicaa and her maids as they played at
ball after the washing was done. Whichever way we go, we soon find that
we have run into a land older than those with which we have been
familiar, whose legends greet us even at this distance over miles of
tossing waves. Let those who are content to voyage with us through the
pages that follow, be content to reserve Corfù for the homeward journey,
and to assume that our prow is headed now toward Crete, through a
tossing sea such as led the ancients to exclaim, “The Cretan sea is
wide!” The shadowy mountains on the left are the lofty southern prongs
of the Grecian peninsula. Ahead, and not yet visible above the horizon,
is the sharp, razor-like edge of Crete, and the dawn should find us in
harbor at Canea.
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