haughty Persian sate was behind us, the setting sun gilding its summit; and had it not been that we were half famished, and greatly disappointed in not reaching Athens a day sooner, we should, no doubt, have exceedingly enjoyed a scene so rich with classic objects and recollections. As it was, they in a great degree compensated for the delay and hunger which we suffered.

It was dark before we entered the Porto Leone, or Peiræus, and too late for landing. The harbour was full of shipping, and among them we cast anchor, and crept below to our gravelly bed, on which we were reluctantly obliged to pass another night.

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CHAPTER VI.

PEIREUS AND ATHENS.

[4TH AND 5TH FEBRUARY.]

AT daybreak we were up, and ready to land, long before the permission to do so was granted us. In the Peiræus, the descendants of the victors of Salamis could now boast but of two small Athenian vessels of war, while the Flag of England, a country whose very existence was unknown to Themistocles, floated on two splendid specimens of her navy, the Portland and Medea, one in attendance on each of the Gothic kings who are now the rulers of the destinies of Greece, the King of Bavaria, and his son Otho, whose name as King of

Greece, sounds in our ears somewhat unclassical-a kind of political false quantity. Russia also and France were represented by ships of war; and of merchant vessels of various nations there was a fair sprinkling.

When we landed, the business of the day had commenced, and the pack-horses were arriving from the city with their loads. We might have hired ponies to ride to Athens, but we had a kind of enthusiasm to trace and tread with our own feet the celebrated μακρά τείχη, οι Long Walls; along the line of which we anticipated many interesting objects. Leaving therefore our servants to follow with the luggage, we walked through the market, thronged with buyers and sellers, on either side of which stores and public buildings of the same character as the stores were built and building. We soon arrived at a part of the road where old foundations were visible, in which we re

cognised with a lively sensation the Long Walls. While the road continued straight, these remains were visible; but it soon took a turn, and we lost sight of them, and were disappointed in not finding any object of classical curiosity, to repay us for a hot and tiresome walk along a bad and uninteresting road. On the right hand of the road, and about a mile and half from the Peiræus, a monument has been erected to the Greeks who fell in an action with the Turks, April, 1827; when a distinguished British naval officer, then serving with the Greeks, too sanguinely supposed that an irregular and ill-armed infantry could withstand the charge of Turkish cavalry, and found out his mistake at the cost of many lives. Bavarians and reeks were

at work breaking stones by the way side, while others were levelling the road and forming its surface.

*Howe's Greek Revolution, p. 414.

Shortly before entering the city we fell in with an Athenian cicerone, (if I may use an Italian term on such an occasion,) who had just returned from Marathon, whither he had. accompanied some officers of the English ships. He offered his services to conduct us to an hotel, which we accepted; and he remained attached to us during the whole of our stay.

Our first impression of Athens was a feeling of disappointment, but that gradually vanished; every moment revealed new beauties, and kindled fresh interests, and at last unmixed delight was the prevailing feeling. The reason of all this, though I had not before thought of it, is obvious enough. We entered Athens expecting to see realised imaginations which the classical writers had excited-but found in all that at first presented itself nothing but mongrel modernism; but after the first shock was over, and when we