CHAP. notice; because hereabouts might have been VII. one of the outworks of the city, or an arch

covering the Via Sacra. We now entered the Arracovia. rich lands of Arracovia, full of the neatest vineVineyards yards, cultivated in the highest order, and

of Par

nassus.

seeming to extend over the mountain without any limitation, so as to cover all its sides and acclivities; and actually rising into parts of it so steep and elevated, that they would not have been tenable but for the industry of the inhabitants; who have built walls to protect them from torrents, and buoyed up the soil by means of terraces, to prevent its being washed away. The finest vineyards upon the banks of the Rhine are not managed with greater skill and labour than those of Arracovia, upon the south side of Parnassus. The land is most carefully weeded; and it is kept so clean and free from rubbish, that the stones are collected and placed in heaps; a little hollow space being left around each vine, to collect the moisture. The plants are all of them old stocks, from which they suffer only one scion to sprout for the year, and this is afterwards pruned again. The wine from these vineyards Prospect. is excellent. The view throughout this journey, of all the Plain of Salona, and of the Bay, backed by the mountainous district of Achaia in

Peloponnesus, cannot be described; for it would be idle to repeat continually the words grand, and magnificent, as applied to the sublimest appearances in nature, without being able thereby to suggest the slightest conception of the real scene'.

VII.

of the in

The village of Arracovia is rich in comparison Condition with Castri. It contains two hundred and fifty habitants. houses, inhabited by Albanians and by Greeks, "without a Turk" among them. This expression, "without a Turk," is throughout Greece a saying of exultation; and it is never uttered but with an expression of triumph and of gladness. Yet some have pretended that there is a mild

66

(1) This has been felt by all who have attempted to describe fine prospects without the pencil. "As far as language can describe, Mr. Gray pushed its powers," observes the Editor of his Memoirs. Rejecting every general unmeaning and hyperbolical phrase, he selected the plainest, simplest, and most direct terms: yet, notwithstanding his judicious care in the use of these, I MUST OWN I FEEL THEM DEFECTIVE. (See Mason's Note to Gray's Letter to Wharton; Mathias's Edit. vol. I. p. 469. Lond. 1814.) Perhaps Gray never succeeded more happily, than when, laying aside description, he simply said, of a view in Westmoreland, “I saw in my glass a picture, that if I could transmit to you, and fix it in all the softness of its living colours, would fairly sell for a thousand pounds." (Ibid. p. 455.) The most faithful descriptive language may present, it is true, a picture to the mind; but then it is not the identical picture. "The imagination," says Mason, receives clear and distinct images, but not true and exact images." (Ibid.)

CHAP.

VII.

ness in the administration of the Turkish government, which would be ill supplied by the substitution of any other European dynasty in its place; that the people are not taxed beyond what they are well able to bear; and that they possess the means of redress against tyranny and oppression. Leaving to all such writers the very difficult task of proving what they have thus affirmed, and judging solely by our own experience, we can only say, that GREECE, divested of its Moslem governors, would be a land, whose inhabitants might "eat bread without scarceness, nor lack any thing in it;" unless indeed, and this is not improbable, it should fall under the dominion of Russia; when it would become "a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderAlteration ness." Arracovia is situate at such an elevation upon the mountain, that a change of temperature was sensibly felt by our whole party; and after sun-set it became very cold. We passed the night in a small hut, writing letters to our friends in England. PARNASSUS affording sensations at our fingers' ends to which we had long been strangers, we found it expedient to maintain a considerable fire in the centre of our little dwelling; which, filling the room with smoke, brought tears of acknowledgment down our cheeks, for the seasonable warmth it afforded,

of temperature.

VII.

although so near to the seat of Apollo. When CHAP. we had finished our letters, as it was our usual practice, we entered into conversation with the inhabitants collected to gaze at the strangers who were their guests; and we were much amused by the traditions they still entertained. The people of Delphi had told us that there Traditions, were only five Muses, and that the opinion as to there being nine in number was a heresy. Such disputes about the number of the Muses existed in antient times, and the Arracovian Greeks reduced their number to three. The only thing that surprised us was, that any notion of the kind should yet remain upon the spot; although all the fountains of Parnassus, of Helicon, and of Pindus, were once sacred to them. We have before proved, in what we related of Platea, that the memory of Antient Greece is not quite obliterated among its modern inhabitants; and some additional facts were gathered here, tending to confirm this observation.

to the

On Wednesday morning, December the sixteenth, Journey at nine o'clock, we set out, with four guides, for Summit. the SUMMIT OF PARNASSUS; returning a short distance, by the road to Delphi, and then turning up the mountain towards the right, but with our faces towards Delphi, until we had climbed

VII.

Kallidia.

CHAP. the first precipices. After an hour's ascent, we had a fine view of one of the principal mountains of the Morea, now called Tricălă; the Bay of Crissa looking like a lake, bounded by the opposite mountains of Peloponnesus. Upon a former occasion, from the Theatre at Sicyon, we had seen the heights we were now climbing, and here we were enabled to survey all that region of Achuia, and the more distant summits. After having surmounted the first precipices, we found a large crater, with a village in it, called Kallidia, or Callithea, the summer residence of the Arracovians; who cultivate the plain at the bottom of this crater, and, during the hottest part of the year, come hither to collect its harvest. Thence turning from the former line of our ascent, we proceeded in an opposite direction; and after two hours' progress, looked down, from a great height, upon Arracovia. At twelve, having estimated the thermometer, we found that the mercury had fallen to 44° of Fahrenheit. Presently we came to another plain, with a well in it, full of clear water. Here we halted, and regaled ourselves with bread and wine. It now began to be cold; the road being, as before, steep, but admitting the horses Disappear- to follow us the whole way. At this place, also, Vegetation. vegetation began to disappear. Expressing a

ance of the