that has been its principal protection; and will, it is likely, in some degree prolong its duration to ages yet remote.

We continued our journeys up the mountain, until our work was done, setting out before sunrise, and returning to our bark in the evening. The heat of noon, during which we reposed under a tree or in the shade of the temple, was excessive. A southeasterly wind succeeded, blowing fresh, and murmuring amusively among the pines. On the third day, toward evening, we descended to the shore, embarked hastily, and unmoored; bringing away the carcass of a pig on a wooden spit, half roasted. We were apprehensive lest the wind, which at that season commonly sets into the gulf in the daytime, and comes in a contrary direction soon after sunset, should fail before we could reach the port of the ancient city. The boys mounted to the sharp ends of the yards, high in air above the masts, undid the knots of the sails, which were furled, and tied them anew with rushes. We were towed out of the bay, and then pulling the ropes, the rushes breaking fell down, and the canvass spread.

CHAP. IV.

SHOALS AND ROCKS-A PHENOMENON-WE ANCHOR IN THE MOLE OF EGINA OF THE CITY OF THE BARROW OF

PHOCUS-PHREATTYS-OF OEA-THE PRESENT TOWN

THE ISLAND.

WE passed round the eastern end

of the island,

near a pointed rock called Turlo, and sometimes

m northern side. R.

mistaken for a vessel under sail; the city Ægina fronting Libs, or the south-west. The coast was mostly abrupt and inaccessible; the land within, mountainous and woody. Our crew was for some time engaged in looking out for one of the lurking shoals, with which it is environed. These, and the single rocks extant above the surface, are so many in number, and their position so dangerous, that the navigation to Ægina was anciently reckoned more difficult than to any other of the islands. The Æginetans, indeed, said they were purposely contrived, and disposed by Eacus to protect their property from piratical robbers, and for a terror to their enemies.

We were now amused by a very striking phenomenon. The sun was setting; and the moon, then risen in the eastern or opposite portion of the hemisphere, was seen adorned as it were with the beams of that glorious luminary, which appeared, probably from the reflection or refraction of the atmosphere, not as usual, but inverted, the sharp end pointing to the horizon, and the ray widening upwards.

The evening was hazy, and the mountain-tops on the west and north-west enveloped in clouds; from which proceeded lightning, pale and forky, or resembling the expansion of a ball of fire. We were becalmed for a few minutes, but the breeze returned, and we moved pleasantly along; the splendid moon disclosing the solemn hills, and the sea as bright as placid. We now tacked, and, standing to the northwest", came to a barrow near the shore; and then doubling a low point of land, cast anchor, about

three hours after sunset, by a vessel within the mole of the city Ægina.

The maritime genius of the old Eginetans was founded, like that of the present Hydriotes, upon necessity. This too produced among them the invention of silver coinage; their commerce requiring a medium, and their country furnishing only such unimportant articles for exportation as rendered the venders proverbially contemptible. With this disadvantage did the city Ægina become a rival of its neighbour Athens. Its site, which has been long forsaken, was now naked, except a few wild fig-trees, and some fences made by piling the loose stones. It had produced corn, and was not cleared from the stubble. Instead of the temples mentioned by Pausanias, we had in view thirteen lonely churches, all very mean, as usual; and two Doric columns supporting their architrave°. These stand by the seaside toward the low cape; and, it has been supposed, are a remnant of a temple of Venus, which was situated by the port principally frequented. The theatre, which is recorded as worth seeing, resembled that of the Epidaurians both in size and workmanship. It was not far from the private port; the stadium, which, like that at Priene, was constructed with only one side, being joined to it behind, and each structure mutually sustaining and propping the other. The walls belonging to the ports and arsenal were of excellent masonry, and may be traced to a considerable extent, above, or nearly even with the water. At the entrance of the mole, on the left, is a small chapel of St. Nicholas; and opposite, a square

• Belonging to the posticum of a temple. R.

tower with steps before it, detached, from which a bridge was laid across, to be removed on any alarm. This structure, which is mean, was erected by the Venetians while at war with the Turks, in 1693, as appears by an inscription, cut in large characters, on a piece of veined marble fixed in the wall. I copied it as exactly as its height and the powerful reflection of the sun would permit. Some letters remain of a more ancient inscription in Greek.

The barrow, which we saw on the shore, was probably that once by the Eaceum. It was designed, it is related, for Phocus, and its history as follows. Telamon and Peleus, sons of Eacus, challenged their half brother Phocus to contend in the Pentathlum. In throwing the stone, which served as a quoit, Peleus hit Phocus, who was killed; when both of them fled. Afterwards, Telamon sent a herald to assert his innocence. Eacus would not suffer him to land, or to apologize, except from the vessel; or, if he chose rather, from a heap cast up in the water. Telamon, entering the private port by night, raised a barrow, as a token, it is likely, of a pious regard for the deceased. He was afterwards condemned, as not free from guilt, and sailed away again to Salamis. The barrow in the second century, when seen by Pausanias, was surrounded with a fence, and had on it'a rough stone. The terror of

some dreadful judgment to be inflicted from heaven had preserved it entire and unaltered to his time; and, in a country depopulated and neglected, it may still endure for many ages.

The form of trial instituted on this occasion passed early into Attica; where by the seaside, without the Piræus, at a place called Phreattys, was a tribunal, at which fugitives for involuntary murder were permitted to appear on any new accusation, and to plead from their vessel; the judges sitting on the shore. They were punished, if found guilty; but if acquitted, had liberty to depart, and fulfil the term of their banishment.

The Eginetans preserved two famous statues, named Damia and Auxesia, or Ceres and Proserpine, at Ea, twenty stadia, or two miles and a half, from the city. The Athenians demanded the yearly offerings, which the Epidaurians, from whom they were taken, had agreed to make to Minerva Polias and Erectheus; or the images, which they regarded as their property, being formed of their sacred olive, by command of the Delphic oracle. Their dispute is recorded by Herodotus; and Pausanias, in the second century, relates, that he saw the goddesses, and sacrificed to them as at Eleusis.

The present town, it may be conjectured, was Ea. It stands on the acclivity of a steep rock P; which perhaps was preferred to the old site, as less exposed to the ravages of corsairs and other plunderers. It is in the way to the mountain Panhellenius, from which it is separated by a narrow valley, which winds and runs far into the island. It is distant

P near the top of the mountain. R.