bushes with their sabres. The fold of Mustapha Bey, a friendly. Turk of Athens, supplied us with a sheep fed on the fragrant herbage of Hymettus. They embowelled the carcass, and fixed it whole and warm on a wooden spit; which was turned by one of them sitting on the ground. They cut in pieces the heart, liver, and the like, and mingled them on a skewer, to be dressed on the coals. Some boughs of green mastic served us at once for tablecloth and dish. We fell to with knives or fingers, for the latter are principally used; and a Greek, kneeling by us, circulated wine, pouring it into a shell. Our men feasted in their turn, and made merry, until the heat of noon overpowered them.

After sleeping, some in a shallow watercourse beneath the scanty shade under which we had dined, and some among the thickets at a distance, we mounted and returned back to Dragonisi, where a hospitable Albanian received us, sweeping the ground, and spreading a mat for us, before the door of his house. We supped on fowls, cheese, salted olives, eggs, and such articles as could be procured. The evening was concluded with wild singing and rustic dancing. We passed the night round a fire, having no mountain, as before, to shelter us, and the air getting cold.

In the morning the falconer, after placing a piece of raw meat in a tree at a distance, unhooded and dismissed a hawk, which immediately flew toward it; but, stooping midway, seized a small speckled owl lurking among the few green tufts scattered on the surface of the soil. The ravenous bird was easily deceived by a bit of flesh, which the falconer substituted, as usual, in the room of his prey, and

loosed the owl alive from his talons. We likewise saw a partridge chased, taken on the wing, and carried into a thicket.

The purple hills of Hymettus were the scene of the famous story of Cephalus and Procris ". The fatal mistake of the husband was said to have happened among some thickets near a sacred spring or fountain. This seems the spot called Pera, where was a temple of Venus, and a water, which was believed to conduce to pregnancy and to an easy delivery. The same, it is probable, is now occupied by the monastery of Cyriani. In many instances the temple, or its site, with the consecrated portion, have changed their owners, and the deity been dispossessed by the saint. The convent is an old irregular building on the side of the greater Hymettus, in view from Athens, encompassed by a wall with battlements, and entered by a low iron door. The Greek women repair to it at particular seasons, and near it is a fountain much extolled for its virtues. The papas, or priest, affirmed, that a dove is seen to fly down from heaven to drink of it yearly, at the feast of Pentecost. I ascended to the top of the mountain, where I enjoyed a fine prospect of the country, and of the islands in the Ægean sea, near the coast of Attica.

n Ovid. de Arte Amandi, 1. iii, v. 687.

CHAP. XXXI.

TOWNS BETWEEN PHALERUM AND SUNIUM - CAPES AND ISLANDS- -BARROWS BY ALOPECE- VESTIGES OF EXONE

AND ANAGYRUS-ENTERTAINED BY A GREEK ABBOT-A

PANEUM, OR SACRED CAVE-WHELER'S ROUTE FROM

SUNIUM TO ATHENS-REMARKS.

THE towns on the coast, going from Phalerum toward Sunium, were Alimus, Æxone, Alæ of Exone, Anagyrus, Thoræ, Lampra, Egilia, Anaphlystus, Azenia. Alimus was at the same distance as Phalerum from Athens, and had a temple of Ceres and Proserpine. Lampra was the place to which Cranaus, the successor of Cecrops, fled from Amphictyon. His monument remained in the time of Pausanias, above sixteen hundred years after his death, and, if a barrow, is perhaps still extant.

The long promontory, the first after Exone, was named Zoster, because, it was said, Latona had loosed her zone there in her way to Delos, whither she was conducted by Minerva. On the shore was an altar. After Thora was Astypalea. Before one of the capes was the island Phaura; before the other, Eleusa; and opposite to Exone, Hydrusa. Toward Anaphlystus was a Paneum, or cave of Pan, and the temple of Venus Colias. The west wind scattered the wrecks of the Persian fleet, after the battle of Salamis, along the shore as far as Colias. Before these places lay Belbina, at no great distance, and the fosse of Patroclus, but most of the islands were desert. Pausanias mentions cape Colias, with the image of Venus, as twenty stadia, or two miles

Tepì dè 'Avápλvoto-Strabo, p. 398. There was a temple of Ceres.

and a half, from Phalerum. Colias was famous for earthenware, tinged with vermilion.

Some information, received soon after our return from mount Hymettus, induced us to go in the following month to Vary, a metochi, or farm, belonging to a Greek monastery at Athens, on the seacoast, and distant about four hours. The road led us, as before, to the vestiges of Alopece, beyond which we saw several small barrows, the soil poor and stony. Their origin may be deduced from early history. The Lacedæmonians sent an army under Anchimolius to free Athens from the tyranny of the sons of Pisistratus. He landed at Phalerum, encamped, was attacked, and killed with many of his men. Their graves, or barrows, says Herodotus, are by Alopece P.

On our approach to the shore, some vestiges occurred, it is likely, of Exone. We then turned, and travelled toward Sunium, through a gap in mount Hymettus, which running out forms the promontory once called Zoster. Within the gap, near the end, we came to the site of a considerable town, some terrace walls, of the species called incertum, remaining. Beyond these is a church. We found some fragments of inscriptions fixed in the wall; and one of my companions afterwards copied a sepulchral marble, recording a person of Anagyrus, which, it is probable, was the name of the place. The terrace perhaps was the site of the temple of the mother of the gods.

The convent stands on a knoll above the sea, with Lampra, the promontories Sunium and Scyl

P Lib. v c. 6. Pisistratus died in the year before Christ 528.

læum, and the fosse of Patroclus Belbina, and other islands, in view. We found there the hegumenos, or abbot, who was come from Athens to receive us, and two or three caloyers, or monks, who manage the farm. We were entertained with boiled fowls, olives, cheese, and the like fare. The sky, as usual, was our canopy, and after sunset we lay down to sleep, some under a shed, some in the court, and one of my companions in a tree, where a man had watched the alóni, or corn floor, which was close by, during the harvest.

We ascended early in the morning to a cave or grotto, which was the object of our journey, distant about three quarters of an hour, inland, in the mountain. This, which appears to be the Paneum mentioned by Strabo, will be the subject of the following chapter. It affords shelter to the goatherds in winter, and is frequented at all seasons for water by those who have their occupation on the mountain. Our men made a fire in it to purify the air, and we tarried all day, dining again on a sheep roasted whole.

An abstract of the journey of sir George Wheler, from Sunium to Athens, will illustrate this portion of the geography of Attica. He directed his course along the shore of the Saronic gulf, and passed the night with some shepherds near Metropis, a town on a hill. Ten or twelve miles farther on, he came to ruins on a rock, near a bay. These were called Enneapуrgæ, the Nine Towers. From Lampra, three or four miles more inland, he travelled northwestward, in a cultivated plain, to a very few houses called Fillia. He then turned more north-westward into the way to Athens, and entered between two