stantine, our Swiss, a janizary, and Lombardi, who had resolved to accompany us to the borders of Turkey; besides an adventurer of Corfu, whom we indulged with his passage homeward. This wanderer was a man of a decent and plausible carriage. He had been distressed for money, and imprisoned at Athens, and owed his enlargement to our compassion, which he repaid with dishonesty and deceit. We rowed by a French vessel, which was waiting in the Piræus to lade with corn; leaving an Albanian youth named Sideri, who had lived with us, crying on the shore.

By

The wind being southerly, when we got out of the Piræus, we put into a small creek of the peninsula on our left, which was once encircled with a wall of excellent masonry, as appears from the remains, belonging to the fortress of Munychia. the sea-side is a large fragment of a marble column. The rock was incrusted with salt, white and pure, formerly an article of commerce, and, with the wood, rented of the public. Our men made a tent of the sail and oars to shelter us from the sun, and collected the low shrubs and arid herbage to dress our provisions.

k

We waited for a wind until the following day, when we sailed, three hours after noon, steering. toward the west end of Ægina. We were becalmed about midway, and rowed by a rock or islet, which the mariners say is haunted; murmurings and frightful voices being heard on it, perhaps the beating of the waves, and the cry of amphibious animals, such

k We waited for a wind until the following day, when we sailed, three hours after noon, &c.] We waited for a wind until three hours after noon, when we sailed, &c. R.

as the phocæ, or sea-calves, which occasionally repair to land; and nightly goblins ill-treating those who are forced to tarry in bad weather.

We went on shore on an islet between Egina and Salamis, where we found plenty of sea-urchins. The rock was bare, except a few shrubs and stunted trees, but abounded in locusts continually rising, as we moved through the parched herbage, and settling again after a short flight. The amazing swarms of these insects seen in countries not commonly infested with them, it is likely, are formed when provisions are scanty at home; hunger forcing them to assemble to be wafted by the wind to regions of a moister temperature, where vegetables continue to flourish. Among the bushes I discovered an insect of a species less common, resembling the tendril of a vine. It was moving, the colour a lively green. Naturalists have named it the walking stick1. This, and almost every rock, has on it a ruinous church. The sun, which was now setting behind the picturesque islands and mountains, coloured heaven and earth with a rich variety of exquisite tints. Our crew rested after their labour in the boat, made fast to the shore, on which we lay among cedar-trees and thickets of mastic. In the night a great dew fell.

Early in the morning we had a favourable breeze, of short duration. We had purposed to examine again the site of Ægina, but on opening the port saw in it a large saité, or vessel, at anchor. A Barbary cruiser had lately appeared off Sunium. Several in the boat were seized with panic fear, and called

1 See Edwards, pl. 288. c. 78. part 2d. CHANDLER, Greece.

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out to the captain to steer to the shore, which was at a little distance. We determined, however, to row on, when the hanging out of a piece of linen to dry spread new terror, some insisting it was a signal for us to go on board. We passed a rock named Móne, and putting into a bay of Ægina called Perthicam, dined by a well of cold water, under a thick and wide-spreading fig-tree, beneath which we would have slept at noon, but our mariners affirmed, the shade was bad, that we should rise heavy and with the headache. Our water-casks were carried to be filled at a better spring near a mile distant by a metochi, or farm, where we procured green almonds, and were informed that the vessel, which had caused our consternation, was from Crete, manned with Turks, waiting to load with corn. The wind being contrary, we passed the night on the rocks near our boat.

CHAP. XLIX.

SAIL FROM ÆGINA-THE ISLAND AND TOWN OF PORO-THE MONASTERY-WAY TO CALAUREA OF THE CITY-THE REMAINS A GOATHERD.

IN the morning we set sail from Ægina for Poro, a small island near the coast of the Morea, distant about sixteen miles. The fair gale soon failed, and the land-breeze was heard coming from the peninsula of Methana, making the water foam before it. The sea-breeze was next seen at a distance, and for

m We passed a rock named Móne, and putting into a bay of Ægina called Perthica] We put into a bay of Ægina called Perthica, opposite the island of Móne. R.