capped Taygetus, which Polybius justly compares to the Alps, but to the Alps beneath a more lovely sky. On my right extended the open sea, and on my left, at the extremity of the Gulf, I discovered Mount Ithome, detached like Vesuvius, which it also resembled in its truncated summit. I had not power to force myself from this spectacle: what reflections are excited by the prospect of the desert coasts of Greece, where nought is heard, save the eternal whistling of the wind, and the roaring of the billows! The report of guns, fired from time to time against the rocks of the Mainottes, alone interrupted these dismal sounds, by a sound still more dismal; and nothing was to be seen upon this whole extent of sea but the fleet of this chief of the barbarians. It reminded me of those American pirates, who hoisted their bloody flag in an unknown region, and took possession of an enchanting country in the name of slavery and death; or rather fancy transformed them into the ships of Alaric, quitting the smoking ruins of Greece, carrying off the plunder of the temples, the trophies of Olympia, and the broken statues of liberty and the arts.

On the 12th, at two in the morning, I quitted Coron, overwhelmed with the civilities and attentions of M. Vial, who gave me a letter for the Pacha of the Morea, and another for a Turk at Misitra. I embarked with Joseph and my new janissary in a skiff, which was to convey me to the mouth of the Pamisus, at the bottom of the Gulf of Messenia. A fine passage of a few hours carried us into the bed of the largest river of the Peloponnese, where our little bark grounded for want of water. The janissary went in quest of horses to Nissi, a considerable village, three or four miles up the Pamisus. This river was covered with a mul

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titude of wild fowl, and I amused myself with watching their sports till the return of the janissary. Nothing would be so pleasing as natural history, if it were always connected with the history of man : we should with delight behold the migratory birds quitting the unknown tribes of the Atlantic to visit the renowned banks of the Cephisus and the EuroProvidence, in order to confound our vanity, has permitted the animals to know before man the real extent of the abode of man; and an American bird might probably attract the attention of Aristotle in the rivers of Greece, when the philosopher had not the slightest suspicion of the existence of a new world. Antiquity would furnish us in its annals with numberless curious approximations; the progresses of nations and of armies would be found connected with the pilgrimages of some solitary bird, or with the peaceful migrations of the antelope or the camel.

The janissary returned with a guide and five horses two for the guide, and the three others for me, Joseph, and himself. We passed through Nissi, which seems not to have been known in ancient times. I saw the waywode for a moment: he was a young and very affable Greek, who offered me confectionary and wine; but I declined his hospitality, and pursued my route to Tripolizza.

We directed our course towards Mount Ithome, leaving the ruins of Messene on our right. The Abbé Fourmont, who visited these ruins seventy years ago, counted thirty-eight towers then standing. I think M. Vial informed me that nine of these yet remain entire, together with a considerable fragment of the exterior wall. M. Poucqueville, who travelled through Messenia ten years before me, was not at Messene. We arrived about three in the.

afternoon at the foot of Ithome, the modern Mount Vulcano, according to d'Anville. I was convinced, by an examination of this mountain, how difficult it is thoroughly to understand the ancient writers without having seen the places of which they treat. It is evident, for instance, that Messene and the ancient Ithome could not comprise the mountain within their limits, and that we ought to adopt the signification assigned to the Greek particle g by M. Lechevalier, who, on occasion of the pursuit of Hector by Achilles, observes, that it ought to be rendered before Troy, and not round Troy.

We passed through several villages, Chafasa, Scala, Cyparissa, and several others recently destroyed by the pacha, during his last expedition against the banditti. 'In all these villages I observed but one female; with her blue eyes, her majestic stature, and her beauty, she was no disgrace to the blood of the Heraclides. Messenia was almost invariably unfortunate: a fertile country frequently proves a baneful boon to its inhabitants. From the desolation which reigned around me, it might have been supposed that the ferocious Spartans had again been ravaging the native land of Aristodemus. A great man undertook to avenge a great man: Epaminondas reared the walls of Messene. Unfortunately this town may be charged with the death of Philopomen. The Arcadians revenged it, and removed the ashes of their countryman to Megalopolis. I passed with my little caravan precisely the same roads as the funeral procession of the last of the Greeks had taken about two thousand years ago.

over

Having skirted Mount Ithome, we crossed a brook, which runs to the north, and may, possibly, be one of the sources of the Balyra. I have never

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defied the Muses; they have not struck me blind like Thamyris; and if I have a lyre, I have not thrown it into the Balyra, at the risk of being transformed after my death into a nightingale. I mean yet to pay my devotions to the Nine for a few years longer after which I shall forsake their altars. Anacreon's crown of roses has no attractions for me the fairest crown of an old man is his silver hair, and the recollections of an honourable life.

Andania must have been lower down on the Balyra. I should have rejoiced in the discovery at least of the site of the palace of Merope: but Andania was too far out of our track to think of looking for its ruins. An uneven plain, covered like the savannas of Florida, with long grass and droves of horses, conducted me to the extremity of the basin, formed by the junction of the lofty mountains of Arcadia and Laconia. Lycaon was before us, but a little to the left, and we were probably treading the soil of Stenyclarus. There I heard not Tyrtæus singing at the head of the battalions of Sparta; but in his stead I met at this place with at Turk mounted on a good horse, and attended by two Greeks on foot. Perceiving me to be a Frank by my dress, he rode up to me, saying in French : "A pretty country forsooth is this Morea for travelling! In France, from Paris to Marseilles, I found beds and inns every where. I am excessively fatigued: I have come from Coron by land, and am going to Leondari. To what place are you bound?"-"To Tripolizza," was my reply. "Well then," rejoined the Turk, "we will proceed together to the kan of the gates, but I am shockingly fatigued, my dear sir. This courteous Turk was a merchant of Coron, who had been in France, from

Marseilles to Paris, and from Paris back to Marseilles.*

It was dark when we arrived at the entrance of the defile, on the confines of Messenia, Arcadia, and Laconia. Two parallel ranges of mountains form this hermæum, which opens from north to south. The road gradually rises on the Messenian side, and goes down again by a very gentle descent towards Laconia. This is, perhaps, the hermæum where, according to Pausanias, Orestes, haunted by the first apparition of the Eumenides, bit off one of his fingers.

Our caravan soon entered this narrow passage. We marched in silence and in file.+ This road, notwithstanding the summary mode of administering justice adapted by the pacha, was unsafe, and we held ourselves in readiness for whatever might happen. At midnight we arrived at the kan, situated in the midst of the defile. The sound of running water and a large tree announced this pious foundation of a servant of Mahomet. In Turkey, all the public institutions owe their existence to private individuals; the state performs nothing for the state. These institutions are the effect of a spirit of religion, and not of the love of country, a sentiment unknown there. Now it is worthy of remark, that all these fountains, all these kans, all these bridges, are of the earliest times of the empire, and are falling into ruin: I cannot recollect having observed one single modern fabric upon the

It is remarkable, that M. Poucqueville met nearly at the same place with a Turk who spoke French. Perhaps it was the

same man.

I know not whether this is the same hermæum as M. Poucqueville and his companions in misfortune passed in coming from Navarin.