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The woods and cascades of Taygetus were behind us, Laconia was at our feet, and over our heads the most lovely sky.

This Misitra, said I to the cicerone, is Lacedæmon: is it not?

Signor? Lacedæmon? What did you say?---rejoined he.

Is not this Lacedæmon or Sparta?

Sparta? What do you mean?

I ask you if Misitra is Sparta?
I don't understand you.

What, you a Greek, you a Lacedæmonian, and not know the name of Sparta?

Sparta? Oh, yes! Great republic: celebrated Lycurgus.

Is Misitra then Lacedæmon?

The Greek nodded in affirmation. I was overjoyed.

Now, I resumed, explain to me what I see. What part of the town is that? I pointed at the same time to the quarter before me a little to the right.

Mesochorion, answered he.

That I know perfectly well; but what part of Lacedæmon was it?

Lacedæmon? I don't know.

I was beside myself. At least shew me the river, cried I, and repeated: Potamos, Potamos. My Greek pointed to the stream called the Jews' River.

What! is that the Eurotas? Impossible! Tell me, where is the Vasilipotamos?

The cicerone, after many gestures, pointed to the right towards Amyclæ.

I was once more involved in all my perplexities. I pronounced the name of Iri, on which my Spartan pointed to the left, in the opposite direction to Amyclæ.

It was naatural to conclude from this, that there were two rivers; the one on the right, the Vasilipotamos, the other on the left, the Iri; and that neither of these rivers flowed through Misitra. The reader has seen from the explanation which I have already given of these two names, what occasioned my mistake.

But then, said I to myself, where can be the Eurotas? It is clear that it does not pass through Misitra. Misitra therefore is not Sparta, unless the river has changed its course and removed to a distance from the town, which is by no means probable. Where, then, is Sparta? Have I come so far without being able to discover it? Must I return without beholding its ruins? I was heartily vexed. As I was going down from the castle, the Greek exclaimed, "Your lordship perhaps means Palæochori?" At the mention of this name, I recollected the passage of d'Anville, and cried out in my turn: "Yes, Palæochori! The old city! Where is that? Where is Palæochori?"

"Yonder, at Magoula," said the cicerone, pointing to a white cottage with some trees about it, at a considerable distance in the valley.

Tears came into my eyes when I fixed them on this miserable hut, erected on the forsaken site of one of the most renowned cities of the universe, now the only object that marks the spot where Sparta flourished, the solitary habitation of a goatherd, whose whole wealth consists in the grass that grows upon the graves of Agis and of Leonidas.

Without waiting to see or to hear any thing more, I hastily descended from the castle, in spite of the calls of my guides, who wanted to shew me modern ruins, and tell me stories of agas and pachas and cadis and waywodes; but passing the residence of the archbishop, I found some papas, who were waiting at the door for the Frenchman, and invited me to enter in the name of the prelate.

Though I would most cheerfully have dispensed with this civility, I knew not how to decline the invitation: I therefore went in. The Archbishop was seated in the midst of his clergy, in a very clean apartment, furnished with mats and cushions after the Turkish manner. All these papas and their superior were intelligent and affable. Many of them. understood Italian and could speak the language fluently. I related to them in what perplexity I had been involved, in regard to the ruins of Sparta: they laughed and ridiculed the cicerone, and seemed to me to be much accustomed to foreigners.

The Morea in fact swarms with Levantines, Franks, Ragusans, Italians, and particularly with young physicians, from Venice and the Ionian islands, who repair hither to dispatch the cadis and

The roads are very safe: you find tolerably agas. good living, and enjoy a great degree of liberty, provided you possess a little firmness and prudence. It is upon the whole a very easy tour, especially for a man who has lived among the savages of America. There are always some Englishmen to be met with on the roads of the Peloponnese: the papas informed me that they had lately seen some antiquaries and officers of that nation. At Misitra there is even a Greek house called the English Inn, where you may eat roast beef, and drink port wine. In this particular, the traveller is under great obligations to the English: it is they who have established good inns all over Europe, in Italy, in Switzerland, in Germany, in Spain, at Constantinople, at Athens, nay, even at the very gates of Sparta, in despite of Lycurgus.

The Archbishop knew the French vice-consul at Athens, and I think he told me that M. Fauvel had been his guest in the two or three excursions which he has made to Misitra. After I had taken coffee, I was shewn the Archbishop's palace and the church. The latter, though it cuts a great figure in our books of geography, contains nothing remarkable. The Mosaic work of the pavement is common, and the pictures extolled by Guillet, absolutely resemble the daubings of the school that preceded Perugino. As to the architecture, nothing is to be seen but domes more or less dilapidated, and more or less numerous. This cathedral, dedicated to St. Dimitri, and not to the Virgin Mary as

some have asserted, has for its share seven of these domes. Since this ornament was employed at Constantinople in the decline of the art, it has been introduced in all the monuments of Greece. It has neither the boldness of the Gothic, nor the simple beauty of the antique. When of very large dimensions, it is certainly majestic, but then it crushes the structure which it adorns: when small, it is a paltry cap that blends with no other member of the architecture, and rises above the entablature for the express purpose of breaking the harmonious line of the ogee.

I observed in the archiepiscopal library some treatises of the Greek fathers, books on controversial subjects, and two or three Byzantine historians, among the rest Pachymeres. It might be worth while to collate the text of this manuscript with the texts which we possess; but it must doubtless have been examined by our two great Grecians, the Abbé Fourmont, and d'Ansse de Villoison. The Venetians, who were long masters of the Morea, probably carried off the most valuable manuscripts.

My hosts officiously shewed me printed translations of some French works; such as Telemachus, Rollin, and some modern books printed at Bucharest. Among these translations I durst not say that I found Atala, if M.Stamati had not also done me the honor to impart to my savage the language of Homer. The translation which I saw at Misitra was not finished: the translator was a Greek, a native of Zante, who happened to be at Venice

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