janissary would have driven him back, on which he prepared to fight the janissary. I was affected I knew not why; perhaps from observing that I, a civilized barbarian, was an object of curiosity to a barbarized Greek.*

Having procured fresh horses, we left St. Paul at two in the afternoon, and pursued the road towards the ancient Cynuria. About four, our guide called out that we were going to be attacked: we indeed perceived on the mountain a few armed men, who, after looking at us for some time, suffered us to pass unmolested. We entered We entered among the Parthenian hills, and descended to the bank of a river, whose channel conducted us to the sea. We descried the citadel of Argos, Naupli opposite to us, and the mountains of Corinth towards Mycenæ. From the spot which we had now reached it was still three hours' journey to Argos: we had to turn the extremity of the gulf, and cross the marsh of Lerne, which extended from the place where we stood to the city. We passed the garden of an aga, where I remarked Lombardy poplars intermixed with cypress, orange, lemon, and many other trees which I had not yet seen in Greece. The guide soon afterwards missed the way, and led us along narrow causeways, which formed the se

*The Greeks of these mountains pretend to be the genuine descendants of the Lacedæmonians. They assert, that the Maînottes are but an assemblage of foreign banditti, and they are perfectly right.

Our

paration between small ponds and inundated ricefields. In this embarrassing situation night overtook us at every step we were obliged to leap wide ditches, with our horses intimidated by the darkness, the croaking of a host of frogs, and the violetcoloured flames that danced along the marsh. guide's horse fell; and as we marched in a row, we tumbled one over another into a ditch. We all cried out together, so that none of us knew what the others said. The water was deep enough for the horses to swim and be drowned with their riders: my puncture began to bleed afresh, and my head was very painful. At length we miraculously scrambled out of this slough, but found it impossible to proceed to Argos. We perceived between the reeds a glimmering light: we made up towards it, perishing with cold, covered with mud, leading our horses by the bridle, and running the risk of plunging at every step into some fresh quagmire.

The light guided us to a farm-house, situated in the midst of the marsh, in the vicinity of the village of Lerne. It was just harvest-time, and we found the reapers lying on the ground. They started up at our approach, and fled like deer. We convinced them that they had nothing to fear, and passed the rest of the night with them on a heap of sheep's dung, which was less filthy and less damp than any other situation that we could find. I should have a right to quarrel with Hercules, who has not completely destroyed the Lernæan hydra; for, in this unwholesome place, I caught a fever

which never entirely left me till after my arrival in Egypt.

On the 20th, at day-break, I was at Argos. The village which has succeeded that celebrated city is neater and more lively than most of the villages of the Morea. Its situation is very beautiful, at the extremity of the Gulf of Naupli or Argos, a league and a half from the sea: on one side it has the mountains of Cynuria and Arcadia, and on the other the heights of Troezene and Epidaurus.

But whether my imagination was oppressed by the recollection of the misfortunes and the excesses of the Pelopides; or I was struck by the real truth, the country appeared to me uncultivated and desolate, the mountains naked and dreary---a kind of nature, fertile in great crimes and in great virtues. I went to survey what are called the remains of Agamemnon's Palace, the ruins of a theatre, and of a Roman aqueduct; I ascended to the citadel, solicitous to see every stone that could possibly have been touched by the hand of the king of kings. What can boast of enjoying any glory beside those families, sung by Homer, Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Racine? But when you see on the spot where they flourished how very little remains of those families, you are marvellously astonished.

It is a considerable time since the ruins of Argos ceased to correspond with the greatness of its name. In 1756, Chandler found them absolutely in the same state as they were seen by me: the Abbé Fourmont in 1746, and Pellegrin in 1719, were not

more fortunate. The Venetians, in particular, have contributed to the demolition of the monuments of this city, by using their materials in the construction of the castle of Palamis. In the time of Pausanias there was at Argos a statue of Jupiter, remarkable for having three eyes, and still more remarkable on another account: it was brought from Troy by Sthenelus, and was said to be the very statue, at the foot of which Priam was put to death in his palace by the son of Achilles :

Ingens ara fuit, juxtaque veterrima laurus,

Incumbens aræ, atque umbrâ complexa Penates.

But Argos, which doubtless exulted in the possession of the Penates that betrayed the house of Priam, Argos itself soon exhibited a striking example of the vicissitudes of fortune. So early as the reign of Julian the apostate, its glories were eclipsed to such a degree, that, on account of its poverty, it could not contribute to the re-establishment of the Isthmian games. Julian pleaded its cause against the Corinthians: his speech, on that occasion, is still extant in his works (Ep. XXV). It is one of the most extraordinary documents in the history of things and of mankind. Finally, Argos, the country of the king of kings, having become in the middle ages the inheritance of a Venetian widow, was sold by her to the republic of Venice for five hundred ducats, and an annuity of two hundred. Coronelli records the bargain. Omnia vanitas!

I was received at Argos by Avramiotti, the Italian physician, whom M. Poucqueville saw at Naupli, and on whose grand-daughter he performed an operation for hydrocephalus. M. Avramiotti shewed me a map of the Peloponnese, in which he and M. Fauvel had begun to write the ancient names by the side of the modern ones: it will be a valuable performance, which could not be executed but by persons resident for a number of years on the spot. M. Avramiotti had amassed a fortune, and began to sigh after his native land. There are two things which grow stronger in the heart of man, in proportion as he advances in years---the love of country and religion. Let them be ever so much forgotten in youth, they sooner or later present themselves to us arrayed in all their charms, and excite in the recesses of our hearts an attachment justly due to their beauty.

We conversed, therefore, about France and Italy, for the same reason that the Argive soldier who accompanied Æneas recollected Argos when expiring in Italy. Agamemnon was scarcely mentioned by us, though I was to see his tomb the following day. We talked upon the terrace of the house which overlooks the Gulf of Argos: perhaps that very terrace from which a poor woman hurled the tile that terminated the glory and the adventures of Pyrrhus. M. Avramiotti pointed out to me a promontory on the other side of the gulf, and said: "It was there that Clytemnestra stationed the slaye who was to give the signal for