The Shabbiness Of This Place Actually Beats Ireland,
And That Is A Strong Word.
The palace of the Basileus is an
enormous edifice of plaster, in a square containing six houses,
three donkeys,
No roads, no fountains (except in the picture of the
inn); backwards it seems to look straight to the mountain - on one
side is a beggarly garden - the King goes out to drive (revolutions
permitting) at five - some four-and-twenty blackguards saunter up to
the huge sandhill of a terrace, as His Majesty passes by in a gilt
barouche and an absurd fancy dress; the gilt barouche goes plunging
down the sandhills; the two dozen soldiers, who have been
presenting arms, slouch off to their quarters; the vast barrack of
a palace remains entirely white, ghastly, and lonely; and, save the
braying of a donkey now and then (which long-eared minstrels are
more active and sonorous in Athens than in any place I know), all
is entirely silent round Basileus's palace. How could people who
knew Leopold fancy he would be so "jolly green" as to take such a
berth? It was only a gobemouche of a Bavarian that could ever have
been induced to accept it.
I beseech you to believe that it was not the bill and the bugs at
the inn which induced the writer hereof to speak so slightingly of
the residence of Basileus. These evils are now cured and
forgotten. This is written off the leaden flats and mounds which
they call the Troad.
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