The country is otherwise barren
and naked.
The marble of which this palace is built, as well as the temples and
other buildings on the Acropolis, is obtained from the quarries of
the neighbouring mountain, Pentelikon, where the quantity of this
beautiful stone is so great that whole towns might be built of it.
It was Sunday, and the weather was very fine, {335} to which I was
indebted for seeing all the fashionable world of Athens, and even
the Court, in the open promenade. This place is a plain avenue, at
the end of which a wooden pavilion is erected. It is not decorated
by either lawns or flower-beds. The military bands play every
Sunday from five to six. The King rides or drives with his Queen to
this place to show himself to the people. This time he came in an
open carriage with four horses, and stopped to hear several pieces
of music. He was in Greek costume; the Queen wore an ordinary
French dress.
The Greek or rather Albanian costume is one of the handsomest there
is. The men wear full frocks, made of white perkal, which reach
from the hips to the knees, buskins from the knee to the feet, and
shoes generally of red leather. A close-fitting vest of coloured
silk without arms, over a silk shirt, and over this another close-
fitting spencer of fine red, blue, or brown cloth, which is fastened
only at the waist by a few buttons or a narrow band, and lays open
at the top. The sleeves of the spencer are slit up, and are either
left loose or slightly held together by some cords round the wrists;
the collar of the shirt is a little turned over. The vest and
spencer are tastily ornamented with cords, tassels, spangles and
buttons of gold, silver or silk, according to the means of the
wearer. The material, colour and ornament of the Zaruchi correspond
with those of the spencer and vest. A dagger is generally worn in
the girdle, together with a pair of pistols. The head-dress is a
red fez, with a blue tassel.
The Greek dress is, as far as I saw, less worn by the women, and
even then much of its originality is lost. The principal part of
the dress consists of a French garment, which is open at the breast,
over this a close spencer is drawn on, which is also open, and the
sleeves wide and rather shorter than those of the gown. The front
edges of the gown and spencer are trimmed with gold lace. The women
and girls wear on their head a very small fez, which is bound round
with rose or other coloured crape.
24th October. I left Athens by the small steamer Baron Kubeck,
seventy-horse power, and went as far as Calamachi (twenty-eight
miles). Here I had to leave the ship and cross the Isthmus, three
English miles broad. At Lutrachi we went on board another vessel.
During the passage to Calamachi, which lasts only a few hours, the
little town of Megara is seen upon a barren hill.
Nothing is more unpleasant in travelling than changing the
conveyance, especially when it is a good one, and you can only lose
by doing so. We were in this situation. Herr Leitenberg was one of
the best and most attentive of all captains that I had ever met with
in my travels, and we were all sorry to have to leave him and his
ship. Even in Calamachi, where we remained this day and the
following, as the ship which was to carry us on from Lutrachi did
not arrive, on account of contrary winds, until the 25th, he
attended to us with the greatest politeness.
The village of Calamachi offers but little of interest, the few
houses have only been erected since the steamers plied, and the
tolerably high mountains on which it lies are for the most part
barren, or grown over with low brambles. We took several walks on
the Isthmus, and ascended minor heights, from whence on one side is
seen the gulf of Lepanto, and on the other the AEgean sea. In front
of us stood the large mountain, Akrokorinth, rising high above all
its companions. Its summit is embellished by a well-preserved
fortification, which is called the remains of the Castle of
Akrokorinth, and was used by the Turks in the last war as a
fortress. The formerly world-famous city of Corinth, after which
all the fittings of luxury and sumptuousness in the interior of
palaces were named, and which gave the name to a distinct order of
architecture, is reduced to a small town with scarcely a thousand
inhabitants, and lies at the foot of the mountain, in the midst of
fields and vineyards. It owes the whole of its present celebrity to
its small dried grapes, called currants.
It is said that no town of Greece had so many beautiful statues of
stone and marble as Corinth. It was upon this isthmus, which
consists of a narrow ridge of mountains, and is covered with dense
fig-groves, in which stood a beautiful temple of Neptune, were held
the various Isthmian games.
How greatly a people or a country may degenerate! The Grecian
people, at one time the first in the world, are now the furthest
behind! I was told by everyone that in Greece it was neither safe
to trust myself with a guide nor to wander about alone, as I had
done in other countries; indeed, I was warned here in Calamachi not
to go too far from the harbour, and to return before the dusk of the
evening.
26th October. We did not start from Lutrachi until towards noon, by
the steamer Hellenos, of one hundred and twenty-horse power.
