A Woman's Journey Round The World, From Vienna To Brazil, Chili, Tahiti, China, Hindostan, Persia, And Asia Minor By Ida Pfeiffer
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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.
We anchored for a few hours in the evening near Vostizza, the
ancient AEgion, now an unimportant village, at the foot of a
mountain.
27th October, Patras. That portion of Greece which I had already
seen was neither rich in beauty, well cultivated, nor thickly
inhabited. Here were, at least, plains and hills covered with
meadows, fields, and vineyards. The town, on the Gulf of Lepanto,
was formerly an important place of trade; and before the breaking
out of the Greek revolution in 1821, contained 20,000 inhabitants;
it has now only 7,000. The town is defended by three fortresses,
one of which stands upon a hill, and two at the entrance of the
harbour.
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