a day without being as many hours on
horseback: rain is extremely rare, snow never lies in the plains, and a
cloudy day is an agreeable rarity. In Spain, Portugal, and every part of
the East which I visited, except Ionia and Attica, I perceived no such
superiority of climate to our own; and at Constantinople, where I passed
May, June, and part of July (1810), you might "damn the climate, and
complain of spleen," five days out of seven.[227]

The air of the Morea is heavy and unwholesome, but the moment you pass
the isthmus in the direction of Megara the change is strikingly
perceptible. But I fear Hesiod will still be found correct in his
description of a Boeotian winter.[228]

We found at Livadia an "esprit fort" in a Greek bishop, of all
free-thinkers! This worthy hypocrite rallied his own religion with great
intrepidity (but not before his flock), and talked of a mass as a
"coglioneria."[229] It was impossible to think better of him for this;
but, for a Boeotian, he was brisk with all his absurdity. This
phenomenon (with the exception indeed of Thebes, the remains of
Chaeronea, the plain of Platea, Orchomenus, Livadia, and its nominal
cave of Trophonius) was the only remarkable thing we saw before we
passed Mount Cithaeron.

The fountain of Dirce turns a mill: at least my companion (who,
resolving to be at once cleanly and classical, bathed in it) pronounced
it to be the fountain of Dirce,[230] and any body who thinks it worth
while may contradict him. At Castri we drank of half a dozen streamlets,
some not of the purest, before we decided to our satisfaction which was
the true Castalian, and even that had a villanous twang, probably from
the snow, though it did not throw us into an epic fever, like poor Dr.
Chandler.[231]

From Fort Phyle, of which large remains still exist, the plain of
Athens, Pentelicus, Hymettus, the AEgean, and the Acropolis, burst upon
the eye at once; in my opinion, a more glorious prospect than even
Cintra or Istambol. Not the view from the Troad, with Ida, the
Hellespont, and the more distant Mount Athos, can equal it, though so
superior in extent.

I heard much of the beauty of Arcadia, but excepting the view from the
Monastery of Megaspelion (which is inferior to Zitza in a command of
country), and the descent from the mountains on the way from Tripolitza
to Argos, Arcadia has little to recommend it beyond the name.

"Sternitur, et _dulces_ moriens reminiscitur Argos."