d, we sailed into the open bay, passed near enough the
island of AEgina to see the ruined temple on one of its hights--almost to
count its columns--then coasted along the rugged shores of Argolis,
which we eagerly studied with the aid of a map. Here was the peninsula
Methana, and half hiding it, the island Calauria, where Demosthenes put
an end to his life, once the seat of a famous Amphictyony. Then the bold
promontory which shuts in the fertile valley of Troezer, then the
territory of Hermione, stretching between the mountains and the sea. We
touched at Hydhra, famed in the history of the Greek Revolution, a
strange, rambling town, picturesquely situated on a cleft in a bare
island of gray rock, and shortly after at Spetzia, a town of much the
same character; then toward night sailed into the beautiful bay of
Napoli, or Nauplia, once the capital of Greece.

It had been our intention to procure horses that night, and ride as far
as Mycenae, but we were too late, so contented ourselves with a walk to
Tiryus, and a rapid examination of its ruins. The massive walls of this
venerable town--they were a wonder in the age of Pericles as in
ours--still stand in their whole circuit, and here and there apparently
in their whole hight. It is a small, steep, mound-like hill--you can
walk around it in fifteen minutes--and within the walls the terraced
slope, thickly sprinkled with fragments of ruins, is grown over with the
tall purple flowers of the asphodel--a fit monument to the perished
city. From the citadel of Tiryus the view over the wide plain of the
Inachus, the broad bay beyond, covered with sails, the bold headland of
Napoli crowned with the ruined castle, the noble citadel of Argos, and
the mountain ranges on every side, made a picture beautiful even under
the dull sky of that March evening. Our walk--quickened by the fear that
the city gates would be found closed--gave us a hearty appetite, and a
classic smack was imparted to our modest viands by the fact that Orestes
himself waited on our table. We slept well, notwithstanding the
uncomfortable reputation of the inn, and set off early the next morning
upon our wanderings.

Traveling in Greece is no child's play. Roads there are none, except
between some large towns; indeed, the nature of the country hardly
allows of them, as it is made up chiefly of mountain ridges and ravines.
Neither would the poverty-stricken inhabitants be able at present to
make much use of them.