t most sure sign, a soil thickly
covered with potsherds. No classic writer mentions it, no inscription
gives it a name; perhaps the careless traveler would pass without a
suspicion that he was treading on the street, or forum, or temple of a
once thriving town. Striking soon into the carriage-road from Napoli to
Tripolitza, and descending into a charming little valley with the
euphonious name of Achladhokamvo, we were not sorry to find a khan, and
take up our quarters for the night. We found the family sitting on the
floor around a fire blazing on a hearth in the middle of a room, and
here we placed ourselves, watching the women spinning and Dhemetri
making his preparations for supper. Out of the afore-mentioned basket
quickly came all the afore-mentioned articles. A lamb was killed, and
shortly an excellent supper was served up to us. Soon the guest-chamber
was announced to be ready for us, a large open room having a fire at one
end, and containing our beds, spread on the floor, a cricket three
inches high, that served as a table, two windows closed by shutters
instead of glass, and a large quantity of smoke.

The next morning a steep and picturesque path over Mount Parthenion--the
same path, I suppose, on which Phidippides had his well-known interview
with the god Pan--brought us to Arcadia. And at the name of Arcadia let
not the fond mind revert to scenes of pastoral innocence and enjoyment,
such as poets and artists love to paint--a lawn of ever-fresh verdure
shaded by the sturdy oak and wide-spreading beech, watered by
never-failing springs, swains and maidens innocent as the sheep they
tend, dancing on the green sward to the music of the pipe, and snowy
mountains in the distance lending repose and majesty to the scene.
Nothing of this picture is realized by the Arcadia of to-day, but the
snowy mountains, and they, indeed, are all around and near. No, let your
dream of Arcadia he something like this: A bare, open plain, three
thousand feet above the level of the sea, fenced in on every side by
snow-topped mountains, and swept incessantly by cold winds, the sky
heavy with clouds, the ground sown with numberless stones, with here and
there a bunch of hungry-looking grass pushing itself feebly up among
them. Not a tree do you behold, hardly a shrub. You come to a river--it
is a broad, waterless bed of cobble-stones and gravel, only differing
from the dry land in being less mixed with dirt, and wholly, instead of
partl