shipping in the high places, but if I had been the priest I should not often have expected a full congregation.

The ruin has a fine effect, and its dimensions and plan are easily taken from what remains. We took with a cord the principal ones, which I have got in my journal. The pillars are Doric, and the architect, who, you will see in Chandler, was also the architect of the temple of Theseus, has followed the same bold and fine proportions. They are slenderer than the temples of Paestum and the old columns we saw at Corinth, but far stronger than our modern Doric, being in height only about five and a half diameters. The slender proportions now used have but a mean effect compared with the chaste and manly simplicity of the ancient architecture, and least of all agree with the strength and massy plainness of the Doric, which has suffered more from the corruption than any of the lighter orders.

I assure you the columns at Corinth, which are only three and a half diameters in height, are far grander than those at Nemea, which are of a late date, and are slenderer than the Athenian proportions. But you will say this is not interesting to you, who have not seen them.

The south part of Arcadia, then, we found beautiful beyond any country we had seen, except Monte Santo. The foliage of spring, and the mixture of its light greens with the sober brown of the olive and the dark verdure of the evergreens, heightened its beauties. The quantity of shrubs resembles Monte Santo, and they were now all in flower, and the ground covered with grass and every sort of blossom. The scenery is a suite of little retired valleys, with clear streams or rocky rivers down them, the sides ornamented with wood, which only opened to discover glades covered with flowering shrubs and verdure. Near these the scenes were perfect; their defect was that, seen from above, the higher hills, which below were hid, appeared

1795]

ARCADIAN SCENERY

197

bare and not picturesque. The views, therefore, are confined, but so sweet, still, and agreeable that I often wished you and Asphodel were by my side, and recollected with pleasure how often we had together enjoyed scenes of the same sort.

Were I to draw any parallel between Arcadia and Monte Santo, I should say that they were both designed by nature for what they have served, the first as a secluded rural country of shepherd lads and lasses, the other for the retirement of monastic contemplation. A monk, you will tell me, however, never was designed by nature, in which, as I perfectly agree with you, we must suppose it designed for your system of Irish solitude in russet gowns and pink ribbons; but as it now is, it has been strangely perverted from its intention. Perhaps my different ideas of the two places arise a good deal from having seen the one in spring, the other in autumn; they were quite the allegro and penseroso in the way of landscape.

At Arcadia we found some very hearty, good Turks. They were Lalliots, who were originally Greek renegades, and have little of the dignity and form of the Asiatic Turks, though their independence cures them of the fawning Greek character. Along all this part of Messenia we rode through an uneven, fine country, covered with forests of oak, till we approached the ancient Messene. We found remaining in it little but the walls and one of the gates, which is a large rotunda of eighteen yards across, forming a kind of bar. The stones over the doorway are extremely large, and some of the towers remain extremely well built. Burgh will tell you that they were the strongest walls Pausanias saw in Greece.

The plain of the river Pamisus, which extends from hence to Taygetus, is as fertile and as well cultivated as any part of England, near Calamata and Nisi. Its products are figs, oil, and silk chiefly; they have very large plantations of mulberry for the worms that pro

duce the latter. At Calamata we found a rich, pretty town inhabited by Greeks, who have improved in our opinion very much, as independence to a certain degree had made men of them. Our letters there were in so strong a strain of recommendation that the chiefs of the town disputed the honour of lodging us. We stayed very comfortably, and took measures to proceed. We were the only English who had been here in the memory of the oldest residents, and as it cannot rain but it pours, just as we were setting off we were joined by two others, whom we had known intimately at Constantinople.

This naturally detained us another day, which was passed in recounting our adventures and comparing notes very pleasantly. They had passed over partly the same country, and it was with pleasure I found we had left nothing unseen. We were now in the confines of Maina, of which I will give you some account before I continue my journey. Though the Turks made a prey of Greece and the Grecian Islands in general, yet it is not commonly known that one little district has always resisted all their efforts. What is still more interesting is that this district is the ancient Laconia, and that the men who have defended their freedom are the descendants of the heroes of Greece, for there is no place where families are less mixed or have gone on for generations more than here.

Their soil, which includes the two promontories of Malea and Taenarum (Matapan), is a barren rock; but this circumstance makes their country defensible, and, notwithstanding the fertility of the adjacent plains of Messenia, they have had the sense to perceive the superiority, like the country mouse, of “ a hollow tree, a crust of bread, and liberty." They have never had a Turk amongst them but as an enemy or a prisoner, and as they never admit any Turks, and supply the barrenness of their country sometimes by a freebooting war all round them, their name is a terror to the whole country, and the Turks, who consider them as rebels,