A EIDE ACEOSS THE PELOPONNESE. 163 



be ; nevertheless it was difficult to suppress the 

 feeling that, after all, we were not yet in true Greece. 

 "We were entering by the back-door. If we were 

 overcome by a sense of too exquisite beauty now, 

 what new emotion should we have left us to feel 

 when we crossed the Saronic Gulf, when we stood 

 upon the Acropolis of Athens, when our eyes beheld 

 the Parthenon 1 



We passed Leucadia and Actium in the night; 

 and when I got on deck next morning about seven 

 o'clock, Kephallonia was close on our left hand, while 

 Zante lay in front. It was pleasant to find, as we 

 neared Zante, that Homer's epithet "woody" 

 might still be applied with some truth. Compared 

 with its huger neighbour it might certainly be called 

 so, the lower parts of the island being covered with 

 olives. 



In an hour's time we began to see faintly in the 

 east the mountains about Missolonghi, under whose 

 shadow Byron died : by nine o'clock we could make 

 out a dim outline of the Peloponnesian coast, above 

 which towered the snowy range of Erymanthus, 

 dividing Elis from Arcadia ; while further south rose 

 the mountains of Messenia. 



Soon after nine we turned into the bay of Zante. 

 The town is very picturesquely situated a cluster of 

 white houses set in a framework of rich vegetation, 

 with a background of high bare peaks. Leaving the 

 steamer to pursue her course up the Gulf of Corinth, 



