GREECE. 



689 



town "s well built, and the lioiises display much neatness and elegance. The inhabitants are 

 occupied exclusively in maritime affairs. There is no other town on the island. Hydra con- 

 tains 20.000 inhabitants. * Spezia, near Hydra, is another rocky island, distinguished by its 

 naval warfare with the Turks. Population, 18,000. Foroshns a good harbor, and a town with 

 3,600 inhabitants. Tino, Andros, Scopelos, Zea^ J\[iconi, Siphnos, Seriplws^ Syra, JVaxos, 

 Santorini, Egina, Salamis, Paros, jyiilo, are inhabited by a population vaiying IVom 3,000 to 

 10,000; Tino with 22,000, and Syra with 30,000, being the only ones which exceed the 

 latter number. 



Paros has 2,000 inhabitants, and produces marble, which has been celebrated from all anti- 

 quity. Antiparos^ in its neighborhood, is 

 celebrated for its grotto, which is one of 

 the most remarkable in the world. The 

 traveler enters first into a cavern, but af- 

 ter advancing a short distance, frightful 

 precipices surround him on every side. 

 The only way of descending these steep 

 rocks is by means of ropes and ladders 

 which have been placed across wide and 

 dismal clitfs. Below them, at the depth 

 of ISOO feet from the surface, is found a 

 grotto 360 feet long, 340 wide, and ISO in 

 height, covered with the most beautiful 

 stalactites, f This cavern was discovered 

 in the 17th century, by Magni, an Italian. 



5. Bays and Gulfs. The Gulf of Le- 

 panto is a long narrow inlet of the sea, 

 bounding the Morea on the north. The 

 Gulf of Egina lies between Attica and 

 the Morea and is separated from the Gulf of Lepanto by the isthmus of Corinth. The gulfs 

 or bays of Jfapoli, Coron, and Colocythia, are also in the Morea. The Gidf of Volo in the 

 northeast, and that of Jlrta in the northwest, form a part of the boundailcs. 



6. Capes. Cape JMatapan, the ancient Tanarium, forms the southern extremity of the 



Grotlo of Antrparus. 



* " Its present inhabitants Iiad the same general orioin 

 as their Albanian neighbors of the Argolic peninsula, and 

 retired hero to escape Moslem oppression. Before the 

 Russian war of 1769, they were few in number, but when 

 the Ottomans came again into possession of the Morea 

 after thit war, Hydra was one of tiie asylums of those 

 who fled from the proscriptions which ensued. At tlie 

 beginning of the French revolution, there were only a 

 few latin vessels and fishing-boats belonging to the isl- 

 and. But this event threw into their hands a lucrative 

 carrying trade, gave spirit and boldness to their enter- 

 prise, increased the number and size of their vessels, and 

 extended their commerce from the Black Sea and Egypt, 

 to the western countries of the Mediterranean, and one 

 of their vessels even ventured across the Atlantic to our 

 shores. Some of the inhabitants, and especially the two 

 Conduriottis, became exceedingly rich. At home, tiie 

 Hydriotes enjoyed perfect liberty under a domestic gov- 

 ernment of their own creation, and the protection of the 

 Captain Pasha, and no Turk was allowed to do more than 

 set his foot on the island. But on the sea, their commerce 

 enjoyed no protection, and, to defend themselves from the 

 Barbary pirates, they invariably went armed wilii from 8 

 to 30 cannon, and were manned with from 35 to 70 men. 

 * * * Tlie result was, that at the commencement of the 

 Greek revolution in 18-21, the Turks, to their great sur- 

 prise, found this little island prepared, in money, ships, 

 and arms, to take sea against them with a respectable 

 squadron. One of the most intelligent of the citizens 

 told us, that they then had 80 square-rigged vessels. He 

 said the number had since been reduced to little more 

 than 31), though less than 300 Hydriotes were slain during 

 the war. The enemy never attacked the city, nor ventured 

 between the island and continent." Anderson's Observa- 

 tions upon tlie Pchponnfsii.i, and Greek Island/;. 



87 



t "The roof, which is a fine vaulted arch, is hung all 

 over with icicles of a white shining marble, some of them 

 10 feet long and as thick as one's middle at the root, and 

 among these there liang a thousand festoons of leaves and 

 flowers of the same substance, but so very glittering, that 

 there is no bearing to look up at tliem. Tlie sides of the 

 arch aie planted with seeming trees of the same white 

 marble, rising in rows one above another, and often inclos- 

 ing the points of the icicles. From these trees there hang 

 also festoons, tied, as it were, from one to another, in vast 

 quantities; and in some places among them, there seem 

 rivers of marble winding through them in a thousand me- 

 anders. The floor we trod upon was rough and uneven 

 with crystals of all colors growing irregularly out of it, 

 red, blue, green, and some of a pale yellow ; these were 

 all shaped like pieces of saltpetre, but so hard, that they 

 cut our shoes ; among them, placed here and there, are 

 icicles of the same shining white marble with those 

 above, and seeming to have i'allen down from the roof and 

 fi.xed there, only the big end of them is to the floor. To 

 all these our guides had tied torches, two or three to a 

 pillar, and kept continually beating them to make them 

 beam bricrht. You may guess what a glare of splendor and 

 beauty must be the eftect of this illumination among such 

 rocks and columns of marble. All round the lower part 

 of the sides of the arch are a thousand white masses of 

 marble in the shape of oak trees ; one of these chambers 

 has a fair white curtain, whiter than satin, of the same 

 marble, stretched all over the front of it. In this we cut 

 our names and tlie date of the year, as a great many peo- 

 ple have done before us. In the course of a few yeara 

 the stone blisters out like this white marble over the let- 

 ters." — British Magazine, February, 1746. 



