104 ISLAND OF NAXOS. 
CHAP. We copied this inscription with difficulty, being 
i - T -_- continually interrupted by the exorbitant de- 
mands of the woman to whom the house be- 
longed. She positively refused to sell the 
marble, having a superstitious notion that it 
prevented evil spirits from coming to her dwell- 
ing: after insisting upon a payment of thirty 
piastres for a sight of it, she allowed us to copy 
it for a hundred paras, but not without continual 
interruption, and the most clamorous entreaty 
for more money. 
Sculpture. "We had sufficient employment afterwards, 
among many valuable antiquities. Every frag- 
ment of the antient sculpture of Naxos denoted 
the most splendid aera of the art; but Bacchus 
was all in all. The fragment of a marble bust 
of the God, crowned with vine leaves, was 
shewn to us, of the most perfect sculpture; but 
the price set upon every thing proved our ap- 
proximation to western countries, and that the 
intercourse between this island and Italy 
had taught them how to appretiate the works 
of Grecian artists. An antient weight had 
been dug up, of an oblong square form, with 
its handle, neatly cut in marble : this we brought 
away: it weighs exactly four pounds, seven 
ounces and a half. A Greek had recently dis- 
covered a vessel of terra cotta, containing some 
