EL E US IS. 601 
Consul at Nauplia, on the side of the road, immedi- CHAP. 
ately before entering the village, and in the midst 
of a heap of dung, buried as high as the neck, a 
little beyond the farther extremity of the pave- 
ment of the Temple. Yet even this degrading situa- 
tion had not been assigned to it wholly indepen- 
dent of its antient history. The inhabitants of 
the small village which is now situate among the 
ruins of Eleusis still regarded this Statue with a 
very high degree of superstitious veneration. 
They attributed to its presence the fertility of 
their land ; and it was for this reason that they * h e inh 
. ~ bitantfc 
heaped around it the manure intended for their 
fields. They believed that the loss of it would be 
followed by no less a calamity than the failure of 
their annual harvests ; and they pointed to the 
ears of bearded wheat, among the sculptured orna- 
ments upon the head of the figure, as a never- 
failing indication of the produce of the soil. To 
this circumstance may perhaps be attributed a 
main part of the difficulties opposed to its 
removal, in the various attempts made for the 
purpose, during the years that have elapsed 
since it was first noticed by anEnglish traveller*. 
With regard to the allusions subsequently made 
to it by other writers, as the author has already 
(2) Sir George IVheler in 1GT6. 
