E LEU SIS. 619 
simple contrivance succeeded, when perhaps CHAP. 
more complicate machinery might have failed : T ' 
and a mass of marble weighing near two ton* 
was moved over the brow of the hill or dcrojjolis 
of Elmsis, and from thence to the sea, in about 
nine hours. 
An hundred peasants were collected from the 
village and neighbourhood of Eleusis, and near 
fifty boys. The peasants were ranged, forty on 
each side, to work at the ropes ; some being 
employed, with levers, to raise the machine, 
when rocks or large stones opposed its progress. 
The boys who were not strong enough to work 
at the ropes and levers, were engaged in taking 
up the rollers as fast as the machine left them, 
and m placing them again in the front. 
But the superstition of the inhabitants of Difficulties 
Eleusis, respecting an idol which they all re- 
garded as the protectress of their fields, was not 
the least obstacle to be overcome. In the 
evening, soon after our arrival with the jirmdn, 
an accident happened which had nearly put an 
end to the undertaking. While the inhabitants 
were conversing with the Tchnhadar, as to the 
means of its removal, an ox, loosed from its 
yoke, came and placed itself before the Statue; 
