636 ChateauhrianiVs Travels in Egypt, Palestine, 
seiiibled forsaken fallaws, interspersed 
with the sea-rush and bushes of a species 
of briar. Large bulbs of the mountain 
lily, uprooted by the rains, appeared 
here and there on the surl’ace of the 
ground. We descried the sea to the 
east, through a thinly-sown wood of 
olives. We then descended into a val¬ 
ley, where we saw some fields of barley 
and cotton. We crossed the bed of a 
torrent, now dried up; it was full of rose 
laurels, and aitnus-castus, a shrub with a 
lo”g» pale, narrow, leaf, whose purple 
and somewhat woolly flower shoots out 
nearly into the form of a spindle. I 
mention these two shrubs, because they 
are met with over all Greece, and are 
almost the only decorations of those so¬ 
litudes, once so rich and gay, now so 
naked and dreary. Now I am upon the 
subject of this dry torrent, I shall ob¬ 
serve, that in the native country of the 
Ihssus, the Alpheus, and the Eryman- 
thus, I have seen but three rivers, whose 
nrns were not exhausted ; these were the 
Pamisus, the Ceph.isus, and the Eurotas. 
I must also beg pardon for the kind of 
indifference, and almost of impiety with 
which I shall sometimes write the most 
tteiehrated and the most ha/monious 
liarncs. In Greece, a man hccomcs 
familiarised, m spite of hitnstlf, wuh 
rhemistodes, bmaminondas, Sophocles, 
Plato, and Fiiucvdides, and it iequires 
protonnd devorioii not to pa->s Citccron, 
JMa^uatos, or Lycteon, as he would or¬ 
dinary hills. 
AHYCL.T. 
A* eiglit in tfie morning, I set out for 
Amyciie, now Sclabochorioii, accom¬ 
panied by my new guide and a Greek 
Cicerone, very good-tempered, but ex- 
r^emei', ignoiant. ^Ve took the road to 
the plain, at the foot of Taygetua, fol- 
lowiiig shady and very agreeable by¬ 
paths, leading between gardens, irrigated 
by streamlets wnich descended from tiie 
mountain, and planted with mulberry, 
fig, and sycamore, trees. We also saw 
in (hem. abundaiice of w’ater-leinons, 
grapes, cucumbers, and herbs of tiitiereni 
s-inds ; from the beauty of the skv, and 
the similanty of produce, a traveller 
might imagine liimself to be in the vicini¬ 
ty of Chatiibery. We passed the liasa, 
and arrived at Arnyclce, where I found 
nothing but the rains of a dozen Greek 
chapels, deniohshed by the Albannlos; 
Situated at some distance from eme 
Another, in the midst of cultivated fields, 
temple of Apollo, ifeuc of Eurotas% 
at Onga, the tomb of Hyacinthus, have 
ail disappeared. I could not discover a 
single inscription ; though I sought with 
care the celebrated necrology of the 
priestesses of Amyclas, ’.vhich the Abb4 
Fourraont copied in 1731 or 1732, and 
which records a series for nearly a thou¬ 
sand years before Ghrist, Destructions 
succeed each other with such rapidity in 
Greece, that frequently one traveller per¬ 
ceives not the slightest vestige of the 
monuments which another has admired 
only a few months before him. Whilst 
I was searching for fragments of antique 
ruins among heaps of modern ones, I 
saw a number of peasants approach with 
a papa at their head. They removed a 
board set up against the wall of one of 
the chapels, and entered a sanctuary 
which I had not yet discovered. I had 
the curiosity to follow them, and f)und 
that the poor creatures resorted with 
their priests to these ruins to pray: they 
sung litanies before an image of the 
Panagia (or Virgin Maty\ daubed in red 
upon a wall that had been painted blue. 
How widely different was this ceremony 
from tl'.e I’estival of H\aciiuhus| The 
triple pomp however, of the ruins, of ad¬ 
versity, and of prayers to the true God, 
surpassed, in my opinion, ail the splen¬ 
dors of the earili. 
SPARTA. 
Surveyed from the castle of I\Iisitra, 
the valley of Laconia is truly admirable. 
It extei'ids nearly from north to south, is 
bordered on the west by Taygetus, and 
on the east by iNIounts Thornax, Baros- 
tlienes, Olympus, and iMeiielaiou : binall 
hills obstruct the northein extrennt) of 
the valley, descend to the south, di¬ 
minishing in heiglit, and terminate in 
the eminences on which Sparta i.-! seated. 
From Sparta to the sea stretches a level 
anr) fertile plain watered by the Eurotas. 
Here then was I mounted on one of 
the battlements at the castle of Misitra, 
exploring, contemplating, and admiring, 
all Laconia, But, metinuks I hear the 
reader enquire, when will you speak of 
SpaiTa ? Where are the ruins t>f that 
city? Are they comprised within iMioitra? 
Are;qio tiaces of them reniaining r VS'hy 
didryou run away to Amyclae before vnu 
hai^examined every corner of I.aceiice- 
mon ? Tou meieiv mention ttie nama 
of the Eurotas without pointing out its 
couise, without desciihing its banks, 
Ibiw broad is it ? Of what color are its 
waters? Where are its swans, its jeeds, 
ft? laurels? ihe miirutesi particulars 
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