CORRESPONDENCE.

FROM PALESTINE TO ATTICA.

As Jerusalem is the metropolis of man in his relations with the spiritual world, the city from which radiated "a light to lighten the Gentiles," not less than the people of Israel, in all that appertains to the history of the human soul, from its birth on earth to the realm beyond the grave—the history of its sin, and sorrow, and death, and the way of its recovery to life, and hope, and joy—so Athens may be regarded as the metropolis of man in his relations with this world, the city in which the achievements of human nature in the realm of time reached their zenith. And modern civilisation, which is but another phrase for Christendom, is the product of the two combined. Both influences were necessary, —the influence of prophet, and law-giver, and psalmist from Judaea, and the influence of poet, and orator, and artist from the Virgin City of the violet crown. For it is the mission of Christianity to redeem human nature in its integrity ; not a part of it only, but the whole,—body, soul, and- spirit. And how strange to reflect that the two peoples, who have thus together exercised the most profound and enduring influence on the destinies of mankind, should have been numerically so insignificant. The Kingdom of Judah, in the time of Christ, hardly exceeded

the boundaries of Attica ; and Attica is a tract of land which, in its greatest length, is less than sixty miles, and in its greatest breadth is under thirty. Geographically, of course,

Attica was but a small portion of the Hellenic world ; but, for the purpose of my comparison, I am justified in regarding Attica as Hellas, for has not posterity allowed the claim of Attica to be 'EAxeic 'EAweidog—the Greece of Greece.

A yachting cruise from Palestine to Athens, via Constanti- nople, and from Athens, through the Gulf of Corinth, to

Sicily and Naples, in delightful weather, is a pleasure to be enjoyed rather than described, for no description can impart to others an adequate impression of scenes so full of beauty and of historical interest. If the waves of the Mediterranean were vocal, what a history they could tell ! for all that is most glorious in profane story, and all that is most holy in sacred, took place around its shores. In no other quarter of the globe do the beauties of Nature and the drama of human life offer so many and such varied attractions. In pic- turesque beauty and in cleanliness, a steam yacht is far inferior to a sailing yacht ; but it has the advantage of being less dependent on winds and currents, and of being able to carry you where a sailing-boat could not venture. If the sea is uncomfortable, and time no object, you can run out of your course for shelter to the most convenient nook which the chart offers you. Thus, in going from Cyprus to Rhodes, we went for shelter into Phineka Bay, clean out of the route of yachts and trading-vessels. Behind us and shielding us were the fine group of the Khelidonia Islands. In front of us was the coast of Lycia, wild and beautiful ; snow-capped mountains, intersected by green valleys, rising tier above tier to the height of nearly 8,000 ft. When the wind abated, we steamed for six hours along a rock- bound coast, honeycombed with caves and very sparsely sprinkled with villages, though evidently able to sup- port a much larger population : a sight familiar to the traveller in every land blighted by Turkish rule. In the evening we anchored in Yali Bay, a lovely land-locked creek behind a little island called Ashilada. It was deep enough to float an ironclad, but so narrow that the yacht had only a hundred fathoms to swing in. No human habitation was visible, save a fisherman's cottage above the shore. The moon was at the full, and shed a mild radiance over the crags which rose in front of us, and took weird shapes in the light and shadows through which they loomed over us.

"How calm it was ! The silence there

By such a chain was bound That even the busy woodpecker Made stiller with his sound The inviolable quietness; The breath of peace we drew

With its soft motion made not less The calm that round us grew."

But I must hurry on, and must not linger even in the Bosphorus, much as I should like to put down my impres- sions of the city of Constantine as seen from the sea on a bright morning ; or from a drive round its triple line of walls, in which the breach still remains unrepaired through which the fierce Janissaries, held in reserve for the final assault, rushed in, to quote Gibbon's words, " fresh, vigorous, and in- vincible," and overpowered the outnumbered and exhausted garrison ; or from walks through its streets and bazaars.

And the Bosphorus itself ! What pen can describe it from Stamboul to the Black Sea, its shores lined with villas and kiosks, and stately palaces, and gay with foliage, and blossom, and flowers, both cultivated and wild ? This is my last paper ; so I must take the reader straight on to Attica, leaving the glorious scenery and romantic memories of the intervening space to his imagination, or better knowledge.

If it be true in general that-

" Who would a poet understand, Must visit first the poet's land," it is true in an eminent degree of Attica. Full insight into the unrivalled products of Hellenic genius is inseparable from

the soil from which they sprang and the air which suffused them. Our minds and senses are best prepared to appreciate the wonderful works of Phidias, not in an atmosphere of London fogs, but by the bright scenery of the Ilissus, where the Parthenon stands out in its ruined magnificence against

the lucid blue sky. Many a coast or isle more fruitful is washed by the bright /Egean, many a spot is there more beautiful or sublime to see, many a territory more ample ; but there was one charm in Attica which, in the same perfec- tion, was nowhere else. The rich pastures of Arcadia, the plains of Argos, the Thessalian Vale—these had not the gift ; still less had Bceotia, which the mountain range of Parnes and Cithwron separated from Attica. The incommunicable dower of Attica is its splendid air, salu- brious, pure, elastic, and singularly stimulating, fit concomitant and emblem of the Attic genius ; bringing out every hue and tender shade of the mountain landscapes, and colouring with peculiar and various tints the marble of statues and temples, and making, at the same time, the olive, pale elsewhere, glow like the arbutus or beech of the Umbrian hills. To the same cause also is doubtless due the peculiar fragrance of the wild thyme and other odorous herbs which carpet the slopes of Hymettus, perfuming the atmosphere to such a degree as to attract the bees from the hives of Athens, and giving the honey of Hymettus that rare flavour which still justifies its classical fame.

The Athens of Plato, indeed, is no longer there. Then the " Long Walls" of Themistocles joined Athens to the Piraeus, and the intervening space of five miles made one street, which was thickly inhabited. And only one of the many temples of Athens still remains intact, while the Parthenon, the crown and glory of them all, is but a picturesque rain. And then think of the statues which met the traveller everywhere. Pausanias tell us that in Athens alone there were more statues of gods than in all the rest of Greece ; while Juvenal, with pardonable exaggeration, declares that gods were more com- monly met with in Athens than men. And while St. Paul was waiting in Athens for his companions, "his spirit was stirred in him when he saw the city full of idols." But, changed as Athens is in that respect, its physical environment remains the same. There is less wood than in the time of Plato, who com- plained of the denudation that was going on even then. The plane-trees by the Ilissus, under the shade of which Socrates and Phmdrus discoursed, are no longer there. But the Ilissus re- mains as of old, a torrent-in winter, and a shallow rivulet in summer, as when Socrates and Phmdrus walked ankle-deep up its bed to cool their feet before reclining under the plane-tree.. "I am fortunate in not having my sandals," says Phmdrus; "and as you never have any "—a glimpse into the habits of Socrates —" I think we may go along the brook and cool our feet in the water. This is the easiest way, and at mid-day and in the summer is far from being unpleasant." Pentelicus is also there with its inexhaustible marble, and Lycabettus towering over Athens, and Hymettus, its air fragrant with the odours of countless flowers, and resonant with the hum of its bees ; and, in the distance, Egina and Salamis, and the Acropolis of Corinth, and the headland of Sunium, and the violet billows breaking in foam against the strand ; while close at hand is the Acropolis, with its thousand associations ; and the Pnyx, where the orators of Athens addressed the assembled citizens; and the Areopagus, where the Apostle of the Gentiles addressed the Athenians with such consummate skill. Moved as his spirit was by the all-pervading idolatry of the city, never- theless the Apostle's wonderful tact never failed him for a moment. Beginning with a delicately-phrased compliment to their religious devotion, he adroitly takes his text from one of the altars dedicated to " an unknown god " which he encoun- tered in his rambles : " I am here to tell you all about this God whom ye ignorantly worship. And, indeed, one of your own poets bears witness that we are all his offspring." We can recall the scene. It was night. For that august Court, which had jurisdiction over heinous crimes and religious worship, met at night under the canopy of heaven ; at first probably for some ritual reason, but later, if Lucian is to be believed, in order that, by trying the cause in the dark, the judges might hear the speaker without seeing his face, and thereby be influenced, perhaps, by some facial expression of emotion. The Areopagus is a rocky eminence below the propylaea of the Acropolis, and overlooking the Agora. The summit of this rock is reached by a flight of sixteen steps cut in the stone. Not a trace now remains of the shrine of the Eumenides and other buildings which covered it. Here St. Paul addressed the Athenians, the Agora beneath him, and towering over him the Acropolis, with its coronet of temples. What impressive significance this must have given

to his declaration as, after his wont, he proclaimed, with out- stretched hand, that the " unknown God " " dwelleth not in temples made with hands." And so it is all through the enchanted land of Hellas. Inspection on the spot helps wonderfully to recall and explain the past. I never, for example, understood the comparative ease with which the Greeks routed the overwhelming hosts of Persia at Marathon and Salamis till I saw the scenes of those battles. Then it was easy to understand the matter. Their enormous superi- ority in numbers was, in fact, the ruin of the Persians. In the one case, there was no room to manoeuvre for their army, in the other, for their fleet; and the Greeks, after the first onset, had them at their mercy.

It was impossible to leave Greece without visiting Olympia, which occupied in the Hellenic world the place which Jeru- salem did in the Jewish, and which Rome occupies in the Roman Catholic world, and Mecca in the Mussulruan. It was the religions centre of the Greeks not only throughout Hellas and the Archipelago, but throughout all the Greek colonies and dependencies. Thither repaired, every five years, all the power, and wealth, and rank, and intellect of every Greek land, secure of safety and of welcome ; for the period of the gorgeous festival was a veritable " truce of God." Peace was enforced throughout the Hellenic world by sanctions too awful to be violated. To see the scene of the most splendid spectacle of the whole ancient world was worth a much longer journey than that from Athens ; and there was the addi- tional inducement of the Hermes of Praxiteles, discovered a few years ago among the ruins of Olympia. Nothing can surpass the beauty and variety of the scenery from Athens to Olympia, along the Gulf of Corinth, and through the primeval oak forest and wide plain, with a back- ground of snowy mountains, through which the railway passes after leaving Patras. And Olympia is worthy of such an in- troduction. Nature has wonderfully adapted it to its future destinies in giving to the famous plain of Elie an incomparable charm. On the north, the mountains of Achaia and the Alpine plateaux of Arcadia protect it against the cold winds that blow from that quarter. To the south, the forest of Messenia tempers the ardour of the noon-day breeze. Only towards the west is Olympia exposed, and that was an advantage, for through that channel in the mountains it is fanned by soft breezes from the sea. The hills are well wooded, and a thick wood surrounded also the sanctuary at the base, where the Claudeos and the Alpheios unite their waters. A long avenue of plane-trees sheltered under their shade a crowd of monu- ments and temples, and a thicket of silver poplars overshadowed the tomb of Pelops ; while the vine, the olive, and the myrtle intermingled their foliage on the slopes, and the meadows were brilliant with anemones ; all combining to make the sanctuary of Olympia a fresh and verdant retreat. But lack of space forbids my dwelling on the physical surroundings and spectacular splendour of the Olympic games. So I must wind up with a cursory notice of the masterpiece of Praxi, teles. I was told by competent judges, native and foreign, in Athens, that the Hermes of Praxiteles was alone worth a journey to Olympia, and they did not mislead me. I cannot give a better idea of the impression which that vision of beauty made on me than by saying that, in spite of an almost fatal fever which seized me the previous day on the way to Olympia, I sat for some time by that statue, supported in a chair, and was so ravished by its exquisite grace and finish, that I forgot my weakness and pain. I had seen representa- tions of the statue in marble and photograph ; but these show plainly bow the life breathed into his work by the great master vanishes with the inevitable failure to reproduce his almost incredible perfection of finish. Words cannot describe the fresh grace, the exuberant gaiety, the divine cheerfulness which overspreads the face of Hermes as he dangles probably —for that part of the statue is lost—a bunch of grapes before the eyes of the infant Dionysos.. The unanimous tradition of the ancients placed this statue, without hesitation, by the side