DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4593#0307
THE PELOPONNESUS 283
°ne photograph of the Archaeological Cavalry in
motion, but I am not unkind enough to reproduce the
pictures in this book. A Greek saddle shaped some-
thing like a sawbuck is not the most comfortable
seat in the world, and the Dalmatian priest, whose
card, large enough for a Christmas chromo, was cov-
ered with an extended enumeration of honors, titles
and functions, ought to have been excused from any-
additional penance. My sympathies went out to the
little animal which had to bear this mass of erudition.
If. like Balaam's ass, the gift of speech had been con-
ferred on this Peloponnesian mule, he might have
addressed the priest in any one of six or eight lan-
guages with a hope of being understood. The mule-
teers or agogiats who went along kept up a continual
shouting and beating, and my sturdy pony was not
relieved of this annoyance until I had thrown away
the boy's club, and with pardonable exaggeration
threatened to throw him over a precipice if he struck
my beast again.
With twenty-five horses and mules, three pack
mules, and eight or more agogiats, all under the com-
mand of Colonel Dorpfeld, — to whom a military title
in this connection seems more appropriate, — we left
Megalopolis and marched on Lykosoura. Though
tradition claims it as the site of the oldest town in
Greece and the early scat of the Arcadian kings, its
ruins seemed modern compared with those of Mycenae
and Tiryns, and even with those of Corinth and
Athens.
The temple of Despoina was the main object of
our pilgrimage. The ruins are not imposing except
from their situation. It was a Doric temple, but none
°ne photograph of the Archaeological Cavalry in
motion, but I am not unkind enough to reproduce the
pictures in this book. A Greek saddle shaped some-
thing like a sawbuck is not the most comfortable
seat in the world, and the Dalmatian priest, whose
card, large enough for a Christmas chromo, was cov-
ered with an extended enumeration of honors, titles
and functions, ought to have been excused from any-
additional penance. My sympathies went out to the
little animal which had to bear this mass of erudition.
If. like Balaam's ass, the gift of speech had been con-
ferred on this Peloponnesian mule, he might have
addressed the priest in any one of six or eight lan-
guages with a hope of being understood. The mule-
teers or agogiats who went along kept up a continual
shouting and beating, and my sturdy pony was not
relieved of this annoyance until I had thrown away
the boy's club, and with pardonable exaggeration
threatened to throw him over a precipice if he struck
my beast again.
With twenty-five horses and mules, three pack
mules, and eight or more agogiats, all under the com-
mand of Colonel Dorpfeld, — to whom a military title
in this connection seems more appropriate, — we left
Megalopolis and marched on Lykosoura. Though
tradition claims it as the site of the oldest town in
Greece and the early scat of the Arcadian kings, its
ruins seemed modern compared with those of Mycenae
and Tiryns, and even with those of Corinth and
Athens.
The temple of Despoina was the main object of
our pilgrimage. The ruins are not imposing except
from their situation. It was a Doric temple, but none