DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5541#0063
Chap, hi.]
THE PEIRSEUS.
35
glomerates of pebbles and red marl, imbedded in the sand.
In one ravine I found a bed of calcareous marl, five or six
feet thick, full of small shells and corallines, dipping like
the rest S.E. at an angle of 15°.
Leaving the rocky road along the shore by Megara and
Eleusis, we embarked in a zernike for Athens. The vessel
was roomy and comfortable, and sailed closer to the wind
than any boat I had ever seen. The captain was intel-
ligent, but a great talker, had commanded one of the forts
of Napoli during the war, and, as soon as he heard my name,
launched forth in praise of the gallant commander of the
" Cambrian," whose memory still commands esteem and
respect all over Greece and the Archipelago. Yet this
man was not satisfied with the condition of his country;
he grumbled at everything in the shape of a tax, and
thought he paid too dearly for its tranquillity and peace,
and the safety of individual property, by being taxed one
drachme, equal to sevenpence, each time his boat ran into
the Peirajus.
Tuesday, Oct. 13.—Having passed close under the island of
iEgina during the night, we were off Salamis at day-break ;
and after beholding the scene of the first recorded triumph
of the " wooden walls" of a free nation, we entered the har-
bour of the Peiraius soon after seven. One of the marble
piers which formed the entrance of the harbour, and on
which the lion now in front of the arsenal of Venice is said
to have stood, still rises, although in ruins, above the water;
the other may be distinctly seen beneath thewsurfacc. From
the Peiracus we walked to Athens by a long and dusty road,
on which a few traces of the long walls were still visible
near the harbour; but in the present rage for improve-
ments these are fast disappearing, every one taking what
he pleases for his own use.
At length, after passing through the grove of sacred
olives, a sudden turn in the road and a break in the hills
brought the Acropolis and the Parthenon before our eyes.
We had already caught a distant glhnpse of them from the
d 2
THE PEIRSEUS.
35
glomerates of pebbles and red marl, imbedded in the sand.
In one ravine I found a bed of calcareous marl, five or six
feet thick, full of small shells and corallines, dipping like
the rest S.E. at an angle of 15°.
Leaving the rocky road along the shore by Megara and
Eleusis, we embarked in a zernike for Athens. The vessel
was roomy and comfortable, and sailed closer to the wind
than any boat I had ever seen. The captain was intel-
ligent, but a great talker, had commanded one of the forts
of Napoli during the war, and, as soon as he heard my name,
launched forth in praise of the gallant commander of the
" Cambrian," whose memory still commands esteem and
respect all over Greece and the Archipelago. Yet this
man was not satisfied with the condition of his country;
he grumbled at everything in the shape of a tax, and
thought he paid too dearly for its tranquillity and peace,
and the safety of individual property, by being taxed one
drachme, equal to sevenpence, each time his boat ran into
the Peirajus.
Tuesday, Oct. 13.—Having passed close under the island of
iEgina during the night, we were off Salamis at day-break ;
and after beholding the scene of the first recorded triumph
of the " wooden walls" of a free nation, we entered the har-
bour of the Peiraius soon after seven. One of the marble
piers which formed the entrance of the harbour, and on
which the lion now in front of the arsenal of Venice is said
to have stood, still rises, although in ruins, above the water;
the other may be distinctly seen beneath thewsurfacc. From
the Peiracus we walked to Athens by a long and dusty road,
on which a few traces of the long walls were still visible
near the harbour; but in the present rage for improve-
ments these are fast disappearing, every one taking what
he pleases for his own use.
At length, after passing through the grove of sacred
olives, a sudden turn in the road and a break in the hills
brought the Acropolis and the Parthenon before our eyes.
We had already caught a distant glhnpse of them from the
d 2