increases his pace accordingly. Away they
scud before us, horse and rider; the gay dress
of the Greek, and his silver-hilted arms,
glittering in the morning sun, and the long blue
tassel of his red peakless cap standing out and
fluttering like a plume.

Behind him rides a German gentleman
without straps, and who is a little at the mercy
of a floundering vicious charger, which looks
very capable of mischief. He wears a long
great-coat, under which his trousers are fast
disappearing; and there is an unreasonable
space between the points of his toes; indeed,
they are as far apart as they well can
be, and his heels are pressed down in the
last style of Berlin. He carries a straight
riding whip swordwise; his hat is jammed
over his eyes, and the inevitable eye-glass
chain is streaming straight out behind him
like a pigtail. It is a wondrous sight to
see him holding on for his life, and jolting
about with every stride. The rear is brought
up by a small bald-headed gentleman, dressed
in a boating coat, checked small-clothes
crinkled at the knees, low shoes, and an
oilskin cap. He is peering forward in a
near-sighted way, from the heights of a gaunt and
terrible horse; partly to choose his ground,
partly to find the stirrup which he is
continually losing; and he is supplicating
Polychronopulos for mercy to horses and riders,
in a voice drowned in wind, and shaken into
fragments by the furious clatter of hoofs
over stony ground. The last figure is your
Roving Englishman; who reflects upon what
a different thing travelling is in reality, to
the imaginative travelling of romantic young
ladies and gentlemen at home.

Corinth, the well-watered city, was the rival
of Athens, the bravest battler against old
Rome, and which Mummius, a vulgar brutal
soldier, sacked for having joined the Achæan
League. Julius Cæsar partly restored it;
although he could not give back much of its
beauty and the treasures of art destroyed
for ever. Lastly, came Alaric, one of the
scourges of the earth, who left scarcely one
stone standing on another. Here Saint
Paul lived; and the famous Mahomed II
triumphed. The Venetians took it in sixteen
hundred and ninety-eight; and the Turks
regained it in seventeen hundred and fifteen.
In the last revolution it was burnt to the
ground; not one house escaped. Corinth was
very nearly, however, being chosen as the
capital of modern Greece, but its situation
was considered too unhealthy.

Seven Doric columns, the ruins of the
ancient temple of Minerva Chalamatis, still
stand as stately and beautiful, as perfectly
proportioned, as if just erected; although
they have stood through storm and
sunshine at least twenty-five hundred years.
There are some remains of the old Roman
town and a grass-grown amphitheatre to
be met with. The Acrocorinthus, and the
magnificent view from it, is the finest sight
of all; it takes in six of the most famous
states of ancient Greece, Achaia, Locris,
Phocis, BÅ“otia, Attica, and Argolis. The
Acrocorinthus, eighteen hundred feet above
the level of the sea, is said to be the strongest
fortification in Greece.

The modern town of Corinth is more
completely miserable than even a good stout
serviceable imagination always ready when
called upon, can conceive. It is literally
imbedded in filth and mud of all sorts. The
people, squalid and half starving, are half
naked; the houses are all one story high, and
all tumbling down. Hungry dogs howl and
fight for offal over the ruined baths of Hadrian.
The hotel appeared a mere refuge for destitute
vermin; for it is alive with them. They
swarmed over the seats of the chairs, and
played at leap-frog with your feet upon the
crowded floor. They were upon the walls,
the window sills, the curtains, the tablecloth,
even, and appeared quite wild with delight at
the arrival of a fresh and tender stranger; a
Greek skin being impervious to their attacks,
or of indifferent flavour should they succeed
in penetrating it. The bread, however,
looked clean when the crust was cut off;
and fortunately our lively little friends could
not get into the eggs, so that we managed to
appease our hunger; which was extremely
sharpened by the mountain air and brisk
motion after the confinement of a steamer.
We found it quite as well to keep our eyes
off the landlady when she came in, in order to
enjoy our bread and eggs; for a more
revolting old person it would be hard to find.
When she brought in a thick glutinous mess,
which was stated by Polychronopulos to be
coffee, we were too glad to take his word for
the fact, and to drink at a little fountain
water from the palms of our hands instead.

The modern Greeks are still a fine race of
men, straight, upright, and well grown; and
in the classes removed a little from absolute
beggary the national costume—gay and
flowing—adds considerably to their personal
attractions. But the women I saw were,
without exception, fat and uncomely. They
were broad where they ought to be slim, and
narrow where they ought to be full in figure.
Their complexions are oily, and their hair
coarse and ill-arranged; their eyes small,
and their hands and feet large and clumsy.
Not even the grace of their national dress can
conceal a certain waddling awkwardness ot
gait. They seem to be born to show how
ugly it is possible to be with faultless features;
for they have nearly all the Greek profile, the
straight nose, the delicate lip. They appear
to marry while quite children. Some of the
men had, I think, the worst and most
dangerous expression I ever saw in a human
face: at once dark and powerful—the cunning
to conceive crime, and the unswerving
firmness to go through with it. Diseased eyes
seemed very frequent at Corinth, probably
one of the many results of the fevers which