istianity, there was something
curiously prophetic in the contemptuous rejection of its apostle at
Athens. Was it not the first expression of the feeling which still
possesses the visitor who wanders through its ruins, and which still
dominates the educated world--the feeling that while other cities owe
to the triumph of Christianity all their beauty and their interest,
Athens has to this day resisted this influence; and that while the
Christian monuments of Athens would elsewhere excite no small attention,
here they are passed by as of no import compared with its heathen
splendor?

There are very old and very beautiful little churches in Athens,
"delicious little Byzantine churches," as Renan calls them. They are
very peculiar, and unlike what one generally sees in Europe. They strike
the observer with their quaintness and smallness, and he fancies he here
sees the tiny model of that unique and splendid building, the cathedral
of St. Mark at Venice. But yet it is surprizing how little we notice
them at Athens. I was even told--I sincerely hope it was false--that
public opinion at Athens was gravitating toward the total removal of
one, and that the most perfect, of these churches, which stands in the
middle of a main street, and so breaks the regularity of the modern
boulevard!

FROM ATHENS TO DELPHI ON HORSEBACK[51]

BY BAYARD TAYLOR

We left Athens on the 13th of April, for a journey to Parnassus and the
northern frontier of Greece. It was a teeming, dazzling day, with light
scarfs of cloud-crape in the sky, and a delicious breeze from the west
blowing through the pass of Daphne. The Gulf of Salamis was pure
ultramarine, covered with a velvety bloom, while the island and Mount
Kerata swam in transparent pink and violet tints. Crossing the sacred
plain of Eleusis, our road entered the mountains--lower offshoots of
Cithaeron, which divide the plain from that of Boeotia....

We climbed the main ridge of the mountains; and, in less than an hour,
reached the highest point--whence the great Boeotian plain suddenly
opened upon our view. In the distance gleamed Lake Capais, and the hills
beyond; in the west, the snowy top of Parnassus, lifted clear and bright
above the morning vapors; and, at last, as we turned a shoulder of the
mountain in descending, the streaky top of Helicon appeared on the left,
completing the classic features of the landscape....

As we entered the plain, taking a rough path toward Platae