of a deep natural hillock,
with a great solemn portal symbolizing the resistless strength of the
barrier which he had passed into an unknown land. But one more remark
seems necessary. This treasure-house is by no means a Greek building in
its features. It has the same perfection of construction which can be
seen at Eleutherae, or any other Greek fort, but still the really
analogous buildings are to be found in far distant lands--in the raths
of Ireland, and the barrows of the Crimea.

"And yet how lovely in thine age of woe,
Land of lost gods and godlike men, are thou!
Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow,
Proclaim thee Nature's varied favourite now:
Thy fanes, thy temples to the surface bow,
Commingling slowly with heroic earth,
Broke by the share of every rustic plough:

"Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild:
Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,
Thine olives ripe as when Minerva smiled,
And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields;
There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,
The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain air;
Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds,
Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare;
Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair."

--From Byron's "Childe Harold."

IX

THE GREEK ISLANDS

A TOUR OF CRETE[61]

BY BAYARD TAYLOR

Crete lies between the parallels of 35 degrees and 36 degrees, not much
farther removed from Africa than from Europe, and its climate,
consequently, is intermediate between that of Greece and that of
Alexandria. In the morning it was already visible, altho some thirty
miles distant, the magnificent snowy mass of the White Mountains
gleaming before us, under a bank of clouds. By ten o'clock, the long
blue line of the coast broke into irregular points, the Dictynnaean
promontory and that of Akroteri thrusting themselves out toward us so as
to give an amphitheatric character to that part of the island we were
approaching, while the broad, snowy dome of the Cretan Ida, standing
alone, far to the east, floated in a sea of soft, golden light. The
White Mountains were completely enveloped in snow to a distance of 4,000
feet below their summits, and scarcely a rock pierced the luminous
covering. The shores of the Gulf of Khania, retaining their
amphitheatric form, rose gradually from the water, a rich panorama of
wheat-fields, vineyards and olive groves, crowded with s