simple
recital of an event in his life, better enlighten the stranger who
wishes in a few features to behold the land of the Hellenes, than any
picture could do.

"Then," says my Muse, "let him speak." A custom, a good, peculiar
custom, shall be the subject of the mountain shepherd's tale. It is
called

THE BOND OF FRIENDSHIP.

Our rude house was put together of clay; but the door-posts were
columns of fluted marble found near the spot where the house was
erected. The roof reached almost down to the ground. It was now dark
brown and ugly, but it had originally consisted of blooming olive and
fresh laurel branches brought from beyond the mountain. Around our
dwelling was a narrow gorge, whose walls of rock rose steeply upwards,
and showed naked and black, and round their summits often hung clouds,
like white living figures. Never did I hear a singing bird there,
never did the men there dance to the sound of the bagpipe; but the
spot was sacred from the old times: even its name reminded of this,
for it was called Delphi! The dark solemn mountains were all covered
with snow; the highest, which gleamed the longest in the red light of
evening, was Parnassus; the brook which rolled from it near our house
was once sacred also. Now the ass sullies it with its feet, but the
stream rolls on and on, and becomes clear again. How I can remember
every spot in the deep holy solitude! In the midst of the hut a fire
was kindled, and when the hot ashes lay there red and glowing, the
bread was baked in them. When the snow was piled so high around our
hut as almost to hide it, my mother appeared most cheerful: then she
would hold my head between her hands, and sing the songs she never
sang at other times, for the Turks our masters would not allow it. She
sang:

"On the summit of Olympus, in the forest of dwarf firs, lay an old
stag. His eyes were heavy with tears; he wept blue and even red
tears; and there came a roebuck by, and said, 'What ails thee, that
thou weepest those blue and red tears?' And the stag answered, 'The
Turk has come to our city: he has wild dogs for the chase, a goodly
pack.' 'I will drive them away across the islands,' cried the young
roebuck, 'I will drive them away across the islands into the deep
sea!' But before evening sank down the roebuck was slain, and before
night the stag was hunted and dead."

And when my mother sang thus, her eyes became moist, and on the long
eyelashes hung a tear; but she hid