beside this mysterious spring. It was
not without reason they then became alarmed, for the guide confessed
with trepidation that he had forgotten the intricacies of the cave,
and knew not how to recover the outlet.

Byron often described this adventure with spirit and humour,
magnifying both his own and his friend's terrors; and though, of
course, there was caricature in both, yet the distinction was
characteristic. Mr Hobhouse, being of a more solid disposition
naturally, could discern nothing but a grave cause for dread in being
thus lost in the bowels of the earth; Byron, however, described his
own anxiety as a species of excitement and titillation which moved
him to laughter. Their escape from starvation and being buried alive
was truly providential.

While roaming in a state of despair from cave to cell; climbing up
narrow apertures; their last pine-torch fast consuming; totally
ignorant of their position, and all around darkness, they discovered,
as it were by accident, a ray of light gleaming towards them; they
hastened towards it, and arrived at the mouth of the cave.

Although the poet has not made any use of this incident in
description, the actual experience which it gave him of what despair
is, could not but enrich his metaphysical store, and increase his
knowledge of terrible feelings; of the workings of the darkest and
dreadest anticipations--slow famishing death--cannibalism and the
rage of self-devouring hunger.

CHAPTER XVIII

Proceed from Keratea to Cape Colonna--Associations connected with the
Spot--Second-hearing of the Albanians--Journey to Marathon--Effect of
his Adventures on the Mind of the Poet--Return to Athens--I join the
Travellers there--Maid of Athens

From Keratea the travellers proceeded to Cape Colonna, by the way of
Katapheke. The road was wild and rude, but the distant view of the
ruins of the temple of Minerva, standing on the loneliness of the
promontory, would have repaid them for the trouble, had the road been
even rougher.

This once elegant edifice was of the Doric order, a hexastyle, the
columns twenty-seven feet in height. It was built entirely of white
marble, and esteemed one of the finest specimens of architecture.
The rocks on which the remains stand are celebrated alike by the
English and the Grecian muses; for it was amid them that Falconer
laid the scene of his Shipwreck; and the unequalled description of
the climate of Greece, in The Giaour, was p