attachment to her I much doubt. I believe his passion was equally
innocent and poetical, though he spoke of buying her from her mother.
It was to this damsel that he addressed the stanzas beginning,

Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh! give me back my heart.

CHAPTER XIX

Occupation at Athens--Mount Pentilicus--We descend into the Caverns--
Return to Athens--A Greek Contract of Marriage--Various Athenian and
Albanian Superstitions--Effect of their Impression on the Genius of
the Poet

During his residence at Athens, Lord Byron made almost daily
excursions on horseback, chiefly for exercise and to see the
localities of celebrated spots. He affected to have no taste for the
arts, and he certainly took but little pleasure in the examination of
the ruins.

The marble quarry of Mount Pentilicus, from which the materials for
the temples and principal edifices of Athens are supposed to have
been brought, was, in those days, one of the regular staple
curiosities of Greece. This quarry is a vast excavation in the side
of the hill; a drapery of woodbine hangs like the festoons of a
curtain over the entrance; the effect of which, seen from the
outside, is really worth looking at, but not worth the trouble of
riding three hours over a road of rude and rough fragments to see:
the interior is like that of any other cavern. To this place I one
day was induced to accompany the two travellers.

We halted at a monastery close by the foot of the mountain, where we
procured a guide, and ate a repast of olives and fried eggs. Dr
Chandler says that the monks, or caloyers, of this convent are
summoned to prayers by a tune which is played on a piece of an iron
hoop; and, on the outside of the church, we certainly saw a piece of
crooked iron suspended. When struck, it uttered a bell-like sound,
by which the hour of prayer was announced. What sort of tune could
be played on such an instrument the doctor has judiciously left his
readers to imagine.

When we reached the mouth of the grotto, by that "very bad track"
which the learned personage above mentioned clambered up, we saw the
ruins of the building which the doctor at first thought had been
possibly a hermit's cell; but which, upon more deliberate reflection,
he became of opinion "was designed, perhaps, for a sentinel to look
out, and regulate, by signals, the approach of the men and teams
employed in carrying marble to the city." This, we agreed, was a
v