le instead of in our laps, as we were used. The
family shook hands with us cordially when we took leave, in the morning,
placing their hands on their hearts.

This day we rode through a rolling country, quite well watered and
wooded, separating the waters of the Eurotas from those of the Alpheus,
Laconia from Arcadia. As we reached the highest point, and were about to
descend, Dhemetri pointed out a village, distinguished by a single tall,
slender cypress, with the words; 'There is Megalopolis.' This is the
city founded by Epaminondas, almost the only statesman of antiquity who
seems to have had a dim conception of the modern policy of the balance
of power, as a point of union for the jealous and disunited States of
Arcadia, and as a sentinel stationed at a chief entrance to Laconia. The
whole of his great project was not realized, and Megalopolis, instead of
becoming 'the great city' of Arcadia, was only a mate to Tegea and
Mantinea. Even thus, the work was by no means lost; a Spartan army, to
reach Messenia, whose independence was to be secured, must pass through
the territory of Megalopolis, and even a second-rate city would answer
as a guard. But not even Epaminondas could make of Arcadia a first-class
power, and a sufficient counterpoise to Sparta. Megalopolis is now
wholly deserted, and represented only by the little village of Sinanu,
half a mile distant, where we stopped at a khan kept by an old soldier
of Colocotroni, and ran, while dinner was preparing, to examine the
scanty ruins of the great city--interesting only from their association
with a great name.

Reluctantly, we now turned our backs upon Messene, with its renowned
fortress of Ithome, the sacred Olympia, and the beautiful temple of
Phigalia, and began our homeward journey. Passing over a mountain from
which we had a wide and beautiful view, we rode through a barren and
uninteresting plain to the lonely khan of Frankovrysi, and early the
next day arrived at Tripolitza. We had had a clear sky at Megalopolis
and Frankovrysi, but here, in the high table-land of Arcadia, we found
the self-same leaden sky and bleak winds we left three days before. This
valley or table-land stretches from north to south, nearly divided in
two by the approach of the mountains from east and west. Thus the valley
takes the shape rudely of the figure eight; the southern part, through
one corner of which we had passed before, being occupied by Tegea, the
northern by Mantinea.