would infer from its ruins that the city had
been twice as populous as it actually was. Demosthenes speaks of
the strangers who came to visit its attractions. But the changes of
twenty-three centuries have passed upon this splendor--a sad story
of violence and neglect--and the queenly city has long been in the
condition of ruin imagined by Thucydides. Still, the spell of her
influence is not broken, and the charm which once drew so many
visitors to her shrines still acts powerfully on the hearts of
scholars in all lands, who, having looked up to her poets, orators
and philosophers as teachers and loved them as friends, long to visit
their haunts, to stand where they stood, to behold the scenes which
they were wont to view, and to gaze upon what may remain of the great
works of art upon which their admiration was bestowed.

So the student-pilgrim from the Western World with native ardor
strains his sight to catch the first glimpse of the Athenian plain and
city. He is fresh from his studies, and familiar with what books teach
of the geography of Greece and the topography of Athens. He needs
not to be informed which mountain-range is Parnes, and which
Pentelicus--which island is Salamis, and which Egina. Yet much of what
he sees is a revelation to him. The mountains are higher, more varied
and more beautiful than he had supposed, Lycabettus and the Acropolis
more imposing, Pentelicus farther away, and the plain larger, the gulf
narrower, and Egina nearer and more mountainous, than he had fancied.
He is astonished at the smallness of the harbor at Peiraeus, having
insensibly formed his conception of its size from the notices of the
mighty fleets which sailed from it in the palmy days when Athens was
mistress of the seas. He is not prepared to see the southern shore
of Salamis so near to the Peiraeus, though it explains the close
connection between that island and Athens, and throws some light upon
the great naval defeat of the Persians. In short, while every object
is recognized as it presents itself, yet a more correct conception is
formed of its relative position and aspect from a single glance of the
eye than had been acquired from books during years of study.

Arrived at the city, his experience is the same. He needs no guide to
conduct him to its antiquities, nor cicerone to explain in bad
French or worse English their names and history. Still, unexpected
appearances present themselves not unfrequently. Hastening tow