At five o'clock the persistent thumping of Spyros on the bedroom doors announced the call of incense-breathing morn, though Phoebus had not yet by any means driven his horses above the rim of the horizon. The air outside was thick o' fog,—doubtless a low-lying cloud settling on the mountain,—and it was dark and cheerless work getting out of our narrow beds and dressing in the cold twilight. Nevertheless it was necessary, for the ride to Olympia is long, and Spyros had promised us a fatiguing day, with twelve hours in the saddle as a minimum. To this forecast the pessimistic Baedeker lent much plausibility by his reference to the road as being unspeakably bad; and besides we ourselves had on the previous day gathered much personal experience of the mountain trails of the region. Breakfast under these circumstances was a rather hasty meal, consumed in comparative silence.

By the time the last of the rolls and jam had disappeared and the task of furling up the beds was well advanced, a clatter of hoofs in the village street drew one of the party to the door, whence word was speedily returned that the street outside was full of horses. And it was. There were ten steeds, including four for our party, two for Spyros and Stathi, one for a muleteer relief conveyance, and the rest for the baggage—the latter being small and seemingly quite inadequate burros or donkeys, who proved more notable for their patient indifference than for size or animation. While these were being laden, four other beasts drew near, bearing our solitary German of the day before and another of his countrymen who had materialized during the night, with their impedimenta. They were welcomed to the caravan, which, numbering fourteen beasts and almost as many humans, took the road out of town with commendable promptitude at sharp six o'clock. The cloud had lifted as we rounded the western edge of the valley and looked back at AndhritsÆna, glimmering in the morning light. We were streaming off in Indian file along a very excellent road, like that on which we had ridden up from Megalopolis two days before, and which promised well for a speedy removal of the apprehensions awakened by BÆdeker. But the road did not last long. Before we had fairly lost AndhritsÆna in the hills behind, the leading guide turned sharply to the left, through a rocky defile in the hillside, and precipitated us down one of those rocky torrent beds, with the nature of which we had become only too familiar the day before. It was the less disturbing this time, however, because we had learned to trust implicitly to the careful feet of our horses, with no more than a firm grip on bridle and pommel and an occasional soft whistle, or murmured "ochs', ochs'," to the intelligent beasts as an outward and audible sign of inward and spiritual perturbation. It was steep but short, and we came out below upon the road again, to everybody’s unconcealed delight.

The road, however, soon lost itself in a meadow. When it is ultimately finished, the journey will be much easier than we found it. In a few years I suppose it will be perfectly possible to ride to Olympia in a carriage, and the horseback problem will cease to deter visitors to BassÆ from continuing their journey westward. The way now lay along a pleasant and rolling meadow country, dotted with primitive farms, which glowed under the bright morning sun. We splashed through a narrow upland river and up another rocky ascent, beyond which another downward pitch carried us to a still lower meadow. Meantime the cold of morning gave place to a growing warmth, and the wraps became saddle blankets in short order. We rode and walked alternately, choosing the level stretches through the grass for pedestrianism and riding only when we came to sharp upward climbs, thus easing the fatigue that we should otherwise have found in continued riding. Always we could see the imposing peaks to the north, and the downward tendency of the trail soon brought out the altitude of the hills behind AndhritsÆna. The immediate vicinity of our path was pastoral and agricultural, in the main, for the recurring ridges over which we scrambled served only as boundaries between well-watered vales in which small trees and bushes flourished, and where the occasional sharp whir of pressure from a primitive penstock called attention to the presence of a water mill. Aside from these isolated mills there was little sign of habitation, for the fields seemed mostly grown up to grass. In the far distance we could see the valley of the Alpheios, broadening out of its confining walls of rock to what seemed like a sandy reach in the plain far below, and we were told that at nightfall we should be ferried across it close to Olympia, provided we caught the boatmen before they left for home. It was this anxiety to be on time that led Spyros to urge us along, lest when we came out at the bank of the river we should find no response to the ferryman’s call of "Varka! Varka!"—the common mode of hailing boatmen in Greece. With this for a spur we wasted little time on the way, but proceeded steadily, now riding, now walking, up hill and down dale, through groves of low acacias or Judas trees, or along grassy meadows where a profusion of wild flowers added a touch of color to the green.

The pleasant valley, however, proved not to be the road for very long. In an hour or so the guides branched off again into a range of hills that seemed as high as those we had left, and there entered a tortuous ravine worn by a mountain brook, along which the path wound higher and higher toward a distant house which the muleteers pointed out and pronounced to be a "?e??d??e???,"—the Professor had long ago learned to call it "Senator Sheehan,"—at which wayside inn the mistaken impression prevailed that we were speedily to lunch. It was not so to be, however. When we had achieved the height and rested under two leafy plane trees that we found there, Spyros repeated his tale about the ferrymen and their departure at sundown; and we must away at once, with no more refreshment than was to be drawn from some crackers and a bottle of Solon. And so we pressed on again, still climbing, though more gradually. The path was not so bad after all, despite the BÆdeker, and in one place we voted it easily the finest spot we had found in all our Peloponnesian rambles. We were riding along at the time through a shady grove when we came suddenly upon a collection of mammoth planes, whose branches spread far and wide, and from the midst of the cleft side of one of them a spring bubbled forth joyously, flooding the road. It was here that the king on one of his journeys the year before had stopped to rest and partake of his noonday meal. It seemed to us, famished by six hours of hard riding, that the king’s example was one all good citizens should follow; but Spyros was inexorable, and reminded us that ferrymen might wait for the King of Greece, but not for any lesser personages whatsoever. We must not halt until we got to Gremka; for at Gremka we should find a good road, and beyond there it was four hours of travel, and we might judge exactly how much time we had for rest by the hour of our reaching the place. So we obediently proceeded, joined now by two more beasts so laden with the empty oil-cans common to the region that only their legs were visible. These furnished the comedy element in the day’s experiences, for the donkeys thus loaded proved to be contrary little creatures, always getting off the trail and careering down the mountain-side through the scrubby trees and bushes, their deck-loads of tin making a merry din as they crashed through the underbrush, while our guides roared with derisive laughter at the discomfiture of the harassed attendants. When not engaged in ridiculing the owners of those numerous and troublesome oil-cans, the muleteers sang antiphonally some music in a minor key which Spyros said was a wedding song wherein the bridegroom and the bride’s family interchange sentiments. This seems to be the regular diversion of muleteers, judging by the unanimity with which travelers in Greece relate the experience. Anon our muleteers would likewise find amusement by stealing around behind and administering an unexpected smack on the plump buttocks of the horses, with the inevitable result of starting the beast out of his meditative amble into something remotely resembling a canter, and eliciting an alarmed squeal from the rider—at which the muleteer, with the most innocent face in the world, would appear under the horse’s nose and grasp the bridle, assuring the frightened equestrian that the beast was "kalÀ"—or “all right.”

All the steeds were small with the exception of the altitudinous mule ridden by one of the ladies, and they were not at all bothered by the low branches of the trees through which we wended our way. Not so, however, the riders. The thorny branches that just cleared the nonchalant horse’s head swept over the saddle with uncompromising vigor, and the effort to swing the beast away from one tree meant encountering similar difficulties on the other side of the narrow path. Through this arboreal Scylla and Charybdis it was extremely difficult navigation and the horses took no interest in our plight at all, so that long before we emerged from the last of the groves along the way we were a beraveled and bescratched company.

Shortly after noon two villages appeared far ahead, and we were engaged in speculating as to which one was Gremka, when the guides suddenly turned again and shot straight up the hill toward a narrow defile in the mountain wall we had been skirting. It proved as narrow as a chimney and almost as steep, and for a few moments we scrambled sharply, our little horses struggling hard to get their burdens up the grade; but at last they gained the top, and we emerged from between two walls of towering rock into another and even fairer landscape. The plain of the Alpheios spread directly below, but we were not allowed to descend to it. Instead we actually began to climb, and for an hour or two more we rode along the side of the range of hills through the midst of which we had just penetrated. The path was pleasantly wooded, and the foliage was thick enough to afford a grateful shade above and a soft carpeting of dead leaves below. The air was heavy with the balsamic fragrance of the boughs, and the birds sang merrily although it was midday. Through the vistas that opened in this delightful grove we got recurring glimpses of the Erymanthus range, now separated from us only by the miles of open plain, and vastly impressive in their ruggedness.

The sides of the range of hills along which our path wound were corrugated again and again by ravines, worn by the brooks, and our progress was a continual rising and falling in consequence. The footing was slippery, due to the minute particles of reddish gravel and sand, so that here even our mountain horses slipped and stumbled, and we were warned to dismount and pick our own way down, which we did, shouting gayly “Varka! Varka!” at the crossing of every absurd little three-inch brook, to the intense enjoyment of the muleteers. And thus by two in the afternoon we arrived at Gremka, a poor little hamlet almost at the edge of the great plain, and were told that we had made splendid time, so that we might have almost an hour of rest, while Stathi unlimbered the sumpter mules and spread luncheon under two pleasant plane trees beside a real spring.

From Gremka on, we found the road again. It was almost absolutely level after we left the minor foothill on which Gremka sits, and for the remainder of our day we were to all intents and purposes in civilization again. Curiously enough, it was here that our little horses, that had been so admirably reliable in precipitous trails of loose rock and sand, began to stumble occasionally, as if careless now that the road was smooth and doubtless somewhat weary with the miles of climbing and descending. The guides and muleteers, refreshed with a little food and a vast amount of resinated wine, began to sing marriage music louder than ever, and the most imposing figure of all, a man who in every-day life was a butcher and who carried his huge cleaver thrust in his leathern belt, essayed to converse with us in modern Greek, but with indifferent success. The landscape, while no longer rugged, was pleasant and peaceful as the road wound about the valley through low hillocks and knolls crowned with little groves of pine, the broad lower reaches of the rivers testifying that we were nearing the sea. And at last, toward sunset, we swung in a long line down over the sands that skirt the rushing Alpheios and came to rest on the banks opposite Olympia, whose hotels we could easily see across the swelling flood.

The Alpheios is not to be despised as a river in April. It is not especially wide, but it has what a good many Greek rivers do not,—water, and plenty of it, running a swift course between the low banks of the south and the steeper bluffs that confine it on the Olympia side. The ferry was waiting. It proved to be a sizable boat, of the general shape of a coastwise schooner, but devoid of masts, and mainly hollow, save for a little deck fore and aft. Three voluble and, as it proved, rapacious natives manned it, the motive power being poles. With these ferrymen Spyros and Stathi almost immediately became involved in a furious controversy, aided by our cohort of muleteers. It did not surprise us greatly, and knowing that whatever happened we should be financially scathless, we sat down on the bank and skipped pebbles in the water. It developed that the boatman had demanded thrice his fee, and that Spyros, who had no illusions about departed spirits, objected strenuously to being gouged in this way and was protesting vehemently and volubly, while Stathi, whose exterior was ordinarily so calm, was positively terrible to behold as he danced about the gesticulating knot of men. It finally became so serious that the Professor and I, looking as fierce as we could, ranged ourselves alongside, mentioning a wholly mythical intimacy with the head of the Hellenic police department in the hope of promoting a wholesome spirit of compromise, but really more anxious to calm the excited cook, who was clamoring for the tools of his trade that he might dispatch these thrice-qualified knaves of boatmen then and there. Eventually, as tending to induce a cessation of hostilities, we cast off the mooring—whereat the dispute suddenly ended and the beasts of burden went aboard. So also did the Professor, who was anxious to establish a strategic base on the opposite bank; and the rest of us sat and watched the craft pushed painfully out into the stream and well up against the current, until a point was reached whence the force of the river took her and bore her madly down to her berth on the Olympia bank. Here fresh difficulties arose,—not financial but mechanical. The heavily loaded little donkeys proved utterly unable to step over the gunwale and get ashore. It was an inspiring sight to watch, the Professor tugging manfully at the bridle and the remainder of the crew boosting with might and main; but it was of no avail, although they wrought mightily, until at the psychological moment and in the spot most fitted to receive it, a muleteer gave the needed impetus by a prodigious kick, which lifted the patient ass over the side and out on the bank. The rest was easy. We were ferried over in our turn and disappeared from the view of the boatmen, each side expressing its opinion of the other in terms which we gathered from the tones employed were the diametrical reverse of complimentary. It was twelve hours to a dot from the time of our departure from AndhritsÆna when we strolled into our hotel—at which fact Spyros plumed himself not a little.

It had not been an unduly fatiguing day, after all. The frequent walking that we had done served to break up the tedium of long riding, which otherwise would have been productive of numb limbs and stiff joints. It is well to bear this in mind, for I have seen unaccustomed riders assisted from their saddles after too long jaunts utterly unable to stand, and of course much less to walk, until a long period of rest had restored the circulation in the idle members. Fortunately, too, we had been blessed with an incomparable day. Spyros confessed that he had secretly dreaded a rain, which would have made the path dangerous in spots where it was narrow and composed of clay. As it was, we arrived in Olympia in surprisingly good condition, and on schedule time, though by no means unready to welcome real beds again and the chance for unlimited warm water.

Olympia, like Delphi, is a place of memories chiefly. The visible remains are numerous, but so flat that some little technical knowledge is needed to restore them in mind. There is no village at the modern Olympia at all,—nothing but five or six little inns and a railway station,—so that Delphi really has the advantage of Olympia in this regard. As a site connected with ancient Greek history and Greek religion, the two places are as similar in nature as they are in general ruin. The field in which the ancient structures stand lies just across the tiny tributary river Cladeus, spanned by a footbridge.

Even from the opposite bank, the ruins present a most interesting picture, with its attractiveness greatly enhanced by the neighboring pines, which scatter themselves through the precinct itself and cover densely the little conical hill of Kronos close by, while the grasses of the plain grow luxuriantly among the fallen stones of the former temples and apartments of the athletes. The ruins are so numerous and so prostrate that the non-technical visitor is seriously embarrassed to describe them, as is the case with every site of the kind. All the ruins, practically, have been identified and explained, and naturally they all have to do with the housing or with the contests of the visiting athletes of ancient times, or with the worship of tutelary divinities. Almost the first extensive ruin that we found on passing the encircling precinct wall was the Prytaneum—a sort of ancient training table at which victorious contestants were maintained gratis—while beyond lay other equally extensive remnants of exercising places, such as the PalÆstra for the wrestlers. But all these were dominated, evidently, by the two great temples, an ancient one of comparatively small size sacred to Hera, and a mammoth edifice dedicated to Zeus, which still gives evidence of its enormous extent, while the fallen column-drums reveal some idea of the other proportions. It was in its day the chief glory of the inclosure, and the statue of the god was even reckoned among the seven wonders of the world. Unfortunately this statue, like that of Athena at Athens, has been irretrievably lost. But there is enough of the great shrine standing in the midst of the ruins to inspire one with an idea of its greatness; and, in the museum above, the heroic figures from its two pediments have been restored and set up in such wise as to reproduce the external adornment of the temple with remarkable success. Gathered around this central building, the remainder of the ancient structures having to do with the peculiar uses of the spot present a bewildering array of broken stones and marbles. An obtrusive remnant of a Byzantine church is the one discordant feature. Aside from this the precinct recalls only the distant time when the regular games called all Greece to Olympia, while the “peace of God” prevailed throughout the kingdom. Just at the foot of Kronos a long terrace and flight of steps mark the position of a row of old treasuries, as at Delphi, while along the eastern side of the precinct are to be seen the remains of a portico once famous for its echoes, where sat the judges who distributed the prizes. There is also a most graceful arch remaining to mark the entrance to the ancient stadium, of which nothing else now remains. Of the later structures on the site, the “house of Nero” is the most interesting and extensive. The Olympic games were still celebrated, even after the Roman domination, and Nero himself entered the lists in his own reign. He caused a palace to be erected for him on that occasion—and of course he won a victory, for any other outcome would have been most impolite, not to say dangerous. Nero was more fortunately lodged than were the other ancient contestants, it appears, for there were no hostelries in old Olympia in which the visiting multitudes could be housed, and the athletes and spectators who came from all over the land were accustomed to bring their own tents and pitch them roundabout, many of them on the farther side of the Alpheios.

The many treasuries, to which reference has been made as running along the terrace wall at the very foot of the hill of Kronos, are spoken of by Pausanias. Enough of them is occasionally to be found to enable one to judge how they appeared—somewhat, no doubt, like the so-called “treasury of the Athenians” that one may see in a restored form at Delphi. In these tiny buildings were kept the smaller votive gifts of the various states and the apparatus for the games. Not far from this row of foundations and close by the terrace wall that leads along the hill down to the arch that marks the stadium entrance, are several bases on which stood bronze statues of Zeus, set up by the use of moneys derived from fines for fracturing the rules of the games. Various ancient athletes achieved a doubtful celebrity by having to erect these “Zanes,” as they were called, one of them being a memorial of the arrant coward Sarapion of Alexandria, who was so frightened at the prospect of entering the pankration for which he had set down his name that he fled the day before the contest.

Within the precinct one may still see fragments of the pedestal which supported Phidias’s wonderful gold-and-ivory image of Zeus. The god himself is said to have been so enchanted with the sculptor’s work that he hurled a thunderbolt down, which struck near the statue; and the spot was marked with a vase of marble. Just how approval was spelled out of so equivocal a manifestation might seem rather difficult to see; but such at any rate was the fact. Of the other remaining bases, the most interesting is doubtless the tall triangular pedestal of the NikÉ of PÆonius, still to be seen in situ, though its graceful statue is in the museum.

Just above the meadows on the farther bank, there runs a range of hills, through which we had but recently ridden. And it was there that the ancients found a convenient crag from which to hurl the unfortunate women who dared venture to look on at the games. The law provided that no woman’s eye should see those contests, and so far as is known only one woman caught breaking this law ever escaped the penalty of it. She was the mother of so many victorious athletes that an unwonted immunity was extended to her. Other women, whose disguise was penetrated, were made stern examples to frighten future venturesome maids and matrons out of seeking to view what was forbidden.

The games at Olympia were celebrated during a period of about a thousand years, throughout which time they furnished the one recognized system of dates. They recurred at four-year intervals. Long before the appointed month of the games, which were always held in midsummer, duly accredited ambassadors were sent forth to all the cities and states of Hellas to announce the coming of the event and to proclaim the “peace of God,” which the law decreed should prevail during the days of the contest, and in which it was sacrilege not to join, whatever the exigency. On the appointed date the cities of all Greece sent the flower of their youth to Olympia, runners, wrestlers, discus throwers, chariot drivers, boxers, and the like, as well as their choicest horses, to contend for the coveted trophy. During the first thirteen Olympiads there was but one athletic event,—a running race. In later times the number was added to until the race had grown to a “pentathlon,” or contest of five kinds, and still later to include twenty-four different exercises. None but Greeks of pure blood could contest, at least until the Roman times, and nobles and plebeians vied in striving for the victor’s wreath, although the richer were at a decided advantage in the matter of the horse races. The prize offered, however, was of no intrinsic value at all, being nothing but a crown of wild olive, and it astonished and dismayed the invading Persians not a little to find that they were being led against a nation that would strive so earnestly and steadfastly for a prize that seemed so little. As a matter of fact it was not as slight a reward as it appeared to be, for in the incidental honors that it carried the world has seldom seen its equal. The man who proved his right to be crowned with this simple wreath was not only regarded as honored in himself, but honor was imputed to his family and to his city as well; and the city generally went wild with enthusiasm over him, some even going so far as to raze their walls in token that with so gallant sons they needed no bulwarks. Special privileges were conferred upon him at home and even abroad. In many cities the victor of an Olympic contest was entitled to maintenance at the public charge in the utmost honor, and the greatest poets of the day delighted to celebrate the victors in their stateliest odes. Thus, although games in honor of the gods were held at various other points in Greece, as for example at Delphi and at the isthmus of Corinth, none surpassed the Olympic as a national institution, sharing the highest honors with the oracle at Delphi as an object of universal reverence.

Of course the origin of these great games is shrouded in mystery, which has, as usual, crystallized into legend. And as the pediment in one end of the temple of the Olympian Zeus, preserved in the museum near by, deals with this story, it may be in order to speak of it. Tradition relates that King Œnomaus had a splendid stud of race horses of which he was justly proud, and likewise was possessed of a surpassingly beautiful daughter whom men called Hippodameia, who was naturally sought in marriage by eligible young men from all around. The condition precedent set by Œnomaus to giving her hand was, however, a difficult one. The suitor must race his horses against those of Œnomaus, driving the team himself; and if he lost he was put to death. One version relates that Œnomaus, if he found himself being distanced, was wont to spear the luckless swains from behind. At any rate nobody had succeeded in winning Hippodameia when young Pelops came along and entered the contest. He had no doubt heard of the king’s unsportsmanlike javelin tactics, for he adopted some subterfuges of his own,—doing something or other to the chariot of his opponent, such as loosening a linchpin or bribing his charioteer to weaken it in some other part,—with the result that when the race came off Œnomaus was thrown out and killed, and Pelops won the race and Hippodameia—and of course lived happily ever after.

The pedimental sculptures from the great temple reproduce the scene that preceded the race in figures of heroic size, with no less a personage than Zeus himself in the centre of the group, while Œnomaus and Pelops with their chariots and horses and their attendants range themselves on either side, and Hippodameia stands expectantly waiting. The restorations have been liberal, but on the whole successful; and besides giving a very good idea of the legend itself, they are highly interesting from a sculptural point of view as showing a distinctive style of carving in marble. The other pediment, preserved in about the same proportion, is less interesting from a legendary standpoint, but is full of animation and artistic interest. It represents the contest between the Centaurs and Lapiths, with Apollo just in the act of intervening to prevent the rape of the Lapith women. This episode had little appropriateness to the Olympic site, so far as I know, but the ease with which the Centaur lent himself to the limitations of pedimental sculpture might well explain the adoption of the incident here. The head of Apollo is of the interesting type with which one grows familiar in going through museums devoted to early work, the most notable thing being the curious treatment of hair and eyes.

The precinct about the great temple was once filled with votive statues, and Pliny relates that he counted something like three thousand. Of these it appears that few remain sufficiently whole to add much interest. But out of all the great assemblage of sculptures there is one at least surviving that must forever assuage any grief at the loss of the rest. That, of course, is the inimitable Hermes of Praxiteles, which everybody knows through reproductions and photographs, but which in the original is so incomparably beautiful that no reproduction can hope to give an adequate idea of it, either in the expression of body and features, its poise and grace, or in the exquisite sheen of marble. They have wisely set it off by itself in a room which cannot be seen from the great main hall of the museum, and the observer is left to contemplate it undistracted. It seems generally to be agreed that it is the masterpiece of extant Greek sculpture. It is nearly perfect in its preservation, the upraised arm and small portions of the legs being about all that is missing. The latter have been supplied, not unsuccessfully, to join the admirable feet to the rest. No effort has been made, and happily so, to supply the missing arm. The infant Dionysus perched on the left arm is no great addition to the statue, and one might well wish it were not there; but even this slight drawback cannot interfere with the admiration one feels for so perfect a work. Hermes alone fully justifies the journey to Olympia, and once seen he will never be forgotten. The satin smoothness of the marble admirably simulates human (or god-like) flesh, doubtless because of the processes which the Greeks knew of rubbing it down with a preparation of wax. No trace of other external treatment survives, save a faint indication of gilding on the sandals. If the hair and eyes were ever painted, the paint has entirely disappeared in the centuries that the statue lay buried in the sands that the restless Alpheios and Cladeus washed into the sacred inclosure. For the rivers frequently left their narrow beds in former times and invaded the precincts of the gods, despite the efforts of man to wall them out. They have done irreparable damage to the buildings there, but since they at the same time preserved Hermes almost intact for modern eyes to enjoy, perhaps their other vandalisms may be pardoned.

The museum also includes among its treasures a number of the metopes from the great temple of Zeus, representing the labors of Hercules. But probably next after the incomparable Hermes must be reckoned the NikÉ of PÆonius, standing on a high pedestal at one end of the great main hall, and seemingly sweeping triumphantly through space with her draperies flowing free—a wonderful lightness being suggested despite the weight of the material. This NikÉ has always seemed to me a fair rival of her more famous sister from Samothrace, suggesting the idea of victory even more forcibly than the statue on the staircase of the Louvre, which has an Amazonian quality suggestive of actual conflict rather than a past successful issue. The unfortunate circumstance about the NikÉ at Olympia is that her head is gone, and they have sought to suspend the recovered portion of it over the body by an iron rod. A wrist is in like manner appended to one of the arms, and the two give a jarring note, by recalling Ichabod Crane and Cap'n Cuttle in most incongruous surroundings. Nevertheless the NikÉ is wonderful, and would be more so if it were not for these lamentable attempts to restore what is not possible to be restored.

Of all the many little collections in Greece, that in Olympia is doubtless the best, and it is fittingly housed in a building in the classic style, given by a patriotic Greek, M. Syngros. Aside from the artistic remnants, there are a number of relics bearing on the athletic aspect of Olympia—its chief side, of course. And among these are some ancient discs of metal and stone, and a huge rock which bears an inscription relating that a certain strong man of ancient times was able to lift it over his head and to toss it a stated distance. It seems incredible—but there were giants in the land in those days.

The modern Olympic games, such as are held in Athens every now and then, are but feeble attempts to give a classic tone to a very ordinary athletic meet of international character. There is none of the significance attached to the modern events that attended the old, and the management leaves much to be desired. Former visitors are no longer maintained at the Prytaneum; but, on the contrary, are even denied passes to witness the struggles of their successors. The games fill Athens with a profitable throng and serve to advertise the country, but aside from this they have no excuse for being on Greek soil, and mar the land so far as concerns the enjoyment of true Philhellenes. Fortunately there is no possible chance of holding any such substitute games at Olympia herself. Her glory has departed forever, save as it survives in memory.