Most hand-books of travel in Greece, beginning with the invaluable Baedeker, impress it upon their readers that there are no long distances in Greece. Even without the help of railroads, which, of course, as far as they extend, have annihilated the barriers between the old “jarring states,” one finds the historic places, like Corinth, Delphi, ChÆronea, Thebes, and many others lying so near one another that, after lodging in one of them, one can always count on spending the next night at another. One loses no time. On the map, according to which one might lay out a scheme of travel, Athens and Eretria lie very near together. The overland route to Oropos, with a short sail across the Euboean Gulf, can be compassed in any summer’s day. But the surest and most convenient way is supposed to be to take the steamer at PirÆus in the early evening, and wake at Chalkis the next morning, and take a ride of three hours to Eretria in the morning air. But this simple and easy scheme sometimes fails in practice, as my experience has shown.

On Wednesday, February 18, 1891, three of us started out from PirÆus at evening to re-enforce one student of the American School who, in very bad weather, had been carrying on excavations begun several weeks before. We had deferred sailing for three days on account of the weather. As we set out it was a grief to us that we must sail past Sunion, Marathon, and Rhamnus before daybreak. We wished to supplement previous acquaintance with those places by a view from the sea. The night wore away with considerable tossing, and in order to get a little view of the narrowing Euripos at Chalkis I arose at half-past six. Seeing that we were near land on the left, I asked a sailor what land it was, and got for an answer something that sounded like “Macaroni.” Not remembering any such land in the neighborhood of Chalkis, I cleared my eyes, looked about me, and became sharply interrogative. Now I elicited the well-known name “Sunion.” This was astounding. Leaning far out over the railing I saw the columns crowning the “steep.” Ah! good fortune was going to allow us to see Marathon by broad daylight.

It did not take long to see that we were in a boisterous sea. My various Atlantic experiences furnished no parallel to it. Not only were the billows high, but the fierce northeast wind, mingled with sleet, seemed to take up the tops of them and carry them up into the sky. It required two hours more for us to round the point of Sunion. It was a great effort for the good ship Peneios, and when that was accomplished we seemed to come to nothing better, and we were soon aware of the determination of our level-headed captain to put into the harbor of Laurion from stress of weather.

All that day and the next day we lay in that harbor, if it can be called lying to roll about as we did. The long island, Makronisi, called in antiquity Helene, almost makes Laurion a land-locked harbor. But between this island and the mainland the northeast wind came tearing through with unabated fury for forty-eight hours. The projection of the mainland to the north of the harbor being quite low, we were as poorly protected as it was possible to be in that harbor. Several of the vessels which had taken refuge there appeared to be having a rougher time than the Peneios. Our captain looked on with some pride when an English steamer dragged her anchor nearly across the whole width of the harbor. During the second night we had some fears of an Apia disaster. No boats went to or from the land, and so we lay the greater part of two days, unable to telegraph to our friends in Athens, as much shut off from the world as if we were on an ocean voyage. Yet nobody thought of wishing to see the captain change his mind and sail on. At last, on Saturday morning, at about two o’clock, we steamed out, and were as badly shaken at the start as one often finds it his lot to be. One lesson was most thoroughly impressed upon us, that there may have been good cause in antiquity for Athenian fleets shunning the winter trip northward, and for Philip’s being allowed free hand to accomplish his undertakings Thraceward at that season of the year.

Little recked we of Marathon, or Rhamnus, or Oropos in the blinding storm in which we at last reached Chalkis, and were rowed ashore in blinding snow and splashing water from the oars. Photographic apparatus was in special danger.

Once landed we seemed near Eretria, but here our vicissitudes thickened. Between us and Basiliko, the half-way halting-place on the road to Eretria, was one of the numerous Potamos of Greece, which was taking this opportunity to justify its name, to make up for being nothing but a dry bed nine months in the year. All coach-drivers but one said that the Potamo would be as far as we could go toward Eretria that day. But this one talked so confidently of being able to find horses for us at the Potamo that we entrusted ourselves to his care, and started out in the rain.

The course lay through the famous Lelantine Plain, which, in spite of the rain, was seen to be a paradise. Such vines and fig-trees and, farther on, such grain-fields! I had not seen its like in Greece. It is no wonder that it was a bone of contention almost before the dawn of history. It is something of a testimonial to the power and ambition of Eretria that it reached so far out from its own fertile plain to grasp at what geographically belonged to Chalkis.

Our driver soon made a halt, and informed us that we were at the end of our stipulated drive. There were no signs of any river or any horses. He said the river was a quarter of a mile farther on, and that the horses were not his lookout. On being told either to find horses or drive back to Chalkis, he became surly, and demanded, besides the liberal sum of twenty drachmas which we had agreed to pay at this point, twenty drachmas more for driving us back. We told him that we should pay nothing at all except on a hearing before the demarch of Chalkis. He at last drove slowly back, going through the form of inquiring at several houses for horses, but getting none.

Arrived at Chalkis, we all went to the demarch’s office, and, shivering over a pan of coals, discussed the case. Under the demarch’s pacific influence, we arranged to have the same man drive us out again the next day, paying a total of thirty drachmas, and in the meantime to telegraph to the demarch of Eretria to send us horses to meet us at the river.

The next day was no better than the preceding, and we postponed starting for several hours, in hopes of a cessation of the rain. When at last we reached the river, and looked across the arches of the bridge then lying several years unfinished, though the rest of the road was ready for use, we were unable to get any response to our shouts. At last somebody told us that a man from Eretria had got tired of shouting for us an hour before, and had returned the way he came. Here was an emergency. We must go forward. After much beating about the neighborhood, one little unpromising-looking horse was found. By making trips enough we could by means of this weak creature get over to Basiliko, and then perhaps still get on to Eretria. By the aid of a long rope, our effects were soon made fast to the many-horned Greek saddle, and we started to make the quarter-mile distance to a ford a little below the bridge. Going along the top of one of the dikes thrown up to facilitate watering of the vineyards, our horse slipped and came down the bank into a foot of Lelantine mud. Our effects scattered about under him prevented his absolute disappearance. But this was bad for the effects. Some of the cargo was at last righted, and the horse ungently pulled by application of force at both ends into a standing position, and by some carrying of bags and bundles we reached the river-bank. The stalwart boy who accompanied the horse ventured into the water to test its depth. It was clear that that weak horse could not keep his footing there.

Our stalwart boy was equal to the emergency. Taking us one by one on his back he bore us over, and then the parcels, spending nearly an hour in the operation. The sight of a bearded gentleman being carried pickapack across a rushing river by a boy whose footing could not be very secure on the uneven river-bed, and who could not quite keep the boots of his rider out of the water, is a very ridiculous one to a bystander; but as each one’s turn came it became a serious event to him.

When we were all well over, we noticed that the faithful horse had followed his master, and got across also. By his help we easily made the half mile to Basiliko, where our man from Eretria was still waiting for us; and that night we spent at Eretria, ready to inaugurate what proved to be most interesting and successful excavations on the site of that city on which the storm of Persian vengeance fell before it was scattered at Marathon.

We had a most unusual March. At one time snow lay on the ground a foot deep for three days. But we excavated the greater part of the ancient theatre and many interesting graves, besides mapping out the walls of the city. In subsequent years we took up the work again, and uncovered the old gymnasium and a temple of Dionysos near the theatre, but we stopped too soon; after us the Greeks took up the work, and achieved results that nearly overshadowed ours. But ours will ever be the service of having uncovered one of the most interesting theatres of Greece, and a real Greek gymnasium, which is a rare thing, inasmuch as most gymnasia which are preserved to us are Roman modifications of the original Greek form. More than this, we forever laid the idea, up to that time so prevalent, that the Eretria which was destroyed by the Persians was several miles to the east of this. The acropolis walls did that; but it was the service of the Greek excavator to uncover the temple of Apollo, with its archaic gable sculptures, and to find a considerable quantity of large vases of the sixth century before Christ, and thus to corroborate the testimony of the walls. There was, in fact, no other such place for a commanding acropolis on the whole stretch of shore as on the hill rising above the theatre. Any city established further east would have deserved the name of “the city of the blind.”