In many respects the most interesting journey which I have made in Greece was my last one through Acarnania and Ætolia. To be sure, my last journey in Greece is always my best one; yet there was a special attraction in this journey from the fact that it was the fulfilment of a long-cherished desire. There was a gap in my knowledge of western Greece which I keenly felt. I had tramped over the Ionian Islands, visited Joannina and Dodona, and passed over the Pindos range into Thessaly. In passing Prevesa and Nikopolis the sight of the Ambrakian Gulf had filled me with a desire to explore its innermost recesses. The grand mountains of Acarnania to the south challenged especially to a nearer view. Three years later, coming up from Patras by the Northwestern Railroad of Greece to Agrinion, the capital of Ætolia, I had visited in bad weather ŒniadÆ, the most important city of Acarnania, mused over the Ætolian acropolis of Calydon, famous in song and story, and gone as far north as Stratos, Acarnania’s capital; but although in looking out from Stratos it seems as if all the glory was farther north, my travelling companion was obliged to retreat, and I followed his fortunes. All this had but whetted my appetite; and, three years later, at the end of February in that most marvellous of winters, which gave us six consecutive weeks of April temperature with unclouded sky, I set out from PirÆus one moonlight night to satisfy my desire, with a companion who was not in a hurry.

Our first goal was Arta, the terminus of a line of steamers from PirÆus. No mean part of the journey on a clear winter day is the view of the three masses of snow-covered mountains to the north of the Corinthian Gulf, each over eight thousand feet high, and the three to the south, falling just short of the same height, to say nothing of many others which would be impressive if the giants were absent. The effect is not unlike that of Lake Lucerne somewhat broadened out. A stop at Samos, in Kephallenia, on the morning of the second day, and a sail between Kephallenia and Ithaca, during which the latter may be studied at short range, is no slight advantage “thrown in.” At Leukas, in the afternoon, came a stirring scene. About a hundred recruits were taken on board. Greece had had troops in Crete for a week, and so, although war had not actually been declared, she was gathering troops to protect her border or to advance into Epirus, as circumstances might dictate. Two hours later, in sailing through the waters where the battle of Actium took place, we passed under the guns of the Turkish forts at Prevesa. As the Greek color-bearer was inclined to flaunt his flag a good deal, it seemed something like an adventure. But the Margarita escaped the fate that a few weeks later overtook the Macedonia, which was sunk by the Turkish fire, while the passengers had to swim for their lives. At Vonitza we took on another hundred of the recruits pouring into Arta from all over western Greece. The men were cheerful and orderly, but brimful of the war feeling which pervaded Greece.

Delayed by these embarkations of troops, we did not reach Koprena, the port of Arta, until eight o’clock in the evening. Then there was a lack of boats to bring such a crowd to shore, and with a long drive of ten or twelve miles in the dark, over a bad road crowded with soldiers, it was after midnight when we reached Arta. Our host, a man whom I had never seen, but to whom I was introduced by a friend in Athens, had been waiting for us at Koprena since noon, and did not appear to think that he had done any more for us than any proper man would do.

The next morning, with a captain of artillery who had been our fellow-passenger from Athens, we went out through orange groves to the famous bridge of Arta, over the Arachthos, which here forms the border, the Greeks having secured, in 1881, Arta and its adjacent fields up to the river, along with Thessaly. The present border is the most unrighteous one that could be devised. A river is generally no proper boundary-line, but in this case especially it is intolerable. The plain across the river belongs by nature to the city, and, in fact, is owned largely by the people of Arta, who have suffered manifold inconveniences in the management of their property. Who can wonder that the Greeks were anxious for an offensive campaign here which should give them back their own?

The finest feature of Arta is its view. From the hill, at the foot of which lies the city, one sees the mountains near Dodona, and farther south and quite close at hand, is Tsoumerka, in the spring a mass of snow, falling just short of eight thousand feet. Behind this, over beyond the Acheloos, the snowy peaks of the Pindos range crowd one upon another in such thick array that one despairs of identifying them all with the names given on the map. To the south lie the three mountains of Acarnania in echelon, impressive although only a little over five thousand feet high, and the glorious gulf itself.

Arta has also a history. One hurries by the interesting Church of the Consoling Virgin, a brick structure of the tenth century, perhaps, and a mediÆval castle, to the days when Arta was Ambrakia. Even the days when it was the capital of the famous Pyrrhus seem recent, compared with the really great days when it was a democratic city of free Hellas long before the Persian war. Cropping out from under the shabby houses of the town are walls made of massive blocks which speak of days of greatness. This blooming colony of Corinth, foreordained by its situation to be the principal city of the region, gave its name in antiquity, as now, to the great gulf which it overlooks.

Corinth had the misfortune, rare in Greek history, to plant one unfilial colony, Corcyra, which, as early as 665 B.C., worsted the mother in a great naval battle, and, from a daughter, became a lasting enemy. To recover her influence in these regions, Corinth, in the days of Kypselos and Periander, which seem pretty old days, planted Ambrakia besides Anaktorion, just inside the entrance of the gulf, and Leukas just outside. As if to prove that Corinth was not an especially hard mother, these colonies always remained filial, and their contingents were always drawn up in the Persian war alongside those of Corinth. Ambrakia, besides dominating the rich plain which by nature belongs to her, but by the will of Europe now belongs to Turkey, had also an especial significance as standing on the road to Dodona for nearly all of Greece.

But it is not my purpose to rewrite any portion of the history of Greece, but only to set forth clearly the physical and moral position of Ambrakia, that one may realize more clearly the satisfaction of the sturdy Demosthenes, the man of deeds, not the man of words, when, at OlpÆ and under the walls of Amphilochian Argos, a few miles to the south, he crippled Ambrakia as thoroughly as Cleomenes had crippled Argos at Tiryns a few years before the Persian war, and made Corinth feel in the woes of her favorite daughter that she had not kindled the flames of the Peloponnesian war with impunity. Since certain Messenians took part in this battle, it has been supposed by some that the famous Nike of PÆonios at Olympia was set up to commemorate their share of the victory.

We proceeded southward from Arta by a very good carriage-road skirting the west end of the gulf. About one-third of our day’s journey was taken up in traversing the famous Makrynoros Pass, where the mountains, as high as Hymettus, come down almost perpendicularly to the sea for a space of about ten miles. This is called the ThermopylÆ of western Greece; but it is a much more difficult pass to force than ThermopylÆ, where two foot-hills come down to the sea with a more gentle slope. ThermopylÆ, too, in modern times has lost its original character by the formation of quite a plain at the foot of its mountains by the alluvial deposit of the Spercheios and the incrustation formed by sulphur springs; while Makrynoros remains a mountain running straight down into the sea, necessitating the making of the modern carriage-road with great difficulty and expense. But as this road is a thousand feet above the water, it affords a fine view over the gulf and its setting. The railroad which connects Patras with Agrinion must come some day to Arta, so all the people of the region were saying. The Makrynoros Pass would be the chief difficulty in the way; but the railroad could keep the same height all the way, and no steep grades would be required. The main difficulty would be the crossing of the many gullies which run down from the side of the mountain. In the ordinary march of events, Arta will be included in the slowly extending network, although the claims of Sparta may have to be attended to first. It depends somewhat upon the relative influence and push of the delegates of the sections concerned.

This pass has a strategic importance, and we may soon hear of it again in connection with military operations. The Ambrakian Gulf and Maliac Gulf, by ThermopylÆ, reach out toward each other, making what is sometimes called an isthmus, an echo of the Isthmus of Corinth; but if anyone tries to make his way across this he will realize that it is only an isthmus by courtesy, and will have vividly impressed upon his mind that “the longest way around is the shortest way home.” The pass of ThermopylÆ may be circumvented; but so piled up are the mountains to the west of Makrynoros that, in order to circumvent it, one might as well go to ThermopylÆ itself.

In the Greek war of independence, the first severe defeat of the Greeks took place in the second year of the war, near the northern end of Makrynoros. Maurocordatos, the President of the new State, wishing to be a Washington and to be general as well as statesman, took command of the regular army, and pushed northward through the pass, as if to take the offensive against the Turks at Arta, and then, as if not quite certain what he wanted to do, waited for the Turks to attack him, which they did in good time, annihilating his army at Peta. His head-quarters were farther back at the opening of the pass. Had he decided to take the defensive soon enough he might have immortalized Makrynoros and saved his army, instead of simply saving himself and his staff. At Peta, which lay on the hill to the left of our road from Arta to the mouth of the pass, is a tablet on which are inscribed the names of the members of the regiment of Philhellenes who, to give the Greeks an example, stood their ground until they were all shot down, except twenty-five, who succeeded in cutting their way through the enemy.

In the battle fought near the south end of the pass in which Demosthenes crushed the Ambrakians, the pass played no rÔle at all. Here our road passed between OlpÆ and Amphilochian Argos, and half an hour was well spent in making a part of the circuit of the walls of the latter, which are fairly well preserved. A sure token that Amphilochian Argos lay here, and not at Karvasara, as was once supposed, is the name of the plain between the old walls and the sea. This still bears the name “Vlichia,” which is all that is left of “Amphilochia”; but it is enough to prove the identity.

At evening we came to Karvasara, at the foot of one of the most imposing acropolises in Greece. Here we were in Acarnania, where, as in Ætolia, it is more difficult to find names for imposing remains than to find remains for important names. But it is quite likely that the name LimnÆa will stick to this great acropolis, inasmuch as LimnÆa lay on the sea, and its name is justified by the presence of something half lake and half marsh that almost laps its walls on the south, or landward, side, although certain distances given in Polybius do not quite tally with this identification. From this elevation we could look to the south farther than Stratos, which was hidden by a bend of the long mountain at the south end of which it lay. I had in a certain sense joined hands with my former journey, although the best of the present journey, which was cumulative in its enjoyment, was still to come.

Among many walled cities of Acarnania the three most important are LimnÆa, Stratos, and ŒniadÆ. LimnÆa, which plays a comparatively insignificant rÔle in history, has the most commanding position, on a high hill overlooking the east end of the Ambrakian Gulf. The walls are well preserved, and, for their height as well as extent, excite admiration. Stratos, situated on the west bank of the Acheloos, is not quite so high, but its walls are fully as extensive and high. It has also well-preserved foundations of a temple of white limestone. It confronted Agrinion, the capital city of the Ætolians, the eternal enemies of the Acarnanians; and these two grim fortress capitals frowned at each other for ages with nothing but the rolling river between them.

But ŒniadÆ is, after all, the most impressive of all the Acarnanian ruins. It crowns an irregular hill which was once an island, but has become a part of the mainland by the action of the Acheloos. Down to the fourth century before Christ, and perhaps even later, the sea touched its western side, for here are clear traces of a harbor, as well as some fairly preserved ship-sheds. The walls are not only of great extent, but wonderfully well preserved, with gates of most varied forms, in which the arch is seen in various stages of formation. The whole vast enclosure is covered with a grove of great oaks, which, in some cases, have pushed down the walls. In one case, the growing oak has pulled out one stone from its place and carried it up in its embrace several feet above the rest of the wall. So luxuriant is the vegetation all over the hill that one who will see the whole wall outside and inside—and no less will satisfy one—must give up a whole day to the task, and force his way through thorns and briers that scratch and tear, paying with his person.

The result of four or five visits to ŒniadÆ was finally a plan to make excavations there, and, in 1901, several members of the American School undertook the work. With a comparatively small outlay of money, but with great hardship, they laid bare a theatre, mostly rock-cut, with many inscriptions, the ship-sheds, and near by them a bath. The theatre is most picturesque. Anyone who fails to visit ŒniadÆ makes a mistake.