Thessaly is in a certain sense a land apart from the rest of Greece. It was so in antiquity. In spite of being the home of Jason, of Achilles, and of Alcestis, and in spite of the fact that “snowy Olympus,” the home of the Greek gods, looked down upon it, the stream of its history flowed apart. In the Persian war it was prevented by force from taking any honorable part; but in the Peloponnesian war, which called all the rest of Greece to arms and divided it into two camps, it willingly stood aloof. The same may be said of most of the smaller wars which followed the Peloponnesian war. Once only did it appear that it was going to take a part, and indeed a leading part, in the affairs of Greece. But the assassination of Jason of PherÆ, who seemed about to play the rÔle afterward played by the Macedonians, sent Thessaly again on her separate way.

To-day also Thessaly is a land apart. When the Kingdom of Greece was established by the European Powers Thessaly was not included in it. After it had become a part of the kingdom in 1880 it again fell into the hands of the Turks in the disastrous war of 1897, living through two sad years of subjection which were not shared by the rest of Greece. It has also suffered isolation from the rest of Greece in that while the network of railroads constantly extending out from Athens has already taken in most of Peloponnesus, and even Ætolia, it has not yet been extended to Thessaly. To reach it one must make a voyage by sea.

But this very isolation has always been to the enthusiastic traveller an added charm. Inaccessibility adds interest. The usual approach is by steamer from PirÆus, and requires, according to the timetable, twenty-four hours; but it actually varies from twenty-four to forty-eight hours, according to the weather and the amount of freight to be handled on the way. The journey in itself is so charming that one need not chafe at delay, and might well prefer this method of approach even after railroad communication has been established. Particularly fine is the long stretch between Euboea and the mainland, where mountain succeeds mountain, with ThermopylÆ thrown in.

The end of the journey is the finest part of it, if one has the good fortune to enter the great Bay of Volo, called in ancient times the Gulf of PagasÆ, by daylight and in the winter. Taking associations and everything into account, there are few finer sights in the world than that which here presents itself. In front of you is Olympus, majestic, towering above the low range that separates the territory of Volo from the great basin of Thessaly. So near does it seem that one hardly thinks of it as being beyond the northern border, over in Turkey. The long ridge of Pelion is close at hand on the right, with its twenty-four villages, covered on the occasion of one of my winter visits by twelve or fourteen feet of snow, so that they abandoned for a week all attempts at communicating with one another. What Pelion lacks in height it makes up in length, and its bulk is great. It seems a strange thought of Homer to make the giants pile Pelion upon Ossa, which is a shapely and rather sharp cone. Vergil seems to do even worse in making them put Olympus on the top of the pile. Can it be that both poets made the attempt to pile the mass of Olympus or Pelion on top of the pointed Ossa a part of the daring deed? Either Olympus or Pelion would be the natural base on which to pile up the other mountains. By turning around and looking astern one sees Parnassus, which in ordinary company would absorb attention, but is here dwarfed by the sight of Olympus. In such company Othrys, on our left, hardly counts at all.

The near view with its associations claims attention. Here in the middle of Volo is the site of Iolkos, from which the Argonauts sailed out through this very bay into the distant Euxine on their daring quest. To the left are the massive walls of PagasÆ, which in classical times controlled the region. To the right is the still later controller of the bay, Demetrias, founded by the Macedonian Demetrios Polyorketes to be with Chalkis and Corinth one of the “fetters of Greece.”

On my second visit to this region, which, by an unexpected chance, was only about a month after my first, having had occasion—a not unusual thing in Greece—to wait all the afternoon for a return steamer to Athens, I had a boatman named Leonidas, from Sparta, too, row me out to Demetrias, from which I got, as I then supposed, my last view on earth of Olympus. I then floated aimlessly about the bay until sunset, steeped in sunshine and mythological associations. I was so much “in the spirit” that I could almost see the centaurs prancing along the slopes of Pelion. Leonidas also seemed to enter into the spirit of the thing, and to become quite sympathetic, even if we did not or could not talk much. When I said to him, “Leonidas, do you know that the gods used to live around here?” he said, “Yes, yes,” with apparent enthusiasm. I suspected, however, afterward that his enthusiasm was only skin deep, and that his chief pleasure in the affair was that he was getting pay for a whole afternoon’s work without really doing much. I, on my part, was satisfied to squander on him the munificent sum of sixty cents for giving me the setting to such pleasant day-dreaming.

I am not going to recount my successive visits to Thessaly, but only to recall certain vivid impressions. I have twice entered it on the southwest, from Lamia over the passes of Othrys, and once on the northwest over the Zygos pass in the great Pindos range, and it is difficult to say which is the most impressive approach, one of these or the usual one through the Bay of Volo. Wherever you look down into the great basin from any part of the rim of mountains surrounding it, or look back at this rim from any part of the plain, you are impressed with the beauty of the plain and its surroundings.

On my first visit—how vivid are first impressions!—I came by the usual route with a companion who was in a hurry. He had an imperative engagement before him. We had a schedule to keep, and every hour was important. It was the only time that I have done Thessaly by schedule. Work on the Larisa Railroad was being pushed, and we unloaded so much material for that work at Chalkis that we did not get off until afternoon, and, at Stylidha, the port of Lamia, we kept unloading until after midnight. The result was that we did not reach Volo until the next morning, over twelve hours behind time. By a dash for the station we secured the first train, and reached Larisa at about ten o’clock. Thessaly has had since 1884 its own very good railroad system, starting from Volo and branching at Velestino, the ancient PherÆ, one branch going to Larisa and the other to Trikkala and beyond. This system connects the three principal cities, Volo, Larisa, and Trikkala, each of about fifteen thousand inhabitants, and brings the traveller near to all the interesting points of the land.

In order to carry out our schedule it was necessary for us to see the Vale of Tempe that day. Without losing a minute we engaged our carriage at the station, a mile from the town, and drove through the town, where we gathered a little stock of provisions while the driver changed horses. Of course, he had told us that our scheme was impossible, but we forced him along. In spite of mud (it was March, and Thessaly is always muddy at that time), we got through Tempe, and came back, reaching Larisa before nine o’clock in the evening. Without a full moon it would have been impossible to do Tempe that day. On that evening we caught for the first time the notes of the Greek frogs, Brek-ke-ke-kek-koak-koak, reproducing Aristophanes with the exception of a few sibilants.

Tempe is one of the two great show pieces of Thessaly. Even the ancients, who are often said to have set little store by beauties of nature, were enthusiastic over Tempe, although they appear to have paid little attention to the other great show piece, the cliffs of Meteora. Herodotus records that Xerxes was struck with wonder at the great defile five miles long with steep sides and a mighty river, the Peneios, flowing through it. One fine feature of Tempe is also the view which one gets at the end, out over the sea to the site of PotidÆa and Olynthos.

The Thessalian legend that Poseidon split open with his trident the great eastern range of mountain, and let out here between Ossa and Olympus the water which had made Thessaly a lake, is strictly true if we let the trident represent earthquake force. Geology accepts the legend in all its essential features. Thessaly was until comparatively late times, geologically speaking, a lake. It is now a lake bottom of inexhaustible fertility.

The next day, instead of taking the train back to PherÆ and over the other branch which we were going to traverse later, we took a carriage to drive straight across due west to Trikkala, intending to take the train there for the last fourteen miles of the journey to Kalabaka, which lies at the foot of the Meteora cliffs. We were off at six o’clock, and had over eight hours for our drive of thirty-seven miles. When we had done two-thirds of it the driver stopped to bait his horses. He knew that we had taken him expressly to bring us to Trikkala in season to catch the train, and yet he waited so long that it became very doubtful by the time he was ready to start whether we could do it. We offered five drachmas extra if he did it; and he tried hard to get them then, whipping his horses unmercifully. The result was that we saw the train go out of the station as we got into the outskirts of the town.

The horses were unable to make the extra fourteen miles to Kalabaka that night, and an essential part of our schedule was to spend the night at one of the monasteries perched upon the picturesque rocks. We must spend that very night there or give up the plan entirely. Our driver tried in vain to get other horses for us. One man promised to come with a carriage in half an hour, and at the end of that time came and said that he could not go, the road was too bad. From subsequent experience I judge that he was right. Somebody in the crowd of interested bystanders suggested that we take a hand-car, which the station-agent could give us by telegraphing to Volo for authorization to do so. When we went to the station-agent with our plan, we judged by his answer that our advisers had been mildly guying us. By this time quite a crowd had gathered, curious to see what we would do next.

We now gave an unexpected turn to events by picking up our heels and our very small packs and starting off along the railroad track, at a good athletic pace for Kalabaka. Probably the crowd expected to see us come back and lodge at Trikkala; but we reached Kalabaka in three hours and a half, at nearly eight o’clock. Hungry and tired, we sat down in an eating-house and began our supper with the feeling that we had missed our game, except in so far as we had got sight of the wonderful rocks which towered high up above the village. What we had wanted was the sensation of passing the night on top of one of these needles. When our desire was made known it seemed as if everybody in the village was determined that we should get into the monastery that night. Some went and brought the astynomos (chief of gendarmes), and he promptly detailed two of his men to escort us up; and as soon as we had eaten we set off. Again the full moon saved us. Without it it would have been impossible to scale the heights, even with the best of guides. There was some incidental gain in the view afforded by moonlight. One enormous round tower, about fifty times as large as the famous Heidelberg Tower, has never looked to me by daylight as impressive as it did then by moonlight.

When at last we came to the bridge which spanned the chasm separating the cliff on which stood the monastery of St. Stephen from the body of the mountain our attendants shouted and cracked their whips over the reverberating chasm until a sleepy monk put his head out of a window in a third story and said, in a sleepy voice: “What time is it now?” On being told that it was ten o’clock he seemed disinclined to admit our claim, which the gendarmes urged vehemently. We made out that the gist of the claim was that here were strangers who had come all the way from America, ten thousand miles away, just to see that monastery. Suddenly the parleying was stopped by the shutting of the window. We thought that we were shut out; but the gendarmes lingered as if they thought their appeal had taken effect; and, in fact, after a delay of several minutes, which seemed to us much longer, we heard the clapping of wooden soles along the stone flagging inside the oaken door, which was soon after swung open. We went to sleep that night congratulating ourselves on having restored by our own good legs, aided by a kind full moon, a programme that had been broken by a shiftless driver.

The next morning, after climbing up St. Trinity by means of a series of ladders arranged in a cleft of the rock, we caught the train which took us to Pharsala at noon. From there we walked to Domoko, since made famous by the stand made by the Greek army in the war of 1897, and called in ancient times Thaumakoi, “the wonderful,” on account of the superb view of the great plain of Thessaly which it affords. On the following day we reached the port of Lamia, slightly stiff from the bare tables on which we had slept at Domoko, and there ended our Thessalian trip.

The Meteora (literally “aloft”) cloisters can hardly be enough praised. There were once twenty-four of them, all perched upon these needles. They were placed there in the fourteenth century for the sake of security from robber bands. Only about a half-dozen of them are now occupied; the rest are wholly or partly ruined. St. Stephen is the only one that regularly entertains guests. Two of the most difficult to ascend, the Meteoron and St. Barlaam, are more than a mile away from St. Stephen; and an ascent of these is not easily combined with spending the night at St. Stephen, unless one spends there all the next day and night also. On a later visit I made the really perilous ascent of the Meteoron on a series of ladders dangling along the perpendicular face of the needle, 1,820 feet above the sea-level, and, at a rough estimate, 200 feet above the flat rock from which you start to climb. When I had once gone up and walked about a little I shrank from the descent. I was particularly nervous when I started downward by backing out of the window, and holding on to the sill with my hands, while I felt for the rounds of the ladder below with my feet. I felt then that, as never before, I had taken my life into my hands. When we asked the monks why they had refused to wind us up in the basket with which they hauled up their fuel and supplies, they replied that there were so few of them that they were afraid that their strength would give out while they had us in mid-air. This explanation satisfied us completely. One would rather trust to his own hands and feet than to an insufficient force of monks. But since the least failure of one’s own hands or feet meant certain death, one is satisfied by having made the ascent once, and having experienced a sensation.

At St. Stephen the hospitality is most cheerfully accorded, and nothing exacted in return; but one usually puts something into “the box,” as an expression of thankfulness. The monasteries are all rich landed proprietors and need not our poor alms. I recall one occasion when their hospitality was more bountiful than timely. Professor Edward Capps and I once arrived at St. Stephen with our wives at six o’clock, in a state bordering on starvation. We immediately heard a clattering of dishes below stairs, and pretty soon an exhalation of savory odors began to rise from the kitchen. From time to time a monk would bring up a pitcher or a plate, while we endured the pains of Tantalus until half-past nine, simply because our hosts wanted to do something extra, regarding the presence of ladies as making an extraordinary occasion. A little cold meat and bread at six o’clock would have been more keenly appreciated by us than the eight courses with which they finally plied us. Let the traveller in Greece beware of special occasions.

My last three visits to Thessaly have been made by bicycle. One gets over the ground more rapidly that way. For example, in February, 1900, Mr. Benjamin Powell and I rode from Trikkala to Larisa in two hours and thirty-seven minutes, including a short delay at the ferry over the Peneios. Baedeker puts this journey as “37 miles, 8 hours, carriage about 50 drachmas.” We had time in the afternoon of the same day to go out to Tempe and back without trespassing much upon the evening. Sometimes, however, the tale is not so triumphant. In February, 1902, five of us were doing this same journey at a somewhat more gentle gait, and, just after remounting from the ferry, ran over some particularly dry and stiff Thessalian thistles, reducing about half of our tires to the condition of sieves in a few seconds. A long and pensive walk into Larisa was the penalty imposed on three of the party; and we took a carriage out to Tempe the next day.

Sometimes one in travelling blunders into a good thing. Before the journey just mentioned I had several times passed Pharsala with just pause enough to take in the probable topography of the great battle between CÆsar and Pompey, and once only had I taken a rather hasty view of the walls of the acropolis. But this time, by the chance of two of our party lagging behind on the descent from Domoko, we missed a train that we might have taken to carry us a long way on toward Kalabaka. When I realized that we were compelled to pass the night at Pharsala, I expected to “pay of my person,” inasmuch as we had no guest friend to fall back upon. What was my surprise to find a perfectly clean hotel opened only fourteen months before, bearing the name of the patriot poet, Rhegas PherÆos. We were in luck.

But greater luck it was that we had a half-day to explore carefully the walls of the acropolis. Some parts of these are seen to be as old as those of MycenÆ. Some think that here was the home of Achilles. If this is so, he had a citadel that might vie with that of his chief. In the midst of our study of walls we were from time to time impelled to look up to majestic Olympus, and also to look into the deep cut between it and Ossa, the Vale of Tempe, through which Pompey, up to that time so fortunate, but then a broken man, fled precipitate to his doom.