to the northwest of Tegea, represents the ancient Pallantium, the birthplace of Evander.  Here Dhemetri brought us bad news.  We had intended to go to Mantinea, thence north through Orchomenus, Stymphalus, and Sicyon, to Corinth; but the passes, we learned, were impracticable for the snow, and we must recross Mount Parthenion, and revisit Achladhokamvo and Argos.  First, however, we took a rapid ride to Mantinea, about eight miles through a level, tolerably well-cultivated country.  At the narrow passage between the mountains, there stood in ancient times a grove of cork-trees, called ‘Pelagus,’ the sea.  Epaminondas, warned by an oracle to beware of the ‘Pelagus,’ had carefully avoided the sea.  But it was just in this spot that he drew up his troops for the great battle which cost him his life.  When mortally wounded, he was carried to a high place called ’Skope’—­identified with the sharp spur of Mount Maenalus, which projects just here into the plain, and from this he watched the battle, and here he died, like Wolfe, at the moment of victory.  The well-built walls of Mantinea still stand in nearly their entire circuit, built in the fourth century before Christ, after Agesipolis of Sparta had captured the city, by washing away its walls of sun-burnt brick, and had dispersed the inhabitants among the neighboring villages.  The restoration of the city was a part of the great system of humbling Sparta, set on foot by Epaminondas after the battle of Leuctra.

After spending the night at Achladhokamvo, where we visited the ruins of Hysiae close by, we went next day through Argos, passing within sight of Mycenae, to Nemea, where, in a beautiful little valley, three Doric columns, still standing, testify to the former sanctity of the spot.  Then to Kurtissa, the ancient Cleonae, to pass the night.  When Dhemetri pointed it out to us from the hill above, it looked like a New-England farm-house, a neat white cottage peeping out from among the trees, and we rejoiced at the prospect.  But lo! the neat white cottage was a guardhouse, and our khan was the rude, unpainted, windowless barn.  It was, nevertheless, very comfortable.  There was a ceiling to the room, and the board windows were tight.  The floor, to be sure, gaped in wide cracks; but as there was a blazing fire in the room beneath, the cracks let in no cold air, nothing but smoke, a sort of compensation, as it seemed, for our having a chimney, lest we should be puffed up with pride and luxury.  For we not only had a chimney, but a table and two stools, one sitting on an inverted barrel spread with a horse-blanket.  Here Dhemetri concocted for our supper an Hellenic soup, of royal flavor, the recollection of which is still grateful to my palate.  And here a youth, named Agamemnon, son of George, came and displayed to us his school-books, a geography, beginning with Greece and ending with America, where Bostonia as put down as capital of Massachoytia.  Longing to hear a Greek war-song, we requested him to sing, at which he warbled Dehyte pahides ton Hellhenon to a tune which we strongly suspected he composed for the occasion, following it up with others, with such delight that we were fain at last to plead sleepiness and let him depart.