THE MOUNTAIN OF MARBLE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3016, 3 January 1912, Page 80

THE MOUNTAIN OF MARBLE.

MOUNT PENTELIKON

By Edith Searle Grossman, M.A

About halfway up Mount Pentelikon my shepherd diverged and led me to a cave (Spiiia). It is very large, but not beautiful. 'There are stalactites, but they are all Grey. As Baedeker says, there is a spring of cold water at the farthest end ; and on the entrance the Byzantine double eagle has been carved. This cavern, if it could speak, could tell many a tale, for it has been inhabitated by men—probably by families: —and in different ages. It has been regularly built up for a human habitation, and 1 greatly longed to hear some traditions about it, but my shepherd boy could tell me nothing. The interior walls of the dwelling-place are still standing, and the front is walled in and has an arched doorway. One hollow recess on the right has been converted into an orthodox ohapel which is still in use, though who toils up the marble slide to it and from what part of these lonely fragrant hills any worshippers can come, 1 can’t imagine. It is easy enough to understand when and why it was used before the Greeks escaped from the dominion of the Turks. The cavern must once have been a secure refuge for orthodox Greek monks and peasants too, in dread of massacres like those that still devastate Armenia. The walls and the chapel are eloquent dumb witnesses to what the rule of the Turks means and still means to subject races. Fragments of domestic pottery are strewn over the floor of the cavern.

My dream iu travelling to Marousi and Pentelikon had not at all been just to see the quarries, nor even the Greek monastery in the grove. It was, in one word, Marathon. 1 had found that time did not allow a visit to the battlefield and the mound (Soros) that covered the remains of the Athenian dead. But Pentelikon is the very mountain that does “look on Marathon,” straight down on to it from the summit, so close that I was told the Soros could be seen. It was the thought of Marathon that urged me up that toilsome, indeed exhausting, ascent in the heat of early afternoon. It was Marathon that continually rose before the eyes of my mind. But it proved to be a mere mirage. The amiable shepherd and his boy, the monks, and the kaffenion keeper had other plans for me, and it is one of the disadvantages of being so well “mothered” in Greece by your guides that they take you just where they -wish you to go, and not just where your own fancy might lead you. The boy led the way from the cave, and I soon discovered that we w r ere going down again instead of up. It was no use expostulating. Whenever a guide did not agree with my plans he never understood my Greek, but carried out his own designs with a deprecatory and mystified air, which might have imposed on me if he hadn’t occasionally laughed or twinkled. However, I do not think that old-fashioned Greeks and the peasants are at all accustomed to women arranging anything for themselves. I was led back to where the father and his son were keeping their flock in idyllic fashion on the mountain side in the shade of the trees. A flock of goats roamed amongst the wild shrubs and rocks; the tinkle of the goat bells came pleasantly on the clear fresh air. My shepherd was talking with three other peasants, clad in the native (Albanian) costume —goatherds and shepherds of the plains come to pasture their beasts on the shady hills. In fine w'eather a Greek shepherd really does seem to have an easy time. He literally keeps watch over his small flock, wandering about with them from pasture to pasture, stream to stream, and from sun to shade, sometimes dozing or dreaming, and often putting in a few hours at a small village kaffenion, where he drinks his krassi retsinato, and, if fortune favours his lot, he drinks —what he values more than wine—a glass of cold spring water. At his little table under the plane tree or the shade of a vino trellis he sits talking with another peasant or passively and contentedly doing absolutely nothing by the hour together. These cafes, if they may be called so, are found all over the country in the most solitary places, and take the place of the old-fashioned inns of England. My faithless swain now conducted me, still vainly expostulating, back to Mendele and its monastery. But this monastery needs a sketch to itself, so I will only say here that I stayed in its walls an hour or two and then returned to the kaffenion, where I found my guide and persuaded him to conduct me to the tops of the hills, not the unattainable summit of Pentelikon, but a lesser height, immediately overlooking the monastery. It was close upon my favourite time, the sunset, the light low and the breeze cool. At the top of the hill are the remains of some old building and also a small marble column and marble base. The two latter look antique, but Baedeker does not mention them, and I could not find out anything about them. There is a very fine and extensive view from this little hill —the sea on both coasts of Attika; towards the south the Saronic Gulf; to the north-east the water around Eubbea. Part of Evvia (Karystos) was plainly visible, but, alas! no Marathon. The plain of Marathon lay somewhere between this hill and the sea that surrounded the Island of .Euleoea. The guide pointed out the direction; there was a golden haze above where Marathon lay, but intervening heights hid the plain itself. Towards the west I made out one mountain after another, Parnes (Ozea) and Tourkovouni, our neighbour in Athens, Lykabettos, and the Akropolis; the city of Athens itself, the Attic plain and several villages, Kephisia, Marousi, and Chalandri. After climbing down the mount I got on the ass again, and we started homewards towards Marousi. The sun grew large and more golden above the mountains of the Saronic iulf. As I rode along facing the clear fiale gold of the sunset, a strange visionary eeling came over me to be riding in the Eastern manner on a young ass, with a Greek shepherd guiding me across the lonely plains of Attika. Just for a time the earth around wore the glamour of a

day-dream—the mental light that transcends sun or moon. Black fingers of the cypress pointed to the sky. Our way for some distance was wild and solitary, through unfenced groves of olives, vineyards of shrivelled vines, groves of the bright green firs, all with a touch of Oriental uncultured wildness. One never gets the same impression of solitude and wildness in England, nor in the more frequented parts of European countries. Here and there a small orthodox chapel, domed and painted, came in sight, or some peasant’s hut. Before long we passed other wayfarers returning home in tranquil content. They made a most picturesque procession, and their asses were simply grotesque. One or two of the peasants were riding asses. All greeted my shepherd guide in a friendly fashion. In front of them went, apparently, a large bundle of sticks with the rump and four legs of a mule or a horse, stirring up the thick white dust. A few paces farther on appeared another great bundle, this time of green branches, moving along supported by four legs and a tail—that is, nothing else was visible —and followed by the t\vo shepherd boys, who here rejoined their father. At his house (or hut) I was told to rest after the ride. The woman received me kindly, and broke off for ma a piece of the hot brown bread which I had seen her kneading in the morning. Then she took me to the station, a place in the road where the train stops, without any platform or any superfluity of 'that kind. That closed a delightful excursion. Of all my short journeys in Greece, the memories of the most intense pleasure are those of the mountain of marble and its monastery, and the days and night at Delphi.