vineyards. It is prettily situated on a high headland; and directly under you, as you look down, is the old semi-circular pier now used by fishermen, occasionally visited by a steam boat, that afforded like shelter and access to the triremes of two thousand years ago. The present inhabitants are an Albanian colony that arrived there, it is not known when. They preserve their dress which has now been adopted as the national Greek costume; and their language, which I am told, differs very much from modern Greek.

The village is principally visited for the purpose of seeing the remains of the Temple of Eleusis. They are Cyclopoan in size and exquisite in all the details of finishing, the beautiful and delicate tracery of the Corinthian capitals, as fine and sharp as if they were cut but yesterday. The mass is of great extent; and yet, it is said, that only the Propyloeum is as yet exposed.

We walked up on the hill above the

ruins. I outstripped my party to gain the top, anxious for the view, which is very fine; mountains circling round on one side, the Isle of Ægina, not too far off, on the other, and, at my feet, the bay, where

"The mountain shadows kiss

Thy glorious gulf unconquered Salamis."

I had scarcely gained the top when one of the party was in full pursuit after me, and not without good reason, for the whole hill on which we stood was pierced over with circular openings of not more than three feet in diameter, not guarded or marked in any way, and often concealed from view by mountain herbage growing round the edges. These excavations widened as they descended into a pear shape, and appeared to be, in some cases, very deep. Some that I examined although partly filled, to what extent, I know not, with stones or rubbish, were still 10 or 12 feet deep, so that once in them you could no more get out, if you survived the fall, than a bear could get out of a pitfall.

The rocky hills in several parts of Greece are studded over with these egg-shaped excavations, and are very dangerous to sportsmen. A few years since a gentleman was last seen at the foot of a hill, where such excavations were in great number. He was seen no more; and a long time after a skeleton, supposed to be his, was found in one of those dry wells.

It is supposed they were either sunk as wells to hold water for camps or garrisons, or granaries for corn; I think probably the latter. Wells are always found of the same breadth the whole way down. These are pear-shaped, and are of no great depth;are found in numbers, and on the very summit of the hill they communicate with one another, in some instances, by subterranean passages as if to permit the opening of several without exposing the opening of more than one.

There may be another supposition that

they were connected in some way with the Eleusinian rites celebrated in the Temple, and formed part of the appliances, like stage traps, for the performance of some of the various devices and illusions that terrified and fascinated Neophytes on their admission into the Eleusinan mysteries.*

"Question him,

"Who, 'mid terrific sounds and spectres dim,
Walks at Eleusis."

Warned of our danger, we retraced our steps to the village, and were introduced to the village doctor. He is not a fully qualified physician or surgeon, but a "propriétaire," in common possession with his fellow villagers of the vineyards around. He attended some lectures at Athens, and saw some hospital practice; and, having under

*Moore, in his Epicurean, introduces, on historical authority, a well as one of the devices of those mysteries. "It now crossed my memory that I had once heard of such wells as being used occasionally for passages by the priests." . The sides, I could perceive, were hard and smooth as glass.