... “There we lay Half buried in a couch of fragrant reed And fresh-cut vine leaves, who so glad as we? A wealth of elm and poplar shook o’erhead; Hard by, a sacred spring flowed gurgling on From the Nymphs’ grot, and in the sombre boughs The sweet cicada chirped laboriously. Hid in the thick thorn-bushes far away The treefrog’s note was heard; the crested lark Sang with the goldfinch; turtles made their moan, And o’er the fountain hung the gilded bee.”[3] Footnote 3: Translated by C. S. Calverly. Notwithstanding the variety in landscape and the lack of unified nationality in the long centuries of Greek history, there is a unity in the impression of ancient life left upon the mind by a visit to Greece. This is in part due to the comparative meagreness of remains from periods subsequent to classic times. The long obliteration of mediæval and modern constructive civilization leaves more clear the outlines of antiquity. This is true even though the sum total of the remains of Byzantine and mediæval life, on islands and on mainland, is large and claims the attention from time to time. In Athens the traveller will come upon the small Metropolis church with its ancient Greek calendar of festivals, let in as a frieze above the entrance and metamorphosed into Byzantine sanctity by the inscribing of Christian crosses. As he journeys to and fro in Greece he may see the venerable “hundred-gated” church on the island of Paros, recalling in certain details the proscenium of an ancient theatre; Monemvasia with its vast ruins, the home of Byzantine ecclesiasticism and a splendour of court life that vied with the pomp and magnificence of western Europe; or the ivy-clad ruins of Mistra, an epitome of Græco-Byzantine art from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century; the frowning hill and castle of Karytæna that guards the approach to the mountain fastnesses of Arcadia; or the ancient acropolis of Lindus on the island of Rhodes with the impregnable fortress of the Knights of St. John. Nor will the visitor ignore the reminders of the War of Independence and the renascence of life in modern Greece. Mesolonghi, Nauplia, and Arachova have contributed fresh chapters to human history. Aligned with ancient names are those of modern heroes in the nomenclature of the streets and of public squares, like the Karaiskakis Place that welcomes the traveller as he disembarks at Piræus.