We were welcomed with excellent hospitality in the town, and received by a fine old gentleman, whose sons, two splendid youths in full costume, attended us in person. Being people of moderate means, they allowed us, with a truer friendliness than that of more ostentatious hosts, to pay for the most of the materials we required, which they got for us of the best quality, at the lowest price, and cooked and prepared them for us in the house. We inquired of the father what prospects were open to his handsome sons, who seemed born to be soldiers—the ornaments of a royal pageant in peace, the stay of panic in battle. He complained that there was no scope for their energies. Of course, tilling of the soil could never satisfy them. One of them was secretary to the _Demarchus_, on some miserable salary. He had gone as far as Alexandria to seek his fortune, but had come home again, with the tastes and without the wealth of a rich townsman. So they are fretting away their life in idleness. I fear that such cases are but too common in the country towns of Greece. The people brought us to see many pieces of funeral slabs, of marble pillars, and of short and late inscriptions built into house walls. They also sold us good coins of Philip of Macedon at a moderate price. The systematic digging about the old site undertaken by the English school will probably bring to light many important remains.(144) There is a carriage road from Megalopolis to Argos, but the portion inside the town was then only just finished, so we preferred riding as far as Tripoli. Travellers now landing at Argos will find it quite practicable to drive from the coast to this central plain of Arcadia, and then begin their riding. There is now, alas! a railway from Argos to Tripoli in progress. By this means even ladies can easily cross the Morea. Two days’ driving to Megalopolis, two days’ riding to Olympia, and an easy day’s drive and train to Katakalo, would be the absolute time required for the transit. But the difficulty is still to find a comfortable night’s lodging between the first and second day’s ride, both of them long and fatiguing journeys. Andritzena is too near Megalopolis, and not to be recommended without introductions. But there is probably some village on another route which would afford a half-way house. From Tripoli and from Megalopolis, which command their respective plains, excursions could be made to Mantinea, to Sparta, and best of all to Kalamata, where a coasting steamer calls frequently. [Illustration: A Greek Peasant in National Costume]