I have no such excuse for being severe or ill-natured, as I found nothing but kindness and hospitality everywhere, and sincerely hope that my free judgments may not hurt any sensitive Greek who may chance to see them. Even the great Finlay—one of their best friends—is constantly censured by them for his writings about Modern Greece. But, surely, any real lover of Greece must feel that plain speaking about the faults of the nation is much wanted. The worship lavished upon them by Byron and his school has done its good, and can now only do harm. On the other hand, I must confess that a longer and more intimate intercourse with the Greeks of the interior and of the mountains leads a fair observer to change his earlier estimate, and think more highly of the nation than at first acquaintance. Unfortunately, the Greeks known to most of us are sailors—mongrel villains from the ports of the Levant, having very little in common with the bold, honest, independent peasant who lives under his vine and his fig-tree in the valleys of Arcadia or of Phocis. It was, no doubt, an intimate knowledge of the sound core of the nation which inspired Byron with that enthusiasm which many now think extravagant and misplaced. But here, as elsewhere, the folly of a great genius has more truth in it than the wisdom of his feebler critics. CHAPTER II. GENERAL IMPRESSIONS OF ATHENS AND ATTICA. There is probably no more exciting voyage, to any educated man, than the approach to Athens from the sea. Every promontory, every island, every bay, has its history. If he knows the map of Greece, he needs no guide-book or guide to distract him; if he does not, he needs little Greek to ask of any one near him the name of this or that object; and the mere names are sufficient to stir up all his classical recollections. But he must make up his mind not to be shocked at _Ægina_ or _Phalerum_, and even to be told that he is utterly wrong in his way of pronouncing them.