The neighboring island of Spezza, where the steamer waits, and a crowd of picturesque people come out in quaint boats to give and take cargo, has a history very parallel to that of Hydra. It is to be noted that the population of both islands is rather Albanian than Greek. A few hours brings the steamer past Poros and through narrow passages among islands to Ægina, as they now call it. We have here an island whose history is precisely the reverse of that of Hydra. The great days of Ægina (as I mentioned above) were in very old times, from the age of Pheidon of Argos, in the seventh century B. C., up to the rise of Athens’s democracy and navy, when this splendid centre of literature, art, and commerce was absorbed in the greater Athenian empire. There is at present a considerable town on the coast, and some cultivation on the hills; but the whole aspect of the island is very rocky and barren, and as it can hardly ever have been otherwise, we feel at once that the early greatness of Ægina was, like that of Hydra in the last century, a purely commercial greatness. The people are very hospitable and interesting. Nowhere in Greece did I see more apparent remains of the purest Greek type. Our hostess, in particular, was worthy to take her place in the Parthenon frieze, and among the children playing on the quay there were faces of marvellous beauty. With enterprise and diligence, a trading nation or city may readily become great in a small island or barren coast, and no phenomenon in history proves this more strongly than the vast empire of the Phœnicians, who seem never to have owned more than a bare tract of a few miles about Tyre and Sidon. They were, in fact, a great people without a country. The Venetians similarly raised an empire on a salt marsh, and at one time owned many important possessions on Greek coasts and islands, without “any visible means of subsistence,” as they say in the police courts. In the same way, Pericles thought nothing of the possession of Attica, provided the Athenians could hold their city walls and their harbors. He knew that with a maritime supremacy they must necessarily be lords of so vast a stretch of coasts and islands that the barren hills of Attica might be completely left out of account. There is yet another and a very interesting way from Nauplia to Ægina, which may be strongly recommended to the traveller who does not arrive in due time to catch the weekly steamer. Horses can be hired at Nauplia, which can perform, in about seven hours, the journey to the little village of Epidauros (now pronounced _Epídavros_). Here a boat can be obtained, which, with a fair wind, can reach Ægina in three, and the Peiræus in about six hours. But, like all boating expeditions, this trip is uncertain, and may be thwarted by either calm or storm. [Illustration: Sculptured Lion, Nauplia]