From Meraca we rode through romantic scenery to Andritzena, a charming village in a very beautiful and romantic situation; and next morning we settled to go on to the Temple of Bassæ--the stylæ or columns, the natives call it. But before we started the primates of Andritzena came in, and after turning over our things and examining and asking the price of our arms, they began to try and frighten us with tremendous stories of a certain Barulli, captain of a company of klephts or robbers who haunted the neighbourhood of the stylæ. They begged us to come back the same evening, and to take a guard with us. As for the first, we flatly refused; and for the second, we reflected that our guards must be Greeks, while the klephts might be Turks, and if so the former would never stand against them, so it was as well for us to take the risk alone. We did, however, take one of their suggestions, and that was to take with us two men of the country who would know who was who, and act as guides and go-betweens; for they assured us that it is not only the professional klephts who rob, but that all the inhabitants of the villages thereabouts are dilettante brigands on occasion. Our janissary Mahomet also did not at all fancy the notion of living up in the mountain, and added what he could to dissuade us. However, we turned a deaf ear to all objections and set out. Our way lay over some high ground, and rising almost all the way, for 2½ hours. It is impossible to give an idea of the romantic beauty of the situation of the temple. It stands on a high ridge looking over lofty barren mountains and an extensive country below them. The ground is rocky, thinly patched with vegetation, and spotted with splendid ilexes. The view gives one Ithome, the stronghold and last defence of the Messenians against Sparta, to the south-west; Arcadia, with its many hills, to the east; and to the south the range of Taygetus, with still beyond them the sea.