We left early next day. There was an awkward little episode of a box of instruments belonging to Foster, which he missed off a certain sofa. The Boluk bashi had admired them very much. Presently, when the inquiry was made, an officer of the Boluk bashi came in and searched near the sofa, and then suddenly went out. We did the same, and lo! there was the case. And the Boluk bashi looked very disconcerted as we bade him adieu. We followed the course of the Gyrtinas. These are mountains which on all hands are celebrated among the modern Greeks for the exploits of the Colocotroni[28] and other captains who lived among the hills and maintained a sort of independence of the Turks ever since they have held the Morea. The peasants delight to sing the ballads composed on these heroes, and, exulting in their bravery, forget the horrible barbarities they committed. When Smirke was here the country must really have been in a fearful state of anarchy; and whatever we may say against him, it must be laid at any rate to the credit of Veli Pasha that he has cleared the Morea of banditti. The Colocotroni and the rest of them have had to fly the country and enlist in Church's contingent at Zante. We spent some time at Megalopolis, and with Pausanias in our hands were able to identify remnants of almost everything he mentions, in especial the spring near the theatre, which only runs part of the year. At Lycosura the ruins are disappointingly modern, and there is not much of them; nothing left of the ancient temple at all. The situation is very fine. Two and a half hours' journey up a stream through woods brought us to Dervine, the boundary of Messenia. Then we crossed the Plain of Messenia, admiring, even in the rain, the mountains, Ithome especially, and at dusk got to a village two hours short of Kalamata. Our agroati did not know the road on, and it was too late to get a guide; but as they told us the road was quite straight we went on in the dark. At the end of an hour we had lost the track; it was pitch black, raining still, and we on the edge of a river in a marsh. There I thought we should have stayed. For four hours we groped about, looking first for the lost path, and then for any path to any shelter. First we tried giving Haller's horse, who had been to Kalamata before, a loose rein and letting him lead the way. At first it promised well, for the horse went ahead willingly; but the agroati took upon him to change his course, and then we were as lost as ever. We could hardly see each other. Then we sent off the agroati to try and reach a light we could see. He came back with awful accounts of bogs and ditches he had met in his path. Finally, after standing still for a time in the pelting rain, we resolved to reach the light; and so we did, over hedge and ditch and through bogs, and Indian corn above our heads as we sat on horseback, and at length, wet through and wearied, reached a cottage in which were some Greeks.