Vacation days in GreeceRichardson, Rufus B. (Rufus Byam)
History
Vacation days in Greece
Richardson, Rufus B. (Rufus Byam)
Greece -- Description and travel
On a journey to Dodona, the year after this moonlight view, our
steamer, in passing from Patras to Prevesa, put in at Bathy, officially
called Ithaca, on the east side of the island; and I had just one hour
ashore which was more tantalizing than satisfactory as far as studying
the topography of Ithaca was concerned; and yet one may believe that he
sees in the beautiful bay and harbor the very harbor of Phorkys, where
Ulysses landed after his twenty years' absence. The cave of the Nymphs,
where the jolly Phæacians laid him asleep with his treasures about him
was not visible; but we were told that this is now farther up the hill.
After an interval of several years, in which I had passed Ithaca
several times in the night, I set foot on it again in a more
satisfactory fashion. Taking refuge from the August heat of Athens in
the Ionian Islands, I was spending a few days in Argostoli, the chief
town of Kephallenia, and seized this opportunity to approach Ithaca
from the back side, so to speak. A drive of four hours brought us clear
across from the west side of Kephallenia to Samos on the east side,
over the high backbone of the island. During the last hour of the
journey, the descent, as "the sun was setting, and all the ways were
growing shady," our eyes were fastened upon Ithaca lying peacefully in
the bosom of Kephallenia--a beautiful sight.
As we had planned for only one day in Ithaca, we determined to make it
a long one, and started from Samos in a sail-boat at half-past two in
the morning; but, although the sail was filled most of the time, so
gentle was the breeze that, even supplemented by the work of the oars,
it did not bring us to Ithaca until half-past five. My boy of twelve
years, companion of many of my wanderings in Greece, was asleep most of
the way, but broke the parallel with Ulysses by waking up when the keel
touched the shore.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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