in the track of the sinking sun in our high northern latitudes.

But what were sunsets to us, with the wild excitement upon us of

approaching the most renowned of cities! What cared we for outward

visions, when Agamemnon, Achilles, and a thousand other heroes of the

great Past were marching in ghostly procession through our fancies? What

were sunsets to us, who were about to live and breathe and walk in actual

Athens; yea, and go far down into the dead centuries and bid in person

for the slaves, Diogenes and Plato, in the public market-place, or gossip

with the neighbors about the siege of Troy or the splendid deeds of

Marathon? We scorned to consider sunsets.

We arrived, and entered the ancient harbor of the Piraeus at last. We

dropped anchor within half a mile of the village. Away off, across the

undulating Plain of Attica, could be seen a little square-topped hill

with a something on it, which our glasses soon discovered to be the

ruined edifices of the citadel of the Athenians, and most prominent among

them loomed the venerable Parthenon. So exquisitely clear and pure is

this wonderful atmosphere that every column of the noble structure was

discernible through the telescope, and even the smaller ruins about it

assumed some semblance of shape. This at a distance of five or six

miles. In the valley, near the Acropolis, (the square-topped hill before

spoken of,) Athens itself could be vaguely made out with an ordinary

lorgnette. Every body was anxious to get ashore and visit these classic

localities as quickly as possible. No land we had yet seen had aroused

such universal interest among the passengers.

387

The Innocents Abroad