It was one of those serene and cloudless days of the early spring, when the first indications of leaf and blossom may just be discerned.  The islands slept, as it were, on their glassy couch, and a slight dun haze hung upon the mountains, as if they too were drowsy.  After an easy walk of about two hours, passing through the olive groves, and along the bottom of the hill on which Xerxes sat to view the battle, we came opposite to a little cove near the ferry, and made a signal to the ship for a boat.  Having gone on board and partaken of some refreshment, the boat then carried us back to the Piraeus, where we landed, about an hour before sundown—­all the wide landscape presenting at the time the calm and genial tranquillity which is almost experienced anew in reading these delicious lines: 

Slow sinks more lovely e’er his race be run,
Along Morea’s hills, the setting sun
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light. 
O’er the hush’d deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it flows. 
On old Egina’s rock, and Idra’s isle,
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O’er his own regions lingering, loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine;—­
Descending fast, the mountain shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf, unconquer’d Salamis!

Their azure arches, through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled meet his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven;
Till darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep.

The opening of The Giaour is a more general description, but the locality is distinctly marked by reference to the tomb above the rocks of the promontory, commonly said to be that of Themistocles; and yet the scene included in it certainly is rather the view from Cape Colonna, than from the heights of Munychia.

No breath of air to break the wave
That rolls below the Athenian’s grave,
That tomb, which, gleaming o’er the cliff,
First greets the homeward-veering skiff,
High o’er the land he saved in vain—­
When shall such hero live again!

The environs of the Piraeus were indeed, at that time, well calculated to inspire those mournful reflections with which the poet introduces the Infidel’s impassioned tale.  The solitude, the relics, the decay, and sad uses to which the pirate and the slave-dealer had put the shores and waters so honoured by freedom, rendered a visit to the Piraeus something near in feeling to a pilgrimage.

   Such is the aspect of this shore,
   ’Tis Greece, but living Greece no more! 
   So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
   We start, for soul is wanting there. 
   Hers is the loveliness in death,
   That parts not quite with parting breath;
   But beauty with that fearful bloom,