ruins that the city had been twice as populous as it actually was.  Demosthenes speaks of the strangers who came to visit its attractions.  But the changes of twenty-three centuries have passed upon this splendor—­a sad story of violence and neglect—­and the queenly city has long been in the condition of ruin imagined by Thucydides.  Still, the spell of her influence is not broken, and the charm which once drew so many visitors to her shrines still acts powerfully on the hearts of scholars in all lands, who, having looked up to her poets, orators and philosophers as teachers and loved them as friends, long to visit their haunts, to stand where they stood, to behold the scenes which they were wont to view, and to gaze upon what may remain of the great works of art upon which their admiration was bestowed.

So the student-pilgrim from the Western World with native ardor strains his sight to catch the first glimpse of the Athenian plain and city.  He is fresh from his studies, and familiar with what books teach of the geography of Greece and the topography of Athens.  He needs not to be informed which mountain-range is Parnes, and which Pentelicus—­which island is Salamis, and which Egina.  Yet much of what he sees is a revelation to him.  The mountains are higher, more varied and more beautiful than he had supposed, Lycabettus and the Acropolis more imposing, Pentelicus farther away, and the plain larger, the gulf narrower, and Egina nearer and more mountainous, than he had fancied.  He is astonished at the smallness of the harbor at Peiraeus, having insensibly formed his conception of its size from the notices of the mighty fleets which sailed from it in the palmy days when Athens was mistress of the seas.  He is not prepared to see the southern shore of Salamis so near to the Peiraeus, though it explains the close connection between that island and Athens, and throws some light upon the great naval defeat of the Persians.  In short, while every object is recognized as it presents itself, yet a more correct conception is formed of its relative position and aspect from a single glance of the eye than had been acquired from books during years of study.

Arrived at the city, his experience is the same.  He needs no guide to conduct him to its antiquities, nor cicerone to explain in bad French or worse English their names and history.  Still, unexpected appearances present themselves not unfrequently.  Hastening toward the Acropolis, he will first inspect the remains of the great theatre of Dionysus, so familiar to him as the place where, in the presence of all the people and many strangers, were acted the plays of his favorite poets, Eschylus and Sophocles, and where they won many prizes.  Hurrying over the eastern brow of the hill, he comes suddenly upon the spot, enters at the summit, as many an Athenian did in the olden time, and is smitten with amazement at the first glance, and led to question whether this be indeed the site