geography five-sixths of Cefalonia lie south of the southernmost point of Ithaca, while the northernmost point of Ithaca lies farther north than any part of Cefalonia. If we suppose the poet to have mis-measured the bearings of these axes by the. not extravagant amount of (say) thirty degrees, he would suppose them to point a little to the southward of N.W. and the northward of S.E. And with his ideas of zophos and Eos, he might then be entirely consistent with himself in saying "that Ithaca, slanting groundwards from the heights of Neritos, lay on the sea-surface farthest to the north and west while the other islands were variously situated to the southward and eastward."

This, then, is the amount of error under which I suppose the poet to have laboured. It is not an arbitrary imputation. On this basis the text is coherent and accurate. It seems more reasonable to ascribe to him a small misapprehension, than to adopt the other alternative, which is his total ignorance of the geographical position of these islands. Such ignorance would have been strange even if he had seen nothing of them from personal experience, stranger still if, as I think will appear, he had certainly been a visitor at least of Ithaca. there is another local condition which this hypothesis (I admit it to be no more) will entirely satisfy.

And

A ship, on its voyage from the Thesprotian land to Doulichion, arrives on its way thither at Ithaca, and moreover at an agricultural part of Ithaca: Ιθάκης εὐδειέλου ἔργ ̓ ἀφίκοντο (χίν. 344).

This agricultural district must have been in the northern part of the island; and it could only be the plain described by Colonel Leake as a triangle between the three harbours of Polis, Trikes, and Aphalès. In this passage the Thesprotians reach Ithaca

at the close of the day (épioi): so that the poet had a just idea of the distance from the Thesprotian land. If, however, we take the actual geo1 Leake, Northern Greece, vol. iii. p. 38.

graphy, the Thesprotians could not touch at Ithaca at all on the way to Cefalonia. But with the changes of the axes, which is here imputed to Homer's conception, the northern extremity of Ithaca would have lain on their route.

We may now, therefore, suppose ourselves to have got both the component parts of the group with which the Odyssey is concerned, and the positions of the islands relatively to one another and to actual geography. It remains to consider the inland topography of Ithaca, an island in which civilised mankind has an undying interest.

There appears to be no ground for reasonable doubt, first that the descriptions of the poet are founded upon the real Ithaca; secondly, that he founded these descriptions, in the most important points, upon his personal experience. The first of these propositions is made good by his conformity to the truth upon the generaoutline and hilly character of the island, its two principal eminences, its very remarkable land-locked harbour, and lastly, the strait which divides it from Cefalonia. I should rest the second upon a certain particularity in the topical notices, which he could not well have acquired at secondhand.

Apart from these minor features, the poet has given us at least two groups of independent phenomena, by which he may be tested.

On

In the first group, we have a harbour so completely land-locked that vessels may ride without moorings (xiii. 97101). Now the great harbour of Molo has three openings on the south. the middle and principal one lies the town of Vathi; and it is as completely shut in (I speak in the capacity of an eye-witness) as a small lake, say the lake of Nemi. It has also the rocky projections at the entrance which are mentioned by the poet. Of the other two, Dexia is chosen by Sir William Gell 2 to represent the port of Phorcūs, 2 Gell's Ithaca, chap. v.

and he believes that he has found the cave there while he very fairly states that Strabo declared there was no cave in his time. Leake prefers the inlet of Schino, to the eastward of Vathi, as exactly corresponding to the poet's data. But this harbour of Phorcus is localised by its proximity to Mount Neritos (xiii. 345), which Athenè points out to the bewildered Odysseus in order to assure him that he is in his own country. It answers that purpose; and must therefore have been a marked feature of the island. Now an inspection of the map of Ithaca shows at once that three inlets, particularly Dexia and Vathi, are directly under Mount Marovugli, also called Mount Stefano, one of the two greatly elevated points of the island, and probably corresponding with the Neritos of the poet. Thus we have the harbour and the mountain over it in accordance with the topography of the Poem.

More important, because more searching as a topographical test, is the more complex grouping connected with the capital. In regard to it, the poem supplies us with the following particulars:

1. Though, as we have seen, the island is not without local names, the capital has usually no name, except that of Polis, "the town."

2. It is situated upon a harbour (Od. ii. 391).

3. The maritime access to it from the Peloponnesos was by the strait which divides Ithaca from Cefalonia.

4. It was under Mount Neïon (Od. iii. 81).

5. There was a harbour called Reithron, at a considerable distance from the town, in the rural district ( aypov, i. 186), which was also under Mount Neion.

6. Live-stock arrive at the capital by the ferry from the neighbouring island without any sign of their traversing any distance after landing, and thus to all appearance they merely

1 Northern Greece, vol. iii. p. 32.

mounted through the town to the palace from the harbour.

7. In going from the city to the residence of Laertes, Odysseus and his party descend (karéẞav, xxiv. 205).

Now if we find that all these indications converge, and fall upon some one point of the island for its capital, we can hardly be wrong in placing it there; and so complex a concurrence will surely make good the proposition that the poet had himself visited the spot. Let us proceed to try them.

We have in the name Troiè an instance where the same word designates the chief town and the territory. In the case of Ithaca, nearly all the epithets, which are numerous and appropriate, refer to the territory. It is sea-girt, goat-feeding, ox-feeding, picturesque, conspicuous, craggy, rough: not to quote other phrases. In Od. iii. 31, Ithaca is bovios--under Mount Neïon. Here the expression is equivocal; but it probably relates to the city, since the poet treats Neritos as the conspicuous mountain, so that the island could not properly be huponeïos. But also in Od. xxii. 52, Ithaca is éüкTuévn, well-built. In this the single instance where the epithet attaches it grammatically to the city, the word is joined with demos (as in Od. i. 183).

ὄφρ ̓ Ἰθάκης κατὰ δῆμον ἐϋκτιμένης βασι

λεύοι·

the rich demos, as it is called in xiv. 29, meaning apparently the town with the adjoining district. But as a general rule, I believe the simple word Polis is used to signify the chief town.

When, therefore, we find the name of Polis still attached locally to a harbour in Ithaca, one of the only two harbours on the western side of the island, our two first marks agree well with the facts as they are.

The proof of the third mark is, that the suitors placed their ambush midway in the Samian strait, to intercept Telemachos when on his way back from Pulos in the south east. If the capital had been on the eastern side of

the island, it would have been absurd that they should wait for him on the western side. We seem thus driven to place it on the western side; and there is no port for it on that side, except the ports of Polis and Aeto.

Aeto lies at the narrow neck of Ithaca. But there is no islet at all in the Samian strait near, or to the south of Aeto; and consequently that site is wholly incompatible with the ambush of the suitors. Other discrepancies, as we shall see, confirm this exclusion of Aeto from the question.

Fourthly, we have found that the town of Ithaca was under Neïon. This is true of the spot which I call Polis; but not of Aeto, which is under the rival hill called Merovugli or Stefano.

Fifthly, the harbour named Reithron was (1) far from the city, (2) by the agres or rural district, (3) also under Neïon. If the capital were at Aeto, there is no harbour which answers these conditions. The great Port Molo might be said to be under Neïon; but it is shut in by the hills, not upon an open district; nor is it far from the city, but close to it, as the isthmus is only half a mile across. On the other hand, these conditions are all satisfied in the case of Polis. At Phrikès,1 in the north-east corner of the island, is a harbour, which is under Neïon, is far (about three miles) from the city, and is upon an open cultivated district, namely, the triangular plain of Leake, who observes that there are but two fertile valleys in the island: 2 at Vathi in the south, and under Oxoi in the north. This latter is the triangular space.

Sixthly, when Philoitios, the cowherd, appears before the palace in Od. xx. 185, with a cow and goats, we are told that the ferrymen had brought him over the strait, and there is no

1 Leake's map places Reithron in the harbour of Afales near Phrikès. But this would take Mentor much farther off his course; and would be much less in accordance with the expression "under Neïon."

Leake, vol. iii. p. 33.

sign of his having traversed any distance after landing. Again we are driven to placing the capital on the east side; but it might, so far as this head is concerned, be either at Polis or at Aeto.

Seventhly, the capital, doubtless for security, was on an eminence; for the party descend, when they set out from it to visit the Orchard of Laertes. But that spot is not distant; for they arrive at it rapidly (ráxa, xxiv. 205). It was rich (kaλós) and carefully inclosed (TETUYμévos), and looked after. This would naturally imply that the spot was in the undulating valley near the city, probably on somewhat higher ground (Od. xi. 187). But this again is fatal to the site of Aeto; for it is removed by some six or eight miles from the fertile vale.

It appears then that these seven marks, like so many witnesses, render an united testimony to the effect that the capital was on some knoll or hillock looking down upon the northern valley of Ithaca, on the slopes of the mountain now called Anoi, and having Port Polis for its harbour.

The errors which we need impute to Homer then are not, after all, many, nor serious.

1. He is perhaps hardly warranted in treating Neritos as the one great and conspicuous eminence of the island; for it has an elevation of 2,135 feet, only slightly in excess of Neïon, which has 2,066.

2. He is wrong, as we have seen, to some extent in describing the position of the islands relatively to the points of the compass as he understood them.

3. He is wrong in the unimportant description of Asteris as the island in the strait towards Samè: for the only island in that strait is Dhascalio, a small rock wholly unsuited to an ambush.

4. His idea of the limits of Doulichion is rather vague and indeterminate, than erroneous. We cannot say confidently whether it included the eastern coast of Cefalonia north of

Samos. Whether it did or not, he naturally speaks of the strait itself in connection with the latter name, because the bay of Samos gives the most convenient and usual access to the island.

It is quite unnecessary to seek positive identifications for the swinesteading (so to call it) of Eumaïos, or the orchard of Laertes. It might suffice to say that no question of difficulty arises in connection with them. But it is well to make one remark on the first-named of the two. Nowhere in the poem does it at all appear that Eumaïos dwells at a distance from the Polis. But the passage which describes the walk of Odysseus to his dwelling from the port where he had been landed is so expressed as to give the impression that he had to traverse rugged ground, over a succession of high points. Athenè instructed him about the route: and "he mounted the rough path along a wooded tract, over eminences (Od. xiii. 1-3). It will be observed how fully this agrees with our general results, which place Polis in the north of the island, as we now find the abode of Eumaïos was at a distance from the south.

Again, all this is in harmony with the directions of Athene to Telemachos for his return. He is ordered to sail by night, and to keep away from the islands (xv. 33, 4); that is, instead of following the east coast of Zante, southern Cefalonia and Ithaca, as he would naturally have done, to hug the mainland, and then strike across to the north end of Ithaca; on nearing it, not to go himself to the city, but to send his vessel there, and himself to repair to the dwelling of Eumaïos. Thus we have further proof that the capital was on the west: while he lands at the first point he touches (xv. 36):

Ἐπὴν πρώτην ακτήν Ιθάκης ἀφίκηαι, and has no great distance to travel in order to re ch Eumaïos. When he

lands (xv. 103) he tells his crew he will go by the cultivated district and the abode of the herdsmen, and afterwards "come down" to the city.

The two mountains were covered with forest. Elato still retains a name taken from the firs, although they have disappeared. It was (einosiphullon) leaf-waving (ix. 22), and clothed with wood (xiii, 351); and in like manner Neïon was (huleën) woody or sylvan (i. 186, iii. 81), and in the woods the swine found the acorns and mast on which they fed (xiii. 409). Naturally, then, their breeding-place would be upon the hill, from which a sharp (xvii. 204), but seemingly therefore not long, descent led to the town.

The olive-tree (Od. xiii. 102) we shall hardly expect after 3,000 years to find though I have seen, near Argostoli, the shell of an olive-tree, thirty-six feet in circumference, which may have been of any imaginable age. Of the grotto near the harbour of Phorcus, I have never known a satisfactory identification; and this is really the principal hiatus in the comparison between the poems and the facts. For as to the fountains, it must be borne in mind that the disappearance of the woods, in which the swine of Eumaïos fed, must have greatly impoverished the springs and streams of the island. At Athens, exhausted from the same cause, the classic Ilissos may be seen in winter-time, as I can myself testify, with scarcely water enough to furnish a ditch two feet wide.

I offer this paper as my contribution towards solving a vexed question of Homeric geography. In offering it, I express the hope, that some worshipper of the Poet may yet be induced to undertake on the spot, with the whole evidence of the text fresh in his mind, a closer and more comprehensive examination, than has yet been made, of the topography of Ithaca in all its material points.

W. E. GLADSTONE.

PART X.

CHAPTER XXIX.

NELLO'S JOURNEY.

RANDOLPH MUSGRAVE drove from the door of his father's house with a sigh of relief, yet of anxiety. He had not done what he meant to do, and affairs were more critical than when he went to Penninghame a few weeks before; but it was something at least to be out of the troubled atmosphere, and he had arranged in his own mind what he should do, which was in its way a gain, as soon as the breath was out of the old man's body-but when would that be? It was not to be desired, Randolph said to himself piously, that his father should linger long; his life was neither of use nor comfort to any one, and no pleasure, no advantage to himself. To lie there speechless, motionless, as much shut out of all human intercourse as if he were already in his coffin-what could any one desire but that, as soon as might be, it should come to an end?

He did not pay very much attention to his small companion. For the moment, Nello, having been thus secured and brought within his power, had no further importance, and Randolph sat with knitted brows pondering all he was to do, without any particular reference to the child. Nello had left the Castle easily enough; he had parted from Mary and from Lilias without any lingering of emotion, getting over it as quickly as possible. When it came to that he was eager to be off, to set out into the world. The little fellow's veins were full of excitement; he expected to see he did not know what wonderful things, what objects of entrancing interest, as soon as he got outside the little region

where everything was known to him. "Good-bye, Mary-good-bye, Lily," he said, waving his hand. He had his own little portmanteau with his name on it, a new little silver watch in his pocket-what could child want more? Lily, though she was his sister, was not a sensation like that watch. He took it out, and turned it round and round, and opened the case, and wound it up (he had wound it up twice this morning already, so that one turn of the key was all that was practicable). Nothing at the Castle, nothing in the society of Lily, was equal to this. He compared his watch with the clock in the druggist's in the village and found it fast; he compared it with the clock at the station and found that slow. He did not take any notice of his uncle, nor his uncle of him; each of them was indifferent, though partly hostile, to the other. Randolph was at his ease because he had this child, this troublesome atom, who might do harm though he could do no good, in his power; but Nello was at his ease, through pure indifference. He was not at the moment frightened of his uncle, and no other sentiment in regard to him had been developed in his mind. As calm as if Randolph had been a cabbage, Nello sat by his side and looked at his watch. watch excited him, but his uncle Thus they went on, an unsympathetic pair. Nello stood about on the platform and looked at everything, while Randolph took the tickets. He was slightly hurt to hear that a half-ticket was still enough for himself, and moved away at once to the other side of the station, where the locomotive enthralled him. He stood and gazed at it with transport. What he would have given to have travelled there with the man who drove it, and

The