NOTICE. ANY information derived from personal knowledge of the countries described in the Handbook for Greece, and calculated to correct errors and supply deficiencies therein, is requested from all those into whose hands this volume may chance to fall. Such co-operation alone can ultimately produce a complete and perfectly accurate work. As a general rule, the pages to which the observations apply should be specified. Notices of new routes, and of improved means of communication and accommodation, will be particularly acceptable. All letters on this subject may be addressed to the Editor, care of Mr. Murray, Albemarle Street. A HANDBOOK FOR TRAVELLERS IN GREECE: DESCRIBING THE IONIAN ISLANDS; CONTINENTAL GREECE, ATHENS, THE ISLANDS OF THE EGEAN SEA; ALBANIA; THESSALY; AND FOURTH Edition, revised aND ENLARged. WITH A MAP OF GREECE, PLANS, AND VIEWS. BL LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. PARIS: GALIGNANI; XAVIER AND BOYVEAU. CORFU: TAYLOR. MALTA: MUIR. 1872. The right of Translation is reserved. 246. d. 84 ( ) PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. THE subject of this Handbook is CLASSICAL GREECE, in which term are included the Ionian Islands, Continental Greece, and the Peloponnesus ; the Islands of the Egean Sea which belong to the Hellenic kingdom; the Egean Islands which appertain to the Ottoman empire; two provinces of that empire which border on Greece, namely, Thessaly and Albania; and the adjoining Ottoman province of Macedonia. In all of these countries the greater part of the population is Greek in religion and language. This edition was in the first instance revised and enlarged in 1860 by Sir George Ferguson Bowen, the editor of the third edition of the Handbook, who incorporated the notes and observations of himself and other travellers through a large portion of the region described. Circumstances having prevented its appearance at that time, it was in February, 1871, placed, in its revised form, in the hands of another editor, who having been long resident in the Levant, has had opportunities of correcting every portion of the book, and of adding to it such information as was needed to render it of practical usefulness at the present day. No pains have been spared in the task of revision, but the same degree of accuracy can hardly be attained, and will not be looked for, in descriptions of the less visited regions of Greece, and the adjoining Ottoman provinces, which would be expected in a Handbook for Switzerland or Italy. The description of the greater portion of the monuments of ancient Athens, contributed to the previous edition of this work by Mr. F. C. Penrose, the well-known architect and writer on Athenian architecture, has been again inserted. Of the splendid Athenian remains laid bare by recent exploration, the Stadium has been described from the German of Herr Ernst Ziller, to whom the task of its investigation was entrusted by the King of the Hellenes; whilst the descriptions given of the Dionysiac Theatre, and of the Sepulchral Monuments on the Sacred Road to Eleusis -some of the most interesting of which have been laid bare only a few weeks-are for the most part based on the Greek writings of Mr. Rousopoulos, Professor of Archæology in the University of Athens. These three scenes of classical interest are now for the first time collectively described in the English language. Several gentlemen resident in the Hellenic kingdom have lent valuable advice or assistance to the editor in the preparation of this Handbook; more especially are his thanks due to Mr. Finlay, the historian of Roman, Medieval, and Modern Greece. Much of the second section of the work |