Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/237

WANT OF INTERNAL COMMUNICATION. 221 plain with the inclosing mountains, 1 supplied its own mail' yants whilst the transport of commodities by land was sufficiently difficult to discourage greatly any regular commerce with neighbors. In so far as the face of the interior country waa concerned, it seemed as if nature had been disposed, from tho beginning, to keep the population of Greece socially and politi- cally disunited, by providing so many hedges of separation, and so many boundaries, generally hard, sometimes impossible, to overleap. One special motive to intercourse, however, arose out of this very geographical constitution of the country, and its endless alternation of mountain and valley. The difference of climate and temperature between the high and low grounds is very great ; the harvest is secured in one place before it is ripe in another, and the cattle find during the heat of summer shelter and pasture on the hills, at a time when the plains are burnt up. 2 The practice of transferring them from the mountains to the plain according to the change of season, which subsists still as it other description of vehicles, was to be found in the whole country. The traffic in general was carried on by means of boats, to which the long indented line of the Grecian coast and its numerous islands afforded every facility. Between the seaports and the interior of the kingdom, the communication was effected by means of beasts of burden, such as mules, horses, and camels." (Statistics of -Greece, p. 33.) This exhibits a retrograde march to a point lower than the description of the Odyssey, where Telemachus and Peisistratus drive their chariot from Pylus to Sparta. The remains of the ancient roads are still seen in many parts of Greece (Strong, p. 34). 1 Dr. Clarke's description deserves to be noticed, though his warm eulogies on the fertility of the soil, taken generally, are not borne out by later ob- servers : " The physical phenomena of Greece, differing from those of any other country, present a series of beautiful plains, successively surrounded by mountains of limestone ; resembling, although upon a larger scale, and rarely accompanied by volcanic products, the craters of the Phlegroean fields. Everywhere, their level surfaces seems to have been deposited by water, gradually retired or evaporated ; they consist for the most part of the richest soil, and their produce is yet proverbially abundant. In this manner, stood the cities of Argos, Sikyon, Corinth, Megara, Eleusis, Athens, Thebes, Am- phissa, Orchomenus, Chseronea, Lebadea, Larissa, Pella, and many others." (Dr. Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. ch. 4, p. 74.) 8 Sir W. Cell found, in the month of March, summer in the low plains of Messenia. spring in Laconia, winter in Arcadia (Journey in Greece, pp 355-359}!