Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/233

Rh borrowed from Crete. Possibly it has been derived from one of those military dances for which the Cretans were celebrated in antiquity. "Within the regular hand-in-hand crescent of dancers one or two men appeared from time to time at the side of the fiddler, joining with him in very grotesque antics, in which an enthusiastic Phil-Hellene might discern the tradition of the mimetic dances of the ancients.

In the early part of the morning the picture of the Panagia was brought out of the church and exposed to the gaze and kisses of the multitude for more than an hour. I should think she would require a new coat of varnish next week. The old lady who had taken such pains to analyze her costmne for me, when she had finished her explanations said: "Now I expect you to give something to the Panagia," and, taking me by the hand, led me up to the great goggle-eyed picture, which I did not kiss, compounding for this ceremony by a liberal dole of piasters.

In the church I saw people sticking gold coins with wax on the faces of the saints: this custom has been handed down from Pagan times, for it is described by Lucian.$81$

On going down to the village of Archangelo, we found it nearly empty of its inhabitants. After seeing a Greek village on the day of a festival, one can understand those stories in antiquity of towns being taken by surprise, the enemy marching in while the inhabitants were engaged at a festival in the neighbouring temple. I saw here a large church, which had just been built. The roof was formed