Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/257

Rh Amarto, where I noticed a fragment of a Greek painted vase. Between this church and the sea is a square tower in ruins, built with mortar.

After passing Embonas the coast gradually widens; the road passes through a country rather dischevelled by earthquakes, and covered with wheat; then into the rich garden-like strip of coast, which extends with intervals of barrenness to Rhodes. Here the palm- tree once more greeted our eyes in the landscape. We passed Villa Nova, where there is a stately old castle built by the Knights, and close to it a fine fountain, where the ample shade of plane-trees invites the traveller to halt and rest. The fountain is supplied by an aqueduct cut in the native rock, with square apertures in the sides to admit air. Thence we proceeded to Rhodes.

Altogether I was very much pleased with this little expedition. The manners of the peasantry at Rhodes are very frank and obliging. The women have none of the affected prudery which distinguishes the Greek women of the richer classes, nor is there anything of the jealous reserve which makes the Greek bourgeoise into a mere female slave, who is ordered about by her husband, but never recognized before strangers by any conjugal token.

The Rhodian peasant does not fatigue his guest with cumbrous hospitality as the Greek bourgeois does; he does not poison him with rakee, clog him with sweetmeats, cram him with pilaff, and sicken him with narguilehs; he just lets him alone, and gives him the best food he can find without any needless apologies. In the morning he receives a small sum