Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/335

Rh Every day the price of corn rose, as winter approached; and the poorer classes, being in want of employment, began to agitate in my favour; till at length I was formally invited by some of the chief Greeks of the place to commence my excavations. The land being all private property, I had in each case to make a bargain with a different owner. These negotiations were at first very troublesome; but I succeeded in persuading several small proprietors to let me dig their little plots of ground, with the agreement, that for every tomb I opened I was to pay a price, which I at first fixed to three dollars, but afterwards lowered, in consequence of the unproductive results of many tombs.

I commenced my operations in the middle of an ancient cemetery, which still retains the classical name of.

On referring to Dr. Ross's map of Calymnos,$128$ it will be seen that this cemetery is situated between the modern harbour, now called Pothia, on the eastern coast, and Linaria on the west, and that behind it is a range of mountains crossing the island in a direction north-west by south-east.

The cemetery of Damos lies on the sloping irregular ground at the foot of this mountain; and immediately below these slopes is a small and fertile valley, extending to the western coast. Such slopes, intervening between the cultivated land of the plains and the barren mountain-sides, were very frequently selected by the Greeks as the sites of their cemeteries. The site called Damos, at Calyimios, is a piece of rocky ground which