Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/351

Rh have been asked before we entered the field, stood over a grave which we were just going to open, and cursed her husband and our whole party very heartily, making mysterious gesticidations over our heads. All her own relations attended to back her up; and it is probable that, if we had found anything worth carrying away, a scramble would have taken place over the grave. Several other Greeks also made their appearance, claiming a part ownership in the field, and marking out the little plots which they claimed with heaps of stones. Great was the litigation between them and Janni Sconi as to the question of boundaries. The fields in Calymnos often contain within the same enclosure plots of ground belonging to several owners, and this division of property sometimes extends even to the olive and fig-trees.

Finding that the graves in Janni Sconi's field did not repay examination, I soon drew off my workmen to explore the fields all round this spot, which were equally unproductive. I then returned to the rocky part of the Damos, and tried a field adjoining the tongue of land on which an ancient town evidently once stood.

Across the neck of this tongue of land was a line of wall running north and south between the two ravines. This wall I traced continuously by excavation for about 165 feet. It is about 7 feet wide, with a casing of isodomous masonry on each side, the centre being filled up with rubble. The largest of the blocks were about 4 feet by 2 feet 5 inches. The stone appears to have been cut from the