Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/297

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IN THE LEVANT.
247

of columns; from which it appears that it was of the Doric order. On the shore, near Palatia, was the ancient harbour.

A number of inscriptions have been copied at Kephalas, in which the ancient name of this city, Isthmos, occurs several times. This name has not been noticed, as far as I know, by any ancient author. On a base copied by Ross is a dedication on one side to the emperor Vespasian, and on the other to one Satyros, son of Themistocles, a physician, whom the Isthmiotes honoured with a bronze statue and a crown of the value of fifty gold pieces. The decrees are made out in the name of the senate and people.119

After crossing the dry bed of a torrent, we came to a vineyard, in which many pieces of marble had been dug up, but destroyed to make lime by the peasants. The country about Kephalas produces much corn, which is kept in magazines cut in the native rock, and entered by a hole from the top. Magazines of this kind were common in antiquity.120 The population here is entirely agricultural, poor, and dirty in their habits. We came home by Asphendu, a picturesque village situated high up on the side of Mount Prion. It is traversed by ravines, and sheltered by numbers of trees and shrubs. The inhabitants are a race with more courage than is generally found in the Greek islands. Lately, on building a new church, they hoisted a flag with a picture of the Resurrection, which the Governor of Cos ordered them to take down. They set his order at defiance.