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‘”Soon as Ulysses near the enclosure drew,
With open mouths the furious mastiffs flew;
Down sate the sage; and, cautious to withstand,
Let fall the offensive truncheon from his hand.
Sudden the master runs–aloud he calls;
And from his hasty hand the leather falls;
With show’rs of stones he drives them far away;
The scatter’d dogs around at distance bay.”‘
ODYSS. xiv. 29.

First, however, let us state the personal adventure which occasions this reference to Homer, as it illustrates a feature in Greek scenery, and in the composition of Greek society. In the early part of his travels, on a day when Mr. Mure was within a few hours of the immortal Mesolonghi, he (as better mounted) had ridden a-head of his suite. Suddenly he came upon ‘an encampment of small, low, reed wigwams,’ which in form resembled ‘the pastoral capanne of the Roman plain;’ but were ‘vastly inferior in size and structure.’ Women and children were sitting outside: but finally there crawled forth from the little miserable hovels two or three male figures of such gigantic dimensions as seemed beyond the capacity of the entire dwellings. Several others joined them, all remarkable for size and beauty. And one, whose air of authority bespoke his real rank of chief, Mr. Mure pronounces ‘a most magnificent-looking barbarian,’ This was a nomad tribe of Wallachian shepherds, descended (it is supposed) from the Dacian colonies, Romans intermingled with natives, founded by the later Caesars; the prevalent features of their faces are, it seems, Italian; their language is powerfully veined with Latin; their dress differing from that of all their Albanian neighbors, resembles the dress of Dacian captives sculptured on the triumphal monuments of Rome; and lastly, their peculiar name, Vlack Wallachian, indicates in the Sclavonic language pretty much the same relation to a foreign origin, as in German is indicated by the word Welsh: an affinity of which word is said to exist in our word Walnut, where wall (as the late Mr. Coleridge thinks) means alien, outlandish. The evidence therefore is as direct for their non-Grecian descent as could be desired. But they are interesting to Greece at this time, because annually migrating from Thessaly in the summer, and diffusing themselves in the patriarchal style with their wives, their children, and their flocks, over the sunny vales of Boeotia, of Peloponnesus, and in general of southern Greece. Their men are huge, but they are the mildest of the human race. Their dogs are huge, also; so far the parallel holds. We regret that strict regard to truth forbids us to pursue the comparison.

‘I found myself on a sudden,’ says Mr. Mure, ‘surrounded by a fierce pack of dogs, of size proportioned to that of their masters, and which rushed forth on every side as if bent on devouring both myself and beast: being altogether unprovided with any means of defence but the rope-end of the same halter that supplied my stirrups, I was (I confess) not a little disconcerted by the assault of so unexpected an enemy.’ From this he was soon delivered at the moment by some of the gentle giants, who ‘pelted off the animals with the large loose stones that lay scattered over the rocky surface of the heath.’ But upon the character of the nuisance, and upon the particular remedy employed–both of which are classical, and older than Troy, Mr. Mure makes the following explanations:–

‘The number and ferocity of the dogs that guard the Greek hamlets and sheepfolds, as compared with those kept for similar purposes in other parts of the world, is one of the peculiarities of this country which not only first attracts the attention of the tourist, but is chiefly calculated to excite his alarm, and call into exercise his prowess or presence of mind. It is also amongst the features of modern Greek life that supply the most curious illustrations of classical antiquity. Their attacks are not confined to those who approach the premises of which they are the appointed guardians;’ they do not limit themselves to defensive war: ‘in many districts they are in the habit of rushing from a considerable distance to torment the traveller passing along the public track; and when the pastoral colonies, as is often the case, occur at frequent intervals, the nuisance becomes quite intolerable.’ But in cases where the succession is less continuous, we should imagine that the nuisance was in the same proportion more dangerous; and Mr. Mure acknowledges–that under certain circumstances, to a solitary stranger the risk would be serious; though generally, and in the case of cavalcades, the dogs fasten chiefly upon the horses. But endless are the compensations which we find in the distributions of nature. Is there a bane? Near it lies an antidote. Is there a disease? Look for a specific in that same neighborhood. Here, also, the universal rule prevails. As it was destined that Greece in all ages should be scourged by this intestine enemy, it was provided that a twofold specific should travel concurrently with the evil. And because the vegetable specific, in the shape of oaken cudgels, was liable to local failure, (at this moment, in fact, from the wreck of her woods by means of incendiary armies, Greece is, for a season, disafforested,) there exists a second specific of a mineral character, which (please Heaven?) shall never fail, so long as Greece is Greece. ‘The usual weapons of defence, employed in such cases by the natives, are the large loose stones with which the soil is everywhere strewed–a natural feature of this region, to which also belongs its own proper share of classic interest.’ The character of the rocks prevailing in those mountain ridges which intersect the whole of Greece is, that whilst in its interior texture ‘of iron-hard consistency,’ yet at the surface it is ‘broken into detached fragments of infinitely varied dimensions.’ Balls, bullets, grape, and canister shot, have all been ‘parked’ in inexhaustible magazines; whilst the leading feature which strikes the mind with amazement in this natural artillery, is its fine retail distribution. Everywhere you may meet an enemy: stoop, and everywhere there is shot piled for use. We see a Leibnitzian preestablished harmony between the character of the stratification and the character of the dogs. Cardinal de Retz explains why that war, in the minority of Louis XIV., was called the Fronde; and it seems that in Greece, where an immortal fronde was inevitable, an immortal magazine was supplied for it–one which has been and will continue to be, under all revolutions, for the uncultured tracts present the missiles equally diffused; and the first rudiments of culture show themselves in collections of these missiles along the roads. Hence, in fact, a general mistake of tourists. ‘It is certain,’ says Mr. Mure, ‘that many of the circular mounds, which are noticed in the itineraries under the rubric of ancient tumulus, have been heaped up in this manner. It is to these stones that travellers, and the population at large instinctively have recourse, as the most effectual weapon against the assaults of the dogs.’ The small shot of pebbles, however, or even stones equal to pigeon’s eggs, would avail nothing: ‘those selected are seldom smaller than a man, exerting his whole force, can conveniently lift and throw with one hand.’ Thence, in fact, and from no other cause, comes (as Mr. Mure observes) the Homeric designation of such stones, viz. chermadion, or handful; of which he also cites the definition given by Lucian, [Greek text: lithos cheiroplaethaes], a hand-filling stone. Ninety generations have passed since the Trojan war, and each of the ninety has used the same bountiful magazine. All readers of the Iliad must remember how often Ajax or Hector, took up chermadia, ‘such as twice five men in our degenerate days could barely lift,’ launching them at light-armed foes, who positively would not come nearer to take their just share of the sword or
spear. ‘The weapon is the more effectual, owing to the nature of the rock itself, broken as it is in its whole surface into angular and sharp-pointed inequalities, which add greatly to the severity of the wound inflicted. Hence, as most travellers will have experienced, a fall amongst the Greek rocks is unusually painful.’ It is pleasing to find Homer familiar not only with the use of the weapon, but with its finest external ‘developments.’ Not only the stone must be a bouncer, a chermadion, with some of the properties (we believe) marking a good cricket-ball, but it ought to be [Greek Text: ochxioeis]–such is the Homeric epithet of endearment, his caressing description of a good brainer, viz. splinting-jagged.