The Cruise of the Branwen

FOOTSTEPS OF ODYSSEUS, ETC. . • . µl'Ya J' rJµtv opo~ 1roA€t aµcjmcaXvfm, ... The palace stood where now are the ruins of the Chapel of St. George; and with all the sea– faring man's love of gardens, Homer tells us of the royal orchard "of four plough-gates, and a hedge runs round either side. And there grow tall trees, blossoming pear-trees and pome– granates, and apple-trees with bright fruit, and sweet figs and olives in their bloom . . . pear upon pear waxes old, and apple on apple, yea, and cluster ripens upon cluster of the grape." And here, to this day, you may see the almond– trees, the pears, and vines, and apples of the Monks. The weary swimmer, it will be remembered, was swept upon the land at a different part of the coast ; "a great wave bore Odysseus to the rugged shore," we read, and almost sucked him out to sea again with the under-tow, as the cuttle– fish is dragged reluctant from her lair ; until at last " he came in his swimming over against the mouth of a fair-flowing river ... smooth of rocks, and in that there was a cover from the wind." This is the little river of Ropa, which flows towards the Bay of Eumonais. Here is the wood above the stream where he went for the night ; and here the olives beneath which he slept while Nausicaa and her maidens drove hither across the plain from the palace to wash her linen on the rocks that make bright pools of fresh water in the last few hundred yards of stream before the river falls into the sea. Here, 155