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

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IN THE LEVANT.
285

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 ὁ δᾶμος.

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 evi-