Home life in Hellas, Greece and the Greeks - eBooks4Greeks.gr

THE ISLES 113rose to the north, and to the south lay an unevenplateau, perhaps half a mile wide and rathermore in length. It was made up of scoriae,sulphur, lumps of red lava, and basalt boulders.In places ita drum.sounded hollow to the tread and likeHere the ground was warm, smoke andsulphurous fumes issued from cracks, and the airwavered with heat. In one spot there came frombelow a sound of hissing and bubbling. A gullyfilled with masses of rock and lava barred theway. Getting round the end of it, we made ourway to a range of rocks split and discoloured byfire.Beyond this was a ravine, an abyss of rentand splintered masses, black as night, or whiteand calcined, crushed and contorted. We clambereddown a little way to get a better view ofthose awful walls ending in a confusion of fragments,two black ungainly snouts stretching intothe sea. To the right, across a narrow channel,the third islet showed a frowning face, but it wasgreen on its lower northern end.It rose from thedepths more than two thousand years ago, in197 B.C., therefore it is named Palaia Kaimene,the Old Burnt Island. The Rhodians, thenmasters of the JEgean, called it Hiera—Sacredand reared on it a temple to Poseidon.In 19 a.d.another islet appeared and joined itself to theold one. After seven centuries (726 a.d.) therewas another increase. Theophanes describes theflaming rocks rising from the water. Anotherseven centuries elapsed, when in 1457 a portion