Crossword-Solution: PEIR 4 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 6

From the Peiræus, the harbor town, a confused hum of mariners lading and unlading vessels is even now rising, but we cannot turn ourselves thither.

The most direct road from the Peiræus to Athens is hidden indeed, for it leads between the towering ramparts of the “Long Walls,” two mighty barriers which run parallel almost four miles from the inland city to the harbor, giving a guarded passage in wartime and making Athens safe against starvation from any land blockade; but there is an outside road leading also to Athens from the western farmsteads, and this we can conveniently follow.

There are still other companions bound toward the city: countrymen bearing cages of poultry; others engaged in the uncertain calling of driving pigs; swarthy Oriental sailors, with rings in their ears, bearing bales of Phœnician goods from the Peiræus; respectable country gentlemen, walking gravely in their best white mantles and striving to avoid the mud and contamination; and perhaps also a small company of soldiers, just back from foreign service, passes, clattering shields and spear staves.

The Gate and the Street Scenes.—The crowds grow denser as everybody approaches the frequented “Peiræus Gate,” for nearly all of Attica which lies within easy reach of Athens has business in the Market Place every morning.

Perhaps there is no war; the supply is kept up then by deliberately kidnapping on a large scale, or by piracy.[*] In any case the arrival of a chain gang of fettered wretches at the Peiræus is an everyday sight.