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country,” on account of the absence of running water, abounds in
lake basins of this kind. To the south of the Gulf of Arta, which may
not inaptly be described as a sort of lake communicating with the
sea through a narrow opening, there are several sheets of water, the
remains of an inland sea, silted up by the alluvial deposits of the
Achelous. The largest of these lakes is known to the natives as
Pelagos, or “big sea,” because of its extent and the agitated state of
its waters, which break against its coasts. This is the Trichonius of
the ancient Ætolians. Reputed unfathomable, it is, in truth, very
deep, and its waters are perfectly pure; but they are discharged
sluggishly into another basin far less extensive, and surrounded by
pestilential marshes, and through a turgid stream they even find
their way into the Achelous. The hills surrounding Lake Trichonis are
covered with villages and fields, whilst the locality around the lower
lake has been depopulated by fever. The country, nevertheless, is
exceedingly beautiful to look upon. Hardly have we passed through a
narrow gorge, or klisura , of Mount Zygos before we enter upon a
bridge over a mile in length, which a Turkish governor caused to be
thrown across the swamps separating the two lakes. This viaduct
has sunk down more than half its {49} height into the mud, but it is
still sufficiently elevated to enable the eye freely to sweep over the
surface of the waters, and to trace the coasts which bound them.
Oaks, planes, and wild olive-trees intermingle beneath us, their
branches hung with festoons of wild vine, and these, with the blue
waters of the lake and the mountains rising beyond it, form a picture
of great beauty.
 Fig. 12.—L OWER A CARNANIA. Μ
Scale 1 : 800,000.

Another lake basin lies to the south of the Zygos, between the
alluvial lands of the Achelous and the Fidari. It is occupied by a
swamp filled with fresh, brackish, or salt water; and since the days
of ancient Greece, this swamp, owing to the apathy of the
inhabitants, has continued to increase in extent at the expense of
the cultivated land. Missolonghi the heroic is indebted for its name to
its position near these marshes, for the meaning of it is “centre of
marshes.” A barrier, or ramma , here and there broken through by
the floods, separates the basin of Missolonghi from the Ionian Sea.
During the war of independence every opening in this barrier was
protected by redoubts or stockades, but at present the only
obstruction consists of the reed barriers of the fishermen, which are
opened in spring to admit the fish from the sea, and closed in
summer to prevent their escape. Missolonghi, though surrounded by
brackish water, is a healthy place, thanks to the breezes from the
sea; whilst a heavy atmosphere charged with miasmata hangs
perpetually over the bustling little town of Ætoliko (Anatolikon),
which lies farther to the north-west in the midst of the swamps, and
is joined to the dry land by two bridges. Between Ætoliko and the
river Achelous may be observed a large number of rocky eminences,
rising like pyramids above the plain. These are no doubt ancient
islands, such as still exist between the mainland and the island of St.
Mauro. The mud brought down by the Achelous has gradually
converted the intervals between these {50} rocks into dry land. In
former times the commercial city of Œniadæ occupied one of these
islets. The geological changes already noticed by Herodotus are thus
still going on under our eyes, and the muds of the Achelous, to
which it owes its modern name of Aspro, or “white,” incessantly
extend the land at the expense of the sea.
 Fig. 13.—T HERMOPYLÆ. Μ
From the French Staff Map (1852). Scale 1 : 330,000.

The Achelous, which the ancients likened to a savage bull, owing

to its rapid current and great volume, is by far the most important
river of Greece. One of the great feats ascribed to Hercules
consisted in breaking off one of the horns of this bull; that is to say,
he embanked the river, and thus protected the lands which it used to
inundate. The neighbours of the Achelous, the rapid Fidari (Evenus,
on the banks of which Hercules killed the centaur Nessus, for
offering violence to Dejanira) and the Mornos, which rises in the
snows of the Œta, cannot compare with it. Still less is it equalled by
the Oropus, the Cephissus, and the Ilissus, “wet only when it rains,”
which flow eastward into the Ægean Sea. The principal river of
Eastern Greece, the Sperchius, is inferior to the Achelous, but, like it,
has extensively changed the aspect of the plain near its mouth.
When Leonidas and his three hundred heroes guarded the defiles of
Thermopylæ against the Persians, the Gulf of Lamia extended much
farther into the land than it does now. But the alluvial deposits of
the river have extended its delta, and several rivulets which formerly
flowed {51} directly into the sea have now to be numbered amongst
its tributaries; the sea has retired from the foot of the Callidromus
for a distance of several miles; and the narrow pass of Thermopylæ
has been converted into a plain sufficiently wide to enable an entire
army to manœuvre upon it. The hot springs which gush from the
rocks, by forming deposits of calcareous tufa, may likewise have
contributed towards this change of coast-line; nor are more violent
convulsions of nature precluded in a volcanic region like this, subject
to frequent earthquakes. Sailors still point out a small island in this
neighbourhood, formed of scoriæ, from which the incensed Hercules
hurled his companion, Lichas, into the ocean. Hot springs abound on
the opposite coast of Eubœa, and the incrustations formed by them
are so considerable as to assume the appearance of glaciers when
seen from a distance. A bathing establishment exists now near the
hot sulphur springs of Thermopylæ, and strangers are thus enabled
to explore this region, so rich in memories of a great past. The
pedestal, however, upon which reposed the figure of a marble lion,
placed there in honour of Leonidas, has been destroyed by ruthless
hands, and utilised in the construction of a mill !
The basin of the Cephissus, enclosed by the chains of the Œta and
Parnassus, is one of the most remarkable from an hydrological point
of view. The river first flows through a bottom-land formerly a lake,
and then, forcing for itself a passage through a narrow defile
commanded by the spurs of Mount Parnassus, it winds round the
rock upon which stood the ancient city of Orchomenus, and enters
upon a vast plain, where swamps and lakes are embedded amidst
cultivated fields and reed-banks. These swamps are fed, likewise, by
numerous torrents descending from the Helicon and other
mountains in its vicinity. One of these is the torrent of Livadia, into
which the bounteous springs of Memory and Oblivion—Mnemosyne
and Lethe—discharge themselves. In summer a large portion of the
plain is dry, and it yields a bountiful harvest of maize, the stalks of
which are sweet like sugar-cane. But after the heavy rains of autumn
and winter the waters rise twenty, and even twenty-five feet, and
the plain is converted into a vast lake, ninety-six square miles in
extent. The myth of the deluge of Ogyges almost leads us to believe
that the rising floods occasionally invaded every valley which
debouches into this basin. To the ancients the shallower part of this
lake was known as Cephissus, and its deep eastern portion as
Copais, from Copæ, a town occupying a promontory on its northern
shore, and now called Topolias.

Fig. 14.—L AKE C OPAIS Μ

From the French Staff Map. Scale 1 : 500,000.
 The importance of regulating the floods just referred to, and of
preventing the sudden overflow of the waters to the destruction of
the cultivated fields, may readily be imagined. The ancient Greeks
made an effort to accomplish this task. To the east of the large Lake
of Copais there is another lake basin, about one hundred and thirty
feet lower, and encompassed by precipitous rocks, incapable of
cultivation. This basin, the Hylice of the Bœotians, appears to be
made by nature for receiving the superabundant waters of the
Copais. The remains of a canal may still be traced in the plain, which
was evidently intended to convey into {52} it the floods of the Copais,
but it appears never to have been completed. No doubt care was
taken to keep open the various katavothras , or subterranean
channels, through which the waters of the Copaic lake discharge
themselves into the sea. One of these, on the north-western shore
of the lake, and close to the rock of Orchomenus, swallowed up the
river Melas, and conveyed its waters to the Gulf of Atalanta. Farther
to the east other subterranean channels flow towards Lakes Hylice
and Paralimni, but the most important of these channels are towards
the north-east, in the Gulf of Kokkino. In that extreme angle of the
lake, the veritable Copais, the waters of the Cephissus rush against
the foot of Mount Skroponeri, and are swallowed up by the ground
so as to form a subterranean delta. To the south there is a
cavernous opening in the rock, but this is merely a sort of tunnel
passing underneath a promontory, and, except during the rainy
season, it may be traversed dry-shod. Beyond this, another opening
swallows up one of the most important branches of the Cephissus,
which makes its reappearance in the shape of bounteous springs
pouring their waters into the sea. Two other branches of the river
disappear in the rocks about a mile farther north. They join soon
afterwards, and flow northwards beneath the bottom of a sinuous
valley. The old Greek engineers dug pits in this valley, which enabled
them to descend to the subterranean waters, and to clear away
obstructions interfering with their flow. Sixteen of these pits have
been discovered between the opening of the katavothra and the
place where the waters reappear. Some of these are still thirty to
one hundred feet in depth; but most of them have become choked
up with stones and earth. These ancient engineering works, which
Crates vainly endeavoured to restore in the time of Alexander, may
possibly date {53} from the mythical age of King Minyas of
Orchomenus,15 and the successful draining of these marshes may
account for the well-filled treasury of that king spoken of by Homer.
Thus the ingenuity of the Homeric age had succeeded in
accomplishing a work of the engineering art which baffles our
modern men of science !
 PEASANTS FROM THE ENVIRONS OF ATHENS.

The whole of Western Greece, filled as it is by the mountains of

Acarnania, Ætolia, and Phocis, is condemned by nature to play a
very subordinate part to the eastern provinces. In the time of the
ancient Greeks these provinces were looked upon almost as a
portion of the world of the barbarians, and even in our own days the
Ætolians are the least cultivated of all the Greeks. There is no
commerce except at a few privileged places close to the sea, such as
Missolonghi, Ætoliko, Salona, and Galaxidi. The latter, which is
situated on a bay, into which flows the Pleistus, a river at one time
consecrated to Neptune, although quite dry during the greater part
of the year, was, up to the war of independence, the busiest seaport
on the Gulf of Corinth. As for Naupactus, or Epakto, (called Lepanto
by the Italians), it was important merely from a strategical point of
view, on account of its position at the entrance of the Gulf of
Corinth, which is sometimes named after it. Many naval
engagements were fought to force the entrance into the gulf,
defended by the castles of Rumelia and Morea—the ancient Rhium
and Antirrhium. A curious phenomenon has been observed in
connection with the channel which forms the entrance to the Gulf of
Corinth. Nowhere more than 36 fathoms in depth, it is subject to
perpetual changes in its width, owing to the formation of alluvial
deposits by maritime currents. What one current deposits is carried
away by the other. At the epoch of the Peloponnesian war this
channel was 7 stadia, or about 1,200 yards, wide; at the time of
Strabo its width was only 5 stadia; whilst in our own days it is no
less than 2,200 yards from promontory to promontory. The entrance
of the Gulf of Arta, between the Turkish Epirus and Greek Acarnania,
does not present the same phenomena, and its present width is
about equal to that assigned to it by every ancient author; that is to
say, about 1,000 yards.
The valleys and lake basins of Eastern Greece, and more
especially its position between the Gulf of Corinth, the Ægean Sea,
and the channel of Eubœa, which almost convert it into a peninsula,
sufficiently account for the prosperity of that country. With its cities
of Thebes, Athens, and Megara, it is essentially a land of historical
reminiscences. The contrast between the two most important
districts of this region—Bœotia and Attica—is very striking. The first
of these is an inland basin, the waters of which are collected into
lakes, where mists accumulate, and a rich vegetation springs forth
from a fat alluvial soil. Attica, on the other hand, is arid. A thin layer
of mould covers the terraces of its rocky slopes; its valleys open out
into the sea; the summits of its mountains rise into an azure sky;
and the blue waters of the Ægean wash their base. Had the Greeks
been fearful of the sea; had they confined themselves, as in the
earliest {54} ages, to the cultivation of the soil, Bœotia, no doubt,
would have retained the preponderance which it enjoyed in the time
of the Minyæ of wealthy Orchomenus. But the progress of navigation
and the allurements of commerce, which proved irresistible to the
Greeks, were bound by degrees to transfer the lead to the men of
Attica. The city of Athens, which arose in the midst of the largest
plain of this peninsula, therefore occupied a position which assured
to it a grand future.
 Fig. 15.—T HE A CROPOLIS OF A THENS.

The choice of Athens as the modern capital of Greece has been

much criticized. Times have changed, no doubt, and the natural
centres of commerce have become shifted, in consequence of the
migrations of nations. Corinth, on the isthmus joining continental
Greece to the Peloponnesus, and commanding two seas,
undoubtedly deserved the preference. Its facilities for
communicating with Constantinople and the Greek maritime districts
still under the rule of the Osmanli, on the one hand, and with the
western world, from which now proceed all civilising impulses, on
the other, are certainly greater than those of Athens. If Greece,
instead of a small centralised kingdom, had become a federal
republic, which would have been more in accordance with her genius
and traditions, there is no doubt that other towns of Greece, more
favourably situated than Athens for establishing rapid
communications with the rest of Europe, would soon have surpassed
that town in population and commercial wealth. Athens, however,
has grown upon its plain, and, by the construction of a railway, it has
become even {55} a maritime city, as in ancient days, when its triple
walls joined it to the ports of the Piræus and Phalerum.

Fig. 16.—A THENS AND ITS L ONG W ALLS. Μ

According to Kiepert and Schmidt. Scale 1 : 114,000.

But how great the difference between the monuments of the

ancient city and of the modern ! The Parthenon, though gutted by
the shells of the Venetian Morosini, and robbed since of its finest
sculptures, still retains its pure and simple beauty, which agrees so
well with the sobriety of the surrounding landscape—still remains the
finest architectural work of the world. By the side of this majestic
ruin, on the same plateau of the Acropolis, where the mariner in the
Gulf of Ægina saw the gilt spear-head of Athene Promachos glitter in
the sun, there rise other monuments, the Erechtheum and the
Propylæa, hardly inferior to it, and dating likewise from the great
period of art. Outside the city, on a promontory, rises the temple of
Theseus, the best-preserved monument of Greek antiquity.
Elsewhere, on the banks of the Ilissus, a group of columns marks
the site of the magnificent temple of Olympian Jupiter, which it took
the Athenians seven hundred years to build, and which their
degenerate descendants made use of as a quarry. Remarkable
remains have been discovered in many other parts of the ancient
city, and the least of them are of interest, for they recall the memory
of illustrious men. On such a rock sat the Areopagus which
condemned Socrates; from this stone tribune Demosthenes
addressed the multitude; and here walked Plato with his disciples !
A similar historical interest attaches to nearly every part of Attica,
whether we visit the city of Eleusis, where the mysteries of Ceres
were celebrated, or the {56} city of Megara, with its double Acropolis,
or whether we explore the field of Marathon and the shores of the
island of Salamis. Even beyond Attica the memories of the past
attract the traveller to Platæa, to Leuctra, Chæronea, Thebes of
Œdipus, and Orchomenus of Minyas, though, in comparison with
what these districts were in other times, they are now deserts. In
addition to Athens and Thebes, there are now only two cities in
eastern continental Greece which are of any importance. These are
Lamia, in the midst of the low plains of the Sperchius, and Livadia, in
Bœotia, at one time celebrated for the cavern of Trophonius, which
archæologists have not yet succeeded in identifying. The island of
Ægina, which belongs to Attica, offers the same spectacle of decay
and depopulation as the mainland. Anciently it supported more than
two hundred thousand inhabitants; at present it hardly numbers six
thousand. But the island still retains the picturesque ruin of its
temple of Minerva, and the prospect which it affords of the
amphitheatre of hills in Argolis and Attica is as magnificent as ever.

Fig. 17.—A NCIENT A THENS. Μ

According to Kiepert and Schmidt. Scale 1 : 30,000.
 III.—T HE M OREA, OR P ELOPONNESUS.
Geographically the Peloponnesus well deserves the name of island,
which was bestowed upon it by the ancients. The low Isthmus of
Corinth completely severs it from the mountainous peninsula of
Greece. It is a world in itself, small enough as far as the mere space
is concerned which it occupies upon the map, but great on account
of the part it has played in the history of humanity. {57}
On entering the Peloponnesus from the Isthmus of Corinth, we
see rising in front of us the mountain rampart of Oneium, which
defended the entrance of the peninsula, and upon one of whose
promontories was built the nearly impregnable citadel of Corinth.
These mountains form part of the general mountain system of the
whole island, and, sheltered by them, its inhabitants could live in
security. The principal mountain mass, whence all other chains
radiate towards the entrances of the peninsula, is situated in the
interior of the country, about forty miles to the west of Corinth.
There Mount Cyllene of the ancient Greeks, or Zyria, rises into the
air, its flanks covered with dark pines; and farther away still, the
Khelmos, or Aroanian Mountain, attains even a more considerable
height, its snows descending into a valley on its northern slope,
where they give rise to the river Styx, the cold waters of which prove
fatal to perjurers, and disappear in a narrow chasm, one of the
entrances to Hades. A range of wooded peaks, to the west of the
Khelmos, connects that mountain with the Olonos (Mount
Erymanthus), celebrated as the haunt of the savage boar destroyed
by Hercules. All those mountains, from Corinth as far as Patras, form
a rampart running parallel with the southern shore of the gulf, in the
direction of which they throw off spurs enclosing steep valleys. In
one of these—that of Buraikos—we meet with the grand caverns of
Mega-Spileon, which are used as a monastery, and where the most
curious structures may be seen built up on every vantage-ground
offered by the rocks, suggesting a resemblance to the cells of a vast
nest of hornets.
The table-land of the Peloponnesus is thus bounded towards the
north by an elevated coast range. Another chain of the same kind
bounds it on the east. It likewise starts from Mount Cyllene, and
extends southward, its various portions being known as Gaurias,
Malevo (Mount Artemisium), and Parthenion. It is then broken
through by a vast depression, but again rises farther south as the
range of Hagios Petros, or Parnon, to the east of Sparta. Getting
lower by degrees, it terminates in the promontory of Malea, opposite
to the island of Cerigo. It was this cape, tradition tells us, which
formed the last refuge of the Centaurs; that is to say, of the
barbarian ancestors of the modern Tsakonians. No promontory was
more dreaded by Greek navigators than this Cape Malea, owing to
sudden gusts of wind, and an ancient proverb says, “When thou hast
doubled the cape forget the name of thy native land.”
The mountains of Western Morea do not present the regularity of
the eastern chain. They are cut through by rivers, and to the south
of the Aroanian Mountains and the Erymanthus they ramify into a
multitude of minor chains, which now and then combine into
mountain groups, and impart the most varied aspect to that portion
of the plateau. Everywhere in the valleys we come unexpectedly
upon landscapes to which an indescribable charm is imparted by a
group of trees, a spring, a flock of sheep, or a shepherd sitting upon
a heap of ruins. We are in beautiful Arcadia, sung by the poets.
Though in great part deprived of its woods, it is still a beautiful
country; but more charming still are the eastern slopes of the
plateau, which descend towards the Ionian Sea. There luxuriant
forests and {58} sparkling rivulets add an element of beauty to blue
waves, distant islands, and a transparent sky, which is wanting in
nearly every other part of maritime Greece.
 Fig. 18.—M OUNT T AYGETUS.

The table-land of Arcadia is commanded on the west by pine-clad

Mænalus, and bounded on the south by several mountain groups
which give birth to separate mountain chains. One of these
mountain masses—the Kotylion, or Palæocastro—thus gives rise to
the mountains of Messenia, amongst which rises the famous Ithome,
and to those of Ægaleus, which spread over the peninsula to the
west of the Gulf of Coron, and reappear in the sea as the rocky islets
of Sapienza, Cabrera, and Venetikon. Another mountain mass, the
Lycæus, or Diaforti—the Arcadian Olympus, which the Pelasgians
claim for their cradle—and which rises almost in the centre of the
Peloponnesus, is continued westward of Laconia by an extended
mountain chain, the most elevated and most characteristic of all the
Morea. The highest crest of these mountains is the famous Taygetus,
known also as Pentedactylum (five fingers), because of the five
peaks which surmount it; or as St. Elias, in honour, no doubt, of
Helios, the Dorian sun-god. A portion of the lower slopes of this
mountain is clothed with forests of chestnuts and walnuts. {59}
interspersed with cypresses and oaks; but its crest is bare, and snow
remains upon it during three-fourths of the year. The snows of
Taygetus direct the distant mariner to the shores of Greece. On
approaching the coast, he sees rising above the blue waters the
spurs and outlying ridges of the Kakavuni, or “bad mountain.” Soon
afterwards he comes in sight of the promontory of Tainaron, with its
two capes of Matapan and Grasso—immense blocks of white marble
more than six hundred feet in height, upon which the quails settle in
millions after their fatiguing journey across the sea. Into the caverns
at its foot the waters rush with a dull noise which the ancients
mistook for the barking of Cerberus. Cape Matapan, like Malea, is
dreaded amongst mariners as a great “destroyer of men.”
The three southern extremities of the Peloponnesus are thus
occupied by high mountains and rocky declivities. The peninsula of
Argolis, in the east, is likewise traversed by mountain ranges, which
start from Mount Cyllene, similarly to the Gaurias and the mountains
of Arcadia. The whole of the Peloponnesus is thus a country of table-
lands and mountain ranges. If we except the plains of Elis, which
have been formed by the alluvial deposits carried down by the rivers
of Arcadia, and the lake basins of the interior, which have been filled
16
up in the course of ages, we meet with nothing but mountains.
The principal mountain masses—the Cyllene, the Taygetus, and
Parnon—are composed of crystalline schists and metamorphic
marbles, as in continental Greece. Strata of the Jurassic age and
beds of cretaceous limestone are here and there met with at the
foot of these more ancient rocks. Near the coast, in Argolis, and on
the flanks of the Taygetus, eruptions of serpentines and porphyries
have taken place, whilst on the north-eastern coast of Argolis, and
especially on the small peninsula of Methone, there exist recent
volcanoes—amongst others, the Kaimenipetra, which M. Fouqué
identifies with the fire-vomiting mouths of Strabo, and which had its
last eruption twenty-one centuries ago. These volcanoes are, no
doubt, the vents of a submarine area of disturbance which extends
through Milos, Santorin, and Nisyros, to the south of the Ægean Sea.
The sulphur springs which abound on the western coast of the
Peloponnesus are, perhaps, likewise evidences of a reaction of the
interior of the earth.
It is the opinion of several geologists that the coasts of Western
Greece are being insensibly upheaved. In many places, and
particularly at Corinth, we meet with ancient caverns and sea
beaches at an elevation of several feet above the sea-level. It is this
upheaval, and not merely the alluvial deposits brought down by
rivers, which explains the encroachment of the land upon the sea at
the mouth of the Achelous and on the coast of Elis, where four rocky
islets have been joined to the land. Elsewhere a subsidence of the
land has been noticed, as in the Gulf of {60} Marathonisi and on the
eastern coast of Greece, where the ancient peninsula of Elaphonisi
has been converted into an island. But even there the fluvial
deposits have encroached upon the sea. The city of Calamata is
twice as distant from the seashore now as in the days of Strabo, and
the traces of the ancient haven of Helos, on the coast of Laconia,
are now far inland.

The limestone rocks of the interior of the Peloponnesus abound as

much in chasms, which swallow up the rivers, as do Bœotia and the
western portion of the whole of the Balkan peninsula. Some of these
katavothras are mere sieves, hidden beneath herbage and pebbles,
but others are wide chasms and caverns, through which the course
of the underground waters may be readily traced. In winter wild
birds post themselves at the entrances of these caverns, in
expectation of the prey which the river is certain to carry towards
them; in summer, after the waters have retired, foxes and jackals
again take possession of their accustomed dens. The water
swallowed up by these chasms on the plateau reappears on the
other side of the mountains in the shape of springs, or kephalaria
(kephalovrysis ). The water of these springs has been purified by its
passage through the earth, and its temperature is that of the soil. It
bursts forth sometimes from a crevice in the rocks, sometimes in an
alluvial plain, and sometimes even from the bottom of the sea. The
subterranean geography of Greece is not yet sufficiently known to
enable us to trace each of these kephalaria to the katavothras which
feed them.

Fig. 19.—L AKES P HENEA AND S TYMPHALUS. Μ

From the French Staff Map. Scale 1 : 500,000.

The ancients were most careful in keeping open these natural

funnels, for, by facilitating the passage of the water, they prevented
the formation of swamps. These precautions, however, were
neglected during the centuries of barbarism which overcame Greece,
and the waters were permitted to accumulate in many places at the
expense of the salubrity of the country. The plain of Pheneus, or
Phonia, a vast chasm between the Aroanian Mountains and the
Cyllene, has thus repeatedly been converted into a lake. In the
middle of last century the whole of this basin {61} was filled with
water to a depth of more than 300 feet. In 1828, when this sheet of
water had already become considerably reduced, it was still 6 miles
long and 150 feet in depth. At length, a few years afterwards, the
subterranean sluices opened, the waters disappeared, and there
remained only two small marshes near the places of exit. But in
1850 the lake was again 200 feet in depth. Hercules, we are told,
constructed a canal to drain this valley and to cleanse its
subterranean outlets, but the inhabitants content themselves now
with placing a grating above the “sink-holes,” to prevent the
admission of trunks of trees and of other large objects carried along
by the floods.
To the east of the valley of Pheneus, and on the southern foot of
Mount Cyllene, there is another lake basin, celebrated in antiquity
because of the man-eating birds which infested it, until they were
exterminated by Hercules. This is the Stymphalus, alternately lake
and cultivated land. During winter the waters cover about one-third
of the basin; but it happens occasionally, after heavy rains, that the
lake resumes its ancient dimensions. There is only one katavothra
through which the waters can escape, and this, instead of being
near the shore, as usual, is at the bottom of the lake. It swallows up
not only the water of the lake, but likewise the vegetable remains
carried into it, and the mud formed at its bottom; and this detritus is
conveyed through it to some subterranean cavity, where it putrefies
slowly, as may be judged from the fetid exhalations proceeding from
the katavothra. The water, however, is purified, and when it
reappears on the surface, close to the seashore, it is as clear as
crystal.