each side of the way covered with caper-bushes in flower. On the shore were several huts and sheds or warehouses; and near it were barks and small vessels lying at anchor.

While our felucca waited at Epi-yatha, the corfiote, to whom we had given a passage from Athens, seized an opportunity which offered to proceed to Corinth, where he rejoined us. We expected to find him again at the sea-side, but he was gone by land to Patræ, and we saw him no more. On embarking, we were saluted with a discharge of popguns. Our janizary and one of our Greeks left us with many friendly wishes of prosperity and a happy voyage, intending to return to Athens. In the evening we sailed, but had little wind, and the following day after noon we put into a bay in Phocis, on the north side of the gulf.

The Phoceans seizing the temple of Apollo at Delphi, a war, called the sacred, commenced, and lasted ten years; when Philip, father of Alexander the Great, avenged the god by destroying many of the cities of the pillagers. Anticyra, one of the number, was situated in this bay, not far from the ruins of Medeon, which, with Ambryssus and Stiris, suffered the same punishment. This place was again taken and subverted by Atilius, a Roman general, in the war with the Macedonians. It afterwards became famous for its hellebore. That drug was the root of a plant, the chief produce of the rocky mountains above the city, and of two kinds; the black, which had a purgative quality; and the white, which was an emetic. Sick persons resorted to Anticyra to take the medicine, which was prepared there by a peculiar and very excellent recipe.

By the port in the second century was a temple of Neptune, not large, built with selected stones, and the inside whitewashed; the statue of brass. The agora, or market-place, was adorned with images of the same metal; and above it was a well with a spring, sheltered from the sun by a roof supported by columns. A little higher was a monument formed with such stones as occurred, and designed, it was said, for the sons of Iphitus. One of these, Schedius, was killed by Hector, while fighting for the body of Patroclus, but his bones were transported to Anticyra; where his brother died after his return from Troy. About two stadia, or a quarter of a mile distant, was a high rock, a portion of the mountain, on which a temple of Diana stood, the image bigger than a large woman, and made by Praxiteles.

The walls and other edifices at Anticyra were probably erected, like the temple of Neptune, with stones or pebbles. The site is now called Asprospitia, or the white houses; and some traces of the buildings, from which it was so named, remain. The port is land-locked, and frequented by vessels for corn. Some paces up from the sea is a fountain. At night it blew hard, but we could get no shelter from the wind on shore. Our carpets and coverlets were spread on the poop of our bark, and the men lay on the deck. From that time we began to be sickly; the gulf, with the coasts of the Morea, being infamous for a bad air, especially at this season, or toward autumn.

CHAP. LX.

AT DYSTOMO-AN INSCRIPTION-AMBRYSSUS-THE ROAD TO

ANTICYRA.

On our arrival at Asprospitia we despatched men to Dystomo, a village two hours distant, to hire such beasts as the place afforded, to carry us to the monastery of St. Luke, and to Castri or Delphi. The people were busy at harvest, and declined sending any before the next morning, when a train of asses and mules came early down to the sea-side, with peasants to guide and attend them on foot. Our bark was ordered to wait in the port of Salona. The captain, with two or three sailors, accompanied us. We bestrode our beasts, and soon after began to ascend a lofty mountain by a steep road partly paved. We gained the summit, beyond which is Dystomo, where we refreshed at the house of an Albanian.

We pursued our journey to the monastery of St. Luke, and returned to Dystomo in the evening; when we were told, that an inscription had been discovered in one of the cottages. I was pleased in copying it, by candle-light, to find it preserved the name of the ancient inhabitants. It is on a pedestal of rough stone, which has supported a statue of the emperor Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus, decreed by the senate, and erected by the city of Ambryssus.

The Athenians and Thebans restored Ambryssus. and Stiris, with other cities of Phocis, which Philip had destroyed. The latter people, when the war distinguished by the fatal battle of Charonea commenced, surrounded Ambryssus with a double wall of the stone of the country, which was dark coloured

and exceedingly hard; each circle wanting a little of an orgyia, or of six feet in width, the space between them one orgyia, and their height two and a half, when entire; without battlements, towers, and the accustomed ornaments, as constructed for immediate defence. This fortification ranked, in the second century, among the most noted for strength and solidity. Many of the statues of stone in the marketplace, which was not large, were then broken. Remnants of the wall may still be seen without the vil lage, which is situated, as the city was, under mount Parnassus.

The road from Ambryssus to Anticyra is described as at first up hill, but, after ascending about two stadia, or a quarter of a mile, the ground became level. On the right was a temple of Diana, with an image of black stone much reverenced by the Ambryssensians. The way from thence was down a declivity.

CHAP. LXI.

WAY FROM AMBRYSSUS TO STIRIS-OF STIRIS—INSCRIP

TIONS.

WE turned eastward from Dystomo, and in an hour and a half reached the monastery of St. Luke, beneath which in a valley is the site of Stiris, now called Palæo-Stiri. This city was about sixty stadia, or seven miles and a half, from Ambryssus, the way in a plain lying between mountains, the part belonging to Ambryssus planted chiefly with vines, and with a shrub by some called coccus, disposed in rows, and producing a scarlet dye. The colour was the blood of a short insect bred in the berries, which

were gathered before they were ripe, because it then took wing, resembling a gnat. The level is now without vines or shrubs, but cultivated. It is high above the sea, and encompassed with mountains reaching to the sky.

Stiris derived its name from a town in Attica, and the people, it was believed, were originally Athenians expelled by Ægeus. It was subject from its situation to scarcity of water in summer; the wells, which were few, furnishing only such as would serve for washing and for cattle. The inhabitants were supplied by a fountain hewn in the rock, about four stadia, or half a mile distant. They had a temple of Ceres, of unbaked brick; the image of Pentelic marble. The place is now desolate, but not without some vestiges.

The monastery of St. Luke was raised with the materials of Stiris. Several inscriptions were fixed in the walls some so high as not to be legible. One, copied by Wheler, records the persons who defrayed the expense of making the channel for water and of building the fountain; from which it was probably removed. We found a stone of the sepulchral class, inscribed only with the name of the deceased, Pyrrhicus. Stiris was one hundred and twenty stadia, or fifteen miles, from Chæronea in Boeotia, the way mostly rough and mountainous.

CHAP. LXII.

SUMMARY OF THE LIFE OF ST. LUKE OF STIRIS.

ST. LUKE of Stiris flourished in the tenth century. He is commemorated by the Greek church on the