530 ON THE VALE OF TEMPE. 



meandering slowly through a plain of great fertility, which had been 

 evidently formed by its alluvions, and which it seemed to quit with 

 reluctance. 



The very hospitable reception which we met with at Ambelakia, as 

 it enabled us to make four successive visits to the vale of Tempe 

 beneath, afforded us ample leisure to survey this curious spot, and to 

 make a series of accurate drawings. 



The Turkish word Bogaz, which signifies a pass or strait, is limited 

 to that part of the course of the Peneus, where tlie vale is reduced to 

 very narrow dimensions. 



This part, I think, answers to our idea of a rocky dell ; and is in 

 length about two miles.* Travellers are prepared for their approach 

 to it, by the gradual closing in of the mountains on each side of the 

 river, and by a greater severity of character, which the scenery 

 assumes around it. 



At a short distance from the mouth of the dell, some groves of 

 the oriental plane-tree adorn the banks of the river ; and were the 

 stream here as limpid as that of the Thames, or many other rivers in 

 England, and the vegetation on either side of it as luxuriant, we 

 might justly admit the truth of ^Elian's description. -]• Not far 

 beyond this spot, which has some degree of beauty, the river is seen 

 to strike into the body of the ridge, where it is soon lost between the 

 successive folds of the mountains. 



• This distance was computed by time and the rate of motion. 



f The breadth of the Peneus is generally about fifty yards. Its water was at this time 

 very muddy, but is said to be much clearer in the latter part of the summer, and Brown, 

 who was at Larissa in September, says, that Homer's epithet of dgyvgoilri) is very applicable 

 to this river, which has a clear stream. On the other hand, the Swedish traveller 

 Biornstiihl, who visited Larissa twice in the spring of the year, says, that the Peneus re- 

 sembles the Tiber in its yellow colour, and that the inhabitants of that city, who have no 

 other water, drink it after it has been kept a week in cisterns, where it deposits a sedi- 

 ment. Biornstahl is certainly mistaken in the colour of the water, and I cannot give credit 

 to the assertion of Brown that it is ever clear. 



It contains several sorts of fish, one of which, the KoXeavoj, the Collaniis of Belon, or 

 Accipenser Huso of Linnaeus, is much esteemed for its delicate flavour, and grows to a 

 very considerable size. 



