68 



CONTINENT OF GREECE. 



hovered over us, and the Comix graculus, the Cornish chough, flew 

 frequent among the rocks. Having dined on a roasted lamb, which 

 we with difficulty had brought up to the summit, and drank our wine 

 tempered in the crystallized snow, we descended, soon leaving the 

 higher parts of* the mountain, into a forest of pine trees. We then 

 entered upon the plain of Callidia ; the place consists of a few empty 

 houses frequented only at certain seasons by armed Greeks, who 

 come here to sow and reap their harvests. The corn was yet green, 

 and promised them a thin and distant crop. 



July 1. — At two in the morning we struck our tent, and passing 

 over the plain of Callidia, descended by the steep precipices of Del- 

 phi. Our descent was difficult and dangerous ; we dismounted our 

 horses, which, though accustomed to mountainous tracks, were unable 

 from the rocky nature of the road to keep their feet. They fell fre- 

 quently, and our baggage suffered considerable damage. We arrived 

 in three hours, much fatigued, at the convent of Delphi. 



July 2. — The ruins of Delphi * are still sufficient to mark its site, 

 placed on a rising ground, and screened by high cliffs to the north. 

 The fountain of Castalia, excavated in a rock of marble, still exists, 

 though choked up with weeds and stones. The only use the present 

 Delphians, the inhabitants of Castri, draw from it, is to season their 

 casks ; some barrels, with other rubbish, served to choke up and in- 

 terrupt its source. Behind it were the remains of an arched passage, 

 hollowed in the rock. The cleft, on the east side of which was the 

 fountain, widened at its mouth, and rising to a considerable height, 

 ended in two points. Above the fountain were the waters of Cas- 

 sotis, which still murmured. On the rocks of Delphi I observed some 



* Some of the antiquities of Delphi arc described in the MS. of San Gallo, in the Bar- 

 berini Library at Rome. " In Delphis civitate, ubi magna cx parte diruta sunt vetusta 

 atque nobilissima mcenia, diversaque sunt arte architectorum conspicua; exinde collapsura 

 undique rotundum Apollinis templum; et amphithcatrutn, juxta adtnirandum, magnorum 

 lapidum gradibus xxxm. et in sublimi civitatis arce, altissimis sub rupibus ornatissimum 

 gradibus marmoreis hippodromum dc. pedum longitudinis." Broken statues, inscriptions, 

 and " rupes incisae arte mirabili," are mentioned. 



