PHOCIS. 



69 



curious plants ; a new species of Daphne, which I have called Daphne 

 Castaliensis, afforded me singular pleasure. Several birds, the Aves 

 rupestres, inhabited these rocks j a species of Sitta different from the 

 Europea, the Promethean vulture, the solitary sparrow, the sand mar- 

 tin, the rock pigeon, a small species of hawk, called Kirkenasi, and 

 numerous jackdaws. Having dined in the monastery, and drank some 

 meagre wine, whose flavour was not heightened by a large admixture 

 of tar, we left Delphi, and proceeded on our route to Distomo, five 

 hours distant from Castri, and arrived at sun-set. 



July 3. — From Distomo we pursued our route to the monastery of 

 St. Luke, where we arrived in little more than an hour. The Quercus 

 coccifera abounds through the whole of this tract of country ; one 

 of our guides brought me a coccus adhering to a small branch of the 

 tree, which, squeezed between my fingers, gave out a most beautiful 

 scarlet dye. The coccus generally deposits itself on the leaves and 

 the branches of the oak, seldom on its fruit, as Pausanias affirms 

 (lib. x.) In our way we passed through Stiris. The monastery of St. 

 Luke has been styled the glory of Hellas, as a Gothic structure supe- 

 rior to most of those that exist at present in Greece. It is greatly 

 inferior to those magnificent piles of building, which the superstition 

 of the early ages raised in the low countries. Chandler speaks of 

 some curiously inlaid stones ; there were beautiful large slabs of 

 Verd-antique, which still remain in the chapel ; we observed, also, 

 in the gallery, large pieces of Phengites, probably the same men- 

 tioned by Pliny, aptly disposed to favour the notion of miracles in a 

 place of so much reputed sanctity as the monastery of St. Luke. 

 This sanctity was not, however, sufficient to protect it from the 

 plunder of the Albanians, who laid it under considerable contribu- 

 tion. On mounting our horses we drank of the fountain which was 

 in the court of the monastery ; this seems to have escaped the notice 

 of Chandler, who asserts that the monks fetch their water from 

 Stiris. We descended from the monastery of St. Luke over a rough 

 and steep road, and by dangerous precipices, to a small monastery 



