COPAIC LAKE. 



303 



mained unbroken, and with some vestiges of ornament on its side ; 

 but no inscription was visible. 



Across the neck of the peninsula, a second wall has been built, 

 but from the rude style of its construction, it is probably the work 

 of a later time ; on each side of this place the coast forms a bay ; 

 that to the south is terminated on the opposite side by high and 

 steep mountains, covered with wood, wherever the abrupt descent 

 will give room for vegetation. Into this bay, at the distance of about 

 two miles from Larymna, a river falls, which the people of the 

 country call the Larmi*, a name retaining some traces of the an- 

 cient city. 



The line of country followed by us in the road of the last night, 

 I knew, must cross the channel through which the Cephissus of 

 Bceotia, and the waters of the Copaic lake, were discharged into 

 the sea, and I had been hourly expecting to arrive on the banks 

 of the stream. The darkness had prevented all observation of the 

 country, but the sound of a strong fall of water, had led me to 

 suspect that we were near the river, which, still, our road never 

 passed before we ascended the hills to Martino. From the mouth 

 of the Larmi I rode along its banks, which near the sea had been 

 planted with cotton, until, in about three miles, I came to a spot 

 covered with rocks and bushes, in the middle of which the whole 

 river burst with impetuosity from holes at the foot of a low cliff, 

 and immediately assumed the form of a considerable stream. 

 Above this source, there is a small plain under cultivation, bounded 

 to the west by a range of low rocky hills. From these, a mag- 

 nificent view of the Copaic lake, and the mountains of Phocis, pre- 

 sents itself to the eye. The lake was spread over a vast plain, into 

 which the mountains of Bceotia jutted like bold headlands, and oc- 

 casionally left some slips of cultivated land at their base. Beyond 

 the lake, the plain of Haliartus and Orchomenus seemed hardly raised 



* This is the Cephissus; AxpupvuTc nap 6 K>j<p»<ro-of sx&j'&wcj. — Strabo, lib. ix. Larmi, 

 is written by Meletius Aapveg- 



