588 PELOPONNESUS. 
CHAP. j n these parts. At the same time, we sent the 
* 
boat to Megara with our baggage. In our road 
we saw a great number of those pines, or pitch- 
trees, alluded to by authors with reference to the 
history of the famous robber Sinis l ; who, first 
bending their stems to the earth, fastened his pri- 
soners to the branches, so that when the trees, 
by their elasticity, sprang up again, the bodies 
of his captives were torn asunder. We passed 
unc ^ er tne Scironian rocks: their appearance is 
very remarkable, and likely to give rise to 
fabulous tales, if they had been situate in any 
other country. They consist of breccia, which 
here, as in the Isthmus of Corinth, and indeed 
over all the north of Peloponnesus, and in Attica, 
lies upon a stratum of limestone. The breccia 
of the Scironian rocks presents, towards the sea, a 
steep and slippery precipice, sloping from the 
narrowest part of the Isthmian Strait towards 
the Sinus Saronicus. It is so highly polished, 
either by the former action of the sea to which 
it is opposed, or by the rushing of torrents 
occasionally over its surface, that any person 
falling from the heights would glide as over a 
(1) "TLffn ?i 'fft Tea 'trfftott rr,t at%>j;, tvtia e >.WT 
iTvai, Yiyit \i r'o KO.TM <r<fa.;. Pausan. Corinth, c. 1. p. HI. ed. Kuhnii- 
