ELEUS1S TO ATHENS. 609 
Before we reached them, and nearer to Eleusis, CHAP. 
we had passed, as we have stated, the bed of ( _^ 
a river whose dry and pebbled channel was 
almost exhausted of water. By the side of it 
we observed the remains of a Temple before 
mentioned, about an hundred and fifty paces 
from the road; and this stream was doubtless 
the Rleusinian Ccphissus of Pausanias*. As we Eieusinian 
&}>/iissiu. 
drew near to the Rhcti, the road passes close to 
the sea; and here, upon our left hand, we saw 
a small lake, which owes its origin to a dam that Salt Lake, 
has been constructed close to the beach, banking 
a body of salt water : this water, oozing con- 
tinually froiA a sandy stratum, fills the lake, and 
becomes finally discharged, through two channels, 
into the Gulph. These appear to have been the 
ducts to which Pausanias alludes under the 
appellation of the Rketi, which were severally 
sacred to Ceres and to Proserpine: and there is, 
every reason to believe, that the lake itself is 
at the least, as antient as the time when the 
Hiera of those Divinities stood upon its bor- 
ders ; else it were difficult to conceive how the 
fishes could have been preserved, which the 
priests alone were permitted to take from the 
(4) Pant. Altic. c. 38. p. 95. ed. KuJirui. 
VOL. VI. R R 
