III. 
v.. 
ON MOUNT HELICON. 127 
footsteps, to find a position for the fountain chap. 
Hippocrexe; and actually obtaining, with 
difficulty and danger, a distant prospect of the 
Vale of AscRA, into which this road would easily 
have conducted him'. 
In the Inscription, of which the following copy 
is 2i facsimile, the M occurs in the same form 
as in an inscription at Telmessus. There are 
also other proofs of its being written in a late 
age : and were it not for the intelligence it affords 
respecting the place where it was found, we 
should not deem it worthy of being inserted in 
its entire state. 
(3) " As to the fountain tJlppoa-ene,'" (See TVheler's Journey into 
Greece, p. 478- Land. 1682.) " the famous haunt of the Nine Sisters, 
it rtas then frozen up, if it were where I guessed it to have heen. So 
that were I a poel, and never so great a votary ]jof those Heliconian 
t)eities, I might he excused from making verses in their praise ; having 
neither their presence to excite, nor their liquor to inspire me. For 
having golie two or three miles forwards on the top, till I came to the 
snow, my further proceedings that way were hindered : only alighting, 
I made sliift to clamber up the rocks somewhat higher, until 1 catne to 
look down into a place encotnpassed round with the tops of mountains , 
so that the inclosed space seemed to me to be a lake frozen and 
covered with snow." It will afterwards appear plainly that this was 
Ascra: and thither JVheler was directing his steps, in bis endeavour 
to ascend Helicon, from the Monaster]/ of St. George, on the side of 
Lehadea. 
