TO THE SUMMIT OF PARNASSUS. 257 
althouo-li so near to the seatof ^/;o//o. When chap. 
, . . vii. 
we had finished our letters, as it was our usual ' ,^— ' 
practice, we entered into conversation with the 
inhabitants collected to gaze at the strangers 
who were their guests; and we were much 
amused by the traditions they still entertained. 
The people of Delphi had told us that there Tradhions. 
were only^re Muses, and that the opinion as to 
there being nine in number was a heresy. Such 
disputes about the number of the Muses existed 
in antient times, and the Arracovian Greeks 
reduced their number to tlirce. The only thing 
that surprised us was, that any notion of the 
kind should yet remain upon the spot; although 
all the fountains of Fainassus, of Helicon, and of 
Pindus, were once sacred to them. We have 
before proved, in what we related of Platcea, 
that the memory of Aniient Greece is not quite 
obliterated among its modern inhabitants; and 
some additional facts were gathered here, 
tendins;- to confirm this observation. 
On Wednesday morning, Decemher the sixteenth, jonmey 
at nine o'clock, we set out, with four guides, for .sl.mmit. 
the SUMMIT OF Parnassus; returning a short 
distance, by the road to Delphi, and then turn- 
ing up the mountain towards the riglit, but with 
our faces towards Delphi, until we had climbed 
VOL. VII. s 
