382 VALE OF TEMPE. 
ferry — Axius, or Vardar river — Pella — Nature of the 
country celebrated for Alexander's Nativity — News of 
the Plague — Tek&le — Geography ©/"Macedonia — jEga 
— importance of ascertaining its position — Arrival at 
Thessalonica. 
An the rocks above us, we observed several 
cavernous apertures ; and some of them seemed 
^tian. to have been made by art. jElian mentions 
places of the same kind, as being natural 
recesses'. At a great height over the defile, 
eagles, reduced to the size of hawks, ^' were 
sailing with supreme dominion." Below, in the 
chasm, the sides of the river were covered with 
plants, some of which, even in this season 
{December), were in flower. All the lower part 
of the rocks was covered with Valloriia and 
dwarf oaks, and evergreen trees and shrubs ; 
thick laurels hanging quite over the military 
way. Enormous plane-trees, which have flou- 
rished here for centuries, extend their branches 
over the Peneus, and their large roots into the 
Laurel of torrent. It was with the laurel of Tempe that 
the victors in the Pythia were crowned". The 
inhabitants of Delphi came every ninth year to 
( 1 ) Ovx IttSfwrittii X^ifos ifyeti aXXk ipu^tui ahrifjLxrtt, x. r. X. .^Uutm 
Variae Historiae, lib. iii. cap. 1. torn. I. p. 195. ed. Gronov. 
(2) Ibid. 
