TO THESSALONICA. 431 
the grandeur of whose appearance can only be chap. 
felt by those who view it from the plain of - -^- - 
Fella. There is a passage in Herodotus which 
mentions this prospect as beheld by Xerxes 
from Therma ; but who could imagine, simply 
from observing the situation of these places in 
a map, that the magnitude of Olympus, as it 
appears from the modern town of Salonica, is 
such as to fill all the prospect towards the 
western side of the Tkermaic Gulphy and actually 
to dazzle the eyes of the beholder with the 
radiance reflected from its snow-clad summit'? 
Instead of seeming remote from the place of 
his observation, so enormous is the size of this 
mountain, that it appears to be close to his 
view. 
After we had crossed the bridge of planks, News of 
and were proceeding in our route, we heard the ^ ^^"*' 
disagreeable intelligence that the plague was 
raging with great vehemence in Salonica. 
Rumours of the same nature had before reached 
us, during our journey from Larissa; but re- 
ports of the plague in Turkey are so liable to 
exaggeration, that we had paid no attention to 
them. We were now told that many of the 
(3) Vid. Homer. Iliad. A, 420, 532, &c. 
