LIII. On the Coast of Achaia.—

Pausanias continues to move eastward along the coast of Achaia. Beyond the Buraicus river, where it issues from its romantic gorge, the strip of fertile plain which has skirted the coast all the way from Aegium comes to an end. The mountains now advance to the shore, and the road runs for a short distance along the summit of cliffs that border the coast. Then the mountains again retreat from the shore, leaving at their base a small maritime plain clothed with olive-groves. A stream, the river of Diakopton, crosses the plain and flows into the sea. It comes down from a wild and magnificent gorge, thickly wooded with tall firs and shut in by stupendous precipices of naked rock. Seen at nightfall under a lowering sky, with wreaths of white mist drooping low on the black mountains, the entrance to this gloomy gorge might pass for the mouth of hell; one could fancy Dante and his guide wending their way into it in the darkness.

Eastward of this little plain the mountains, covered with pine forests, again rise in precipices from the sea, hemming in the railway at their foot. A line of fine crags runs along the face of the mountains for a long way, their crests tufted with pine-woods, and the lower slopes at their feet also clothed in the same mantle of sombre green.