LXI. The Fall of the Styx.—

The village of Solos stands, as we have seen, on the right bank of the Styx, near where that stream falls into the Crathis. But the source of the stream is at the head of the glen, some miles to the south, where the water tumbles or trickles, according to the season, over the smooth face of an immense perpendicular cliff, the top of which is not far below the conical summit of Mount Chelmos, a mountain nearly eight thousand feet high. The walk from Solos to the foot of the fall and back is exceedingly fatiguing, and very few travellers accomplish it; most of them are content to view the fall from a convenient distance through a telescope. For the first two miles or so the path is practicable for horses, and travellers who are resolved to make their way to the waterfall will do well to ride thus far and to have the horses waiting for them here on their return. It is also necessary to take a guide or guides. The path winds up the glen, keeping at first high on the right bank. The bed of the stream is here prettily wooded with poplars and other trees and is spanned by a bridge with a single high arch. For a considerable distance above the village the water of the Styx, as seen from above, appears to be of a clear light-blue colour, with a tinge of green. This colour, however, is only apparent, and is due to the slaty rocks, of a pale greenish-blue colour, among which the river flows. In reality the water is quite clear and colourless.

In about twenty minutes from leaving the village we come in sight of the cliff over which the water of the Styx descends. It is an immense cliff, absolutely perpendicular, a little to the left or east of the high conical summit of Mount Chelmos. The whole of this northern face of the mountain is in fact nothing but a sheer and in places even overhanging precipice of grey rock—by far the most awful line of precipices I have ever seen. The cliffs of Delphi, grand and imposing as they are, sink into insignificance compared with the prodigious wall of rock in which Mount Chelmos descends on the north into the glen of the Styx. The cliff down which the water comes is merely the eastern and lower end of this huge wall of rock. Seen from a distance it appears to be streaked perpendicularly with black and red. The black streak marks the line of the waterfall, to which it has given the modern name of Mavro-nero, ‘the Black Water.’ The colour is produced by a dark incrustation which spreads over the smooth face of the rock wherever it is washed by the falling water or by the spray into which the water dissolves before it reaches the ground. In the crevices of the cliffs to the right and left of the fall great patches of snow remain all the year through. I saw them and passed close to the largest of them on a warm autumn day, after the heat of summer and before the first snow of winter.

About twenty-five minutes after leaving Solos we cross the Styx by a ford, and henceforward the route lies on the left or western bank of the stream. Five minutes from the ford bring us to a mill picturesquely situated among trees, where a brook comes purling down a little glen wooded with willows and plane-trees. Just above the mill the Styx tumbles over a fine rocky lyn in a roaring cascade. Beyond this point the steep slopes of the hills on the opposite bank of the stream are covered with ferns, which when I rode up the glen were tinged with the gold of autumn. In front of us looms nearer and larger the cone of Mount Chelmos with its long line of precipices.

Ten or twelve minutes beyond the mill the horses are left and the traveller sets forward on foot. As we advance the glen grows wilder and more desolate, but for the first half-mile or so it is fairly open, the track keeps close to the bed of the stream, and there is no particular difficulty. A deep glen now joins the glen of the Styx from the south-east. Here we begin to ascend the slope and cross an artificial channel which brings down water to the mill. All pretence of a path now ceases, and henceforward till we reach the foot of the waterfall there is nothing for it but to scramble over rocks and to creep along slopes often so steep and precipitous that to find a foothold or handhold on them is not easy, and stretching away into such depths below that it is best not to look down them but to keep the eyes fixed on the ground at one’s feet. A stone set rolling down one of these slopes will be heard rumbling for a long time, and the sound is echoed and prolonged by the cliffs with such startling distinctness that at first it sounds as if a rock were coming thundering down upon the wayfarer from above. In the worst places the guides point out to the traveller where to plant his feet and hold him up if he begins to slip. Shrubs, tough grass, and here and there a stunted pine-tree give a welcome hold, but on the steepest slopes they are wanting. The last slope up to the foot of the cliff—a very long and steep declivity of loose gravel which gives way at every step—is most fatiguing. As I was struggling slowly up it with the guides, we heard the furious barking of dogs away up the mountains on the opposite side of the glen. The barking came nearer and nearer, and being echoed by the cliffs had a weird impressive sound that suited well with the scene, as if hell-hounds were baying at the strangers who dared to approach the infernal water. However, the dogs came no nearer than the foot of the slope up which we were clambering, and some shouts and volleys of stones served to keep them at bay.

At the head of this long slope of loose gravel we reach the foot of the waterfall. The water, as I have indicated, descends the smooth face of a huge cliff, said to be over six hundred feet high. It comes largely from the snow-fields on the summit of Mount Chelmos, and hence its volume varies with the season. When I visited the fall early in October, after the long drought of summer, the water merely trickled down the black streak on the face of the cliff, its presence being shown only by the glistening appearance which it communicated to the dark surface of the rock. At the foot of the cliff it formed a small stream, flowing down a very steep rocky bed into the bottom of the glen far below. The water was clear and not excessively cold. Even when, through the melting of the snows, the body of the water is considerable, it is said to be all dissolved into spray by falling through such a height and to reach the ground in the form of fine rain. Only the lower part of the cliff is visible from the foot of the waterfall, probably because the cliff overhangs somewhat. Certainly the cliffs a little to the right of the waterfall overhang considerably. With these enormous beetling crags of grey rock rising on three sides, the scene is one of sublime but wild and desolate grandeur. I have seen nothing to equal it anywhere. On the third side, looking down the glen and away over the nearer hills, we see the blue mountains of Acarnania across the Gulf of Corinth; my guide said these mountains were in Roumelia. In the face of the rock, a few yards to the right of the waterfall, are carved the names or initials of persons who have visited the spot, with the dates of their visits. Among the names is that of King Otho, with the date 1847.