LXXXIV. From Amphissa to Gravia.—

The smiling verdure of Amphissa and its neighbourhood forms a striking contrast to the stern, arid, and rocky scenery of Delphi, which is only ten miles off. At Amphissa, indeed, we are on the borders of almost Swiss scenery. For the fir-clad and torrent-rent mountains of Locris and Doris, which rise to the north-west, are the loftiest in the present kingdom of Greece. Two of the peaks exceed eight thousand feet in height. A fine specimen of this Alpine scenery may be obtained by following the mule-path which leads north from Amphissa over the mountains to the village of Gravia in the ancient canton of Doris. With the exception of the village of Topolia, which we leave on the right, and here and there a small farm far up on the mountain-side, not a human dwelling is to be seen. At first the path ascends the western declivities of Parnassus. Looking down to the left we see below us a narrow dale, where in early summer the course of the stream, now nearly dried up, is marked by the red oleander blossoms. Beyond the dale Mount Kiano rears its snowy head, the loftiest mountain in Greece; and behind it the long and almost equally lofty ridge of Vardousia is seen stretching north and south. The finest point on the route is at a clear spring which bubbles up at the top of the pass, just where the road surmounts the ridge that joins Parnassus to the mountains of Locris. Hitherto we have been ascending from the south; from this point the road begins to descend to the north. The valley now contracts. The snowy peaks in the west disappear, but their lower spurs form, with the western declivities of Parnassus, a narrow pass, down which a brook babbles over rocks and stones, its banks overhung with plane-trees. Pines and oaks of various kinds contrast pleasantly with the steep cliffs and bushy slopes; and now and then we come to a little grassy glade or a patch of corn. “It is,” says the Swiss traveller Vischer, whose description of the road I have borrowed, “almost a Swiss region, and I might have fancied myself transported to my native land, if the holly-oaks and oriental plane-trees had not reminded me that I was in the south.” Thus descending by a steep and rugged path we reach the village of Gravia at the northern end of the pass, in five or six hours from Amphissa.