The road to Arachova leads in a gentle ascent close along the lower reaches of Parnassus on the left and high above the deep valley on the right. The muleteers may turn aside to shorter mountain paths, but the easy highway tempts to leisure while the sun is still warm in the west and the brilliant pageant of the valley is but lightly subdued by the delicate reserves of the approaching evening. Either route leads in less than three hours to the foot of high precipices rising at the back of windy Arachova, the representative of Homer’s Anemoreia (Windswept Town). These cliffs, now called Petrites, are, perhaps, the Look-Out Place often alluded to in ancient literature, the point of vantage from which Apollo, the Far-Darter, shot his arrow at the dragon in Delphi. The town itself, two thousand feet above the sea-level, is one of the most typical of modern Greece both in situation and in those racial characteristics which are forming a new nation out of the roots of the old. The houses, interspersed with vivid green trees, gather about each other in terraces up the hill to the high-poised church of St. George, that other dragon slayer, while in its turn the little Christian edifice is frowned down upon by the rocky mountain-side. The stony, twisted streets, alive with children, often become staircases of rock, up and down which the mules indifferently clatter. Stone courtyards lead to doorways out of which handsome men and women smile an hospitable welcome. The inhabitants of Arachova, perhaps because they live near the Muses of Parnassus, possess a charm and courtesy of manner that is not duplicated among the rougher peasants of the Peloponnesus. They are also famous for their beauty, the gift of the Greeks from the time of Helen and Achilles through all admixtures of foreign blood. The men are tall and slim, with the dignity of carriage and chiselled fineness of feature which distinguishes the Greek peasantry from the livelier Italian, and the beauty of the women is grave and tranquil. The traveller may find himself served by a fair mother and fairer daughter, whose name of Sappho is belied by the shy, cool loveliness of her parted hair and innocent eyes.