In its wider sense, Thessaly presents the immense contrasts of the excellent plain (τὸ Θεσσαλικὸν πεδίον) and the mountains. On its western side, we have mount PINDUS (now Mezzowo, probably a Wallachian name), the highest of all the Greek mountains, which has only very few passes; that of Gomphi, leading from Epirus into Thessaly, is the most convenient, and very easy to defend, on account of the nature of the country. On the south of the Peneus we have mount OTHRYS, a tame mountain, to use a Swiss expression, which is, indeed, covered with wood, but is, nevertheless, capable of being cultivated, and is used in some parts as pasture to a very great height; it is a smiling and beautiful mountain, with excellent underwood, whereas the higher parts of Pindus produce only firs. Pindus, consisting only of rocks and forests, is a lofty mountain, and a continuation of the great Illyrian SCARDUS, which extends from the Julian Alps in Carniola, through Bosnia and Dalmatia, as far as Constantinople, rising higher and higher, until, on the coast near Scutari, it reaches its highest point, and forms its real central knot. Although Scardus is not covered with snow all the year round, it is, at any rate, very close to the region of perpetual snow; its ravines and summits are covered with it during the greater part of the year. The mountain then suddenly sinks down, and geographically, though not ethnographically, separates Illyricum from Macedonia, and runs out into Pindus and Othrys. At this point Pindus begins, which is joined in the east by mount Othrys. The Dolopian and Aetolian mountains, for which no general names are mentioned by the ancients, run parallel with mount Othrys, and mount Parnassus is an off-shoot of them. On the southern frontier of Thessaly, in its widest sense, we meet with mount OETA, which is not so much a mountain as a series of separate hills; the name Oeta is not applicable to it in the interior of the country; the pass of Thermopylae runs between its foot and the Euboean sea. Oeta is a sublime mountain, and renowned in Greek mythology on account of the death of Heracles.