You know the situation of Athens. The Acropolis crowns an abrupt and rocky hill about five miles from the sea, and the ancient city spread round its base, and over some other hills of the same nature to the south and west, but the modern town is clustered principally on the north-eastern side of the citadel. These hills, though steep and rugged towards the top, slope gently at their bases into a fertile plain, watered by the Cephisus, at the distance of about half a mile from Athens. The upper part of this low tract is covered with olives; but towards the Piræus, (which stands on a separate cluster of eminences) it is marshy. The Ilissus passes close by the town among the hills, but even at this season it is a dry channel, without water except at one place, where a little spring rising at the foot of some marble rocks which cross the channel, is supposed to be the fountain Callirrhoe or Enneacrune, and serves for one of the washing-places of the inhabitants; but whether the name be rightly given to it or not, it is I believe only the reappearance of a little thread of water which the hollow actually contains a little higher up, and is speedily lost again amongst loose stones and rocks of mica slate. Yet in this part the rock is marked by several artificial channels for water, and evidently polished by its action, and there are likewise other similar channels higher up, and unconnected with the bed of the river. The opposite slope of the ravine was once crowned by the little Ionic temple, published in the first volume of Stuart’s Athens; but that has now disappeared, nothing remaining but the foundations of the semicircular apsis, added to make it a church. About a mile above the town, a small current is led away from the bed of the Ilissus, to supply modern Athens, but all together would fall far short of the contents of a London gutter after a shower. The Cephisus is said to present in its upper part a copious and beautiful stream of excellent water, but it diminishes as it descends, partly from being diverted for the purposes of cultivation, and partly perhaps from the loose nature of the soil. We were told that even in winter this larger river does not reach the sea, but this is calumny, for it forms a pool between Cape Colias and Munychia, whence a stream passes into the Saronic gulf, which I could hardly cross without getting wetshod.