I will only mention one other fact which illustrates the consequent isolation. We have a river Kephissus in the plain of Athens. As soon as we cross the pass of Daphne we have another Kephissus in the Thriasian plain. Within a day’s journey, or nearly so, we have another Kephissus, losing itself in the lake Copais, not far from Orchomenus. This repetition of the same name shows how little intercourse people have in the country, how little they travel, and how there is no danger of confusing these identical names. Such a fact, trifling as it is, illustrates very powerfully the isolation which the Greek mountains produce. There is a good road from Athens to Thebes,—a very unusual thing in Greece,—and we were able to drive with four horses, after a fashion which would have seemed very splendid in old days. But, strange to say, the old Greek fashion of driving four horses abreast, two being yoked to the pole, and two outriggers, or _παράσειροι_, as they were called, has disappeared from Greece, whereas it still survives in Southern Italy. On the other hand the Greeks are more daring drivers than the Italians, being indeed braver in all respects, and, when a road is to be had, a very fast pace is generally kept up. As usual, the country was covered with brushwood, and with numbers of old gnarled fir-trees, which bore everywhere upon their stems the great wounds of the hatchet, made to extract the resin for the flavoring of wine. Rare flocks of goats, with their peculiar, dull, tinkling bells—bells which have the same make and tone all through Calabria, through Sicily, and through Greece—were the only sign of human occupation or of population. But when you look for houses, there is nothing in the shape of wall or roof, save an occasional station, where, but a few years since, soldiers were living, to keep the road safe from bandits. At last we came upon the camp of some Vlach shepherds—a thing reminding one far more of a gipsy camp than anything else—a few dark-brown skins falling over two upright poles, so as to form a roof-shaped tent, of which the entrance looked so absolutely black as to form quite a patch in the landscape. There is mere room for lying in these tents by night; and, I suppose, in the summer weather most of these wild shepherds will not condescend even to this shelter.(90)