As we passed along, we were shown the sites of Haliartus and Coronea—Haliartus, where the cruel Lysander met his death in a skirmish, and so gave a place in history to an obscure village—Coronea, where the Spartans first learned to taste the temper of the Theban infantry, and where King Agesilaus well-nigh preceded his great rival to the funeral pyre. As I said before, all these towns are only known by battles. Thespiæ has an independent interest, and so has Ascra. The latter was the residence of the earliest known Greek poet of whose personality we can be sure; Thespiæ, with its highly aristocratic society, which would not let a shopkeeper walk their place of assembly for ten years after he had retired from business, was the site of fair temples and statues, and held its place and fame long after all the rest of the surrounding cities had sunk into decay. There are indistinct remains of surrounding walls about both Haliartus and Coronea, but surely nothing that would repay the labor of excavations. All these Bœotian towns were, of course, fortified, and all of them lay close to the hills; for the swampy plain was unhealthy, and in older days the rising lake was said to have swallowed up towns which had been built close upon its margin. But the supremacy of Orchomenus in older, and Thebes in later days, never allowed these subject towns to attain any importance or any political significance. After some hours’ riding, we suddenly came upon a deep vista in the mountains on our left—such another vista as there is behind Coronea, but narrower, and inclosed on both sides with great and steep mountains. And here we found the cause of the cultivation of the upper plain—here was the town of Lebadea (Livádia), famed of old for the august oracle of Trophonius—in later days the Turkish capital of the province surrounding. To this the roads of all the neighborhood converge, and from this a small force can easily command the deep gorges and high mountain passes which lead through Delphi to the port of Kirrha. Even now there is more life in Livádia than in most Greek towns. All the wool of the country is brought in and sold there, and, with the aid of their great water power, they have a considerable factory, where the wool is spun and woven into stuff. A large and beautifully clear river comes down the gorge above the town—or rather the gorge in which the town lies—and tumbles in great falls between the streets and under the houses, which have wooden balconies, like Swiss châlets, built over the stream. The whole aspect of the town was not unlike a Swiss town; indeed, all the features of the upland country are ever reminding the traveller of his Swiss experience.