Our path must have been almost the same as was followed by the crowds which came from the west to visit the Olympic games in classical days: they must have ascended along the windings of the river, and as they came upon each new amphitheatre of hills, and each new tributary stream, they may have felt the impatience which we felt that this was not the sacred _Altis_, and that this was not the famous confluence of the Kladeus. But the season in which they travelled—the beginning of July—can never have shown them the valley in its true beauty. Instead of a glaring dry bed of gravel, and meadows parched with heat, we found the Alpheus a broad and rapid river, which we crossed on horseback with difficulty; we found the meadows green with sprouting corn and bright with flowers, and all along the slopes the trees were bursting into bud and blossom, and filling the air with the rich scent of spring. Huge shrubs of arbutus and of mastich closed around the paths, while over them the Judas tree and the wild pear covered themselves with purple and with white, and on every bank great scarlet anemones opened their wistful eyes in the morning sun. [Illustration: The Banks of the Kladeus] When we came to the real Olympia the prospect was truly disenchanting. However interesting excavations may be, they are always exceedingly ugly. Instead of grass and flowers, and pure water, we found the classic spot defaced with great mounds of earth, and trodden bare of grass. We found the Kladeus flowing a turbid drain into the larger river. We found hundreds of workmen, and wheel-barrows, and planks, and trenches, instead of solitude and the song of birds. Thus it was that we found the famous temple of Zeus.