Next to the view from the heights of Parnassus, I suppose the view from this citadel is held the finest in Greece.(151) I speak here of the large and diverse views to be obtained from mountain heights. To me, personally, such a view as that from the promontory of Sunium, or, above all, from the harbor of Nauplia, exceeds in beauty and interest any bird’s-eye prospect. Any one who looks at the map of Greece will see how the Acro-Corinthus commands coasts, islands, and bays. The day was too hazy when we stood there to let us measure the real limits of the view, and I cannot say how far the eye may reach in a suitable atmosphere. But a host of islands, the southern coasts of Attica and Bœotia, the Acropolis of Athens, Salamis and Ægina, Helicon and Parnassus, and endless Ætolian peaks were visible in one direction; while, as we turned round, all the waving reaches of Arcadia and Argolis, down to the approaches toward Mantinea and Karytena, lay stretched out before us. The plain of Argos, and the sea at that side, are hidden by the mountains.(152) But without going into detail, this much may be said, that if a man wants to realize the features of these coasts, which he has long studied on maps, half an hour’s walk about the top of this rock will give him a geographical insight which months of reading could not attain. The surface is very large, at least half a mile each way, and is covered inside the bounding wall with the remains of a considerable Turkish town, now in ruins and totally deserted, but evidently of no small importance in the days of the War of Liberation. The building of this town was a great misfortune to antiquarians, for every available remnant of old Greek work was used as material for the modern houses. At all parts of the walls may be seen white marble fragments of pillars and architraves, and I have no doubt that a careful dilapidation of the modern abandoned houses would amply repay the outlay. There are several pits for saving rain-water, and some shallow underground passages of which we could not make out the purpose. The pits or tanks must have been merely intended to save trouble, for about the middle of the plateau, which sinks considerably toward the south, we were brought to a passage into the ground, which led by a rapid descent to the famous well of Pirene, the water of which was so perfectly clear that we walked into it on going down the steps, as there was actually no water-line visible. It was twelve or fourteen feet deep, and perhaps twenty-five feet long, so far as we could make it out in the twilight underground. The structure of marble over the fountain is the only piece of old Greek work we could find on the rock. It consists of three supports, like pillars, made of several blocks, and over them a sort of architrave. Then there is a gap in the building, and from the large number of fragments of marble lying at the bottom of the well we concluded that the frieze and cornice had fallen out.