For if an exquisite situation in the midst of historic splendor, a marvellous variety of outline and climate, and a vegetation rich and undisturbed beyond comparison, can make a modern Eden possible, it is here. Nature might be imagined gradually improving in her work when she framed the three peninsulas of the Chalcidice. The westernmost, the old Pallene, once the site of the historic Olynthus, is broad and flat, with no recommendation but its fertility; the second, Sithonia, makes some attempt at being picturesque, having an outline of gently serrated hills, which rise, perhaps, to one thousand feet, and are dotted with woods. Anywhere else, Sithonia may take some rank, but within sight of the mighty Olympus, and beside the giant Athos, it remains obscure and without a history. Athos runs out into the Ægean, with its outermost cone standing six thousand five hundred feet out of the sea, and as such is (I believe) far the most striking headland in Europe. You may see higher Alps, but from a height, and with intervening heights to lessen the effect; you may see higher Carpathians, but from the dull plain of land in Hungary. Here you can enjoy the full splendor of the peak from the sea, from the fringe of white breakers round the base up to the pale-gray, snow-streaked dome, which reaches beyond torrent and forest into heaven. Within two or three hours you can ascend from gardens of oranges and lemons, figs and olives, through woods of arbutus, myrtle, cytisus, heath, and carpets of forget-me-not, anemone, iris, orchid, to the climate of primroses and violets, and to the stunted birch and gnarled fir which skirt the regions of perpetual snow. Moreover, the gradually-increasing ridge which forms the backbone of the peninsula is seamed on both sides with constant glens and ravines, in each of which tumbling water gives movement to the view, and life to the vegetation which, even where it hides in its rich luxuriance the course of the stream, cannot hush the sounding voice. Here the nightingale sings all the day long, and the fair shrubs grow, unmolested by those herds of wandering goats, which are the real locusts of the wild lands of southern Europe. Each side of the main ridge has its peculiarities of vegetation, that facing north-east being gentler in aspect, and showing brakes of Mediterranean heath ten or fifteen feet high, through which mule paths are cut as through a forest. The coast facing south-west is far sterner, wilder, and more precipitous, but enjoys a temperature almost tropical; for there the plants and fruits of southern Greece flourish without stint.