About a mile farther on we pass the deserted monastery of Daphni, which probably occupies the site of the sanctuary of Apollo mentioned by Pausanias. It stands on the left of the road enclosed by a high battlemented wall above which rises the dome of its Byzantine church. Beyond the monastery the road descends rapidly towards the shore. Here the ancient road may be traced for a long way on the north side of the pass, running parallel to the modern highway on the left bank of a dry water-course which descends from the monastery. The road was partly cut in the rock, partly supported by a wall of rough stones on the side of the water-course. As the road descends the sea appears at the farther end of it, framed between the stony slopes of the hills which enclose the pass. Farther on, the pass opening out, we see stretched below us, like a lake, the deep blue waters of the landlocked Gulf of Salamis, shut in on the south by the bare but beautifully outlined hills of Salamis, on the north by a graceful sweep of the Attic coast, and backed by the distant heights of Cithaeron and the mountains of Megara on the west. Through a dip between the hills of Salamis and the mainland may be seen in clear weather the far conspicuous peak of Cyllene in Arcadia with its crown of snow. A mile or so after passing the monastery we see on the right of the road some ancient masonry and large blocks of stone at the foot of a rugged wall of rock, in the face of which many niches are cut. This is the sanctuary of Aphrodite mentioned by Pausanias. Soon after this point the hills retire on both sides and the pass ends in a little plain, barren and waterless but partially planted with olives, beside the shore. Here the road turns sharply to the right and, following the shore, runs northward, hemmed in between the sea on the one side and the grey arid slopes of Mount Aegaleus on the other. Soon, however, the hills trend inland a little, leaving between the foot of their declivities and the road a small lake or large pond of clear salt-water, fed by a number of copious salt-springs, the ancient Rhiti. The pond is formed by damming up the water of these springs by means of a stone dyke or embankment, beside which the modern road runs on a narrow strip of sand between the pond on the right and the sea on the left. Fiedler observed flying-fish of the size of herrings rising from the surface of the pool: he says their flesh is white and succulent, better than that of the sea fish in the neighbouring bay. In antiquity, as Pausanias tells us, the right of fishing here was strictly preserved by the priests of Eleusis. A strong stream, turning a mill, flows out of the pool into the sea. At the farther end of the pond Mount Aegaleus sends down its last spur close to the road; after passing it the road skirts on the right another salt-pool and enters the Thriasian plain. The stream which issues from the second of the two salt-ponds turns, or rather used to turn, another mill.