by low hills, at the foot of which the river flows between banks thickly wooded with willows, poplars, oleanders, and plane-trees. Well-tilled fields lie on the gentle lower slopes of the hills and occupy the stretches of flat land where the hills retire from the river. The bare upper declivities are dotted here and there with a few olives. XL. CAPE MALEA.—The sides of Cape Malea, the south-eastern extremity of the Greek mainland and of Europe, are formed by dizzy crags, about a thousand feet high, of dark bare rock, seamed and scarred in places by cracks and fissures. At the extreme end of the cape there is a great natural recess in the cliff; and here in the face of the bluff, about two hundred and fifty feet above the sea, there is a tiny terrace sloping to the perpendicular edge of the precipice. Two chapels are built on the terrace, and close by, partly hewn in the rock, is the cell of a half-naked and nearly savage hermit. From the terrace you may clamber down, at the risk of your neck, to a cave opening on the foam of the great rollers which break here eternally. In the inmost corner of the cave is a heap of human bones. The sense of utter solitude and isolation from the world which the spot is fitted to evoke in the mind is broken by the sight of passing vessels. In fair weather steamers of all nations pass continually; and small Greek sailing-boats, with their reddish-brown or white lateen sails, skim along close under the cliffs. But the cape has a bad name for storms and heavy surf; at times even large steamers are unable to weather it for a week together. There was an ancient proverb, “When you have rounded Malea, forget your home.” XLI. MONEMVASIA.—The ancient Minoa[8] is now Monemvasia, an island about half a mile long, close to the shore, with which it is connected by a long old stone bridge. The island is a lofty precipitous rock, resembling Gibraltar, or the Bass Rock and Dumbarton Rock in Scotland. The summit, crowned by the ruins of a mediaeval fortress and a mass of tumble-down roofless churches and houses overgrown with weeds, is now only a sheepwalk. From the summit the rock falls away in sheer and lofty precipices, especially on the north. The modern town lies huddled up at the foot of the cliffs on the southern side. Strong walls encircle it, which are connected with the ruined fortress on the top of the rock. Within the walls everything is fast falling to decay. Fine churches, high archways, great private houses, all deserted and in ruins, testify to the former prosperity and the present decline of the town. Trade has quite deserted it; the coasting steamers call only at rare intervals. From the town a zigzag path leads up the face of the rock to the old citadel on the summit. ----- Footnote 8: The reference is to Minoa on the eastern coast of Laconia, not to the better known but less picturesque Minoa near Megara. -----