The lake of Stymphalus may be a mile and a half long by half a mile wide. On the north it bathes the foot of a ridge or chain of low heights, covered with rugged grey rocks and overgrown with prickly shrubs, which reaches its highest point on the west and descends gradually in terraces to the east, where its last rocks are elevated above the plain and lake by only a few feet. On the crest of this rocky ridge, towards its eastern end, are some remains of the citadel of Stymphalus. At the back of the ridge a stretch of level ground divides it from the steep slopes of the majestic Cyllene, which rises like a wall on the northern side of the valley. The sides of this great mountain are mostly bare and of a reddish-grey hue; but the grey shoulder of its sister peak on the east, joined to it by a high ridge, is mottled with black pines. The mountains on the southern side of the lake are also steep and high; low bushes mantle their lower and dark pine-forests their upper slopes. Conspicuous among them, between immense pine-covered slopes, is the deep glen known as the Wolfs Ravine, through which the road goes to Orchomenus. Solitude and silence, broken by the strident cries of the water-fowl that haunt the mere, reign in the valley. A few hamlets nestle in the nooks and glens at the foot of the mountains; but in the wide strath and on the banks of the lake not a human habitation is to be seen. The impression left by the scenery on some minds is that of gloom and desolation. Yet on a hot day, when all the landscape is flooded with the intense sunlight of the south, it is pleasant to sit on the rocky ridge of Stymphalus, looking down on the cool clear water of the lake and listening to the cries of the water-fowl, the drowsy hum of bees, and the tinkle of distant goat-bells. In such weather even the dark pine-forests on the mountains, gloomy as they must be under a bleak cloudy sky, suggest only ideas of coolness and shade; and we can well imagine that the ancient Stymphalus, with its colonnades and terraces rising from the lake, must have been a perfect place in which to lounge away the languid hours of a Greek summer. For the high upland character of the valley contributes with the expanse of water to temper the heat of the summer sun. The traveller who passes, as he may do, in a single day from the cool moist air of the valley to the sultry heat of the plain of Argos is struck by the contrast between the climates. In the morning he may have left the cherry-trees in blossom at Stymphalus; in the evening he may see the reapers getting in the harvest in the plain of Argos.