In about four hours from Delphi high purple mountains, sunlit and flecked with cloud-shadows, appeared in the north through and above the pine-forest. Farther down the forest grew thin and then disappeared from the stony bottom of the valley, though the upper slopes of the mountains on either side were still wrapped in their dark mantle of pines. It was near one o’clock when we reached Ano-Agoriani, a village nestling among trees in a hollow of the mountains and traversed by a murmuring brook. After a halt of about an hour we quitted the village and descended into the deep bed of the stream; then ascending steeply its western bank we pursued our way along the rocky mountain-side high above the glen. In three-quarters of an hour we came in sight of the broad valley of the Cephisus lying stretched below us and backed by mountains on the north. By steep, rocky, winding paths we now descended into the valley, and at a quarter to four reached Kato-Agoriani. The village stands just at the foot of Parnassus. About a mile to the east the grey ruined walls and towers of Lilaea climb a steep and rugged hill-side—the last fall of Parnassus to the plain. The situation of the place at the northern foot of the mountain is such that it can receive very little sun at any time of the year, which, though an advantage in the torrid heat of a Greek summer, must render the winter climate severe. As we rode downwards to Kato-Agoriani the sun set behind the mountains at our back soon after three o’clock, but it was not till nearly two hours afterwards that his light faded from the hills on the opposite or northern side of the valley. This may illustrate the remarks of Pausanias as to the climate of Lilaea.