Arkadian mountains, are there in any case. And they, with the immortal remembrances of the spot, are the true Olympia. From the port of Katakolon to the town of Pyrgos there is a road, and that road goes on further to Olympia itself. The venerable spot can therefore be reached in a carriage. The question might, however, be raised whether a carriage journey over such a road as that between Pyrgos and Olympia--a journey moreover modified by occasional spaces where it is better to go on foot--is not at least as tiring as the ride from Mykênê to Corinth. But, as the traveller goes along from Pyrgos to Olympia, especially as he nears the immediate object of his pilgrimage, he can hardly fail to draw the comparison between the nakedness of Attica and the land through which he passes, rich with trees and with cultivation, the bleak mountains replaced by lower hills which are often green with verdure, with villages scattered thick among them, the scenery in many places coming nearer to that of the hillier parts of England than might have seemed possible in Greece. It is only here and there, when the eye catches some of the more distant points of the landscape, especially when the vast heights of Arkadia come in view, that it is brought strongly home to his mind that it is through Hellas that he is journeying. At last, however, he reaches the spot which was the religious centre of Hellas, and there the Arkadian heights, soaring over the lower hills which surround the Olympian plain itself, fully remind him where he is. Here is the spot where, more than in any other, every Greek was reminded that, however war and policy might divide them, he was still a sharer with every other Greek in a heritage of language, religion, and general culture in which the barbarian had no share, where the Greek from the Spanish Zakynthos and the Greek from the Tauric Chersonêsos could feel themselves, if not countrymen, at least brethren, before the temple of the common Father of Gods and men. Here were the victories won which were recorded in the odes of Pindar; here, we would fain believe, Herodotus recited his history to assembled Greece; here the Macedonian King had to prove his descent from an Argeian stock before he could be admitted as a worthy competitor of Hellenic freemen; here Alkibiadês made that display of lavish splendour which at least proved that the resources of Athens were not worn out. And as we read inscription after inscription recording the name of Elis and her citizens, our thoughts go back to the never-forgotten claims of the true people of the land. We remember how Pisa--the name may almost seem strange in this, its more ancient seat--deemed herself to be the lawful President of the Olympian feast by an older right than could belong to the intruders from Aitolia. And we think too of that one day in later times when the arms of Thebes won back for them their ancient right for one passing moment. All this might press on the mind