He had long held the valor of the Greeks in unmerited contempt, but since he started from Zeituni it seemed that his contempt was not so ill-deserved. As he marched through the narrow gorge of Locris and Doris not a hand had been raised to stop him. On the hills north of Corinth the guards had fled at his approach. Here, at Corinth, at the sight of his troops a fortress nigh impregnable had been given up, as if by a tenant whose lease had expired to the incomer. The fleet, he supposed, would meet him at Nauplia, and without delay he decided to push on with his whole army there, leaving only a small garrison in Corinth. He pointed contemptuously to the murdered prisoners. "Look," he said, "that is all these dogs do; they have the madness, and they shall be done by as they have done!" And indeed it seemed that his contempt was very well merited. The main road from Corinth to Nauplia, through Argos, lies up a long hill-side, passing at length into a barren and mountainous region set with gray bowlders and only peopled with lizards. Thence, gaining the top of a considerable ridge, it lies for the space of five miles or so in a narrow, downward ravine, called the Dervenaki, before it emerges into the plain of Argos. A riotous water passed down this, and the road crosses and recrosses by a hundred bridges--sometimes lying close to the torrent, at others climbing hazardously up the flanks of the ravine. On either hand the hill-side rises bowldersown and steep, too near the precipitous to let large trees get a grip of the soil; and between the gray stones grew only the aromatic herbs of the mountains. Even the hawks and eagles, looking from aloft for prey with eye that would spy even a mouse in a crevice, cut not their swinging circle in the sky above it, for no living thing, except the quick lizards, find food there. Three other roads besides, but less direct, crossed these hills between Corinth and Argos--two to the east, and westward one. Through this Dervenaki Dramali marched rapidly. He found it altogether unguarded, and his scouts, who made casts to the east and west, reported that the other roads were clear also. At that Dramali's contempt began to breed want of caution, and instead of occupying Nemea and Aghionores, villages which commanded two of the other roads, and leaving troops to keep the pass and his communication with Corinth open, he went straight on with his whole army through the hills and on into the plain of Argos.