Thasos, however, is the only island of the Archipelago where wooded mountains and verdant landscapes survive. Rains are abundant, and its vegetation luxuriant. Running streams of water murmur in every valley; large trees throw their shade over the hill-sides; the villages near the foot of the mountain are hidden by cypresses, walnut, and olive-trees; the valleys which radiate in all directions from the centre of the island abound in planes, laurels, yoke-elms, and vigorous oaks; and dark pine forests cover the higher slopes of the hills, the glittering barren summits of Mount St. Elias and of other high mountains alone rising above them. Samothrace, though smaller than Thasos, is much more elevated. Its mountains are composed of granite, schists, limestones, and trachyte, and form a sort of pendant to Mount Athos, on the other side of the Ægean Sea. If we approach Samothrace from the north or the south, it presents the appearance of a huge coffin floating upon the waters; from the east or west its profile resembles a pyramid rising from the waves. From its summit Neptune watched the fight of the Greeks before Troy. In the dark oak forests of the Black Mountains were carried on the mysteries of Cybele and her Corybantes, as well as the Cabiric worship, which was intimately connected with them, and Samothrace was to the ancient Greeks what Mount Athos is to the moderns—a sacred land. Numerous ruins and inscriptions remain to bear witness to the zeal of devout travellers from all parts of the world. But with the downfall of the heathen temples the pilgrims disappeared. There is only one village on the island now. Its inhabitants lead a secluded life, and the only strange faces they see are those of the sponge-fishers who frequent the island during summer. The entire absence of harbours, and the dangerous current which separates Samothrace from Imbro, keep off the mariner, and though the valleys are extremely fertile, they have not hitherto attracted a single immigrant from the neighbouring continent. Imbro and Lemnos are separated from Samothrace by a deep sea, and appear to continue the range of the Thracian Chersonesus. Imbro, which is nearest to the continent, is the more elevated of the two islands, but its St. Elias does not attain half the height of the mountains of Samothrace. There are no forests {97} upon the slopes of this mountain, the valleys are covered with stones, and hardly an eighth of the surface of the island is capable of cultivation. Still, the position of Imbro, close to the mouth of the Dardanelles and upon an international ocean highway, will always secure to it a certain degree of importance. The majority of the inhabitants live in a small valley in the north-eastern portion of the island, and though the rivulet which flows through this valley regularly dries up in summer, it is nevertheless called emphatically the Megalos Potamos, or “big river.”