The whole of Western Greece, filled as it is by the mountains of Acarnania, Ætolia, and Phocis, is condemned by nature to play a very subordinate part to the eastern provinces. In the time of the ancient Greeks these provinces were looked upon almost as a portion of the world of the barbarians, and even in our own days the Ætolians are the least cultivated of all the Greeks. There is no commerce except at a few privileged places close to the sea, such as Missolonghi, Ætoliko, Salona, and Galaxidi. The latter, which is situated on a bay, into which flows the Pleistus, a river at one time consecrated to Neptune, although quite dry during the greater part of the year, was, up to the war of independence, the busiest seaport on the Gulf of Corinth. As for Naupactus, or Epakto, (called Lepanto by the Italians), it was important merely from a strategical point of view, on account of its position at the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth, which is sometimes named after it. Many naval engagements were fought to force the entrance into the gulf, defended by the castles of Rumelia and Morea—the ancient Rhium and Antirrhium. A curious phenomenon has been observed in connection with the channel which forms the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth. Nowhere more than 36 fathoms in depth, it is subject to perpetual changes in its width, owing to the formation of alluvial deposits by maritime currents. What one current deposits is carried away by the other. At the epoch of the Peloponnesian war this channel was 7 stadia, or about 1,200 yards, wide; at the time of Strabo its width was only 5 stadia; whilst in our own days it is no less than 2,200 yards from promontory to promontory. The entrance of the Gulf of Arta, between the Turkish Epirus and Greek Acarnania, does not present the same phenomena, and its present width is about equal to that assigned to it by every ancient author; that is to say, about 1,000 yards.