8.52. Foot of Trachinian cliffs. 8.59. Sources of Mavra-neria. 9.03. Catacombs in rocks. (Delay five minutes). #COLONEL LEAKE’S ROUTE.# 9.08. Start from catacombs. 9.22. Crossed Asopus, half mile below ravine. 9.48. Road to Dhamasta, half a mile to right. Delay three minutes till:— 9.51. 10.04. Beginning of west pass of Thermopylæ. 10.08. Phœnix river. 10.11. Salt spring. 10.20. End of pass: salt spring (_i.e._ at Turkish barracks). 10.30. Cross torrent of Anthele (_sic_). 10.40. Beginning of sulphur deposit. The total result is that Leake did about thirteen and a half miles over a rough and confused track, with, presumably, baggage mules in his train, in two and a quarter hours. I can only say this, that what he took thirty-nine minutes to do (9.22 to 10.04, with three minutes’ delay) took me fifty-five minutes of fast walking on two occasions, the distance being three and a half miles, and the track difficult, for the most part on the stony bed of the Asopos. Nor can I understand how Leake, or any one else, could, between 8.46, or 8.59 and 9.03, get from the Mavra-neria to the place in his map where he indicates the position of the tombs. The statement is quite incomprehensible. Leake’s map is hopelessly incorrect; but that does not wholly explain the difficulty. As to the argument from the tombs, I can only say that the whole face, not merely of the Trachinian cliffs proper, but even of the rocky hillside which lies east of the Asopos ravine, is honeycombed with them. A large number were discovered in the making of the new road. My very strong impression is that Leake has placed the Trachis of Herodotus several miles east of its true site, and that, though it is not far from the Heraklea at Sideroporto, which may or may not have been the Heraklea of the Peloponnesian war, yet that it was not in any sense a lower part of that town. I am disposed to think that the identification of the site with the remains on the steep, flat-topped hill three miles west of Sideroporto, near the hamlet of Konvelo, will, whenever the ruins are excavated, prove to be correct. Strabo (428) gives the distance between Heraklea and Trachis as six stades. If any reliability be attached to the statement, it can only proceed from the assumption that after the establishment of the hill fortress by Sparta, the population of one of the towns which it was founded to protect either removed itself or was removed to the immediate neighbourhood of its protector. ◆River Asopos.◆