Traversed in almost every direction by mountain chains infinitely ramified and towering in many places to a vast height, Greece has, likewise, its elevated table-lands, lakes, bogs, morasses, with extensive open downs and heaths. Lying between the thirty-sixth and forty-first degrees of north latitude, and excepting on the Illyrian and Macedonian frontier everywhere surrounded by the sea, it may in many respects be said to enjoy the most advantageous position on the globe. From the barbarian countries of Macedonia and Illyria it is divided by a series of contiguous mountain ridges, which commencing with Olympos, (covered all the year round with snow, amid which the poet Orpheus[174] was interred,) and including the Cambunian range, with the lofty peak of Lacmos, stretches westward across the continent, and terminates in the stormy Acroceraunian promontory. The most northern provinces of Hellas, immediately within this boundary and west of the Pindos range, were Chaonia and Molossia, and towards the east Thessaly—a circular valley of exceeding fertility, encompassed by chains of lofty mountains. This province contains the largest and richest plains in Greece; and many of the names most hallowed by its religious traditions and most renowned in poetry, belong to Thessaly. Here, in fact, was the supposed cradle of the Hellenes. From hence sailed the Argo and incomparably the greatest of all the heroes who fought at Troy “—--mixed with auxiliar gods.” Footnote 174: Paus. ix. 30. 9. Anthol. Græc. vii. 9. Menag. ad Diog. Laert. Proœm. § 5. Here, too, one of the three Corybantes, when he had been slain by his brethren, found a grave. Clem. Alex. Protrept. c. xi. t. i. p. 16. From the blood of this man sprang the herb parsley.