This mountain (which in one place Vibius Sequester converts into a river, p. 19, Cf. Virg. Georg. ii. 487,) was sacred to Bacchos. Serv. ad. Virg. ut sup.—Strabo describes it at length, and Pausanias observes that it was adapted to the chase. On its summit horses were sacrificed to the sun.—Paus. iii. 20. 2. Cf. Oberlin, ad Vib. Sequest. p. 375. Footnote 185: Coronelli, Mém. Hist. et Géog. du Roy. de la Morée, &c. p. 90. sqq. Poucqueville, Travels in the Morea, p. 87. Chateaubriand, Itinéraire, t. i. pp. 102–118. Cf. Thiersch, Etat Actuel de la Grèce, i. 287, who gives the following romantic glimpse of the Laconian valley:—“Oh! que ce pays était beau, lorsqu’au mois de Mai 1832, nous traversâmes ses ravissantes vallées au milieu des montagnes de la Laconie, et ses villages situés au bord de ruisseaux limpides et entourés d’arbres fruitiers tout en fleurs! Quelle était belle cette terre, lorsque, le soir, revenant des ruines de Sparte à Mistra, nous étions comme baignés de ces parfums qu’exhalent les orangers qui remplissent la plaine, et rafraichis par la brise délicieuse descendue des montagnes majestueuses du Taygète, dont les cimes, encore couvertes de neige, semblaient toucher le ciel parsemé d’étoiles! Nôtre sommeil fut interrompu la nuit par le chant mélodieux d’une troupe de rossignols.” But though lofty and bleak, the uplands of Laconia are not incapable of cultivation, and in many places were anciently covered with forests of plane trees. Their eastern slopes were likewise clothed with vines, irrigated, as in Switzerland and Burgundy, by small rills, conducted through artificial channels from springs high up in the mountains.[186] The summits of Taygetos are waste and wild; rent and shattered by frequent earthquakes, lashed by rain-storms, and here and there bored and undermined by gnawing streams, working their way to the valley, it presents the aspect of a fragment of nature in its decrepitude. South, however, of Mount Evoras the country opens into a plain of considerable fertility, extending eastward towards Mount Zarax and the sea. On the Messenian frontier, also, are many valleys highly productive. This portion of Lacedæmon obtained in the time of Augustus the name, given perhaps in mockery, of the land of the Eleuthero Lacones, or “Free Laconians.”[187] Footnote 186: Aleman, ap. Athen. i. 57. Footnote 187: Strab. viii. 6. p. 190. Paus. iii. 21. 6.