Confronting us on the north side of the plain was another mountain barrier which shut out Thermopylæ from our view. Rain-clouds were playing around this mountain. After luncheon at Gravia, it was a matter of from two to three hours to get across the plain and partly climb and partly circumvent this second barrier. And then came a most exhilarating experience. Here was the sight of a lifetime. The Gulf of Malis far below us, the road visible in all its extent winding like an enormous serpent down the side of the mountain to the plain from two to three thousand feet below us, and then running straight as an arrow to Lamia, Mount Othrys in the background, Thermopylæ to the right, and, soon after, Tymphrestos to the left, with the Spercheios winding down from it. Historic associations apart--as if they ever could be apart!--this is a landscape not easily surpassed. It is one of those views which seem to gain in power with repetition. It was the fifth time that I had seen and felt it; and I firmly believe that I had a keener relish in the view than my companions who saw it for the first time. Bicycling down the face of a mountain like that, over curves that take you half a mile or a mile in one direction, and then as far in the other direction, is about the nearest approach to flying that has yet been given to man. One seems to be floating in the ether, and dropping at will down to the earth like a bird on the wing. In this winding down the mountain-side we crossed probably more than once the path by which the Greek traitor led Hydarnes and his Ten Thousand Immortals around in the rear of the Greeks and cut off their retreat. But it was getting too late now to see and study Thermopylæ by the light of that day. Lamia was our goal, a city where one finds comfortable quarters and good eating. We had heard far back on the road that the bridge over the Spercheios had been carried away two years before, and had not yet been replaced. Some said that we should find a boat to ferry us over, while others said that there was neither bridge nor ferry, which seemed incredible, since we were on the great highway from the Corinthian Gulf to northern Greece. But when we reached the Spercheios at twenty minutes before five o'clock the worst that had been told us came true. No ferry-man was there. One sorrowful-looking Greek who was, figuratively speaking, in the same boat with us, suggested that we go back to a village called Moschochori, which we had passed about two miles back, the road leaving it about a quarter of a mile to the east. He thought that we should there find the ferry-man, who had abandoned his post a little too early, and had left his boat in plain sight bound to a tree with chain and padlock. This suggestion had the advantage that, in case we failed to find the boatman and to induce him to return, we might at least find shelter in the village, poor as it was, which would in the cold weather be better than passing the night in the open air.