The best thing he did for us was to get from the neighboring village, Sigritza, a very competent guide. When we got off at half-past two, the horses, which went only about two hours farther, were serviceable mainly in carrying our packs. After that our guide led us over difficult foot-paths which climbed along the edges of precipices and up heights only to descend again. We proceeded more rapidly now that we had got rid of our slow-paced horses, which were to return to the monastery and come to meet us the next morning. At nightfall we came to a hut at the foot of the main peak, which required an hour and a half of climbing in the morning. We received the warmest welcome from shepherds who were friends and relations of our guide. They did not seem at all like the dreadful men of whom we had been forewarned. They made a most savory brew of half a kid--but the milk! Only from such pastures can such milk come. We all regretted engagements that prevented our staying a week, that we might do justice to this mountain dairy. It was half-past ten before we could go to rest. Then the shepherds took us to a cave where they kept their cheeses, which gave just room enough to pack us in. They then closed the door with boughs and a big stone to keep out the cold night wind and the dogs. We had just time to note how much our lodging seemed like the cave of Polyphemos in the Odyssey, and get a good whiff of the cheese, when, with apparently no interval at all, we heard our guide calling out that it was time to get up and be off. Where the heart of that night went to I never knew. When, at four o'clock, we had finished our toil, we got a great reward. The view was the finest that I had had in Greece. Both the Corinthian Gulf and Thermopylæ seemed to lie at our feet. The sun soon rose in line with the strait between Eubœa and Thessaly, making that strait, with Skopelos and Skiathos blocking its exit, a sea of fire. To the south was the great trio of Arcadian mountains; to the northeast, closing a long line of mountains beginning with Pelion, was the majestic Olympus; to the northwest stood Tymphrestos, in lonely dignity; while to the west, peak upon peak and chain upon chain of Ætolia made a most bewildering impression. On the whole it was a panorama that can never fade from the mind's eye. Two years earlier, in climbing Parnassus, I had been defrauded by clouds of all that was best in this view, viz., that to the north and east.