WI entered a barren waste. Cultivation ceased; one saw upon the arid soil tufts of sickly grass, the Star of Bethlehem, or Daffodils. The sun lifted itself above the horizon, and I distinctly saw the fir-trees which grew on the side of Parnassus. The path which I had taken was not a sure guide, but I directed my steps to a group of scattered houses on the mountain side, and which was called the village of Castia.

I leaped the Céphise Eleusinien to the great scandal of the little tortoises who leaped like frogs into the water. A hundred steps further on, the path was lost in a deep and wide ravine, worn by the storms of two or three thousand winters. I supposed, reasonably enough, that the ravine ought to be the right road. I had noticed, in my former excursions, that the Greeks did  with making roads where streams were liable to change them. In this country, where man does not oppose the works of nature, torrents are royal roads; brooks, are department routes; rivulets, are parish-roads. Tempests are the road-constructors, and rain is the surveyor of wide and narrow paths. I entered the ravine and walked between two river banks, which hid the plain from me. But the path had so many turns, that I should not have known in which direction I was walking, if I had not kept my back to Parnassus. The wisest course would have been to climb one bank or the other and ascertain my bearings; but the sides were perpendicular, I was weary, I was hungry; and I found the shade refreshing. I seated myself upon a bowlder of marble, I took from my box a piece of bread, some cold lamb, and a gourd of wine. I said to myself: “If I am on the right road, some one will pass and I can find out where I am.”