Of this, the passage through the valley of Enneochoria (the nine villages) will remain in my memory as the most delightful pastoral landscape I have ever seen, and the ideal of Greek pastoral poetry.

A beautiful brook, to the perennial flow of whose waters the abundant water-cresses testified, which is a very rare thing in an Aegean scene, meandered amongst mingled sycamores and olives, and gave freshness to glades where the sheep fed under the keepership of the antique-mannered shepherd lads and lasses; and in the opening of the bordering trees we saw the far-off and arid mountains, rugged and picturesque peaks.

The Cretan summer for three or four months is rainless, and a valley where the vegetation is fed by the springs so abundantly as to sustain a perpetual flora is rarely to be met in one's travels there.

I saw many new flowers there, and amongst them a perfectly white primrose, in every other respect like the common flower of the English hedgerows.

The scenery had that attractive aspect which can be found only where immemorial culture, without excessive invasion of the axe, has left nature in the undiminished possession of her chief beauties, without a trace of the savage wildness--a nature which hints at art.