winding course: the word seems to be formed from the modern Greek terms Fidi and Fidari, a snake, and may properly be rendered Serpentine.

On the morning of Sunday the seventh of October, A. D. 1571, the Armadas of the Sultan of Constantinople, and of the Christian States of Europe which were opposed to him, found themselves in sight of each other on the waters at the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth, to the west of the town of NAUPACTUS. The King of Spain, Philip the Second, had dispatched thither his fleet, of more than a hundred sail, under the command of his brother John of Austria. John Andrew Doria, the descendant of the great admiral of that name, led on the galleys of Genoa to the battle; they were joined by twelve vessels of the Pope, Pius the Fifth, and more than a hundred from Venice. The Princes of Parma and Urbino were present. Twelve thousand Italians, five thousand Spaniards, and more than six thousand of other nations, took part in the engagement. The Turkish fleet, which was much superior in number to that of the Christians, had set sail from Naupactus, where it had been stationed, and came in front of the enemy at the small islands-now before us as we sail

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from Ætolia-of KURZOLARI, on the south-eastern side of the mouths of the Achelous. Each of the armaments formed itself on the spot into three ranks, drawn up in the form of a crescent. It is said that John of Austria, the admiral of the allied forces, embarked in his frigate and went along the lines exhorting each individual to combat boldly for the defence and honour of the Christian Faith, assuring them all of the protection of God, in whose cause they were about to fight. It is added, that the soldiers were so much affected by his words that they shed tears of joy, and replied only with loud acclamations of Victory! Victory! In the meantime, as they well knew would be the case, all Christian nations, both far and near, were offering up prayers with one heart for the success of the arms which they were wielding. The conflict lasted four hours without producing any decisive result; but when the wind veered to the southward, the attack of the Christians became more impetuous, and their foes, who were not able to resist the force of the wind and sea, began to give way: the death of their admiral added to their consternation; their rout soon became general. Upwards of fifteen thousand Turks fell in the battle. More than twelve thousand Christian slaves who were found in the Turkish vessels were set at liberty. Sixty-two Ottoman ships were sunk, and more than a hundred and twenty were taken. The arrival at Rome of the news of this great victory revived the memory of her ancient triumphs. Such was the splendour with which the General of the Papal arms was received by the Senate and Magistrates of that city, and escorted to the Capitol into the presence of the Pope, at the church which stands on the lofty site of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. So ended the battle of Naupactus, or Lepanto. We pass over the waters on which this engagement took place, and cross the narrow strait at the entrance of the Corinthian Gulf. The passage is a little more than a mile broad, and lies between two promontories, that to the south being the RHIUM, and the northern the ANTIRRHIUM, of ancient geography. On each of these capes stands a castle, where formerly was a Temple of Neptune. The depth of the water between them is about thirty fathoms.

The land which stretches along the southern coast of the Corinthian Gulf, from this point to the citadel of Corinth, is about sixty miles in length and ten in breadth, and is backed to the south by a chain of mountains from six to seven thousand feet in height, decreasing in altitude towards the eastern termination of their range. The principal of these, commencing at the west,

are OLONOS, ERYMANTHUS, and CYLLENE: they separate this strip of land, formerly called ACHAIA, from the inland province of Arcadia.

Nothing can be more marked than the contrast presented by the aspect of these two neighbouring countries: the latter, surrounded as it were, by a circular wall of lofty mountains, four of which, namely, Erymanthus and Cyllene at the north, and Lycæus and Mænalus at the south, stand aloft like the castellated Towers of this mural circumvallation, and having no outlet but one on its western verge, seems as it were imprisoned within itself. Numerous streams fall down into its vales from the mountains around it, but are unable to find any exit for their pent-up waters except by mining for themselves a channel through the limestone rock of which these mountains are composed. The whole country may be compared to an isolated being; for hundreds of years its population underwent little change; it had no commerce with nations without, and little with strangers within. Such was the constancy of its inhabitants and the permanence of their society, that

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they compared the duration of their national existence, not with that of any objects of Earth, but elevated their State, if we may so say, to the rank of a heavenly being, and claimed for it an antiquity equal to that of the firstcreated Powers of the Universe. The Arcadians, according to their own mythology, existed before the creation of the moon.

Turn we now to the northern side of the mountain chain which we have above noticed. Every thing here bears the appearance of openness and liberty. Numerous rills flow down its declivities, all running parallel to each other in a northerly direction, and, after a short and uninterrupted course over the plain or along hollow valleys, fall into the waters of the Corinthian Gulf. Unfortunately for the maritime qualifications of the country to which we allude, the distance traversed by them is so insignificant, that they have not time to swell into navigable rivers, nor force to form in the coast line any projections which might have supplied a want very remarkable in so extensive a shore, that of a commodious harbour. No good port exists in the whole of Achaia. What might have been the result if the contrary had been the case, is evident from the commercial importance attained by the cities of Patræ and Sicyon in ancient times, although possessed of very inconsiderable advantages in this respect.

We feel a pleasure in considering some of the moral, social, and political results, which arose from the exposed and accessible character of the territory of Achaia, especially when contemplated in juxtaposition with that of its neighbour on the south. In the earliest times of Greek history it bore the name of EGIALUS, or the Coast-land, a designation derived from its position it was then inhabited by the Ionians of Attica, who built twelve cities upon its soil. The facility of communication between one part of this district and another seems to have favoured the organisation of that federal system of state policy which existed at a very early period in this province,

and which made its institutions the model of popular legislation, not merely in Greece, but among the Asiatic and Italian colonies from that country. Eighty years after the Trojan war, the Achæans, who derived their origin from the land of Thessaly, were driven by the descendants of Hercules from the territory of Laconia and Argolis, in which they had settled. They emigrated in a northerly direction, and at last fixed their abode in Ægialus, whence they expelled the Ionian population, which, having returned to Attica, and there put itself under the direction of the sons of Codrus, crossed the Ægean Sea, and established themselves on that beautiful strip of land which extends along the western coast of Asia, and was called from the name of its new colonists Ionia. Between this country and that which they had left, many points of resemblance may be noticed. Ionia is the

PLAIN OF IUNIA, AND COURSE OF THE MANDER.

Asiatic Achaia. There was much in the country they had quitted to prepare the Ionians for their new habitation, and much

in Ionia to remind them of, and to console them for, the home which they had lost. While it is both interesting and agreeable to trace their love and regret for their ancient seats, which shows itself in the similarity of names between the towns, rivers, and promontories of Egialus and Ionia, it is also not less pleasing to reflect that some part of the commercial and maritime distinction of the latter might have been derived from the habits and feelings which its colonists brought with them from the coasts of Greece: and as, in the federal union of the twelve cities of Ionia, we recognize the vestiges of that which combined the twelve cities of Egialus,-as in the Panionian