Nearer East / [D.G. Hogarth].

  • Hogarth, D. G. (David George), 1862-1927.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Nearer East / [D.G. Hogarth]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    !9 But the main Spine rises to a yet higher peak, Samarina, far seen as a glittering point from the block-houses on the Greek frontier, ere it falls at the north-westernmost angle of Thessaly to the Zygos or Mezzovo gap, whence part more races, rivers, and ranges than from any other point in the Peninsula. Of the ranges which thence trend westward we have spoken above, though not by name—of Vradeton, better known under its ancient title of Tymphe ; of Mishikeli, which, curving round the Drynos head, swells into the group whose “ vast Acroceraunian walls ” close the northward prospect from Corfu ; and of the lower ranges, which, declining towards the Gulf of Arta, contain the gloomy subterranean waters of Acheron and Cocytus, and the much sung rock of Suli. But the most famous off- shoot of Zygos is that which starts from the eastern slope, and, after a low interval of rounded sandstone hills, bends north-eastward as a succession of short oblique ranges to the mighty many-peaked group of Olympus and the eastern sea. From the southern butt of Shar to the Zygos knot the Spine itself is not so formidable but that it might be crossed by many other trunk roads than that single ill-kept track from Monastir to Durazzo by way of Ochiida and Elbassan, which is the old “ Egnatian Way,” were it not for the savage character of its eastern slopes, which has formed and fosters the rude nature of the men of Dibra and Goritza. And when, south of Zygos, the ridge domi- nates a softer prospect, at the same time it becomes itself more rugged and abrupt. The limestone parallels, abruptly folded and diagonally cleft by the Aspro river, which constitute Pindus, are very difficult of passage. There are only two fairly practicable summer tracks in all the length, and no easy pass until the ganglion of Velukhi is left behind and two lateral chains are thrown off right and left ; of which the last, famous in history as Othrys, bends round the Gulf of Volo to Pelion, and after forking south by way of the Magnesian tongue to the chain of islands of which Skiathos is the first, is joined to Kissavos (Ossa), and divided only by the narrow cleft of Tempe