Dodwell, Edward: A classical and topographical tour through Greece, during the years 1801, 1805, and 1806: in two volumes (Band 1) (London, 1819)

CHAPTER XIV.

Attic rivers. Jlissos—remains on its banks. Mystic caves. Fount Enneakrounos. Cascades, and
overflowing of the Ilissos. The Cephissos. The Eridanos.. Attic mountains—Laurion—Anudros—■
Hymettos—its monasteries, villages, and antiquities. Discovery of an ancient city near the marble
quarries. Panorama from its summit. Mount Pentelikon—its monasteries, villages, and antiquities.
Marble quarries. Mount Parties—its monasteries, villages, and antiquities. Village of Kasha.
Castle of Phyle. Nyrnphasum. Mount Korydallos. Mount Aigaleos. View of the Saronic Gulph
from its summit. Seat of Xerxes. Mount Anchesmos. Other smaller hills in the plain.

There is no part of Greece where the soil is so arid, and water so
scarce as in Attica.

From Corinth to Sunium, there is not a single running stream of
fresh water, except the Athenian Cephissos, and that seldom reaches
the sea. The Ilissos is the most celebrated of the Attic rivers, and
was sacred to the Muses, and to several divinities,1 whose aethereal
essence, inaccessible to the sensation of thirst, might frequent with
delight a bare and rocky channel, and imaginary stream.

Plutarch2 affirms that Attica is a dry and parched country, with-
out rivers or lakes, where few springs occur, and where the water
which they used was generally drawn from wells.

The Ilissos rises on Mount Hymettos, to the east of Athens,
behind the monastery of Sirgiani. The source is a large, clear,
and deep fount, similar to that of the Cephissos at Cephissia, but
less copious.

1 Pausan. b. 1. c. 19. 2 Life of Solon.