Wordsworth, Christopher: Greece: pictorial, descriptive and historical (London, 1840)

J erxes in his way
from Asia to Greece
visited in a Sidon- ;
ian vessel the spot
where the river Peneus i

s itself into the sea. He
is said to have expressed much
surprize when he contemplated
the termination of its course,
and to have inquired whether
it were possible to divert it by
any other channel into the 'V

Thermaic Gulph. The guides who conducted him to the place informed
him that there was no other practicable issue for the stream, because the
whole of Thcssaly, within whose limits it takes its rise, was girted by a belt
of mountains.

The historian Herodotus, who records this fact, adds, that there existed an
ancient tradition that Thessaly was formerly a Lake, enclosed on all sides by
lofty hills. It is confined on the east by Pclion and Ossa; on the north
Olympus, and Pindus on the west, form a natural frontier; while on
the south, the range of Othrys closes the outlet to the lower pro-
vinces of Continental Greece. The basin of Thcssaly lies within these
boundaries.