o the southward,
established themselves at Thermopylae, to await there the coming of the
conqueror. The people of Thessaly then surrendered to Xerxes as soon as
they received his summons.

Xerxes, from his encampment at Therma, where we left him at the close of
the last chapter, saw the peaks of Olympus and Ossa in the southern
horizon. They were distant perhaps fifty miles from where he stood. He
inquired about them, and was told that the River Peneus flowed between
them to the sea, and that through the same defile there lay the main
entrance to Thessaly. He had previously determined to march his army
round the other way, as the King of Macedon had suggested, but he said
that he should like to see this defile. So he ordered a swift Sidonian
galley to be prepared, and, taking with him suitable guides, and a fleet
of other vessels in attendance on his galley, he sailed to the mouth of
the Peneus, and, entering that river, he ascended it until he came to
the defile.

Seen from any of the lower elevations which projected from the bases of
the mountains at the head of this defile, Thessaly lay spread out before
the eye as one vast valley--level, verdant, fertile, and bounded by
distant groups and ranges of mountains, which formed a blue and
beautiful horizon on every side. Through the midst of this scene of
rural loveliness the Peneus, with its countless branches, gracefully
meandered, gathering the water from every part of the valley, and then
pouring it forth in a deep and calm current through the gap in the
mountains at the observer's feet. Xerxes asked his guides if it would be
possible to find any other place where the waters of the Peneus could be
conducted to the sea. They replied that it would not be, for the valley
was bounded on every side by ranges of mountainous land.

"Then," said Xerxes, "the Thessalians were wise in submitting at once to
my summons; for, if they had not done so, I would have raised a vast
embankment across the valley here, and thus stopped the river, turned
their country into a lake, and drowned them all."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ADVANCE OF XERXES INTO GREECE.

B.C. 480

Advance of the army.--Sailing of the fleet.--Sciathus.--Euboea.--Straits
of Artemisium and Euripus.--Attica.--Saronic Gulf.--Island of
Salamis.--Excitement of the country.--Signals.--Sentinels.--Movement of
the fleet.--The ten reconnoitering galleys.--Guard-ships
captured.--Barbarous ceremony.--A heroic Greek.--One