Note 284 — Chapter V · CAPITAL CITIES OF GREECE.—SPARTA.

Plut. Instit. Lacon. § 10. Chateaubriand, Itin. xi. 110. Poucqueville’s description of the stream is striking and picturesque: “The banks,” he says, “are bordered with never-fading laurels, which, inclining towards each other, form an arch over its waters, and seem still consecrated to the deities of whom its purity is a just emblem; while swans, even of a more dazzling whiteness than the snows that cover the mountain-tops above, are constantly sailing up and down the stream.”—Travels, p. 84. The Viscount Chateaubriand, however, sought in vain for these poetical birds, and, therefore, evidently considers them fabulous.