The traveller who approaches Sparta from the north and crosses the Eurotas by the new bridge (P. 12) sees before him a series of low rounded hills which extend across his path in the form of a crescent and hide from his view the modern town. Straight before him the ragged core of the Byzantine fortification wall rises on the crest of the hill, and a bridle-path which climbs the steep slope to the old North Gate of the Byzantine Acropolis (M. 13. 14) is still the shortest way from the bridge to the modern town. The carriage road bends to the left, and runs parallel with the Eurotas for over half a mile through low-lying meadows, then rises to cross the south-eastern horn of the crescent and forthwith turns inland. It is at this point, where the line of heights sinks towards the river and ends in a tongue-shaped precipitous promontory, that the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia has been found (O. 15). North and north-west of this rocky tongue the ground between high-road and river sinks towards a hollow which in luxuriant fertility surpasses even the water-meadows, with their deep crops of vetch and clover, that line the bank higher up. Olives give place to mulberry-trees, and we enter a garden full of cucumber- and melonbeds, oranges and young peach-trees.