text:  We shall now transcribe the observations of Colonel Leake the most sharp-sighted and learned of the modern travellers who have visited the isthmus of Mount Athos:--"The modern name of this neck of land is _provlaka_ evidently the Romanic form of the word [Greek: proaulax] having reference to the canal _in front_ of the peninsula of Athos which crossed the isthmus and was excavated by Xerxes