Leaving Ak-Sheher this morning, we rode along the base of Sultan Dagh.  The plain which we overlooked was magnificent.  The wilderness of shrubbery which fringed the slopes of the mountain gave place to great orchards and gardens, interspersed with fields of grain, which extended far out on the plain, to the wild thickets and wastes of reeds surrounding the lake.  The sides of Sultan Dagh were terraced and cultivated wherever it was practicable, and I saw some fields of wheat high up on the mountain.  There were many, people in the road or laboring in the fields; and during the forenoon we passed several large villages.  The country is more thickly inhabited, and has a more thrifty and prosperous air than any part of Asia Minor which I have seen.  The people are better clad, have more open, honest, cheerful and intelligent faces, and exhibit a genuine courtesy and good-will in their demeanor towards us.  I never felt more perfectly secure, or more certain of being among people whom I could trust.

We passed under the summit of Sultan Dagh, which shone out so clear and distinct in the morning sun, that I could scarcely realize its actual height above the plain.  From a tremendous gorge, cleft between the two higher peaks, issued a large stream, which, divided into a hundred channels, fertilizes a wide extent of plain.  About two hours from Ak-Sheher we passed a splendid fountain of crystal water, gushing up beside the road.  I believe it is the same called by some travellers the Fountain of Midas, but am ignorant wherefore the name is given it.  We rode for several hours through a succession of grand, rich landscapes.  A smaller lake succeeded to that of Ak-Sheher, Emir Dagh rose higher in the pale-blue sky, and Sultan Dagh showed other peaks, broken and striped with snow; but around us were the same glorious orchards and gardens, the same golden-green wheat and rustling phalanxes of poppies—­armies of vegetable Round-heads, beside the bristling and bearded Cavaliers.  The sun was intensely hot during the afternoon, as we crossed the plain, and I became so drowsed that it required an agony of exertion to keep from tumbling off my horse.  We here left the great post-road to Constantinople, and took a less frequented track.  The plain gradually became a meadow, covered with shrub cypress, flags, reeds, and wild water-plants.  There were vast wastes of luxuriant grass, whereon thousands of black buffaloes were feeding.  A stone causeway, containing many elegant fragments of ancient sculpture, extended across this part of the plain, but we took a summer path beside it, through beds of iris in bloom—­a fragile snowy blossom, with a lip of the clearest golden hue.  The causeway led to a bare salt plain, beyond which we came to the town of Bolawaduen, and terminated our day’s journey of forty miles.