Turning westward, we crossed a high rolling tract, and entered a valley entirely covered with dwarf oaks and cedars.  In spite of the dusty road, the heat, and the multitude of gad-flies, the journey presented an agreeable contrast to the great plains over which we had been travelling for many days.  The opposite side of the glen was crowned with a tall crest of shattered rock, in which were many old Phrygian tombs.  They were mostly simple chambers, with square apertures.  There were traces of many more, the rock having been blown up or quarried down—­the tombs, instead of protecting it, only furnishing one facility the more for destruction.  After an hour’s rest at a fountain, we threaded the windings of the glen to a lower plain, quite shut in by the hills, whose ribs of marble showed through the forests of oak, holly, cedar, and pine, which dotted them.  We were now fully entered into the hill-country, and our road passed over heights and through hollows covered with picturesque clumps of foliage.  It resembled some of the wild western downs of America, and, but for the Phrygian tombs, whose doorways stared at us from every rock, seemed as little familiar with the presence of Man.

Hadji Youssuf, in stopping to arrange some of the baggage, lost his hold of his mule, and in spite of every effort to secure her, the provoking beast kept her liberty for the rest of the day.  In vain did we head her off, chase her, coax her, set traps for her:  she was too cunning to be taken in, and marched along at her ease, running into every field of grain, stopping to crop the choicest bunches of grass, or walking demurely in the caravan, allowing the hadji to come within arm’s length before she kicked up her heels and dashed away again.  We had a long chase through the clumps of oak and holly, but all to no purpose.  The great green gad-flies swarmed around us, biting myself as well as my horse.  Hecatombs, crushed by my whip, dropped dead in the dust, but the ranks were immediately filled from some invisible reserve.  The soil was no longer bare, but entirely covered with grass and flowers.  In one of the valleys I saw a large patch of the crimson larkspur, so thick as to resemble a pool of blood.  While crossing a long, hot hill, we came upon a little arbor of stones, covered with pine branches.  It inclosed an ancient sarcophagus of marble, nearly filled with water.  Beside it stood a square cup, with a handle, rudely hewn out of a piece of pine wood.  This was a charitable provision for travellers, and constantly supplied by the Turcomans who lived in the vicinity.

The last two hours of our journey that day were through a glorious forest of pines.  The road lay in a winding glen, green and grassy, and covered to the summits on both sides with beautiful pine trees, intermixed with cedar.  The air had the true northern aroma, and was more grateful than wine.  Every turn of the glen disclosed a charming woodland view.  It was a wild valley of the northern hills, filled with