of brush; in short, this aggressive undergrowth appears to be altogether too much for the energies of the Sabanjans; it seems to be encroaching upon them from every direction, ruthlessly pursuing them even to their very door-sills; like Banquo’s ghost, it will not down, and the people have evidently retired discouraged from the contest.  Higher up on the mountain-slopes the underbrush gives place to heavier timber, and small clearings abound, around which the unsubdued forest stands like a solid wall of green, the scene reminding one quite forcibly of backwoods clearings in Ohio; and were it not for the ancient appearance of the Sabanja minarets, the old bowlder causeway, and other evidences of declining years, one might easily imagine himself in a new country instead of the cradle of our race.

At Sabanja the wagon-road terminates, and my way becomes execrable beyond anything I ever encountered; it leads over a low mountain-pass, following the track of the ancient roadway, that on the acclivity of the mountain has been torn up and washed about, and the stone blocks scattered here and piled up there by the torrents of centuries, until it would seem to have been the sport and plaything of a hundred Kansas cyclones.  Bound about and among this disorganized mass, caravans have picked their way over the pass from the first dawn of commercial intercourse; following the same trail year after year, the stepping-places have come to resemble the steps of a rude stairway.  From the summit of the pass is obtained a comprehensive view of the verdure-clad valley; here and there white minarets are seen protruding above the verdant area, like lighthouses from a green sea; villages dot the lower slopes of the mountains, while a lake, covering half the width of the valley for a dozen miles, glimmers in the mid-day sun, making altogether a scene that in some countries would long since have been immortalized on canvas or in verse.  The descent is even rougher, if anything, than the western side, but it leads down into a tiny valley that, if situated near a large city, would resound with the voices of merry-makers the whole summer long.  The undergrowth of this morning’s observations has entirely disappeared; wide-spreading chestnut and grand old sycamore trees shade a circumscribed area of velvety greensward and isolated rocks; a tiny stream, a tributary of the Sackaria, meanders along its rocky bed, and forest-clad mountains tower almost perpendicularly around the charming little vale save one narrow outlet to the east.  There is not a human being in sight, nor a sound to break the silence save the murmuring of the brook, as I fairly clamber down into this little sylvan retreat; but a wreath of smoke curling above the trees some distance from the road betrays the presence of man.  The whole scene vividly calls to mind one of those marvellous mountain-retreats in which writers of banditti stories are wont to pitch their heroes’ silken tent — no more appropriate rendezvous for a band of story-book free-booters could well be imagined.