last got up and walked off, the picture
of distress.

We made an early start the next morning, and rode on briskly over the
rolling, grassy hills. A beautiful lake, with an island in it, lay at the
foot of Emir Dagh. After two hours we reached a guard-house, where our
_teskeres_ were demanded, and the lazy guardsman invited us in to take
coffee, that he might establish a right to the backsheesh which he could
not demand. He had seen us afar off, and the coffee was smoking in the
_finjans_ when we arrived. The sun was already terribly hot, and the
large, green gad-flies came in such quantities that I seemed to be riding
in the midst of a swarm of bees. My horse suffered very much, and struck
out his hind feet so violently, in his endeavors to get rid of them, that
he racked every joint in my body. They were not content with sucking his
blood, but settling on the small segment of my calf, exposed between the
big Tartar boot and the flowing trowsers, bit through my stockings with
fierce bills. I killed hundreds of them, to no purpose, and at last, to
relieve my horse, tied a bunch of hawthorn to a string, by which I swung
it under his belly and against the inner side of his flanks. In this way I
gave him some relief--a service which he acknowledged by a grateful motion
of his head.

As we descended towards Ak-Sheher the country became exceedingly rich and
luxuriant. The range of Sultan Dagh (the Mountain of the Sultan) rose on
our left, its sides covered with a thick screen of shrubbery, and its
highest peak dotted with patches of snow; opposite, the lower range of
Emir Dagh (the Mountain of the Prince) lay blue and bare in the sun
shine. The base of Sultan Dagh was girdled with groves of fruit-trees,
stretching out in long lines on the plain, with fields of ripening wheat
between. In the distance the large lake of Ak-Sheher glittered in the sun.
Towards the north-west, the plain stretched away for fifty miles before
reaching the hills. It is evidently on a much lower level than the plain
of Konia; the heat was not only greater, but the season was further
advanced. Wheat was nearly ready for cutting, and the poppy-fields where,
the day previous, the men were making their first incisions for opium,
here had yielded their harvest and were fast ripening their seed.
Ak-Sheher is beautifully situated at the entrance of a deep gorge in the
mountains. It is so buried in its embowered gardens that little, except
the mosque, is s