the track
which our guide pointed out as the road to Kiutahya. We rode two hours
through the forest, and came out upon a wooded height, overlooking a
grand, open valley, rich in grain-fields and pasture land. While I was
contemplating this lovely view, the road turned a corner of the ridge, and
lo! before me there appeared (as I thought), above the tops of the pines,
high up on the mountain side, a line of enormous tents. Those snow-white
cones, uprearing their sharp spires, and spreading out their broad
bases--what could they be but an encampment of monster tents? Yet no; they
were pinnacles of white rock--perfect cones, from thirty to one hundred
feet in height, twelve in all, and ranged side by side along the edge of
the cliff, with the precision of a military camp. They were snow-white,
perfectly smooth and full, and their bases touched. What made the
spectacle more singular, there was no other appearance of the same rock on
the mountain. All around them was the dark-green of the pines, out of
which they rose like drifted horns of unbroken snow. I named this singular
phenomenon--which seems to have escaped the notice of travellers--The
Titan's Camp.

In another hour we reached a fountain near the village of Kuembeh, and
pitched our tents for the night. The village, which is half a mile in
length, is built upon a singular crag, which shoots up abruptly from the
centre of the valley, rising at one extremity to a height of more than a
hundred feet. It was entirely deserted, the inhabitants having all gone
off to the mountains with their herds. The solitary muezzin, who cried the
_mughreb_ at the close of the fast, and lighted the lamps on his minaret,
went through with his work in most unclerical haste, now that there was no
one to notice him. We sent Achmet, the _katurgee_, to the mountain camp of
the villagers, to procure a supply of fowls and barley.

We rose very early yesterday morning, shivering in the cold air of the
mountains, and just as the sun, bursting through the pines, looked down
the little hollow where our tents were pitched, set the caravan in motion.
The ride down the valley was charming. The land was naturally rich and
highly cultivated, which made its desertion the more singular. Leagues of
wheat, rye and poppies spread around us, left for the summer warmth to do
its silent work. The dew sparkled on the fields as we rode through them,
and the splendor of the flowers in blossom was equal to that of