e Rhyndacus,
and the wooden minaret of a little village on his banks. Following the
edge of the precipice, we came at last to a glen, down which ran a rough
footpath that finally conducted us, by a long road through the forests, to
the village of Daghje Koei, where we are now encamped.

The place seems to be devoted to the making of flints, and the streets are
filled with piles of the chipped fragments. Our tent is pitched on the
bank of the river, in a barren meadow. The people tell us that the whole
region round about has just been visited by a plague of grasshoppers,
which have destroyed their crops. Our beasts have wandered off to the
hills, in search for grass, and the disconsolate Hadji is hunting them.
Achmet, the katurgee, lies near the fire, sick; Mr. Harrison complains of
fever, and Francois moves about languidly, with a dismal countenance. So
here we are in the solitudes of Bithynia, but there is no God but God, and
that which is destined comes to pass.

Chapter XXIV.

The Mysian Olympus.

Journey Down the Valley--The Plague of Grasshoppers--A Defile--The Town
of Taushanlue--The Camp of Famine--We leave the Rhyndacus--The Base of
Olympus--Primeval Forests--The Guard-House--Scenery of the
Summit--Forests of Beech--Saw-Mills--Descent of the Mountain--The View
of Olympus--Morning--The Land of Harvest--Aineghioel--A Showery Ride--The
Plain of Brousa--The Structure of Olympus--We reach Brousa--The Tent is
Furled.

"I looked yet farther and higher, and saw in the heavens a silvery cloud
that stood fast, and still against the breeze; * * * * and so it was as
a sign and a testimony--almost as a call from the neglected gods, that I
now saw and acknowledged the snowy crown of the Mysian Olympus!"
Kinglake.

Brousa, _July_ 9, 1852.

From Daghje Kuei, there were two roads to Taushanlue, but the people
informed us that the one which led across the mountains was difficult to
find, and almost impracticable. We therefore took the river road, which we
found picturesque in the highest degree. The narrow dell of the Rhyndacus
wound through a labyrinth of mountains, sometimes turning at sharp angles
between craggy buttresses, covered with forests, and sometimes broadening
out into a sweep of valley, where the villagers were working in companies
among the grain and poppy fields. The banks of the stream were lined with
oak, willow and sycamore, and forests of pine, descending from the
m