ountains, frequently overhung the road. We met numbers of peasants,
going to and from the fields, and once a company of some twenty women,
who, on seeing us, clustered together like a flock of frightened sheep,
and threw their mantles over their heads. They had curiosity enough,
however, to peep at us as we went by, and I made them a salutation, which
they returned, and then burst into a chorus of hearty laughter. All this
region was ravaged by a plague of grasshoppers. The earth was black with
them in many places, and our horses ploughed up a living spray, as they
drove forward through the meadows. Every spear of grass was destroyed, and
the wheat and rye fields were terribly cut up. We passed a large crag
where myriads of starlings had built their nests, and every starling had a
grasshopper in his mouth.

We crossed the river, in order to pass a narrow defile, by which it forces
its way through the rocky heights of Dumanidj Dagh. Soon after passing the
ridge, a broad and beautiful valley expanded before us. It was about ten
miles in breadth, nearly level, and surrounded by picturesque ranges of
wooded mountains. It was well cultivated, principally in rye and poppies,
and more thickly populated than almost any part of Europe. The tinned tops
of the minarets of Taushanlue shone over the top of a hill in front, and
there was a large town nearly opposite, on the other bank of the
Rhyndacus, and seven small villages scattered about in various directions.
Most of the latter, however, were merely the winter habitations of the
herdsmen, who are now living in tents on the mountain tops. All over the
valley, the peasants were at work in the harvest-fields, cutting and
binding grain, gathering opium from the poppies, or weeding the young
tobacco. In the south, over the rim of the hills that shut in this
pastoral solitude, rose the long blue summits of Urus Dagh. We rode into
Taushanlue, which is a long town, filling up a hollow between two stony
hills. The houses are all of stone, two stories high, with tiled roofs and
chimneys, so that, but for the clapboarded and shingled minarets, it would
answer for a North-German village.

The streets were nearly deserted, and even in the bazaars, which are of
some extent, we found but few persons. Those few, however, showed a
laudable curiosity with regard to us, clustering about us whenever we
stopped, and staring at us with provoking pertinacity. We had some
difficulty in procuring infor