e shone between the
boughs before us, a sign that the summit was near, and before one o'clock
we stood upon the narrow ridge forming the crest of the mountain. Here,
although we were between five and six thousand feet above the sea, the
woods of beech were a hundred feet in height, and shut out all view. On
the northern side the forest scenery is even grander than on the southern.
The beeches are magnificent trees, straight as an arrow, and from a
hundred to a hundred and fifty feet in height. Only now and then could we
get any view beyond the shadowy depths sinking below us, and then it was
only to see similar mountain ranges, buried in foliage, and rolling far
behind each other into the distance. Twice, in the depth of the gorge, we
saw a saw-mill, turned by the snow-cold torrents. Piles of pine and
beechen boards were heaped around them, and the sawyers were busily plying
their lonely business. The axe of the woodman echoed but rarely through
the gulfs, though many large trees lay felled by the roadside. The rock,
which occasionally cropped out of the soil, was white marble, and there
was a shining precipice of it, three hundred feet high, on the opposite
side of the gorge.

After four hours of steady descent, during the last hour of which we
passed into a forest entirely of oaks, we reached the first terrace at the
base of the mountain. Here, as I was riding in advance of the caravan, I
met a company of Turkish officers, who saluted me with an inclination of
the most profound reverence. I replied with due Oriental gravity, which
seemed to justify their respect, for when they met Francois, who is
everywhere looked upon as a Turkish janissary, they asked: "Is not your
master a _Shekh el-Islam_?" "You are right: he is," answered the
unscrupulous Greek. A Shekh el-Islam is a sort of high-priest,
corresponding in dignity to a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. It is
rather singular that I am generally taken for a Secretary of some kind, or
a Moslem priest, while my companion, who, by this time, has assumed the
Oriental expression, is supposed to be either medical or military.

We had no sooner left the forests and entered the copsewood which
followed, than the blue bulk, of Olympus suddenly appeared in the west,
towering far into the sky. It is a magnificent mountain, with a broad
though broken summit, streaked with snow. Before us, stretching away
almost to his base, lay a grand mountain slope, covered with orchards