and
golden harvest-fields. Through lanes of hawthorn and chestnut trees in
blossom, which were overgrown with snowy clematis and made a shady roof
above our heads, we reached the little village of Orta Koei, and encamped
in a grove of pear-trees. There was grass for our beasts, who were on the
brink of starvation, and fowls and cucumbers for ourselves, who had been
limited to bread and coffee for two days. But as one necessity was
restored, another disappeared. We had smoked the last of our delicious
Aleppo tobacco, and that which the villagers gave us was of very inferior
quality. Nevertheless, the pipe which we smoked with them in the twilight,
beside the marble fountain, promoted that peace of mind which is the
sweetest preparative of slumber.

Francois was determined to finish our journey to-day. He had a
presentiment that we should reach Brousa, although I expected nothing of
the kind. He called us long before the lovely pastoral valley in which we
lay had a suspicion of the sun, but just in time to see the first rays
strike the high head of Olympus. The long lines of snow blushed with an
opaline radiance against the dark-blue of the morning sky, and all the
forests and fields below lay still, and cool, and dewy, lapped in dreams
yet unrecalled by the fading moon. I bathed my face in the cold well that
perpetually poured over its full brim, drank the coffee which Francois had
already prepared, sprang into the saddle, and began the last day of our
long pilgrimage. The tent was folded, alas! for the last time; and now
farewell to the freedom of our wandering life! Shall I ever feel it again?

The dew glistened on the chestnuts and the walnuts, on the wild
grape-vines and wild roses, that shaded our road, as we followed the
course of an Olympian stream through a charming dell, into the great plain
below. Everywhere the same bountiful soil, the same superb orchards, the
same ripe fields of wheat and barley, and silver rye. The peasants were at
work, men and women, cutting the grain with rude scythes, binding it into
sheaves, and stacking it in the fields. As we rode over the plain, the
boys came running out to us with handfuls of grain, saluting us from afar,
bidding us welcome as pilgrims, wishing us as many years of prosperity as
there were kernels in their sheaves, and kissing the hands that gave them
the harvest-toll. The whole landscape had an air of plenty, peace, and
contentment. The people all greeted us cordi