lain or valley, thirty miles long, by five in
breadth, spread away to the westward, between the mighty mass of Olympus
on the one side, and a range of lofty mountains on the other, the sides of
which presented a charming mixture of forest and cultivated land. Olympus,
covered with woods of beech and oak, towered to the clouds that concealed
his snowy head; and far in advance, under the last cape he threw out
towards the sea, the hundred minarets of Brousa stretched in a white and
glittering line, like the masts of a navy, whose hulls were buried in the
leafy sea. No words can describe the beauty of the valley, the blending of
the richest cultivation with the wildest natural luxuriance. Here were
gardens and orchards; there groves of superb chestnut-trees in blossom;
here, fields of golden grain or green pasture-land; there, Arcadian
thickets overgrown with clematis and wild rose; here, lofty poplars
growing beside the streams; there, spiry cypresses looking down from the
slopes: and all blended in one whole, so rich, so grand, so gorgeous, that
I scarcely breathed when it first burst upon me.

And now we descended to its level, and rode westward along the base of
Olympus, grandest of Asian mountains. This after-storm view, although his
head was shrouded, was sublime. His base is a vast sloping terrace,
leagues in length, resembling the nights of steps by which the ancient
temples were approached. From this foundation rise four mighty pyramids,
two thousand feet in height, and completely mantled with forests. They are
very nearly regular in their form and size, and are flanked to the east
and west by headlands, or abutments, the slopes of which are longer and
more gradual, as if to strengthen the great structure. Piled upon the four
pyramids are others nearly as large, above whose green pinnacles appear
still other and higher ones, bare and bleak, and clustering thickly
together, to uphold the great central dome of snow. Between the bases of
the lowest, the streams which drain the gorges of the mountain issue
forth, cutting their way through the foundation terrace, and widening
their beds downwards to the plain, like the throats of bugles, where, in
winter rains, they pour forth the hoarse, grand monotone of their Olympian
music. These broad beds are now dry and stony tracts, dotted all over with
clumps of dwarfed sycamores and threaded by the summer streams, shrunken
in bulk, but still swift, cold, and clear as ever.

W