giants, who blow them forth over the unfortunate traveller, as the breath of their nostril. Sometimes the traveller is surprised by sudden light gleaming from the rocks around him, and the roar of fires bursting from caverns. These, however, arise from a more explicable cause. The iron-ore with which the interior of the mountains abounds, is generally smelted on the spot. The red flame is then seen issuing from the riven rock, the blows of sledges echo through the caverns, and the dark and grim visage of the workmen are visibly illumined by the blaze. These appearances at night, in the deep solitude of the mountains, are very striking, and strongly remind the traveller of Vulcan’s forge in Etna, and his Cyclops fashioning thunderbolts. When a commotion of the elements supervenes, as frequently happens in these elevated regions, when the air is rent and the rocks around are shattered by the electric fluid, it requires no great stretch of the imagination to fancy it is the fabricated bolts of these grim artisans, that have now, as in the days of the poets, caused the destruction. Our illustration presents one of those rugged ascents, suspended as it were over the perpendicular flank of a mountain-wall, on one side bounded by a deep chasm, and on the other overhung by a lofty precipice. This path is sometimes not more than a yard in breadth, and does not allow loaded horses space to pass each other. When this occurs, there is a mortal contest for the inside, and one pushes the other into the gulf below. Sometimes the path turns round a short angle, and when the traveller has accomplished the passage of the perilous point, he sees just before him a dark and dismal chasm, over which his horse’s neck projects, and his next step would precipitate him. His feeling of insecurity is increased by the state of the animal he rides. Instead of being shod with rough and pointed irons, which would give a firmer footing in ascending and descending such declivities, the shoe is a flat circular piece of smooth metal, perforated by a single opening in the centre, and affording not the slightest hold on what it presses. Hence, in going down, the motion of the animal is sliding, and the rider with horror sees the beast, to which he trusts his life, every moment ready to shoot over the edge of the narrow road, without a possibility of stopping or restraining itself. Yet such is the sure-footed sagacity of these mountain-steeds, that accidents rarely occur, and they glide down for several hundred yards, through a steep and tortuous descent, dexterously turning round every projecting rock before them, which seems to stand in the way for the express purpose of pushing him over the edge. [Illustration: T. Allom. H. Mote. CIRCASSIAN SLAVES IN THE INTERIOR OF A HAREM. CONSTANTINOPLE.]