Paramythia, like Argyro-Castro stands at the extremity of a fertile plain, suspended on a rock which overhangs it. The houses, like those of the structure of Albanian towns in general, are all built detached from each other. They indicate, however, the miserable state of insecurity in which the inhabitants live. They resemble so many fortresses closed up on the outside from light and air, pierced only with small loop-holes, from whence is thrust the muzzle of a tophek. They are generally shaded by the spreading branches of the Oriental platanus: this magnificent tree attains to such a gigantic size in the East, as to have been the wonder of antiquity; in the trunk of one tree, 22 people were entertained at supper, and the branches of another overshadowed a whole village. At Paramythia they grow to a magnificent size, and the town is partly covered by their leafy canopies. This luxuriance of vegetation is probably caused by the numerous springs which issue from the hills, and water the roots. Every tree seems to have a pure fountain connected with it. The spacious bazaar of the city is peculiarly marked with this character, shadowed over with a vast canopy of branches, and cooled by many rills of delicious water. Towering above the town is the fortress, reposing on a vast rock, in some places one thousand feet above the plain, and having the town spread over an inclined plain on the side of the mountain just under it The calcareous structure of this rock sometimes gives way, detaching large masses, which overwhelm and crush the houses below on which they fall. The castle is surrounded by an extensive battlemented wall, crowned with turrets. Here it is that the ruins of a former town are most conspicuous. The modern walls are raised on still more ponderous remains of ancient foundations; and the gate-ways of arches yet remain here, of evidently very ancient date. Our illustration represents the fertile plain below, rich in various productions, full of gardens and shrubs, where the song of the nightingale seldom ceases, and is reported to be particularly sweet and plaintive. High above are the ridges of the great chain of Albanian mountains, which the ancients called Acroceraunian, because their summits were always splintered with thunderbolts; of these sublime hills, five distinct and mighty pinnacles can be traced from hence to the Adriatic. Reposing on the inclined plane of the mountain-side, is the city with its fortress, surrounded with lofty forests of plane-trees, and in front is one of those ancient arches, which indicate the early but unrecorded founder of the city. [Illustration: T. Allom. J. Jenkins. THE SULTANA IN HER STATE ARRHUBA. CONSTANTINOPLE]