The spot where the travellers outspanned was the bottom of a miniature basin of some five or six acres in extent, and was surrounded on all sides by steep slopes terminating in a series of jagged peaks, some four or five hundred feet high, that bounded the view in every direction and limited it to a distance of about half a mile. But when, after inspanning on the following morning, they crossed the little plateau upon which they had spent the night, and passed round a bluff at its farther side, a wonderful prospect at once burst upon their astonished gaze. For they now found that the chain of hills, up the outer slope of which they had been laboriously climbing during the whole of the preceding day, formed an unbroken if somewhat irregular circle of something like forty miles in diameter, measuring across from ridge to ridge, the inner slopes of the encircling hills being from three to five miles wide, with a plain of from five to ten miles in width at their feet, this plain in turn encircling a lovely lake, measuring about twenty miles across, the very centre of which was occupied by an island of perhaps three or four miles in diameter, the whole rugged surface of which appeared to be covered with buildings embowered in leafy gardens. Now at last the travellers began to really understand the wealth and importance of the people into whose country they had entered, uninvited; for, as far as the eye could reach, even with the aid of their exceedingly powerful field glasses, the mountain slopes and the plain that lay circling at their feet consisted of nothing but a practically unbroken sweep of highly cultivated land, dotted with snug farmhouses, and bearing ripening crops of various kinds, interspersed here and there with trim vineyards, or orchards of fruitbearing trees; while, at distances of from three to eight or ten miles apart, there nestled among groves of noble shade trees, villages which must have sheltered from a hundred-and-fifty to, perhaps, four or five hundred inhabitants. And through all there ran a perfect network of roads, carrying, as could be seen with the aid of their glasses, a considerable amount of traffic, among which could be distinguished a number of wheeled vehicles, the first they had seen since entering the country.