Those gilded tombs enclosed within their circling barrier are inscribed with the names and titles of some powerful or wealthy race that has carried its pride beyond the grave, and not suffered even its dust to mingle with that of more common men—the prostrate and perished columns on one hand have yielded reluctantly to time, and now cumber the earth in recordless ruin; while the stately head-stones on the other, yet bright with gilding, and elaborate with ornament, point out to you the resting-places of the newly dead—the pomp of yesterday speaks far less sadly to the heart than the hoar and letterless remains of by-past centuries. Suddenly a bright light flashes through the gloom; the warm sunshine falls in a flood of radiance, the more startling from the darkness that surrounds it, upon a limited and treeless space, on which time or the tempest have done their work; and where withered boughs and shivered trunks, branchless and gray with moss, are prostrate among sunken tombs and ruined monuments. Your spirit is oppressed, your eye is blinded, by that mocking light! Here and there, upon the borders of the forest, a latticed pavilion of the brightest green, contrasting strangely with the cold, white, spectral-looking head-stones which it overtops, causes you to turn aside almost in wonder; but death is even there—it is the tomb of some beloved child, and the slab within is strown with flowers—flowers that have been gathered in anguish, and moistened with tears. Alas! for the breaking heart and the trembling hand that strewed them there! I remember nothing more beautiful than the aspect of the burying-ground of Scutari, from the road which winds in front of the summer palace of the Princess Haybètoullah. The crest of the hill is one dense mass of dark foliage, while the slope is only partially clothed with trees, that advance and recede in the most graceful curves; and the contrast between the deep dusky green of the cypresses, and the soft bright tint of the young fresh grass in the open spaces between them, produces an effect almost magical, and which strikes you as being more the result of art than accident, until you convince yourself, by looking around you, that it is to its extent alone that this noble cemetery owes its gloom, for its site is eminently picturesque and beautiful. On one side, an open plain separates it from the channel; on the other, it is bounded by a height clothed with vines and almond trees—the houses of Scutari touch upon its border, and even mingle with its graves in the rear, while before it spreads a wide extent of cultivated land dotted with habitations. Need I add that the Nekropolis of Scutari, such as I have described it, has also its local superstition? Surely not; and the idea is so wild, and withal so imaginative, that I cannot pass it by without record.