We had scarcely congratulated each other on the termination of our dilemma, and the partial dispersion of the vapours, when a jagged line of serpent-like lightning ran shimmering through the broad flash that lit up for a second the whole wild scene amid which we were moving; and at the same instant, the loudest and the longest peal broke from the sky to which I ever listened; rock after rock caught up the sound, and flung it back, until the wizard thunder rattled in fainter echoes down into the plain. It was an awful moment! The terrified animals stood suddenly still, and trembled with affright; but we had no time to waste upon alarm, for, as if conjured by that awful crash, and the wild light by which it was accompanied, down came the imprisoned waters from the mass of vapour that hung above us. I can scarcely call it rain; it was as though a sluice had been let loose upon us, and in an instant we were drenched. Every mountain stream grew suddenly into a torrent—every wayside fountain, (and there were many in the forest formed of the hollow trunks of trees,) overflowed its basin—the branches against which we brushed in our passage, scattered the huge drops from their leaves—large stones fell rattling down the sides of the mountain—in short it was as wild a storm as ever inspired the pencil of Salvator Rosa; and its solemnity was deepened by the twilight gloom of the clinging and changeful vapours. We arrived at Broussa both wet and weary, having been thirteen hours on the road; but, despite all that I suffered, I would not have lost the sublime spectacle on which I gazed from the summit of Mount Olympus, for the enjoyment of a month of luxurious ease. Well might Howitt exclaim, in the gushing out of his pious and poetical nature:— “Praise be to GOD for the mountains!” CHAPTER VI. The Armenian Quarter of Broussa—Catholics and Schismatics—Armenian Church—Ugly Saints—Burial Place of the Bishops—Cloisters—Public School—Mode of Rearing the Silk Worms—Difference between the European and the Asiatic Systems—Colour and Quantity of the Produce—Appearance of the Mulberry Woods. It is a singular fact, that although the Armenian quarter of Broussa contains upwards of a thousand houses which are all inhabited, the number of Catholic families does not amount to fifty; their place of worship is consequently small, and unworthy of description, being merely the chapel attached to a private house, while the Schismatic Church is proportionably handsome. The difference of faith between the two sects hangs upon a single point—the Schismatics deny the double nature of Christ, and are accordingly denounced as heretics by their more orthodox brethren; although they worship the same profusion of Saints—weep over the wounds of the same blessed martyrs—and build altars to the same Virgin under all her multitudinous designations.