The Lands of the Saracen: Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and SpainTaylor, Bayard
History
The Lands of the Saracen: Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain
Taylor, Bayard
Middle East -- Description and travel; Spain -- Description and travel
We had no sooner left the forests and entered the copsewood which
followed, than the blue bulk, of Olympus suddenly appeared in the west,
towering far into the sky. It is a magnificent mountain, with a broad
though broken summit, streaked with snow. Before us, stretching away
almost to his base, lay a grand mountain slope, covered with orchards and
golden harvest-fields. Through lanes of hawthorn and chestnut trees in
blossom, which were overgrown with snowy clematis and made a shady roof
above our heads, we reached the little village of Orta Köi, and encamped
in a grove of pear-trees. There was grass for our beasts, who were on the
brink of starvation, and fowls and cucumbers for ourselves, who had been
limited to bread and coffee for two days. But as one necessity was
restored, another disappeared. We had smoked the last of our delicious
Aleppo tobacco, and that which the villagers gave us was of very inferior
quality. Nevertheless, the pipe which we smoked with them in the twilight,
beside the marble fountain, promoted that peace of mind which is the
sweetest preparative of slumber.
François was determined to finish our journey to-day. He had a
presentiment that we should reach Brousa, although I expected nothing of
the kind. He called us long before the lovely pastoral valley in which we
lay had a suspicion of the sun, but just in time to see the first rays
strike the high head of Olympus. The long lines of snow blushed with an
opaline radiance against the dark-blue of the morning sky, and all the
forests and fields below lay still, and cool, and dewy, lapped in dreams
yet unrecalled by the fading moon. I bathed my face in the cold well that
perpetually poured over its full brim, drank the coffee which François had
already prepared, sprang into the saddle, and began the last day of our
long pilgrimage. The tent was folded, alas! for the last time; and now
farewell to the freedom of our wandering life! Shall I ever feel it again?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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