When we commenced to get down towards Trebizond, we left the snow behind us on the mountains, and entered a tract of well timbered country, which was looking its best in the first flush of the early spring. The sides of the hills were gorgeous with pink cyclamen, and with a beautiful blue bulb which I could not identify. At last we entered the avenue of pear trees which were laden with juicy fruit when I passed up to Erzeroum six months previously. When I retraced my steps to Trebizond with new companions, I found the pear trees in full bloom. Since I had seen them bending under the burden of the ripening fruitage, fire and sword and frost and fever had brought many hundreds of men to death before my eyes, and I myself had been down to the very borders of the Valley of the Shadow. But now the war was over, the winter was done, and the scent of the white pear blossoms that filled all the valley blended with the first faint fragrance of the breezes from the ever nearing waters of the Black Sea. Trebizond at last! CHAPTER XVI. CONCLUSION. We fly from the Widow--Arrival at Constantinople--English Philanthropy--The Baroness Burdett-Coutts--First Acquaintance with a well known Actress--Osman Pasha back again--The Turkish Skobeleff--A much perforated Paletot--Captain Morisot's Career--A Romantic Escape--On Board the _Gamboge_--We reach Smyrna--Mr. and Mrs. Zohrab--A Sympathetic Englishwoman--Zara Dilber Effendi--Back in London--Patriotic Ditties--An Incredulous Music-hall Proprietor--Non é Vero--Bowling out a Story-teller. We had time to call on Mr. Biliotti again, and to thank him for all his kindness; and then we went on board the _Simois_, which was ready to cast off her moorings and head out for Constantinople. Our Spanish widow was consistent to the last. The real hardships of the journey had not improved her temper; and when we resolutely declined to pay her passage to Constantinople in the steamer, she cursed us up and down Trebizond, each and severally, with the comprehensive particularity that was devoted to the historic cursing of the Jackdaw of Rheims. She was indeed that rare--or somewhat rare--phenomenon, an ungrateful woman. When we reached Constantinople the whole place was full of excitement, for the Russian army was at San Stefano, only a few miles away, and Pera was almost like a Russian town. Every day hundreds of Russians might be seen clanking up and down the streets in full uniform, when they came in on leave from San Stefano.