Asia Minor is distinctly a hilly country, but there are no very lofty elevations under the meridian of the thirtieth degree of east longitude--along which the _Flying Fish_ was then running--nor, indeed, in its immediate vicinity, until the southern coast is approached, where, at a distance of about forty miles from the point at which the travellers would again pass out over the water, and some twenty-five miles to the left of their proper course, the Bei Dagh peak rises to a height of ten thousand four hundred feet, while, a few miles farther on, and quite near to their track, the highest peak of the Susuz Dagh range rises still higher by one hundred and fifty feet. The _Flying Fish_, therefore, skimming along at a height of ten thousand feet only, was liable to dash into either of these peaks if it so happened that she chanced to encounter an air current to deflect her to the eastward of her proper course. This, however, was exceedingly unlikely, for at the height of ten thousand feet above the earth she was in what is known as "the calm belt" of the atmosphere, where the air-currents--when such exist at all--are very sluggish. The danger of collision with either of the peaks above-mentioned was therefore so remote as to be hardly worth consideration, and in any case it could not arise until the early hours of the following morning. It was therefore decided that there was no need for the maintenance of an all-night watch in the pilot-house, Mildmay undertaking to be up in good time to obviate any possibility of danger. The first flash of sunrise next morning found the _Flying Fish_ just passing over the border between land and sea on the southern coast of Asia Minor, with the Casteloriza Islands practically beneath her, the Susuz range safely astern, the island of Rhodes, like a pink cloud, broad abeam on the western horizon, and a soft, delicate purple outline broad on the port bow, which Mildmay informed them all was the upper portion of Mount Troados, the highest peak of the mountain range which forms, as it were, the backbone of the island of Cyprus. The ship was still maintaining her height of ten thousand feet above the sea-level, and her speed of thirty-five knots through the air, both of which circumstances rendered it necessary for those on board her to make such observations as they desired from the interior of the ship, the outside air being too rarefied and keen, and the ship's speed through it too rapid for exposure to it to be at all agreeable. It was therefore arranged that, as their passage across the Mediterranean was likely to prove uninteresting, and there would therefore be no inducement for any of them to go out on deck, that passage should be accomplished at full speed. The voyagers would then have time to dress and take breakfast at leisure, and be ready to go out on deck to witness their arrival on the African coast.