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another hut, we cooked them ourselves in the chimney, lest they should be drowned in oil, according to the style of cuisine in this country. At dusk our repast was ready, and beside our own performance consisted of a fricaseed fowl, poached eggs, trout boiled and stewed ad libitum, pilaff, and a dish called Tatar-Burek or Tatar pastry, a villanous compound of tough, tasteless paste stewed in oil, some milk, garlic, and parsley, which was highly relished by Ismail Aga. Some three or four of the principle villagers had been bidden to the feast. The repast was washed down with copious libations of cool, clear water from the Simoïs. Our table was a circular wooden tray, laid on a stool some fifteen inches high, around which we all sat or knelt on the floor and mattresses, and as the host only possessed two wooden spoons, one of the by-standers was despatched in the village to collect sufficient for the remainder of the guests, who I suppose for the first time in their lives wished to appear refined. The place, the people, the hour, and the appearance of the hut, made the scene around me one of no little interest, and one which I remember with satisfaction.

When the meal was over, and pipes and coffee renewed, the subject of our intended excursion of the next day was taken up and discussed, and it was decided that notice should be given throughout the village that all the hunters assemble at break of day at the hut, and accompanying us up the mountain, make a grand battue in search of game. So immediately after this decision was taken we heard the order proclaimed from the top of our hut in a loud voice which sounded all over the village, and reëchoed up the ravine.

In the morning early we arose and prepared for the excursion. We made a hasty breakfast, and mounting our horses, set out along the banks of the Simoïs up the mountain. Once more our host from the green sward, where on the preceding day we had beheld all the females of the village assembled, announced the expedition, and soon we were joined by some fifty or sixty hunters, equipped with old-fashioned Turk ish guns, which had the appearance of being much more dangerous to their owners than to any game we might meet. Even an Imaam (Turkish priest) from the capital, who happened to be in the village and dined with us the evening previous, now had laid aside his dignified white turban and flowing dress, and with a handkerchief wrapped round his head and his loins girded up, shouldered a borrowed weapon to take part in the sport. I must not forget to mention another character, who as it were led the expedition, and was by far the spryest of the party. He was a young man named Hassain, some twenty or twentythree years of age, who with several other of the villagers had been called down to the Dardanelles to perform duty as a soldier in the castle I had visited. There he rose to the dignity of a corporal, and distinguished himself by his intelligence, proud military bearing, and independent spirit.

Before obeying the summons, which he did most reluctantly, he had to take a sad farewell of a young Yuruck girl, for whom he had formed an attachment up in Mount Ida. The Yurucks are a nomadic people, very numerous in the mountainous parts of Asia Minor, who pasture their flocks during the winter in the plains, and in the summer on the

steep sides of the mountains, pay no tribute to the Sultan, and obey no other master than the chief of their tribe. Hassain, notwithstanding his speedy promotion, yearned to see again his wild mountain mistress, and not being able to obtain leave to visit her, deserted his comrades, and for some months remained concealed among her people in Mount Ida. He had only ventured down to the village where his parents resided, (his father was our worthy host) on occasion of the Bairam, and Mr. Calvert, and myself, having promised to intercede with the Pacha of the Dardanelles for his pardon, and free reinstallment into his regiment, without any punishment for the crime of desertion, he now accompanied us to the hunt. Mr. Calvert, Ismail Aga, and myself, rode part of the way, until our path became lost among the rocks and thickets of the mountain, when we dismounted and gave the horses to their owner. Wherever I approached, or from a distance caught a glimpse of the Simoïs, it presented an appearance even more interesting than at the village; its course was more precipitate, and its cascades more numerous. Leaving the stream, we ascended the steep mountain side, and pursued our way through forests of fir and pine trees, where I often stopped to view with admiration the wild mountain scenery around me. I felt that I was at length

'Where Jove convened the Senate of the skies;'

and my mind peopled the classic mountain with the whole host of heathen mythology.

Our party, after some consultation, separated into two companies, one of which took the southern side of the mountain, and the other followed us along the side of a deep ravine. As we continued, men were left at different stations, until at last we also were appointed places where we awaited the game in breathless expectation. Soon we heard the cries of the company opposite us, shouting to each other, and casting stones among the thickets and down the gorges. On they advanced, making the whole mountain echo with their shouts, and the game, terrified by the noise, fled up the ravine, and finding no outlet, were forced to pass before us. Full half an hour elapsed, and we were yet in anxious suspense, with our fingers on the triggers of our guns, keeping a dead silence, when a scared jackal sprang from a clump of wild vines and briars below us and was shot by one of the villagers. A moment more, and a rustling among the dried fir leaves near me announced the approach of a wild boar, rushing from his cover, directly up the side of the mountain. I was so excited that I felt nothing, knew nothing, until having snatched my gun from my shoulder and touched the trigger, I was aroused by the report. The ball had struck him in the left jaw, and stunned by the blow, he was turning giddily round, when my friend's shot put an end to his career. The same stillness then re-commenced,

for these animals are so quick of hearing that at the least sound from any quarter, they make off in another direction. Continued shots, now fired in another part of the mountain, announced that the game was passing there. Ismail Aga hailed the hunters with a peculiar shout, and having collected them together, we found the sport had been but indif ferent, so we determined to try our luck in another place. One of the

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party had seen a herd of deer pass the ravine below us; so surrounding another part of the mountain, we again took places as at first, and very soon Mr. Calvert had the luck to bring down a bounding chevrieul (roebuck) which he shot in the haunch. Several wild hogs broke cover and were killed, and I was for some minutes in considerable danger from a wild sow, which, having been only slightly wounded, rushed at me, gnashing her teeth with rage. I had but just time to perch myself on the trunk of a fallen tree close by, when she came under it, and was then despatched by a shot from one of the company. Several young pigs and two foxes were shot, and Ismail Aga killed an immense wolf in a thicket below us where he had seen it seek refuge. Not satisfied, our companions made yet another battue, but without success, except that we saw an immense wild boar, of a size seldom known, we were assured, to the inhabitants of the mountain. Dashing down the hill toward us, it had more the appearance of a black cow than a hog. Happily for us, and for itself, it got scent of us, and made off in another direction. No one was disposed to pursue it, and all declared it had better be left alone, for it apparently would have required a dozen shots to kill it, and if only wounded would vent its rage upon whatever came in its way. Ismail Aga mentioned several instances of the mountaineers having been shockingly mangled by wounded wild boars. We were told of an inhabitant of Avdjilar, then absent on a hunt, who spends much of his time in search of the bears which are found on Mount Ida. He provides himself with a buckler made of cow-skin, with a hole in the middle, through which he passes his lance. Thus armed he attacks the bears in their dens, and always succeeds in killing half a dozen in the course of a winter. The value of the skins repays him for his trouble, and as he imagines, for his risk of life.

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Our game in this distant and rugged hunting-ground was of but little service to us the deer, or rather roe-buck, was young, and Mr. Calvert sent it as a present to the Governor of Bairamitch, by the hand of Ismail Aga: the skins of the wolf, jackal and foxes, were soon taken by the villagers, but the hogs were left to the eagles and vultures of the mountain the huntsmen, being all Mussulmans, would not touch them.

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It had been agreed that we should all meet at a place in the mountain called Pounarlar, or the 'Sources,' the most interesting spot in Mount Ida. So after reposing for half-an-hour, and relating to each other what we saw and did, we arose, and climbing from height to height reached this place, which is no doubt Homer's Mount Ida; for though Mount Granicus is the highest peak of the Idaän chain, and is four thousand six hundred and fifty feet high, yet as this one is remarkable for its caverns, the home of the gods, out of which gushes the silver Simoïs,' I cannot but believe it to be 'Ida's holy hill,' where Jupiter held his court. The map I had with me gives it the name of Mount Cotylas.* This spot

*AT the period of HOMER's writing, the Simois evidently possessed a poetic name, and that was the Xanthus. Many parts of the Iliad show that both were the same stream; or perhaps that the mountain stream bore the name of Xanthus and that of the valley the Simois. ILIAD, XXII, 16, 22: xxi, 1, 20. The expedition of Xerxes to Greece paused in the neighborhood of Mount Ida, and here also is the site of the great battle of ALEXANDER with DARIUS.

is the head of the ravine leading down by the village in which we passed the night, to the great valley at the foot of the mountain; here the Simoïs has its source, and here the mountain itself ends in two sharp craggy peaks. The one near which we rested appears to be a monolithe, some two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet in height, presenting to the north a rugged perpendicular surface; the other is less precipitate, and is covered with pine and fir trees. A wilder scene I never beheld than that which they offer, reminding me forcibly of the drawings I have seen of the Swiss mountains. On the side of the peak opposite us was a large flock of goats belonging to the tribe of Yurucks, in which the deserter, Hassain, had so seriously engaged his affections. Toward the summit of the mountain the pine trees were stinted and low in stature, and I was told that the northern sides of all the peaks are bare, the strong winds from that quarter preventing their growth.

Ismail Aga before quitting the village of Avdjilar had ordered a sheep to be roasted, stuffed with pilaff, the Turkish national dish, and with the accompaniments of brown bread and milk, to be brought to meet us at this spot. Fatigued with the rough march, and elated with the success of our battues, we seated ourselves here at the very edge of the noisy Simois, and made a most hearty meal. Refreshed by the generous fare I felt richly compensated for the uncomfortable night at Alexander Troas, and the rough ride over the country until I reached Jove's high seat. After dinner Mr. Calvert and myself climbed up the craggy peak as far as its steep surface would permit, with the hope of enjoying an extensive view, but were disappointed by the tall pines by which we were surrounded. Then returning, we explored one of the caverns from which the Simoïs rushes with a roaring noise. I could not perceive where the large quantity of water came from, and how it could collect in so solid and soilless a rock as that of the peak. One of the caverns, the largest, and the one which we entered, has a mouth barely sufficient to admit a man's body, but after a few paces it widens into a spacious grotto, the abode of the nymphæ of the mountain and the spring. The cavern is called in Greek an Ayasma, or Holy Fountain ;' is visited by the Greeks of Bairamitch for the supposed miraculous virtues of its waters; and in a little niche hewn in the rock, at its entrance, blackened with the smoke of the taper candles burned in her honor, stood a wretchedly executed picture of the Panagia, or Holy Virgin,' one of the deities of modern mythology, who I could not but think was a poor exchange for the gifted fabled goddesses of the ancients. One of the hunters had lighted a dry branch of a fallen pine-tree, and led me through the narrow passage, wet and difficult to enter, to the grotto within, hung round with innumerable stalactites, and where, after all my ardent desire to visit the home of the gods, and learn from Jove himself the But, as Heraclitus remarks, when he has nothing more to relate, 'I am not allowed to say farther.'

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Two days after this, I had bid farewell to my kind friends and companions, the hunters of Mount Ida. In passing through Bairamitch I had an opportunity of thanking its worthy Governor, Mehemed Bey,

for allowing Ismail Aga to attend and get up for us the wild game of the mountain; and, accompanied by the deserter-corporal Hassain, and his Yuruck mistress, was entering the town of the Dardanelles, where I was to join a steamer on her passage up to Constantinople. Before leaving the Straits I had the satisfaction of seeing the deserter pardoned, and reinstated in the dignity of corporal. The Pacha consented reluctantly, dwelling much on the bad example he had set to his comrades from the same mountainous district, who, he said, brought with them more of their wild independent spirit than was compatible with the obedience required in a fortress. He had been ignorant of the cause of his desertion, and was greatly surprised to learn that it was for the love of a wild Yuruck girl, whom having married, he had now brought down from the mountain with him. During my interview and conversation with the Pacha, Hassain and his wife remained in the hall, waiting to learn the result of my intercession; and having heard the glad news of pardon, both came in, and kneeling down, in true Oriental style, kissed the Pacha's feet.

J. P. B.

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