View PDF version of this page

transport of so perishable a material upon the backs of mules impossible. I had sent back our three riding mules to meet and to relieve the camels, and by this precaution the baggage animals arrived at a convenient hour. The route to Baffo or Ktima, which is now the principal town, lay across the plateau for about five miles to the verge which formed the table-land, from which margin we looked down upon the deep vale below, bounded by the sea at a few miles distance. W e dismounted and walked down the long and steep pass, the mules being led behind. The entire face of the perpendicular cliffs was cretaceous limestone, but the scaly slopes of a hill upon our left, about a mile and a half distant, formed a loose heap of shale, which had slipped, either during earthquakes or heavy rains, in great masses to the bottom. After a long and tedious descent we reached the base of the pass, and halted in a broad river-bed full of rocks and stones of all sizes, which had been rounded by the torrent of the rainy season. There was no water except in small pools that had been scraped in the sand for the benefit of the travelling animals. Having watered our mules and remounted, we ascended the steep banks of the stream and continued towards the sea, feeling a sensible difference in the temperature since we had descended from the heights. The country was exceedingly pretty, as it sloped gently downwards for three or four miles, the surface ; ornamented with caroub-trees, until we at length reached the sea-beach and crossed the sandy mouth of the river's bed. The crops of cereals were perished by drought in the absence of irrigation ; but upon

View PDF version of this page