We wandered through beautiful shrubberies of cypress-trees and olives, and never yet had I beheld so rich a luxuriance of vegetation.

This valley, with its one side flanked by wild and rugged rocks, in remarkable contrast to the fruitful landscape around, has a peculiar effect when viewed from the hill across which we ride.

I was also much amazed by the numerous little troops of from six to ten, or even twenty camels, which sometimes came towards us with their grave majestic pace, and were sometimes overtaken by our fleet donkeys.
Surrounded on all sides by objects at once novel and interesting, it will not be wondered at that I found the time passing far too rapidly.
The heat is said not to be more oppressive at Smyrna during the summer than at Constantinople.

Spring, however, commences here earlier, and the autumn is longer.

This fact, I thought, accounted for the lovely vegetation, which was here so much more forward than at Constantinople.
Herr von Cramer's country-house stands in the midst of a smiling garden; it is spacious and built of stone.