The Mysian Olympus.
Journey Down the Valley--The Plague of Grasshoppers--A Defile--The Town
of Taushanlü--The Camp of Famine--We leave the Rhyndacus--The Base of
Olympus--Primeval Forests--The Guard-House--Scenery of the
Summit--Forests of Beech--Saw-Mills--Descent of the Mountain--The View
of Olympus--Morning--The Land of Harvest--Aineghiöl--A Showery Ride--The
Plain of Brousa--The Structure of Olympus--We reach Brousa--The Tent is
Furled.
"I looked yet farther and higher, and saw in the heavens a silvery cloud
that stood fast, and still against the breeze; * * * * and so it was as
a sign and a testimony--almost as a call from the neglected gods, that I
now saw and acknowledged the snowy crown of the Mysian Olympus!"
Kinglake.
Brousa, _July_ 9, 1852.
From Daghje Küi, there were two roads to Taushanlü, but the people
informed us that the one which led across the mountains was difficult to
find, and almost impracticable. We therefore took the river road, which we
found picturesque in the highest degree. The narrow dell of the Rhyndacus
wound through a labyrinth of mountains, sometimes turning at sharp angles
between craggy buttresses, covered with forests, and sometimes broadening
out into a sweep of valley, where the villagers were working in companies
among the grain and poppy fields. The banks of the stream were lined with
oak, willow and sycamore, and forests of pine, descending from the
mountains, frequently overhung the road. We met numbers of peasants,
going to and from the fields, and once a company of some twenty women,
who, on seeing us, clustered together like a flock of frightened sheep,
and threw their mantles over their heads. They had curiosity enough,
however, to peep at us as we went by, and I made them a salutation, which
they returned, and then burst into a chorus of hearty laughter. All this
region was ravaged by a plague of grasshoppers. The earth was black with
them in many places, and our horses ploughed up a living spray, as they
drove forward through the meadows. Every spear of grass was destroyed, and
the wheat and rye fields were terribly cut up. We passed a large crag
where myriads of starlings had built their nests, and every starling had a
grasshopper in his mouth.
We crossed the river, in order to pass a narrow defile, by which it forces
its way through the rocky heights of Dumanidj Dagh. Soon after passing the
ridge, a broad and beautiful valley expanded before us. It was about ten
miles in breadth, nearly level, and surrounded by picturesque ranges of
wooded mountains. It was well cultivated, principally in rye and poppies,
and more thickly populated than almost any part of Europe. The tinned tops
of the minarets of Taushanlü shone over the top of a hill in front, and
there was a large town nearly opposite, on the other bank of the
Rhyndacus, and seven small villages scattered about in various directions.
Most of the latter, however, were merely the winter habitations of the
herdsmen, who are now living in tents on the mountain tops. All over the
valley, the peasants were at work in the harvest-fields, cutting and
binding grain, gathering opium from the poppies, or weeding the young
tobacco. In the south, over the rim of the hills that shut in this
pastoral solitude, rose the long blue summits of Urus Dagh. We rode into
Taushanlü, which is a long town, filling up a hollow between two stony
hills. The houses are all of stone, two stories high, with tiled roofs and
chimneys, so that, but for the clapboarded and shingled minarets, it would
answer for a North-German village.
The streets were nearly deserted, and even in the bazaars, which are of
some extent, we found but few persons. Those few, however, showed a
laudable curiosity with regard to us, clustering about us whenever we
stopped, and staring at us with provoking pertinacity. We had some
difficulty in procuring information concerning the road, the directions
being so contradictory that we were as much in the dark as ever. We lost
half an hour in wandering among the hills; and, after travelling four
hours over piny uplands, without finding the village of Kara Köi, encamped
on a dry plain, on the western bank of the river. There was not a spear of
grass for the beasts, everything being eaten up by the grasshoppers, and
there were no Turcomans near who could supply us with food. So we dined on
hard bread and black coffee, and our forlorn beasts walked languidly
about, cropping the dry stalks of weeds and the juiceless roots of the
dead grass.
We crossed the river next morning, and took a road following its course,
and shaded with willows and sycamores. The lofty, wooded ranges of the
Mysian Olympus lay before us, and our day's work was to pass them. After
passing the village of Kara Köi, we left the valley of the Rhyndacus, and
commenced ascending one of the long, projecting spurs thrust out from the
main chain of Olympus. At first we rode through thickets of scrubby cedar,
but soon came to magnificent pine forests, that grew taller and sturdier
the higher we clomb. A superb mountain landscape opened behind us. The
valleys sank deeper and deeper, and at last disappeared behind the great
ridges that heaved themselves out of the wilderness of smaller hills. All
these ridges were covered with forests; and as we looked backwards out of
the tremendous gulf up the sides of which we were climbing, the scenery
was wholly wild and uncultivated. Our path hung on the imminent side of a
chasm so steep that one slip might have been destruction to both horse and
rider. Far below us, at the bottom of the chasm, roared an invisible
torrent. The opposite side, vapory from its depth, rose like an immense
wall against Heaven. The pines were even grander than those in the woods
of Phrygia. Here they grew taller and more dense, hanging their cloudy
boughs over the giddy depths, and clutching with desperate roots to the
almost perpendicular sides of the gorges. In many places they were the
primeval forests of Olympus, and the Hamadryads were not yet frightened
from their haunts.
Thus, slowly toiling up through the sublime wilderness, breathing the
cold, pure air of those lofty regions, we came at last to a little stream,
slowly trickling down the bed of the gorge. It was shaded, not by the
pine, but by the Northern beech, with its white trunk and close,
confidential boughs, made for the talks of lovers and the meditations of
poets. Here we stopped to breakfast, but there was nothing for the poor
beasts to eat, and they waited for us droopingly, with their heads thrust
together. While we sat there three camels descended to the stream, and
after them a guard with a long gun. He was a well-made man, with a brown
face, keen, black eye, and piratical air, and would have made a good hero
of modern romance. Higher up we came to a guard house, on a little cleared
space, surrounded by beech forests. It was a rough stone hut, with a white
flag planted on a pole before it, and a miniature water-wheel, running a
miniature saw at a most destructive rate, beside the door.
Continuing our way, we entered on a region such as I had no idea could be
found in Asia. The mountains, from the bottoms of the gorges to their
topmost summits, were covered with the most superb forests of beech I ever
saw--masses of impenetrable foliage, of the most brilliant green, touched
here and there by the darker top of a pine. Our road was through a deep,
dark shade, and on either side, up and down, we saw but a cool, shadowy
solitude, sprinkled with dots of emerald light, and redolent with the odor
of damp earth, moss, and dead leaves. It was a forest, the counterpart of
which could only be found in America--such primeval magnitude of growth,
such wild luxuriance, such complete solitude and silence! Through the
shafts of the pines we had caught glorious glimpses of the blue mountain
world below us; but now the beech folded us in its arms, and whispered in
our ears the legends of our Northern home. There, on the ridges of the
Mysian Olympus, sacred to the bright gods of Grecian song, I found the
inspiration of our darker and colder clime and age. "_O gloriosi spiriti
degli boschi!_"
I could scarcely contain myself, from surprise and joy. François failed to
find French adjectives sufficient for his admiration, and even our
cheating katurgees were touched by the spirit of the scene. On either
side, whenever a glimpse could be had through the boughs, we looked upon
leaning walls of trees, whose tall, rounded tops basked in the sunshine,
while their bases were wrapped in the shadows cast by themselves. Thus,
folded over each other like scales, or feathers on a falcon's wing, they
clad the mountain. The trees were taller, and had a darker and more glossy
leaf than the American beech. By and by patches of blue shone between the
boughs before us, a sign that the summit was near, and before one o'clock
we stood upon the narrow ridge forming the crest of the mountain. Here,
although we were between five and six thousand feet above the sea, the
woods of beech were a hundred feet in height, and shut out all view. On
the northern side the forest scenery is even grander than on the southern.
The beeches are magnificent trees, straight as an arrow, and from a
hundred to a hundred and fifty feet in height. Only now and then could we
get any view beyond the shadowy depths sinking below us, and then it was
only to see similar mountain ranges, buried in foliage, and rolling far
behind each other into the distance. Twice, in the depth of the gorge, we
saw a saw-mill, turned by the snow-cold torrents. Piles of pine and
beechen boards were heaped around them, and the sawyers were busily plying
their lonely business. The axe of the woodman echoed but rarely through
the gulfs, though many large trees lay felled by the roadside. The rock,
which occasionally cropped out of the soil, was white marble, and there
was a shining precipice of it, three hundred feet high, on the opposite
side of the gorge.
After four hours of steady descent, during the last hour of which we
passed into a forest entirely of oaks, we reached the first terrace at the
base of the mountain. Here, as I was riding in advance of the caravan, I
met a company of Turkish officers, who saluted me with an inclination of
the most profound reverence. I replied with due Oriental gravity, which
seemed to justify their respect, for when they met François, who is
everywhere looked upon as a Turkish janissary, they asked: "Is not your
master a _Shekh el-Islàm_?" "You are right: he is," answered the
unscrupulous Greek. A Shekh el-Islàm is a sort of high-priest,
corresponding in dignity to a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. It is
rather singular that I am generally taken for a Secretary of some kind, or
a Moslem priest, while my companion, who, by this time, has assumed the
Oriental expression, is supposed to be either medical or military.
We had no sooner left the forests and entered the copsewood which
followed, than the blue bulk, of Olympus suddenly appeared in the west,
towering far into the sky. It is a magnificent mountain, with a broad
though broken summit, streaked with snow. Before us, stretching away
almost to his base, lay a grand mountain slope, covered with orchards and
golden harvest-fields. Through lanes of hawthorn and chestnut trees in
blossom, which were overgrown with snowy clematis and made a shady roof
above our heads, we reached the little village of Orta Köi, and encamped
in a grove of pear-trees. There was grass for our beasts, who were on the
brink of starvation, and fowls and cucumbers for ourselves, who had been
limited to bread and coffee for two days. But as one necessity was
restored, another disappeared. We had smoked the last of our delicious
Aleppo tobacco, and that which the villagers gave us was of very inferior
quality. Nevertheless, the pipe which we smoked with them in the twilight,
beside the marble fountain, promoted that peace of mind which is the
sweetest preparative of slumber.
François was determined to finish our journey to-day. He had a
presentiment that we should reach Brousa, although I expected nothing of
the kind. He called us long before the lovely pastoral valley in which we
lay had a suspicion of the sun, but just in time to see the first rays
strike the high head of Olympus. The long lines of snow blushed with an
opaline radiance against the dark-blue of the morning sky, and all the
forests and fields below lay still, and cool, and dewy, lapped in dreams
yet unrecalled by the fading moon. I bathed my face in the cold well that
perpetually poured over its full brim, drank the coffee which François had
already prepared, sprang into the saddle, and began the last day of our
long pilgrimage. The tent was folded, alas! for the last time; and now
farewell to the freedom of our wandering life! Shall I ever feel it again?
The dew glistened on the chestnuts and the walnuts, on the wild
grape-vines and wild roses, that shaded our road, as we followed the
course of an Olympian stream through a charming dell, into the great plain
below. Everywhere the same bountiful soil, the same superb orchards, the
same ripe fields of wheat and barley, and silver rye. The peasants were at
work, men and women, cutting the grain with rude scythes, binding it into
sheaves, and stacking it in the fields. As we rode over the plain, the
boys came running out to us with handfuls of grain, saluting us from afar,
bidding us welcome as pilgrims, wishing us as many years of prosperity as
there were kernels in their sheaves, and kissing the hands that gave them
the harvest-toll. The whole landscape had an air of plenty, peace, and
contentment. The people all greeted us cordially; and once a Mevlevi
Dervish and a stately Turk, riding in company, saluted me so
respectfully, stopping to speak with me, that I quite regretted being
obliged to assume an air of dignified reserve, and ride away from them.
Ere long, we saw the two white minarets of Aineghiöl, above the line of
orchards in front of us, and, in three hours after starting, reached the
place. It is a small town, not particularly clean, but with brisk-looking
bazaars. In one of the houses, I saw half-a-dozen pairs of superb antlers,
the spoils of Olympian stags. The bazaar is covered with a trellised roof,
overgrown with grape-vines, which hang enormous bunches of young grapes
over the shop-boards. We were cheered by the news that Brousa was only
eight hours distant, and I now began to hope that we might reach it. We
jogged on as fast as we could urge our weary horses, passed another belt
of orchard land, paid more harvest-tolls to the reapers, and commenced
ascending a chain of low hills which divides the plain of Aineghiöl from
that of Brousa.
At a fountain called the "mid-day _konnàk_" we met some travellers coming
from Brousa, who informed us that we could get there by the time of
_asser_ prayer. Rounding the north-eastern base of Olympus, we now saw
before us the long headland which forms his south-western extremity. A
storm was arising from the sea of Marmora, and heavy white clouds settled
on the topmost summits of the mountain. The wind began to blow fresh and
cool, and when we had reached a height overlooking the deep valley, in the
bottom of which lies the picturesque village of Ak-su, there were long
showery lines coming up from the sea, and a filmy sheet of gray rain
descended between us and Olympus, throwing his vast bulk far into the
background. At Ak-su, the first shower met us, pouring so fast and thick
that we were obliged to put on our capotes, and halt under a walnut-tree
for shelter. But it soon passed over, laying the dust, for the time, and
making the air sweet and cool.
We pushed forward over heights covered with young forests of oak, which
are protected by the government, in order that they may furnish
ship-timber. On the right, we looked down into magnificent valleys,
opening towards the west into the the plain of Brousa; but when, in the
middle of the afternoon, we reached the last height, and saw the great
plain itself, the climax was attained. It was the crown of all that we had
yet seen. This superb plain or valley, thirty miles long, by five in
breadth, spread away to the westward, between the mighty mass of Olympus
on the one side, and a range of lofty mountains on the other, the sides of
which presented a charming mixture of forest and cultivated land. Olympus,
covered with woods of beech and oak, towered to the clouds that concealed
his snowy head; and far in advance, under the last cape he threw out
towards the sea, the hundred minarets of Brousa stretched in a white and
glittering line, like the masts of a navy, whose hulls were buried in the
leafy sea. No words can describe the beauty of the valley, the blending of
the richest cultivation with the wildest natural luxuriance. Here were
gardens and orchards; there groves of superb chestnut-trees in blossom;
here, fields of golden grain or green pasture-land; there, Arcadian
thickets overgrown with clematis and wild rose; here, lofty poplars
growing beside the streams; there, spiry cypresses looking down from the
slopes: and all blended in one whole, so rich, so grand, so gorgeous, that
I scarcely breathed when it first burst upon me.
And now we descended to its level, and rode westward along the base of
Olympus, grandest of Asian mountains. This after-storm view, although his
head was shrouded, was sublime. His base is a vast sloping terrace,
leagues in length, resembling the nights of steps by which the ancient
temples were approached. From this foundation rise four mighty pyramids,
two thousand feet in height, and completely mantled with forests. They are
very nearly regular in their form and size, and are flanked to the east
and west by headlands, or abutments, the slopes of which are longer and
more gradual, as if to strengthen the great structure. Piled upon the four
pyramids are others nearly as large, above whose green pinnacles appear
still other and higher ones, bare and bleak, and clustering thickly
together, to uphold the great central dome of snow. Between the bases of
the lowest, the streams which drain the gorges of the mountain issue
forth, cutting their way through the foundation terrace, and widening
their beds downwards to the plain, like the throats of bugles, where, in
winter rains, they pour forth the hoarse, grand monotone of their Olympian
music. These broad beds are now dry and stony tracts, dotted all over with
clumps of dwarfed sycamores and threaded by the summer streams, shrunken
in bulk, but still swift, cold, and clear as ever.
We reached the city before night, and François is glad to find his
presentiment fulfilled. We have safely passed through the untravelled
heart of Asia Minor, and are now almost in sight of Europe. The camp-fire
is extinguished; the tent is furled. We are no longer happy nomads,
masquerading in Moslem garb. We shall soon become prosaic Christians, and
meekly hold out our wrists for the handcuffs of Civilization. Ah, prate
as we will of the progress of the race, we are but forging additional
fetters, unless we preserve that healthy physical development, those pure
pleasures of mere animal existence, which are now only to be found among
our semi-barbaric brethren. Our progress is nervous, when it should be
muscular.