r is beautiful beyond description, so that one has no time to
think about the distance. Immediately outside the town we pass a
large open place near a river, where the camels rest, and where they
are loaded and unloaded; I saw a whole herd of these animals. Their
Arab or Bedouin drivers were reclining on mats, resting after their
labours, while others were still fully employed about their camels.
It was a truly Arabian picture, and moreover so new to me, that I
involuntarily stopped my long-eared Bucephalus to contemplate it at
my leisure.

Not far from this resting-place is the chief place of rendezvous and
pastime of the citizens. It consists of a coffee-booth and a few
rows of trees, surrounded by numerous gardens, all rich in beautiful
fruit-trees. Charming beyond all the rest, the flower of the
pomegranate-tree shines with the deepest crimson among the green
leaves. Wild oleanders bloomed every where by the roadside. 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. The large and lofty
apartments are flagged with marble or tiles. In the garden I found
the first date-palm, a beautiful tree with a tall slender stem, from
the extremity of which depend leaves five or six feet in length,
forming a magnificent crown. In these regions and also in Syria,
whither my journey afterwards led me, the date-palm does not attain
so great a height as in Egypt, nor does it bear any fruit, but only
stands as a noble o