itance is
completed. The next step will not have to be undertaken on my part
until the expiration of six months from his entry on his estate at
Vissarion. As he announces his intention of going within a
fortnight, this will mean practically a little over six months from
now.

BOOK II: VISSARION

_Letter from Rupert Sent Leger_, _Castle of Vissarion_, _the Spear of
Ivan_, _Land of the Blue Mountains_, _to Miss Janet MacKelpie_, _Croom
Castle_, _Ross-shire_, _N.B._

_January_ 23, 1907.

MY DEAREST AUNT JANET,

As you see, I am here at last. Having got my formal duty done, as
you made me promise--my letters reporting arrival to Sir Colin and
Mr. Trent are lying sealed in front of me ready to post (for nothing
shall go before yours)--I am free to speak to you.

This is a most lovely place, and I hope you will like it. I am quite
sure you will. We passed it in the steamer coming from Trieste to
Durazzo. I knew the locality from the chart, and it was pointed out
to me by one of the officers with whom I had become quite friendly,
and who kindly showed me interesting places whenever we got within
sight of shore. The Spear of Ivan, on which the Castle stands, is a
headland running well out into the sea. It is quite a peculiar
place--a sort of headland on a headland, jutting out into a deep,
wide bay, so that, though it is a promontory, it is as far away from
the traffic of coast life as anything you can conceive. The main
promontory is the end of a range of mountains, and looms up vast,
towering over everything, a mass of sapphire blue. I can well
understand how the country came to be called the "Land of the Blue
Mountains," for it is all mountains, and they are all blue! The
coast-line is magnificent--what is called "iron-bound"--being all
rocky; sometimes great frowning precipices; sometimes jutting spurs
of rock; again little rocky islets, now and again clad with trees and
verdure, at other places stark and bare. Elsewhere are little rocky
bays and indentations--always rock, and often with long, interesting
caves. Some of the shores of the bays are sandy, or else ridges of
beautiful pebbles, where the waves make endless murmur.

But of all the places I have seen--in this land or any other--the
most absolutely beau