. . we overtook another throng of polite donkeys and their
proprietors, who salaamed and got out of our way. Upon suddenly emerging
from the forest upon the edge of a steep slope, we looked down upon the
barren sand-coloured plain of Messaria. Our guide Iiani, who had been
asleep and awake for at least eight miles, suddenly burst out into a
ditty, and explained that a village in the plain below was Morphu, the
home of his wife and family.
Even from this elevated point of view Morphu looked a long way off. The
sleepy Iiani was sufficiently wide awake to steer for his wife, and we
had made a long march already. I doubted the possibility of the loaded
camels ascending the steep slope, which had severely tried our mules,
and I felt sure that liani's old camel would either knock up or tumble
down with his load, should he attempt the ascent. It was of no use to
reflect, and as Morphu lay before us in the now barren and sun-smitten
plain, we touched our animals with the spur and pressed on. Descending
for some miles, we passed a garden of olives, that must have been
upwards of a thousand years old, upon our right; and still inclining
downwards, through ground cultivated with cereals completely withered by
the drought, we at length arrived at the broad but perfectly dry bed of
the river. Crossing this, we steered for a grove of ancient olive-trees,
which I at once selected for a camping-place, on the outskirts of the
town.
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