Giaours, whose steamers pass within range
on their way to the roadstead. The ingenious
dummy in question is placed under the care
of two stolid-looking sentinels, each padded
by as many garments of every description as
his means will procure, or his shapeless
uniform conceal, and each prone to ignore the
duties of his part in favour of entomological
researches upon the head of his companion.
A little eastward, a tiny cape juts into the
sea, forming a bay on either side. Between
the walls and this cape, the remains of the
mole of Hadrian still afford some shelter to
small vessels engaged in fishing or in the
coast trade—vessels with high triangular
sterns and dragon figure-heads, built, doubtless,
after the fashion of the Argo. They are
hauled high and dry upon the shingle, soon
after their arrival, by means of fixed captans
and rollers; and they are then used as
shops until the stores they bring are
exhausted. Beyond the cape, ships of larger
size find anchorage, which, although much
exposed to wind and sea, is tolerably secure,
the bottom being composed of tenacious clay.
Upon the cape, and above each bay, extend-
ing itself round the foot of Mount Mithrios,
eastward of the walls, is a well-built Christian
quarter, containing much wealth, and a large
and busy population. Perched high above
the houses, and reached by a path only suitable
for goats, is a ruined but once splendid
monastery, dedicated to the native martyr
Eugenios, who was slain upon its site during
the persecution of Diocletian. Eugenios was
opportunely remembered by Alexios
Comnenus, when he erected Trebizond into an
independent kingdom, requiring the supervision
of a patron saint. A house within the
mouldering walls still gives shelter to Greek
priests, who live, in characteristic dirt and
laziness, upon contributions which the sacredness
of the locality enables them to extort
from the faithful. Between the ruins and the
suburb commences that famous road towards
Erzeroum of which Dr. Sandwith has told
the story. It is probably the only good road
in Anatolia: it was commenced with vast
intentions, and was executed at vast
expense; but its length is about two hundred
yards.

Spending a little time at Trebizond in idleness,
and too familiar with oriental cities to
care much for the many features that it
possesses in common with them all, I became
tired of rambling in the narrow streets and
crowded bazaars. I had inspected the few
manufactures that are peculiar to the place;
had bought a pair of silver bracelets of the
local pattern, from which no artisan will
depart, and which differs from that of any
neighbouring town; had gossipped with
various workmen, and had turned over the
carpets, silks, and trinkets of the Persian
merchants, at their lodgings in the fusty
Khan. I had walked, as in duty bound, two
miles along the beach, to visit the remains of
the church of St. Sophia, founded by King
Manuel in twelve hundred and sixty-three;
pronounced by Finlay to be one of the most
interesting monuments of Byzantine
architecture, sculpture, and painting, that time
has spared; and recently conjectured, by a
travelled duke, to be full two thousand years
old. Upon the steep and narrow tracks leading
into the interior, riding was necessarily so
slow as to be irksome, while the rugged
beauty of the landscape was apt to be
forgotten in its sameness, or obscured by the
recollection of its causes, The azaleas, which
covered every hill-side with their yellow
blossoms, and filled the air with their
fragrance; the rhododendrons, of which the
purple buds were just bursting into sight;
the fertile though neglected valleys, the
harsh rocks, the wild ravines, the mountain
rivulets, although well calculated to excite
admiration, were insufficient to maintain it.
Through them all, when the eye had once
drunk in its fill of delight, appeared signs of
the poverty, the misery, and the oppression,
that misgovernment has wrought in the land.
Untilled farms conveyed the brief history of
many whose corn was stolen by the pasha
for the army; whose horses, stolen to convey
the corn, had left their carcasses at Erzeroum
or in Mingrelia, and whose families, if they
escaped starvation, escaped it only through
charity, or by a miracle. Deserted cottages
were once the homes of men from whom the
madir, or village governor, had wrung such
sums of money under pretence of saving
them from the conscription that the cow, or
the field, or the stock of winter provision, was
sold to meet his demands; and the stripped
victims went to Constantinople to seek work
as porters or as boatmen. Branded with
such signs of the hard lot of the inhabitants,
the country around Trebizond is scarcely
pleasing; and I found that my excursions
were little calculated to beguile the tedium of
my necessary stay.

Under these circumstances, it was natural
to hail with pleasure any new object of
apparent interest. On the east side of Mount
Mithrios, at a considerable height, the regular
slope of the descent had been broken by
an ancient landslip, which left exposed a
perpendicular wall of rock, perhaps a hundred
feet in height. Upon the face of this
rock could be plainly seen, from a distance,
the remains of galleries or excavations; and
of these I determined to procure a nearer
view.

A walk of a mile from the town, brought
me directly underneath my intended goal;
but left me still separated from it, by the
mass of soil and rock that had fallen down.
The incline was very steep, the ground soft
and mostly planted with barley. Here and
there, rock was so near the surface as to
forbid attempts at cultivation; and in such
places I found little quarries, yielding stone
for road-mending, or building, and worked by