Even When Near Kythrea I Could Not Understand The Formation, Until We Found Ourselves Riding Through The Steep Ravine Which Holds The Watercourse And Ascending By A Narrow Path Among The Countless Hills That I Have Described.

Both sides of the gorge, and also the deep bottom, are occupied by houses with fruitful gardens, rich in mulberry, orange, lemon, apricots, olives, forming groves of trees that in summer must be delightful.

Sometimes after clambering up steep and stony paths which had originally been paved we entered into villages, the roofs of the houses BELOW us upon our left, and the doors of others upon our right, so close to the narrow path as scarcely to admit the passage of a loaded mule. The water rushed along the bottom in a rapid stream, plunging from the adit below one turbine to a temporary freedom in a natural channel, from which it was quickly captured and led into an aqueduct of masonry to another mill at a lower level. All the inhabitants had turned out to see an English lady, and the usual welcome was exhibited by sprinkling us with rose and orange-flower water as we passed; the omnipresent dogs yelled and barked with their usual threatening demonstrations at the heels of our animals, and some from the low roofs of the houses were unpleasantly close to our heads. We were now among the conical mounds, along the steep sides of which a path of about twelve inches width appeared to invite destruction, as the loose crumbling material rolled down the deep incline beneath the hoofs of the sure-footed horses and mules. These creatures had a disagreeable habit of choosing the extreme edge of the narrow ledge, instead of hugging the safer side; and although no great precipice existed, the fall of thirty feet into the rocky stream below would have been quite as effectual as a greater depth in breaking necks and limbs. We again entered a village, where a large plane-tree formed the centre of a small open space, faced on either side by a cafe; the situation being attractive during summer from the dense shade afforded by the spreading branches. There were many people sitting in the open shed, who as usual rose and made their salutations as we passed. The path became worse as we proceeded, and we at length emerged from the long string of contracted villages and skirted the precipitous sides of the ravine, which formed one of the innumerable gorges between the conical mounds of marls and alluvium that had been washed from a higher level and worn into heaps by the action of rain upon the unstable surface.

About a mile beyond all villages we skirted the stream along a steep bank, from which point we looked down upon the roofs of houses more than a hundred feet below, and we at length halted and dismounted at a rocky termination of the gorge, from whence issued suddenly the celebrated spring of Kythrea.

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