ENTERTAINING VARIETIES. 841 



derful degree of mechanical skill. The bow-iron was as thick as my 

 arm, but could be bent by means of an ingenious lever ; the cord was 

 made of a curious kind of vegetable fiber, stout, but twisted as evenly 

 as a lute-string, and retaining that appearance under a tension that 

 would have snapped the strongest sinew. The arrows were altogether 

 unlike ours unfeathered, short and thick, and terminating in a dagger- 

 like point of hardened steel. AVith a shower of these darts the Mona- 

 kees have often repulsed the charge of the best warriors of Darfoor 

 and Khundistan. 



We had now reached the ridge of this hill-country ; to the west 

 the view was bounded only by an airy-blue mountain-range ; at a dis- 

 tance of now less than twelve leagues we recognized the hill with the 

 towering mosques of Kapeebad, and at our feet lay the town of Beth- 

 Raka, embowered in trees and shrouded in a cloud of murky smoke. 

 At the next cross-road our companion left us, after giving me the 

 names of several learned friends of his in the city of Kapeebad, for I 

 had not mentioned the object of my journey, and, judging from my 

 questions, he probably took me for one of those traveling scholars * 

 who visit foreign countries for the love of learning. 



My guide had never been in Beth-Raka before, as Kapeebad can be 

 reached by a road through the northern highlands, which is preferable 

 in the rainy season ; but the suburbs of the city were already in sight, 

 and, as the sun was still more than an hour high, we were in no danger 

 of losing our way. Our road led now steadily down-hill, and we quick- 

 ened our pace in order to reach the town before dark, for I was cu- 

 rious to ascertain the cause of the black smoke that rose incessantly 

 from the bottom of the valley. 



The Summit of the Earth. Adolphus Schlagintweit, the immortal 



though unpronounceable explorer of Central Asia, calls the highland of Pamir 

 " die Welt-Zinne " the roof of the world. On the road from the Punjaub to 

 Yarkand four passes have to he crossed that are higher than 17,500 feet, and for 

 a distance of 280 miles the halting-ground is not below the height of Pike's 

 Peak. On the eastern plateau of the Beloor-Dagh there is a shelter-house near 

 a cliff from whose summit the main chain of the Himalayas with all its giant 

 peaks and immeasurable ice-fields is in full view from the highlands of Lassa to 

 the sources of the Indus, while in the west the head-waters of the Oxus and 

 Jaxartes can be traced to the borders of Cabool, where the peaks of the Hin- 

 doo-Koosh lift their crests of everlasting snow. In spring the echo of the ava- 

 lanches resembles the boom of continuous thunder ; and in midwinter, when 

 the storm-wind sweeps the table-land, whirling pillars of snow scud along the 

 ridges, and often seem to dance together like specters in their fluttering winding- 

 sheets. Our " Land of the Sky " in the Southern Alleghanies must be a mere 

 piazza compared with that top-roof of the earth. 



* The scholars of the Arabs, like those of ancient Greece, were mostly peripatetic 

 philosophers. Tabari, Ibn-Koteiba, and Ibn-Baitar traveled on foot through all the prov. 

 inces of the Saracenic empire. 



