THE RAINS. 355 



to tempt me back. I should like to see it once 

 more, with its glorious cone-shaped tulip- tree in full 

 blossom ; its jungles of rose-bushes, whose enor- 

 mous berries testified to the size of its perished 

 blooms, in the perfect beauty of summer ; its great 

 forests of chestnut decked with spires of flowers ; 

 and its long stretches of rhododendron and azalea 

 in their summer dress. It must indeed be lovely 

 then ; and if the fever were only a possible and not 

 an absolutely certain consequence of the enjoyment 

 of its wonderful beauty, the pleasure would be worth 

 the risk. 



But the wintry scene around us now was very 

 different. Above, the ragged clouds hung black 

 and threatening. Out at sea, the waves were for 

 some distance yellow with the influx of turbid 

 mountain torrents. Trees were hanging their 

 heavy dripping heads, broken and mutilated by 

 the three days' storm. The sea, too, had been at 

 wild work during the night ; and when the Black 

 Sea does wake to mischief it is a demon in its gusty 

 rage. The shore was strewn everywhere with drift- 

 wood, and over the carcass of an unhappy stranded 

 porpoise eagles were poising and soaring. Two of 

 my little party had a touch of the fever, and my 

 own throat was sore and swollen, so that the 

 tonsils seemed almost to choke me if I made any 

 unwonted exertion. It was evidently time to get 

 home. At Heiman's Patch a forest fire had 



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