A RIDE TO MAGNESIA. 127 



childhood, are on the happiest terms of intimacy : 

 surnames are almost obsolete. Ungrateful must the 

 heart be that can remember without pleasure days 

 passed in their society, where every house is open, 

 and every face has a smile for the guest. There is one 

 particular spot here, called the Three Wells, where 

 my evening's walk has ever brought before me images 

 fraught with recollection of Rebecca's introduction to 

 Isaac, or of Jacob wooing Rachel. "We now passed 

 into the open country, where the road, leading over 

 a low ridge of hills, becomes of less definite track. 

 And the last village was passed, and thenceforward 

 we were to meet stations only as rare landmarks. 

 Hereabouts sugar, as a general luxury, disappears ; 

 the caffedyis supplying the mere coffee, unless some 

 more luxurious stranger demand the drug. It is then 

 dealt out from a small private store, and notified by 

 a separate charge in the bill. The homely old Turks 

 are ignorant of the uses of sugar ; and it would seem 

 that their language does not supply a descriptive term, 

 as their " $liuk-kar " is evidently a mispronunciation 

 of our word. One could not without romancing say 

 much of the beauty of the country through which we 

 were passing at this early stage of our journey. It 

 is even flat and tame, and appears to be so more 

 decidedly by contrast with most that lies in this 

 region. Almost everywhere else the prospect is 

 bounded by beautiful hills, here and there aspiring 

 to the character of mountains, whose sides vary con- 



