AMASIA TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 359 
take refuge in an open shed on the outside, where I slept very soundly 
till the morning. 
15th. As the morning broke, we proceeded on our journey, and pene¬ 
trated the deeps of the forest. The road, in some of its windings through 
the rich wood-land, presented some of the most fanciful and picturesque 
landscapes that the imagination of a painter could wish. I remarked 
some of the finest specimens of ash, elm, plane, poplar, larch and 
beech; with, now and then, some oaks larger than any that I had 
ever seen in Asia. This forest, which extends over a vast tract of 
country*, supplies an unceasing source of timber to the arsenals of 
Constantinople. Their mode of felling the tree is susceptible of much 
improvement; for they first burn it towards the root, (by which they 
injure the finest part of the wood) and then apply the axe. In our 
progress we overtook immense spars which were dragged by buffaloes, 
and by slow journies are thus brought to Constantinople. Each end 
is supported on a light carriage of two wheels ; but it requires all the 
prodigious strength of the buffaloe (and no other animal is equal to 
the attempt) to be able to cope with the difficulties which the extreme 
badness of the roads in the rainy season presents. We heard the 
howling of wolves all around us; and their great numbers are some¬ 
times fatal to those travellers, who risk themselves at night through the 
wilds of the forest. 
Khandak , our next stage, twelve miles from Boli , is famed for the 
ferocity and wild freedom of its inhabitants. It is a village situated 
in the very heart of the forest, and its first appearance presents all the 
beauty that an intermixture of wood, water, cultivation, and buildings 
can combine. The low houses, with their shelving roofs nicely tiled, 
at the foot of lofty trees, (with partial openings here and there, where 
murmured a stream of pure water); still more enlivened by the most 
* It is called the Agatch Degnis , or u Sea of Trees.” See its extent in Otter. Tom. II. 
