560 
AMASIA TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 
picturesque looking men and women, really formed a landscape which 
a Claude, a Hobbima, or a Ruysdael would have envied. We 
soon discovered however the temper of the inhabitants: all the men 
and even boys of ten years old, wore a brace of pistols, and a large 
knife in their girdles; and displayed countenances more expressive of 
savage hardihood than I recollect to have ever seen. This horde of 
desperadoes is extremely obnoxious to the Porte; but, entrenched in 
their woods, they bid defiance to firmans or Capidgi Bashees. Within 
these few years (and the fresh appearance of the houses attests the fact) 
an officer from Constantinople was sent with a large body of men to 
surprise the inhabitants, and either to destroy them or take them pri¬ 
soners ; but they had notice of the design, and fled into the fastnesses 
of the woods, leaving their homes as the prey of the invaders, who im¬ 
mediately burnt them to the ground, destroying all the poor creatures 
that happened to fall into their way. No sooner however had the 
troops of the Porte quitted the territory than the natives returned, 
cleared away the smoking rubbish, and rebuilt their houses, as if nothing 
had happened. 
16th. We were here obliged to pay five piastres a horse to proceed to 
Salary a , distant twelve hours. As we departed from Khandak , the road 
begun gradually to open, and presented to us extensive tracts of culti¬ 
vation. We came to a long causeway of wood, formed indeed only of 
trees thrown across and so completely out of repair, that we passed it 
in many places at the hazard of our lives. At its termination (several 
hours from Khandak) there is a wooden bridge of considerable extent, 
but a part of it had fallen; and we were obliged therefore to ford the 
river over which it is built, and which Avas broad but not deep or rapid, 
although much rain had lately fallen. We followed a cart dragged 
by buffaloes across the stream, and got in safety over it. After the 
passage of the river we reached the borders of the beautiful lake of 
Sabanja, surrounded on all sides by the most enchanting scenery; 
its distant mountains and waters dying aAvay in the softest tints on the 
