Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/351

 THE COUNTRY. 335 trast of climate and the variety of vegetation which meet the traveller as he goes up the valleys abutting to the sea. Along the shore he sees none but lemon and orange groves, the monotony of whose line is broken by pyramid-like cypresses and tall feathery palms. A few hours' walk brings him to a colder zone, where the walnut, cherry, pear, and apple in fact, all the trees of Europe grow in abundance. A day of this continuous ascent amidst hill and dale, his ear caressed the while by the refreshing sound of the waterfall below, lands him in Alpine scenery, which vividly recalls Switzerland and Tyrol. 1 In such conditions as these, all that is needed to escape the extreme of heat or cold is a simple shifting of abode. The seasons, which here may be expected with the regu- larity of clockwork, give the signal for the start. Twice a year, spring and autumn, the whole population is on foot. Every low- land village owns, somewhere in the highlands, its ayala, or summer encampment, generally situated in the clearing of a forest or on its outskirts. Towards the end of May, all the roads are covered with the migratory population, driving before them their flocks and herds, when the stranger who happens to be travelling on these roads must needs stand aside many times in the day, to let them file past. All are eager to escape from the pestilential, burning shore, where every green leaf has withered under the scorch- ing rays of the sun, to go and live three or four months in the cool atmosphere of the hills, near living springs, under the grateful shade of trees, where, too, their animals will find an abundance of grass. Even the most frequented ports are ere long abandoned by all except half a dozen or so of poor wretches, custom officers and shopkeepers, compelled by their professional duties or interests to remain ; the former have to keep an eye over the sailors belong- ing to the ships stationed on the coast, whilst the latter are busy administering to their creature comforts. The example is catch- ing, and more than one mountaineer forsakes his alpine hut for the plain, so that many villages in the higher uplands are deprived of part of their population during the winter months. A few possess on the seaboard a plantation of olives whose berries are ready to be gathered, or a plot of ground that needs sowing, whilst others will go on the farms as shepherds and journeymen. 1 The distance, as a bird flies, between the spot where the Xanthus breaks through the rocky_wall of the Cibyratides plateau, and where it reaches its lower valley, is but some ten kilometres ; the difference of level, however, is eight hundred metres.