Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/363

 but they have to be planted. The whole richly cultivated country reminds one of Lombardy, especially of the hilly landscape near Verona. The distant view is as magnificent as the foreground is lovely. On one side you see the Sea of Marmora and the Princess Islands, and on the other the glorious Mount Olympus, whose snow-clad peak rises above a broad girdle of clouds. The flowering vineyards filled the air with rich scent, assisted by caprifolium blossoms in luxuriant growth, and a yellow flower the name of which I do not know.

When we had crossed a ridge of low hills, we saw Brussa stretched out before us in a green plain at the foot of Mt. Olympus. It is indeed difficult to decide which one of the two capitals of the Ottoman rulers is more beautifully situated, the oldest or the newest, Brussa or Constantinople. Here the sea and there the land bewitches you. One landscape is executed in blue, the other in green. Relieved against the steep and wooded slopes of Mt. Olympus, you see more than one hundred white minarets and vaulted domes.

The mountain rises to the regions of almost perpetual snow, and supplies the inhabitants of Brussa with wood to warm themselves in winter and with ice for their sherbet in summer. A river, called Lotos, winds its course through rich meadows and fields of mulberry trees, where giant nut trees with dark foliage and light green planes, white minarets and dark cypress trees rise to the sky. Vines climb up the mighty trunks and attach themselves to the branches, whence they droop again to earth, while Caprifolium plants and thriving creepers superimpose themselves on the vines. Nowhere have I seen such a wide and thoroughly green landscape, except from the tower of Lübbenau, overlooking the woods along the Spree. But here you have in addition the richer vegetation and the glorious mountains which surround the plain. The abundance of water is surprising; everywhere brooks are rushing along and springs are gushing from the rocks, ice cold and boiling hot, side by side.