Page:The nomads of the Balkans, an account of life and customs among the Vlachs of Northern Pindus (1914).djvu/53

 so through Baieasa to Yannina and Metsovo, or through Armata to Konitsa.

There is yet another road leaving on the western side and leading up the hill. It starts between a sweet shop and a food shop, and then zigzags up the hill side in a space bare of houses leaving some distance to the left the large house which served as a Turkish gendarmerie station. We next reach a level space on the top of the steep pitch just ascended which is called Gudrumitsa. On our left is a low wooden sweet shop which is a favourite place for young men to forgather in the evening. They sit at the shop front consuming sweets and looking at the view, especially observing the Ghrevena road to see who is coming up. Behind this shop is a large stone-built house with a courtyard in front surrounded by a high stone wall (Plate XVI 1) which was the scene of the treacherous seizure of the robber chieftains in 1881 described below. We turn round to the left by this house leaving on our right another road that leads north towards Little St Mary’s. We go along a flat space for some little distance till we reach another conduit, below which on our left is a kind of natural amphitheatre containing a few houses and gardens and in its centre the small shrine of Ayios Kosmas, supposed to mark the spot where he preached. From the conduit just mentioned we bear away to the left towards the ravine that cuts off the ridge of Aigl'a from the rest of the village. On the bank of the ravine by the road is the Shoput al Dabura also fed by a spring which rises just by it and is considered by some to supply better water even than Papazisi. Directly beyond we cross the ravine by a well-built wooden bridge and reach the group of houses inhabited by the Dabura family. Hence the road goes slanting gradually up the bare side of Gorgul'u into the bottom of the pine wood, climbs over the shoulder of the ridge and dips sharply down into the Vale Kama where there are five saw mills. The Vale Kârnă (Snubnose Valley) is a deep rift cut into the central mass of Zmolku. Its head lies midway between the bases of the peaks known as Zmolku and Moasha, and the torrent that runs down it is fed by the few patches of perpetual snow that lie in deep clefts on the eastern