The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-11-09 00:00:00

'e sat each as though he had been suddenly stricken into

the guide, with true Turkish apathy, or philosophy,
or resignation—call it what you will—calmly laid the bridle
upon the neck of his horse, folded his arms upon his breast,
and abandoned himself to his fate. The rest of the party
were powerless ; and for full two minutes, which to me in
their duration appeared rather to have been two hours, we
remained upon that dizzy path, hopeless and motionless ;
when suddenly the horse of the guide, probably becoming
weary of his position, and meeting with no opposition from
his rider, turned like a goat upon the narrow ridge, and all
the other animals, as if in obedience to the same instinct,
immediately, but with the utmost caution and precision, fol-
lowed the fearful example. No! did I live for centuries, I
never could forget that moment. The unuttered prayer,
which as the Rev. Robert Montgomery beautifully describes
"glanced up to heaven " at that instant, was surely
most earnest of my life. My next look was below—there

it, was

sled the torrent, and there lay the dark masses of rock,

•
heaving themselves up on all sides like monuments of ruin
and what increased the terror of the glance was the fact that
my foot hung over the chasm as we passed along, and that
the heavy folds of my riding dress, inflated by the sharp
breezes of the mountain side, were extended far beyond the
.dge of the rock.

I feel that the anecdote, as an anecdote, is nothing; but
when I remember the sensation which I experienced as we
retraced that mountain path to the spot where we had en-
tered upon it, I can never sufficiently admire the mercy of
the great and beneficent Creator, who endowed the inferior
animals with an instinct so marvellous and so beautiful.

Nor were we much less indebted to our sagacious animals
after our descent from Olympus into the plain, in the midst
of the most terrific storm of rain and thunder that 1 ever ex-

perienced, either before or since. The vapours from the
numerous torrents which intersect the rock-strewn desert—

ich it may fairly be termed—which stretches far away

from the foot of the giant mountain, lashed into fury by the
tempest, overflowed their channels, and created a dense fog
about us, which even the fierce lightnings failed to penetrate
—until a moving darkness gathered round us so dense that
we could not see beyond our saddles ; while the howling of
the storm was answered by the fierce roaring of the bears
which infest the neighbourhood, and house themselves among
the scattered rocks.
All choice of road was of course impossible ; but never-
theless, cur guide, anxious to redeem his error of the morn-
ing, strove manfully for a weary hour to direct our steps ;
nor was it until his hope of success was fairly exhausted
that he suggested to us the expediency of laying the reins on
the neck of our several horses, and abandoning ourselves to
their guidance,only taking the precaution to keep up a con-
versation at the pitch of our voices, in order to prevent our
separating in the fog. We followed his advice, and ere ano-
ther half hour had elapsed we found ourselves in the bed of
an exhausted torrent, along which the weary animals crept
carefully, and which terminated within half a league of the
rates of Broussa.