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A NEW PARADISE 181 Before me in crumpled curves was the road descending into the distance, sometimes hidden in a cutting, sometimes by a projecting rock, and again reappearing on the brink of some folded hollow ; and every hollow and valley, so far as my eye could distinguish, was green and soft with a crowd of various leafage. Near me in a gorge were the tops of a thicket of oleanders, on a ledge a little way off was a large slender acacia, and on the lower levels, though all details vanished, I recognised the green of grass and a medley of terraced olive-yards. Mrs. St. John's house was, I knew, some way out of Kyrenia, but I knew no more than that either of its locality or its situation. Scotty, however, with a wag of his head towards the coachman, had already said to me, ' Eight, sir. This fellow, he know.' So when, overjoyed with the prospect, I again entered the carriage, I resigned myself without anxiety to the passive pleasures of expectancy. We had not, however, proceeded for more than half an hour—we were still amongst the mountains, and Kyrenia was still far below us—when the coachman stopped his horses, and Scotty, scrambling down, came to me and said with a certain air of apology, ' This fellow, he ask is it this house you want to go to ? ' ' What does he mean ? ' I exclaimed, when I got out and looked about me. ' Where is the house ? I can see no house anywhere.' The road at the spot where we had halted was beginning to grow steep, and was curving round the sides of an acclivity which

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