The experience of this night completed the catalogue of inconveniences to which we had been exposed since the commencement of our journey. I would advise every traveller who pursues the same route, to provide himself with a hammock and blankets, a stock of tea, sugar, candles, liquors, soap, and salt, two kettles, and a drinking-horn, (for in few places will he meet with any of these articles), as well as an umbrella, which can by no means be dispensed with. This equipage, (together with proper instruments), is necessary for a person who travels to make observations on the country, and will require two baggage-mules to carry it.
We set out next morning at six, without breakfast, not being able to procure either coffee or milk; and proceeding six miles, through a fine open country, arrived at a large village called Louza, containing full two thousand inhabitants. It is well built, but as I was informed, has much declined from its former consequence, which it owed principally to the rich mines in its vicinity, now almost exhausted. We procured a tolerable breakfast of coffee and eggs at a _vend_; and, while we partook of it, were much amused by the numbers of inhabitants, who crowded the door in eager curiosity to see us, asking a variety of questions of a political nature, and forming endless conjectures respecting the object of our journey.
Leaving this village about eleven o’clock, we proceeded along a range of mountains composed of argillaceous schistus, and passed a hill covered with micaceous iron ore: in one part of it there was a break that showed marks of stratification, which appeared vertical, or it was probably a strong vein of ferruginous matter, which traversed the mountain. I was not a little surprised to find that the road, for above half a mile, was covered with rich oxide of iron.