PASS IN THE BALKAN MOUNTAINS.
BY HAIDHOS.
In this great and apparently impenetrable chain, five passes have been discovered, each at a considerable distance, by Haidhos, Karabat, Jamboli or Selimno, Kersaulik, and Tâtar-bazaar. Of these, the passes by Haidhos and Tâtar-bazaar are the most picturesque—the one at the east, and the other at the western extremity of the mountains.
From Haidhos the traveller begins to ascend, and, after surmounting the Low Balkans, and passing the lovely valleys between them, finds himself in a deep sequestered vale, surrounded on all sides by mountains. Directly before him is the vast wall of rock, extending interminably both ways, and presenting a perpendicular form ascending to the skies. When close under it, the flank seems suddenly, as it were, torn open by some rupture, presenting a dark chasm, which before was not seen. This he enters beside a rivulet, and for some time descends with it towards the very bowels of the mountain, involved in dim twilight below, and seeing, at an immeasurable distance above, a scarcely describable stripe of blue sky. Ascending, and winding his way, up one side of the chasm, he at length emerges on the summit, and stands on the ridge of the High Balkans, enjoying a prospect, of unparalleled extent and magnificence, of the less elevated hills and plains below. From hence the road proceeds across a kind of table-land, generally enveloped in mist and entangled in morasses, crossed by various ravines and tottering planks, so loosely set as to rise at one end as the traveller presses the other, or by decayed wooden bridges, which frequently break down, and precipitate horse and rider into the abyss below. Reaching the opposite or northern face of the ridge, the way descends to Lopenitza, a Balkan village, after a transit of twenty-seven miles, across the High Balkans, and proceeds to the Danube by Shumla.