Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1915-02-13

VI IrunQle over lHe series Vi
mud holes and hillocks
which pass for streets in Tarsus. For
we were to go right through that most
famous pass in history, the Cilician
gates, over the crest of the Taurus
mountains, ON to the high plateau of
eastern Asia Minor, writes Basil
Mathews in the Culver.
Alexander the Great poured his
hosts onto the plain of Cilicia and
into Syria through this narrow, pro-
found gorge, which could be barred
by the single gate of an ordinary
castle. Cyrus and his 10000 Greeks
plunged from the great road on the
Anatolian plateau which lies beyond
the snow ridge Of Taurus down on to
these plains. Later the Roman legions
Numbered down this road to Tarsus.
This. too, is the gorge into whose
shadow Paul passed, to come out on
the shining tableland of Anatolia,
where Iconium and Derbe and Lystra,
with Pisidian Antioch, waited for his
word. Through these Gates also,
Frederick Barbarossa poured his
hosts to join Richard the Lion-heart
at Acre.
The ARABIA or Turkish wagon (Which
was to be our home for the next two
days. is seatless spring carriage,
covered from end to end with hood
borne by eight supports. From the
hood hang curtains which can be
rolled up in fine weather and dropped
to keep out rain and wind. You lay
your bedding on the floor of the
ding, your travelling cases at the back
to lean against; and in this oriental
repose look out on the scenery-oI
sleep.
Our wiry, slight horses pegged on
breaking into trot on the occasions
when the road really was a road
Their brides sparkled with blue
beads. which are most powerful in
averting the evil eye. The araba-j
(wagon-man) was stoutly-buili
young fellow, who drove with one les
curled up under him, and made slow
large gestures when he spoke, with 9
rare mixture of unconscious dignity
and oriental leisure.
Across the Plain.
For an hour or more we drove
across the plain, the arched hood Of
the wagon framing the huge white bull
wark of the Taurus. The range lifted
itself as though to bar the way. The
great, brown, comfortable Ciliciar
plain, fertile with the deposit of q
thousand centuries from the noun
tains, was broken here and again by
the uprising of the sharp conical mass
of some hill-like that of the Seven
Sleepers with its cave. Every here
and there sprays of anemones Col
every tint from palest heliotrope to
deep purple) were scattered among
crocuses whose white and yellow
heads broke-almost stallSless =
through the earth.
i We took backward look at the
great plain, flooded with afternoon
light, caught the distant CLINT of the
sea over Mersina, and drove on north,
ward. A short precipitous, forbidding
ravine Of brownish,gray scared rock
so sheer and steep that it looked as
though some angry god had hewn il
open with an ak, was the one strik
Ing break in the normal gradual rise
Of the road, up and on, twisting and
recoiling. but always finally moving
. north.
Swinging round a rocky corner, we
made narrow plain-a miniature
plateau of the hills. where, behind 9
: khan, the camels were grouped in
J brown circles, heads down as though
} settling into a Rugby Serum" bu
actually just feeding from sackfu
Of fodder thrown down.
, Then We turned sharply into tn,
gateway of Yeni-khan New khan)
The adjective new" sounded good t.