34 ACROSS THE TAURUS. 



CHAPTER III. 



ACROSS THE TAURUS. 



Difficulties of travel in the winter — An Eastern road — The Axylon plateau 

 — Off the road at night — Eregli — Through the Taurus mountains — 

 The defile at Bozanti — A pleasant Chi^istmas ! — A silver mine — Death 

 of a kaimakam — Bad weather — The Cilician Gates — An ancient high- 

 way of nations — The trac^ of the future railway not through the Gates 

 — Reach the Cilician plain and Mersina. 



Any one who undertakes under existing circumstances 

 to travel from Konia to the Cilician plain in the depth 

 of winter must not expect to find the experience a 

 pleasurable one. In the event of his being overtaken 

 by continuous bad weather, as I was, he will find it a 

 journey productive of a minimum of pleasure and a 

 maximum of discomfort. The road — where there is any 

 — is sufiiciently bad to preclude the possibility of pro- 

 ceeding at anything better than a walk ; the only 

 shelters in which to spend the night are miserable 

 hovels, affording no conveniences beyond the walls, 

 roof, and, as a rule, mud floor, infested by vermin and 

 indescribably filthy ; and, finally, if unprovided with 

 cooking-pots, washing-basin, and whatsoever else confers 

 upon life a modicum of comfort, the traveller will have 

 to content himself with whatever food his foresight may 

 happen to have provided him with, cooked in the un- 

 savoury and uninviting-looking utensil that will be 

 offered him, and to look forward to a succession of days 



