38 ACROSS THE TAURUS. 



this passage stands Ak Keupri, the "white bridge" 

 over the Tchakid Su, and a miserable khan. Here I 

 spent Christmas night, and can corroborate the state- 

 ment lately made by Professor Ramsay that the new 

 khan which has been built in the course of the last few 

 years at the north end of the bridge " is, if possible, 

 dirtier and more miserable than the old khans on this 

 route." ^ The fire which I lit in the centre of the 

 hovel soon melted the accumulated snow on the roof, 

 which thenceforward dripped steadily through, while a 

 biting wind whistled shrilly through the many chinks 

 in the thin wood wall. 



A short distance before reaching the defile as one 

 approaches from the west stands the guard-house of 

 Chifte Khan, from which runs a road to Bulg-ar Maden, 

 where a silver-mine is worked under the direction of a 

 kaimakam, the output amounting to two pony-loads 

 a- week, according to the information which I was given 

 on the spot. The chausse leading to it was the delight 

 of the kaimakam of Marash, to whose energy and pro- 

 gressive ideas its construction was due. I say ivas, 

 because — tragic example of the irony of fate — it was 

 while inspecting the very work of which he was so 

 justly proud that he met his death, being pitched 

 over one of the precipices which he had spent his 

 time in rendering passable a few weeks before I passed 

 through. 



After crossing the Tchakid Su by the bridge at Ak 

 Keupri, the road runs south-east, and later on south, 

 passing first through a fine glen, and then ascending to 

 a small open tableland known as the Tekir Plateau, 

 at an altitude of about 4300 feet, 20 kilometres from 

 Ak Keupri. And it is to the summit of this small 

 plateau that the evolution of modern warfare has trans- 



1 Journal E.G.S., October 1903. 



