A GORGEOUS SUNSET. 51 



across the rich level plain to Missis, a village on the 

 Jihun river situated at the foot of the Jebel Nur, 

 which I have already described as dividing the two 

 halves of the Cilician plain. A little farther on, on 

 the far side of the river, which is crossed by a good 

 stone bridge, the remains of a building of solid masonry 

 comes into view, one of many such ruins which are to 

 be seen in the eastern half of the Cilician plain, one 

 and all bearing eloquent testimony to the severity of 

 the border warfare of which the country was formerly 

 the scene. 



Towards evening on the second day we passed the 

 ruins of a famous stone castle, Toprak Kaleh, on the 

 summit of a low hill ; and a few minutes later, a short 

 time before reaching Osmaniyeh, a small village where 

 we intended halting for the night, were treated to one 

 of those magnificent sunsets which are perhaps char- 

 acteristic rather of the stormy skies of the wild west 

 than of the placid serenity which one associates with 

 the eastern heavens. As we marched steadily east 

 the snow - clad peaks in front of us were suddenly 

 suffused with a glow of pink, while to the west a 

 crimson band shot across the horizon, resting for a 

 moment on the low hills behind us, to cast a lurid light 

 across a heavy bank of scowling storm-clouds imme- 

 diately above ere it gradually faded from view, leaving 

 the landscape as it went to the neutral tint of night. 



The whole of the eastern division of Cilicia presents 

 a more broken surface than does the western, and 

 warrants its description by Schlumberger as " un pays 

 fort accidente." In places I observed the land being 

 ploughed with primitive implements of wood drawn 

 by oxen ; in others large flocks of sheep and herds of 

 goats were to be seen, and sometimes big droves of 

 cattle. A good deal of scrub is observable in parts, 



