AN INFERIOR HARBOUR. 91 



district. The answer is to be found partly in the fact 

 of some hitch having arisen in the negotiations for buy- 

 ing up the line entered upon by the German company, 

 and partly in the unsuitableness of Mersina as a port. 

 A demand was long since made, it is true, by the pro- 

 moters of the Mersina- Adana Eailway for a concession 

 for improving the port by means of a breakwater, but 

 this, victim perhaps of the intrigue of rival schemes, 

 still lies with many another in the dead letter office at 

 Yildiz. From the description given in chap. iv. it will 

 have been gathered that in Cilicia the Government 

 have so far displayed an extraordinary aptitude for 

 burying their talent in the ground, and further com- 

 ment is unnecessary here. Passing mention has also 

 been made of the probable line of ascent and descent of 

 the range of the Giaour Dagh. Though a system of no 

 great Mndth, the traveller crossing it will find ample 

 grounds for singing its praises, the snow-bound wall 

 of the higher peaks standing out in sharp contrast 

 above the lower slopes, clothed with a mantle of 

 mountain laurel, box, and ilex bushes. 



In the vicinity of Killis vast groves of olives fill the 

 view, and the rolling expanse between that place and 

 Aleppo presents a broad smiling stretch of well- 

 cultivated plain. 



From this description it will be gathered that thus 

 far the line will pass through a country of vast latent 

 possibilities, which is blessed even now by considerable 

 agricultural and commercial development ^ and some of 



1 As evidence of the development of the countiy by railways, see the 

 report published by the Public Debt Administration in 1903, wherein it is 

 estimated that the tithes of the districts traversed or affected by the rail- 

 ways have increased in the last twelve years by 46 per cent. According to 

 Consul Waugh, the Angora district, which exported no grain before the 

 railway was opened, now has an annual export of wheat and barley valued 

 at from £1,500,000 to £2,000,000. 



