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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photo by Ellsworth Huntington 

 MARBLE GORGE OE THE EUPHRATES NEAR KEBAN MAADEN 



In ancient times marble was quarried on the right of the river and was apparently floated 



down stream on rafts 



The customs, manner of life, and mode 

 of thought of the Turks and Armenians 

 are fairly well known; but those of the 

 Kurds have been studied comparatively 

 little. A few examples will give an idea 

 of certain of the most noteworthy Kurd- 

 ish characteristics. In the spring of 1901 

 the writer, in company with Professor 

 Thomas H. Norton, U. S. Consul at 

 Harput, was able to make a trip of two 

 hundred miles down the Euphrates River 

 through the great series of canyons by 

 which the river traverses the Taurus 

 Mountains. Only once before had the 

 journey been made — by the great Ger- 

 man general, Von Moltke, in 1838. 



The raft was made of sheep skins r 

 taken off entire and inflated with air. 

 Thirty such skins, like great bladders,, 

 were tied under a frame of poles, and 

 made a wonderfully buoyant raft. Rapids 

 abound and our Armenian raftsmen 

 feared to shoot them. Accordingly, at 

 first we made arduous portages around 

 rapid after rapid, climbing far up the 

 steep walls of the canyon and descending 

 over the rockiest of trails. 



At length the canyon became so narrow 

 that it was impossible longer to scale the 

 sides, and we were obliged to shoot 

 rapids much larger than those around 

 which we had wearily climbed. Time 



