From Berlin to Bagdad and Babylon

by J. A. Zahm

On our way across the Taurus we followed in the footsteps of Alexander and the Crusaders as far as the Vale of Bozanti. Here the Bagdad Railway diverges slightly eastward from the old military and trade route which passes through the Cilician Gates. As we preferred to follow the old historic route to passing through nearly eleven miles of railway tunnels, we left the train at Bozanti Khan and proceeded by carriage through the Cilician Gates to Tarsus.

We were well repaid for so doing, for we had, in consequence, one of the most delightful mountain drives in the world. On each side of the road were towering heights clothed with forests of pine and other evergreens, while rising far above these was the sky-piercing summit of Bulgar Dagh covered with a mantle of snow of dazzling whiteness. Further on our way

The pass expands

Its strong jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,

And seems with its accumulated crags,

To overhang the world.

And, as if to give life and variety to the majestic scene, we saw circling the fantastic peaks and hovering above the beetling crags in quest of prey, a number of great bare-necked vultures, which seemed to be fully as large as the lammergeier of the Alps and no mean rivals of the condor of the Andes.

The narrow gorge known as the Cilician Gates answers perfectly to Cicero’s appellation of Pylæ-Tauri, gateway of the Taurus. And it corresponds almost equally well with Xenophon’s description of it when he declares it “but broad enough for a chariot to pass with great difficulty.” On both sides of the mountain torrent which rushes along the historic roadway are lofty and almost vertical precipices that could easily be so fortified as to convert it into a Thermopylæ, where a handful of men could hold a large army at bay. It was indeed by fortressing this pass that Mehemet Ali was long able, in defiance of the power of the Turkish Sultan, to retain control of Syria.

Shortly after emerging from the Pylæ Ciliciæ we catch our first view of the famed Cilician Plain, the Cilicia Campestris, which occupies so large a page in the history of this part of the world. Through it we see coursing like silver bands the distant rivers of familiar names—the Sarus, the Pyramus, and the Cydnus. The road in the vicinity of the pass is fringed with forests of pine and plane trees, under whose outstretched branches flows a leaping, laughing, tuneful stream which is ever making the same gladsome music as it did when St. Paul passed this way bearing the joyful tidings of the Gospel to the receptive peoples of Asia Minor. But as we near the plain we note a marked change in climate. Vegetation is not only more luxuriant but is almost semi-tropical in character. The road is bordered with laurel, bay, cedar, evergreen oak, wild fig, and wild olive. There are thickets of myrtle and oleander draped with wild vines and creepers, which greatly enhance the picturesqueness of the enchanting scene.

It was along this road, embowered in all the verdure and bloom of a semi-tropical climate, that the weary and footsore Crusaders passed after their long and toilsome march through the burning desert of Phrygia. Now that they had crossed the formidable Taurus, the greatest barrier athwart their long line of march, and were at last about to tread the sacred soil of the Holy Land, we can easily imagine the joy with which they chanted their favorite hymns, the enthusiasm with which they filled the air with their war cry, Dieu le veult. Clad in polished armor, shining brightly in the Syrian sun, and exultantly marching under their great banners, they form a magnificent pageant, worthy of the chivalry of the Ages of Faith and of the noble cause in which they have magnanimously pledged fortune and life. And as the Christian host moves onward towards its goal, “one pictures, above the lines of steel, the English leopards, the lilies of France, the great sable eagle of the Empire and then the other coats of the great houses of Europe—chevrons and fesses and pales”—ever triumphantly approaching the Holy City until at last they are privileged to “plant above the Holy Sepulchre the banner with the five potent crosses, argent and or, unearthly, wonderful as should be the arms of the heavenly Jerusalem.”