In the time of Herodotus the country around Angora was obviously regarded as a part of Phrygia, the eastern boundary of which was the Halys, dividing it from Cappadocia,[60] yet we have preferred to look upon this as a northern region apart, and to assign to the Phrygian country its later and more familiar boundaries. As such Phrygia forms the geographical centre of the western portion of the peninsula. Here is the main watershed, in which are found the head-waters of three river systems. On the one side are the sources of the Hermus and the Mæander flowing down to the Ægean in the west; on another rises the Cayster (the Akkar-tchai), and several smaller rivers which follow a southerly or south-easterly course, emptying into inland lakes; while from the northern slopes, as we have previously noticed, other waters feed the Sangarius, and are rolled with the flood of that river into the Black Sea eastward from the Bosphorus. These uplands are among the most attractive parts of Asia Minor; the bracing air is filled with the delicious scent of pine-woods, the verdant pastures are well watered by numerous clear streams, and the meadows ripen under a glowing sun, the rays of which are tempered by the altitude. Here, too, are numerous monuments of the Phrygian kingdom; while north-east from these, at Doghanlu Daresi, on one of many minor tributaries of the Sangarius, and south-west at Bey-Keui, at one of the sources of the same river, near the summit of the watershed, there have been found traces of Hittite handiwork. Through the heart of this region, too, there passed the royal road of Persian times,[61] visible as a series of parallel scars in the surface rock. This was the main highway linking West with East, and that it developed largely during Hittite times also is seen by the disposition of Hittite monuments along its track. Near the coast, it passed near where the sculptures of Sipylus and Kara-Bel looked down on the approaches to Smyrna and to Ephesus. From Sardis its precise route eastward is not determined, but it must have entered the Phrygian country near Bey-Keui, whence it is traceable past Bakshish and the monument of the Phrygian Midas, near which is also the Hittite sculpture at Doghanlu Daresi. Still leading north-westward past Giaour-Kalesi, it would seem to have crossed the Sangarius near to Yarre, and the Halys either at or just northwards from Cheshme Keupru,[62] heading in all this otherwise unexplained détour for Boghaz-Keui, the chief centre of the Hittites in the north. This road had already lost its main objective even in Persian times, for Pteria seems never to have recovered from its overthrow by Crœsus, but it continued to be used, probably because it was ready made; and its traces remain, like the isolated monuments of the Hittites in the west, striking witnesses to a vast system of government and economic organisation unlike anything in later times. For our immediate purpose it is sufficient to notice that all the clearly Hittite monuments westward of the Halys are found along this single line of road, a fact which is as significant as it is remarkable.
PLATE XVII
NEFEZ-KEUI: CARPET-WEAVING (See [p. 31].)
We do not include in the foregoing considerations the region of which Iconium (Konia) is the centre, which fills the southern corner of the tableland. Several main roads radiate naturally from this place, which is the chief town of the province; there are, however, only two or three with which we are even indirectly concerned. Of these one leads north-westward, passing Ilgîn at a distance of about fifty miles, and so into Phrygia, which it approaches up the valley of the inland Cayster. The second is that which leads eastward across the plains by Sultan Han and Akserai for Cæsarea; and a third, bending southward to avoid the desert plains, communicates by Eregli with the Cilician Gates and with Tyana (Kilisse Hissar). In ancient times there must have been a more direct road connecting Iconium with Tyana, passing by Ardistama, the site of which is still marked in what is now desert by the name of Arissama, with the neighbouring mounds of Emir-Ghazi.[63]
Around and northward from Iconium there are extensive grass plains, the natural grazing ground of horses which are sent in great droves annually to the fairs and markets of the country, even as far as Baghdad. The breeds are not remarkable for quality, and cannot compare with those rare and beautiful animals reared in the plains that border the middle course of the Euphrates; but they are for the most part a hardy species standing little higher than a European pony, useful for transport, and trained for the saddle to the fast walking pace in which long journeys are always made.[64] The rivers of this region are short and local, ending for the most part upon the plains in salt lakes and marshes, which, after the snows have ceased to melt, become almost dry, leaving the ground covered with white incrustation. Some of these lakes are of such volume as to be permanent; the largest of the kind, as has already been mentioned, is Tuz Geul; its waters are more dense even than those of the Dead Sea, and as they recede with the approach of summer they leave behind thick deposits of salt, collected regularly by the natives, who come many days’ journey for the purpose.
There is another great lake a long day’s journey westward from Iconium; its situation, however, is quite different from the foregoing, as it is well up in the western mountains, nearly four thousand feet above the sea. The town of Beyshehr, which gives its name to the lake, is found on its south-eastern corner; and the road thereto from Iconium passes by Fassiler, a place remarkable for its ancient monuments and the peculiar facial type of its inhabitants. Further to the north, and near the eastern border of the lake, is Eflatoun-Bunar, the site of a famous ‘Lycaonian’ structure called ‘Plato’s spring.’ With the tract westward of Konia, however, we have at present little concern,[65] and when we turn eastward we are inclined to regard the Hittite sites, whether along the edge of Taurus like Mahalich and Ivrîz, or isolated in the desert like Emir-Ghazi, as pertaining not to Konia, from which they are separated by desert, but to the same group as Tyana, with which they are to some extent geographically connected.
PLATE XVIII
NEFEZ KEUI: MINARET OF THE VILLAGE MOSQUE