We were awakened early by the departure, before sunrise, of the men and animals who, quartered in the yard of which our shed formed part, had not given us much peace during the night. We were not loth, on our part, to leave the tent, which had caught and retained the smell rising up from the sodden earth floor, until we were nearly choked with the fumes. It was still raining, and the peaks we had ridden under the day before were shrouded in mist. We kept on descending slowly, and by and by came out on a piece of open moor land. The sun began to appear again now. We were leaving it all behind, the cold and the wet and the storms of the hills. We were getting into the stillness of the plains again. The men took off their overcoats and rolled them up on their saddles behind. One by one we shed the wraps which had seemed so thin and inefficient under the snowy heights; they were getting unbearable here.
We expected at every turn to get a view of the sea. In spite of this, its first appearance was so sudden as to come as a surprise. We rounded a corner, and there it lay, as we had pictured it on the other side, still and bright, with no suggestion of storm and turmoil. It was not till that moment that we had the distinct feeling of having crossed the barrier. Each step forward now unrolled bit by bit the stretch of plain at our feet. There was the Cydnus winding its easy course through fertile lands as if there were no trouble in its rising waters. There was Tarsus, its flat roofs so sunk in gardens and fruit-trees that minarets and domes alone proclaimed the presence of a large town; and there, too, still faint and dim, but unmistakable, was the thin, moving line of smoke which proclaimed that we were nearing the land of the Monster once more.
Can it be that the day is not far distant when this one will join hands with its brother through the barrier we have crossed; and tearing through these silent plains and the rugged fastnesses of these great hills, destroy the mystery over which they have so long kept their sacred guard?
CHAPTER VI
ROYAL PROGRESS
In the line of country stretching from Tarsus eastward to Urfa, there is a series of stations of the American Mission Board. Travelling as we did, in the direction of this line, we made these stations our stages, and hired horses and men afresh at each place.
At Tarsus we camped in the playground of the mission school run by Dr. Christie. On the evening of our arrival out of the Taurus Mountains we were eating off spotless cloths with knives and forks, and were singing "Onward, Christian soldiers" with a hundred Armenian and Greek students.
The plunge out of rough travelling into these oases of civilisation is very sudden, and the contrast gives a full meaning to the advantages and disadvantages of both forms of existence.
The missionaries are the embodiment of hospitality. They know also what the discomforts of our journey have been, for they have gone through much the same experience themselves in order to arrive at their present homes; and so we find hot baths awaiting us and fresh supplies of hairpins; buttons are sewn on, and clothes sent to the wash. We are started off on the road again clean and tidy, and with a linen bag full of home-made white bread, which will see us through many days. We also carry with us thoughts of the splendid work which is being done by them, and of the hardship and danger many of them have gone through in carrying out this work of education among these Eastern Christians. Gathered round the fire at night we would listen to tales of bloodshed and massacre, of domestic tragedies and individual heroism, of anxiety and hope all told with that simplicity and quietness which bears the stamp of a personal experience which has come face to face with the real facts of life in a barbaric land.