acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

72 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
foreign visitors will come to Araasia in numbers and
declare that in wonder of situation combined with
haunting charm they have never seen anything quite
its equal.
It has a slight resemblance to Dinant, but with
the physical features of that town magnified out of
comparison. The gorge is about a mile in width,
enclosed by stark precipices which rise, you are told,
some 3000 feet on the eastern side, and a third that
height on the western. Small lateral ravines ascend
steeply into the heart of the rocks. On the western
side is a fine old castle crowning a crag which
falls sheer to the town for a thousand feet. Amasia
City, once the capital of Pontus, and birthplace of
Mithridates the Great, and still an important place
with a population of 60,000, lies in the bottom
between these great precipices. It stretches for
more than a mile along both banks of the Yeshil
Irmak— better known perhaps by its ancient name
of Iris. A score of bridges, one at least showing
Roman work, and others Seljukian, span the river,
which runs between gardens and trees, and mosques
and quaint old overhanging buildings, and crowded
Eastern streets. There are many great water-wheels
raising water for irrigation, whose slowly tipped
buckets make a pervading sound like the ticking
of gigantic clocks. Between the precipices the
gorge is packed with houses and gardens, terraced
in the ravines and on the slopes. There are
Seljukian mosques, colleges, khans, and monuments.
There is Roman work and Mithridatic work ; and
looking down on all from the face of the western
precipice are the five great rock-hewn Tombs of
the Kings. They were old when Strabo, who was
born here In B.C. &5, wrote of them, and they remain
now unchanged and uninjured from the time
they were cut. High cliffs are impressive enough
when overhanging sea or river or lake ; but when,
as here, they are upon the grandest scale, and confront
one another across a belt of crowded city, they