acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

88 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
that I hoped some day to follow. Its eastern crags
that caught the sun were delicately pink, its farthest
heights were violet ; here and there upon the cliffs
was a flame of scarlet autumn foliage ; and beside
the glassy river were orchards and overhanging
walnut-trees and the white dust}' pathway going on
in shadow and sunlight under the rocks. That old
unknown king, I thought, who chose to have his
sepulchre hewn here, had seen the gorge on some
such afternoon as this.
An hour later I was in Amasia again, endeavouring
to trace, beside the Tombs of the Kings, the names
cut during tedious hours by French prisoners of war
confined in this remote place in 1802.
In all Asia Minor there are no such gardens and
orchards as those of Amasia. They go far up the
gorge ; they go far down it ; I had seen them filling
the ravine from Marsovan plain. A rich soil, abundance
of water, strong sunlight reflected by cliffs, and
heat given off at night by the same rocks, make the
gorge and its ravines a gigantic hothouse. But the
fruit is that of the colder latitudes ; for the winter
climate is severe — there were temperatures much
below zero during the year of my visit. The finest
apples known in Constantinople and the Levant, fine
as the best to be found anywhere, come from these
orchards. In Amasia some call them " English
apples," the original stock having been introduced
from England nearly a century ago : the equally
famed Isbarta pears, grown in the lake district of
southern Asia Minor, are called "English pears" for
the same reason. Amasia apples are of no sort
known to me ; but climate and other conditions of
growth may have changed well-known characteristics.
If it is easy to understand why Seljuk sultans
should have liked Amasia, less apparent are the
causes which drew or sent here a German colony
during the first half of last century. They established
silkworm farms ; they exported silk ; later
they built steam flour-mills ; they engaged in other