acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

144 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
By ten o'clock the grey city of Sivas was in sight,
making an imposing appearance as I marched towards
it on a long, straight, dusty road, at the end of which
stood the citadel on ?- bold rock. In the background,
to the left, perched on a higher and more broken rock,
were a mosque and minaret. Other lofty tower-like
structures rose above the city's roofs, and they, I
knew, must be the Seljukian minarets, erected when
the city was a Seljuk capital. Neither gardens nor
orchards, such as usually enclose a Turkish town,
appeared on this side, so the brown open country
swept up to the buildings, which began abruptly,
like a wall.
Sivas is built in the valley of the Kizil Irmak,
hereabouts an almost level plain six or seven miles
across. The south - eastern side of the valley is
bounded by treeless mountains, whose rocky summits,
rising abruptly, stand two or three thousand feet
above the plain. The opposite side of the valley is
closed by rounded downs broken into gypsum cliffs
and small glens, and in a few miles goes up to the
much higher ground of Melekum Dagh. Although
water is abundant, no trees except a few poplars
and willows are seen ;
it is a bleak, graceless country,
with a drab city planted in its midst. Some
tell you that climate is the cause ;
that with long
winters of deep snow and hard frost in a valley 4500
feet above sea -level you are not to expect foliage
and fruit, you are to be well content with wheat and
the enormous cabbages peculiar to the district. But
what traveller with a liking for forest and rich
orchards will receive this as an adequate explanation
? The truth is that Sivas, as an old city, has
improvidently burnt its forests for fifty or sixty
miles around ; and as for fruit, there are many places
with colder winters and less summer heat where fruit
of various sorts is grown. Such a traveller looks at
the people of Sivas and finds the true cause of these
sylvan shortcomings in them. But when so much
is hinted some blame the Government and some the