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EHODIAN MASONS 183
building considerably influenced by medieval France
and England and Italy. The material, too, in which
these masons worked helped them much. It is a
grey -green volcanic stone, light in weight, and so
soft that when quarried it may be cut as easily
as chalk. With this facile material the builders
have built boldly according to their knowledge. The
upper stories of buildings are made to overhang,
carried on rows of heavy corbels, and arches and
vaulting- are used as familiar forms. On the least
opportunity a bold gateway is contrived : even a
door in a plain garden wall is thought worthy of
embellishment, and has a heavy arch or moulding,
or piece of panelled surface. The narrow streets
are never straight, and often are mere flights of
steps. They pass under buildings as stone-vaulted
passages entered by medieval - looking gateways.
Buildings climb upon each other, and the flat roof
of one sometimes abuts ag-ainst the lowest floor
of its neighbour above. The unexpected is never
wanting. You may, for instance, follow a passage a
little way among heavy stone buildings, and presently
find that it dives through an archway and
brings you to a deep ravine spanned by a stone
bridge, with a tumbling waterfall and gardens and
orchards in the bottom. For in Talas there is no
lack of water : streams come down from the high
land behind and are carried into gardens in channels
for irrigation.
Looking westward from Talas the plain is bounded
on the south by the first slopes of Argaeus, covered
here with orchards and vineyards counted among
the finest in the country. Thousands of acres so
planted are in view from the town. They provide
the only foliage of the district, for you find it hard
to discover a dozen trees in the whole scene except
in orchards and gardens. On the north are bare
brown hills with many folds, and much of the plain
has the same barren appearance.
From almost any building on Talas hill you look