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DEVELI KARA HISSAR 247
the village of that name. This huge battlemented
stronghold must surely be one of the greatest castles
in the land, yet of its history nothing remains. It is
no more than seven or eight hundred years old, but
the period of its building, the names of its lords,
the affairs of arms before it, all alike are forgotten.
You may infer the general course of a country's
history by its strong places ; may trace from them
periods of peace, periods of a strong central power,
of strong lesser powers, and of mere petty states
and robber lords, and so doing have the skeleton
of history. But you demand that the skeleton
shall be clothed, that dates and details shall be
given, that some hints of the personality of those
who built, and ruled, and fought in these old controlling
places shall be forthcoming. You require
these particulars—but you never get them in Asia
Minor. You also expect reasonable names for such
castles before you can do them proper reverence,
otherwise they stand without touch of life or reality.
You are seldom out of sight of a castle in Asia Minor
but unless it belongs to some historic city or town you
are always irritated by the trivial name it bears.
You have many Black Castles, you have White
Castle, Snake Castle, Earth Castle, Nose Castle
often there is no other name than merely Castle.
There is even an Asar Kalesi, which may be taken
as Castle Castle. These senseless names are the
ready designations of an invading race who found
the buildings in existence on overrunning the land,
and never put them to any use, nor suffered at the
owners' hands, and see the structures now without
the interest of tradition.
Develi Kara Hissar, like Injesu, made a longer
day's stage than I had expected. But at last the
usual dark line of orchards appeared, and above it
a white minaret or two, and then in a couple of
hours the khan was reached. A little after we
arrived came two za'ptiehs bringing a prisoner taken
in the mountains to the south. He was handcuffed