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THE BAGDAD RAILWAY 271
mere goat-track that often disappeared and had to
be picked up again. By it in a couple of hours
we climbed high amid the scrub, and pine forest,
and grey crags, and tumbled rocks of the Bulgar
Dagh.
While upon this ascent the rumble of distant
thunder, as it seemed to be, came again and again
reverberating among the cliffs and peaks. The morning
was sunny, without sign of cloud ; but thunderstorms
of the Taurus are said to follow laws of their
own and come without warning, so the sound caused
no surprise. I had heard much of the sudden
storms and floods of this region, in which dry ravines
become raging torrents ten feet deep, sweeping down
boulders and trees, and are dry again in an hour,
and I rather hoped to see one of these cloud-bursts.
It appeared likely now that I might see the flood
and yet avoid the wetting. But the rumbling continued,
now far away, now much nearer ; and still
the sky remained clear and the air motionless : it
even sounded like the firing of big guns. Could it
be, I wondered, that the Italian fleet was bombarding
a coast town ?
The track at last topped the ridge, and from a great
height I looked down into the gorge along which the
Cilician highway runs — the highway of Cyrus and
Alexander and St Paul, and many others of famous
name. And then I sat under a pine-tree for half
an hour taking in various matters which now had
become apparent. For one thing, the thunder proved
to be no thunder, but blasting in many rock-cuttings
and tunnels for the Bagdad Railway. I was gazing
from some 2000 feet of abrupt elevation into the
heart of German railway activities in the Taurus.
Immediately below me, on a piece of level ground,
were German workshops arranged as a square, and
near to them, also in orderly form like a model village,
were barracks for workmen, office buildings, messrooms,
cottages for engineers and overseers, and even
a German hotel, as I afterwards learnt. I could see