acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

330 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
into and out of it with what indifference we couhl
assume ; and where there was less water mud lay
deep and viscous, which was even worse. Snow on
the Cilician Pass seemed a beautiful, cleanly, altogether
desirable obstacle by comparison with this
mud of the Tarsus road. The blizzards which had
detained us in the mountains had come as rain on
the plain ; such continuous heavy rain— a foot of
rainfall in a few days—and followed by such floods,
no one on the plain could remember before.
In these conditions of going our bedraggled party
found the Tarsus road very long, and Tarsus city very
elusive, the more so that night and steady rain came
on before our destination could be seen. We plodded
on, squelching and floundering and splashing in darkness,
with never so much as a light to break it. Then
came the surprise of stumbling across a railway, and
dimly making out Gulek Boghaz station on the Adana-
Mersina Railway—for so, with a good deal of imagination,
this station is named as the one nearest to the
Cilician Gates Pass. Then followed another interminable
stretch of black road, as bad as any. It was
eight o'clock when we reached the long stone bridge
across the Cydnus, and soon afterwards saw dim
flickering lights at an uncertain distance beside the
way. At this sight Ighsan changed the order of
march—he led the horse by a close-held halter and bid
me follow hard behind and keep watch carefully ; for,
said he, these are the lights of the jingaan, who are
robbers. Once before, he explained, when entering
Tarsus by night, the jingaan had slit his saddle-bags
and stolen his goods unperceived in the darkness. In
this fashion, caked with mud, and seeing nothing, and
looking out sharply against gypsy robbers, we entered
Tarsus and went to the "New Khan."