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CHAPTER XXXI.
Leaving Adana—At Missis Khan—Ruins of Mopsuestia—A caravanserai
—Ibrahim in difficulties—The Oxford Book of English Verse—A wet
day on the road— Yarzuat—Turkish dentist for the Consul
Ibrahim as cook—Travelling in mud—Toprak Kale and Alexander
the Great— Mustapha goes off— Benighted in the orchards of
Osmanieh— The hotel at Osmanieh— On the road to Baghche
The German official—Baghche tunnel.
The Cilician spring is a season of rain and consequent
deep mud upon unformed roads ; but we
hoped for the best, and though wet days had preceded
our setting out, no travellers could have desired
a finer morning than that on which the journey
began.
In this perfect spring weather, a little before nine
o'clock, we went down the narrow tortuous street
leading from Adana hill to the bridge, knowing that
an unfamiliar historical country vlay before us for
our wanderings. Grown men we were, and on one
lay the responsibility of representing the Empire
in this district of fanatical disturbances; but now
that majesty was laid aside, and if the truth be
told, a youthful spirit of holiday adventuring was
the fortunate possession of us both. We threaded
our way among camels, and asses, and men of the
east, between little shops and stalls over which
sometimes hung the branches of date-palms ; and
then crossing the ancient bridge with the yellow
Sarus swirling under its arches, and the ruins of
Haroun el Rash id's castle upon our right, passed out
of Adana town into the wide unenclosed spaces of the
Cilician plain, and took the road for Missis. Across