acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

442 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
this early hour of a bright April morning, while
tramping free on a mountain road within sight of
Antioch with eastern sights and sounds around me,
I heartily wished that the journey were beginning
instead of ending. And the regretful consciousness
of doing something for the last time also lay upon
me, for I doubted if ever again I should wander
afoot for half a year, careless of route and the passing
months, among the mountains and valleys of Asia
Mmor with a pack-horse and Turkish servant.
For several miles from Kirk Khan the road went
almost horizontally along the lower slopes of Amanus.
And then the sun rose above the hills of Hammam
;
Ak Deniz lake grew clear to view in a green country
dotted with artificial mounds ; and in the south,
beyond the lake, the bold blue mountains which
stand above Antioch city passed from vagueness to
the detail of rock and spur and climbing ravine.
And now our road turned away from the plain at
last and entered the valley at whose western end is
the saddle of Amanus known in ancient histor}?- as
the " Syrian Gates," and in these days as Beilan
Pass. Near the mouth of this valley the road to
Antioch branches off and goes due south— the ancient
highroad between Antioch and Asia Minor, none other
beino;" so direct.
While we went up thus towards Beilan in early
sunlight a cloud of dust appeared ahead, in which were
galloping horses and riders twinkling with colour.
Such a brave spectacle of the road as they made, a
dozen or fifteen of them together, the riders armed,
and dressed in garments of bright colours, I had met
nowhere on the journey before. They came down at
a thundering pace, but pulled up to ask questions
on reaching us, finding our party more remarkable
than themselves ; for the pack-horse, with Mustapha
perched precariously atop a mountain of foreign gear,
was a show in itself in native eyes. It appeared
then that the skurry was an impromptu race, and
that the riders were going from Beilan to Antioch for