acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

30 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
But it has this effect : the mountains always seem
low for the heiglit recorded by map or aneroid. So
when from the pass of Kara Dagh I looked southward
to Ak Dagh's 7000-feet ridge ten miles away,
it had no more dignity than a AVelsh mountain. It
had a crest of snow, and its flanks were broken and
wooded, and here and there on its blue spurs above
Ladik rose thin columns of smoke from charcoalburners'
fires ; it had beauty and suggestion, but of
real majesty little. It was a mountain defrauded of
its full estate.
Ak Dagh means the White Mountain, from the
snow it carries, and Kara Dagh the Black Mountain,
from the pine forests along its summits above the
pass. Kara Dagh has not only a sinister name, but
a reputation in keeping. If storms are abroad, they
are at their worst in this simple-looking pass which
is little more than 3000 feet in height. You may,
indeed, get rain and hail upon it, when to the north
and south a mile or two away you find good weather.
Here, too, winter snow is deep, though elsewhere towards
the sea it may be light. And in days, not a
generation since, when robber}'' by armed bands was
of greater frequency than now, this pass of Kara Dagh
was a place of doubly evil fame. It is told of the last
well-known band which haunted this district that all
went well with them until they ventured on a Turkish
officer. Hitherto they had robbed, almost with impunity,
whom they chose ; had killed when killing
served their purpose ; and had been known to leave
three dead Armenian travellers set out in an orderly
row by the wayside ; but they went too far when, in
a high-flown moment, they shot a Turkish major in
the leg. To shoot a soldier or zaptieh is the one
unforgivable sin in this country, and so it proved for
these. A relentless hunting followed, and in a running
fight of several hours among the open pine-woods on
Kara Dagh the band was destroyed.
A little way inland from the summit of the pass
are remains of a Roman road. Some of its closely-