acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

66 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
and Cilician pirates agaiust whom Pompey went, some
of whose castles are still to be explored, and even discovered.
Before I should reach the flowers and low
wheat-covered hills of northern Syria, of which men
speak with delight, I hoped to have had many deviations.
On this morning of promise and anticipation
I would have changed places with no one.
In such good spirits I followed the rough road
which crosses Maraovan plain. Farmers were cleaning
up their threshing-floors after the threshing, and
loading the straw in great wicker-baskets placed on
carts drawn by black oxen. Flocks of goats and
sheep were scattered about, a shepherd and dog to
each. Many droves of horses also roamed at large,
bearing out Strabo's statement, made nearly twenty
centuries ago, that this plain was noted for its
horses.
There is a Turkish proverb which may be rendered
roughly : "To Osmanlis the rich lands ; to others
the mountains." This conqueror's saying faithfully
represents what has happened. In the plains, in
rich valleys—wherever you come upon water, and
good trees, and good crops — you are sure to find a
Moslem population. You may also find Christians ;
but Moslems will be in the majority. Go into the
mountains, however, and there you see little villages
tucked away in folds, or clinging to the slopes, and
such are likely to be Greek or Armenian. So as I
passed over this plain of Marsovan I saw the minarets
of many village mosques rising from clumps of
trees. Village spires dotted over an English countryside
give an impression of native piety ; and here the
minarets produced a similar idea, which the flashing
crescent above each building did nothing to qualify.
When at midday we stopped to eat by the roadside
Achmet carefully covered his ponies, though
they had come at only walking pace, and the weather
was hot. I asked, therefore, if they were his, or
whether he had hired them from a khan, as many
drivers do. He was startled by the question, which