OUTING.

OUTING.VOL. XIII.JANUARY, 1889.NO. 4.

VOL. XIII.JANUARY, 1889.NO. 4.

BY L. B. PLATT.

QUITTING the broad highways of travel, it is often refreshing to turn aside from beaten paths and strike off into new regions, where foot of tourist and pen of magazine writer have not awakened the sacred silences, startled the resident deities, and broadcast their treasures upon the world.

Through such a byway among the mountains of Taurus, in Asia Minor, from the sea-coast at Mersina, through half-ruined Tarsus, and across the wide Cilician Plain to the ancient cities of Marash and Aintab we made our journey.

There were three of us, Gould, a picturesque youth of seventeen mild summers, with carefully mapped side-whiskers of a style that had never before invaded that sequestered portion of the world, and afforded unceasing entertainment to the curious and admiring natives, Lee, a missionary at Marash, in the interior, and myself, the modest chronicler of our adventures. With three horses of the light-stepping Arabian blood, whose native turf is the sharp, loose stones of the mountains, another of less noble lineage to carry our pack, and an Armenian servant to run behind, we entered upon the Great Plain of Cilicia.

Immediately we were upon historic ground. Alexander had been here before us, wading breast-deep around that rugged promontory in the distance, beaten by the thundering Mediterranean surges, and sweeping the plain of his enemies with the velocity and destructiveness of a cyclone. He had met Darius the Persian here and annihilated his magnificent array in the world-famous battle of Issus, where “all day long the noise of battle rolled between the mountains and the (summer) sea.”

Cicero had been here as Roman Governor of the Province of Cilicia; had chased the bandit mountaineers into the fastnesses of the hills, defeating them there and flushing his maiden sword with victory, for which he ambitiously claimed, but never received, a Roman Triumph.

Antony and Cleopatra had been here, sailing the River Cydnus—the same Cydnus in whose cold waters Alexander bathed, overheated by the tropic sun, and almost lost his life. And poor Antony, also overheated, lost body and soul together by the no lesstropic love glances of the Egyptian Queen. And who could wonder at it, if, as Shakespeare tells us—

“The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;Purple the sails, and so perfumed thatThe winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver,Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and madeThe water which they beat to follow faster,As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,It beggar’d all description: she did lieIn her pavilion—cloth-of-gold of tissue—O’er-picturing that Venus where we seeThe fancy outwork nature: on each side herStood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids.******At the helmA seeming mermaid steers.”

“The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,

Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;

Purple the sails, and so perfumed that

The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver,

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

The water which they beat to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,

It beggar’d all description: she did lie

In her pavilion—cloth-of-gold of tissue—

O’er-picturing that Venus where we see

The fancy outwork nature: on each side her

Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids.

******

At the helm

A seeming mermaid steers.”

A CARPENTER OF THE TAURUS.

And here also, on the banks of this same river, swollen and rapid with the melting snows of Taurus, not far from the sea, is the forlorn-looking city where Saul of Tarsus was born to the trade of a tentmaker and the exalted career of the greatest of the Apostles. In Tarsus, once a free city under the Roman Empire, her coins proudly stamped “Metropolis,” at one time more illustrious with academies and schools of philosophy than Athens or Alexandria, the ancient Marseilles of the Mediterranean, real estate has taken a fearful tumble since Paul boasted that he was a citizen of “no mean city,” for he “was born in Tarsus.” Seven thousand squalid inhabitants still cling with amazing tenacity to life, and carry most of the real estate around with them as personal property. There is absolutely nothing of interest to be said of it, for it is not even a ruin. It is the degenerate scion of a noble ancestry, in “looped and windowed raggedness,” whose only claim to respectability is the “high connections” of past history; and of these the most is made, for among other pretensions not the least is the ancient one, that to this very port the prophet Jonah set sail when “he entered into a ship of Tarshish and paid the fare thereof.”

Riding leisurely through the suburbs, we are soon in the heart of the Great Plain. Two hundred and seventy miles from east to west, sixty-eight in greatest breadth from white-capped sea to snow-capped mountain, are the vast dimensions of this Cilician prairie. The soil is as fertile as nature evermade, the rich alluvium of three rivers constantly depositing itself in thick layers, century after century, and yet it is a comparative desert, often stricken to death with famine and calling upon the pitying world for help from starvation. And why is it? The only sufficient answer is—the Turkish Government!

Our first night we spent in the city of Adana, the present metropolis of the Plain, a city of 30,000 inhabitants, as geographers tell us, and, as they do not tell us, of as many mosquitoes to each inhabitant. We made a careful estimate of them that very night. In fact it was not without considerable anxiety that we waited to see how many, and in what condition the survivors would be who would respond to the breakfast call next morning. For myself, I had thought that that morning would never come; or, if it did, it would come too late for me to derive any benefit from it in this present life. I noticed that the roosters around town seemed to entertain the same opinion. They started in about midnight with considerable confidence, and once in a while would all take hold and lift together in one grand crow, and then settle back disappointed—there was a hitch somewhere, the sun would not up. In the meantime, a tender regard for the feelings of my readers would not allow me to attempt any description of our sufferings—only this, that after exhausting every stratagem I could think of to outwit the enemy—all to no purpose—I simply threw back the bedclothes in the madness of despair, and said,“Come on, then, if you want to!” And they came. They came in ranks and squadrons, wing touching wing, like Milton’s fallen angels when they went down with whir and rustle and clatter of stumpy wings into the pit. And as fast as they came I lifted my hand and slaughtered them—or rather,thoughtI did.

Then it occurred to me, in my half-asleep condition, that I would gather up those dead mosquitoes and pile them into a monument, so that if I should be devoured alive there would at least be something to mark the spot. But before I could find mosquitoes enough to lay the corner-stone, I fell asleep. I dreamed I was bodily lifted up on wings and borne through the air. I passed over island and ocean and continent and ocean again. And just as I came in sight of my home and saw my mother on the doorstep, there was an awful crash, and then a groan, and somebody said, “Great Caesar!” I awoke to see my friend Lee sitting upright in bed, listening with head bent forward, as if his life depended on his hearing something—his hands were uplifted and spread wide. Then there was the feeble first note of a song in the air, and the hands came together with fearful precision, and I thought, “Well, that mosquito has sung his doxology any way.” But there was no more sleep that night, and when the morning came we were a sorry company to think of starting on a long pilgrimage that day.

A TIN-SMITH’S SHOP.

All the forenoon we were making preparations for our journey. There were horses to obtain, and donkeys and saddlesand provisions and servants, so that it was the middle of the afternoon before we were ready to start. We were going that day’s journey in company with a small caravan. Now, if a person has never seen a caravan get under way, he has something still in this world to live for. In the first place, when the horses and donkeys are brought together, as they were in this case, into the narrow courtyard of the house to be loaded, it seems to occur to all of them at once that the proper thing for them to do under such circumstances is—to kick. And they evidently think that what is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.

A MOUNTAIN MENDICANT.

I left my horse standing a moment to run up stairs, and when I returned, which was at the call of Mr. Lee to “come and hold your horse,” that animal of mine had made a circuit round that yard, like a comet round the sun—heels first, and left a clean swath behind him all the way. And when you add to all this confusion the crying of servants, the barking and yelping of dogs, the howling of babies, and above all, the screaming of camels and that excruciating bray of the jackass which makes you willing to stake all you possess that he can’t do that again and live through it; why, then you can gather some faint idea of what the starting of a caravan is on a small scale.

We mounted our horses and marched off in magnificent procession. They say that the grandest moment in the life of a boy—that moment when first he feels that there was no hap-hazard about his being born, but is conscious that he came into this world for a purpose, is when for the first time he gets on a pair of red-topped boots. They are the cradle and that is the birthday of all his after greatness. And I think that it is equally true that the very sublimest andtopmostevent in the life of any young man is when, with a belt full of pistols, a heart bursting with valor and a spur on his heel he puts his foot into the stirrup and swings himself across the back of a horse. I am ready to admit that it was so with me. I felt as though somebody ought to go ahead on the road and let people know that I was coming but that I wasn’t dangerous and probably wouldn’t hurt anybody. I remembered that it was the same country where the Apostle Paul had been taken for Mercury and Barnabas for Jupiter, and I thought that likely enough this people would take it into their heads that I was the War God, Mars, let loose upon them and careering through their country breathing fire from my nostrils and striking out hot lightnings from my horse’s hoofs.

A COUNTRY BELLE.

I had two pistols; one of them had a barrel about the size of a quill tooth-pick. But I knew from what experience I had had with that weapon that all that was necessary would be to find the right man and somebody to hold him and it would then be only a question of time—I should certainly kill him. But my other pistol was altogether a different affair. It was as much too large as the other was too small. It was somewhere from one to three feet long and extended from my third rib down to my knee-pan, like a lightning rod down the side of a chimney, and kept me bolt upright and stiff in my saddle. It was so formidable that I would not have liked to fire it off without getting behind something. And I thought that if worse come to worst and we met a Circassian coming to rob us, I would just hand it over to him and let him discharge it, and watch and see what became of him.

But there was one member of our party whom I must not forget to mention, and that was the soldier or military police—the “zabtieh” as he is called. For the sake of convenience we will call him the “Government,” because he represents the Government. The advantage of having him with you is, not so much that he is a kind of traveling masked battery, concealed mostly by earthworks, nor that he always provides himself with a fast horse so that in case anything happens he can turn tail and make off so speedily that the next party going over the road will not be left without a guide and protector—not so much either that his gun is likely to be a flint-lock without any flint in it, as that when you have one of these ornamental gentlemen traveling in your company, and are attacked and plundered, the Turkish Government is bound to make good your losses in such a way that your great grandchildren, if they are healthy and long-lived, will have the benefit of them. It was this last consideration which determined us to take a zabtieh. One of the most interesting relics of antiquity, and almost the only voice out of the past, from this historic plain, is a simple monument of a single stone with the Latin inscription to the effect that a certain Roman captain—giving his name—“erects this pillar to the gods of his native land.” It was the Roman way of giving vent to homesickness, and this true patriot, stationed on these inhospitable shores so far from home, has left this pathetic monument of his longing to return. It is a beautiful tribute to that tender touch of nature which makes the whole world kin. A good, true heart he must have buckled under that Roman cuirass. Let us hope that he got his furlough with full pay.

HADJAM—OR NATIVE BARBER.

The sun had dropped behind the mountain wall and the moon had taken his place with scarce diminished radiance when we approached the long-forgotten town of Mopsuestia. The atmosphere was so clear that we had seen the town for at least three hours, apparently only just ahead of us, but it never seemed to come any nearer. In fact, it seemed to be moving ahead on the road somewhat faster than our party. Itried to remember whether I had not somewhere read that at a certain season of the year corresponding with our first of May, the inhabitants of this country take up their houses on their backs and go off with them to a new place. But I could not make myself remember anything like that.

ON THE MARCH.

At last it became dark, and I was glad of it, because I thought that if those peoplewerereally going off with that city, they would probably want to set it down and rest when night came on, and then we should have a chance to overtake them.

And now the moonlight had effect upon us and we began to sing. First our Armenian servant, Crecor, started in. I thought I recognized the tune and was about to join in, when suddenly it changed to something else. At first I was sure it was “I need thee every hour”—next minute it was “Pull for the shore.” And I said: “All right, I would just as lief sing that.” But before I could pull my diapason and get my mouth open, it had changed again to “I want to be an angel.” “All right,” said I, “so do I.” But before I could join with him and be an angel, he had flown the track and was off again. When at last he wound up and put on the flourishes with a strain that limped on one leg like “Yankee Doodle,” and on the other like the “Old Hundredth,” and finally leaped up into the air and vanished in a heart-rending cry of anguish topped off by a howl that shook the stars, I did not try to follow him. I secretly suspected that, no matter how badly he wanted to be an angel, he never would be until he could make better music than that.

At last we came to the old river Pyramus. As we passed over the ancient stone bridge, fast falling into ruin, the musical click-clang of our horses’ hoofs on the archway was echoed back by the swift-running waters of the river beneath. Each wave of the stream seemed to be lifting itself to look at us and was struck down again by the arrowy glance of the moon, shivering and running away to tell the pebbles along the shore what a strange people with hats on, and even shirts and pants, they had seen.

But now, right ahead of us loomed up the walls of the hotel where we were to pass the night. It was by far the most high-toned hotel in the place—in fact it was the only one. It consisted of four stone walls about ten feet high without any roof. There was no bed-chamber, no bed, no carpet, no floor, no light, no fire, nothing to sit down on, nothing to eat and, so far as we could discover, no proprietor. But therewasa door and it was locked for fear someone might imagine there was something inside, I suppose, and then go in and steal it; and by ill-luck someone had gone off with the key. Crecor went off to hunt it up andsoon returned with the clerk of the hotel who ushered us in, horses and all, through the front door into the parlor. We had thought of telegraphing ahead to have the best chamber reserved for us, but were glad that we had saved ourselves that expense. For it happened that we were the first who registered that night, with the exception of a donkey and a man and his wife, and so we had the whole range of the hotel. We selected the corner where there seemed to be the fewest stones and least rubbish and cleared a place to put up our tent. And now for something to eat.

CIRCASSIAN MOUNTAINEERS.

Lee had brought along a chest full of bread, cake, canned goods, chicken, eggs, etc., so we were well provided with all but the appetite. We did not any of us want anything after that long, hot, dusty ride but just a watermelon apiece, and then to go to bed in the shortest and speediest manner. But to fall asleep was another matter. How it seemed to my traveling companions I don’t know, but there was such a horror of desolation about that place, such an awful, oppressive night-silence that made me think of all that I had ever read in the Bible about jackals howling in ruined places, hooting owls and creeping foxes and satyrs crying to their fellows, that I determined as soon as I struck the bed that if anybody got to sleep before I did he would have to be lively about it. I wasn’t going to be the last awake that night, anyway, and so I bent all my energies to the task. I had heard that if anyone would start slowly and count five hundred, it would surely put them to sleep. And so I began. I reached four hundred and fifty, and was just falling off into slumber when it occurred to me that I had only fifty more to count, and maybe I wouldn’t make it, and, of course, that excited me and woke me up. I thought that perhaps I had counted too fast, and concluded to give it another trial. began more slowly. I kept saying to myself, “Now, not too fast!” and of course. that kept me awake. I reached 499, and while I was waiting for something to happen before I said 500, the thought flashed through my head, “Well now, it seems to me it wasn’t 500 that puts folks to sleep after all, it was a thousand.” All right, I would try a thousand. I did. I went on to two thousand, three thousand,five thousand. I became wrought up. I said to myself, “I’ll do it if it takes forty thousand. I’ll lie on this bed all night, and all day to-morrow, if need be, and count a million.” And I believe I would have done it, if another plan had not happened to occur to me.

A NOMAD MOTHER.

I had read somewhere that if a person could only get their body into a certain position, no matter how wide awake they might be, sleep would immediately follow. I said to myself: “Now, how glad I am that I happened to think of that.” But, then, I couldn’t remember what that position was. Never mind, I would try them all, and see if I could strike it. I had rather a narrow field to operate in, for my iron bedstead wasn’t wide enough to turn over in without rolling out. And it wasn’t long enough, so that my feet could not go to bed at the same time I did. At last I think I must have hit it, for I fell asleep, and my last thought was, “I’m glad my mother does not know where I am to-night.”

Strange to say, it had not rained in that country for four solid months, but that night it rained as though it had been saved up for our special benefit. It waked us up at midnight. It drove in above and ran in below. It rolled down the folds of the tent like so many waterspouts. We all sat up in bed and looked at each other. We wanted to say something, all of us, but each seemed to be waiting for the other and wishing he would say it first, until, there being nothing else to do, Lee carefully gathered together the folds of the tent so that the water all ran down into his bed (which he didn’t discover until he laid down again). I put on my overcoat and again crawled into bed. The last I saw of Gould, he was lying flat on his back holding an umbrella with both hands, hoisted and spread over him, and trying to sleep.

Next morning we arose before daylight, called for our hotel bill, paid it (it was only fifteen cents for the whole company), mounted our horses and rode out of the front door with a long day’s journey of forty-five miles before us, a blazing sun above us, and the River Pyramus flowing by our side. The memory of that day is like one of those winterbird’s nests swinging on the tree, frozen stiff with rain and dreary enough, without a warm feather in it or a note of song. I have a confused recollection of a sun that was unmistakably hot, a white road that made it hotter, and a desert wind that was “Hottentotter.” I recollect, too, that I rode a horse that was never happy unless he was ahead, and I was never happy unless he was behind. I remember that I carried a sun umbrella, and every time a horse tried to go ahead of mine he would elevate his hind feet and lift me into the air, still holding on to my umbrella, until I had all the experience of going up in a balloon. But Idohave a very distinct recollection of every time I came down again. It seemed to me that that saddle was all pommel, for though I went up and came down perhaps a hundred times, I never could land anywhere else.

We passed trains of camels, herds of donkeys, men and women on foot, and here and there a Mohammedan under the shade of a tree or wall going through with a gymnastic performance of standing on his head, which is the way he prefers to say his prayers. On every side was wilderness, parched and withered, without a spear of grass or a green leaf. But all things must have an end, and so must our journey. We made up our minds whenwe went to bed on the third night that next morning we would get up at three o’clock and push through, a journey of a day and a half, to Marash.

And what a morning that was!

We had pitched our tent in a valley, between the high perpendicular walls of two mountains. The moon rode full overhead and passed along just on the broken edge of one of them, now leaping a chasm, now dodging behind a crag, now looking down through a leafy gorge with a brilliancy of glory such as our moon never attains, except in the frostiest nights of winter, by the aid of a ground covered with snow. I was able to read a newspaper with ease. I tried it, holding it off at a natural distance. I could see distinctly every feature and line of a photograph of my mother which I took from my inside vest pocket and gazed at, as I thought possibly for the last time. I could even see to read my own writing as I penned what I thought might possibly be my last words. What made me think so was this: We were to start that morning through a mountain pass infested by robbers. Now, I hope my readers will meditate on this, and try to be as scared as I was. It was the same pass in which Mr. Montgomery, of Marash, with a friend, had been robbed but a short time previous. They had passed a group of Circassians, the highwaymen of that region, lying by the roadside, holding their horses and waiting for someone to come along. They had gone but a short distance when there was a clatter of hoofs around the bend of the mountain, a flashing of pistol barrels leveled straight at their heads, and a command to dismount and give over. And there was nothing else to do. The five Circassians stood over them with knives and made them empty their pockets and give up their weapons. Then they took their horses and left them to make the best of their way home on foot, some twenty or thirty miles across the mountain. And now we were entering that same pass. And it was night.

We had not gone far, groping our way up the narrow trail in single file over rough stones, not speaking above a whisper, and wishing that our horses’ hoofs were shod with velvet, when Lee turned about and said: “Have you got your shooting-irons ready? We must be pretty near the place now where Montgomery was robbed.”

Oh dear! I felt awful. I wanted to go back. It wasn’t what I came for, to be shot down on that cold mountain in the dark by a shirtless Circassian. The next moment we came where there was a big tree right ahead of us and oh, horrors! we could hear distinctly the voices of several men in conversation. At the same time I thought I heard something in the bushes beside me. Then I was sure of it. Then I saw it move. Then a man stepped out into the road close to me. I drew my pistol and held it where he could see the flash of the barrel in the moonlight.

He stood still and I passed him, turning round in my saddle to keep my eye on him.

We all had our pistols out and were ready with pale cheeks, and hearts that thumped like drumsticks.

But we passed by unmolested.

Lee said afterwards that if we had not been well armed and looked so formidable we should probably have been attacked and robbed. I was glad that Ilookedso.

The only other incident of any importance before we reached Marash was the downfall of the Turkish “Government.” He was riding ahead in grand style, full of the proud consciousness of having brought us safely through the mountains, pricking his horse with the sharp corner of the stirrup, which is used for a spur, and then playfully reining him up on his haunches, when suddenly, but with the utmost grace, horse and rider, with pistols and knives and gun, with brown rags and red rags fluttering in the wind, head down and feet uppermost, went tumbling over into the bushes. When he appeared again, unhurt but drooping at both ends like a dog when the boys have just got the pan securely fastened and are urging him to run, it was a sight that did us all good. We hadn’t laughed before in three days, and from that moment our feelings began steadily to improve. At last we came out into the open plain and ascending a rise of ground, saw in the far distance, hanging on the side of the mountain like an avalanche which has run half-way down and stopped in a gorge, the white houses of the city of Marash.

Three hours after we were riding through its streets, climbing up and up until we reached the high wall surrounding the buildings of the Mission. We rode in through the gate, and before we could dismount the missionaries were upon us. They welcomed us so heartily that we could not have been happier if we had returned home to America.

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