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A branch of the Cydnus foamed along the bottom of the gorge, and soma Turcoman boys were tending their herds on its banks. Further up the glen, we found a fountain of delicious water, beside the deserted Khan of Mezarluk, and there encamped for the night. Our tent was pitched on the mountain side, near a fountain of the coolest, clearest and sweetest water I have seen in all the East.
Word comes back that a regiment of soldiers is on its way to chastise the Turcomans and recover the property; what really will happen, will be a horde of soldiers staying there long enough to devour what few sheep the poor people have left, and then returning without having seen, much less chastised, a Turcoman.
And this is why the path southwards to the east of the Aral was, in matter of fact, the path of civilization, and that by the Caucasus the path of barbarism; this is why the Turks who took the former course could found an empire, and those who took the latter have remained Tartars or Turcomans, as they were originally; because the way of the Caucasus was a sheer descent from Turkistan into the country which they occupy, but the way of the Aral was a circuitous course, leading them through many countries through Sogdiana, Khorasan, Zabulistan, and Persia, with many fortunes, under many masters, for many hundred years, before they came round to the region to which their Turcoman brethren attained so easily, but with so little eventual advantage.
The Turcoman reapers, who came up to see us and talk with us, said that there were the remains of walls on the summit of the principal acropolis opposite us, and that, further up the valley, there was a chamber with two columns in front. Mr.
The power of that kingdom was already waning, and, but for the knights of the military orders now in Jerusalem, the city must have yielded to the Turcoman hordes that continually menaced it. Baldwin III died in 1162, at the age of thirty-three, loved and lamented by his people and respected by his foes. He died childless, and his brother Almeric was elected to succeed him.
He spoke in the Tartar language, giving to his phrases the emphatic turn which distinguishes the languages of the Orientals. "Takhsir, this is not the time for unnecessary words. What I have done at the head of your troops, you know. The lines of the Ichim and the Irtych are now in our power; and the Turcoman horsemen can bathe their horses in the now Tartar waters.
This is undoubtedly the principal gate of the Taurus, and the pass through which the armies of Cyrus and Alexander entered Cilicia. Beyond the gate the mountains retreated, and we climbed up a little dell, past two or three Turcoman houses, to the top of a hill, whence opened a view of the principal range, now close at hand.
There were quite as great difficulties as in the Turcoman campaign, and the country to be crossed was entirely unknown. The observations made before the war spoke of a flat and sandy country. In reality a more uneven country could not be imagined; alternating slopes of about 1 in 10 continually succeeded each other; and before reaching Kairouan 7½ miles of swamp had to be crossed.
From the Amu Daria and the Turcoman steppes to the deserts of Beloochistan, from Persian Khorassan to the valley of the Indus, stretches the country of the Afghans. Men of renown and events of world-wide interest have been connected with its history. Afghan history dies away, in the hymns of the Indian Vedas, eighteen hundred years before the birth of Christ.
The river Oxus, or Amoo-Daria, which flows through Bakhara and Khiva, emptying into the Aral sea, was once a tributary of the Caspian. Several steamers have been placed upon it, and others are promised soon. The dry bed of the old channel of the Oxus is visible in the Turcoman steppe at the present day.
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