Continuing, we came across some dry wells and also a few fruit trees. The fruit was unripe, unpleasant to taste, and unknown to any of us; but we ate it. The trees may have been plum-trees, which after many decades had reverted to the wild state. At 1 P.M. we found a well containing a little water, and not far from another tent. Once more only two went to buy supplies, while the others stayed at the well. Here, after much talk, the old woman in the tent let our agents have a dozen chupatties and some good cheese. The latter she took out of a goat-skin bag from under a millstone, where it was being pressed. Though rather strong, it was very good indeed, and tasted like gorgonzola. Near the tent was a bed of water-melons and a patch of Indian corn; but the good lady refused to sell any of these. Judging by the heap of melon-skins lying in a corner of the tent, she and her better-half were very partial to this fruit; hence, no doubt, her disinclination to part with any. We now decided that we were becoming demoralised by this "yourt-hunting," and that we would not visit any more tents; so when, half an hour after resuming our march, we passed close to one, we walked by it without taking any notice of the occupants. All this time the going was very bad. Countless small nullahs crossed our path. The ground was rocky and thickly covered with thorny bushes the height of a man, so that it was necessary to take a compass-bearing every few minutes. For a long time we had been steering a very zigzag course, when at 2.15 P.M. we arrived at the head of one of these many nullahs and saw beneath us a deep ravine running in a south-east direction. Through the undergrowth at the bottom it was possible to recognise the dry stony bed of a river, and this we decided to follow. A little north of where we were the ravine made a right-angled turn, and at this bend we were able to find a track to the bottom. Elsewhere the sides were sheer precipice, impossible to descend. On our way down we passed a massive sarcophagus hewn out of the solid rock. The lid had been moved to one side, and the chamber was empty--a result, perhaps, of the visit of the German archæologists of whom the old Turk had spoken that morning. An eerie place for a tomb it looked, perched on the side of a steep cliff. It was a relic of a former civilisation. That part of Asia Minor was once fertile and well populated, but some underground disturbance of nature had diverted or dried up the water without which the land could no longer live. Now it is a dead country. The terraced gardens near the coast still retain their step formation, but that is all. Only the wild locust-tree can find enough moisture to produce its fruit, and bird and animal life have almost ceased to exist.