There are several passes through the Taurus, but by far the most important of them is the famous one long known as the _Pylæ Ciliciæ_, or Cilician Gates.[196] From time immemorial this celebrated pass has been the gateway between Syria and Asia Minor, between southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe. Assyrians, Hittites, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Saracens, Crusaders passed through them. Asurbanipal, Cyrus the Great, and Sapor I led their armies through their narrow defiles. Cyrus the Younger and Xenophon pushed their way through them on their way to fateful Cunaxa. Alexander, Cicero, Harun-al-Rashid led their armies through this narrow passage. It was also traversed by St. Paul, by hosts of the Crusaders and by pilgrims innumerable from the earliest ages of the Church. On our way across the Taurus we followed in the footsteps of Alexander and the Crusaders as far as the Vale of Bozanti. Here the Bagdad Railway diverges slightly eastward from the old military and trade route which passes through the Cilician Gates. As we preferred to follow the old historic route to passing through nearly eleven miles of railway tunnels, we left the train at Bozanti Khan and proceeded by carriage through the Cilician Gates to Tarsus. We were well repaid for so doing, for we had, in consequence, one of the most delightful mountain drives in the world. On each side of the road were towering heights clothed with forests of pine and other evergreens, while rising far above these was the sky-piercing summit of Bulgar Dagh covered with a mantle of snow of dazzling whiteness. Further on our way _The pass expands_ _Its strong jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,_ _And seems with its accumulated crags,_ _To overhang the world._ And, as if to give life and variety to the majestic scene, we saw circling the fantastic peaks and hovering above the beetling crags in quest of prey, a number of great bare-necked vultures, which seemed to be fully as large as the lammergeier of the Alps and no mean rivals of the condor of the Andes. The narrow gorge known as the Cilician Gates answers perfectly to Cicero’s appellation of Pylæ-Tauri, gateway of the Taurus. And it corresponds almost equally well with Xenophon’s description of it when he declares it “but broad enough for a chariot to pass with great difficulty.” On both sides of the mountain torrent which rushes along the historic roadway are lofty and almost vertical precipices that could easily be so fortified as to convert it into a Thermopylæ, where a handful of men could hold a large army at bay. It was indeed by fortressing this pass that Mehemet Ali was long able, in defiance of the power of the Turkish Sultan, to retain control of Syria.