It is the bridge over which passed the famed “Royal Road,” so graphically described by Herodotus, which extended from Ephesus on the Ægean Sea to far-off Susa in southern Persia. To make the journey between these two cities required, according to the same historian, no less than ninety days. And it was the bridge over which the Christian pilgrims were wont to pass on their way from Europe to the Holy Land, and the bridge also which was crossed by the Crusaders under Godefroy de Bouillon, Louis VII of France, and Frederic Barbarossa when they sought to recover Jerusalem from the Mohammedans. The course of the Anatolian Railroad is, for the most part, the same as that of a great military highway in Roman and Byzantine times from Nicæa to Dorylæum. And the scenery along it, especially between Ismid and Eski-Shehr, is often of rare beauty and grandeur. In places it is much like that of southern Colorado and northern California. There is the same succession of smiling landscapes--emerald valleys dotted with modest homesteads, broad stretches of meadow land sprinkled with sleek herds and happy flocks, noble forests of oak and pine, walnut and sycamore. In some localities the vegetation is almost of tropical luxuriance and the road is fringed by a wild tangle of bramble and brushwood tapestried with clematis and ivy and woodbine in a flaming setting of dog-rose and azalea. As we approach Bilejik eastward of the snow-capped Mysian Olympus the character of the scenery completely changes. The grade of the road rapidly increases and as we pass along gorges and cañyons, through tunnels and over bridges and describe innumerable curves we realize that we are ascending the famed table-land of Anatolia and are nearing Sugut, the earliest home of the Ottoman Turks. Eski-Shehr, from which a branch of the Anatolian Railroad runs to Angora, the ancient Ancyra, is a flourishing town and, thanks to its finely equipped railway shops, is the home of a large number of railway employees and their families. Before the world war an excellent school for the benefit of the children of the employees was established here and was well attended. It was conducted on the German system and instruction was given in German. Among the languages taught, besides German, were Greek, French, Turkish, and Armenian. The town is noted for being the chief center of the world’s supply of meerschaum, a commodity from which the Turkish Government derives a handsome revenue. From Eski-Shehr we went to Afium-Kara-Hissar, from which great quantities of opium are annually shipped, and thence to Konia, anciently Iconium, which is the western terminus of the Bagdad Railway.