But the real patron saint of Urfa is no other than the Patriarch Abraham; for the Moslems all believe implicitly that Urfa is Ur of the Chaldees.[15] They have here Abraham's cradle, and his tomb (which they never allow Christians to look upon); and they have the Pool of Abraham also, which is the principal sight in all their town. Abraham's Pool is a great stone tank which is fed by a never-failing spring. Along one side rise the domes and minarets of Abraham's Mosque (which is also inviolable by Christians) and the steps by which pious Moslems descend into the Pool to bathe. In the pool live Abraham's carp. The water is positively thick with them. No one is permitted to catch them so long as they remain in their Sanctuary; but they venture at their own proper peril into the stream which flows out from one end. It is considered a pious act to feed them; and the great fat gluttons follow us as we walk along the margin, with their heads bobbing out of the water, begging for handfuls of boiled maize. When we throw them _largesse_ there is such a rush for it that many of them got hoisted bodily out of their element on their fellows' backs; and it must be regretfully added that they often gorge themselves so immoderately that they float away gasping, belly uppermost, as though they were in an apoplectic fit. Abraham's interest in the pool is explained by a delicious legend. He had refused to worship fire when ordered to do so by Nimrod; and the mighty conqueror was so exasperated that he hurled him with his own hands from the summit of the citadel rock into a burning fiery furnace which he had kindled for his reception at the bottom. The Patriarch dropped unhurt, though it was a long cast even for Nimrod; and the fountain sprang up at the touch of his feet and extinguished the fiery furnace. If this explanation should appear to be not quite sufficiently coherent, we can only admit that primitive Paganism tells a much more plausible tale. The pool belonged of old to Derceto (Dagon, Atergatis), the ancient Syrian fish-goddess. They are lineal descendants of her carp that inhabit its waters to this day. CHAPTER II A LAND OF DUST AND ASHES (DIARBEKR AND MARDIN) Due east and west, from the Gulf of Iskanderun almost to the heel of the Caspian, there stretches a range of lofty mountains--a sort of natural bulwark, fencing off the high rugged plateau of Asia Minor on the north from the low level plain of Mesopotamia on the south. At its western extremity this range is known as the Taurus, but further east it appears now to possess no generic name; yet it well deserves so much distinction, for it is here that the peaks attain their highest altitude, and hold in their wild recesses some of the grandest scenery in the world.