Once through the pass the whole character of the country changes as by a magician’s wand and another land unfolds itself. The bracing dry uplands are left behind with their peculiar fascination and unrealised possibilities, and in their place there appear the palm-trees and fruit-gardens of a southern clime, with physical peculiarities, economy, and population entirely different. The western plain of Cilicia is entirely alluvial soil, and is well called the fruit-garden of Western Asia. Towards the east there are some hilly places, but to the north-east the plain stretches out again, following an inland bay of the mountains. These plains seem to be wholly the gift of the numerous rivers which water them. These, descending from the mountainous region above, wherein the nature of the stone is various and to a large extent volcanic, bring down with them the rich alluvium which is deposited in their sluggish course below. Their names have been already mentioned. Some further streams to the west have a swifter course from the mountains which in that direction gradually approach the sea. Mersina, the modern port, marks almost the western extremity of the plain. [Illustration: PLATE XXII GOING SOUTH THROUGH THE CILICIAN GATES TARSUS: THE GARDENS AND THE TOWN] The green tract of Cilicia is so shut in to the north by the Taurus ranges, and to the east by the Amanus mountains, and so exposed to the sea, that it seems as if Nature had designed this unique corner of Asia Minor for a history of its own. Its remarkable fertility, however, and the important passes which lead down to it in several directions, make it impossible that it could have been overlooked by any power in possession of its frontiers. For this reason, and in this instance, the absence of any clearly Hittite remains[76] must be attributed to accident and to the nature of the country. But it is indeed remarkable that in none of the defiles that connect it with the several portions of the Hittite land has a single Hittite monument been discovered. When we consider how suitable many spots would seem to be for Hittite monuments, whether in the Cilician Gates, or in the valley of the Pyramus, or in the pass leading by Bogche over the Amanus mountains eastward, or on the wave-washed rocks which must be crossed by the coast route to Alexandretta, this absence of any Hittite trace becomes the more conspicuous and significant. It establishes the probability towards which we have been already drawn, that the main channel of communication between the lands of the Hittites in the north of Syria and in Asia Minor was by way of the mountain passes of the Taurus and Anti-Taurus where their monuments are found in comparative plenty. [Illustration: PLATE XXIII TARSUS: THE CONCRETE WALLS OF DUNUK TASH TARSUS: SACRED STONE IN A COFFIN, IN THE COURT OF AN ARAB SHRINE] II SOME PAGES OF HISTORY