In Tarsus the houses are mostly of stone, because the moderns have used the remains right at hand for successive rebuilding through centuries. The ancient city, in Roman Imperial days, was so large that it is an inexhaustible quarry. Modern Adana, on the other hand, is much larger than the ancient city, and Roman stone gave out long ago. You never hear of the Turks going to the trouble of stone-cutting. Where they are not able to utilize the labor of past ages, they build for the day. Consequently, Adana is a city of wood, totally unlike Tarsus. This, with the hill, and the big river right in the town, makes Adana more picturesque. The background of mountains and rich plain is the same, however. Turkish wooden houses are built haphazard, with no idea of architecture, and they are never repaired. All except the new ones look as if they were just about to fall down. Many are falling down. Holes are patched with new boards or more frequently with flattened-out petroleum tins. Balconies are stayed with props. When the inevitable day of collapse arrives, the Turks thank Allah that the catastrophe did not happen sooner, and praise Allah's mercy in giving them firewood for next winter. A mass of wooden houses in Turkey makes an _ensemble_ of brown, of different shades, depending upon the age of the house. The Turks do not paint: for they calculate that a house will last at least as long as the man who built it. The next generation can look after itself. Oriental houses are reticent, like the women who live in them. They are meant for animals and women, the animals on the ground floor and the women upstairs--both created and kept in captivity to work for man. You can tell a Christian from a Moslem house from the fact that the Moslems put lattice-work over the windows. Otherwise they are the same. While Christians do not seclude their women, they have nearly the same ideas about making them work.