pitals of
white marble built up in the houses, showing that they occupied the site
of some ancient village or temple.

The next morning, we crossed Durdun Dagh, and entered the great plain of
Cilicia. The range, after we had passed it, presented a grand, bold,
broken outline, blue in the morning vapor, and wreathed with shifting
belts of cloud. A stately castle, called the Palace of Serpents, on the
summit of an isolated peak to the north, stood out clear and high, in the
midst of a circle of fog, like a phantom picture of the air. The River
Jyhoon, the ancient Pyramus, which rises on the borders of Armenia, sweeps
the western base of the mountains. It is a larger stream than the Orontes,
with a deep, rapid current, flowing at the bottom of a bed lower than the
level of the plain. In three hours, we reached Missis, the ancient
Mopsuestia, on the right bank of the river. There are extensive ruins on
the left bank, which were probably those of the former city. The soil for
some distance around is scattered with broken pillars, capitals, and hewn
stones. The ancient bridge still crosses the river, but the central arch
having been broken away, is replaced with a wooden platform. The modern
town is a forlorn place, and all the glorious plain around it is
uncultivated. The view over this plain was magnificent: unbounded towards
the sea, but on the north girdled by the sublime range of Taurus, whose
great snow-fields gleamed in the sun. In the afternoon, we reached the old
bridge over the Jyhoon, at Adana. The eastern bank is occupied with the
graves of the former inhabitants, and there are at least fifteen acres of
tombstones, as thickly planted as the graves can be dug. The fields of
wheat and barley along the river are very rich, and at present the natives
are busily occupied in drawing the sheaves on large sleds to the open
threshing-floors.

The city is built over a low eminence, and its four tall minarets, with a
number of palm-trees rising from the mass of brown brick walls, reminded
me of Egypt. At the end of the bridge, we were met by one of the
Quarantine officers, who preceded us, taking care that we touched nobody
in the streets, to the Quarantine building. This land quarantine, between
Syria and Asia Minor, when the former country is free from any epidemic,
seems a most absurd thing. We were detained at Adana three days and a
half, to be purified, before proceeding further. Lately, the whole town
was placed in qu