Chapter XIX.

The Plains of Karamania.

  The Plains of Karamania—­Afternoon Heat—­A Well—­Volcanic
  Phenomena—­Kara-bounar—­A Grand Ruined Khan—­Moonlight Picture—­A
  Landscape of the Plains-Mirages—­A Short Interview—­The Village of
  Ismil—–­Third Day on the Plains—­Approach to Konia.

  “A weary waste, expanding to the skies.”—­Goldsmith.

Konia, Capital of Karamania, Friday, June 25, 1854.

Francois awoke us at the break of day, at Eregli, as we had a journey of twelve hours before us.  Passing through the town, we traversed a narrow belt of garden and orchard land, and entered the great plain of Karamania.  Our road led at first northward towards a range called Karadja Dagh, and then skirted its base westward.  After three hours’ travel we passed a village of neat, whitewashed houses, which were entirely deserted, all the inhabitants having gone off to the mountains.  There were some herds scattered over the plain, near the village.  As the day wore on, the wind, which had been chill in the morning, ceased, and the air became hot and sultry.  The glare from the white soil was so painful that I was obliged to close my eyes, and so ran a continual risk of falling asleep and tumbling from my horse.  Thus, drowsy and half unconscious of my whereabouts, I rode on in the heat and arid silence of the plain until noon, when we reached a well.  It was a shaft, sunk about thirty feet deep, with a long, sloping gallery slanting off to the surface.  The well was nearly dry, but by descending the gallery we obtained a sufficient supply of cold, pure water.  We breakfasted in the shaded doorway, sharing our provisions with a Turcoman boy, who was accompanying his father to Eregli with a load of salt.

Our road now crossed a long, barren pass, between two parts of Karadja Dagh.  Near the northern side there was a salt lake of one hundred yards in diameter, sunk in a deep natural basin.  The water was intensely saline.  On the other side of the road, and a quarter of a mile distant, is an extinct volcano, the crater of which, near two hundred feet deep, is a salt lake, with a trachytic cone three hundred feet high rising from the centre.  From the slope of the mountain we overlooked another and somewhat deeper plain, extending to the north and west.  It was bounded by broken peaks, all of which betrayed a volcanic origin.  Far before us we saw the tower on the hill of Kara-bounar, our resting-place for the night.  The road thither was over a barren plain, cheered here and there by patches of a cushion-like plant, which was covered with pink blossoms.  Mr. Harrison scared up some coveys of the frankolin, a large bird resembling the pheasant, and enriched our larder with a dozen starlings.