The cool fir-scented air was exhilarating

TCD MS 3416 page 54

TCD MS 3416 page 54

[June 1916]

taken in carriages into Taurus, about a quarter of an hour’s drive away, and put up at Hotels. At 9 a.m. sharp on June 17th our motor lorries formed up in a line, and we had our kit laid onto them in a few minutes and were making ourselves comfortable; the officer then blew a whistle and off we went – no shouting, no excitement, no mistakes; everything was cut and dried. The motors were powerful and reliable, and we ran at a fair speed towards the foot hills; but the road was appalling, and these large cars bounded and crashed over holes and boulders and shook the very soul out of ones body. Essad Bey, who had never been in a motor before, was violently sick, and I imagine he yearned for the more comfortable camel. Our winding route over the Taurus range took us through manificent scenery: on the one side a precipice, a sheer drop of many hundreds of feet into a fertile valley, where many a homestead could be seen tucked away on the grassy banks of a mountain stream: on the other side towering forest-clad mountains, crowned with the unthawed snows of winter. The cool and fir-scented air was most exhilarating after the deserts further South. It was here that I thought for the first time that “These people are not worthy of their land.”