Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/473

 Taurus, made by the course of the Sarus, the largest river of the province, which breaks through the northern ridge, in a defile that is called "."

The boundaries of Cilicia are then,—on the north, mountainous Cappadocia, perfectly cut off by the impenetrable chain of Taurus, except the narrow pass through "the gates of Cilicia;"—on the east, equally well guarded by Mount Amanus, Northern Syria, the only land passages being through the famed "Syrian gates," and another defile north of the coast, toward the Euphrates;—on the south, stretches the long margin of the sea, which in the western two-thirds of the coast takes the name of "the Cilician strait," because it here flows between the mainland and the great island of Cyprus, which lies off the shore, always in sight, being less than thirty miles distant, the eastern third of the coast being bounded by the waters of the gulf of Issus;—and on the west Cilicia ends in the rough highlands of Pamphylia. The territory itself is distinguished by natural features, into two divisions,—Rocky Cilicia and "Level Cilicia,"—the former occupying the western third, and the latter the eastern part,—each district being abundantly well described by the term applied to it. Within the latter, lay the opening scenes of the apostle's life.

Thus peculiarly guarded, and shut off from the world, it might be expected that this remarkable region would nourish, on the narrow plains of its fertile shores, and the vast rough mountains of its gigantic barriers, a race strongly marked in mental, as in physical characteristics. In all parts of the world, the philosophical observer may notice a relation borne by man to the soil on which he lives, and to the air which he breathes,—hardly less striking than the dependence of the inferior orders of created things, on the material objects which surround them. Man is an animal, and his natural history displays as many curious correspondences between his varying peculiarities and the locality which he inhabits, as can be observed between the physical constitution of inferior creatures, and the similar circumstances which affect them. The inhabitants of a wild, broken region, which rises into mighty inland mountains, or sends its cliffs and vallies into a vast sea, are, in all ages and climes, characterized by a peculiar energy and quickness of mind, which often marks them in history as the prominent actors in events of the highest importance to mankind in all the world. Even the dwellers of the cities of such regions, share in that peculiar vivacity of their countrymen,