Page:The travels of Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch - Volume I.djvu/33

Rh in the Katholic Church there: for there are seven churches in all. The greatest part of the buildings are of stone; and in the surrounding wall are four gates: the largest looks towards the Gulph of Soueidieh. This place is exceeding strong; the river Aasi descending on its eastern sides, along the bottom of the valley. This stream appears to enter the sea close to the mountain Akra, and the ships are supplied from it with fresh water.

After having said mass here, we returned to Antakieh (Antioch); whither also, on Thursday the twenty-ninth of Tamouz, came our Lord the Patriarch. Here, during a residence of six days, he performed as many masses: after which we hired horses, and left the town on the evening of Thursday the fifth of the month Ab; and passing the next morning through Bilan, arrived in the afternoon at Iskanderouneh. It happened to be the eve of the Feast of the Transfiguration, and we were received by the Kabarisa with the greatest honour. In their church we assisted at the Ἀγρυπνία. At the time of the Εἴσοδος, all the Clergy came in; and taking a blessing, they changed their robes, and, according to custom, went round in the Εἴσοδος, chaunting, "O resplendent light!" In the morning, our Lord the Patriarch said mass. In the evening we left this place; and arrived early the next day, which was Saturday, at Bayas, where the Patriarch performed mass on Sunday, the eighth after Pentecost; afterwards, on the Monday and Wednesday. Towards evening we took our departure; and, having halted the next morning at Jisr Albarnas, we passed on to Karn Capi. The road here is frightful, being a narrow defile, attended with every kind of danger.

On the morrow we arrived at Khan Kourd Koulak, or Wolf's Ears; for in the khan is a mosque with two cupolas, exactly resembling that animal's ears. Hence we departed at midnight, in company with eighteen carabiniers, Christians from Bayas; and early in the morning entered Misseyisa. The Castle of Heyat was on our right hand. At midnight we resumed our march, and passed over a bridge of the River Gihon, called Elchihan. In the morning, which was Saturday the fourteenth of the month Ab, we arrived at Adana, and alighted in the gardens of our Greek Church or Community, which forms a town of great size, and has within it many gardens. In each of them are more than three or four hundred stocks of the orange-tree, equal in size to the largest mulberry-trees: the rent of each is four piastres. Sweet lemon-trees, and other kinds of orange-plants, are also very abundant. As to our Lord the Patriarch, he went to collect his revenues at Tarsus and the smaller towns of Trimor and Jafer Pasha, and the towns of the Kabarisa in that direction. Then he returned to Adana: and we departed thence in the night of the twenty-ninth of Ab, in the company of an