DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5542#0272
2G0
KARA SU.
[Chap. xi.v.
from the marshes. After crossing the Sarmasakli Su, and
riding about a mile along its right bank, we reached a bridge
thrown over the Kara Su at the upper end of the defile,
down which the united streams flow in a N.W. direction
towards the Halys. The hills on either side are not high,
and the valley is about two or three hundred yards across.
The river appeared deep, but not rapid, and has probably
derived its name from the dark, inky colour of its water.
From the appearances on the bridge, a portion of which
is evidently of great antiquity, the water rises two feet in
wet seasons.
I rode some distance down the valley, but found that it
soon widened very considerably, and that the fall of the
water increased. I was satisfied that the only place where
the valley could have been dammed up to stop the river
must have been at its very commencement, where there
are remains of banks or ridges of rough stones or boulders,
about twenty or thirty feet above the level of the river, ex-
tending in an irregular line across the valley, particularly
on the north side of the river. If, then, King Ariarathes
did ever really dam up the course of a river to form a lake
near Csesarea (and from the circumstantial fact, related by
Strabo, of his having had to pay three hundred talents to
those who had suffered by the inundation caused by the burst-
ing of the dam, there can scarcely be any doubt of the fact),
it is, I think, certain that the Kara Su must have been the
river so dammed up, and that it could only have been done
at the head of the pass or valley : for, in the first place, there
is no other river flowing out of a lake and through a narrow
valley near Csesarea; and, secondly, the fall of the ground
in the ravine is so rapid that, had he attempted it anywhere
lower down, he never could have constructed a dam suf-
ficiently high to keep back the waters of the lake.
Two objections may perhaps be brought against this
opinion. In the first place, a geologist may, on future ex-
amination, ascertain that the bank or ridge which I have
described as extending partly across the valley is of na-
KARA SU.
[Chap. xi.v.
from the marshes. After crossing the Sarmasakli Su, and
riding about a mile along its right bank, we reached a bridge
thrown over the Kara Su at the upper end of the defile,
down which the united streams flow in a N.W. direction
towards the Halys. The hills on either side are not high,
and the valley is about two or three hundred yards across.
The river appeared deep, but not rapid, and has probably
derived its name from the dark, inky colour of its water.
From the appearances on the bridge, a portion of which
is evidently of great antiquity, the water rises two feet in
wet seasons.
I rode some distance down the valley, but found that it
soon widened very considerably, and that the fall of the
water increased. I was satisfied that the only place where
the valley could have been dammed up to stop the river
must have been at its very commencement, where there
are remains of banks or ridges of rough stones or boulders,
about twenty or thirty feet above the level of the river, ex-
tending in an irregular line across the valley, particularly
on the north side of the river. If, then, King Ariarathes
did ever really dam up the course of a river to form a lake
near Csesarea (and from the circumstantial fact, related by
Strabo, of his having had to pay three hundred talents to
those who had suffered by the inundation caused by the burst-
ing of the dam, there can scarcely be any doubt of the fact),
it is, I think, certain that the Kara Su must have been the
river so dammed up, and that it could only have been done
at the head of the pass or valley : for, in the first place, there
is no other river flowing out of a lake and through a narrow
valley near Csesarea; and, secondly, the fall of the ground
in the ravine is so rapid that, had he attempted it anywhere
lower down, he never could have constructed a dam suf-
ficiently high to keep back the waters of the lake.
Two objections may perhaps be brought against this
opinion. In the first place, a geologist may, on future ex-
amination, ascertain that the bank or ridge which I have
described as extending partly across the valley is of na-