We hiked along a narrow gorge full of bushes and rocks. The ground began to change as we walked, until we were walking among great rounded humps of rock as wide as houses. “I think we’re past the really big ones,” said the German. “Hey, maybe these are the really big ones,” said Laura. “Maybe just the tops of the big ones.” The moon burned silver and the stars pounded overhead, millions in the huge dark sky glimpsed between the moonlit towers of stone. I thought of the Romans marching through here, the Persian armies, Alexander the Great, Mithridates, Hittites, Christians and Muslims and Genghis Khan; pictured the great slumbering masses of history billeted among the knobby shadows and gullies, all through the silent grasses, under the sentinel stones.