PART II

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BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD

_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME._

THE GREAT BOER WAR. _Arthur Conan Doyle._

COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS. _G. W. E. Russell._

REMINISCENCES. _Sir Henry Hawkins._

LIFE OF LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN. _R. Barry O'Brien._

FROM THE CAPE TO CAIRO. _E. S. Grogan._

A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEN. _Dean Hole._

LIFE OF FRANK BUCKLAND. _George C. Bompas._

A MODERN UTOPIA. _H. G. Wells._

WITH KITCHENER TO KHARTUM. _G. W. Steevens._

THE UNVEILING OF LHASA. _Edmund Candler._

LIFE OF LORD DUFFERIN. _Sir A. Lyall._

ROUND THE WORLD ON A WHEEL. _John Foster Fraser._

LITERATURE AND DOGMA. _Matthew Arnold._

SPURGEON'S SERMONS. _Sir W. Robertson Nicoll, LL.D._

MY CONFIDENCES. _Frederick Locker-Lampson._

SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD. _Augustine Birrell, K.C., M.P._

THE MAKING OF A FRONTIER. _Colonel Durand._

LIFE OF GENERAL GORDON. _Demetrius C. Boulger._

POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN. _Mrs. Earle._

THE RING AND THE BOOK. _Robert Browning._

THE ALPS FROM END TO END. _Sir W. Martin Conway._

THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION. _Walter Bagehot._

LIFE OF RICHARD COBDEN. _Lord Morley._

LIFE OF PARNELL. _R. Barry O'Brien._

HAVELOCK'S MARCH. _J. W. Sherer._

UP FROM SLAVERY. _Booker Washington._

WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE. _H. Hesketh Prichard._

HISTORICAL MYSTERIES. _Andrew Lang._

THE STRENUOUS LIFE. _Theodore Roosevelt._

MEMORIES GRAVE AND GAY. _Dr. John Kerr._

LIFE OF DANTON. _Hilaire Belloc._

A POCKETFUL OF SIXPENCES. _G. W. E. Russell._

THE ROMANCE OF A PRO-CONSUL. _James Milne._

A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. _S. Reynolds Hole._

RANDOM REMINISCENCES. _Charles Brookfield._

THE LONDON POLICE COURTS. _Thomas Holmes._

THE AMATEUR POACHER. _Richard Jefferies._

THE BANCROFTS. _Sir Squire Bancroft._

AT THE WORKS. _Lady Bell._

MEXICO AS I SAW IT. _Mrs. Alec Tweedie._

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VIGNETTES. _Austin Dobson._

GREAT ANDES OF THE EQUATOR. _Edward Whymper._

THE EARLY HISTORY OF C. J. FOX. _Sir G. O. Trevelyan._

THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA. _H. Hesketh Prichard._

BROWNING AS A PHILOSOPHICAL AND

RELIGIOUS TEACHER. _Professor Henry Jones._

LIFE OF TOLSTOY. _Charles Sarolea._

PARIS TO NEW YORK BY LAND. _Harry de Windt._

LIFE OF LEWIS CARROLL. _Stuart Dodgson Collingwood._

A NATURALIST IN THE GUIANAS. _Eugene Andre._

THE MANTLE OF THE EAST. _Edmund Candler._

LETTERS OF DR. JOHN BROWN.

JUBILEE BOOK OF CRICKET. _Prince Ranjitsinhji._

_Etc., etc._

_Others to follow._

[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF AUTHOR'S ROUTE]

BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD

BY

LOUISA JEBB

(MRS. ROLAND WILKINS)

THOMAS NELSON & SONS

LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN

AND NEW YORK

"Oft have I said, I say it once more,

I, a wanderer, do not stray from myself;

I am a kind of parrot; the mirror is holden to me;

What the Eternal says, I, stammering, say again."

CONTENTS

PAGE

PART I

BRUSA TO DIARBEKR

PROLOGUE 13

I. DISENTANGLEMENT 23

II. BRIGANDAGE 34

III. SOCIAL INTERCOURSE 46

IV. THE DAWN OF THE BAGHDAD RAILWAY 55

V. IN THE TAURUS 88

VI. ROYAL PROGRESS 112

VII. HARRAN: A DIGRESSION INTO THE LAND OF ABRAHAM 132

VIII. THAT UNBLESSED LAND, MESOPOTAMIA 146

PART II

DOWN THE TIGRIS ON GOATSKINS

IX. AFLOAT 167

X. HELD UP 175

XI. A RECEPTION AND A DANCE 194

XII. AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN ENGLISHMAN 204

XIII. THE CREED OF THE KORAN 215

XIV. THE EVIL ONE 227

XV. ARAB HOSPITALITY 241

XVI. A STORM AND A LULL 254

XVII. AN ENCOUNTER WITH FANATICS 267

XVIII. THE END OF THE RAFT 277

PART III

BAGHDAD TO DAMASCUS

XIX. BABYLON 287

XX. THE SOUND OF THE DESERT 302

XXI. PALMYRA 316

XXII. AN ARMENIAN AND A TURK 325

XXIII. RETROSPECTIVE 354

APPENDIX 367

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

MAP _Frontispiece_

A WELL IN THE KONIA PLAINS 64

HITTITE BAS-RELIEF AND INSCRIPTION. IVRIZ 129

JACOB'S WELL. HARRAN 160

"DRAWING SKINS OF WATER" 225

PALMYRA. TRIUMPHAL ARCH 256

HASSAN 321

ERECH. SYRIAN DESERT 352

PROLOGUE

It was a hot midsummer's day; X and I sat on the long grass under an

apple-tree: she had a map of Asia and I had a Murray's Handbook. We

were about to travel together in the East. X was going primarily in

search of health; but she had studied comparative religions and was

prepared to be incidentally intelligent about it--visit mosques and

tombs, identify classical spots, and take rubbings of inscriptions.

I was merely going with X. She had unearthed me from a remote

agricultural district in the West of England with the idea that contact

with the agricultural labourer would have fitted me for dealing with

the male attendants who were incident to our proposed form of travel.

We were fully agreed on one fundamental point--that we should choose a

country which could be reached otherwise than by sea; and that, having

reached it, its nature should be such that we could travel indefinitely

in it without reaching the sea.

Now of all the continents Asia Minor is the one best adapted for this

purpose; for if you were a giant you could easily step across the bit

of inland sea which separates Europe from Asia in the neighbourhood

of Constantinople; and once landed on the other side your field of

operations is practically unlimited, extending even into the adjoining

continent of Africa; for any one who could step across the Bosphorus

could also step across the Suez Canal.

But having once settled on the particular continent, our ideas were

somewhat vague. How indeed can they be otherwise if you propose

travelling in a country which has not yet been ticketed and docketed

for the tourist? This product of a modern age can, thanks to Messrs.

Cook and Lunn, already tell, in the corner of his own fireside, the

exact hour at which he will be gazing at the dome of St. Sophia on any

particular day, or at which he will be eating his dinner, with the

number of courses specified, in the hotel the outside appearance of

which is already depicted on the itinerary. But it was not to be so

with us. What we should eat and what we should gaze upon was still

wrapt in the mystery of the great unknown.

X took a pencil and marked a straight line from Constantinople across

the Anatolian Plateau and the Taurus Mountains to Tarsus. "That looks a

good point to make for," she said, "Alexander led an army over the

Taurus." Then, having stopped within measurable distance of the sea,

she drew her pencil eastwards across the Euphrates to a point on the

Tigris high up in the Kurdistan mountains; from here she drew another

line following the Tigris to Baghdad. At this point we were coming

dangerously near the sea, so turning back she marked a line in the

contrary direction across the Syrian desert to Damascus.

"That will do for a start," she said; "we can fill in the details when

we get there."

Now this method of undertaking a journey might have its disadvantages

in what is known as a civilised country; for here we are all such

servers of time that unless we arrange everything beforehand, as

everybody else does, we are apt to get pushed aside; you must,

therefore, take your place in the general hustle and secure your bed

and your dinner and your right to look at sights by ticket long before

you are in need of them. In short, you must make a plan. But in the

untravelled parts of the East you reign supreme; there is no need to go

about securely chained to a gold watch which metes out with inexorable

exactitude the dictates of railway time-tables, steamers, diligences,

and _table d'hote_ summonses. Ignore Time, and he is at once your

servant; treat him with respect, and he at once becomes your master. In

those countries where Time has become master he develops a system of

locomotion to which you must conform or lose its benefits; it will not

accommodate itself to you. But in the East, do you but recognise the

principle of making Time your own and at once plans become unnecessary.

Systems of locomotion, for instance, spring up in answer to a

preliminary wish in your brain; and their existence being solely due to

you, it is possible to use them when and where you will. You want to

get from one point to another: your wish is passed on, and a mule or an

araba appears at your door; and whether it be punctual, or whether, as

is more usual in the East, it be late, it is of no consequence, for

Time is waiting for you and will wait for ever. Once you are started,

moreover, the stopping-places are not arbitrary; you have merely to

wish, and at once the mule or the araba stops. In the same way when you

wish to sleep your bed is where you make it; and when you wish to eat

you need wait for no summons. And should it so happen that you have

been misguided enough to make a plan, it is of no consequence should

you think fit to change it. One only asks, "Why have made the plan?"

Thus it was that, without any more preparation than this preliminary

idea of our route, X and I were able to carry it out in detail exactly

as we had sketched it in the rough.

The drawbacks of course were there. Sometimes we had nothing to eat

through not having arranged for food; and sometimes we slept out in the

wet. But does this never happen to those who have made elaborate plans

against all possible contingencies? And have they not had the worst of

it after all, for they have had the planning with no result, and have

suffered the annoyance of having their best laid plans mislaid.

Is it possible, moreover, to judge this method of travel by our

standard of ideas in the West? In a civilised country where beds abound

and it is merely a matter of arrangement to acquire one, there is no

delight in passing the night under a damp hedge with drips down your

back; there is shelter round the corner, and you merely curse yourself

for your own stupidity, or pretend you like it, and take care not to do

it again. But when you lie on your back on a sandy desert with nothing

within measurable distance of you, and the rain beats mercilessly down

or the wind howls through the crevices of your garments, you are

conscious of battling against great primeval forces akin to the unknown

elements of your own being; you cannot escape from them, for there is

no shelter round the corner: you are brought up face to face with

something fundamental; all the little accessories with which we have

learnt to shield ourselves fall away, and you are just there, stripped

yourself, and in the middle of naked realities. And if only you have

been wet enough, or cold enough, or hungry enough, it has been worth

while, for you never forget it; and the remembrance of it will come to

you ever and anon when you are once more tied up in the bonds of

convention and are struggling to keep a true idea of what is a reality

and what is not.

So it is, perhaps, that in setting out to write any account of such a

journey, one is dominated by the remembrance chiefly of facts which in

this country seem trivial. All the little details of life take on an

exaggerated form; for what in civilisation we are apt to ignore and

take as a matter of course, occurring almost unnoticed in the ordinary

routine of daily life, becomes out there of enormous importance. A good

meal, for instance, seems of far greater moment than an attack by

brigands, because of its rarer and more unexpected occurrence.

If you are travelling for no particular purpose, with people whose

language you do not understand, and in a country where the manners and

customs are not familiar to you and you are merely moving on slowly

from day to day--all you can get is a passing impression of outside

things. If you are not a scientist or an archaeologist or a politician

striving to catalogue each new acquisition on your particular subject;

if, in fact, you have no particular knowledge of any sort, but your

pores are wide open to receive passing impressions, what you get is a

vivid idea of the appearance of things. This is all that you can hope

to pass on.

In the following pages I do not propose to give a connected account of

the various places we visited or of the many adventures which befell

us; this is not a travel book. I shall have no intelligent remarks to

make on the historic spots we passed, journeying slowly through this

country so rich with still undiscovered monuments of ancient times; a

country which is also destined to become, as civilisation advances with

the Baghdad Railway, the centre of future political interest. What

justification is there then for writing a book at all?

The Danes have given us a definition of their idea of education: "It

is," they say, "what is left after everything that has been learnt is

forgotten." So it is with any form of travel; the value of it to the

traveller himself is what is left after lapse of time has effaced all

recollection of minor incidents and softened the vividness of strong

impressions. In very slow travelling through desert countries, where

day after day the same trivial events occur in similar yet different

settings, the essential facts of that country sink into you

imperceptibly, until at the end they are so woven into the fibres of

your nature that, even when removed from their influence, you will

never quite lose them.

There are certain notes in the East which form part of a tune sung all

the world over, but which give a clearer and more definite sound in the

land which first gave them birth. The sketches given in the following

pages are framed on them; they are what I have left, and what I would

fain pass on to the reader.

If I have succeeded in striking these notes true, there is no need of

an apology to those who have already heard them in the country whence

they spring; for any one who has ever travelled in the East welcomes

anything that will once more touch that particular chord, at whatever

time or place. And if I have succeeded in striking them so that here

and there amongst those to whom the East is still but a name, there are

some who may hear a faint echo of the real thing, I shall feel that

there has been some justification for this contribution to the

literature of the desert.

PART I

BRUSA TO DIARBEKR

"It avails not, time nor place--distance avails not,

I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or

ever so many generations hence.

Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;

Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of

a crowd;

Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the

bright flow, I was refresh'd;

Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift

current, I stood, yet was hurried."...

BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD

CHAPTER I

DISENTANGLEMENT

It was our first night in camp; little mysterious hillocks shut us into

a world of our own; we had it all to ourselves and only the stars

overhead knew, and they seemed to be congratulating us on our escape;

they twinkled and winked and beckoned. Constantin had lit a fire, and

this at once became the centre of our world; the door of our tent

looked out on it, the muleteers, the Zaptiehs, and our men sat round

it, our supper was cooking on it, and we all thought about that; the

horses and mules, tethered in a semicircle, turned that way and blinked

at it; far away a jackal saw it and barked. It drew us all together,

and its smoke went quietly up towards the beckoning stars.

They would be eating their dinner now in the hotel at Brusa just the

same as last night; the thin young man who had asked us what we should

do if it rained, the old lady who wanted to know if we were doing it

for pleasure, and the middle-aged spinster who thought we had no

business to expose ourselves to such dangers unless it were for

missionary work. The waiters would be bustling about; good Madame Brot

would be carving diligently at the side table with an anxious look;

bells would be ringing; men and women would be coming and going and

talking and laughing and scolding; down below in the hot kitchen the

men wash one pile of dirty plates after another.... Yes, it is very

quiet out here; the men speak in undertones and the fire crackles in

the cool, still air. Constantin lifted the pot off the fire. "Mangez,"

he said. He was Greek but could speak a word or two of French. He

ladled the onions and rice on to two plates and picked out the bits of

mutton; then after handing us the plates, he began to beat up eggs for

an omelette.

We had been stretched out on the ground; we drew ourselves up, and

sitting cross-legged balanced the plates on our knees. The food tasted

excellent although it had been cooked in one pot. Constantin had wanted

to bring three pots; he had been camp cook to the best people on

hunting expeditions--three courses for dinner, with clean plates and

knives for each course. He looked the part: his clothes were European,

except for the fez. He remained on the border-line of civilisation and

reminded us of what we had left. We had had a scene with him before

leaving Constantinople; he had accumulated a large assortment of

saucepans and kettles, of pans for frying and pans for stewing, of pots

for boiling and pots for washing; we had gone through them critically

and disregarded everything but a stew-pan, a frying-pan, and one pot

for boiling water. Constantin was in despair. "Pas possible,

mademoiselle," he kept on ejaculating, "pas possible, comment faire

cuisine?" But we were adamant; we wished to travel light and live

largely on native food.

As it was we had a whole araba[1] loaded up with our belongings; there

were the two tents for ourselves and the men, our camp-beds and sacks

of clothes, and the cooking utensils. It all seemed a great deal now,

and yet we were only taking necessaries. But then it had been so very

hard to know what necessaries were; it is very hard to get disentangled

from the forces of tradition. We had escaped now and would know better.

Life was becoming extraordinarily easy, for we had left behind most

things and forgotten all the injunctions and warnings of our friends.

[1] A native cart.

* * * * *

But there was still Constantin in his European clothes and his

aristocratic ideas and his broken French.

* * * * *

However, he does make delicious omelettes; we will forgive him for

smuggling in that omelette-pan in defiance of our orders.

* * * * *

It is getting very dark; we could no longer see the hillocks, but we

knew that they were there. We could hardly see the horses tethered

beyond the fire, but we could hear them munching and stamping, and now

and then one would neigh suddenly.

Constantin lit a lantern and hung it on a stick; then he washed up the

dishes. The other men sat on by the fire and we looked through the

smoke at them. There was Calphopolos. Now Calphopolos was a Greek, and

he was a mistake. We have said that Constantin was on the border-line

of civilisation and reminded us of what we had left. But Calphopolos

was right in it without really being of it--so that when he was about

one forgot that there was anything to be said for civilisation and only

remembered its drawbacks. His unbrushed black clothes contrasted

painfully with the native dress, especially when seen through the smoke

of a camp-fire. He always carried about a little black handbag, out of

which his tooth-brush was constantly falling. But his worst offence was

that he spoke a language which we understood, and jabbered French at us

from morning to night. He was in the employment of well-meaning friends

whom he accompanied when they made business excursions into the

interior. They had sent him to start us comfortably on the way; his

knowledge of the amenities of life was to pave the road leading away

from civilised methods of living.

Then there was Ibrahim, a long, lean Turk with a smiling face. He put

up the tents and rode in attendance upon us, and haggled with the

villagers over milk and eggs. They had told me earlier in the day that

Ibrahim was troubled in his mind; "never before had a woman looked him

straight in the face and shown him a watch." Two Eastern precepts had

been violated, and I had been the unwitting offender. It was at Brusa,

which we had left with such difficulty that morning. We had arranged

the night before to start at 8 o'clock. But 8 came, and 8.30 came, and

9 came, and then the Zaptichs came who were to have come at 8 to escort

us on the way; but there was no sign of our own retinue, of Constantin,

of Ibrahim, of our own hired horses, of the arabas and muleteers with

the baggage.

The news of our departure had got about and the people of the hotel

gradually collected at the door. "Where is your dragoman?" they said;

"why do you not send for him?" We confessed to having engaged no

dragoman. "No dragoman! that was very rash. We could speak the

language, then?" No, we had only a Turkish dictionary. They gave us up

then as hopeless. Another individual pushed his way up to us. "You will

never get your men to start or do anything else," he said; "you do not

realise what these Turks are."

I recognised him as a professional dragoman offered to us by Cook the

week before. But he was only telling us what everybody else out of the

trade had been dinning into our ears ever since we planned the journey.

I repaired to the inn where the men and horses had been collected the

night before. In the open yard stood the araba, unpacked and horseless.

Constantin sat on a roll of baggage near by, with a resigned expression

and a settled look, as if he had been sitting there for hours.

"Pas possible, mademoiselle," he said.

Ibrahim stood in the stable door, smoking complacently, and our

muleteers were squabbling violently over the roping of a box.

It was at this moment that I stepped up to Ibrahim and showed him my

watch. He looked at me with a startled expression, his jaw dropped, and

he turned hastily on the muleteers. But it was not till later that I

learnt how his inmost susceptibilities had been roused. One is at a

decided disadvantage with no knowledge of a suitable language, but by

dint of gesticulating with my riding-whip and pointing at everybody in

turn, I managed, at the end of another half-hour, to get the araba and

the men under way, and mounting my own horse rode behind them to the

hotel. In another five minutes we had sallied out on our road. X and I

rode ahead with Ibrahim and Calphopolos and the two Zaptiehs, then came

the araba with our baggage and the muleteers, then Constantin with

bulging saddle-bags suggesting the intrusion of various forbidden

cooking utensils.

Our road ran unshaded and dusty through the outskirts of Brusa, with

Mount Olympus towering above us. Bit by bit we left behind the staring

tourists, the staring native children, the unconcerned stall-keepers

displaying their wares of Brusa silk and printed cottons from England;

then we passed the country people riding in on mules with their

vegetables and chickens; we passed the little cultivated patches and

got amongst the larger fields, stretching away on each side of the

road. "Tutun," said Ibrahim, pointing at them with his riding-whip. I

looked at him inquiringly. He tapped his cigarette and pointed again at

the field.

"Tutun," he repeated. "Tobacco, you understand, mademoiselle,

tobacco--such as he is now smoking." Calphopolos always would insist on

explaining the obvious. The day got hotter and the road got dustier. At

midday we skirted a willow plantation, and a stream gurgled through the

damp green patch, inviting us to come in and rest. We crawled out of

the sun under the low willow bushes, and the men tied the horses to the

stronger branches. This first lunching place will always remain

indelibly printed on my memory: the slices of brown bread thickly

spread with solid cream; the watermelons and the grapes; the men

grouped about amongst the willows, eating great hunches of bread and

cheese; the horses breaking loose and straying about, browsing the

finer herbage which sprang up through the dried and yellow tufts of

older grass; the joy of being out of the sun and the dust; the cool

sound of the water in the brook; the sense of rest and freedom, the

sense of having really escaped at last.... On recalling this lunch with

X, after many adventures had made it seem very remote, I found that she

retained equally vivid recollections of it. I heard her murmur

reflectively to herself, "And we thought it was always going to be like

that!"

Then we had reluctantly left it all, the unwilling horses were pulled

and dragged away, snatching at last bites, and we rode off on the dusty

road again, until we reached the village near which we had arranged to

camp. We had ridden round and chosen this site in the middle of the

mysterious hillocks, which shut us out so effectually from everything

except the stars.

We were destined to spend many more such nights in camp; but perhaps

none can give you exactly the same thrill as the one on which for the

first time you sleep out in the open.

It is full of surprises; you expect it to be quiet, and you find the

darkness and stillness is full of noise. Nothing escapes you: the

breathing of men and animals, the crackling of the fire, the rustling

of leaves and grass: there seems to be a continuous movement very close

to you. You sit up many times expecting to see something in your tent;

it all makes you very wakeful. You drop off into a disturbed sleep very

late, and are awakened before sunrise by the stir in the camp. You are

positive you have not slept all night and that strange people have been

prowling round you in the dark.

Yet as one lay in this semi-wakeful state of excitement and mystery,

one's strongest impression was that of wanting protection merely

against a few primitive forces; with the wild beasts we shared the

dangers of cold and hunger and attacks from man. Slowly and painfully

you have crawled out of the net in which you have all this time been

unconsciously enveloped, and emerging stripped and bewildered grope

about for what is actually going to serve and protect you in this

primeval state of battling against the primitive forces of nature; a

state, moreover, where protection against the dictates of an organised

society is no longer needed. To those who are confronted with this

problem for the first time, it is almost impossible to walk straight

out of the net and have an impartial look round. Tradition still clings

to us in little bits, and we grope hopelessly about, wondering what

will be an essential and what will not.

Looking back now on these first few days of preparation for our journey

in the wilderness, I realise that by far the hardest part of the

journey was this initial disentanglement from the forces of tradition.

If you are about to alter fundamentally your method of living, you must

take care that you are discarding all those accessories which are due

to tradition; you must either adopt those evolved by the tradition of

the races among which you are about to travel, or you must bring

abstract science to bear on the question of how to provide for your

immediate wants under the changed conditions. A bare tent in a country

where weather is still an interesting topic is a safe place for such

reflections; the realities of the situation make one strictly

practical. On getting out of bed our clothes were damp with dew and the

grass was cold to our bare feet; at the next town we bought the strip

of carpet, the idea of which we had rejected at Constantinople.

CHAPTER II

BRIGANDAGE

Brigandage. The capture of Miss Stone, ancient history as it now is,

has served to give a vivid meaning to this word in the public mind. We

were being continually asked if we wished to emulate Miss Stone.

Travelling second-class through Bulgaria on our way to Constantinople

our fellow-passengers, rough, good-natured farmers, joked about it; but

they always added, "No, it will not happen to you." Then they would

look at one another and laugh. The capture of Miss Stone did not seem

to be looked upon seriously out there.

Then there was the Embassy at Constantinople. They were horribly

nervous about international complications. As a matter of fact capture

for ransom is a decided danger in the neighbourhood of larger towns in

Asiatic Turkey. Not that there are any professional brigands prowling

about, but there is a certain class of native ready to become a brigand

on the spur of the moment, should they get wind of suitable prey. They

are not Turks--no Turk would be bothered; they are, as a rule, Greeks,

and always Christians. It is as well, therefore, on any expedition, not

to make very great preparations and talk too much of your line of

route; but as quietly and expeditiously as possible to get hold of your

horses and men and start off before news of your movements has been

noised abroad.

It was not at all in our favour that X bore a name well known to

fortune hunters; one of her uncles was in the habit of big-game

shooting in this district, and his means were fabulously exaggerated.

Calphopolos had been sent with us partly because he could be so

thoroughly trusted to take all precautions. He certainly earned his

reputation; he seemed to have been born with the fear of brigands in

his soul; mere conversation about them caused him to break out into a

profuse perspiration. He had talked to us very seriously on leaving

Constantinople, as we sat on the deck of the steamer which took us

across the Sea of Marmora on our way to Brusa.

"Pour l'amour de Dieu, mesdemoiselles, soyez secretes; la secrece,

c'est tout."

"La secrece" became his by-word. If there was one thing he was more

afraid of than anything else on earth it was X's surname. He implored

her not to use it, but to call herself Miss Victoria. He had all our

luggage labelled Miss Victoria; and if in casual conversation the

dreaded name leaked out, beads of perspiration rolled down his face and

he would glance nervously round to see who was within earshot.

X was rather a reprobate on the subject. On our arrival at Madame

Brot's well-known hotel at Brusa, from where we were making our final

departure the next day, she marched up to Madame Brot and said, "I

think you know my uncle"--mentioning him by name. Calphopolos, who was

just behind, explaining that our name was Victoria pure and simple,

turned green with horror. With bent back and staring eyes, shaking the

same finger in warning which his subconscious self was trying to put on

his lips, he endeavoured to attract X's attention from behind Madame

Brot's broad back. But X went glibly on, quite oblivious of the panic

she was creating. Calphopolos turned to me with the resigned expression

of a man on whom death-sentence has been passed. "It is all over now,"

he said, "everybody in Brusa will know about us in half an hour.

Mesdemoiselles, did I not implore you for the love of God to respect

the secrecy? Ah, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, quelles demoiselles!"

And then poor old Calphopolos, who was not without his sense of fun,

laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. "The only thing left to

do," he went on, when he had sufficiently recovered to speak again, "is

to pretend we are going to Angora and put them off the scent.

Mesdemoiselles, for the love of God please try and remember that it is

Angora you are going to. Tell everybody you are going to Angora. The

secrecy it is everything."

It must be confessed it was very difficult at that time to feel

seriously alarmed about brigandage, for we seemed to be moving in

ordinary respectable society, and Calphopolos's treatment of the

subject merely caused us to think of it as a joke. Still, we fully

realised that it was a real risk, against which it would not do to

neglect taking ordinary precautions; and this sense was heightened by

the extreme alarm of the Vice-Consul at Brusa to whom we applied for

the escort of Zaptiehs, without whom one is not permitted to travel in

Turkey with any guarantee of safety. He could not understand why we

would not drive through to Nicaea in a landau in one day, like the

ordinary tourist; this, with a suitable escort, made the journey quite

safe, and it is a common thing for travellers to do. But to ride there

in three days with our camp, sleeping on the way, was another matter.

Every extra hour spent loitering in any one district heightened the

risk of being attacked by brigands. X tried to explain that it was for

the sake of her health, which only made him more bewildered; surely a

landau was more suitable for invalids!

Finding us, however, unmoved by his arguments, he promised to send us

two men the next morning and implored us never to leave their sides for

a moment. He must have rubbed the same instructions well into the

Zaptiehs, for during the seven days which they accompanied us as far as

Mekidje on the Anatolian Railway, they never were more than a couple of

yards away from us, day and night. This certainly detracted from the

sense of freedom we were otherwise experiencing. It seemed at first as

if we had only escaped from one form of bondage to fall into another.

But the fact that the men were unable to speak any language we

understood prevented it from becoming irksome, and one was soon able to

become nearly oblivious of the clanking sword at one's elbow.

Calphopolos, however, was not so easily ignored. He had a sort of

feeling that we were always running away from him, and tried to check

this pernicious tendency on our part by engaging us in constant

conversation in his broken French. The more we edged our horses away

from his side and tried to put a silent Zaptieh between him and

ourselves, the more persistently would he pursue us, propounding some

new problem which required an answer. Our behaviour on breaking camp

that morning had probably given rise to his state of mind. We had

ordained that the start should be made at eight o'clock; but the usual

procrastinations had ensued and the men seemed totally unable to get

off. Calphopolos kept packing and unpacking his little bag in search of

the missing tooth-brush, and tried to keep us calm.

"It is thus in this country, mademoiselle; have no anxiety--we shall

go, we shall go."

X and I agreed that there was only one way to go. We had our horses

saddled and rode away, in spite of Calphopolos's prayers and entreaties

to wait till the whole camp was packed. The Zaptiehs, after the orders

they had received, were obliged to ride after us. This left Calphopolos

and the muleteers without Government protection, which so filled them

with terror that in a very few minutes they also were on the way.

Calphopolos came tearing down the road after us, the tails of his long

black coat flying out behind, the tooth-brush sticking out of his

pocket, and the perspiration rolling down his cheeks.

"Pour l'amour de Dieu!" he gasped as he caught us up, "pour l'amour de

Dieu!" and then he had so much to say that he couldn't say it and

relapsed into laughter and ejaculations of "Mais quelles demoiselles,

mon Dieu, quelles demoiselles!"

The second day our road lay across the great Jenishehr plain. Herds of

buffaloes strayed about on the wilder parts, and here and there fields

of corn and tobacco, suddenly springing up beside the stretches of

rough grass, signalled the approach to an occasional village.

Here also it was very difficult to think of brigands; the harmless look

of peaceful cultivators did not suggest them. Besides which the country

was so open that you could not be suddenly pounced upon; you would have

ample opportunity of considering evil-doers as they approached you

across the wide plain.

We encamped that evening near the small village of Jenishehr. The

excitement of the novelty had worn off and we had had a long day in the

open air. In consequence of this I had fallen into a profound sleep at

once on going to bed. Suddenly I was awakened by a noise in the tent,

and looking up distinctly saw the figure of a man coming cautiously

through the tent door. In one moment I had hold of my revolver, kept

loaded at the head of my bed, and had it levelled at him, wondering

when the psychological moment for pulling the trigger would occur and

whether I should manage to live up to its requirements.

"Pour l'amour de Dieu, mademoiselle! pour l'amour de Dieu!" came in a

terror-stricken voice.

I put down the weapon rather crossly.

"What do you want?" I said.

"Quels sont vos noms," stuttered out Calphopolos in great agitation.

"What on earth do you mean?" I said; "you know our names well enough."

"Pour l'amour de Dieu, quels sont vos noms," he repeated.

"X," I called out, "wake up and tell me what is the matter with

Calphopolos--I think his head has been turned by this fright about your

name; he is going about jibbering over it."

X had a soothing influence on Calphopolos, and gradually extracted

from him that the local Zaptieh had come up for our _tezkerehs_ and

wanted to know our names. His agitation over the revolver had been so

great that he had been unable to explain articulately that it was our

_tezkerehs_ that he had come for.

The next day the whole character of the country changed. The plain

gradually oozed away into a more tumbled country and cultivation

disappeared. We were about to cross the range of hills which shut out

our view to the north.

The Zaptiehs were very much on the alert here; they unslung their

rifles from behind and rode with them across their knees. We were told

to keep close together and ride quietly without talking.

The mountains closed in on either side; they were bare, rounded hills

for the most part, with stunted shrubs on the lower slopes, which one

soon learnt to regard purely as cover for a possible enemy. There was

no difficulty about realising possible dangers here; the broad road

slowly narrowed, and at every turn in the winding path one almost

expected to be confronted by a villain. At the snap of a twig or the

rustle of a leaf our Zaptiehs grasped their rifles tighter, and without

turning their heads moved their eyes in that direction. Once, on the

wider road we had left, a cloud of dust had arisen in the distance, and

a long line of camels laden with wood filed slowly past us in twos and

threes. Our men exchanged a few monosyllabic words with the drivers,

and in another minute or two the tinkling of the bells and the tramp of

feet had subsided, the dust settled once more, and we were alone again

with the silent hills and the crackling twigs, and wound our way in and

out in single file across the rounded hillocks. Here and there the

sight of a herd of sheep or goats, tended by peaceful looking natives,

relieved the tension caused by our escort's precautions, for it is

always difficult to associate danger with such rural scenes. At last

there was a break in front; we were through the pass and began to

descend.

Calphopolos had been silent all this time; his conversational powers

seem to have suffered a severe check. Now he brightened up, mopped his

forehead, and murmured, "Grace a Dieu nous voila."

Half way down the hillside, perched on a projecting ledge just off the

road, stood a lonely coffee-house. The Zaptiehs, pointing at it with

their whips, hailed it with delight. They slid off their horses, and

holding ours, helped us to dismount. We sat in the porch and sipped

thick, hot Turkish coffee; below us the lake Ascanius lay like a blue

sheet between the purple hills, its eastern end fringed round with a

band of green, in which the minarets and domes of Isnik itself were

just visible. All around us the stunted shrubs still formed harbour for

the suspected brigands. Our Zaptiehs lay stretched on the ground in

front, apparently asleep; but their rifles were never laid aside, and

the least stir in the bushes made us realise their state of alert

watchfulness.

But not a living creature showed itself, and we rode on down and down

the curving incline until we reached the green band of vegetation and

our horses trod softly through grassy slopes of olive plantations,

whose grey leaves shone like silver as the sun's low rays beat through

them. Past the olive plantations lay a stretch of low-lying reedy

marsh.

"You shall have a good supper to-night," said Ibrahim; and throwing his

reins to a Zaptieh he plunged in on foot. He shot two snipe, and joined

us again as we reached the outskirts of the town.

The old city of Nicaea is now represented by a collection of a few

hundred miserable houses forming the village of Isnik. But, as

everywhere in the ancient towns of Asiatic Turkey, one is confronted at

every point with tokens of former splendour. Four great gates in the

old Roman walls give access to the town. Courses of brickwork are built

in between the large stones of which the bulk of the walls consists;

here and there semicircular towers rise up, their ruins still

surmounting the ruins of the wall. One, more perfect than the rest, is

said to mark the site of the church in which the Nicene Creed was

framed.

We fixed on a spot for the camp just inside the walls and outside the

present town, where a green field, which merged into a cemetery, lay in

the curve of a shallow brook.

The pots and pans were speedily tumbled out of Constantin's saddle-bags

and Ibrahim had our tents up with European alacrity; but it was dark

before the smell of roasted snipe pervaded the night air. We ate our

supper by the light of a lantern hung on a forked stick. The fear of

brigands departed and the sleep of the just fell upon the camp. Owls

hooted in the green-covered walls of ruined Nicaea, and away in the

distance the still mountains kept guard over the dark waters of the

lake as they lapped mournfully on the ruins of Roman baths on its stony

shore. The Zaptieh on guard poked fresh sticks into the dying fire and

sighed heavily between the snores of his companions.

In and out amongst the upright white stones of the cemetery a jackal

prowled stealthily and sniffed the smell of snipe bones.

CHAPTER III

SOCIAL INTERCOURSE

One tree stood out in the middle of the field in which we were

encamped. We spread our carpet under it and laid ourselves out for a

lazy day. There were letters to write home and plans to make about the

journey ahead. It was impossible to do such things comfortably after a

day's ride and with the feeling of transitoriness engendered by a short

night in camp. So we had decided to spend this Sunday at Isnik.

Constantin got out all his pots and pans to give them an extra

cleaning, and promised us a vast meal. He complained that he had never

had time to show us what he could do.

Animals and men alike were pervaded with that sense of rest which is in

the air on a hot Sunday morning. The horses, after rolling on their

backs, stretched themselves out motionless on their sides; the arabajis

dozed in the araba. Calphopolos retired inside the men's tent, prepared

to make up for the loss of sleep occasioned by anxious nights. We got

out our books and papers and thought about all we should get through

that day.

We were encamped within the old walls of Nicaea, and from where we sat

were in full view of the outskirts of the present town. By and by some

native women sallied out in our direction and, skirting the camp,

peeped cautiously round our tents; then getting bolder they sidled

towards us, smiling propitiatingly. We felt peacefully disposed towards

the whole world and smiled back at them. Thus encouraged they advanced

nearer and felt the substance of our clothes and examined our hats.

Finally, not finding themselves repulsed, they fingered our hair and

stroked our hands. X hunted in her vocabulary for suitable remarks and

delivered them at intervals. Meanwhile other women straggled out from

the town, and, finding their sisters already so much at home, they also

satisfied themselves as to the consistency of our clothes and skin. The

earlier arrivals now established themselves on the ground around us,

jabbering away amongst themselves and occasionally addressing a single

word to us, which they repeated again and again, pointing at each of

us in turn. X looked it up, and came to the conclusion that it meant

"sister." So we shook our heads and looked up the word for "friend."

The effect was magical; we had established social intercourse. More

and more women arrived and joined the throng settled round us, all

new-comers being initiated into the already acquired knowledge

concerning us. Soon everybody had a word they wanted looked out in the

dictionary, until X became fairly exhausted. We tried "goodbye" and "no

more" with disappointing effect, and finally let them sit there gazing

at us while we went on with our writing, keeping a sharp look-out on

our hats, which every one was anxious to try on. It seemed to please

them just as much to look at us as to talk to us, and they sat on in

placid content.

By and by Ibrahim hurried up and spoke to the women; they all darted to

their feet and fled. We looked at Ibrahim inquiringly. He pointed in

the direction of the town, and we saw two men arriving at a slow and

dignified pace. Constantin appeared on the scene.

"Gouverneur," he said, "faire visite."

X and I hastily donned our hats and sent for a seat for the

"gouverneur." But Ibrahim could only find a saddle-bag. X turned over

the leaves of the vocabulary in the hopes of finding suitable

greetings. We bowed and scraped mutually, and X delivered herself of

the first greeting.

"We are very pleased."

The "gouverneur" bowed and made, no doubt, what was a suitable

response; but as we could only attack single words we were no wiser.

There was a pause while X collected the words for another.

"Beautiful country," she attempted.

The "gouverneur" bowed very gravely.

"I hope I have said that," said X nervously, "he looks rather shocked."

At that moment Constantin appeared with coffee and cigarettes, which

gave us time to recover.

"I should not bother to talk to him," I said. "That is the best of

these people--they understand how to sit happily in silence, just

looking at you."

But X determined to make another try; it was good practice.

"Health good?" she said.

The "gouverneur" turned to his companion and said a few words in

Turkish. The young man looked rather terrified, and began to speak to

us in what sounded like gibberish. Constantin came to take the cups

away.

"Parle francais," he said, pointing to the young man.

We strained our ears to try and catch an intelligible word, but could

only shake our heads.

So we all took refuge in silence and looked at one another. There was

no sense of _gene_. The Turk and his companion seemed as content to

sit and look at us as the women had been. When he had finished his

cigarette he rose, and, bowing once more in Turkish fashion, took his

leave.

* * * * *

We picked up our papers once more, then Constantin came and said lunch

was ready. We sat on saddle-bags outside the tent and ate chunks of

mutton and onions out of the tin bowl keeping hot on the charcoal

brazier at our side. Ibrahim filled our cups with water from the brook,

and the grass tickled our hands each time we lifted them from the

ground. The pots and pans lay about all around, and Constantin,

squatting in the middle of them, brought the coffee to the boil three

times in the little Turkish pot.

"Sheker, effendi?" he called out, "un, deux?" as he ladled in the

sugar. Constantin's language was always of a hybrid nature, consisting

of alternate words of French and Turkish.

Then we had returned to the carpet under the tree and sipped the thick,

hot coffee out of the little Turkish cups, and sent thoughtful rings of

smoke up into the branches of the tree above. And with the rings of

smoke went up thoughts of the coffee they were drinking now in the

drawing-rooms; the little cups there would have handles, and each one

would help himself to sugar off a little tray.

* * * * *

"I guess you find it slow here!"

An American tourist couple from Brusa stood over us. They had seen us

off at Madame Brot's hotel, and had then announced their intention of

driving to Nicaea in a landau.

"We thought we would just look you up and see if you had got here all

right, but we cannot stop a minute; we've only had an hour to see the

walls, they were so long getting lunch."

"You ought to see the tower on the site of the church where they

discussed the Nicene Creed," said X.

"The Nicene Creed--eh, what?" said the American, as he consulted his

guide-book.

"Say, we just ought to have a look at that," he said to his wife.

"We shall miss the _Augusta Victoria_ if you do," said the lady.

Then she turned to us. "We go on to Smyrna in it to-morrow morning,"

she explained, "so we must get back to-night."

The landau appeared at that moment; time was up. Smyrna, Beyrout,

Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Luxor had to be got in during the

allotted time, and there had been no provision made for the Nicene

Creed. So in they got and dashed away over the plain.

They had come as a whirlwind over from the West, sweeping the surface

of this Eastern land and catching up the loose fragments on it; but its

traditions were too deeply rooted to be caught in the blast; these had

merely bent their heads and let the blast pass by. Strong as it is, it

cannot unloose the sway of ancient customs. Even for Americans the East

will not move. The natives gazed at the landau, hardly wondering at it;

then they forgot it. But we did not forget it so easily. For us an

odour of the West was left hanging over the plain--and above all, our

sense of time had been offended.

A French engineer with his wife and family were the next to appear on

the scene. They were the only Europeans living in the place, and

rejoiced over the sound of their mother-tongue. The man poured out

volumes of it, and was interesting about his work up to the point when

we became fatigued.

"Ah! mademoiselle, what it is to be in civilised company again! We live

here from day to day and year after year, and have no one to speak

with, no one with whom to exchange ideas. C'est comme la mort."

"Do you not see anything of the natives?" we inquired. "They seem very

friendly, and you can speak Turkish."

"Ah! mademoiselle, what can one do with such people? how can one

associate with them? They are canaille, mere canaille."

"We were talking to some of them," we said, "and thought them very

intelligent."

He held up his hands in horror.

"But, mademoiselle, do you not understand? Certainly there are the

Christian races, but for the most part, ce sont des Turques, des

infideles, des chiens. There is Marie there, pauvre Marie! it is bad

enough for me, but then I have my work; but Marie, the pauvre Marie,

she dies of ennui, she can speak to no one but me and the children."

The pauvre Marie seemed indeed to have lost the power of speech; she

sat silently as her husband poured out his contempt of the canaille.

We had found the Greek women very entertaining in the morning, and they

too had sat and looked at us in silence. But they had not been ashamed

of their silence; Marie was, and felt awkward; so we all felt

uncomfortable, and tried to talk to her.

One felt then how little actual language had to do with social

intercourse. We could not get into touch with Marie, whose language we

understood, in the same way that we had got into touch with the native

women, whose language we did not understand.

They sat on and on; it was not until the sun began to send out long

warning shoots of colour, heralding its disappearance behind the purple

mountains, that they rose to go.

And we, worn out with this final effort in sociability, gave ourselves

up to the quiet of the deserted camp, and watched the shades of night

creep once more over the ruined walls and the distant hills, over the

houses of the French engineer and the canaille.

CHAPTER IV

THE DAWN OF THE BAGHDAD RAILWAY

I

There is something very weird and uncanny in the terminus of a railway

in the middle of a wild and desolate country such as this. The Monster

runs his iron fangs into the heart of its desolation and shoots you

into it like a ball out of a cannon's mouth. Roaring and hissing and

sending out jets of flame, he comes racing through the darkness to a

certain definite spot; here he discharges you in the blackness of night

and subsides. Next morning when you awake he is gone, and you are left

to shift for yourself as best you can. But there is a certain human

friendliness about this Monster while you are travelling with him. He

seems to draw all the signs of life out of an apparently dead country

and collect them at the stations for you to see. Great warehouses

filled with sacks of corn testify to the productiveness of a country

which, judging it from the train window after harvest time, one would

dismiss as mere barren soil; an occasional MacCormick's "Daisy" reaper

awaiting delivery on a side platform, native carts hanging about, and

truck-loads of empty sacks tell the same tale. Groups of peasants, idly

gossiping, gathered together by the whistle which heralds the Monster's

approach, belie the impression of an uninhabited land; for Turkish

villages are carefully designed so as not to attract attention. When

one's eye gets more familiar with the seemingly uniform colour of the

landscape, varied only by light and shade, one becomes aware of the

low, flat-topped, mud-brick houses, which, even at close quarters,

often seem but part of the natural rock.

Even the unchanging East is powerless once the Monster's fangs have

taken hold; he alone of all influences comes to stay and leave his

mark.

Slowly, perhaps, but very surely, he undermines with irresistible

persistence the customs and habits which from time immemorial have held

their own against the religious, educational, or military forces of

stronger nations.

This particular spot has long been the battlefield of the East and the

West; now one, now the other, has had temporary ascendance; in the long

run the East has always conquered.

But already we can see what a power the East has to reckon with in the

railway. For one thing it attacks the Eastern in one of his vital

points--his conception of Time. Time waited for him when he had but

camels to load; but the railway will not wait for him; the Monster

screeches and is off. Sunrise or two hours after sunrise is not one and

the same thing to him. Relentless as day and night he comes and goes,

and there is no cheating him as the Eastern cheats Time.

But the railway is cheating the East out of its time-worn customs and

ideas, and there is a certain sadness in the evidences of transition.

All down the line picturesque native costumes are being replaced by

ugly European clothes. The men wear terrible fancy trouserings from

Manchester; the women spend more money on dress--and unfortunately it

is European dress--and less on the old-fashioned wedding feasts. The

turnover of the shops in the larger towns has increased fourfold in the

last ten years. The bazaars are now a medley of stalls exhibiting

native manufactures side by side with cheap trinkets from England and

loud flannelettes from Italy. The price of wheat has doubled; and with

that of wheat the prices of other exports have also risen. Opium, wool,

mohair, hides, and salt are amongst the products of these great plains.

Two short days' ride from Nicaea had brought us to Mekidje, a station on

the Anatolian Railway half-way between Haida Pasha and Eskishehr. The

single line went as far as Konia, and one train ran each way every day.

It stopped for the right at Eskishehr, continuing the journey next

morning.

We arrived at the station some hours before the train was due, and sat

in the stationmaster's strip of garden, for there did not seem anything

else to do. We said goodbye to the Zaptiehs and to the muleteers who

were returning to Brusa, and watched them slowly disappear down the

road we had come. Then we heard the low, familiar tinkle of camel bells

and a score or more of laden animals paced slowly into the open ground

round the station. They have a more discreet and tuneful way of

announcing their arrival than the Monster, and when they appear on the

scene they do so in a more dignified, calmer manner. Having arrived

also, they do not look as if they were off again the next minute; they

look as if they had come to stay for ever, and they give you time to

think. One by one, in answer to a word of command, they knelt down in

the dust, and the great baskets holding the goods were unfastened and

rolled about on the ground. Their owners seemed too slack to do any

more. They let them lie there while they looked at the sun. The Monster

is slowly replacing these carriers of the East; but their day is not

yet done by a long way, for they must feed him from the interior. His

life is still dependent on the life of those he is working to destroy.

* * * * *

At last we heard his distant shriek. Down upon us he came, dashing up

all in a minute, in such a splutter and such a hurry, waking us all up.

Officials rushed up and down the platform, and swore at the natives who

were loading our baggage. Everybody talked at once to everybody else,

and the Monster hissed impatiently, noisy even when he was standing

still.

There were not many passengers; in a first-class carriage a Pasha

travelled in solitary state; all his harem were delegated to a

second-class carriage, where the blinds were pulled down. In the

third-class were a few natives, who leaned out of the windows and

gossiped with the camel owners, idle witnesses of the busy scene.

But the Monster is getting impatient; he hisses furiously and finally

gives a warning shriek. Then off he goes, and we take a last look at

the kneeling camels, munching away as unconcernedly as if their

destroyer had never invaded their peaceful country.

Mekidje is practically at sea-level; Eskishehr is a tableland two

thousand feet high; we had therefore a steady rise on the whole journey

up the valley formed by the Kara Su, a river which has its source in

the neighbourhood of Eskishehr. On each side rounded hills shut out the

horizon, save where here and there a tributary valley would reveal,

through steep-sided gorges, a distant view of purple ridges with

snow-clad tops.

It was night when we arrived at Eskishehr, and we groped our way to the

Grand Hotel d'Anatolie, kept by Greeks. It was at this hotel that we

first met Hassan, who was destined to play such a large part in our

future travels. He was an Albanian Turk, and had been introduced to us

by our friends in Constantinople, whom he accompanied on their shooting

expeditions in this district. They had written to ask him to look after

us during our brief stay at Eskishehr.

Ibrahim brought him into our room, and there he stood silently, after

salaaming us in the usual way.

Ibrahim was a tall man, but Hassan towered above him. He wore a huge

sheepskin coat, which added to his massive, impressive look.

X looked up words in her Turkish book.

"They told us you would look after us here?" she said.

"As my eyes," he answered very quietly and simply. And thus began one

of those friendships on which neither time nor distance can leave its

mark.

Two days later X asked him whether he would accompany us on the next

stage of our journey, across the Anatolian Plateau and the Taurus

Mountains to Mersina.

"Will you come with us and guard us well?" she said. He dropped on one

knee and kissed her hand.

"On my head be it," he said.

* * * * *

Eskishehr, before the days of the railway, was a purely Turkish town;

it displayed the usual chaos of mud-brick and wooden houses, with their

lower windows carefully latticed over for the concealment of the women;

of narrow, winding bazaars, here a display of brightly coloured clothes

and rugs, there a noisy street of smithies and carpenters' shops; and

rising above it all the minarets of half a dozen mosques.

But the railway's mark is on it to-day. The population has been

increased by some five thousand Tartars and Armenians, whose houses,

planted together near the line, have a neat, modern, shoddy look,

contrasting with the picturesque squalor of the ancient Turkish town.

The railway is slowly attacking the stronghold of the Turkish peasant,

extending his operations on the wasted stretches of cultivable land,

and slowly opening out dim vistas of prosperity athwart his present

apathy. In the same way the railway is slowly affecting the town

merchant. But one shudders here at the effect of prosperity

unaccompanied by civilising influences. For in the rich merchant of the

town you have the Turk at his worst. The simple, hospitable Turkish

peasant is made of good stuff; the Turkish soldier of rank and file, if

his fanatical tendencies are not encouraged, is equally good; the

official Turk is corrupt, but only because the particular method of

administering his country's laws obliges him to be so; the educated

Turk of Constantinople is rapidly becoming a civilised being. But the

rich middle-class Turk of towns has nothing to be said for him. The

Christians have taught him to drink, and he is rich enough to keep a

large harem. We had an introduction to one such person in Eskishehr.

The polished Turkish phraseology of welcome could not conceal the

coarseness and vulgarity of his mind, and we were glad to escape to the

sacred inner chambers, where a very young and pretty woman sat in

lonely state, the latest addition to his harem. There she sat, draped

in the softest silks of gorgeous colourings, surrounded with all the

evidences of luxury and comfort, as sulky as a little bear.

We were accompanied by a Greek lady, who talked French and Turkish and

acted as our interpreter; but never a smile or more than a word could

be drawn out of the cross little thing. She simply stared in front of

her with an expression of acute boredom in her beautiful eyes. A

good-natured, elderly serving-woman, who stood at the door, explained

matters. She had been very much pampered at home, and she had had a

good time; she saw all her young friends at the baths, the social

resort for Turkish ladies. The rich merchant had been considered a

great _parti_; but already she had had enough of it. She never

went out except for an occasional drive in a closed carriage. She was

tired of embroidery work, she was tired of eating sweets, she was tired

of smoking, she was tired of her fine dresses. _"Aman_, but it

would come all right--and the serving-woman winked and nodded, and

stroked her mistress's listless hand.

"Is it always like this?" we asked the Greek lady.

"Ah, mon Dieu! not at all! This man is very jealous, and she may not

see her friends. He heaps on her what money can buy and thinks that is

enough. But with the poor it is different. You will see. There is a

wedding to-day in a poor family. I will arrange for you to go. Mon

Dieu! no, it is not always thus. La pauvre petite."

The room in which we sat was draped in the usual Turkish manner with

magnificent curtains in rich Eastern colourings. Round three walls ran

low divans covered in the same way. There was not such a room in

Eskishehr we were told. Had the decorations stopped there, and we had

been able to forget the unfortunate prisoner, the general effect would

have been decidedly pleasing. But as we sat there our eyes were kept

glued, by some horrible attraction, on the glitter of a cheap gilt

frame of the gaudiest description, containing a crude coloured print of

the German Emperor; below this stood a gimcracky little table covered

with a cheap tinselled cloth, on which was placed a glass and silver

cake-basket in the vilest of European taste. It hit one terribly in the

eye. It was a jarring note in the Monster's work.

* * * * *

We took leave of the sulky little lady, and left her once more to her

sweets and her embroideries in the long, weary hours of lonely

splendour.

We had only seen the second act of this bit of Turkish drama; when the

curtain went down for us we had had enough of it.

But we were about to see Act I. in different surroundings. The Greek

lady kept her word, and in due course we found ourselves ushered into

the house of the bridegroom. The preliminary ceremonies had already

begun--in fact they had been going on all day. There sat the bride at

the end of a room which had been cleared of everything except the low

stool which she occupied alone. She was a lumpy looking girl of

seventeen or so, and sat there motionless with downcast eyes. On the

floor sat dozens of women, packed as tight as the room could hold. The

bride might neither look up nor speak, which seemed hard, for every

woman in the room was both looking at her and speaking about her; the

hubbub was terrible.

She rose as we entered and kissed our hands; this much is apparently

allowed on the arrival of strangers. The Greek lady explained that she

was obliged to stand until we asked her to sit down again, and that she

might not look at us. This was a good deal to ask on such an occasion;

European ladies are not, as a rule, guests at the wedding of the

Turkish poor, and we caught one or two surreptitious peeps from under

her long eyelashes. We joined the throng on the floor and continued to

gaze at her as every one else did. Marriage customs in general, and her

own affairs in particular, were discussed for our benefit, the Greek

lady interpreting in torrents of voluble French.

"She may not speak to her husband for forty-eight hours. When he comes

in he will lift the veil and see his bride for the first time. Then he

puts a girdle round her waist and it is finished. His mother chose her

for him. If he does not like her, no matter, he can choose another, for

he is getting good wages, and can afford to keep two."

By and by a large tray was brought in, piled up with rounds of native

bread and plates of chicken. It was placed on a low stool in the centre

of us all, and, following everybody's example, we grabbed alternate

bits of chicken and bread. Then followed hunches of cake made of nuts

and honey.

We were still eating when we heard a noise of singing and musical

instruments outside; it became louder and louder, and finally stopped

by the house.

"They are singing 'Behold the bridegroom cometh,'" said the Greek lady;

"the man is being brought in a procession of all his friends."

The food was hastily removed, and all the guests were marshalled into

an adjoining room, which already seemed as full as it could hold of

babies and children and old hags, who presumably had been left to look

after the younger ones. We were allowed to remain while the finishing

touches were put on the bride. Her face was first plastered all over

with little ornaments cut out of silver paper and stuck on with white

of egg; then she was covered over entirely with a large violet veil.

And so we left her sitting there, sheepish and placid in the extreme,

in strange contrast to the voluble Greek lady and the excited friends.

We met the bridegroom in the passage. He kissed his father, and stood

first on one foot and then on the other. His mother took him by the

shoulders, opened the door of the room we had just left, and shoved him

in. Let us hope that the silver ornaments did their work and made his

bride pleasing in his sight when he lifted the violet veil. What she

thought of him need not concern us any more than it did her or her

friends, for such thoughts may not enter the minds of Turkish brides.

The show was over. The curtain of the first act had gone down for us.

It gave promise of a more successful drama than the one we had

previously witnessed.

* * * * *

It is 267 miles or thereabouts from Eskishehr to Konia. It took us a

good fifteen hours by rail. We were now on the summit of the tableland;

the bounded river valley gradually gave way to long stretches where

signs of cultivation were more apparent. We were getting into the great

wheat-growing district, which the railway is causing to extend year by

year. At Karahissar, a town of 33,000 inhabitants, a gigantic rock with

straight sides and castellated top rises abruptly out of the plain, and

from here another corn-growing valley merges into the great plain

stretching away to the north. Mount Olympus, whose base we had skirted

on leaving Brusa, could be very dimly discerned on the sky-line.

Then darkness set in, and the Monster ran steadily on with us into the

unknown. Towards eight o'clock there was a sudden stop; it had come to

the end of its tether.

We had left Calphopolos and Ibrahim at Eskishehr, and now only

Constantin remained as a link with civilisation. Hassan had appeared at

the station at Eskishehr, prepared to accompany us round the world if

need be. He wore a brown suit of Turkish trousers and zouave under his

sheepskin cloak. His pockets bulged rather, so did the wide leather

belt which he used as a pocket, otherwise his worldly goods were

contained tied up in a white pocket-handkerchief.

And so we arrived at Konia. Behind us was the railway, leading back to

the things we knew, to the things we should hope to see again; before

us was the plain, leading us to strange new things, things we should,

perhaps, just see once and leave behind for ever.

The iron Monster had dumped us down and was no further concerned with

us; if we would go further it must be by taking thought for ourselves.

There were horses and arabas to hire, there were provisions to lay in,

there was the escort of Zaptiehs to be procured and the goodwill of the

authorities to be obtained. We had letters of introduction to Ferid

Pasha, then Vali of the Konia vilayet and since Grand Vizier of

Constantinople. He was not as other Valis; he was called the great and

the good, and had established law and order in his province. There need

be no fear of brigandage while we were within the boundaries of his

jurisdiction.

The Government building, the Konak, occupied one side of the square in

which stood our hotel, and we sent Hassan across to pay our respects.

But Ferid Pasha was away, which caused us great disappointment; we

could only see his Vekil, the acting Governor.

Taking Hassan and Constantin with us, we went up the long flight of

steps and down a corridor leading to the Vali's room. Peasants and

ragged soldiers hung about the passage, and black-coated

Jewish-looking men hurried in and out. A soldier showed us the way,

holding back the curtains which concealed the entrance to various

rooms, and from behind which the mysterious looking Jews were

continually creeping.

The Vekil sat at a table covered over with official documents; a

divan, higher and harder than those we had seen in private houses, ran

round two walls, on which squatted several secretaries, holding the

paper on which they wrote on the palms of their left hands. Beside the

Vekil sat an old Dervish priest, and next him the Muavin, the

Christian official appointed after the massacres to inform Valis of

the wishes of Christians, and better known amongst those who know him

as "Evet Effendi" (Yes, Effendi).

* * * * *

X was getting fluent in matters of Turkish greeting; she now reeled

off a suitable string in reply to theirs. Hassan stood beside us,

grave and dignified, and we noticed that all the men greeted him very

courteously. X then endeavoured to explain our desire to travel to

Mersina and requested the services of a suitable escort. Owing to

limitations in her knowledge of the Turkish vocabulary, the nearest

she could get to it was that the Consul at Mersina loved us dearly and

wished us to come to him. Matters were getting to a deadlock; the

officials appeared to be asking us what was the object of our journey,

and we could only insist on the intense love of our English Consul.

Suddenly another visitor was ushered in, and for the first time since

leaving Nicaea the strange sound of the English tongue fell upon our

ears. The newcomer was Dr. Nakashian, an Armenian doctor living in

Konia.

He at once acted as interpreter. Officialdom for once put no obstacles

in the way, and an escort was promised us for the journey. The Vekil

inquired whether we should like to see the sights of Konia; and on our

replying in the affirmative, he arranged that we should be taken round

that afternoon; Dr. Nakashian also promised to accompany us.

Accordingly we sallied out later on horseback with Hassan. Dr.

Nakashian was mounted on a splendid Arab mare. The Government

Protection, in the shape of two Zaptiehs and a captain, followed in a

close carriage. We started off very decorously, but the Arab mare

became excited and plunged and galloped down the street; our horses

caught the infection, and we followed hard; the Government Protection

put its head out of each window and shouted; the driver lashed his

jaded horse, and the rickety carriage lurched after us in a cloud of

dust. The natives lining the streets shouted encouragingly; finally we

landed at the Dervish mosque. Dervishes are strong in Konia. Their

founder is buried here, and his tomb is an object of pilgrimage. The

chief feature of the mosque is its wonderful polished floor, where the

dancing ceremonies take place.

At Konia, perhaps more than at Eskishehr, one is struck with the

railway's influence in the passing order of things. There are many fine

buildings in the last stages of decay in this ancient city of the

Seljuk Turks; the palace, with its one remaining tower, the fragments

of the old Seljuk walls found here and there in the middle of the

modern town, the mosques lined with faience, beautiful even in its

fragments. Contrast with this the squalor and the dirt of the present

Turkish streets, the earth and wood houses, enclosed in walls of earth,

the apathetic natives, and the general feeling of stagnation and decay.

[Illustration: A WELL IN THE KONIA PLAINS.]

Then, outside the town, the railway appears; modern European houses

spring up round it--offices for the Company and an hotel. A whiff of

stir and bustle brought in along with the iron fangs of the Monster

brings a sense of fresh life to these people, whose existence seemed

one long decay of better things, like that of the ruins amongst which

they spend their days.

And everywhere there was a whisper of yet closer touch with

civilisation. The Anatolian Railway stops at Konia, but its

continuation under the name of the Baghdad Railway was everywhere in

the air.[2] No one spoke openly about it; its coming seemed enveloped

in such a shroud of mystery that one felt there was a sort of halo

around its birth. At first one mentioned it baldly by name; and at once

the official would put on his most discreet and impressive manner and

refer to the will of Allah; the merchant would nod mysteriously and

then wink with evident satisfaction. "It comes! oh yes, it comes! but

it is better not to talk of it yet." And the Zaptieh would sigh

heavily, thinking of his unpaid wages, and say, "Please God, it comes,"

and then look hastily round to see who had overheard him.

[2] The Baghdad Railway is now running as far as Bulgurlu, a

point some seven miles beyond Eregli.

And so at last we also learnt to speak of the Coming of the Monster

with bated breath and lowered tones, and were duly infected with the

impressiveness of his arrival--the arrival of the Being whose touch was

to bring new life into this dead land.

II

It was on the morning of the third day after our arrival at Konia that

we made the plunge into the great plain from the spot where the Monster

had left us. We collected in the square in front of the Konak. There

were two covered arabas to convey the baggage, and in one of these

Constantin and Hassan also rode; X and I rode horses, and had

saddle-bags slung under our saddles. Our escort consisted of three

Zaptiehs, a Lieutenant, Rejeb, and an ancient Sergeant, Mustapha.

The head of the police accompanied us a few miles out of the town.

Slowly, riding at a foot's pace, we left it all behind, the squalid

streets, the modern houses, the scraggy little trees; the lumpy road

became a deeply rutted track bordering stubble fields; lumbering carts

passed us, squeaking terribly as the wheels lurched out of the ruts to

make way for us. The track became an ill-defined path, along which

heavily laden pack-animals slowly toiled, raising clouds of dust.

Turning in our saddles, all we could see of Konia was the minarets of

its mosques standing above a confused blur on the horizon line.

There is a strange fascination in watching the slow disappearance of

any object on the horizon, when that horizon is visible at every point

round you. The exact moment never comes when you can state the actual

disappearance of the object. You think it is still there, and then you

slowly realise that it is not. And when you have realised this, you

turn round again in the saddle once for all, and set your face steadily

towards the horizon in front of you, which for so many hours on end has

nothing to show and nothing to tell you, and yet whose very emptiness

is so full of secret possibilities and hidden wonder.

* * * * *

We had got beyond the point where one met others on the road; we had

now become our own world, a self-contained planet travelling with the

sun through space. When he disappeared over the horizon line we pitched

our camp and waited for his reappearance on the opposite side. At the

first glimmer announcing his arrival the tents were hauled down, the

arabas loaded up, and by the time his face peeped over the line we were

in our saddles, ready once more to follow him to his journey's end.

It is a great half-desert plain, this part of Anatolia; desert only

where it is waterless, and very fertile where irrigation is possible.

In places it seemed to form one huge grazing ground; now it would be

herds of black cattle munching its coarse, dried-up herbage; now flocks

of mohair goats, now sheep, herded by boys in white sheepskin coats,

tended by yellow dogs. Then we knew that a village would be somewhere

about, although we did not always see it; for here too the villages are

the colour of the surrounding country and perhaps only visible in very

clear sunlight.

Or it might be that we would ride slowly through a cluster of mud huts,

and the yellow dogs would rush out and bark furiously at us, while the

men and children stared silently, too listless even to wonder. At times

we would stop in a village for our midday meal, sitting in the shade of

its yellow mud walls. The Zaptiehs would stand round us and keep off

the dogs until some of the village men would appear and call them away

with a half-scared look--for the Zaptieh is the tax-collector, and they

suffer from extortion at his hands.

We visited the women in their houses, and found them always interested

and friendly. Turkish was becoming more intelligible to us, and the

conversation usually took the same form:--

"Who is your father?"

"He is a Pasha in a far country."

"Where are your husbands?"

"We have no husbands."

"How is that?"

"In our country the women are better than the men, and the men are

afraid of us."

Then our clothes are fingered all over and the cost of everything on us

is asked. We rise to go, and they hang on to us and implore us to come

again. But the sun has already begun to dip on his downward course, and

we must hurry after him.

Then would follow hours when no attempt at cultivation, or sign of

herds and flocks, would be visible, and the desert country was only

relieved by wonderful effects of mirage, in which we would chase

elusive pictures of mountains and lakes and streams.

One had time to take it all in: the wonderful exhilarating air, the

silent stretches, the long, monotonous days of the shepherd boys,

marked only by the gathering in of their flocks at night.

How will it be when the Monster comes, roaring and snorting through

these silent plains, polluting this clear air with his dust and smoke?

At first these haughty, resentful shepherds will stand aloof from the

invasion, the yellow dogs will bark in vain at the intrusion. Then

slowly its daily appearance will come to them as the sun comes in the

morning and the stars at night. Unconsciously it also will become a

part of the routine of their lives. They will not cease to look at it

with wonder, for they have never wondered. They will accept it, as they

accept everything else. But use it? That is a different tale. It will

be a long fight; but the Monster has always conquered in the end.

* * * * *

On the third day we rode into Karaman. A medieval castle crowns the

town, and is visible at some little distance across the plain.

The old sergeant, Mustapha, startled us by suddenly greeting it from

afar:--

"Ah, Karaman, you beautiful Karaman, city of peace and plenty. Ah,

Karaman, beloved Karaman!"

And the Zaptiehs, taking up the refrain, made the silent plains ring

with "Karaman! beautiful Karaman!"

* * * * *

We pitched our tents on a grass plot in the centre of the town.

Constantin began preparing the evening meal, and the natives hung round

in groups staring at us, or bringing in supplies of fuel and milk and

eggs. A seedy-looking European pushed his way up to our tent and began

storming at us in French.

"But it is impossible for you to camp here--it is not allowable; you

must come at once to my house. There is nothing to say."

X and I tried to rouse our bewildered minds out of the Eastern sense of

repose into which they had sunk through all these days. We concluded

that Karaman must possess an urban district council, and that we were

breaking some law of the town.

We pressed for further enlightenment.

"But do you not see all these people looking at you? It is not for you

to camp here. My house is ready for you. There are good beds and it is

dry, but this ..." and he waved his hand at our preparations. "It is

not possible; there is nothing to say."

By this time Hassan and Rejeb, into whose hands we had been entrusted

for protection, came up and stood over us, looking threateningly at our

gesticulating, excited friend.

"I do not understand," I said. "Who says that we may not camp here?"

"But it is I that say it; it is not possible. My house is ready; there

is nothing to say."

"Who are you?" I said.

"I am an Austrian," he answered. Then he lowered his voice, in that

mysterious manner which we associated with the coming of the Monster.

"I am here," he said, in an undertone, "as agent commercial du chemin

de fer Ottoman."

"Very good," I answered; "and now tell us why we cannot camp here."

"But it is damp," he said; "look at the mud."

"Oh, is that all?" I said. "We are much obliged to you for the offer of

your house, but we always sleep out."

"But I have good beds," he said, "and a dry room at your service. There

is nothing to say."

At this point Rejeb could contain himself no longer. He spoke sternly

to the Austrian in Turkish.

"What do you want?" he said. "These ladies are under my protection.

What are you saying to them?"

The man poured out volumes of Turkish; Rejeb and he had a violent

altercation, which seemed to be ending in blows.

"Come, come," I said to the man, "enough of this. We are much obliged

to you for your offer of hospitality, but we prefer to remain outside."

He seemed totally unable to understand that this could be the case. "If

it is myself you do not care about," he said, in a crestfallen manner,

"I can easily move from the house. The beds are clean and they are

dry."

We finally consented to spend the evening at his house, and accompanied

him through the streets, Rejeb and Hassan following closely on our

heels. He showed us into a stuffy little sitting-room. Every corner was

crammed with gimcracks; the whole place reeked of musty wool

chairbacks.

Then we followed him upstairs; we must at any rate "look at the

beds"--he evidently thought the sight of them would prove irresistible.

On calmer reflection the beds were, doubtless, no worse than the

ordinary type to be found in commercial country inns; but to us, coming

out of the sweet and wholesome atmosphere of the yet untainted plain,

they seemed to be the very embodiment of stuffiness and discomfort. The

windows, which had evidently not been opened for some time, were

heavily draped, so as to effectually exclude all light and air even

when open.

"There, now do you see? It is clean, it is dry. There is nothing humid

here; but out there it is exposed, it is damp, it is not allowable."

We waived the question for the moment, reserving our forces for a later

attack, and returned to the sitting-room, where a native woman was

preparing the evening meal. We questioned our host on the arrival of

the railway. He admitted being there to tout for trade _in case_

it came; but who could tell, in a country like this, what would happen?

Mon Dieu! it was a God-forsaken country, and all the inhabitants were

canaille; there was no one he could associate with. He counted the days

till his return. "When would that be?" "Ah," then he became mysterious

once more and looked round at the door and window: "Ah, God knows;

might it come soon!"

The serving-woman appeared and said that our men wished to see us; they

had been sitting on the doorstep ever since we entered the house and

refused to go away. The Austrian went out to them; high words ensued,

and we looked through the door. The Austrian, crimson with rage, was

gesticulating violently and pouring out torrents of unintelligible

Turkish. Rejeb stood in front of him, hitting his long riding-boot with

his whip and answering with some heat. Above him towered Hassan, very

calm and very quiet, slowly rolling up a cigarette and now and then

putting in a single word in support of Rejeb.

The Austrian turned to us. "Can you not send these men away, ladies? It

is an impertinence. They refuse to leave you here unless they

themselves sleep in the house. They say they have orders never to leave

you, but surely they can see what I am!"

We calmed him down as best we could, and insisted on our intention of

returning to our tents. He could not understand it, and I should think

never will. But we got away, Rejeb and Hassan one on each side of us.

When we were out on the road in cover of darkness both men burst into

loud roars of laughter.

"Have we not done well, Effendi?" they said. "We have rescued you from

the mad little man. The great doctor in London, has he not said, 'You

shall sleep in the tent every night'?"

And, gathering round our camp-fire in the damp and the mud, we rejoiced

with Hassan and Rejeb over their gallant assault and our fortunate

escape.

* * * * *

Two days' further ride brought us to Eregli. We approached it in the

dusk, riding during the last hour through what appeared to be low copse

wood. The place seemed low and damp; we rode past the door of the khan,

and the men besought us to go there instead of camping outside.

Constantin said he was ill, the arabajis said their horses would be

ill. But Rejeb and Hassan took our side and we had the tents pitched on

a spot which seemed dry in the darkness. Next morning we awoke to find

ourselves encircled by a loop of the river and in a dense white mist.

It was so cold that the milk froze as we poured it into the tea. We ate

our breakfast with our gloves on, walking up and down to keep warm.

Constantin said that he was still ill; the arabajis said their horses

were now ill; but that was because the khan was comfortable. We

decided, however, to give them a day's respite and ride out ourselves

to Ivriz in search of the Hittite inscription at that place.

[Illustration: HITTITE BAS-RELIEF AND INSCRIPTION. IVRIZ.]

An hour's ride took us clear of the mists, and the sun came out hot and

strong. Our road lay up a gorgeous richly wooded river valley. For the

first time on our journey we realised what the absence of water and

trees had meant. Our horses' feet crackled over brown and red autumn

leaves; autumn smells, crisp and fresh, filled the air; brown trout

darted from under dark rocks in the stream. Away through gaps in the

low encircling hills we got sudden visions of two gigantic white-topped

mountain peaks, the first suggestion of our approach to the Taurus

barrier.

Ivriz is a good three hours' ride from Eregli, and lies high on one of

the lower hills. We left our horses in the village and climbed on foot

to the spot where the river, rushing suddenly out of the bowels of the

earth, has formed a cave in the limestone cliff. Below this the stream

had cut its way through the rock, leaving steep sides of bare stone

which tell a tale of untold geological age. At one point the ground

shelved out on a level with the bed of the stream, and the waters here

swept round a corner, so that the face of the rock overlooking them was

almost hidden from any one on the same shore.

It is on this face that the Hittite inscription is carved. A god, with

a stalk of corn and a bunch of grapes in his hands, stands over a man

who is in an attitude of adoration before him.

There it stands, hidden from the casual observer, visited by no one but

the native who comes to cure his sickness in the sacred waters of the

cave above.

Away in the desolate hills, off the track of man, the god has looked

down on the waters of the river through all those aeons since the days

of the Hittites, which count as nothing in the time which it took this

same river to carve its bed out of the eternal hills. How much longer

will its solitude be left unviolated? The "agent commercial du chemin

de fer Ottoman" is established at Eregli as elsewhere. When the iron

Monster comes bellowing into Eregli his shriek will be heard in these

silent hills, and following in his footsteps countless hordes of

tourists will invade this sacred spot.

With something akin to a feeling of shame I turned my Kodak on him; and

a sorrowful thought of the many who would be following my example in

the years to come shot across my mind.

* * * * *

It was the sixth day after leaving Konia, and we were in full view of

the Taurus Mountains. We were crossing the same stretch of barren

plain, with its occasional patches of cultivation, its hidden villages

with the flocks and herds trooping in at sundown. But the bounded

horizon changed our conception of it; it was no longer a limitless

plain. The nearer ranges stood out in dark purples and blues; behind

and above towered the snow-clad heights which, looking down on to the

Mediterranean shores, knew of the life and bustle of its sea-girt

towns.

We had come out on the other side of the unknown plain and the aspect

of things was changed. What drew us on now was not the mystery of

unexplored space, but the feeling that here was a great barrier to

cross. We were about to share with these heights the knowledge of what

lay on the other side. But there was more than this--we were about to

do what the Monster might possibly fail to do. As we drew near the

barrier, the mysterious allusions to his approach all took the form of

pointing at this barrier. "So far and no further he may come," they

seemed to say.

As I rode with Mustapha up a long, winding pass on the outskirts of the

range he pointed at the valley below us. "The Turkish Railway," he said

solemnly.

A long line of laden camels wound slowly up the opposite side; for a

full quarter of a mile they covered in single file the road winding up

out of the valley. I pulled my horse up, and Mustapha stopped his

alongside of mine. We both bent our heads forward and listened. The

sound of their tinkling bells came faintly across the valley to us; the

low, musical tones, the quiet, measured movement, all was in keeping

with the towering mountains and the still, clear air. Hassan rode up

with the other men and joined us. He put his hands up to his mouth and

gave a shrill, prolonged whistle in exact imitation of the engine we

had left at Konia. The men looked at one another and laughed. Then they

shrugged their shoulders and pushed on up the path.

CHAPTER V

IN THE TAURUS

The Taurus range bounds in a semicircle the base of the plateau we had

crossed. We had always been over 3,000 feet above sea-level, and now

the heights of the Boulghar Dagh, as this part of the Taurus is called,

rose high above us. The pass we were making for measured nearly 6,000

feet, and it looked low in the level of the range. After leaving Eregli

we had made a short day to Tchaym, some four hours' ride across a very

barren stretch of country, with the snow mountains always in front of

us. The next day was to be our last on the plains, for our destination

was Ulu Kishla, well up on the hills. We had always great difficulty in

deciding what the stages of our journey were to be. Maps and guidebooks

were out of the question, the Zaptiehs had only very vague ideas as to

distances, and local informants were hard to understand.

Our destinations and the distances formed fruitful topics of

conversation with the men, and generally ended in amicable wrangles.

X having made out from the khanji[3] that it was ten hours' ride from

Tchaym to Ulu Kishla, asked Rejeb's opinion on the matter.

[3] Innkeeper.

REJEB. Eleven hours.

MUSTAPHA. No, no, twelve hours. Tchaym to Ulu Kishla twelve hours.

X. No, no, ten hours.

REJEB AND MUSTAPHA (_in chorus_). No, no, the Pasha Effendi goes

like the post.

X. It is ten hours; Rejeb and Mustapha go like camels. (_Roars of

laughter._)

REJEB. It is Mustapha and the little Pasha Effendi who go like camels,

_javash, javash_ (slowly, slowly).

* * * * *

At Ulu Kishla we lunched in a huge khan, half in ruins, the size of

which suggested the almost inconceivable size of the caravans which

must have passed in better days. Here we decided to send the arabas on

with half the escort, to await us at the next stage on the main road.

Taking Hassan and Rejeb and one of the Zaptiehs with us, we branched

off to visit Boulghar Maden, the highest village of the Taurus, noted

for its silver mines. It was a rough ride up; now over chunks of rock,

now along slippery grass slopes, then rock again and sliding bits of

stone.

The hills shut us in all round until we neared the summit of the pass;

here we reached a level above that of the heights we had skirted on the

previous day, and we could see the whole long line of peaks ranging

westward to the sea. In front of us the chain of mountains on the

opposite side of the valley, whose heights looked down on the Cilician

Plain, obscured the view in that direction. We rode towards them in a

southerly direction and began the descent into the valley below.

Boulghar Maden lies perched on the hillside, and stretches into the

valley, so that standing outside the higher houses you looked down on a

sea of flat roofs below you. Tall, thin poplar-trees, rising above the

houses in rows, mark it out like a chess-board. The great hillside

which backs it to the south and keeps off the sun till midday is

scarred and marked with the entrances to the mines.

A small party of horsemen rode out of the town and came clambering up

the hill towards us. Rejeb confessed to having sent a telegram from Ulu

Kishla announcing our arrival to the Kaimakam, and suggested that this

was a deputation sent out by him to receive us.

Our spirits sank when we got near enough to distinguish European

clothes on the leader of the party; we had been feeling ourselves

tolerably safe from "agents commercials" at this altitude. Already from

afar we were greeted in voluble French, which heightened our fears. The

man was accompanied by a Turkish official and two Zaptiehs. The road

was so steep that they dismounted and led their horses, both men and

animals panting furiously. Our horses slid down the rough track,

scattering the loose stones before them in all directions, and we

joined the party below.

"Salutations from Monsieur le Kaimakam, and he bids you welcome to

Boulghar Maden." The man took off his fez and bowed. We saw that he was

a cut above the enemy we had been fearing and we felt happier. He then

explained that he was the representative in Boulghar Maden of our

merchant friends in Constantinople, that he was an Armenian, that the

Kaimakam was most perturbed lest we should not be received in proper

manner, and had commissioned him, Onik Dervichian, at our service, to

make all arrangements for our comfort. We were to be the guests of the

Kaimakam, and he had caused rooms to be got ready for us in the house

of a Greek family, where he would send down the feast he was preparing.

But first he was expecting us at the Konak.

We all scrambled down the hill together and rode through the village to

the Government buildings. A line of Zaptiehs was drawn up at the

entrance and fired a salute as we passed. Then we dismounted, and were

led through the usual mysterious curtain-hung doors into the Kaimakam's

presence.

With our friend as interpreter, we felt sure the correct salutations

would be delivered on our behalf. The health of the King of England and

of our fathers, the great Pashas, was duly inquired after. Onik

Dervichian then hustled us away to the Greek house. Here we found the

women in a great state of perturbation and excitement. Our friend had

sent down sheets for our beds, which were being constructed on the

divans; would he show them where they were meant to go? Onik Dervichian

threw off his coat and set to work on the beds himself, smoothing out

the sheets with the fat Greek mother, who argued volubly with him the

whole time. The two daughters of the house looked on and laughed; the

little fat boy put his finger in his mouth and roared with laughter.

Hassan stood in the doorway beaming with satisfaction. We were to sleep

indoors, but was it not with Government sanction and under Government

auspices? This was quite a different matter from the Karaman

experience.

Rejeb was having a good time recounting our adventures to his brother

officers at the Konak, whither he had hastened back after seeing us

safely landed at the house.

A messenger arrived from the Kaimakam--were the ladies ready for the

feast? The dishes had been prepared and the servants were awaiting

commands. We invited Onik Dervichian to stay and help us through; for

this was not the first time we had experienced Turkish hospitality and

suspected that our powers would be taxed to the full.

The little low table was brought in, and Onik showed the Greek mother

how to lay it "a la Franka." The dishes began to arrive: curries and

pilafs and roasted kid; dolmas and chickens and kebabs; and then the

nameless sweet dishes which Turkish cooks only know how to prepare. At

the fourth course I made an attempt to strike, but Onik Dervichian was

shocked.

"Ah, mademoiselle, pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam," and he piled up my

plate.

At the fifth course he anticipated me.

"Now, mademoiselle, pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam."

At the sixth: "Now, mademoiselle."

"No," I said; "Kaimakam or no Kaimakam, I can't."

Onik Dervichian's face was a study.

"Mais, mademoiselle, _seulement_ pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam."

"You will have to do it all yourself, then," I said; "he won't know

which of us has eaten it."

Onik rose manfully to the occasion and did his best. Only at the last

dish did he lean back and, rubbing himself gently, murmur:

"Ah, mon Dieu! et tout cela pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam."

* * * * *

There were "written stones," they told us, in this neighbourhood too;

accordingly next day we hired a native as guide and set off in search

of them.

A road roughly cut on the side of the mountain led out of Boulghar

Maden down the valley to the east; below it, precipitous sides shot

into the river's bed; above it, the range we had crossed the previous

day towered overhead.

About a mile outside the village we turned off the road and wound up

the mountain-side. Our horses pushed their way through the thorns and

brambles which grew in rank profusion in and out amongst the rocky

projections, until we had scrambled up to the summit of an outlying

hill-top. Here a rocky projection stood out higher than the surrounding

ones and showed a flat face of wall to the midday sun. It was just

possible to make out that there was an inscription on this face. We

could see that the characters were cut in relief and not incised. The

Hittites were metal workers, and this characteristic of their

inscriptions no doubt arose from their habit of embossing metal. That

they were particularly fond of silver is suggested by the fact that

many of their treaties were inscribed on tablets of that metal.

Inscriptions are also found on stones near the Gumush Dagh, where

silver-mines have been worked. We may presumably infer that the working

of these mines at Boulghar Maden dates from Hittite times. The view in

front of us was one vast breaking sea of mountain tops; the snow-clad

heights forming the crests gleamed, in sudden flashes of sunlight, like

the surf on a rising wave.

* * * * *

We left Boulghar Maden the next morning. The Kaimakam insisted that we

should drive in his carriage down to Chifte Khan, the point on the main

route where we were to meet our arabas. The road had only been made a

few years and they were very proud of it; it was an exquisite road, we

were told. The Kaimakam, we were also told, was very proud of his

carriage. When he went to visit the mines he had it out; but his horse

was led behind, for apparently his pride in it was not so great as

regard for his own comfort, not to say safety. But here was an occasion

for him to vaunt his pride with none of the accompanying discomforts.

It arrived: a springless box on wheels, a hard and narrow seat on each

side, the top encased in a heavy roof, with rattling glass windows. The

whole was painted a bright primrose yellow, and was drawn by two small

Turkish horses.

X and I got in somewhat ruefully. It was a glorious fresh, sunny day,

and we were about to pass through some of the finest scenery of the

Taurus district.

Onik Dervichian, who came to start us on the way, and Hassan sat inside

with us. The Kaimakam had sent his servants to ride our horses; they

and the Zaptiehs followed in a long string behind. For the first mile

or two the road was fairly smooth; the vehicle lumbered heavily along;

when it struck a loose stone the glass rattled furiously. We peered

longingly through the panes, trying to catch glimpses of the

surroundings. Pine woods nodded in the light breeze, but the noise

drowned their whispers. Valley and hills streaked with laughing shadows

beckoned to us to come out and look at them. Every turn in the road

displayed new vistas of pine-clad slopes, shooting long tongues of

green into the brown-red rocks.

As time went on the road became very rough; great masses of solid rock

lay across it, and the carriage, lurching up over them, jumped us about

on the hard seats and knocked us up against one another. Hassan took it

calmly; he merely ejaculated "Aman" when an extra lurch sent him flying

off the seat.

Onik Dervichian, however, was sorely troubled.

"Ah, mon Dieu!" he cried out at intervals, "et tout cela pour faire

plaisir au Kaimakam."

At times it was not only painful but positively dangerous. The side of

the hill would rise up in perpendicular walls of rock, and a narrow

ledge of road, cut at right angles to it, barely gave width enough for

the wheels to pass; a jerk in the wrong direction would have

precipitated us down the rocks into the valley beneath.[4]

[4] We heard later that the official who had been mainly

responsible for the construction of the road met his death in

this manner shortly after our visit.

At such moments Onik Dervichian, pink with terror and excitement,

opening with difficulty the door at the back, would scramble out and

follow on foot. The crisis over, his sense of humour would return and

he would take his seat again, throw up his hands and ejaculate, "Et

tout cela pour faire plaisir au Kaimakam!"

Then the carriage came to a dead stop. In front of us the ledge of rock

had broken away, and two great boulders, fallen from above, blocked the

narrow way.

X pointed down the steep precipice.

"Look, Hassan, look," she said, pretending to shudder.

Hassan looked.

"You go over, I go too," was his reply.

The driver got down and examined the obstruction. We all got out and

examined it. The servants leading our horses behind, dismounted and

examined it. The horses stood with their noses on it and stared

stupidly. Then everybody took hold of the wheels and lifted and shoved

the whole concern bodily over. With the wheels on one side falling well

over the steep side, the driver carefully engineered horses and

carriage round the corner.

Bruised and exhausted, shaken in body and nerves, we were finally

safely landed at Chifte Khan, where we found our men and arabas

awaiting us. We flung ourselves down on the grass of a little orchard

and thanked God for our delivery from the task of pleasing Kaimakams.

Hassan stood over us and gazed thoughtfully at the yellow carriage

standing by the roadside, while the driver devoured pilaf at the door

of the khan.

"It is well now," he said; "we have pleased the Kaimakam."

The driver clambered up on the seat again, and turned his horses' heads

up the road we had left.

"Thank God," said Onik Dervichian, "that we are still alive to see it

depart!"

* * * * *

From Chifte Khan we followed a good road, through the gorgeous vale of

Bozanti, to Ak Kupru, where we pitched our camp for the night by the

side of the river Chakut.

The weather broke suddenly, and we reached the place in torrents of

rain.

The wind, tearing in gusts up the valley, shook the walls of the tent,

and the ropes strained at the pegs. It drove the rain so hard against

the white canvas that it forced the drops through almost against their

will. It would have been so much easier for them just to run down the

outside slope; but every force in nature seemed to be let loose to make

the others worse. I moved my bed a little to try and get a clear course

between two sets of drips. X surveyed my endeavours from where she sat,

mechanically tilting a pool off her mackintosh rug when the accumulated

drops showed signs of flowing in disastrous directions.

"It's no use trying not to be wet," she said, "when there is no way of

keeping dry."

A new drip in the centre of the two original ones forced me to accept

her philosophy, and we sat silently watching the scene outside. In

front of us a bridge crossed the river and from it wound the road we

should follow, zigzagging up until it disappeared round a corner. The

Taurus Mountains rose like a black barrier in front of us, towering

aloft in gigantic walls of rock; then layers of black forest and grassy

slopes, then misty tops showing white snow where the clouds parted. At

their feet on the other side lay the great Cilician Plain, covered with

yellow crops and brown earth and clothed with mud-coloured villages. On

the other side also was the Mediterranean, blue and calm; there was sun

and warmth and quiet, and people quietly basking in the heat. But on

this side there was turmoil and cold and wet; the earth's face was hard

and bare, and over it angry waters dashed in heedless, headlong fury;

angry clouds overhead vied with them, shooting down relentless torrents

of rain. On the other side, the blue Cydnus wound gently in and out

through the level plain, and made marshes of its low banks as its

waters lazily crawled round in long, curving loops. On this side the

Chakut Su, goaded on by the maddened waterfalls, rushed its black

waters impatiently against obstructing rocks and turning white with

fury foamed round them in angry swirls and dashed on through narrow

gorges, lashing at their mocking, immovable walls.

* * * * *

We sought refuge in the khan for the evening meal, sharing the fire

with our own men and the Zaptiehs. Onik Dervichian, always merry and

full of resources even on such an evening, made the men sit round so as

to leave an empty space in the centre of the room. Then he produced a

walking-stick and laid it flat on the ground.

"Stand up, oh stick!" he said, waving his hand and addressing it in

Turkish.

Not a sound could be heard in the room; all eyes were fixed on the

stick, which slowly rose and stood up, apparently of itself.

"Ha! ha!" went round the room in deep murmurs.

"Lie down, oh stick!" said Onik.

And the stick, after giving a hop or two, went slowly down on the floor

again.

For full half an hour did Onik Dervichian, by means of a fine thread

invisible in the dim firelight, go through a series of tricks with the

walking-stick.

The men never moved or took their eyes off it for a moment, but showed

no curiosity about it. They took it, like everything else, as a matter

of course.

Hassan and Rejeb, two silent men, talked together the whole night long

just outside our tent. What with this and the wind and the rain, and

the flapping of the tent and the drips, which, coursing down the

canvas, found new points of entry at every moment, we got but little

rest.

Hassan greeted us with an anxious look next morning.

"You were not frightened in the night, I hope?" he said.

"No," I answered, "but we did not get much rest."

"Rejeb and I," he went on, "were afraid you would be frightened by the

noises, and we talked all night to show that we were close at hand."

* * * * *

The rain was still coming down in torrents. The khanji said it had come

to stay, and he made a big fire, for he expected us to stay.

But X was inexorable. If the bad weather had begun, she said, we must

push on and get through the pass before we were snowed up; that would

be worse than getting a wetting.

We had all got into the habit of doing what X told us; so Hassan went

out grimly and packed up the sodden tents. "Aman, aman," he murmured

now and again, "it is the whim of a woman." The arabajis dejectedly

fetched out the horses, who drooped their heads in the rain and blinked

reproachfully. "It is the will of Allah," said the men, and they loaded

up the tents. The Zaptiehs and Rejeb fetched their horses and mounted.

"It is the will of Allah," said also the Zaptiehs; but their Lieutenant

held his peace. The rain might be the will of Allah, but to ride

through it was the whim of a woman.

One by one we filed out over the bridge and up the winding road

opposite. The arabas creaked; their sodden, wooden wheels squeaked as

they lurched along after us; and the khanji stood in the doorway and

wondered a little; then he went back to his fire. And we rode up and up

silently. Thick rain mists shrouded the heights above us; gradually we

reached the forest line, and the grassy slopes were level with us on

the opposite side of the valley; and still we rode gently up and up.

The rain lessened a little bit, and we raised our heads and told each

other so. Onik Dervichian burst into song and made the hills echo with

his ringing voice. Then the rain poured down again and we rode silently

on into it.

A string of camels laden with merchandise met us just as we were

crossing a track, which was being temporarily turned into the bed of a

stream for superfluous waters. Their great hoofs slipped on the greasy,

muddy sides, and each one paused in its mechanical march as its turn

came to slide down the slippery bank.

"Y'allah, y'allah!" shouted the drivers, prodding them, and they

resignedly put forward their great hoofs and floundered after their

companions.

* * * * *

The arabas made slow progress up the hill. We were getting wet through

and decided to push on ahead with Rejeb and two of the Zaptiehs. Onik

Dervichian announced his intention of returning; he could reach

Boulghar Maden that evening if he went no further, and he did not

relish the idea of another night such as the one he had just spent.

At midday we arrived at Gulek Boghaz, where we found a new detachment

of Zaptiehs awaiting us, for we had crossed the borders of the Konia

vilayet and were now under the Vali of Adana. The men took our horses

and led them into the stable. Streams of water ran off horses and men

alike and collected in pools about the uneven floor. We brushed past

the horses' heels and went on into the living room leading out of the

stable, where a roaring wood fire blazed at the far end. We lay on the

rough divan in the corner and thawed and dried. The men came in from

seeing to their horses, and the fire drew clouds of thick steam out of

their soaking clothes.

Rejeb sent out a Zaptieh to see if there was any sign of the arabas,

but he returned with no news save that of increasing rain. We dozed

round the hot fire; the Zaptiehs sat at the far end of the room and

smoked; there was no sound but the beating of the rain outside and of

the horses munching and stamping in the adjoining room.

More than an hour passed and still no sign of the arabas. We roused

ourselves and conjectured all the possibilities of mishap: a wheel had

come off; they had stuck in the mud; they had lost their way; the roads

were too heavy for the horses after the rain; they had been attacked by

brigands.

X, however, had her own suspicions. The arabajis had been very loth to

leave Ak Kupru, and they knew of our intention of pushing on after the

midday rest. They were dawdling on the road or sheltering somewhere out

of the rain--we had passed an open shed--so as to ensure arriving too

late for us to get on to the next stage.

She cast round for a method of outwitting them, and at last hit on one.

"You take two of the new Zaptiehs," she said, "and ride on with them to

the next khan; I will wait here until the arabas turn up. We cannot

leave you alone, and that will be an excuse to make the men come on."

I always did as X told me, and rose obediently from the warm corner. As

I drew on my dry overcoat, hot from the fire, and looked out at the

drenching rain, I felt strongly drawn in sympathy towards the arabajis.

My horse was saddled and dragged outside, as loth to leave its

companions as I was. I mounted, and bid farewell to Rejeb and Mustapha,

who were returning to Konia. It was a tearful parting, for they had

been with us now for eleven days and we were fast friends. X stood in

the doorway of the stable.

"When you get to the khan," she called out after me, "say 'Atesh

getir.'"

"All right," I said obediently. What "atesh getir" meant I did not

know; but X said I was to say it and that was enough. I was awfully

afraid of forgetting it, and it was too wet to make a note, so I kept

on repeating it at intervals. The Zaptiehs rode one behind and one

before me, for the road was narrow. By and by we entered a defile not

more than three or four yards across, where the rocks towered above us

quite perpendicularly on one side and overhung us on the other; the

road became almost coincident with the bed of the stream, and a large

piece of fallen rock nearly blocked the way. The Zaptieh in front of me

pointed with his whip at the rock just over our heads and also at the

one fallen in the bed of the stream. The rain was pouring over the

faces of both, and obscured them, but it was just possible to make out

that these also were "written stones," and I concluded that we must be

riding through the famous Cilician Gates, round which the historical

interest of the Taurus centres.

I repeated "Atesh getir" devoutly, and we hurried on. A two hours' ride

brought us to a khan on the side of the road. One of the Zaptiehs

galloped ahead to announce our arrival. The yard, ankle deep in mud,

was full of dripping animals and men. The khanji helped me to dismount,

and I said "Atesh getir." He nodded and smiled and talked away at me

hard as he led me into a vast room, perfectly bare, without even the

usual divan. There was a wood fire burning up a tumble-down chimney in

the middle, and they fetched me a little three-legged stool to sit on.

I thanked them and said "Atesh getir" once more. The Zaptiehs came and

turned my hat and coat round and round in front of the fire to dry, as

an excuse to dry their own. A boy appeared with more logs of wood,

which he threw on the fire. Every now and then the khanji would come

and jabber at me, and I smiled and nodded and said "Atesh getir." It

seemed now to have become a sort of joke, for every time I said it the

Zaptiehs and the other men laughed, and I caught the words repeatedly

in their conversation amongst themselves. Every few minutes the boy

came and threw more wood on the fire, then he would turn and ask me a

question. I had nothing but "Atesh getir" to say. But I felt a little

nervous about the size of the fire. It was exceeding the bounds of the

hearth, and I was afraid would soon burn down the rotten old place, for

the heat was terrific. So I would point at the fire and shake my head

when he threw on the logs, but he only grinned and went off to return

with some more.

As I sat there waiting for X, I knew that I should always remember once

for all that warmth is the one thing in the world which really matters.

I was hungry, for we had not tasted much food that day. There was not

much to sit upon, the stool had got very hard; the room was dirty and

bare, and the smell of wet animals came up from the sheds below; but

the fire made up for it all. One felt one had really got all one

wanted, and I would not have exchanged that fire for the best of meals

or the downiest of beds.

I was quite content to sit by it and wait for X for ever if need be.

She had shipped me off with two strange men to a strange place with two

strange words whose meaning I did not know--but there was the fire.

She arrived at last. The men all came tramping in with her and gathered

round the blazing logs. Hassan fetched a bundle out of the araba, where

the things had kept fairly dry, and made a seat for us. Constantin

opened the last tin of sardines, and having demolished them we finished

up with native bread and honey.

Hassan went out to look for a place to pitch the tent, and came back to

say there was nothing but mud and water outside: should he put it up

under an open shed just below the room? The floor was sodden with the

smell of generations of passing caravans, but there seemed no other

choice, and the tent was the only means of privacy.

Late at night a sudden thought struck me. I turned towards X and saw

that she was awake.

"X," I said, "what does 'atesh getir' mean?"

"It means 'get a fire,'" said X sleepily.

* * * * *

We were awakened early by the departure, before sunrise, of the men and

animals who, quartered in the yard of which our shed formed part, had

not given us much peace during the night. We were not loth, on our

part, to leave the tent, which had caught and retained the smell rising

up from the sodden earth floor, until we were nearly choked with the

fumes. It was still raining, and the peaks we had ridden under the day

before were shrouded in mist. We kept on descending slowly, and by and

by came out on a piece of open moor land. The sun began to appear again

now. We were leaving it all behind, the cold and the wet and the storms

of the hills. We were getting into the stillness of the plains again.

The men took off their overcoats and rolled them up on their saddles

behind. One by one we shed the wraps which had seemed so thin and

inefficient under the snowy heights; they were getting unbearable here.

We expected at every turn to get a view of the sea. In spite of this,

its first appearance was so sudden as to come as a surprise. We rounded

a corner, and there it lay, as we had pictured it on the other side,

still and bright, with no suggestion of storm and turmoil. It was not

till that moment that we had the distinct feeling of having crossed the

barrier. Each step forward now unrolled bit by bit the stretch of plain

at our feet. There was the Cydnus winding its easy course through

fertile lands as if there were no trouble in its rising waters. There

was Tarsus, its flat roofs so sunk in gardens and fruit-trees that

minarets and domes alone proclaimed the presence of a large town; and

there, too, still faint and dim, but unmistakable, was the thin, moving

line of smoke which proclaimed that we were nearing the land of the

Monster once more.

Can it be that the day is not far distant when this one will join hands

with its brother through the barrier we have crossed; and tearing

through these silent plains and the rugged fastnesses of these great

hills, destroy the mystery over which they have so long kept their

sacred guard?

CHAPTER VI

ROYAL PROGRESS

In the line of country stretching from Tarsus eastward to Urfa, there

is a series of stations of the American Mission Board. Travelling as we

did, in the direction of this line, we made these stations our stages,

and hired horses and men afresh at each place.

At Tarsus we camped in the playground of the mission school run by Dr.

Christie. On the evening of our arrival out of the Taurus Mountains we

were eating off spotless cloths with knives and forks, and were singing

"Onward, Christian soldiers" with a hundred Armenian and Greek

students.

The plunge out of rough travelling into these oases of civilisation is

very sudden, and the contrast gives a full meaning to the advantages

and disadvantages of both forms of existence.

The missionaries are the embodiment of hospitality. They know also what

the discomforts of our journey have been, for they have gone through

much the same experience themselves in order to arrive at their present

homes; and so we find hot baths awaiting us and fresh supplies of

hairpins; buttons are sewn on, and clothes sent to the wash. We are

started off on the road again clean and tidy, and with a linen bag full

of home-made white bread, which will see us through many days. We also

carry with us thoughts of the splendid work which is being done by

them, and of the hardship and danger many of them have gone through in

carrying out this work of education among these Eastern Christians.

Gathered round the fire at night we would listen to tales of bloodshed

and massacre, of domestic tragedies and individual heroism, of anxiety

and hope all told with that simplicity and quietness which bears the

stamp of a personal experience which has come face to face with the

real facts of life in a barbaric land.

But, once we were on the road again, we were glad to be there, glad to

hear only the sound of the Turkish tongue; glad to lie out once more

under the stars and eat our meal round the camp-fire at night.

Occasionally, too, we would get sudden reminders of the institutions we

had left. A stray Armenian would accost us on the road with "Who are

you? Where are you going? What is your name?" in the English tongue

with a perceptible nasal twang. We would have a momentary unpleasant

sense of impertinent familiarity. Then one would pull oneself together

and remember the doctrine of universal brotherly love which was being

instilled into the minds of mission students, and would try hard not to

mind when the individual would proceed to tell us that we were his

sisters, that he loved us very much, and would we give him a

subscription towards a harmonium for his church.

It was during this stage of our journey, also, that we were taken to be

royalties and received at the larger towns with military honours. The

idea seems to have emanated from Konia after our departure from there.

We had left cards on the officials at the Konak. Now X's Christian name

was Victoria, and her address printed on the card was Prince's Gate. To

the Turkish mind this was conclusive evidence that she was a relation

of the great queen, and instructions for our suitable reception were

accordingly telegraphed on. At Adana we found ourselves indisputably

"daughters of the King of Switzerland." It was of no use denying it:

"naturally we wished to preserve an _incognito_."

We were summoned to pay a state visit to the Vali of Adana and were

accompanied by his secretary, who talked French.

VALI. Welcome; you have come.

X. Gladly we have found ourselves.

VALI. By your features and bearing I can see you are of the high

aristocracy.

INTERPRETER. The ladies say that they also can see that you are a most

high and noble prince. (_Turns to us._ You said that, didn't you?)

VALI. And how do the noble ladies find Adana?

INTERPRETER. The ladies find Adana the most charming and delightful

spot in Turkey.

X. Please thank his Excellency for sending the Zaptiehs to meet us;

we were very pleased with them.

VALI. The ladies are most welcome; if they should wish for fifty

Zaptiehs they would be at their service.

(_Mutual bows and salaams._)

VALI. And where do the ladies intend to travel after this?

X. We wish to go by Aintab and Diarbekr to Baghdad. Does his

Excellency think the road is safe?

VALI. Wherever the ladies go their safety is assured; they are the

guests of the nation. There is not a governor in the land who has not

received orders to look after them in every way.

(_Further bows and expression of thanks._)

VALI (_continues_). The ladies, however, will find it most

uncomfortable travelling at this time of year. I would urge them to

give up the idea of this journey.

X. We are obliged to your Excellency for your advice, but we do not

really mind the discomforts of travel.

VALI (_turns to his Muavin, the_ "Evet Effendi" _already mentioned_).

This gentleman has just returned from Baghdad; he will tell you how

very disagreeable the journey will be.

MUAVIN. Evet, Effendim; the road, of course, is safe as regards the

tribes; but do not the ladies fear tigers and the many wild beasts

which may be encountered?

VALI. I assure you it is not safe for you. You hear what this

gentleman says. If the ladies will wait till the spring I will arrange

for them to accompany my brother, the Prince of Kurdistan, in his

expedition to the mountains.

Finding it impossible to dissuade us, the Vali then leads the way to

the Council chamber, and makes X sit in the Presidential chair, where,

he informs us, no one but the Vali has ever sat. He tells X she is now

the Vali Pasha, this is her house, and he is at her commands.

X promptly seizes the opportunity, and asks for favour to be extended

to a friend we had met in the course of our travels, who had been

banished from Adana owing to having incurred the Vali's displeasure.

VALI. Because he was kind to you I will pardon him. He may come back

if it will please the ladies.

X. We are much obliged to your Excellency.

VALI. Many people have spoken to me for him, but I would not listen;

but to please the ladies I will now forgive him.

VALI. Will it please the ladies to dine with me to-morrow?

X. We thank your Excellency, it would give us much pleasure. But we

must apologise for our clothes; we are travelling, and have no

suitable dresses for dining with your Excellency.

VALI (_waves his hand_). The ladies must not mention it. I can see by

their appearance how noble they are, and their clothes are therefore

of no significance.

X. We will now say goodbye, and we thank your Excellency for all your

kindness.

VALI. It is I that am indebted for your presence. Will you send my

love to his Excellency your father? for he also is a Pasha, and we are

brothers.

* * * * *

From Adana our next stage was to Aintab. Our luggage had now all to be

conveyed on pack-mules, for we were going over tracks where wheels

could not pass. This made our party seem larger, for we needed three

mules for the baggage, and they were accompanied by three muleteers,

who also looked after our horses and the mules ridden by our men. Our

escort here consisted of four Zaptiehs and a Captain. This was the

lowest number to which we had been able to reduce the fifteen men the

Vali had pressed upon us. Nominally, they received no pay from us, but

the "baksheesh" which we were expected to give them no doubt

compensated for the arrears of pay from which the Turkish soldier

invariably suffers.

* * * * *

We had parted with Constantin at Adana. He was not very suitable for

really rough camping work, and we had asked the missionaries at Adana

to recommend us a less civilised person, who would be more competent in

tight places. Through them we engaged an Armenian, Arten by name. He

could only speak Turkish, so we were now entirely thrown on our own

resources as to Turkish conversation. X, however, had acquired quite

enough of the language to be intelligible to Hassan, who interpreted

our wants to the others.

We had hardly left Adana before incessant heavy rains came on, which

turned the tracks into impassable mud swamps. We struggled on as far as

Hamidieh, where we sought refuge in the house of an Austrian widow who

ran a large cotton mill in the place. For three days the rain came down

in torrents. I went to bed indoors with fever; X, however, still

preferred to sleep out in the tent in pools of water, which the men

vainly endeavoured to keep out by digging trenches all round. On the

third day we sallied out again and pitched our camp in the middle of

little green pasture fields in the bed of a lovely valley. Real milking

cows strayed about in the little fields, and cocks and hens crowed and

cackled familiarly close to us. This was a very different country from

the one we had left. In spite of the fact that we had had to exchange

wheels for pack-mules, it seemed far more civilised and cultivated.

Trees and water everywhere gave one a feeling of life and growing

things, unlike the stagnation of the waterless parts.

The Zaptiehs here, in greeting the town or village we were approaching,

would always include in their praises its power of providing milk and

eggs. Our former Zaptiehs had handed on to them that we had an

insatiable desire for these luxuries, and they would use this as an

inducement for us to come on to any place where they particularly

desired to camp, a desire which generally arose from the vicinity of

some large khan where they could spend a sociable evening.

"Oh, it is a lovely village; there are many eggs, there is much milk.

The cows they are never dry, and the hens they never cease to lay. The

chickens, too, they are not all legs, they are fat and juicy."

But we were getting out of the Cilician Plain and the Taurus was with

us again. The branch which runs southwards from the main chain to the

coast at Alexandretta, the beautiful Amanus range, still cut us off

from the fertile plains of Mesopotamia.

For three days we rode on the outskirts, now climbing gentle, wooded

slopes, now winding round a stony valley path; every evening we found

ourselves at a higher altitude. We were getting into the Kurdish

country. Their handsome women sat on the wide doorstep, which often

formed the roof of a house beneath, grinding corn between two flat

stones, or baking flat cakes of bread. They wore huge white headdresses,

spotlessly clean, covered with silver ornaments, and short crimson

zouave jackets. They were disposed to be very friendly, and used to

come into our tent with offerings of oranges and eggs. At one small

village we came in for a Kurdish wedding. We happened to arrive just as

the bride was being torn, struggling and weeping, from her father's

house by the bridegroom and his friends. At first we imagined ourselves

witnesses of some domestic tragedy, but we were informed that the

display of grief and resistance was part of the ceremony. The bride was

plastered over with ornaments and her head was bedecked with a great

crown of feathers. She was put, still sobbing, on a white horse, and

led away to the bridegroom's village, to the sound of bagpipes and

flutes and the shouts and laughter of a hundred brightly dressed

natives.

Then we had a precipitous ride up to Avjila, a wild, Kurdish village,

3,000 feet above sea-level. Hidden away amongst the rocks, a few score

of shepherds tended their mountain flocks. From Avjila the road wound

round grassy hills and through richly wooded slopes, where the crimson

berries of the carob-tree hung over our path and the leaves of the

golden plane dazzled our eyes in the sunlight. The woodman would be

busy too, and we would hear the sound of his axe in the pine-trees, or

brush past a mule loaded with long, scratching bundles of firewood.

The Amanus range slopes very abruptly to the plain on the opposite

side. It was not till the tenth day after leaving Adana, owing to our

delay at Hamidieh, that we reached the gap in the trees at the summit

of the pass which gives you one short glimpse of Aintab on the plain

below. The muleteers stopped here to throw stones on a cairn beside the

track and greeted the town with expressions of endearment and praise.

"Give us a coin for luck, Pashas," they said, "and that no evil may

befall us in the place."

* * * * *

We rode straight into the Mission compound at Aintab, and found

ourselves at once in a very academic atmosphere. The mission has been

established here over sixty years and has a brave show of buildings: a

college with five professors, a hospital, an orphanage, a girls' and a

boys' boarding school, and a church. The women missionaries are mostly

graduates of some American University, and one feels rather behind the

times in conversation. Their work fills one with respect: there is no

proselytising about it; their idea is to civilise by education.

From Aintab it is two short days' journey to the Euphrates. We were now

in a country of rich red soils covered with olive groves and vineyards.

Near the villages small sized black and yellow cattle, brought in from

the pastures, munched maize straw in the rough enclosures of reed or

straw round the houses. The road was lined with signs of primitive

cultivation and luxurious crops, evident even in these winter months.

But the peasants seemed miserably poor. They were partners mostly of

city men, who provided the seed and the stock and took two-thirds of

the produce in payment.

The Euphrates is visible a long way ahead as it winds southwards. At

first you see it as a streak of light across the plain; then slowly you

differentiate the banks, the alluvial shores, the flow of the waters.

Then Birejik appears on the opposite side. Its houses, built on a

limestone cliff four hundred feet high, rise up above the river tier

upon tier; then the black marks on the face of the rock below the

houses take on the shape of rock tombs. We descend a long, gentle slope

towards the ferry, and find a few buildings on this side also. We wait

while great herds of oxen and sheep going to the market at Killis are

ferried across in the great, clumsy, flat-bottomed, flat-sided boat,

whose one end rises up in a high, curved keel. Then our turn comes, and

one by one our horses plunge into thick mud and up the slippery end of

the boat, which lets down to form a gangway. Surely they are not going

to take us all at once? Our horses get jammed up tighter and tighter at

the far end as each animal enters the boat; they begin kicking and

biting at one another. We draw our feet out of the stirrups and hunch

them up on our horses' necks to be out of harm's way. There is no room

now for the horses to kick--they are wedged too tight--but they

struggle hard. We are shoved off the mud with long paddles, the cranky

old boat lurches and wobbles, and we seem horribly near the water. The

stream catches us and we are wafted down to a lower point on the

opposite shore. Hassan, his great legs stretched up high and dry on his

mule's neck, fumbles in his pouch and brings out the little bit of

paper on which he writes down our expenses. He slowly puts on his

spectacles and proceeds to write, holding the paper on the top of his

thumb, and apparently oblivious of the struggles of his steed to kick

the horse who is biting his flank behind. Then the gangway is let down

and a terrific pandemonium ensues as each animal strives to get its

saddle disentangled from the pack saddle of its neighbour and jump

ashore. The hindmost land on the first, who have stuck hopelessly in

the mud, the muleteers hit and shout, and we climb slowly on to firmer

ground and wind up the steep path to the street at the top.

The next day we ride slowly out of red soils and cultivation. The road

is dangerous here, we are told; two extra Zaptiehs and a Yuzbashi are

sent with us. We are in a desert plain again. A fearful storm of wind

gets up and howls weirdly round us; the sun is getting low, and we have

somehow missed the village where we should camp. The small cluster of

huts that we pass or see in the distance have no accommodation for the

horses, and the muleteers will not let them stand out on such a wild

night. The Yuzbashi, who is a mysterious Kizilbash with a long black

beard, gets anxious and makes us push on hard. At last we reach another

cluster of huts, where the shepherds are calling in the flocks. It is

nearly dark and we can go no further that night. The muleteers are

sulky about the shelter for their horses, so we take a house for the

purpose and the family cram in somewhere else. The tents are pitched

with difficulty in the teeth of the wind. All night long the Yuzbashi,

apart from the other men, walks up and down and round and round our

tent, muttering in his black beard.

* * * * *

The next day we ride over a bleak, stony country, exposed to fierce

lashes of wind and rain. Smooth faces of rock lie across the scarcely

perceptible path, less slippery for our flat-shod horses than the mud

in which they are embedded. We can see nothing ahead but low, rounded

hillocks covered with broken stone. Suddenly yellow dogs spring from

under our very feet and tall figures emerge out of the bowels of the

earth. We have stumbled into the middle of a Kurdish village. The huts

are hollowed out of the earth and roofed over with the stones which

cover the whole ground.

The chief of the village welcomes us at the door of his hut, and we

descend the dark passage, blinded by the smoke of the dried camel-dung

fire. We sit on strips of felt, thankful to be out of the wind and the

rain, and stretch our frozen hands and feet in the direction of the

thickest fumes.

The tears run down our cheeks from the smarting of our eyes, but we

hardly notice it, for it is heaven to be out of the bluster outside.

Slowly our eyes get more accustomed to the darkness and the fumes, and

we find the hut is full of arms and legs and motionless bodies, and

gleaming eyes fixed on our eyes. But they are friendly and curious, and

we feel at home.

Then we crawl out to where Arten has prepared hot Maggi soup in the

tent. It has been impossible to pitch ours, but they have tied the

men's little tent on to the big stones forming the wall of our house,

and the roof of another; we can see smoke mysteriously crawling out of

the crevices of the ground at our feet. A sudden furious gust shakes

the whole tent, and a Zaptieh's rifle, leant against the side, tumbles

across and upsets the steaming soup. We pick our belongings ruefully

out of the little trickling streams of thick liquid, and make a meagre

meal by soaking bits of native bread in what remains. Then we get to

bed as best we can, and all night long the wind howls and the tent

flaps, and dogs sniff stealthily on the other side of the canvas.

* * * * *

A hard, broad, high-road runs ostentatiously some miles out of Urfa on

the side which we were approaching. From the town it looks as if it

were going on like that for ever. We stumbled suddenly out of our stony

track on to it--where it ends abruptly in the middle of nowhere. The

native does not walk on it much; he prefers the soft places at the

margin, where the caravans, also shunning it, still make wobbly tracks.

At one place, where it passes through a deep gully, the bank has been

made up to make a more level run; but even here, as we rode over it, we

noticed an old man and a boy driving a couple of mules, slowly crawling

up the narrow path down below, which marked the line of the original

road.

We could see Urfa some little way ahead of us, and wondered whether the

missionaries would have heard of our arrival through their friends at

Aintab. For the post travelled quicker than we did; it had passed us

days ago, borne at a gallop by two mounted men.

"If ever we wanted cleaning up," I said, "it is at this moment; what

with the rain and the mud and Maggi soup and camel-dung fumes, we are

almost unfit to be seen even by a missionary."

The words were hardly out of my mouth when a party of some twenty

mounted soldiers appeared in the distance. As they got nearer they

fired off a volley into the air and ranged up in a line down the road.

The Captain rode up and saluted us. There was no mistaking it. We were

Royalties once more.

The Captain explained that the Governor was sending his carriage for

their Royal Highnesses to make their entry into the town, and that he

was expecting to receive them at the Konak. The carriage appeared up

the road, a smart landau with red cushions, drawn by two splendid Arab

horses, and followed by outriders in uniform.

In we got. It is very difficult under such circumstances to feel the

least royal. We were only conscious of our dishevelled looks and dirty

clothes. We made Hassan get in with us, for he always had the air of a

prince. The driver cracked his whip and we went off at a great pace,

headed by the Captain and Zaptiehs, including our own escort, and

followed by the outriders. Borne along in the cavalcade came Arten on

his mule, looking worse than any of us, in a seedy old black overcoat

and a red scarf round his neck. The inhabitants of Urfa lined the

streets and waved and cheered lustily. Flags and decorations were hung

out. We bow hard--it is getting easier to forget our dirty clothes. I

begin to wonder if indeed we are not Royalties. Why not? Hassan looks

more princelike than ever, sitting opposite to us, very erect and very

gravely gracious, acknowledging salutes.

At the main entrance to the town a smiling Armenian on a mule obstructs

the way, and frantically waves a letter. The cavalcade stops, and

riding up to the carriage he shoves a well-thumbed envelope into our

hands. It is from the lady missionary, they tell us.

"The Government," she writes, "are making great preparations for your

entertainment, but I hope that you will not despise such hospitality as

my house affords, and that you will spend your time in Urfa with me."

What are the Government going to do with us? Once more I became

conscious of our outward appearance. We sent a verbal message to say we

would call later, and then we are dashed on again; the smiling Armenian

whacking his mule and trying to keep pace with the formal, solemn

officers.

Finally we draw up in front of the Government buildings. A red carpet

is unrolled before us, over which we walk gingerly in our muddy boots

between rows of salaaming Turks. Hassan stalks after us, grave and

dignified, returning salaams.

We are received by an official, corresponding to the Mayor of the town,

and his secretary. X tried to deliver the sentences she had been

concocting as we were driven through the streets, but the general

bewilderment of the situation and uncertainty as to what we were

expected to do was making intercourse more difficult than usual. We

were almost at our wits' end when the Head of the Education Department

appeared on the scene. He talked French fluently, and explained that

rooms had been prepared for us in the building and that the Pasha

Effendi expected us to be his guests. After giving us tea, and thereby

showing familiarity with the customs of foreign Royal personages, they

conducted us to the Vali. He was of a very different type from those we

had previously seen. A young, pleasant-mannered, intelligent Turk, he

received us in a reserved, Western way, with no flowery greetings.

Hassan, in whose hands we felt safe as regards points of Turkish

etiquette, had whispered to us that we had better camp outside as

usual, for the Pasha's harem was absent at the moment and we could not

therefore visit the ladies. For this reason we declined as best we

could his offers of hospitality. The Head of the Education Department,

instructed by his chief, said the Pasha Effendi was "_desole_" at

our decision. Would we not reconsider it? We were causing his

Excellency intense disappointment. His Excellency indeed looked

crestfallen, and we would also have enjoyed being royally entertained,

but we knew Hassan's judgment was never at fault, and thought it best

to be on the safe side. We were also conscious of the fact that in all

probability this was but a polite form of espionage, for Urfa is the

centre of the district where the worst Armenian massacres took place;

European visitors, therefore, especially those who say they are

"travelling solely for their health" in all the discomforts of winter,

are suspected of being mere gleaners of damaging facts.

So we only accepted his Excellency's invitation to dine and, taking

leave of him for the moment, were escorted to the Mission-house by the

officers and Zaptiehs who had formed our escort, led by the smiling

Armenian on the mule.

Thus ended our triumphal entry into Urfa, which some call the ancient

city of Abraham--"Ur of the Chaldees."

CHAPTER VII

HARRAN: A DIGRESSION INTO THE LAND OF ABRAHAM

"And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son,

and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went

forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go unto the land of Canaan;

and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there." And it happened that we,

sojourning in this land, bethought ourselves of this journey of

Abraham; we also, therefore, arose one morning and took two horses of

the horses of Ur, and three Zaptiehs also upon horses, and we set our

servants upon mules, and departed across the plain to visit this

Harran, the city of Nahor; and there came with us a lady of the

American Mission and her servant Jacobhan and a young Armenian friend;

and they also were upon mules. And we all rode together across the

plain of Mesopotamia, of which it is written: "When corn comes from

Harran, then there is plenty; when no corn comes, then there is

hunger." And, even as we rode, the villagers were gathering in barley,

the clean white straw with its well-filled heads; and from time to time

we came also upon a couple of sleek-skinned oxen drawing the wooden

plough through the soil, making the furrows for the next year's seed;

and the soil, where it was turned, was of a rich red colour, beside the

yellow stubble which was yet unbroken. The villages stood at the space

of one hour's ride apart, and by the side of every village, by the side

of their bell-shaped huts, we saw great mounds of such a size that they

covered as much ground as the villages themselves; and each of these

mounds was of a rounded shape. And, looking across the plain as we

rode, as far as we could see we saw also many such mounds far distant

upon the horizon.

And we said to Hassan, "Wherefore these mounds?" And he answered and

said, "Behold, Effendi, you see these villages at the space of one

hour's ride apart, each with its cornfields and its unbroken stubble,

its pasture and its flocks; so it was in the days when Abraham and

Terah passed this way, even as you and I are now passing; but these

villages that we see of the bell-shaped huts were not the villages that

Terah and Abraham saw, for they are now buried under these same

mounds."

* * * * *

Now Harran is eight hours across the plain from Ur; four hours we rode

to Rasselhamur, a village by the side of a stream, where we ate and

drank and rested awhile, and yet another four hours we rode from

Rasselhamur to Harran.

Now consider the journey of Terah and Abraham. There were his women and

his children, his camels, his man-servants and his maid-servants, his

he asses and his she asses, his oxen and flocks of sheep; and they

would cause him to delay on the road, for they cannot be over-driven:

yet, even as the Arab tribes journey to-day, the caravan of Terah and

Abraham would reach this Harran on the second day from the day they

left Ur of the Chaldees; and the land of Canaan, the land towards which

they journeyed, would still be far distant.

And we, marvelling, pondered on the words of the learned man who has

said that the Harran of Terah and Abraham lies not here but at one

day's journey from the city of Damascus.

But why should our souls be vexed over the words of learned men? for,

whether it be that Terah stayed at this Harran, even the Harran we are

approaching, or whether he journeyed on day by day over the plains to

the city of Damascus, for us, as our noiseless steeds trod the soft

earth, these silent plains yet echoed with the tinkling of his

camel bells, the bleating of his innumerable herds, and the cries of

his men-servants and his maid-servants.

* * * * *

And the sun was yet high in the heavens when the walls of the city of

Harran rose up before us; and as we rode through the fields without the

city walls we looked, and behold there was a well in the field, and

near it were gathered flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, for it was

out of that well that they watered the flocks. And it was at the time

of the evening, the time that the women go out to draw water; and we

drew rein and watched them, even as Jacob watched Rachel. And these

daughters of the men of the city were dark-eyed and blue-smocked, and

they balanced their pitchers on their heads; and they went down into

the well, down the slippery stones which were worn by the feet of the

generations which begat Rachel and Rebekah. And on beholding the

strangers some of them ran back, even as Rebekah on beholding the

servant of Isaac, and told their mothers; and some of them, even as

Rachel on beholding Jacob, emptied their pitchers into the troughs and

bade us water our horses. And the herdsmen gathered themselves together

and looked at us in silence; and their look was long and straight, like

the look of those who have the habit of looking far, as far as where

the sun sinks on the horizon; and we, wondering, held our peace. Of

what availed it, that we should vex ourselves as to whether this indeed

were the Harran where Terah stayed on his way to the Land of Canaan,

here are we in the fertile regions, without the walls of a city, by the

side of a well where the maidens come down to fetch water and where the

flocks are gathered at the going down of the sun. And we bethought

ourselves of those ancient days, and we said unto the herdsmen, even as

Jacob said unto the herdsmen as they tended the cattle of Laban,

"Whence are ye?" and they answered us saying, "Of Harran are we."

[Illustration: JACOB'S WELL. HARRAN.]

And looking about us we saw also the black tents, the good camel-hair

tents such as the Arabs use, and they stretched out from the side of

the watering-place; and on the ground in front of them the young

children rolled amongst the bleating flocks and herds. And the

shepherds, haughty and silent amongst men, walked to the right and to

the left in and out amongst the bleating flocks and herds; and their

cloaks were of sheepskin, long and squarely cut--they hung from their

shoulders, reaching nearly to the ankles; and looking at them we

thought of Abraham who had left this city for the Land of Promise, of

Isaac who sent his servant to seek out Rebekah, and of Jacob, who

beheld Rachel even on this spot, and who tended the flocks of sheep and

herds of cattle for her father Laban on these same fertile plains.

And as we tarried, marvelling on these things, there came out a

messenger from the city, and he said, "Why standest thou without? we

have prepared a house and room for thy horses"; and turning our horses'

heads we followed him and rode into the city.

Now the people of Harran number at this day over 4,000 souls of the

Moslem faith; of men there are 1,900, and of the women 2,300. And some

of them live in the city and some of them live without, in the

villages. Now in the generations that have passed Harran was a great

city of merchants; they went forth to Tyre, they were her traffickers

in choice wares, in wrappings of blue and broidered work, and in chests

of rich apparel bound with cords and made of cedar.

Harran lay also on the highway from the north to the Land of Canaan, on

the highway from the west, from Assyria and Babylonia to the shores of

the Cilician Sea; hence also was Harran a great fortified city. And

looking about us as we rode through the city, many and ancient were the

ruins that we saw, showing that Harran had been great indeed in her

time; and there stands to this day a four-sided tower, the walls of

which are perfect even now; and at the summit of this tower the bricks

are exceeding hard and of a bright yellow colour speckled with black

spots withal. And still riding in and out amongst the bell-shaped huts

we came at last to the ruins of a great castle; and still riding, our

good horses picked their way amongst the columns which were fallen, of

which there were many, and under the massive stone arches which were

not yet fallen. And we came at last to an open space set right in the

midst of the castle, and on this space the grass grew green all about

in amongst the fallen stones. And, dismounting, we climbed yet a little

way further until we came to a room in the walls, well covered in and

newly built up with stones, so that neither wind nor rain could enter

in. And at the door of this well-built room stood the Shaykh of the

Beni-Zeid. And he welcomed us, bowing after the fashion of his country,

and we also greeted him, bowing after the fashion of our country; and

speaking to Jacobhan, for we knew not his language, neither did he know

ours, he bade us welcome, and said that meat and drink would be laid

before us, and provender should be found for our horses. And we

rejoiced, for we were exceeding hungry. But the sheep was yet roasting

on the great fire in a hut in the ruins of the castle below, and we

said to Jacobhan, "Send these men away, for we are weary and would rest

awhile." And, taking Hassan only with us, we climbed up to where the

ruins of a great tower looked away over the plain, even the plain over

which we had ridden and beyond also on the other side further than

where we had ridden; and sitting down here we rested awhile; and down

below the servants tended the horses, and Jacobhan and the lady from

the American Mission unpacked the neatly folded bundles--and, further

below, lay the ruins of the great city, and between them the little

bell-shaped huts; but above us there was nothing but the sky. And

looking away from the city, over the walls and over the plain even unto

the far horizon where the sun was now setting, for the day was far

spent, I said unto Hassan: "What think you, Hassan, can this indeed be

the city whence Abraham departed, and think you that this is the plain

over which Jacob fled with his women and children, his men-servants and

his maid-servants, his asses and camels, his cattle and his sheep?"

And Hassan knit his great brows and pondered awhile, and then he made

answer: "What matters it, Effendi, whether this was the city of

Abraham, and whether this was the plain over which Jacob fled before

the wrath of Laban? Look down below and see these fallen ruins, which

are all that is left of the great nations who conquered this city in

the generations that have passed; and look down again, and you will see

the miserable huts of the people who are left; what do they care for

the great people who have lived and died within these walls where you

and I are sitting? In a short time they also will be dead, and you and

I will be dead, and therefore why should we care whether or not this

was the city of Abraham? for, where Abraham is, there shall we soon be

also."

* * * * *

As he was speaking we heard a shout from below, and looking down we saw

Jacobhan beckoning to us, for the meat was now served. And we made

haste to come down, and entered the room. Here on the earthen floor

stood a well-filled bowl, all hot and smoking, for the meat was mixed

with swelling rice well cooked in fat. Now Jacobhan fetched a little

red carpet and spread it on the floor by the side of the bowl, and on

this we sat, crossing our legs after the fashion of the country.

On one side of us sat the lady from the American Mission, and on the

other side sat Hassan.

And they brought us flat cakes of bread, which we dipped into the bowl

and scooping out the rice and meat, we ate it thus, for we had neither

spoons nor forks. And round about us as we ate sat the dark-eyed Arabs

in the white robes. When we had finished eating, one of them rose and

fetched a pitcher of water and another brought a bowl, and they poured

water over our hands until they were clean. Then, making way for those

who had not yet eaten, we caused the carpet to be spread on the far

side of the room, where, lying on it, we watched the men eating,

gathered round the bowl. Now, when all had finished, one removed the

empty bowl and another fetched a brush and swept the floor, for much

rice had been spilt about. Then each man folded his cloak together, and

sitting back against the wall gazed at us out of the dark corners.

But Jacobhan the Armenian and his young friend, who was also of the

same people, had no mind to sit thus quiet all the evening. For they

were not as the Arabs are, content to smoke and make no sound. "Give us

some song," he said to the assembled company, "that we may make merry,

for the night is yet young."

And they pushed forward, out of the far corner, a young man who seated

himself at our feet. After looking at us awhile, there being no sound

in the room, he began to sing softly, and these are the words that he

sang, as they were told to us later by Jacobhan: "As the swallows from

a far country winging their way from the north to the south, so you

come to us for the day and on the morrow you are gone. You have the

soft eyes of a dove, your hair is of silken threads, and your skin is

as the soft skin of the pomegranate. Your little feet they are as the

feet of swift gazelles--and they will bear you hence so that your going

will be as swift and silent as your coming. Oh, may the snows come in

the morning to stay your going away, for my heart will be sick when you

are no longer here, and my eyes no longer behold your eyes. The land

will mourn and be desolate; the herbs of the field will wither and the

waters of the river will dry up in the wilderness."

When the words of the song were finished, a silence fell upon us all;

and the silence was so long in the quiet stillness of night that many

of us fell half asleep sitting there in the dark room. And one by one

the company glided out softly into the night until we were left only

with our own men. There numbered thirteen of us in all, and wrapping

ourselves each in his blanket we lay on the hard floor until morning.

* * * * *

Now on the morrow the son of the Shaykh came to us and said:

"My father sends you word he will be absent until evening, for he rode

away this morning two hours before the rising of the sun. To-night,

however, he prepares a feast for you and will return, Inshallah, with

glad tidings for his people. He bids me meanwhile ask of the ladies

what their pleasure will be to-day; and I am at their commands."

And we said to the son of the Shaykh:

"Take now thy father's lance and these our horses, and we pray thee

call out one of your companions and let us see how the men of your

country fight their enemies."

And the young chief, nothing loth, fetched the long spear which stood

at the door of his father's house, and he mounted one of our horses;

and he called another youth from amongst the many that would ride with

him, and they rode out together into the field, without the city walls.

And we climbed up upon the high walls of the castle which looked over

the field that we should have the better view. And the two young men

set their lances and rode their horses hard at one another, first to

the one side and then to the other, now wheeling round, now holding the

spear aloft, shouting with loud cries. And their cries were mingled

with the cries of all the assembled company, and we also shouted with

the others. For the space of an hour or more did they fight thus with

one another until they and their horses were weary, but we were not

weary with watching them.

* * * * *

Now as we were feasting that day at the time of the setting of the sun,

the Shaykh entered the room where we sat, and greeted us.

And we, speaking through Jacobhan, said to him, "Has your business been

well?" And he said, "Very well; to-day is a great day for myself and

for my people."

And we said, "Tell us, we pray thee, how that is?" And he seated

himself in our midst, and he told us how his tribe, the tribe of the

Beni-Zeid, had offended the great Kurdish chief, Ibrahim Pasha, head of

the Hamidieh, who lived not far distant at Viran-shahir. For some

amongst them had stolen camels and mules belonging to his people. The

wrath of Ibrahim Pasha was very great, and he caused his men to harass

their men, and their beasts were no longer safe. Now the Shaykh knew

not which among his people were the offenders, but after a year had

gone by there came certain of the tribe to him and said, "Behold these

camels and mules, are they not those which were stolen from Ibrahim

Pasha? We pray thee restore them that we may no longer live in fear of

having ours stolen." Thus it was, that on this same day the Shaykh had

ridden out with his men, driving these animals, and had delivered them

back to the Pasha at Viran-shahir. Inshallah, now they would no longer

live under fear of his displeasure. For those who offended Ibrahim

Pasha had no mercy at his hands; but those who pleased him had much

kindness shown them.

And we and the whole company rejoiced together over the good deed that

had been done that day, and there was much feasting and singing that

night.

* * * * *

On the morrow we mounted our horses once more and rode away through the

bell-shaped huts and past the ancient ruins, over the rich plains, back

again into the city of Ur, at the foot of the grey hills.

CHAPTER VIII

THAT UNBLESSED LAND, MESOPOTAMIA

We were encamped in the khan, the native inn, at Severek, a dismal town

in the dismal wilds of Mesopotamia; the weather and the depth of mud

made it impossible for us to pitch our tent outside, and the dirty,

windowless sheds round the courtyard, which afforded the only sleeping

accommodation, were not inviting, so we had fixed our tent in a covered

passage by tying the ropes to the pillars supporting the roof. The

Zaptiehs deputed to guard us for the night hung about the door, plying

Hassan and Arten with questions as to our sanity. Why should two

foreign ladies choose the depth of winter to travel between Urfa and

Diarbekr along the caravan route which had been long deserted owing to

the raids of the Hamidieh Kurds? I had often asked myself the same

question during the last few days, but had not yet thought of an

answer.

A pale, dishevelled young man in semi-European clothes slouched into

the courtyard and joined the group. The Zaptiehs spoke roughly to him

and he gave a cringing reply. He forced his way past them up to me.

"Moi parle Francais," he said, with an accent corresponding to his

grammar.

"So it seems," I answered, in the same language.

"To-morrow I travel with you," he went on.

"Indeed!" I answered, with more of interrogation than cordiality.

"Yes, you and my mother and sisters will go in an araba, and I and my

brother will ride your horses."

I made a closer inspection of the individual, but could detect no signs

of insanity to harmonise with his utterances.

"Who are you?" I said.

"I am an Armenian," he answered. "I have a travelling theatre. We want

to get to Diarbekr, and have been waiting here for weeks for an

opportunity to join a caravan; the road is so unsafe that no one dares

pass this way now, and if we do not go with you we may be here for

months yet. You will start at seven to-morrow morning, and we shall do

thirteen hours to K----."

"We shall start when it suits us," I replied, "and stop when we have a

mind. We never travel more than eight hours, and shall not do the

regular stages to Diarbekr. We shall be three days on the way."

"You must go in two days," he persisted; "we cannot afford to be so

long on the road."

I began to get angry.

"Go away, strange young man," I said, "and don't bother me any more."

"I will have everything ready," he said.

"You may make your own arrangements for yourself," I rejoined, "if you

wish to follow us on the road. It is a public way, but understand that

we have nothing to do with you. We start when we like, stop when we

wish, ride our own animals, and call our souls our own."

"My soul is Christian," he said anxiously, as I moved off; "are you not

my sister?"

"Young man," I said sternly, "we may be brothers and sisters in spirit,

and we may be travelling along the same road to heaven; but please

understand that we travel to Diarbekr on our own horses and not in our

sisters' arabas."

Next morning we left the khan at sunrise, and outside the town we found

the whole of the Armenian theatre party ready to accompany us. A

covered araba concealed the mother and daughters: we caught glimpses of

tawdry garments and towzled heads. Another araba was piled with stage

scenery and cooking-pots. Three or four men were riding mules and there

were an equal number on foot. The men were dressed in flimsy cotton

coats, showing bright green or red waistcoats underneath, and tight

trousers in loud check patterns; they wore Italian bandit-looking hats,

and their shirts seemed to end in a sort of frill round the neck,

suggesting the paper which ornaments the end of a leg of mutton. The

whole get-up seemed singularly inappropriate as they plunged ankle deep

through the mud. Patches of snow lay in the hollows of the road; a

furious gale was driving sleet at right angles into our faces; it was

bitterly cold.

We rode for hours through a dreary country of broken grey stones with

no sign of vegetation or life of any kind. At last we arrived at a

collection of tumble-down deserted huts, built of the stones lying

round, and hardly distinguishable from the rest of the country until we

were actually amongst them. We were cold and wet and had hardly come

half-way to our destination, but as neither of us could stand long

hours in the saddle without rest or food, we called a halt here to

recruit. The Zaptiehs forming our escort begged us not to stop. They

could not understand the strange ways of these mad foreigners, who not

only travelled in such weather, but sat down to picnic in it instead of

pushing on to the shelter of the khan at the journey's end. But we were

inexorable, and they reluctantly fastened the horses on the sheltered

side of the remaining walls, against which they stood with their backs

tightly pressed, drawing their ragged coats closely round them. The

village had been but lately ransacked and destroyed by Ibrahim Pasha,

the redoubtable Kurdish chief; he was still abroad in the

neighbourhood, and any detention on the road increased the chances of

our falling in with him or some of his stray bands. The knowledge of

this and the discomforts of the journey made the men fretful and

anxious. We picked out the least dilapidated looking house and

clambered over fallen stones and half-razed walls until we found a

roofless room which boasted of three undestroyed angles. In one of

these the cook tried to make a fire with the last remnants of charcoal;

we huddled in another to avoid, if we could, the blast which rushed

across the broken doorways and whistled through the chinks of the rough

stone walls. The arabas, accompanied by their bedraggled followers,

rumbled heavily past us; the noise gradually died away as they

disappeared in the distance; desolation reigned on all sides; the

howling blast moaned weird echoes of destruction round the ruined

walls.

We managed to boil enough water to make tea; and then, yielding to the

men's protests, we mounted and rode on. Hour after hour passed; the

driving wind hurled the hailstones like a battery of small shot right

into our faces; the rain collected in small pools in the folds of my

mackintosh, and I guided their descent outwards and downwards with the

point of my riding-whip. The drop which fell intermittently from the

overflowing brim of my hat had been the signal for a downward bob to

empty the contents; but now the wet had soaked through and I let it run

down my face unconcernedly. We were a silent and melancholy band. X

rode in front with her chin buried in her coat collar; her face was

screwed up in her endeavour to face the elements; the hump in her

shoulders betokened resigned misery. The soldiers' heads were too

enveloped to allow any study of their expressions, but the outward

aspect of their bodies was a sufficient indication of their inward

feelings; the very outline of their soaked and tattered garments

bespoke discomfort and dejection.

The pale-faced little officer, straight from the military school at

Constantinople, urged his horse alongside mine. "Nazil?" he said. It

was a laconic method, essentially Turkish, of saying "How?" _i.e._,

"How are you?" "How's everything?" "Hasta" (Ill), I answered. "Aman,"

he groaned. "Kach Saat daha?" I asked (How many hours more?). "Jarem

Saat, Inshallah. Bak, khan bourda" (Half an hour, Inshallah. Look, the

khan is there). I raised my head to follow the direction of his

pointed whip; the jerk sent a trickle of wet down the back of my neck

and the rain blinded my eyes. I dropped my head again. It was not

worth while battling with the elements even to look upon our

approaching haven of rest. I was too familiar with the aspect of the

country to be particularly interested in the scenery; it had not

altered at all for many days. If you looked in front, you saw an

endless tract of slightly undulating country, the surface of which was

a mass of stones; there were stones to the right, there were stones to

the left, there were stones behind; you rode over stones, slippery,

broken, loose, sliding stones; and now stones, stones of hail, were

hurled at you from the heavens above. The very bread we had eaten for

our midday meal seemed to have partaken of the nature of the country.

I had accidentally dropped my share, and had to hunt for it,

indistinguishable among the other particles on the ground. We were

rapidly turning into stones ourselves. One seemed to be riding on a

huge, dry river-bed, the waters of which had been drawn up into the

heavens and were now being let down again by degrees.

The officer gave an order to a Zaptieh. The man tightened the folds of

his cloak round him, wound the ends of his kafiyeh into his collar,

and, digging his heels into the sides of his white mule, darted

suddenly ahead. The crick in the back of my neck made it too painful

for me to turn my head to look, but this must mean that we were near

the khan and that he had gone on to announce our arrival. Visions of

being otherwise seated than in a saddle faintly loomed in my brain; I

hardly dared wander on to thoughts of a fire and something hot to

drink. We turned at right angles off the track and plunged into a bed

of mud, which led up to the door of a great, square, barrack-looking

building with a low, flat roof and a general air of desolation. The

Zaptieh stood grimly at the door. "Dollu" (Full), he said. Nevertheless

we forced our way through the narrow entrance and found ourselves in

the usual square courtyard lined with dilapidated sheds. The whole

enclosure, inches deep in mud and indescribable dirt, was crowded with

camels and mules and haggard, desperate-looking, shivering men, with

bare legs and feet and dripping, ragged cloaks. The officer laid about

him right and left with his riding-whip and ordered up the khanji (the

innkeeper). "You must find room for us," he said; "I am travelling with

great English Pashas." The khanji waved his hand over the seething,

jostling mass of men and animals. "Effendi," he said, "it is

impossible; I have already had to turn away one caravan. If we made way

for the Pashas there would still be no room for their men and horses.

But they are welcome to what shelter there is."

We gazed with dismay at the reeking scene.

"How far is it to the next stage?" asked X.

"Two hours," was the answer.

"We had better get on to it, then," she said, and turned her horse's

head outwards. We followed in silent dejection. The wretched animals,

who had been pricking their ears at the prospect of approaching food

and rest, had literally to be thrashed out on the road again. We waded

back through the mud and turned our faces once more to the biting blast

and driving rain.

The track we followed was apparent only to the native eye; to the

uninitiated we seemed to be going at random amongst the loose stones.

One had not even the solace of being carried by an intelligent and

sure-footed beast who could be trusted to pick its own way. The hired

Turkish horse has a mouth of stone and his brain resembles a rock. Left

to himself he deliberately chooses the most impossible path, until it

becomes so impossible that he stops and gazes in front of him in stupid

despair, and you have to rouse yourself into action and take the reins

in your own hands once more. His one display of originality is a desire

not to follow his companions, but to veer sideways until you are in

danger of losing sight of the rest of the party and become hopelessly

lost off the track. I struggled to keep straight and in pace with the

others. Weariness and disgust had made my stupid animal obstinate and

more stupid, and I finally gave in and lagged behind, letting him go at

his own pace. The officer pulled up and waited for me.

"We must push on, Hanum" (lady), he said, "or we shall not get in by

sunset."

"My horse is tired," I answered, "and I am tired," and I showed him my

broken whip. It was the third I had worn out over this obstinate

brute's skin.

He called back one of the Zaptiehs and muttered to him unintelligibly

in Turkish. The man crossed to the other side of the road, and he and

the officer, one on each side, urged my horse on with continual blows

behind. I dropped the reins almost unconsciously, and, all necessity

for action of mind or body being removed, sat between them numb,

petrified, and hardly conscious of my surroundings.

Pitter, patter came the rain on the saddles; click, clack went the

horses' hoofs on the stones; clank went the captain's sword; whack came

the men's whips behind; each noise was hardly uttered before it was

rushed away in the driving wind.

Expectation of something better had made the present seem unbearable in

the earlier part of the day; now that one no longer held any hope of

alleviation, the general misery had not the same poignant effect; or

was it that weariness from long hours in the saddle, and the pains

consequent on exposure to cold and wet, had numbed one's senses? Jog,

jog; one was being jogged on somewhere, one did not care where and one

did not care for how long.

* * * * *

The men were saying something; the sound fell vaguely on my ears, but

the meaning did not travel on to my brain. Then we stopped suddenly and

the jerk threw me forward on the horse's neck. I felt two strong arms

round me and was lifted bodily off the horse. "Brigands at last," I

thought vaguely; "well, they are welcome to all my goods as long as

they leave me to die comfortably in a heap."

"Geldik" (We have arrived). It was Hassan's voice; we were at the door

of the caravanserai. He deposited me on the floor of a bare, black hole

on one side of the courtyard and carefully arranged his wet cloak round

me. I was conscious of a motionless heap in the dark corner opposite.

"X?" I muttered interrogatively.

"Hm," came from the corner.

"Hm," I responded.

The muleteers came and flung the dripping baggage bales promiscuously

about the floor. We were soon hemmed in by sopping saddles, bridles,

saddle-bags, wet cloaks, and muddy riding-boots.

Hassan sat on a pile of miscellaneous goods, smoking reflectively and

giving vent to great groans as he looked from one corner to the other,

where each of his charges lay in a heap. The cook cleared a small space

in the middle of the room and tried to make a fire with dried

camel-dung, the only fuel to be had. The whole place was soon filled

with suffocating smoke; there was no window, no hole in the roof to let

out the fumes; we opened the door until the fire had burnt up, and a

sudden gust of wind tearing round the room and out again drove the

smarting fumes into our eyes, causing the tears to roll down

mercilessly.

Another caravan was arriving, and the animals passed through the narrow

passage by our open door, on into the courtyard beyond. Mules bearing

bales of cloth or sacks of corn; camels laden with hard, square boxes

stamped with letters that suggested Manchester; donkeys carrying their

owners' yourghans, quilts which form the native bed, damp and muddy in

spite of the protection afforded by a piece of ragged carpet thrown

over them, the whole secured by a piece of rope which also fastened on

a cooking-pot and a live hen. The procession wound slowly through to

the sound of tinkling bells, until the whole caravan had entered the

enclosed yard, which now presented a chaotic scene of indescribable

crush and dirt. Kneeling camels, waiting patiently for the removal of

their loads, looked round beseechingly at their own burdened backs;

mules munched the straw out of each other's bursting saddles; slouching

yellow dogs sniffed about the fallen bundles. The theatre ladies, in

gaudy plushes and silks covered with tinselled jewels, sat about on the

piles of stage scenery flirting with the young men in the bright

waistcoats; stern Mahomedans, wrapped in long, severe cloaks, gazed

with contemptuous disgust at these unveiled specimens of the unworthier

race, while the short-coated and less particular muleteers and menials

stared at them with open-mouthed, grinning wonder. Our little captain

sat unconcernedly in a sheltered corner, deftly rolling up, with his

delicate, finely shaped fingers, endless piles of neat cigarettes; a

Zaptieh, with his face to the wall, bowed and murmured over the evening

prayer. Each pursued his reflections and employments with that

disregard of his neighbour's presence which is so impressive in any

crowd in the East. Apart from these by-scenes, the dominating human

note was one of quarrel, in strange contrast with the silent waiting of

the dumb animals, for whose shelter in the limited accommodation their

respective owners were fighting with clenched fists and discordant,

strident voices. Then the hush of mealtime falls on all; men and

animals, side by side, are busy satisfying their bodily needs. It is a

strange mingling of men and beasts, where the man, in his surroundings

and mode of life, savours of the beast; and the beast, with his outward

aspect of patient and beseeching pathos, is tinged with human elements.

We had shut the door on the scene, finding smoke preferable to cold and

publicity. It suddenly burst open, and a camel's hind-quarters backed

into the room, upsetting the pot of water on the fire. We had been

anxiously waiting for its boiling point with the open teapot ready to

hand. The men threw themselves upon the animal; and pushed it back;

they pushed and hit and swore; it was ejected; the fire hissed itself

out and the smoke cleared. A dishevelled looking official in uniform

peeped through the door: "The Governor's salaams, and do the Princesses

require anything?"

Hassan courteously returned his salute. He was now seated cross-legged

by the dying fire, sorting nuts from tobacco which had been tied up

together in a damp pocket-handkerchief. With the air of a king on his

throne he graciously waved his hand towards a slimy saddle-bag:

"Buyourun, Effendi, oturun" (Welcome; sit down). The man sat down,

carefully drawing his ragged cloak round his patched knees.

"The ladies' salaams to his Excellency; they are very pleased for his

inquiry and send many thanks. They have all they require."

The quiet dignity of Hassan's appearance and utterances seemed to

dispel any sense of incongruity the visitor might have entertained as

to the limitation of our wants and the methods of our Royal progress;

he merely thought we were mad.

He departed, no doubt to glean information from the more communicative

members of our escort. The cook came in with a pleasing expression.

"What will you have for supper?" he said.

"What can we have?" we answered, with the caution arising from long

experience of limited possibilities.

"What you wish," he said, with as much assurance and affability as if

he was presenting a huge bill of fare. I knew what one could expect in

these places.

"Get a fowl," I said.

"There is not one left here," he answered.

"Eggs, then," I suggested, with the humour of desperation.

"No fowl, how eggs?" he answered with pitying superiority.

"Well, we will have what there is," I said faintly.

"There is nothing," he answered cheerfully.

"Miserable man!" I said, "how dared you begin by holding out hopes of

lobster salad and maraschino croustades?"

Was there nothing left of our stores? I rummaged in the box which held

them. Everything was wet and slimy; a few bars of chocolate were soaked

in Bovril emanating from a broken bottle; a sticky tin held the remains

of pekmez, a native jam made with grape juice; two dirty linen bags

contained respectively a little tea and rice; a disgusting looking

pasty mess in what had once been a cardboard box aroused my curiosity.

Could it be--yes, it had once been, protein flour, "eminently suitable

for travellers and tourists, forming a delicious and sustaining meal

when no other food is procurable." It had been the parting gift of our

respective mothers, along with injunctions to air our clothes. I calmly

thought the matter out.

"X," I said, "will it be best to eat chocolate with the Bovril thrown

in, or to drink Bovril with the chocolate thrown in?"

"Don't talk about it," said X, "cook everything up together, and let us

hope individual flavours will be merged beyond recognition."

We put a tin of water on the fire and threw in the rice and protein.

The chocolate and Bovril were added, after carefully picking out the

bits of broken bottle. Hassan fumbled in the wide leathern belt which

he wore round his middle; the space between himself and the belt served

as a pocket where he carried all his goods. With an air of unspeakable

pride he produced a small, round, grimy object, which he held aloft in

triumph.

"Soan?" (Onion) we all shouted simultaneously in excited, ungovernable

greed. He nodded ecstatically, and pulling the long, dagger-like knife

out of his belt, he proceeded with great deliberation to cut the

treasure into slices, and let them fall one by one into the bubbling

pot. The cook sat stirring it all together with a wooden spoon; he kept

raising spoonfuls out of the pot, and as the thick liquid dribbled

slowly back again he murmured complacently:

"Pirinje war, chocolad war, Inghiliz suppe war, soan war, su war"

(There is rice, there is chocolate, there is English soup, there is

onion, there is water).

When the moment of complete mergence seemed to have arrived he lifted

the pot off the fire and placed it between us. "Choc ehe, choc" (Very

good--very), he said encouragingly, and handed us each a spoon. X

swallowed a few mouthfuls.

"We must leave some for the men," she said, with a look of apology, as

she put the spoon down. She picked up a piece of leathery native bread

and started chewing it.

"Try a cigarette," I said sympathetically. I could not find it in my

heart to tell her the history of that identical piece of bread, which I

had been following with some interest for several days. It was always

turning up, and I recognised it by a black, burnt mark resembling a

figure 8. It had first appeared on the scene early in the week; we had

been enjoying a lavish spread of chicken legs and dried figs, and with

wasteful squander I had rejected it as being less palatable than other

bits. The men had tried it after me, pinching it with their grimy

fingers, but being unsatisfied with the consistency they had thrown it,

along with other scraps, into a bag containing miscellaneous cooking

utensils. The next day it had appeared to swell the aspect of our

diminishing supply and had been left on the ground. But as we rode away

Hassan's economical spirit overcame him; he dismounted again and

slipped it into his pocket, where it lay in close proximity to various

articles not calculated to increase the savouriness of its flavour. I

was determined to see its end, and when X laid down half--no doubt

meaning it for my share--I threw it on the fire.

"It's hardly the time to waste good food," said X.

The cook picked it out, blew the ashes off, and rubbed it with his

greasy sleeve. He offered it to me.

"Eat it yourself," I said magnanimously, "I have had enough." But he

wrapped it carefully in one of the dirty linen bags and put it on one

side.

"Jarin" (To-morrow), he said.

And so we sit; a mass of wet clothes, saddles, cooking-pots, remains of

food, ends of cigarettes, men; unable to move without treading on one

or other of them; tears rolling down our cheeks from the fumes of the

fire, thankful we cannot see what dirt we are sitting in or what dirt

we have been eating.

We roll our rugs round us and lie on the sodden earth floor. Hassan

turns the men out and stretches himself across the doorway. Dogs moan,

men snore; outside the storm rages unceasingly.

In the middle of the night I wake with a start; something had hit me on

the face and now lay in the angle of my neck. I knew what it was; a

piece of plaster had fallen off the walls, and the plaster, like the

fuel, is made of dried camel-dung.

PART II

DOWN THE TIGRIS ON GOATSKINS

"The age and time of the world is as it were a flood and swift

current, consisting of the things that are brought to pass in the

world. For as soon as anything hath appeared and is passed away,

another succeeds, and that also will presently be out of sight."